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I am part of a trio (sometimes quartet when our bassist is in town) that performs mostly at senior living facilities, and an occasional porchfest or arts & crafts fair. We consist of an excellent (Berklee grad) female vocalist, two additional male vocals and hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars. Our bassist will bring his own amp when he performs with us.
Indoors, the venues are typically a large media room of a senior facility, maybe 30-50 residents come to listen. The porchfests and fairs are obviously outdoor situations, but it's not like we have hundreds of people listening to us.
The idea is to run the three mics and the two guitars into a Yamaha MG10XU mixer and then out to a single PA speaker, likely to be mounted on a speaker pole. I've been using an Electro-Voice Everse 8 as a PA speaker but I purchased it when we were using acoustic guitars with pickups. Our musical direction in the last 6 months has moved decidedly in the direction of jazz standards, although in order to accommodate the senior crowd, we do mix in Everly Bros., Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, The Drifters etc. I find the Everse 8 to be adequate volume-wise, but it can be a bit harsh in the trebles when turned up. I think we would benefit from using a speaker with a 10" woofer, which seems to be the best compromise between adequate bass and adequate sound dispersion.
I've looked online and in the price range I'm considering, $500-$1000, the brands that keep coming up are QSC, Electro-Voice, Yamaha, RCF and PreSonus. Between these (or any others I'm missing), is there a brand or model that is better voiced for performing jazz standards/ballads? I don't need the speaker to have a battery, nor special effects, as the Yamaha mixer offers what we need in the way of eq and reverb.
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06-14-2024 02:38 PM
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You might consider adding Bose to your list. You may also find the microphone selection is pretty important.
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I have not heard all of those brands, but of the ones I have listened to (through?) I would say the QSC 10 inch speakers are the best I have heard. They are, however, quite expensive. I have borrowed a QSC speaker and used it with a DI (SansAmp Para Driver DI) in lieu of a traditional amp many times and been quite pleased with the result. Indeed, I would recommend that approach into your mixing board and out to your speakers, if you're not already doing something like that.
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I also thought the Everse 8 was a little harsh.
I have a Mackie SRM350 (original version) which sounds fine.
I liked the Bose S1 for sound, but be aware that it is very limited in its EQ capability. The Everse 8 is 7 band + parametric. The Bose S1 is 2 band plus some presets that are not documented (you just have to try them).
If you're running the Bose S1 from the Yamaha mixer, you'll probably find the Yamaha's EQ to be sufficient. If you run an instrument right into the Bose S1, you might not be happy (well, I wasn't in that situation).
My guess is that you'd be happy with the mixer in front of the S1.
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Don’t forget the Bose S1 Pro runs on a battery too, which may be handy for your outdoor festivals and other situations. However the PA Board would of course require power as would the bass amp/guitar amps.
I’m a big fan of the Bose S1 Pro and find it very versatile. They make great monitors too and it is usually our “PA” for band rehearsals. The vocalist(s) plug straight into it. Very convenient.
Great bluetooth speaker for a backyard party too.
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My wife and her duet partner use a Mackie SRM Flex with backing tracks. They do classic jazzy pop tunes like "Moon River," etc. Sounds nice. Also, depending on the room, you can use less of the tweeter tower if you want, because only the top one of the three has speakers in it. The bottom two are dummies for elevation. I think they also offer a 2-piece tower for less $. Would work for a smaller room with seated audience.
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Not sure a Bose S1 would keep up. Was thinking more like a Bose array for a 3 or 4 piece combo. Especially with multiple mic's/sources to drive. Currently $1300 but seems I've seen them cheaper.
Amazon.com
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I've used the Mackie Thump 12 with good results. Presently I have a homemade speaker with a 300 watt Faital woofer and a tweeter with crossover powered by a $15 class 'd' 150 watt power amp board from Amazon. I run my backing tracks and guitar into a Mackie 6ch mixer then into the speaker - works OK for my purposes. I think the Mackie is about $350 from Sweetwater and is about 1300 watts as near as I remember; my oldies duo used two of them and they were plenty.
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Thanks for all the suggestions, I hadn't considered the "tower" style speakers for our application but I will now. At a porchfest I played at yesterday, the system that was set up used large QSC speakers up on poles. They did a great job of filling the area with sound, I did think they were a touch on the bright side for jazz, but they were crystal clear. Anyway, lots to consider.....
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I've owned and used RCF and HK Audio line array towers and they were both terrific.
Now I'm using a Yamaha Stagepas 1000 Mark II and it is the best one yet, absolutely fabulous, with 170° horizontal dispersion and a 12-inch woofer which really makes a difference. Got it on sale for about $1,200. They also make a Stagepas 200 which sells for about $750 without battery I think.
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Originally Posted by shekie
We actually skipped Porchfest this year (a music fest on the streets on Grants Pass Oregon where muscians and bands set up on porches and front yards in a nice historic part of town). Dueling PA systems across the street from each other were just too much. Especially when it was rock band vs. folk.
I live in Grants Pass and have quite a bit of gear including different PA types (I know.. it just kind of stacks up over the years). Your combo is welcome to come by for coffee and PA set up try outs.
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Thank you for the offer, but unless you are also footing the bill to fly us from the Boston area, regrettably we will have to decline the offer Originally Posted by Spook410
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The Porchfest I played at yesterday was held in Arlington, Mass.
Arlington Porchfest 2024 – Saturday, June 15, 12-6pm | Brought to you by Arlington Center for the Arts
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How well does the one knob EQ work? Originally Posted by Tim Clark
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Originally Posted by shekie
Ahh... multiple Porchfests. Who knew? And for once I thought there might be kindred souls in southern Oregon.
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Brilliantly in my experience. You can also custom-fine tune the EQ in each channel using the app. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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And the towers are much easier to carry and set up. No heavy speakers to lift onto poles. Just place the woofer box on the ground and pop the tower segments into it. And the dispersion is so good, my wife usually uses just one in the center. Originally Posted by shekie
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From what I could see the app also has one knob for EQ. Originally Posted by Tim Clark
What did I miss?
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About 2 years ago I got tried of lugging my PA around and decided on a line array system. My local GC had the Bose, JBL and EV products and I auditioned all three. I went with the EV Evolve 30.
I am very pleased with it, it's cut down loading, set up time and handles all the venues my guitar/trumpet/vocal duo encounters. We did a outdoor festival last weekend in the Sierras and had plenty of firepower. The Bluetooth app has 3 band eq per channel. I initally lined out my Evans JE200 it was superb sounding, but I recently picked up a Quilter Cub, which sounds great into the EV and weighs half as much.
We do plenty of ballads, so I would recommend it for that music.
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