PA system for our church

[chris_elevate]

Hi,

We've just launched a new and exciting church which is rapidly growing and this has now forced us to grow our PA system.

We have an Allen & Heath desk. It's really good but only has 2 monitor sends, which to be hoenst with you is ok for us.

We have 2 powered HK speakers which sound great.

We're looking to buy some active monitors and wondered if someone could help me. We're also looking to move to bigger building so don't want to start buying cheap and cheerful only to have to throw the bought equipment and buy new stuff for the new venue.

We'd like to build our PA kit to cater for about 300 people in a school hall.

This will probably mean a coupld of subs, 2 front of house speakers and about 4 stage monitors.

We have had a quote for some monitors (which apparently are amazing and can also be used for front of house speakers) these are £1000 each! They are 600w full range powered speakers.

Apparently these speakers are a cut above the rest... they are in the profession PA system range and are the next level up to the likes of Mackie etc.

My thought is...
Surely we can get something chepaer than this?
In the long run it will cost us:
6 x £1000 for the full range speakers
2 x £1000 for the subs

This seems a lot of money... is this really what we should be paying for quality PA gear? What other brands/makes are there right at the top? What would you suggest?

Thanks for your time and help.

[Stagesound]

Hi - my first question is "why active" for the monitors. Bear in mind that this means running two cables to each speaker, one of which is mains. There are health and safety issues you need to consider here - (i) increased trip hazard and (ii) if a mains cable gets cut (and remember they are likely to be walked on, trapped under the legs of drum stands, caught under amps etc...) it's a lot more dangerous than a damaged speaker cable. Having two sets of cables to run out will likely increase your setup time.

The other issue with active monitors is that it takes control from the sound engineer and places it with the artists - who frequently do not appreciate that more volume in the monitors really does increase the risk of feedback! When troubleshooting, you have the added steps of ensuring that you have both mains and signal to the monitor, that it is turned on, turned up etc. (rather than just going to your monitor amps and switching over two speaker cables to see if it is the speaker, or the send to the amp causing the problem. I know it means two amps for four speakers, but cost will be similar to four active monitors.

You don't say what themonitors are, so it's hard for anyone here to say if they really are amazing, or if they are worth the money - can you give some more info please?

You don't mention what kind of music you are playing, or what kind of volumes you expect, so it's difficult to say exactly what you need. With 300 people, I would have though for most worship music you could get a very nice system for less than £8k.

You say this is a school hall - does this mean you are hiring it at weekends and need to move your gear out for Monday? If so, size becomes more of an issue than if you have a permanent system. (And obviously eliminates "flying" the system!) Could you work a deal with the school where you leave the system in and they can use it for school concerts etc.? Would you be happy to post a picture or two of the hall here to give an idea of what you want to achieve?

For monitors I'd initially suggest something like this - JBL MRX512M Passive Wedge Monitor/PA Speaker-Singl at DV247.COM at £500. Couple this with an amp per pair - Yamaha P3500S POWER AMPLIFIER at DV247.COM at £350 and you have four monitors operational for £2700. The volume you will get from these will blow you away, unless you're actually doing rock concerts rather than worship music! I'd suggest that in a hall with a capacity of 300, any more volume from your monitors, and you're not going to need a main PA at all!

Are you certain you need subs? I'm thinking of your get-in/get-out times, and again, I'm inclined to think that what I'd generally think of as lively praise and worship in a venue this size, doesn't need seperates. I'm thinking something like this - JBL SRX738 Passive PA Speaker-Single at DV247.COM at £1300 each, with this to drive them - Crown Xti 4000 STEREO POWER AMPLIFIER at DV247.COM at £949. That's £3549.

Full PA - £6249. Add a little for cables, delivery etc. and I think you're looking at it, with amps in flight cases, for around £6500. That's £1500 less than your original budget, for top class gear (these are leading brands - no cheapo garbage in this list!), delivering a pretty awesome amount of punch. Thos JBL main PA units go down to 44Hz at their -3dB point, and are "usable" down to 35Hz. Unless you want ear-shattering volume, and kick which breaks peoples ribs, this ought to be more than enough for a 300 person venue.

Anyhow, come back with some more info, and I'm sure you'll get more suggestions here. Good to hear things are going well for you, and you need to move to a bigger venue - looks like you're doing something right!

[chris_elevate]

Hi Stagesound,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

I have to be a bit careful with what I say as I don't want the original company finiding this cry for help! Their website is ********************.co.uk!! Hopefully that wont get picked up on a good search. They are talking about seriously professional PA gear. I like the idea of these having now controls, eq's or anything on them. We're rellying on unpaid volunteers to set these up and I think an amp will just add to the confusion.

The monitors are called power cubes and are active because they'll be quick and easy to setup. We don't mind an extra cable going to them. You've got our worship pretty much well sussed and we play quite loud, lively music which is upbeat and modern. The subs were there not just to give the kick drum a big sound but to give a nice full sound. Most of the big churches I've been to have a couple of subs hidden at the front in order to provide this and are hidden so it doesn't upset the older people! lol

The subs will be on wheels so they can be stored away easily too. And we'd look at buying some trunks on wheels so the speakers can be stored with their cables quickly and easily. We'll look to getting the biggest cupboard we can at the school but to be honest most of the items will need to go in a trailer (which we're looking to buy) and be taken back to our small church building to be stored. If everything has wheels and the trailer has a tail to it we'll be able to stack it high and move it in/out of the trailor.

You're right though. We need to rig/de-rig as quickly as possible. That was thought in getting everything built in. Out stage is covered in cabels as it is so an extra couple of power cabels wont be too much hassle.

Oh the price above is ex vat and delivery by the way! If you think it's worth it and they look like good gear then we'd like to invest in our future. But we don't want to start putting money into a rig costing nearly £10k if it's not very good or not needed. We're hoping the church will grow form our current 100 members to the school hall (300capacity) and then look for our own purpose built 500-1000 seater building.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks again

[Stagesound]

chris
You don't say which model you are considering, but I presume it's the M5. The peak output of these is only 3dB louder than the JBL - and make no mistake JBL is "seriously professional PA gear" - they have many years of experience, and are one of the most highly respected brands in use for high power PA. I think you may be paying a lot more money than you need to for very little performance improvement.

The JBL SRX738 has a much better frequency response than the M5, and peak output only 2dB lower (I challenge anyone to tell the difference between 130dB and 132dB SPL!)

Those JBL's would be very similar to my now ageing RCF Event 6000's, which are conservatively rated at 1000W per cabinet. I've used them with a very loud praise and worship band in halls considerably bigger than 300 seater. Was it loud? Well loud enough that the mixing desk and fx rack were almost vibrating off the table in time with the kick and bass! I've compared them with other PA systems with seperate subs, including ones from respectable names like Turbosound, and found that they outperform them, including at the bottom end! These single cabs are in the correct size of venue, rib-breakers, and I've had drummers commenting on how good the kick sounds, and asking how we get it! (Good kick mic also is a big factor!) My point is, you don't need subs for good bottom end, and there are many systems with seperate subs, which to be honest are rubbish!

Given the size of venue you are talking about, I reckon the JBL's or similar would be more than adequate. If you move to a bigger venue, you could re-use them by adding subs at that stage, if you really need to. Having said that, I think you would be very badly advised to buy now for what you may do in the future. Main PA speaker selection is very dependant on the size, shape, and acoustics of the venue. If you can post a picture of the hall you are using here, along with the main dimensions, I'd be in a better position to comment.

It appears you have been advised to use the same speakers for main PA as for monitors. If this is the case, I'd question the reliability of your advisor. While I have speakers which I use as either PA or monitors, it is never in the context which you are discussing. (I use them either as normal monitors for rock bands etc., or as main PA for smaller venues and/or quieter events). If the speakers you are considering are powerful enough for FOH for 300 people, then they are way over spec as monitors. On the other hand if they are properly spec'd as monitors, then they are under powered for FOH. (If you need x amount of power on stage for monitoring, then you need a heck of a lot more out front!)

With regards setup, seperate amp and speakers is just as easy, if not more so than powered monitors. Powered monitors have volume controls too, which are located near the performer (who may decide to twiddle), and in a realy inconvenient place for the sound engineer if you need to make adjustments during rehearsal, or worse still, during an event. Power amps just have volume controls on the front - nothing out of the ordinary for any "twiddlers", so your volunteers will have no more difficulty with them than with powered monitors. To some extent, setup is easier - you put your amp rack beside the multicore stagebox, run short returns from the stage box to the amp rack, and speaker leads from there to the speakers. All volume controls are conveniently located in one place. If you want to really make it easy, do as I've done on several amp racks - install an input panel, with the inputs all brought up onto a 1U panel on the front of the rack, and do the same with the outputs - a row of NL4 speaker connectors on a 1U panel. These can then be labelled - inputs as Main L, Main R, Mon 1, Mon 2 etc. (and your stage box similarly labelled), and the output panel labelled identically. With this arrangement, it generally takes the assistance of a complete idiot to get it wrong!

Don't forget about the Health and Safety aspect of running mains around the floor! With H&S becoming a much bigger issue than it once was, you are responsible for identifying hazards, and making decisions as to how to mitigate against them. Given that you are tearing down, setting up, on a regular basis, it is vitally important that you have regular inspections of all mains cables etc. and PAT test your equipment.

A warning (from experience!) about the trailer - headroom is great for getting stuff in and out, but don't stack it high! The trailer will become really unstable, and dangerous to tow!

BTW, what type of music is it? Is it your own stuff, or covers from people like Delirious, Starfield, or anyone else I may have heard of?

I'm guessing you will be at your church tomorrow - any chance you could get a quick pic of the hall?

[chris_elevate]

Man you have been so helpful!!!

Thanks for this!!!

Do you have msn so I can add you and chat easily?

My msn addy is .... when you add me I'll delete my address from here so I dont get spammed! lol

Thanks

[dcool]

with the church I think you should go for BOSE PAS, it's best in church environment/acoustic

Info can be found here:
http://www.bose.com/controller?event...ians/index.jsp

I'm using this system almost 3 years, with 2 L1 and 4 subs it's super clean/clear for 800 people in church. Moreover, with these systems you won't have to worry about monitors


Hope that helps,
dcool