Our Sound System Sucks

[Ramar]

     OK... so our current church sound system sucks... currently we are using a Samson 6 channel mixer, with 2 large peavey speakers hanging on the walls and 2 yamaha monitors on both sides of the pulpit, facing the stage... We have a bass player and keyboard player playing through amplifiers, and I'm playing the organ, of course going through the Leslie, and the drums aren't mic'd....

     Anyways, like I said, it sounds terrible... the music is competing with the PA system, and usually one drowns out the other. What I want to do is get a bigger mixer and run everything through it, including micing the organ and the drums, so that way, everything can be controlled by the soundman...

I'm looking at this mixer, the Behringer EUROPOWER PMP5000 Powered Mixer:



Read about it here:
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Behringer-EUROPOWER-PMP5000-Powered-Mixer-630184-i1175393.gc



Now, I'm not aiming to sound like Fred Price or TD Jakes, lol... I'm just trying to have clarity without breaking the bank... It's not a big church, and I'm not trying to spend anymore than $3500, Me and my brother are going to fund it ourselves, as the head financial officer doesn't want to spend the money on it.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Is this a good choice for a mixer?

2) We also need new monitors and microphones, any suggestions?

3) What else would be needed to insure a clear, quality sound?

[ddw4e]

You may want something with some more channels (maybe 16-32 channels).

My pops does systems here and we usually get The Yamaha 5016CF mixer



The can run the mains as well as the monitors.

Behringers are good but they are hard to fix. Yams are pretty good. They usually run from 999 - 1099.

Monitors, we went back to Community speakers(something like these... http://www.fullcompass.com/product/239225.html not for sure if these are the right ones but I can check). We started with Behringers but changed to Community. for mics, Audio-Technica PRO 41 Cardioid Dynamic Microphone (http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/AudioTechnica-PRO-41-Cardioid-Dynamic-Microphone?sku=270613).

So really you can spend (with 5 vocal mics, not including the wires and other mics) $2000.

[docjohn]

I have a small 12 channel Ber,and it works for me;though have heard some folks give them a bad rap.Also have an Alesis 12 channel rack which is good.Are you looking for a powered mixer? One of my friends church went with I think a Yamaha mixer,2 3-way Mackie powered cabs(about $900 each) and had a KILLER sound for a converted whse about 75x100'. So,you could do that for about $2500,use your other speakers for monitors and get whatever mikes.Maybe trade/sell your current gear and get a completely matched system.

[themidiroom]

I'm not doubting the Behringer is a nice mixer.  I just think that you're not going to be happy trying to run drums and all other instruments through it.  If you hook your two house speakers and two monitors, that's 900 watts/4 speakers.  Low frequency stuff like kicks and bass will eat up much of that power quickly.  The other issue could be the speakers themselves. Regular 2-way speakers generally don't reproduce kicks and bass very well.

[Ramar]

I'm not doubting the Behringer is a nice mixer.  I just think that you're not going to be happy trying to run drums and all other instruments through it.  If you hook your two house speakers and two monitors, that's 900 watts/4 speakers.  Low frequency stuff like kicks and bass will eat up much of that power quickly.  The other issue could be the speakers themselves. Regular 2-way speakers generally don't reproduce kicks and bass very well.

Ok, so what would you recommend?

Here's a reminder of what I'm working with...

-Drums
-Organ
-Bass
-2 Keyboards
-4 Mics for the singers and 1 for the preacher

      Like I mentioned before, I'm not necessarily trying to get that super-professional megachurch sound, I just want a setup suitable for a medium-sized church.

     BTW... we might not run the bass through the system, we just might let him play with his amp, but we definitely want the keyboard and organ to go through... and at the same time, we would like to have enough inputs left over in case we wanted to mic the drums(I figured no more than 4 mics would be needed for that, but I'm actually only aiming to use 3--Kick,Snare, and Overhead Condenser)...  Also, what would I need to run a sub? Would I need a better mixer that can pump more watts, or would a sub be hooked up separately?

You may want something with some more channels (maybe 16-32 channels).

My pops does systems here and we usually get The Yamaha 5016CF mixer



The can run the mains as well as the monitors.

That looks good too... Could they run a sub? Or [same question as above] would you hook a sub up separately?

I have a small 12 channel Ber,and it works for me;though have heard some folks give them a bad rap

Yeah... Behringer products don't usually get respect... Anyways, what do you use your mixer for?


 

[docjohn]

as a submix for my keys;organ(clone) ,piano,horns-using couple modules 6-8 lines running ALL with left and right sends.

[themidiroom]

Ok, so what would you recommend?

Here's a reminder of what I'm working with...

-Drums
-Organ
-Bass
-2 Keyboards
-4 Mics for the singers and 1 for the preacher

I would be inclined to use a sub when running drums through the house.  Docjohn's suggestion to use powered speakers is a good idea if you don't want to fuss with separate power amps.  I've been to quite a few events where they used the two way powered speaker and the power sub and they sound really nice.  If you must have a powered mixer, you can always use its internal power for the monitors.  I'm pretty sure the Behringer will allow you to do that.
Which speakers do you use already?  If you are happy with them, you could always buy a couple power amps, subs, and a crossover and use your existing speakers for the high frequency stuff.  Just throwing out some ideas for you.

[ddw4e]

With the one I mentioned, you can but you need a crossover (like TMR said) and you be straight.

[bluemagic]

You might want to consider the PreSonus StudioLive 16:4:2 digital mixer.  I recently purchased one for my studio here in Maryland.  It is intended for live sound applications and provides 16 simultaneous recording channels with dynamic processing on every channel, 4 subgroup busses, 6 aux busses and other features.  It also has a Firewire interface so that you can record all channels as individual tracks and also comes with it's own CAPTURE recording software although it will work with other software (e.g., SONAR) as well.  It's list price is $2K.

[TheReturn]

Well I have a question...

Is the SIZE of your church even worth a FULLY jacked system? There's no point in investing in SOUND equipment for a church that seats 25 people (im not describing your church, i'm just using this as an example) You MIGHT be better off just going down to the church for a day and ACTUALLY SPEND TIME to balance everything out! Even if this means having the bass and board player cut down their amps and invest in some headphones!

And speaking of headphones, you might want you look at something a TAD BIT oversized for two reasons;
#1) You all will have some room to grow incase your setup gets a little bigger!
#2) Is because you would have some extra aux buses to hookup some headphone mixes for the band! That way you wouldn't have a need for the extra amps! AND you might even be able to put the leslie in the back of the church somewhere!

Just a suggestion....


Holla
TheReturn/CATRON

[ddw4e]

ThrReturn...dude, where you been doc?

[TheReturn]

ThrReturn...dude, where you been doc?

I have been busy as heck!!!!! Especially lately, I JUST moved to Dallas so that has been my life for the past couple of days!!! lol


HOLLA
CATRON/TheReturn

[ddw4e]

I have been busy as heck!!!!! Especially lately, I JUST moved to Dallas so that has been my life for the past couple of days!!! lol


HOLLA
CATRON/TheReturn

Man, that what's up man. Glad you doing good doc!

[TheReturn]

Man, that what's up man. Glad you doing good doc!

Yes Sir!!!! GOD is blessin'!!!!! I'm going to start making LGM a day to day thing for me like it used to be!!! Since I'm not in st. louis anymore, I'm not gonna be as busy as I used to be! So now I'll have somefree time on my hands to actually KEEP UP with all the old LGM fam!!!

[themidiroom]

Since I'm not in st. louis anymore, I'm not gonna be as busy as I used to be! So now I'll have somefree time on my hands to actually KEEP UP with all the old LGM fam!!!

So what prompted your move?

[TheReturn]

So what prompted your move?

Well its been a few things!

Firstly, My mom stays here in Plano so without even going into details you know that played a VERY BIG part in my choosing to come here!

Secondly, There s school (mediatech institute) that I've been looking at... Its here in the city so now I have a great opportunity to get accepted there!

And Thridly, I got a pretty nice offer to play main keys at a church here... Its nothing set in stone yet but I could possible be there!

St. Louis, really isnt the place for ME to be musicially! I was having too many problems and then on top of that when PEOPLE find out about your problems they dont do anything but make it worst! So I had to get out of that situation!!!



But I do still love (some of) St. Louis! So I MIGHT come back! (i doubt it but who knows!!! lol)




Holla
CARTRON/TheReturn

[KurzLand]

 as the head financial officer doesn't want to spend the money on it.

Yeah sadly, that always happens.  

[J. Ty]

We use a Behringer EURORACK UB2442FX-PRO Mixer<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=hubp04ee-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000CCS3U0" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> Mixer at my church. It's a small church but our music dept is very big. We have a Praise team about 2 or 3 to 5 different mics, we have 1 wireless mic... 2 keyboards both going thru the house, 1 guitar going thru his amp and then into the mix along with the bass as well.. We have 1 overhead mic for the drums, which is prolly all you'll need for a small church and we have another mic for our brass section (sax, trumpet, trumbone, violin, flute.. depending on certain songs) and we might have a mic on our percussionist but I don think so, IDK for sure.... But basically all of that coming out of a Behringer EURORACK UB2442FX-PRO Mixer<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=hubp04ee-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000CCS3U0" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> with no problem.. only $279.99 new.... We're in Nashville too so we got cats that playing, make sure the sounds is on point.. Check out the link, Behringer EURORACK UB2442FX-PRO Mixer<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=hubp04ee-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000CCS3U0" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> You'll be saving.