My friend's mother is organizing a dance. I am DJing. She has never organized one before and I've just been a bedroom DJ for the mostpart. My question is this:

What sort of sound equipment will we need? How many speakers? What about amplifiers, etc, or will my mixer do the job of amplifying the sound?

You will definitely need amps with speakers. I would say at minimum two PA-type speakers for decent sized room. If it's too much, you can always turn them down.

I'm sure there's a way to judge speaker power by room size, but I don't really know too much about it so I'll let someone else handle that.

hey thanks for input, but i dont know if volume knobs turn counterclockwise?

I think the correct thing to do is to have the signal coming from the mixer fairly low, and then use the volume control on the amp to get the volume where you want it.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Mystery Oh man, the smell of failure is starting to attract the other retards as well.

quote:

Originally posted by elFreak i like how you omited to give any credit to the vocalists who's lyrics you bootlegged with fruity loops, unless that is you singing. either way this is great stuff and it will be used to scare birds away from my weed harvest this summer.

The size of the room isn't the only factor, how many people are you expecting to have in there? bodies deaden sound so the more people the more power you will need. Adding a sub is an easy way to give more punch to the sound in a room.

Be aware of where the speakers are pointing, the speakers putting out high and mid will need to point where you want to sound to go but bass is omni directional(goes in every direction)also the last party I played at the speakers were set up in a bad spot so the sound bounced back from a wall on the other side of the hall and made it almost impossible to hear anything from where my gear was set up so keep hat in mind when picking a spot to put them...heavy curtains are a good way to fix that sound reflection if you have that problem.

quote:

I think the correct thing to do is to have the signal coming from the mixer fairly low, and then use the volume control on the amp to get the volume where you want it.

This depends on the mixer I think you will find, different equipment has different "sweet spots" some mixers sound better with a low signal coming out and other with lots of signal, even so far as the first bar of the red but remember you don't want the signal to clip.

When I have my mixer going straight into an amp without the levels set up properly by some one who knows what they're doing I like to set the master signal of my mixer coming out to 0 db and then adjust the amp to what I want the peak volume of the night to be that way when I'm playing later on I can see how much room I have left to go up in volume and have a good idea about how the volume on the floor is...if that makes sence though I have no idea if that is how I should be doing it.

___________________
Pioneer CDJ-200s, Sony MDR-V700DJ,ASUS M51Sn Ableton Live 8, Behringer BCF-2000, Behringer BCR-2000, Vestax VMC-004FX

Last edited by Shini on May-01-2008 at 12:49

we're going to need a little more info here

size of the room
how many people expected
where will you be situated? on a stage, floor, etc.

most likely you'll be able to get away with 2 jbl eons, it's what i use for my mobile gigs and packs enough punch to fill a small to medium sized room, i've even done big rooms with just the 2 of them

the biggest thing to fill a room with sound is to get the speakers up at head level so the sound doesn't get too deadend by the crowd, i usually set my stands at chin height then put the jbls on top

because of your inexperience i recommend this route, it's simple, easy and takes no time to set up, you won't have to worry about getting your amps set properly or running the cables the right way

you'll want to set your speakers far apart and aim them towards the center of the back of the room

for setting your levels during soundcheck, run your mixer at the maximum volume you'd expect to encounter during the night (+2 reds on a pioneer mixer for example) then set your amp or active speakers accordingly, when you've found the maximum volume before overload or clipping turn it down a little to allow some headroom in case you have a stray peak (usually happens mid-mix)

once you have everything set, head to the back of the dancefloor or back of the room and stop and listen for a little bit to guage the sound and see if any further adjustments need to be made, if it seems too loud, turn it down a bit but keep in mind that once there are people in the room the sound will naturally deaden a bit

___________________
Tony Morello Dot Com
Soundcloud
Facebook
Twitter
The Drunken Monkey Podcast
The Mixdown Podcast presented by Tony Morello

i have some gig experience with speakers, ive had a party of 400 in an auditorium and 2 10" JBL Eons didn't do it for me,

as said before, until we get the info about the room size, speaker size and how many people will be there we cant really help as much.

i guess i forgot to mention that i use 15" eons, they work fine, but it all depends on the room and acoustics

of course the 10" wouldn't do it for you, they just don't push enough power

___________________
Tony Morello Dot Com
Soundcloud
Facebook
Twitter
The Drunken Monkey Podcast
The Mixdown Podcast presented by Tony Morello

Last edited by Tony Morello on May-01-2008 at 22:35

the 15"s should work for about 300 people right?,

they work for me, i don't even run them near full volume either during shows

you just have to get them up high so the sound travels over the crowd instead of through it

___________________
Tony Morello Dot Com
Soundcloud
Facebook
Twitter
The Drunken Monkey Podcast
The Mixdown Podcast presented by Tony Morello

yeah, i learned that the hard way haha,
before i got my b-52 matrix 1000 i was using a friends 10" jbl eons, it didnt do the job right and they're so fragile, couldn't blast them, i've used the 15", they're pretty powerful.

We too use the Eon 15s, and a JRX sub . It gets too loud. 300-400 shouldnt be an issue if you follow Morello's guide on speaker placement. The Eons pack a mighty punch.

Quad Eon 15s in the front stage would rock the house! Dont forget, you would need some muscular booth monitors at that point. (pretty cheap to rent too. My local store has em for $50 a night/pair)