Hello from Oxford, MI

L

lylepeppermill

Member
Messages
5
Hello all,

I hope this message finds you well.

I'm a 33yr old guitarist/vocalist/sound guy for a relatively new rock band. We've only played at parties in the past, but we just booked a real gig for Feb 29th! Needless to say, we are all quite nervous.

We're lacking a little in the PA gear arena.

I play a Highway One Strat through an OCD and a Blues Deluxe mic'd with an sm57. Our PA consists of a Peavey XR600F Powered Mixer that we use as an amp for monitors and mains. Into that, I run a Mackie 1402 VLZPRO mixer. Everything goes through the Mackie including horns, bass drum, and bass guitar because we like to tape our practices. (we just use the RCA outs to a standard cassette deck) The drum mics are mixed through and old Peavey mixer before being sent to the Mackie. We also have a Nady 400W amp for our 15" EV Force Sub.

We have no reverb or compression at all. I'm just now educating myself on compression, and I'm not sure where it should be applied. (Final mix to FOH, or as inserts on the vocal channels)

Great Forum Everyone! Cheers!

:BEER
 
Lance

Lance

Member
Messages
10,410
Scott Peterson said:
Welcome to The Gear Page (from Ypsilanti!).
Click to expand...
Nice! I've been to Ypsilanti a couple of times. Welcome to The Gear Page. To answer the original posters question on where to insert compression. I would send it through the inserts on the VLZ. That, and or maybe try it through the effects loop in the Mackie. Hope that helps. Oh, and just in case you didn't already know this. In the future, if you decide to start multi-tracking your recordings, the insert jacks can also be direct outs if you only plug them in half way.
 
L

lylepeppermill

Member
Messages
5
Thanks all, for the great welcome!

On the compression topic, my only concern with using the inserts is that we have three vocal mics using channels 1,2,and 3, and I don't want to buy three compressors. Should I pan all the vocals hard left, and compress on the L main output and send all instruments to the right? Do most bands just compress vocals, or other intstruments as well? I thought about using the effects loop, but that's a parallel circuit. I thought compressors were supposed be applied on a serial bus.

I would also like a little more "punch" on the bass guitar and drums. I've read that compression can accomplish this.

I basically want to make sure I head down the right road with our setup, even though I'm starting with a hodge podge of equipment.



Thanks all!
 
Lance

Lance

Member
Messages
10,410
Hey Lyle, sorry I didn't really get a chance to reply to your follow-up question about rack compressors. It would be used in the inserts, which puts it directly in the signal chain between the preamp and the aux sends. The entire signal goes through the compressor, so panning doesn't have any effect. To turn the compressor on or off you would need to use the bypass button on the compressor.
 
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