(lol accidentally posted this in the general forum, moved correctly to the tech form)

I have not been in a band with vocals since 2001. I have no idea what to get for a pretty loud 4 piece band.

Active speaker? A PA head with passive speakers? One of those fancy active EV vocal wedges?

At the moment its just me on vocals, but hopefully a second guitarist will be added also with vocals (any parties interested in playing with a heavy post-punk band hit me up). Anyways I just want to run vocals through this thing, no synths, not instruments, but....I am a pretty weak singer (like projection, im getting better though) so it needs to be pretty loud to get over the band. I also like the vocals slathered in reverb. I need to hear myself, the rest of the guys just need a vague sense of vocals.

Owen wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 9:43 pm (lol accidentally posted this in the general forum, moved correctly to the tech form)

I have not been in a band with vocals since 2001. I have no idea what to get for a pretty loud 4 piece band.

Active speaker? A PA head with passive speakers? One of those fancy active EV vocal wedges?

At the moment its just me on vocals, but hopefully a second guitarist will be added also with vocals (any parties interested in playing with a heavy post-punk band hit me up). Anyways I just want to run vocals through this thing, no synths, not instruments, but....I am a pretty weak singer (like projection, im getting better though) so it needs to be pretty loud to get over the band. I also like the vocals slathered in reverb. I need to hear myself, the rest of the guys just need a vague sense of vocals.

Ok, so is this just for your practice space? Or do you also need to use these to perform live? Are you planning on using them as floor monitors or up on stands? And budget is a huge consideration here as well - but incredible deals abound if you A.) are willing to buy used and B.) don't mind heavy shit because it's not going to get moved much.

Honestly, even w/out answering the above questions, it's hard to get a better bang-for-your buck than the powered EV ZLX series. We used them as mains on the side stage at Thundersnow and they provided plenty of gas for vocals. For $1k, a pair of ZLX-12P (now updated w/ bluetooth and listed as the ZLX-12BT) leaves you with enough left over for a small mixer & many have built-in effects like reverb. They've been my stage monitors for years. I like 'em better than their next notch up, the ELX series.

One of the problems you're going to face though if you don't project as a singer is feedback. As a live sound tech, this is the nightmare scenario: quiet vocals, loud everything else. I did a shoegaze fest a couple years ago and goddam that was one of the worst struggles of my career. If you're doing that kind of music and not using in-ears, you're really doing everyone from your bandmates to the sound guy to your audience a real disservice. At the very least, you'll need to get a mic that has a tighter pattern like a Shure Beta 58 or a Sennheiser 935 but also will probably need to run a graphic eq in the signal path to notch out the most common feedback frequencies. You could try a "feedback eliminator" box too but I've never seen those work as intended in the real world unless the tech has improved a lot in the past couple of years.

Garth wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:54 am

Owen wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 9:43 pm (lol accidentally posted this in the general forum, moved correctly to the tech form)

I have not been in a band with vocals since 2001. I have no idea what to get for a pretty loud 4 piece band.

Active speaker? A PA head with passive speakers? One of those fancy active EV vocal wedges?

At the moment its just me on vocals, but hopefully a second guitarist will be added also with vocals (any parties interested in playing with a heavy post-punk band hit me up). Anyways I just want to run vocals through this thing, no synths, not instruments, but....I am a pretty weak singer (like projection, im getting better though) so it needs to be pretty loud to get over the band. I also like the vocals slathered in reverb. I need to hear myself, the rest of the guys just need a vague sense of vocals.

Ok, so is this just for your practice space? Or do you also need to use these to perform live? Are you planning on using them as floor monitors or up on stands? And budget is a huge consideration here as well - but incredible deals abound if you A.) are willing to buy used and B.) don't mind heavy shit because it's not going to get moved much.

Honestly, even w/out answering the above questions, it's hard to get a better bang-for-your buck than the powered EV ZLX series. We used them as mains on the side stage at Thundersnow and they provided plenty of gas for vocals. For $1k, a pair of ZLX-12P (now updated w/ bluetooth and listed as the ZLX-12BT) leaves you with enough left over for a small mixer & many have built-in effects like reverb. They've been my stage monitors for years. I like 'em better than their next notch up, the ELX series.

One of the problems you're going to face though if you don't project as a singer is feedback. As a live sound tech, this is the nightmare scenario: quiet vocals, loud everything else. I did a shoegaze fest a couple years ago and goddam that was one of the worst struggles of my career. If you're doing that kind of music and not using in-ears, you're really doing everyone from your bandmates to the sound guy to your audience a real disservice. At the very least, you'll need to get a mic that has a tighter pattern like a Shure Beta 58 or a Sennheiser 935 but also will probably need to run a graphic eq in the signal path to notch out the most common feedback frequencies. You could try a "feedback eliminator" box too but I've never seen those work as intended in the real world unless the tech has improved a lot in the past couple of years.

You mention in-ears, but in a live context. Would that work for a practice space as well? Seems like you could do this with a small mixer, a bluetooth transmitter and a pair of sport headphones for a couple hundred bucks.

twelvepoint wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:03 pm You mention in-ears, but in a live context. Would that work for a practice space as well? Seems like you could do this with a small mixer, a bluetooth transmitter and a pair of sport headphones for a couple hundred bucks.

Oh absolutely. In-ears work great for practice! In fact, I highly recommend that if you plan to perform live with in-ears you should also practice with them so you get used to it, comfortable, etc. In-ears are far from perfect though, many folks prefer stage monitors for many reasons, not least of all just the natural feeling of actually being in a sonic space...but it does completely eliminate a lot of problems that stage monitors can cause like feedback or bleed. Again, best case for in-ears is the scenario above: quiet singer, loud band.

But you can't use bluetooth in a performance setting - too much latency for one. And I don't know about you, but mine get glitchy from time to time. A dedicated wireless body pack setup is kinda the only the way to go, but co$t-prohibitive. There isn't much of a way to cheap out either if they go out on you or have problems w/ connectivity (or latency) it's money down the drain. If there are great deals for reliable wireless in-ear bodypacks, I am not aware of them.

One very small perk for drummers though is that if they are used to playing in headphones like in the studio, they can just go wired and all you need is a headphone amplifier of some kind. I used my in-ears instead of headphones recording last album w/ Josh and it was great. Guitar players can also kinda sorta get away w/ this to a certain extent too by looping the headphone cable around their instrument cable (that's what I do when I was doing solo stuff and playing to a backing track). Singers, the ones who would benefit the most, are pretty much stuck w/ a wireless rig if they want to do in-ears - but this should be just fine since they don't have to pay for things like drum kits, guitars and amps, etc.

Garth, totally want to pick your brain on in-ears, as since my partial hearing loss and now always wearing earplugs on stage, it's super hard for me to ever hear my vocals just because of how monitors point to my head, etc.

Is it feasible or just totally dumb to use those wireless packs at the typical size club our various bands would play? I'm assuming it's most beneficial when you can have a monitor mix separate from that of the other folks on stage, right?

Oh and PRO TIP - a friend who used to tech with a large well known indie rock band had issues with the singer's sweat constantly shorting out wireless packs. Eventually they figured out the only thing that worked was putting the pack in a non-lubricated condom and tying it off for the night.

Garth wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:54 am
Ok, so is this just for your practice space? Or do you also need to use these to perform live? Are you planning on using them as floor monitors or up on stands? And budget is a huge consideration here as well - but incredible deals abound if you A.) are willing to buy used and B.) don't mind heavy shit because it's not going to get moved much.

Honestly, even w/out answering the above questions, it's hard to get a better bang-for-your buck than the powered EV ZLX series. We used them as mains on the side stage at Thundersnow and they provided plenty of gas for vocals. For $1k, a pair of ZLX-12P (now updated w/ bluetooth and listed as the ZLX-12BT) leaves you with enough left over for a small mixer & many have built-in effects like reverb. They've been my stage monitors for years. I like 'em better than their next notch up, the ELX series.

One of the problems you're going to face though if you don't project as a singer is feedback. As a live sound tech, this is the nightmare scenario: quiet vocals, loud everything else. I did a shoegaze fest a couple years ago and goddam that was one of the worst struggles of my career. If you're doing that kind of music and not using in-ears, you're really doing everyone from your bandmates to the sound guy to your audience a real disservice. At the very least, you'll need to get a mic that has a tighter pattern like a Shure Beta 58 or a Sennheiser 935 but also will probably need to run a graphic eq in the signal path to notch out the most common feedback frequencies. You could try a "feedback eliminator" box too but I've never seen those work as intended in the real world unless the tech has improved a lot in the past couple of years.

This will just be in the practice space. It probably will not be moving anywhere anytime soon once it is set up.

Honestly, I don't know if this is a group that will be playing out, its more of a recording project and we like playing the songs live together for fun. Maybe it could graduate to gigging one day.

I have not sung in a band since 2001, so the instrument is rusty, it is a shouty post-punk thing (no problem there), but the singy choruses are a little hard to hit at the volume I want, but the more we are doing the better I am getting. As I said, I can hit these notes no problem in a studio, but when we are playing live is what I am working on. I want to project more and think I can get there, it's just not there yet. Quiet vocals are not the goal.

I am all for used and budget based. I do like the look of the ZLXs. I am open to wedges or the more standard on stands method.

I guess another important question is what equipment do you already have? Do you have a mixer? Any power amps already? Sometimes it's more cost-effective to build-out around stuff you or your bandmates already have.

Right now there's a used Crowe XLS602 on the used guitarcenter site for $150. I've used these quite a bit, they're absolutely fine.
Also on used page there's a pair of Yamaha SM12IV for $99 each. Same applies w/ these, I've used them quite a bit, they're absolutely fine. You can use them on sticks or as floor monitors.
Mixer depends a bit on you, but you should be able to get one of those little 2-channel Mackie Mix8 mixers for $80 new and if you want reverb, use the aux send to a reverb pedal you aren't using or just get a zoom something or another as those are super cheap.

That gets you going for < $500.

More generally speaking, I strongly suggest staying away from the following: Alto. Behringer. Harbinger. Alesis. Rockville. Any Peavey stuff for PA is usually not great, especially terrible in recent years. Yamaha BR series of speaker cabs generally sound bad. That stuff may work out of the box, but may as well be treated as disposable. And this may just be me, but I've never heard any of them sound "good." I think the biggest problem w/ a lot of them, especially the cheap powered speakers, is that they aren't loud enough for most rock bands so they live their life cranked to well beyond what they are able to do reliably for extended periods of time.

tallchris wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:47 pm Garth, totally want to pick your brain on in-ears, as since my partial hearing loss and now always wearing earplugs on stage, it's super hard for me to ever hear my vocals just because of how monitors point to my head, etc.

Is it feasible or just totally dumb to use those wireless packs at the typical size club our various bands would play? I'm assuming it's most beneficial when you can have a monitor mix separate from that of the other folks on stage, right?

Oh and PRO TIP - a friend who used to tech with a large well known indie rock band had issues with the singer's sweat constantly shorting out wireless packs. Eventually they figured out the only thing that worked was putting the pack in a non-lubricated condom and tying it off for the night.

Chris, if you need JUST more of your vocals you can get a splitter and send just your mic to in-ears. Rolls makes one I believe...googling...the PM50se - and has built-in headphone amp for your in-ears. If you're not moving around a whole bunch, you can deal w/ the extra wires I suspect. AND w/ that Rolls unit, you could blend the rest of the monitor mix in if the club is sending a balanced signal to powered monitors; just pop the XLR out the back and plug it in to your Rolls box.

Want to note that I've not used this particular item myself but it seems like it would do exactly what you would want and gets good reviews. My main concern would be the quality of the headphone amp. I had a little one person behringer headphone amp and it sucked so bad I just bought a studio rack version even though it has 4 other channels that I'll never use.

I've only personally used the Shure SE215s for in-ears and they're great for me even as the entry-level. Zero complaints, zero issues after several years of use. The thing I really like about them is that they're ear plug-style so they also block out a fair amount of stage volume. Some folks don't like that but I do. I think there are inserts that allow more stage volume to get through so they feel more natural.

Garth wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 1:37 pm
Chris, if you need JUST more of your vocals you can get a splitter and send just your mic to in-ears. Rolls makes one I believe...googling...the PM50se - and has built-in headphone amp for your in-ears. If you're not moving around a whole bunch, you can deal w/ the extra wires I suspect. AND w/ that Rolls unit, you could blend the rest of the monitor mix in if the club is sending a balanced signal to powered monitors; just pop the XLR out the back and plug it in to your Rolls box.

Ooh, that's pretty cool but I do move around a fair amount.

Garth wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 1:37 pm I've only personally used the Shure SE215s for in-ears and they're great for me even as the entry-level. Zero complaints, zero issues after several years of use. The thing I really like about them is that they're ear plug-style so they also block out a fair amount of stage volume. Some folks don't like that but I do. I think there are inserts that allow more stage volume to get through so they feel more natural.

Absolutely love the 215s, I have two pairs I use for my day-to-day headphones.

So, if I do want to go wireless, is there anything more like the Rolls box, or do they all require a line level mix out from the mixer or something?