Sound setup for coffee house night

Vintage is on vacation 😉

Your setup should work fine.
Yes I would definitely put the speakers on stands and put them high in the air, well above head level of the audience and tune it down via master volume to a level that is OK for them.
In such a small venue I would guess you can live without a monitor and the experience with 2 speakers will be better.

Remember to soundcheck:
Start from the mic gain at the channel you put the mics into and level it to 0 db (if you only have clipping lights put it into clipping and then dial back until you NEVER see the clipping light go back on).
Then put up the channel fader until the channel VU meter is at the top of the green and never in the red when the singer goes all out.
Next dial up the master to an acceptable level.
Then let them switch on the guitar amp and have them set the volume as loud as it needs be to be heard with the singer but NOT go over the singer.
Then do your EQing and you are done.

I do a lot of live sound and Terry said everything I would’ve said.
If you have 12″ tops, I would bring those – but I’m sure you’re like most of us and only have 1 set.
If nobody is plugging into your mixer, then you shouldn’t have to worry about effects which makes things a little easier. They might request some reverb, but I don’t think that amp has any built in. If anybody decides to use their own mic and it’s a condensor mix, remember your phantom power. I know this stuff is basic but some dj’s don’t know. Have fun!

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Square!

And good to see that even with your only hope gone for a few days, there is always hope at DDJT!

Pretty solid advice at that. If you use phantom power, I have one tip. ALWAYS switch off phantom power before decoupling a mic (wait about 10-20 seconds after shutting phantom off). And preferably not hook mics up with phantom on (although this is by no means as damaging as the other way around).

I personally would want some reverb on the vocal. It’s gonna sound pretty dry otherwise (the better the mic the more that seems to be true :-)) Maybe you can borrow one.

If it’s sing-a-song, more likely than not, you will be looking at either semi-acoustic (use a DI) or acoustic (use a mic) guitars. And those guys don’t bring amps. So be prepared :D.

Greetinx.

Well, far be it from me to say something bad about someone else’s gear, but I am not surprised that you feel like needing another mixer.

My suggestions (you didn’t ask but I thought I’d be pro-active for a change) for smaller mixers would be:
* Yamaha MG-series (third generation just out this spring)
* Allen & Heath ZED-series
* Mackie analogue mixers
* Mackie digital iPad mixers (DL806 or DL1608). These two are not for everyone though. I have the DL1608 (the 806 wasn’t out at that time yet) and it is an awesome piece of kit. I love the fact that I can set up lots of stuff the night before a gig, save shows and recall them and have a mic pre-amp on every channel and multiple outputs (2 master 4 aux on the 806 and 2 master and 6 aux on the 1608) with full graphic EQ on each. Effects per channel as well as 4-band parametric EQ. The drawback can be the fact that it has no hardware buttons/faders except of the gain knobs and all interfacing is done with the iPad. You CAN use it wireless by the way and sit at the bar and do your thing, which is gimmicky. What isn’t gimmicky is being able to take your controls onto the stage to setup monitor sound with the artist(s) or walk into the middle of the room and do your room EQ from there. Finally you can add (I think up to 10 total) other devices (smartphones and tablets) and have artists use them to control their own monitor mix for example.

I’d give the DL-series at least a quick look to see if it appeals to you. I would not want to use them for really big and hectic events (although I know an engineer that does, it’s a matter of getting used to it, but I don’t do live sound gigs often enough to reach that stage). But for smaller gigs or ones that, once setup, require relatively little and few changes.

Thanks for the feedback. Happy that things worked out and you got extra work off the back of it.
Don’t know the Audix mics intimately, so can’t comment on those. There are a few threads on mics here on the forum you might want to look for.

Any specific questions, do let us know.

Greetinx.

I like the ZED-series. Nice preamps, pretty complete. The USB is ok, although I doubt you’ll ever use it for anything else than recording the master out signal :-). Graphic EQ on a mixer is pretty unusual. Most users that need one will have one in their outboard rack (2×31-band in a 19″ format).

I don’t know what the difference is moneywise, but I think I would consider the ZED60-10FX, which if I read it right is the same, but with faders instead of knobs for channel signal level. But that is just my preference for faders speaking.

Either way, nice mixer. Some of my customers have one and are happy with it.

Greetinx.