Inherited my old bands PA system.

[sspbass]

So as the title says, I now have our PA system which consists of a crappy old mixer with a Crown CE 2000 amp and two Yamaha S115V's. The Yamahas do sound awesome by themselves but I would like to hook my bass half stack as well for the extra low end. (Good for a couple big summer parties we throw)
What is the best way to do this? I've simply hooked up my Peavey NitroBass half stacks input to one of the Main Unbal outputs from the mixer and turn the highs and mids all the way down and the bass all the way up. It's ok but not as punchy as I thought it would be. Is there a different way of going about this i.e. a splitter of some sort to put the bass on it's own Chanel so I can adjust the highs out or is this just as good as it gets with this setup?

[Xoc1]

It might be worthwhile buying an active crossover. This will allow you to feed a line level bass signal to your bass rig, and a filtered mid top signal to your Crown amp and Yamaha speakers.
It certainly would be useful if you decide to aquire or build some proper bass bins in the future.

Have a look at something like a Bheringer SUPER-X PRO CX2310
Its cheap and flexible enough to do what you want. It even has a dedicated mono sub out if you want to run the Yamahas full range

[sspbass]

will that work powering the speakers with separate amps?
Just checking as I read that an active crossover will allow that but it doesn't really come out and say what it is.

Is there any generally accepted way of running audio from the computer to the mixer? I'm currently just using a 3.5 mm adapter to plug into the mixer.

Also, when the music is off I get a hum. Is that just a result of having an old mixer?

Perhaps you could also explain to me the benefits of running the yamahas through the "dedicated mono sub out".

[Xoc1]

will that work powering the speakers with separate amps?
Just checking as I read that an active crossover will allow that but it doesn't really come out and say what it is.

Yes
Read the manual here!
http://www.behringer.com/assets/CX2310_P0132_M_EN.pdf

Is there any generally accepted way of running audio from the computer to the mixer? I'm currently just using a 3.5 mm adapter to plug into the mixer.

That should be OK

Also, when the music is off I get a hum. Is that just a result of having an old mixer?

Hard to say. Could be a ground loop in the system. could be a faulty lead. could be a mixer fault. You will have to play around with the system and isolate parts of it to see what effect it has on the hum.

Perhaps you could also explain to me the benefits of running the yamahas through the "dedicated mono sub out".

I said to run the Yamahas full range - then connect the bass rig to the sub out. Run the Yamaha cabs fairly bass light and then adjust the sub bass to give it that extra kick and low end grunt that your after

[tomi]

Originally Posted by sspbass

will that work powering the speakers
Also, when the music is off I get a hum. Is that just a result of having an old mixer?

You should be able to do better than a clearly audible hum - assuming the desk isn't faulty (does the hum dissapear with no inputs plugged into the desk?)

First, check your gain structure; run as loud as you can (without clipping) from the computer and use as little gain as possible at the mixer - use a line in if available.

If this doesn't help, suspect a ground loop. If it's a laptop, does the hum go away with the charger unpluged? If so, you may need to break or "lift" the ground path using a DI box. Try to get someone to lend you one/two to experiment with before splashing out any money.