Cheap and bass-capable wedding system

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I'm best man for my mate's wedding and he's asked if I can put together a sound system for the wedding disco. I'd like to jump at this opportunity to have a bash at a "sound system" that can bang out a few cheesy pop songs and club classics. This will be making noise in a typical large hall.

I am on a very restricted budget and intend to borrow things and only buy items I can re-use.

So far this is what I have in mind:

* sources: laptop (plenty available), dual cds with pitch control (cheapo Numark from Ebay I) and we have a DJ type mixer or two

* bass amp: I will borrow my 800W Carlsbro Powerline which normally feeds the woofers on my open baffles. This will do the bass

* mid/top amp: I bought a heavy old Sony integrated from a jumble sale and my mate has a fairly basic 60W Sherwood we can use too. Not ideal but used within their limits I think will work fine.

* Speakers (mid/top): I have a pair of some RCF monitors with an 8" carbon fibre woofer and 1" horn-loaded compression tweeter. The tweeters don't work so I'll need to sort those out. My mate has another set of these so I think we'll stack them 2 per side - one amp per pair.

* Bass speakers: undecided and the main source of my questioning. My friend's Dad has a home-made (1960s) set of enclosures made from heavy block-board which are ENORMOUS (must be over 200L) and of an interesting bass alignment. These house a set of Goodmans Axiom or some such 12" full-ranger, plus "super tweeter". As a side-note these have some of the best bass I've heard!!!! Goes without saying a 30W low-xmax 12" isn't suitable for a wedding though... If the baffles are removable I will make some new ones to insert temporarily and load them with something chosen for high volume displacement. I thought something cheap and nasty like this:
NEW Pyle Blue 4 Ohm DVC 18" Inch 1800w In Car Subwoofer Sub Bass Driver Woofer | eBay

A pair of these could fill a hall couldn't they? I would knock up a basic active crossover with op-amps and two pairs of the RCFs would sit atop the 18"-loaded 1960s cabinets.

How well would this work? Could I do anything better on an extremely tight budget?

Thanks for reading,
Simon
 
COnsider renting a system. It may be fun to cobble together a system from various things you have around, but if you go to a place that does sound system rentals, you can walk out with a complete system ready to plug in and use. All the parts will be compatible, if you want DJ gear specifically most will have that. Live sound systems are different from DJ systems on the mixer end.

Unless your turntable has a DJ cartridge in it, you will destroy your stylus scratching. Same with your records, if you want to scratch them, use records dedicated to that. Your favorite tunes on vinyl should never be scratched, if you want to listen to them in the future. Modern DJ CD players even include a scratching feature, a shuttle wheel on the panel that lets you scratch with a CD.

What kind of DJ do you want to be? I think of two kinds. What I usually associate with weddings is a music player - like a live radio station. A guy plays songs for the crowd, and does announcing and hosting. The other DJ is what I think of as a disco DJ. He creates house music using samples, beat machines, other stuff to set up a continuous beat setting for dancing. This includes scratching and hiphop applications
 
Hi,

I'm not going to rent one. I'm not DJing. There will be no scratching. There will be tunes queued on a laptop for the most part with someone simply generally checking on it and dealing with requests. Later on in the evening a friend with good DJ skills will be playing his records on his decks with his mixer.

My contribution to this is to make this all sound half-decent with plenty of bass. It's just got to have a fun-factor. We're tired of renta-DJs playing the cack THEY want to play on speakers that are too small to sound good.

I've seen the Numark at Maplin but I have my eye on one on Ebay for far less that's apparently "like new", only used for one or two gigs by a singer... but this won't necessarily even be used to be honest. The proper DJ will use vinyl and his own gear. It's really just the amplification and speaker end I'm working on.

Thanks for your replies guys.
 
You have a hifi set-up that'd be somewhere near capable of what you're after.

The limiting factor would probably be the LF, as I think the Pro mid and tweeter will be fine.
Adding one of those 18"ers per side (sealed for a bumped response, or OB) would probably sort that out, with minimal fuss.

Chris
 
Excellent. Well I've now been to look at my mate's Dad's old speakers. They are beasts. The internal measurements are 14" x 40" x 23" or 35.5 x 102 x 58. That makes them a little over 200 litres not counting the volume taken by the driver and the "port". They are a sort of t-line / horn loading. They're made from, I think, 1" blockboard.

The front is glued in place but the rear baffle is screwed in place and is removable.

I'll get one home in a few weeks and I'll almost certainly try one of my car sub drivers in there and just see how well that alignment works. If it's awesome I'll just settle for that as I've got 2 of those JBL woofers and it may just do the job.
 
Renting some stuff still makes sense in many cases. If you're married and don't have a lot of storage space, and don't plan on a lot of outdoor parties or other weddings, you'll find a big capable hi-fi PA to be a real burden. After I stopped doing real PA it took 15 years for me to get rid of everything...still finding stands and lights etc. in the garage.

If you shop, you can find idle equipment. If you want really cheap rental, offer a really good deposit. A real line of really high-quality speakers and amps makes a huge difference, especially since you never exceed its capabilities (and you get all of that deposit back). Even the pro photographers rent camera equipemnt for important wedding gigs. Even the pro DJs share or rent equipment for important wedding gigs.
 
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