Good afternoon. I have a show coming up at a fairly good size club (200 people) and I'm looking for help with my live sound application. FYI - I'm talking two acoustic-electric guitar players and two singers, that is all.
For mains, I have two 8 ohm cabinets rated at 400W program. I also have two monitor wedges rated at 250W program at 8 ohms. I own two powered mixers but I normally only use one. I normally use a Mackie 808S 600W x 2 powered mixer. I also own a Yamaha EMX860ST powered mixer.
For this show, I would like to have a little more power at my disposal to help fill the club. What I'm thinking about is running all instruments and vox into the individual Mackie channels - using that mixer to power the mains only - and then go 'monitor out' of the Mackie into the 'Aux. In' on the Yamaha, and use that amp to power monitors only. (the Mackie unit has a switch to go from 2 independent channels, main/monitor w/ two inputs each, to just 2 channels left/right main.
My question is - once the signal goes into the Yamaha at the 'Aux. in' input, is it just the "Aux In" level control that feeds my signal to the amps and on through to the two monitor speakers or is the Master Vol. control in play as well? Also, I don't need the monitors to be in stereo so if you agree that this is the way to run the monitor signal, I'll only use one cable for the connection, the mono Aux in. Is a high quality instrument cable sufficient or do I need to use a speaker cable? Thank you for any recommendations.
For mains, I have two 8 ohm cabinets rated at 400W program. I also have two monitor wedges rated at 250W program at 8 ohms. I own two powered mixers but I normally only use one. I normally use a Mackie 808S 600W x 2 powered mixer. I also own a Yamaha EMX860ST powered mixer.
For this show, I would like to have a little more power at my disposal to help fill the club. What I'm thinking about is running all instruments and vox into the individual Mackie channels - using that mixer to power the mains only - and then go 'monitor out' of the Mackie into the 'Aux. In' on the Yamaha, and use that amp to power monitors only. (the Mackie unit has a switch to go from 2 independent channels, main/monitor w/ two inputs each, to just 2 channels left/right main.
My question is - once the signal goes into the Yamaha at the 'Aux. in' input, is it just the "Aux In" level control that feeds my signal to the amps and on through to the two monitor speakers or is the Master Vol. control in play as well? Also, I don't need the monitors to be in stereo so if you agree that this is the way to run the monitor signal, I'll only use one cable for the connection, the mono Aux in. Is a high quality instrument cable sufficient or do I need to use a speaker cable? Thank you for any recommendations.
It depends entirely on the design of the amp, it could be either - and makes no difference either way.
You just need an instrument cable, nothing 'high quality' required, but mustn't use a speaker cable.
Well a little more power is all you will get with this arrangement.. a grand total of 60w more by my calculations. But as already stated you could potentially get separate monitor mixes using the second mixer so that may be enough to justify the added complexity.
The Mackie is specified at 240W + 240W RMS per channel into 8 ohms ... the main cabinets stand "400W program" ... which probably amounts to some 200W RMS .
If you need more power, add 2 extra main cabinets.
Besides the added power itself, they will "sound bigger" and you will have more control on dispersion.
The Yamaha power amps are used for monitoring, so they do not add to the main power figure.
I thought the reason was to use BOTH amps in the Mackie for the front - rather than only using one for the front and the other for the monitors?.
This also keeps the front stereo, rather than mono.
Assuming his amp will feed 4 ohm speakers, he could wire the fronts to one channel, and use the other for monitors - which would keep the power pretty much the same.
But as he's got the other amp, it makes sense to use that as a slave amp, it's dead simple to do and gives extra versatility.
Yes.. but I believe the OP is under the impression this would add a LOT more power to his setup... which it won't.
Thank you - to everyone who responded. I like this idea because it WOULD benefit to have to monitor mixes.
Yes, that is what I was hoping for - keeping the FOH stereo. A friend of mine recommended what I think the another member above was indicating...instead of plugging one speaker into all four speaker outs (2 main/2 monitor) I could connect into one input for each amp channel but daisy chain the other speakers, but then it would be mono. Thanks for the insight, everyone! The Mackie only has a single 1/4" "monitor line out" and there is only 1 'aux. in' on the yamaha, so I guess I can't get independent monitor mixes, but it's not that important. Oh, and if I owned two more main cabinets I would do what was suggested and just wire an extra on each side. However, I've bought enough gear so far this year and not sure the Mrs. would understand
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