Karaoke Forums

Hello all.  I am trying to make a purchase of a mixer and speaker.  Knowing how much folks here seem to absolutly love Vocopro stuff I have decided to stay clear away from it   So here is what I am thinking....

I am going to be doing entertainment at small and mid events.  Although I have to say that small and mid is not all that specific to me as I dont know what would be small and mid.  I am thinking under 50 people is small and under 50 - 150ish people is mid......not sure if this is correct though.  Feel free to express your views

My primary thought is Karaoke, however I am trying to be flexible enought to do some DJ work in the future if the mood suit me.  

I currently have a single tray Karaoke machine and a good quality ($90) microphone.  I also have been aquiring Karoke music and placing both Karoke and vocal music on my hard drive so I can use a laptop at events.  I am looking at USB interfaces so I can run like Hoster on it.

Ok.  So the mixer I am looking at is the Yamaha EMX88S.  It is an 8 channel 2X400 watt powered mixer and here is the link:
http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-YAM-EMX88S.html
The general thoughts on it seems very positive and I have also had the oprotunity to talk to entertainers about thier unit which they seem to be very pleased with it.  The one complaint I seem to see is the the effects are kinda soft (and I am not sure what  they meant by this... this information was from reviews I read and not  people I have talked to).  If this bothered me later I can always add my own effects externally.  

The speakers I am looking at are the Peavey PR12 Pro Lite PA Speaker Cabinet  and the Peavey PR15 Pro Lite PA Speaker Cabinet.  The first has a 12 inch woofer and  second has a 15 inch woofer.  The speakers seem to both be raved about.  I am just REALY confused about the wattage.  At some places I see them rated at 250/500 and 300/600 respectivly and others rate them as 400 W program and 800 W  peak.  Here is a link to one site with the spekers.
http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i- ... d-365.html

Well the amp I am looking at is 400 W a channel.  Using the 250/500 and 300/600 rating system it seems that either one would be very good.  However if it is 400 W program then neither one is good as I would be underpowering them.  

I do want to put in some monitors and the Yamaha comes with monitor outputs.  Does this take away from the 400 W output of the unit?

Any thoughts would be very good right now.  I have certainly been doing my research and reading anything I can get my hands on.  I guess I am having a hard time putting what I have been learning together to make a decision.


  Michael

You need to start first with the speakers.

The size and number of speakers you select must be sufficient to properly saturate the expected venue at high nuff sound pressure levels and offer a resonably flat response. The better your speakers, the less Eq you will need later.

Go out and audition speakers first.

Then once you select the speakers, properly power them.

You can decide on a powered mixer or non powered mixer, but foremost in mixer choice must be the included features that the mixer offers. You might get lucky and find a powered mixer that offers the features you need and properly matches the power your speakers need too.

Please also get real savy on pro audio specs and how to read them. You will discover there is lots to be learned when comparing speaker/amp specs. The more you know in that reqard, the quicker you will narrow your choices.

Don't forget there are also powered speaker sets that make things much simpler. But as stated before, they gotta match the venue size.

Too big is ok cause you can always turn them down, but too small sux.

Also remember that what will deafen a large crowd indoors may not get their attention outdoors.  The lack of a confined space requires a lot more wattage to acheive similar SPL levels throughout the audible band, especially in the lower frequencies.

I've been doing a lot of research on speakers recently and Powered speakers are nice.  Just a mic cable and power to each one and you can daisy chain as many as you need to get the sound levels you want.  They're already powered sufficiently with an amp designed to work with the speaker they're mounted with.

But using a good external amp will give you more power in most cases and will require far fewer power outlets.  Not a big deal in most indoor venues where power is available and a couple extension cords can even pull power off a different circuit if you're tripping the breaker.  But for outdoor venues, especially where a single power outlet may be all you get to drive everything, seperate amps/speakers can ease setup significantly when you don't have to run 6 entension cords and tie them down for your speakers.

I don't do many outdoor gigs so it's less of an issue for me.  With my working season being mostly 4-5 months out of the year and all indoor venues, powered speakers seem to the better bet - for now.  I'm still doing research and I might change my mind between now and then, but since powered speakers are provided by the venue I usually play it's less of an issue for now since I won't need them until I start booking holiday gigs late this year.

I was looking into that same Yamaha EMX88S powered mixer too along with the Yamaha 15" 2-way cabinet speakers.  Has anyone had any experience with these units for karaoke?

Depends on the cabinet.  If it's the 115V "Club" Series, these are a great speaker for karaoke & dj.  I know a couple companies that use them & they are nice.  Full sounding.

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The Peavey PR lightweight speakers are a great "LIGHTWEIGHT" speaker.
The mfg webiste list both the 12" & 15" at 400watts program and 800 watts peak.
I use a set of the 12" from time to time at my  Karoke show or when I'm Dj'ing SMALL TO MEDIUM parties.  They are excellant for these applications - small to medium size room.  If your application will require you for larger or outdoor events or were you will need heart thumping bass ...You may want  to go with a a heavier 15" enclosure from Peavey , Yamaha or JBL.  or add a sub with your lightweights ,
just my .02

Any experience with the Yamaha EMX 88S Power Mixer?

Funny you should ask!!  I have been using the same Yamaha EMX88S mixing amp for about a year with Yamaha 115V Club Series speakers as my mains and a Yamaha 112 as a monitor. They sound incredible in my venue of about 100-125 people, and I actually have to tone down the bass responce to keep the bar glasses from shaking. I used to sing in a band and used my Yamaha amp as my vocal amp, and found that the onboard effects are great for guitar, but not so great for vocals. The reverb effects are not too bad for karaoke use. I also hooked up a BBE Sonic Maximizer to the system, and unless I hook it up to a stomp switch, it actually cancels out the onboard effects of the mixing amp. If you do not want the effects to disappear, you can wire it up with a stomp switch to essentailly have one or the other on, but the effects are wired in series, so it is either one or the other, and never both!!

I demo'ed the Peavey PR15s at my local Sam Ash recently. The trebles and mids sounded pretty good and the speakers only weigh like 35 pounds as compared to the 70 or so pounds the Yamaha 115Vs weigh. The bass responce on the Peavey's are very poor, however!!  They are made of molded plastic to cut down on weight, and the bass sounds just like that, plastic!!  There is no substitute for big, thick, wooden cabs when it comes to the bass responce, and all of Yamaha's 2005 PA speakers have bigger, thicker, (and heavier!!) wooden cabs.  So is it worth it to you to have half the weight and half the bass, or all the weight and all the bass!!  That is the question!!!

Oh, and as for the monitor output on the mixing amp. You can wire up a monitor to one side of the stereo reciever and the other two speakers to the other side and put the amp into "Monitor" mode where there are independent equalizers and volume controls for each. The drawback to this is you are sending 400 watts to your monitor and splitting 400 watts between your two mains.

The way I do it is put the amp into bridged mode, which means each of my mains and the monitor are all splitting 800 watts. You lose the oppertunity to control each independently, but gain wattage to your mains. The advatage I find to this is that I can hear the monitor but not the mains that I set up in front of me, so I can make better adjustments from behind the singers without moving. One of the drawbacks is that once you switch to bridged mode, you are no longer producing a stereo signal, although most karaoke tracks are in mono anyway and 99% of the singers will not know the differance.

The truely professional way to set up a monitor with this amp is to utilize the actual monitor output you refer to. This pushes ALL of the power to your mains, produces a stereo signal, AND gives you independent controls over your mains and the monitor. You do, however, have to link a separate amp between the Yamaha amp and the monitor to power the monitor in this setup. The good news is that any given monitor application for karaoke will sound pretty good on minimal power, so you could purchase a 100-150 watt amp for like $100 and be ready to roll.

Hope my experience with this mixing amp helps!!

Actually, unless the monitor is 4 ohms itself, an 8 ohm monitor is only going to recieve 270 watts & the 2 8 ohm mains (hooked up to other in a parallel configuration) would recieve 400 watts.



You need to be careful with doing that, you can burn the amp out.  It is only rated 800 watts into 8 ohms.  If you are hooking your mains AND monitor to the bridges configuration, you are dropping down to 2 ohms & the amp is not rated down that low.  Also MOST karaoke tracks are recorded in stereo, however as you said, most would not know the difference & a stereo playback in many clubs could actually sound worse.

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