I would use as many speakers as possible to feed the house. Use the AP2020 to drive your YX15's, and the powered mixer to drive the wedges which are also pointed at the audience. You want more power than you will use so you can get a clean sound that you actually can have some control over.

I would be tempted to put the kick drum through the PA also for this type of music, but eq it a little thin without bigger PA. Just enough to get the click of the drum to come through.

Got the AP812 today and the Elite 12's The E12's sound great. The AP812 well.... it's no AP2020 for clairty. Partly the effects too I guess. My old rack mount verb sounds a lot better than anything I have heard on-board so far.

What about the singer(s) - what will they have to hear themselves if everything is pointed out?? the room is really long with a low 7' ceiling at the back. So a little should go a long way.

I can run the the AP2020 in stereo mode 2x YX15 (4ohm), 2x E12's outward (4 ohm) , PL10 + (4 ohms) as floor monitors powered off the one channel of the AP812. Lots of gear to pack tho. Will fill the SUV with the seat down.

For kick-click an engineer that we just hired told me guys have used two quarters (one on the head, one on the beater). I was thinking of plastic on plastic I could do that with heat molding + two sided adhesives. So you have the beaters striking HDPE plastic to plastic. I often felt that some of the best bass click I've heard is the right car dead pedal and shoe sole! But I am no expert on these sorts of things.

You want to get those speakers as high as you can on the stands. This will help you a lot! And I would just go with the vocals the amps will be loud enough.
As for the kick? If yo just have the click it will sound thin and weak but if you have to cut out a small circle of thin plywood type of wood like paneling and use a industrial adhesive like PL400 and to go one step further have the drummer purchase a wooden mallet that will replace his soft mallet on his kick pedal.

Singers hearing themselves might be a problem, but I've always been able to hear myself pretty well in small rooms just from the mains. You'll have to see what's needed more where, I guess.

Just doing some testing. Cabinet arrays or clusters are sweet (per bicasaur). I like them all pointed at me in a sea of sound! Korg Triton Extreme (on midi) mixed with processed vocal and tube amp Larrivee RS4 nothing sweeter.

So Is it better to run a 4 cabinet array
a) all in parallel @ 2 ohm load configuration 850 watts power in MONO (4x1 2 ohm load) or
or b) 2 cabs x 4 ohm x 2 configuration (2x2 4 ohm loads stereo) 615 watts per channel ?

know what I'm sayin??

edit - i think I found my answer:

Amp in One Channel Mode, 4 speakers 2 ohm total load, 850 W avg /4= 212W per cab x 4
Two Channel mode, 2 speakers/ch, 615W/2 = 307W per cab x 2 x 2

Bridged - I can only run 2 speakers here 4 ohm load 1250 W/2 = 625 W per cab big difference in bridged mode - but only two cabs. If I (PITA) configure the speakers in an 8 ohm array (that is two series legs in parallel) then I only get 312 per cab!

So the most efficient method to run a 4 x 8 ohm speaker cluster is in Stereo, 2 channel mode running at 4 ohms.

bicasaur, post: 363007 wrote: I would use as many speakers as possible to feed the house.

I would do just the opposite unless I needed to cover a wider angle. More speakers with overlapping coverage means reduced clarity.

SharkFM, post: 363225 wrote: Just doing some testing. Cabinet arrays or clusters are sweet (per bicasaur). I like them all pointed at me in a sea of sound! Korg Triton Extreme (on midi) mixed with processed vocal and tube amp Larrivee RS4 nothing sweeter.

So Is it better to run a 4 cabinet array
a) all in parallel @ 2 ohm load configuration 850 watts power in MONO (4x1 2 ohm load) or
or b) 2 cabs x 4 ohm x 2 configuration (2x2 4 ohm loads stereo) 615 watts per channel ?

know what I'm sayin??

edit - i think I found my answer:

Amp in One Channel Mode, 4 speakers 2 ohm total load, 850 W avg /4= 212W per cab x 4
Two Channel mode, 2 speakers/ch, 615W/2 = 307W per cab x 2 x 2

Bridged - I can only run 2 speakers here 4 ohm load 1250 W/2 = 625 W per cab big difference in bridged mode - but only two cabs. If I (PITA) configure the speakers in an 8 ohm array (that is two series legs in parallel) then I only get 312 per cab!

So the most efficient method to run a 4 x 8 ohm speaker cluster is in Stereo, 2 channel mode running at 4 ohms.

Your calculations are like trying to find the area of a rectangle using the length of one side. You will never arrive at a meaningful answer without the other dimension. In the case of speakers and amps you also need to factor in speaker sensitivity and distance to the audience to determine the SPL where the people will be. Note that you don't necessarily need to power the speakers to their rated maximum power to get a good result, you just need to give them enough power to get as loud as you need and allow for some headroom.

bouldersound, post: 363282 wrote: I would do just the opposite unless I needed to cover a wider angle. More speakers with overlapping coverage means reduced clarity.

True, but unless the speakers are widely spaced, the reduction in clarity sould be minimal. I think the bigger problem is simply getting enough volume to compete with a bunch of kids and their half stacks, since we're talking about relatively small pieces of PA. I think distortion introduced from pushing pro-sumer PA gear to its limit will be more of a problem than phase discrepancies...

I would just add - chasing watts on paper is futile. It's really just a different way to express the same amount of output power. Paper watts make almost zero difference in the real world results. In your case, what you gain by adding speakers (and dropping impedance) is mostly through speaker dispersion - and options in placement. In addition to that, all but the best amps pushed to 2 ohms sound like crap anyway. And most entry-level amps, won't run at 2 ohms very long before they overheat. Generally 8 ohm cabinets running by themselves at 8 ohms will sound noticeably smoother, because the amp can maintain a much higher level of control over the movements of the speaker's voice coil.

If you want to add 3dB of useable volume you have to double the amplifiers. Double the amps AND speakers, and you gain 3 more dB. Sub cabinets that are stacked or touching side-by-side will 'acoustically couple' and give you a couple more dB of useable low end. (especially with bigger boxes)

I'd pack the SUV to the gills and bring as many amps and speakers to bear as possible. You need brute force, because the bad news is, the over-saturated ultra-buzzy teen-tone guitars and screaming Super Grover vocals (does that Sesame Street reference fly in Canada?) that plague so many teen "Heavy/loud young rock bands" don't require much finesse.

Best of luck.

I got it all figured. Thanks for the help btw. The watts calcs I posted are solid. Sens and SPL are roughly the same for all my cabs. AP2020 and Yorkville Elite, Pulse is PRO stuff. It's used by majors certainly here in Toronto / Vancouver. The Elite stuff sounds great. YX series made in China a decent replica that is pro-sumer. AP812 mixer is good just ripped my ears off with it lots of balls, nice clean mixer.

I researched speaker clusters and to me it's like hittin' a pool of water. Stoke the pool with 4 wave generators too close and you get a load of mush. Space it out there will be clean wave propagation from each source, interfering toward the end of the pool (room). Or the sickest is to be directly on top of one another as in Yorkville's UNITY line: [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.yorkvill…"]Yorkville Sound: Unity™[/]="http://www.yorkvill…"]Yorkville Sound: Unity™[/] Everything pushes and pulls together. That's the issue - wave frequencies& amplitudes all over the place, the cabs need clean undisturbed air in front of them not clashing with other sources. But you guys knew all that - boulder's rule.

So for the gig I go FOH: 2x Elite 12's 400W program spaced Wall>1/4.S..1/2...S.1/4
LS200P sub set dead-center and lower, it's frequencies are so low that everything will be overlaid on top of the low freq roll. With any luck the bass may even superwave.

The rest will be for the band 3 or 4 monitors- ideally 10's/12's. The YX15's are not quite the right thing for the job here imo.

Now for Powering there are two options Insane and Mr. Clean

Insane:AP2020 Bridged+2 Ohm rocker sw-> to FOH, 4 ohm load, 1300 available watts cont avg. 2100+ watts burst.
AP812 Mixer Amp A assigned to 2 monitors Amp B assigned to 2 monitors (455 watts into 4 ohm- that is good grunt)

Mr. Clean AP2020 Dual Mono +4 ohm Rocker sw A channel ->FOH 4 ohm load 725 watts 870 burst
AP2020 B Channel same 725 Watts -> Monitors for vocalists
AP812 Powers the pair of monitors for the drummer/guitarist 455 into 4 ohms.

The Yorkville AP2020 is pretty cool - the Dual Mono is a single input /dual output configuration, but outputs are in phase and with the 4 ohm switch=ON this produces the amp's cleanest unbridged power. You can drop the load to 2 ohms (2 ohms sw=ON) but then it gets dirtier and I am with the poster - I didn't like it when I ran it today. In this Dual mono mode I donned the ear protection for an SPL test, ran it up to clip & rattled stuff off the walls, the dishes in the kitchen upstairs and you could hear it easy out in the street like 300 feet away. It was pretty loud!!

The stereo mode of the amp for pro use is intended for bi-amping, two completely independent inputs and output channels, which make sense.

Learned a lot today. Screamers are another instrument in the band. I really like it- just the same as a fuzz box on a guitar. Rewind when anything new came on the scene be it Elvis or Hip/hop rap same sorts of things get said over and over. Today's bands are really heavy and very emotional which is where rock should be. Pushing the boundaries of people and PA's!

PS : why our practice area sounds so good is that there are 2x "FOH" and 2x monitors and 2x amps and 1x sub all pointed into the center of the 16x20 room where we stand to play. drummers in a corner too. I have the amp setup in stereo because the Korg outputs in stereo and so does the SRV2000 'verb and both sound awesome that way.

bicasaur, post: 363290 wrote: True, but unless the speakers are widely spaced, the reduction in clarity sould be minimal.

Exactly the opposite is true. If the speakers are too close together then we hear them as one source, and almost everywhere in their dispersion pattern they will be out of phase over a wide range of the spectrum causing audible reduction in clarity. If the speakers are widely spaced we hear them as separate sources and our binaural hearing interprets the phase differences as directional cues.

bicasaur, post: 363290 wrote: I think the bigger problem is simply getting enough volume to compete with a bunch of kids and their half stacks, since we're talking about relatively small pieces of PA. I think distortion introduced from pushing pro-sumer PA gear to its limit will be more of a problem than phase discrepancies...

I understand the challenge but I don't think the supposed increase in volume will offset the reduction in clarity. It would be one thing to use multiple cabs to cover a wide area and not let them overlap that much, but this is a case where more isn't really more. I would look at the specs of all the speakers and choose one pair with the highest rated SPL given the power available and go with those. And I realize the bands are young and loud, but it's still worth addressing the lack of PA by having some sense of stage volume.

Yeah Boulders rule I agree 100% (see my waves in a pool analogy). Also Yorkville's engineering said the same thing - take the cabs with the highest SPL rating for most sound output. The engineer was concerned we might blow the PL10's as they are rated at 150Watt program (using the 450 watt amp).

E12 Max SPL 128
YX15 Max SPL 124
PL10's " " 119 big difference....

" [You can safely power the YX15s w/AP812, but the PL10s could get over 200W ea. which is at least 50W over their pgm (i.e. safe) power rating, The AP-500 is safer for them at 150W/chan@8Ohms] "

Now a BIG difference in clarity and umph is the CABLING. I switched out to 12 AWG (gauge) from the ridonkulous store supplied coils of 18 AWG we were using and it is way cleaner and smokin' loud now too. This is one of the reasons active speakers are cool because they eliminate the speaker cabling runs and it just plain more efficient to crossover first then hit the element (woofer, horn etc) with the current. We were losing almost 25%of the power & assoc. dynamic losses!! 18awg 50 ft 4ohm 23.44% [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.yorkvill…"]Yorkville Sound: Speakers[/]="http://www.yorkvill…"]Yorkville Sound: Speakers[/]

Def the screamo grind core is demanding on a PA - the volume starts with drums - the Yammy Maple Tour Customs, big bass drum kicks pretty hard, guitars to match that SPL and the vocals have to compete. But that is all part of the deal.

Gig's done!! last weekend. Just recovered (lol) I ran an automated light show, recorded 4 bands on Reaper (using "X-Y" condensor pair) , did video! + sound board too. Setup the PA. The bands tore the PA down I just packed it used and SUV and utility trailer chock full. I lost about 8 pounds hardly ate for 2 days. It was entry by donation so each band made about 75 bucks after the venue took a cut. Next one will be easier. Cool Lava lamp too....

On the tech side the Yorkville Elite PA sounded great, tons of volume. I was not planning to mic the drums but in the sound check it was OMG, the drums were wimpy so I put an EV PL84 condensor on the kick and the whole kit came alive. it was full on beast! That's a great mic BTW. It has the highest SPL of the bunch i had and also picked up the toms and snare even a bit. So everything sounded pro at that point. Bought a Peavey TNT bass amp for the gig it kicked butt too. All guitarists brought their own amps of course, line6's, VOX even an old Yamaha amp they all sounded cool.

Here's a sampler of my son's band (guitar and center screamer) and two more brothers drums and clean vocals.
this is their opener an old gameboy playing chip tune synth, Dano Baritone....

[="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1-Yw96WN0o"]YouTube - Dare We Say Die We Made Yesterday with most INSANE breakdown[/]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - Dare We Say Die We Made Yesterday with most INSANE breakdown[/]

Stick stickly cover
[[url=http://="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - Attack Attack [PG] Stick Stickly Jersey Shore Down in the Dungeon Dare we Say Die[/]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - Attack Attack [PG] Stick Stickly Jersey Shore Down in the Dungeon Dare we Say Die[/]