Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Well since I delurked, I'll post one more before I relurk. :) Like
many of you, I'm in a band, and we have recently started playing bigger
shows (with an actual stage, as opposed to a ridiculously small corner
in a bar). Up to now I have used a 100W combo amp as a monitor, and
sent a DI signal to the house PA. This doesn't work anymore, since I
have to have that amp practically strapped to my head to hear over the
drums 10 feet away and the Marshall half stack behind me. We are not
to the level yet where we play places that actually have capable sound
engineers, let alone separate stage mixes, so I cannot rely on the
house monitors at all. So, my question to all you gigging vets: What
have you found to be a good solution for medium to large size venues
for amplifying (i.e. being able to hear onstage) high bandwidth synth
music? I'm playing organ, piano and analog synth, fwiw. (The organ
uses a stereo leslie sim for now.) I bought a Roland KC 550, which is
180W, and much, much louder than my 100W Carvin amp (though for those,
like I used to be, who wonder if Carvin gear is any good, this is a
great little amp - excellent feature set and sound for the price). The
Roland has a line out that sends all of the left sides of each channel
to another amp, for a stereo set up. Paired with my Carvin, it is a
100% improvement - way louder and stereo to boot. But I realize to be
really satisfied with such a set up, I'd want a pair of KC 550s, which
would be roughly $1200 altogether. Besides the fact that they weigh a
ton and are bulky, that is a lot of cash to me, and I'm wondering if I
wouldn't do better with a small PA system. I already have a nice JBL
12" passive monitor (that I use on another gig with a bar duo) and I
figured I could get a matching one and a small powered mixer for as
much or less than the 2 KC 550s. I'm old (according to my bandmates
who are all at least 10 yrs younger than me :) and set up/tear down
ease, and schlepping factor are important to me - almost as much as
sound quality (it's punk rock, after all).

So what do you guys use to amplify your MOTM based, analog synth rigs
at rock shows? <on-topic content> :-)

Thanks,
Larry D.