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Topic: Amp as a monitor |
Larry Leek
From:
Kentucky, USA
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Posted 6 Jun 2007 4:40 pm |
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| Hello, any body tried using a amp. as a monitor, out of a P.A. ? |
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Larry Jamieson
From:
Walton, NY USA
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Posted 6 Jun 2007 5:20 pm
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Not an ideal situation, but it will work. I once ran a guitar cable from the monitor out jack on a small PA head, to a 30 watt guitar amp with a 12" speaker. I set it up out in front, aimed toward the vocalist, and set volume and tone on the amp. It worked OK. My band usually uses a bigger PA head with two power amps; one for monitors, one for mains.
Larry J. |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 6 Jun 2007 8:08 pm
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Like Larry said, it's not ideal - a guitar amp is made to enhance the guitar range, not vocals, bass, drums, etc. It might work, but usually sounds pretty awful.
Besides, a speaker cab is a heck of a lot less expensive than an amp - why even do it?
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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Larry Leek
From:
Kentucky, USA
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Posted 7 Jun 2007 5:06 am amp
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| Thanks Guy's for the info. I have a gig this saturday, with some Karoake singers, I don't have monitors, but do have a spare amp. |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 7 Jun 2007 5:11 am
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Larry, one other thought - if you have monitor level controls on your board, can you just hook up to the speaker(s) in the amp? That would be a better way to go.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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Larry Jamieson
From:
Walton, NY USA
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Posted 8 Jun 2007 3:56 pm
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Jim,
Your monitor speakers have to have a power source - an amplifier. A lot of older, and small PA heads power the two main, or front speakers, but the signal coming out of the monitor jack is just a line level signal. It is not amplified. So, if you just plugged it into a speaker, your wouldn't hear much.
Newer, bigger PA heads have two separate amplifiers, one for the mains, and one for the monitors. You can control the volume and tone settings separately to each set of speakers, and the monitor volume control on each individual channel, will control how much of that channel goes to the monitors.
This type of head saves you from carrying a separate amp for the monitors.
With the old style head, you can plug the monitor out jack into a guitar amp, and it will work. If there are individual monitor volume controls on the individual channels of the head, they should still be effective.
There are also monitor speakers on the market which have built in amplifiers. These can be used with the type of head that gives you a line out signal for monitors.
Larry J. |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 10 Jun 2007 5:13 pm
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Larry, I'm well aware of the need for a power source - that's why I formed my comment as an "if" statement, and assumed one would know whether or not the monitor outs were powered.
The main point I'm making is a guitar amp is not eq'd to amplify a full range of band frequencies, and will sound pretty bad. IF the monitor out is powered, you might get a much better sound just using the speakers and foregoing the amp's preamp/power section altogether.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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Larry Jamieson
From:
Walton, NY USA
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Posted 10 Jun 2007 6:50 pm
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Sorry Jim,
My knowledge of electronics is minimal, just enough to be dangerous...
I guess you could just use the speaker of an amp, if there was no PA speaker available.
We played a gig Saturday and the bass player's amp wouldn't work when we got there. We wound up running him direct through the PA at low volume. It worked OK and didn't blow up any speakers...
Larry J. |
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T. C. Furlong
From:
Lake County, Illinois, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2007 4:25 am
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A typical guitar amp speaker has a frequency response of about 100Hz to 3.5KHz which will sound pretty midrange heavy if you use it for vocals or full range music. It's pretty tough to get anything higher than 4Khz out of a cone driver, even with EQ. If you had or could borrow a keyboard or acoustic guitar amp, that would be better because they sometimes have a high frequency device (tweeter) that extends the frequency response where the cone speaker leaves off. Also, my experience is that using the preamp and amplifier in a clean amp, like an amp for steel, could be helpful to be able to shape the sound for a slightly more full range sound.
TC |
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Jerry Hayes
From:
Virginia Beach, Va.
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Posted 12 Jun 2007 12:50 pm
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I have a small Fender practice type bass amp which has a closed back which works very well in this situation. I sometimes use it as a monitor for the drummer in the band. he just sits it on a chair beside him and can control the volume of it himself. I think this type amp would work better than a guitar amp as you'd have sound coming from the front and back of the amp and be more likely to have feedback problems. You can usually get a small closed back practice bass amp from Crate or other companies for under a hundred bucks.......JH in Va.
_________________
Don't matter who's in Austin (or anywhere else) Ralph Mooney is still the king!!! |
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