How to mic up an amp

Hey all. Was turning over the possibility of a basement gig in my head recently, and I'm running into a significant problem. Recently, my guitarist left, leaving me with a call to an ex-guitarist and his 25watt Mustang V3 practice amp. It isn't ideal, and it certainly won't cut it against a drummer or my new bass amp. Obviously I'd have to mic him up, so how would I go about it? And should I use a specific mic?

Also, what's a cheap (under $750) way to find PA speakers lol. Reverb has turned up veeeeeeery little

place a 'decent' cardioid dynamic microphone in front of the speaker... closer is better for live. Plug it into a mixer channel and have the guy play,s et the gain so you have about 3dB of headroom. You may wanna use the EQ section's high pass if there is one to avoid rumble from the drums and bass cab. Move the microphone around until it sounds good. Generally you want it straight on for live, not angled, but you may want it straight on the dome or further out towards the edge of the cone, YMMV.... this process should take about 2 minutes. The small gig standard mics are the ubiquitous Shure SM57 and the space-saving Sennheiser E609. The 609 is side address so you can actually avoid using a mic stand and just wrap the mic cable around the amp's handle so you can hang the mic in front of the speaker, resting against the grille cloth. The 609 sounds best thisway, touching the grille, anything else is WAY too thin for my taste. SOme folks will do this with a 57 but being 90 degrees out of phase it'll be a bit odd sounding on tis own. I don't recommend that method with any front-address microphones. Personally I prefer the audix i5 and beta 57 for this wort of role, but its live sound, anything goes. I eman given my druthers I like a beyerdynamic stage ribbon mic, heil side address or even a really tight LDC like an AT4040. But there are ltos of super cheap sm57 type mics out there these days. i think the best knock off is by Samson and its about half as much money. It has all the crappiness of the 57 that bar-room yobs know and love. I wouldn't get too much fancier then a beta57 to mic up a practice amp though... not unless it was a 50s or 60s tube practice amp LOL. Diminishing returns. Just make it louder.

Trawl craigslist for PA gear. A lot of tiems people just want a local buyer to pickup their PA equipment because its heavy... I've always sold big encloures live PA speakers and 4x12 cabs that way because I don't want to deal with moving them. I was always willing to offer good discounts if I didn't even have to help the buyer load the damned thigns in their car!

If I were you and I wanted my own PA I would just invest in a cheap-ass little 4 to 8 channel mixer (that you can replace later), an older non-crown power amp from the 70s or 80s like an ASR systems or solid state carvin unit.... and then whatever matched speakers you can, preferably wedges that also come with stands that way they can be PA speakers or floor monitors depending on what you're doing. One budget floor wedge is much like another as far as I'm concerned, get whatever's cheapest. Make sure each speaker will handle the wattage of one side of your power amplifier x2

JIM TO THE RESCUE!!!! Seriously, thanks. The 609 is a mic that I know some friends want to sell so I can buy that no problem. I'll keep an eye out for a PA system near me.I'm young and my back doesn't pain me too much...

okay, one more paragraph of advice:

older, heavy-ass power amps can be had for peanuts. Somone gave me my PA amp eyars ago and I've never seen an ASR selling for more than $200 even though it's a good, loud stereo amplifier. I actually had 2 at one point, but traded one in with a pile of other 'useful junk' (store owner's words) when I was trying to score my #1 SG back when I lived in DC. Another good option is the carvin ultralight, those are pretty cheap and damned loud. And small, 1RU! For a mixer just geta little behringer eurorack. Shouldn't cost much. Not super durable, but it'll put in solid service until you can afford soemthing better. Make sure tog et enough channels with microphone preamps because some of the smaller ones only have like 2 and the rest of the channels are line only, so if you need more than 1 vocal and a guitar microphone that's too small. Speakers will cost the most, but if you have any money left over invest ina graphic EQ or digital feedback destroyer to notch out feedback frequencies from the speakers and a cheap rack multi-effects so you can put a little echo and/or reverb on vocals. If there's still money left after that buy a decent little noise gate, presonus makes a good unit for a good price and then an alesis 3631 stereo compressor. Even a 2 channel behringer mixer will have an effects send for verb and as a signer you'll pitch better if you're not relying on the room's acoustics for ambiance. Look at unloved units from good brands, the TC g-sharp has the same algorithms as the bigger G processors and despite being marketed for guitar it works great on a PA . You might want a rack to load all that junk into, like the pwoer amp, EQ and procesors, but its a alst priority. If you go beyond mixer, PA and speakers the first priority is a graphic EQ to put across the asmter outs to kill feedback, ebcause you'll probably have feedback issues as you get up to band level in an untreated room.

the all in one PA's like the fender passport are okay, but they give you these built in graphic EQs that are so wideband that they're worthless, so expect to invest in a feedback solution even if you get an integrated mixer/power amp... most importantly, try tot each a non-musician friend to run the PA for you so you don't have to go back and forth between putting up microphones and playing. At your age there's probably a dude hanging around with decent ears who will do the job in exchange for beer... some of the best live sound men got their start this way and were never musicians.

Wow, okay, this paragraph is even more helpful than the last. Thanks, this can really help me out. I was looking at something like a Fender Passport, but I guess I'll stay clear. And luckily, I actually have a friend who's a dope sound guy, and we're paying him in really bad weed and gigging experience

I was looking at something like a Fender Passport, but I guess I'll stay clear.

there's nothing wrong with that for rehearsals and acoustic gigs... like in rehearsal you really just need to get the vocals going with the speakers setup as wedges. I've sued them in rehearsal rooms to good effect, you don't need to reach the abck of the room, just elt everyone hear the singing... the passpot type stuff is also great for coffee hosue stuff where its 1 vocal mic at reasonable levels and iezo pickups in the guitars. When you're trying to blast some vocals at an audience and maybe have a floor wedge and even reinforce guitar? Its a feedback nightmare.

And luckily, I actually have a friend who's a dope sound guy, and we're paying him in really bad weed and gigging experience

that's the way to go, beer, weed, same difference...

If I were to go that route, what's a good feedback solution?

31 band graphic EQ, I like the dBX ones, you can usually find the mono ones for $100 or less used in any guitar center or sam ash... they'll be all over ebay too... if you wanna pan the guy's guitar to his side of the stage then get a stereo one, everyone makes a stereo unit, stay away from behringer's, shoddy faders... look at dBX, ART etc

if you don't want to do it the old fashioned way there's the digital feedback destroyers... this is the one good product behrigner makes! the FBQ1000 is good and I'm told the cheaper Shark units work just as well. Personally I prefer doing it by ear the old school graphic EQ way though, mainly because I'm old and that's what we had wen I learned live sound. YMMV

to get the most form the vocals use a gate feeding a VCA compressor, try an alesis 3630 or 3631... the gate on the 3630 is a tone suck and is in the wrong place, but the compressor is quite nice, basically a dBX160 clone. These compressors are cheap and the gate will work well enough for the minimum investment you'll make on the used market. I always keep at least 1 around... my best friend has like 4 of them sitting on the beer fridge in his studio LOL. That's how cheap and available they are. The Behringer composer is a solid all in one dual comrepssor gate for cheap. Its main draw back for live use is that it uses an opto style detector circuit in a feedback rather than feed-forward arrangement so the minimum attack and release times are little sluggish and the thing really excels at recording-style RMS compression, but it has a nice feel and the gate is pretty good. It'll get the job done Another good cheapie is the FMR audio RNC, another dBX 160 based VCA compressor. It has no gate and isn't dual/stereo, but its just great. Best nosie specs and bandwidth of all the budget compressors. As I said, I like the presonus gates for live use. Very cheap, very easy to set for vocals. They come in stereo or 8 channel models, you will not need 8 channels unless you're putting drums into the PA. Your goal is to gate out the drum bleed out of the vocal microphone when there's no singing and then compress the vocal so its good and loud all the time, try a 6:1 ratio with fast attack and decay so there's always a good 3dB of reduction on the meters when there's singing... you'll have a good loud signal then, turn everything up until the vocals feedback and then notch out the feedback frequency on the master with your graphic EQ, then see if you can get the whole mix even louder. Then you can turn down from there if you're drowning out the drums, but make sure you are able tog et everything incredibly loud, that way you're using the wattage efficiently.

Awesome advice. One last question: how would I adjust my sound equipment to handle unclean vocals?

overload the preamp, turn it until it distorts... if you want a more sepecific distortion sound you cantry a bullet harp mic into a guitar amp and/or stomp box... there was this band in philly a few years ago who did eveyrthing with a shure bullet into a Rat, cool sound. You gotta decide how dirty you want them... distorted or with a halo of saturation, because a compressor will help with that sort of saturated sound whereas a distortion pedal will give you that boxy NIN sound to varying degrees and overloading the preamp in the mixer will give you a blown out, harsh fuzz sound that's all or nothing.

I meant more screaming/guttural vocals. I do that stuff sometimes and I want to have a PA rig that can handle it

what? cookie monster vocals? And Screamo? that's all about you, not the gear... the PA will handle it. Set it up the same. I think those bozos cup the microphone too, so you're kinda driving the bottom end at the microphone through increased proximity effect because your hand is tightening the pickup pattern but the PA is just nice and clean from preamp to speaker. Harcore and Nu Metal definitely is all about making a virtue of bad microphone technique... and also talking like a possessed muppet sometimes. Modern equipment doesn't cave in just because you sing ina silly voice or scream into it.

Not that bad Jim. More like there will be some bits in songs where I really add some grit to my voice as opposed to really singing cleanly, and I want to know how much adjusting I'm gonna have to do to make that change mid-song

a vocal is a vocal, especially live... compressing will even out the levels and the attack and decay of different performance techniques... address the microphone appropriately too... scream or sing louder and from your chest, back up. Even if you don't, comrpession will help minimize any irregualrities

got it. Thanks

its not like you're making a record, you just need to be heard

that is very fair advice. I will go act on it