Advice on outdoor PA setup for rock band - up to 200 people
Looking for advice on our setup for outdoor gigs up to 200 people. Wondering if I can get some thoughts for mains.
Some background - We’re a 5 piece pop/rock band with 2 vocalists, guitar, bass and drums. Most of the time we play at festivals where the PA and live sound is handled for us. We use whatever they give us to keep things simple. However, 4-5 times per year we do outdoor gigs (like a park, field, parking lot etc) where we have to handle our own sound.
We use a Behringer XR16 mixer. For monitoring, everyone has their own wired IEMs. Both the guitarist and bassist use pedalboards with modellers and plug in directly with no amps. For the drummer we use a 3 mic set up - kick, OH and wurst. Everything goes through the PA.
This is our second year. We started with a really old powered mixer with two 12” passive speakers. Perfect for our jam room but outdoors It distorted, especially the vocals. This year I got a really good deal on a used Yorkville YXL12P powered speaker. Planning to add another to make a pair. And I’m thinking we rent one or two matching 18” subs whenever we have these outdoor gigs.
So a pair of Yorkville YXL12P and one or two matching 18" subs. I haven’t tried this set up yet. Our first outdoor gig running our own sound will be next month. It’s a local community event so low pressure but a good chance to try things out.
Just wondering any general thoughts? Rent one 18” sub or definitely two? Anything else?