Will micing kick drums blow the horns in rehearsal room PA?

[Benny H]

Been having trouble hearing my kicks at rehearsal, I have kick mics.. so I brought them along last night. Set them up carefully.. no clipping on input, didn't crank the channels at all, and the master level was well below going into the red. Everything was safe as far as I could tell.

It sounded nice, wasn't over bearing.. just filled out the sound more.

Then before we'd actually starting playing, the guy who runs the rehearsal rooms comes in checking leads and shit, sees the kicks mic'd and says, basically "no no no, you'll blow the horns".
He went on to say that it's cause the mixer isn't powerful enough, it'll "go into clip" then the horns will go. Well I was a bit confused, and I'm still inclined to say he doesn't know what he's talking about, but maybe I don't?

To me.. if it's definitely never gonna clip the channel input, then it's safe.. doesn't matter what it is. I don't understand how from there it's going to go RAAAH I'M A KICK DRUM and explode through the system.

(btw the speakers there are big genz benz pa speakers. I think - 15" sub, 10" mid and the horn. but the mixer is definitely not too crash hot)

 

[JeffTD]

The fuck is that guy on about? I've done it before numerous times at rehearsals.

How do you think they get kicks through the PA at venues?

 

[Benny H]

How do you think they get kicks through the PA at venues?

Yeah I hinted at this and he started rambling on how they have to use really powerful mixers for drums and they have to have a compressor on the mains or the pa will just die and bla bla.

I was very comfortable with what I was doing, but I'm not that experienced so I'm still prone to some self doubt when something gets thrown up like that.

Anyway, I mentioned that I was planning on getting a DM5 for my kicks and he said he doesn't want that through it either. haha. bye bye.

 

[Benny H]

It's funny - I mentioned he checked the leads right, well I had discovered for myself that they were fucked already.. I had to use my own for the kicks.
To him they worked though. And they did 'work' in that they passed the signal along, but one itself was distorting/crackling with the kick drum mic through it, and the other seemed have the effect that seemed like a mega bass boost. And he wonders why his horns blow.. then blames it on people like me?

One of the horns in that room was already blown too hahaha. I should really tell him that it's gonna keep blowing and it's his own fault.

 

[everybody's x]

well if you get an amp clipping because it doesn't have the balls to push the mains, it will blow the horns. A clipped sound wave is a flat line that they can't reproduce.

It sounds like it doesn't make sense but what he is trying to tell you is that the power amp is underpowered for the speakers. An underpowered amp is more likely to blow a speaker than too much power because the more powerful amp has clean headroom.

The reason a percussive instrument is more of a problem is because of the massive transients/ attack.

a hard "S" or "T" or "P" from a vocalist will do the same thing. Trust me I know

You definitely need a compressor/limiter on the outputs to save the horns. And also I put a 2 amp fuse on my horns so that I only have to replace a fuse instead of a speaker.

 

[Metaltastic]

I don't understand how from there it's going to go RAAAH I'M A KICK DRUM and explode through the system.

Hahahahaha, that cracked me up

And X, that's really interesting about underpowered power amps being more dangerous to speakers than over-powered; never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. Oy...