r/livesoundadvice

Hi all. hope you’re well:) I am looking to buy a full audio system for live concerts of around 400-500 people- or even more.

I have my own live band- one that I’ve put together over a period of the last 5 years- and have hosted my own live music shows at my own expense (twice in the past 6 months with crowds of 200 and 400 people respectively).

I’ve noticed that the cost to hire the equipment was quite expensive ( some may even call it exorbitant)- around ZAR 15 000(Rand) per show- roughly 1000 USD. I am thinking of buying my own equipment to use for my live shows and to hire out when not in use (I have another company with bakkies/ pickup trucks to transport and staff to assist and safe storage space) so infrastructure is already in place.

I would like to ask for any good advice/suggestions on the types live concert style audio equipment that would be suitable for this purpose- before I go to the audio shop- and would really appreciate any tips on what to look out for/be wary/careful of.

My budget is around ZAR 400 000 or 30K USD. Would really appreciate any tips/advice. Thanks!

Been using the same mixer Soundcraft UI24r and laptop for a few years now, and all of a sudden, the driver won't work to connect via USB from mixer to Windows 11 laptop to get multitrack output, and have the System > Sound settings point to the mixer. I get a Code 52 (see details below). I spent a couple hours on a chat with support, and walked me through everything in their tool box. Basically different combinations of uninstalling reinstalling either through normal boot or the troubleshoot to disable driver signature enforcement reboot, and running "sfc /scannow" command. The scan did find/fix something the first time I ran it, but subsequent reboots and reinstalls didn't fix the issue. I tried installing the driver on my wife's laptop and it worked fine, so that puts the problem on my laptop. I tried going into regedit and deleting anything that said soundcraft after uninstalling, and didn't affect behavior at all. HELP!! Anyone have similar issues, or other things to try? What about using a generic ASIO driver to get multi track out instead of the soundcraft one?

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Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. (Code 52)

Hello,

As of May of 2025, I have been self teaching myself how to audio engineer for my band as I’m not signed to anyone or anything. As of right now, I am mixing and mastering my own music, but it doesn’t sound too great.

I’ve come into a big problem when I first started into now. I mic up my amp, play guitar, and record. But as my music room isn’t sound treated, there’s naturally reverb.

I want it to sound professional. Not much to no reverb on the recording to make it sound like it was recorded in a treated room. I don’t know where to start, and if it helps, I use reaper as my DAW.

Any tips?

Using a Harbinger LV14 mixer, and just one Crown XLS1000 amp to power 2 mains and 2 monitors for a small bar show in the near future.

I'm confused about the mixer outputs, there is Main Out L , Main Out R and Mono out. So should I use the Mono out to the monitor channel, and then the Main Out L to the Mains Channel? How will that affect the sound to use only the Main out L?

Would it be better to use both main outs to the 2 channel amplifer, and then Pan the sound left or right to increase the Main's volume or the Monitor Volume?

The mains will be daisy chained together, as well as the monitors.

Hi all

I do live gigs here and there where I rent a simple P.A. with a FOH and about 6 monitor lines. I manage fine but I want to start using Smaart to EQ and allign my monitors and mains.

I have a mic, interface and the software, I understand what my measurements mean but what 8 channel DSP's can you guys recommend to put between my mixer and amps to implement these EQ and phase settings? Automatically or manually?

I have a good computer and interface with 8 outputs but I'm oldskool enough not to want to run my sound through that.

Hi guys, I'm new here, hopefully this question finds you well.

I live in a small city. I work in a bar with a backroom for small parties and live acts. All the people working there are really nice and we are getting along very well. The sound guy is a really nice guy as well. Both me and the sound guy are in our mid 20s.

Recently, Im getting into DJing and played a few gigs in the room myself. I'm not properly educated on sound, and I'm not experienced in any way. But I really really enjoy a good sounding system. I'm happy with good quality 320kb mp3 on B&W headphones, or KRK Rokit, to give you a reference what good means to me. In general the sound in our back room is just not so good, I think the high gets deformed, the mids you cannot hear well and the bass is just a mess, a kick is not coherent at all. And that's actually already the case at low volumes.

A year ago there was some weird band playing with some kind of folk music, and another guy did the sound, I think he used to do it more regularly before. He is definitely a more experienced guy, and he used the same speakers but brought a different mixer. Volume was rather low. But it sounded super good! Also another time there was a party, and the organizer brought its own system, and it sounded super good as well. He build the system himself, I believe, and he had calibration equipment with him. Like a special mic with software. I asked him about the room acoustics, and he said the room wasn't too bad actually.

Before the second party I did, I texted the sound guy as friendly and politely as possible that I would like to tweak the sound a bit before the party, together with him, if that was okay by him. I wasn't comfortable with asking this, as I was more or less taking his seat and I didnt want to offend him, but yeah I want quality sound as well. He was really chill. We tried some different EQing, but nothing major. I couldn't really tell the difference. So that was that.

So, now I'm thinking about what to do again. In my ideal world an experienced sound engineer would try to get the most out of the setup. And my colleague, the sound guy, would not be offended at all. Realistically, I could ask this other sound engineer, to take a look at the setup some time and see what he can do with it.

But I really do not want to offend my colleague.

As most people in this sub are sound guys/engineers/girls, I was wondering have you feel about this. Do you have experience with other people (fucking DJs !!) interfering/meddling with you audio engineer work? How did you feel about that, and how did you go about it? Do you have any suggestions for me?

Ps. Writing this I realize I prefer to call the sound guy at my bar a sound "guy", instead of "engineer". Maybe that's already insulting? But I guess I perceive him of more being into the part of setting up a band and sound checking, and less about engineering the sound. But I guess I maybe should still call him a sound engineer, as that is what he is?