[bobbaggio]

Hey guys, I have been up and down with the idea of doing gigs for the last six months and I have decided to go with it, the only thing is, I don't have a P.A or mic?

Just looking for some tips regarding this, I will be playing local pizza places and such. Just one guitar and a mic. no effects or anything! just a basic setup that sounds good to get me started and I can go from there,

any help really is appreciated!

[igorski]

Most venues will offer a house PA, so you don't have to carry one yourself, it's best you inform about this first though. If anything, I do recommend you have a mixer of your own, so you can quickly setup your guitar and mic to your trusted settings (altough tweaking will ALWAYS be involved due to how different surroundings have different acoustic properties or how a densily packed club will drown out certain frequencies). This mixer should cater for both line-level signals (if you're playing acoustic guitar with a pre amp and pickup put it here) and microphone (XLR) inputs with switchable phantom power (for condenser mics). A Shure SM58 is the recommend vocal mic, though a SM57 dynamic mic will do an admirable job and can also work on instruments. I'd go for a condenser for mic'ing acoustic guitar though.

If you want your own PA system, depending on venue size, I still think a 150 W PA is fine for a small intimate acoustic gig in an average pub (if the audience shuts up and actually listens that is). The wattage might sound low, but a properly placed line array of speakers can help projection substantially. For bigger clubs look around 800 Watts.