# Guitar straight into p.a.?



## 7Mic7 (Mar 27, 2012)

Hey guys , 
I recently found a drummer ( woohoo! ) and we jam our song in a studio where his drum is. The problem right now is me because i dont have an amp powerful enought to jam with a drummer so our solution was to plug my guitar straight into a p.a.

I was wondering if it was dangerous for the amp since its not really made for this but heres my setup ( dont laught , i'm poor right now) Guitar-->metal zone --> p.a.(JBL EON G2). 

Btw I jammed with it and the sound was really Ok but its not mine and I dont want to break it. 

So whats your tought on that setup ?

thanks in advance.


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## ZXIIIT (Mar 27, 2012)

No noise gate?

Your setup might work well, I've done it before but was turned down so low I could not hear anything. Try finding a Pod as it will sound better.


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## Winspear (Mar 27, 2012)

Definitely not dangerous. But I'd guess it sounds like ass as the PA wont have the same highend rolloff as a guitar cab..unless you've got the treble turned way down! But yep nothing wrong with it to practice!


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 27, 2012)

yeeeah! 

You know guys , Im a big fan of tone in general and i have been quit surprised to see that my sound was almost better than the mesa double rect of the other guitarist . And i came to the conclusion that the tone is a lot in the hands. 

And i dont need massive gain so noise gate is not a must right now.

Thanks for the answers guys!


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## ImBCRichBitch (Mar 27, 2012)

Ive done that before (guitar-pa-speakers) and other than a tiny amount of noise it sounded fairly good. alot clearer than the peavey i had been using.


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 27, 2012)

p.a is a speaker no? (powered amp if im correct)


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## Winspear (Mar 27, 2012)

Powered amp actually means the amp that is used to power passive speakers. But often the entire live rig is refered to as a PA. 
In your case the poweramp is inside the speaker (active speakers that plug into the wall)


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 27, 2012)

EtherealEntity said:


> Powered amp actually means the amp that is used to power passive speakers. But often the entire live rig is refered to as a PA.
> In your case the poweramp is inside the speaker (active speakers that plug into the wall)



Nice thanks for your time mang!


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 27, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> p.a is a speaker no? (powered amp if im correct)



P.A. actually stands for "Public Address"


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## signalgrey (Mar 27, 2012)

ive had to do this in a pinch. Something you may want to consider is one of the Blackstar pedals. They have a direct out option which is basically a tiny preamp. Its been a live saver in a few bad nights.


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## JStraitiff (Mar 27, 2012)

This is definitely not dangerous but i wouldnt want to do it personally. What is going through the speakers is going to be your plain magnetic signal amplified by the PA. Its not going to sound too great. The metal zone will add distortion to that but it will still not sound the same as if the tone was being shaped by the preamp and the guitar speaker cabinet. Bass players do this quite often using DI boxes which are basically little preamps sometimes with some effects that allow you to go straight into the PA. What you never want to do however is run your amp head straight into a PA speaker cab. It will sound like a fucking can of bees. I did that once. i was only transporting my head to practice because the drummer had a peavy cab there that one of the guitarists from his other bands left it there. The one day i get there and no cab... lol.


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## Thep (Mar 27, 2012)

You should look in to getting a DI box and a cabinet simulator. Behringer has a unit that does both is less than 50 bucks


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 27, 2012)

Thep said:


> You should look in to getting a DI box and a cabinet simulator. Behringer has a unit that does both is less than 50 bucks



looks like the cheapest and reliable options but cab sims are $$ if you want them to sound good no?




signalgrey said:


> ive had to do this in a pinch. Something you may want to consider is one of the Blackstar pedals. They have a direct out option which is basically a tiny preamp. Its been a live saver in a few bad nights.



Looks like a good idea but they look expensive and i rather save money for an amp or an axe fx. 

But they are tempting tought!



vbshredder said:


> P.A. actually stands for "Public Address"



P.a. stand for 200 hundred things according to google...


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## Harry (Mar 27, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> yeeeah!
> 
> You know guys , Im a big fan of tone in general and i have been quit surprised to see that my sound was almost better than the mesa double rect of the other guitarist . And i came to the conclusion that the tone is a lot in the hands.
> 
> ...



If a Metalzone directly into a PA system sounded almost as good as a Dual Recto.......well, I just don't even know what to say really 
Your other guitarist either has :

1. Terrible settings.
2. A shitty cabinet
3. Possibly something faulty with the amp itself
4. All of the above perhaps

Definitely something wrong there if the other guitarist with a Dual Recto sounds hardly better than a setup the setup you've got (no offense)


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 28, 2012)

your'e right ,the others guy had a really weak wrist for metal and i got a pretty hard picking djenty hand on my side so the mesa did not get his justice.lol

I agree totally agree that a metal zone trought a P.A is not a decent setup at all and that his amp was suppose to destroy my ass haha!

I have to add that i never heard a recto alone sound good for my taste, they have this gnarly distortion that doesn't peirce for metal chugging. I never owned one either so that kind of explains it.


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## Harry (Mar 28, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> your'e right the others guy had a really weak wrist for metal and i got a pretty hard picking djenty hand on my side so the mesa did not get his justice.
> 
> I agree totally agree that a metal zone trought a P.A is not a decent setup at all and that his amp was suppose to destroy my ass haha!



Haha fair enough.
What kind of budget have you got man?

Surely you could get some money together for even just an old , inexpensive amp modeler?
My first amp modeler was a Behringer V-amp 2, back when I was poor as hell and wanted something better sounded than the sound my little practice amp had at the time (which sounded as good as a Metalzone pedal anyway haha).

It's not so hot compared to today's POD HDs, the Axe FXs and well, it sounds pretty artificial and fake compared to the aforementioned modern amp modelers, but man for the price it was a fantastic little unit and I honestly thought it was better than the POD 2.0 which the V-Amp 2 was designed to be a clone of. Despite the amp modeling being pretty backward by today's standard, it sounded better than practically any cheap analog solid state guitar amp

It's not something you'll be recording an album with, but it will kick ass for just jamming/rehearsing with a band/drummer.
Cheapest option I could think of for someone in your circumstance.
Even when you do upgrade, you can always keep it around for times when someone wants to come and jam and plug into a crappy spare amp and want something better sounding the amp tone itself, so they can put the V-amp in front of the preamp. I still kept my V-amp around for that purpose, makes that little practice amp I was talking about earlier sound a ton better


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 28, 2012)

You know, right now I'm fucking unemplolyed so money is tight 

The ideal setup would be to have a laptop running a vst host or a DAW with pod farm and a impulse loader( they sound like a axe fx to me haha) and plug it into the p.a. but i dont have an amp .

Second option is my Boss ME-50 that sound like a cat dying if you try to have a metal distortion so fake i want to trow up when i ear it but it sounds ok for clean and solos and it got all the effect that the metal zone dont have.

third options was to sell my only ERG ( ibanez 1527) for 1100$ and buy an axe fx and i'm kind of off with this idea since its a fucking piece of art(and discontinued if im correct)! But, they have stock pickup so thats why I dont play a lot with her but I know if I sell her Ima regret it.


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## bradthelegend (Mar 30, 2012)

I used to do the same thing when playing with my roommate on his electronic drum set. We lived in an apartment, so the volume was perfect for us. If it sounds okay to you, I wouldn't spend any money on adding to that set-up. Save it, and use it to get a good amp if you guys start to play shows. 

Like you said, you guys are just jamming, so it doesn't have to sound amazing.


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## Kwirk (Mar 30, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> third options was to sell my only ERG ( ibanez 1527) for 1100$ and buy an axe fx and i'm kind of off with this idea since its a fucking piece of art(and discontinued if im correct)! But, they have stock pickup so thats why I dont play a lot with her but I know if I sell her Ima regret it.


The most you could get for a 1527 is probably $600-700, but as a stock guitar that might even be pushing it. Finding an Axe FX Standard for under $1300 is pretty rare as well.

Back when all I had was my Peavey Studio Pro 112 combo, I used to just plug the FX send into my band's PA and turned down the highs on the mixer to the point where it sounded good, and it sounded really good. 

I agree with brad about saving money to get a real amp though. I always used to have to borrow amps for shows because I had that Peavey and never really had an amp (I could have used it but it was unreliable for live use). Your first shows will come faster than you think.


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## Pedrojoca (Mar 30, 2012)

I'll just straight ahead tell you. The BEST setup (and cheapest) with what you have right now really is Guitar -> MetalZone -> DI Box (with cab sim) -> Pa Speaker.

the DI box can be something like a behringer which goes for about 30 bucks, believe me it WILL be an improvement over the current sound and it's cheap!

Behringer GI100 ULTRA-G - Thomann Cyberstore Português


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## petereanima (Mar 30, 2012)

The Behringer GI100 is acutally a pretty solid product. definitely on par with the other standards.

Also an option might be an older used Line6 POD. Can be had for cheap, adn delivers pretty good results.


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 30, 2012)

Kwirk said:


> The most you could get for a 1527 is probably $600-700, but as a stock guitar that might even be pushing it.




WHAT!

I buyed this guitar 5month ago and it was 1400 + taxes so no way i'm letting her go under 1000$ And it is pretty mint too so...

I just have to sell it to a rich kid. 

As for the axe fx you are probably right, there are expensive but I prefer buying the axe than a amp. It just sound and look reliable for what i need.
I don't want one of those bulky amp right know ...


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 30, 2012)

Pedrojoca said:


> the DI box can be something like a behringer which goes for about 30 bucks, believe me it WILL be an improvement over the current sound and it's cheap!
> ]



Thanks man, I think I'll go get one before my jam tonight


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## Kwirk (Mar 30, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> WHAT!
> 
> I buyed this guitar 5month ago and it was 1400 + taxes so no way i'm letting her go under 1000$ And it is pretty mint too so...
> 
> ...


Those are the breaks man. Search the used section for 1527s. I'd say $700 is the average used price of one, even mint ones. My original prices were probably a bit low, but still, I've seen them go as low as $500.


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## Pedrojoca (Mar 31, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> Thanks man, I think I'll go get one before my jam tonight



make sure it has a 4x12/cab sim


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 31, 2012)

7Mic7 said:


> P.a. stand for 200 hundred things according to google...



Word. Power Amp certainly makes more sense than "Public Address" for our uses.


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