Small venues like house concerts

[Bob Olhsson]

What would be an ideal setup for folks to sound stunningly great for 10 to 50 people?

It seems like most gigs of that size that I attend have cheap yet overkill technology thrown at them that looks impressive but makes the performers sound absolutely like sh!t.

It has become a pet peeve of mine.

[bunnerabb]

I can't think of anything more conducive to a house concert vibe than a pair of those Bose Line Array's and maybe a small sub.

Doing live drums in a living room seems a bit much, but if you're showcasing songs, these things are the cat's fanny and the knickers to dress it.

Stuffing a bunch of 15" / 1" boxes into a living room is ignorant.

[Droolbucket]

I'll assume since the room is small, you're not micing guitar amps and drums...
I may get a lot of shit for this, but what we've been using for years for an acoustic trio is an ancient pair of Bose 800's on poles. We power them with an old Peavey 6-channel powered mixer. The Bose have enough high end for male vocals anyway, and they naturally roll off any vocal sibilance and piezo quack from the acoustic guitars. They're very smooth in the vocal range, and that's about all we're putting through them anyway. For our applications, those old Bose are just about perfect.
I've been thinking about putting some Behringer nameplates on them so the gear freaks will take us seriously......:)

Droolbucket

[Spock]

What we've been using is a pair of Yamahas on poles driven from an 8 channel powered Yamaha mixer. Our drummer just beats the hell out of the set so we never need much on him, mainly just the kick. We will run a line from my keys, and also put a mic in front of the guitar cab. In smaller places those just stay turned down, or muted. The 3 vocals is what we worry about, and that's most of what we are using the system for.

Monitors, we have have one send. Just one wedge out front in small places. I use in ears because I'm always stuck in corner and could never fit in a wedge or anything in place that I can hear the thing. Also I can set my own vocal/keys balence.

In a bigger place, then a second wedge out front, and small hot spot for the drummer, and then one overhead on the drums to pick up the toms more than anything else.

[floodstage]

I run our board into a driverack w/feedback control on, straight into 2 powered speakers (usually Mackie SRM 450's) on poles that are BEHIND the band pointing at the crowd (and the mics).

Everyone gets the same mix that way. Driverack feedback control is cool stuff in that application.

The other way we've done it is to put 2 monitors on the floor in the standard position for the band and then put 2 more monitors on the floor in front (or along side) of the band's monitors, but have them facing the crowd.

Run same mix and level in all monitors.

Crowd gets what the band gets once again.

Both ways have worked for me but the first one is lower volume than the second.

I hate those Bose pole things. They don't "cut" enough for me.

[Moonrider]

Our "house party" setup is our rehearsal setup:

Pair of 30 year old Kustom columns with 3 10" and a tweeter each (currently loaded with Jensens), recovered with a shit brown tolex.

Hot spot by the drummer, small wedge up front for the bass player and I.

12 channel Carvin powered mixer.

Vox VR15 for me, Orange Crush 35B for the bass player, keyboard player uses her keyboard amp whatver that thing is

Drummer uses a "basic" setup 1 tom, snare, bass, cymbal

We manage to be quiet enough to avoid having the cops called on us :D