Live Sound Reference Guide for Beginners
For The Hobbyist
Interested in audio? Want to DJ? Maybe you want to help out a friend that is a solo singer with a guitar player. This section will be periodically updated with different setups tailored to help out the hobbyist that just enjoys audio but doesn't want to make it their full time job. It's also a good idea to checkout the other sections of this guide to learn other setups and see different situations.
The DJ
Like listening to all types of music? Do others enjoy your choice in music or playlist? It doesn't take much to start DJing, a laptop, mixer, and some speakers. Lights will eventually be needed but not to start. Don't know where to start? Start in the the backyard and invite some family over. Get some food for everybody and just put on a playlist of music you have been working on. Need Music? There are plenty of online sources for music such as iTunes and Pandora. For a small monthly fee you can have the music on your laptop and not have to worry about finding WIFI. Purchasing music is always the best option, you always want to make sure you have good music with no errors. If you have plenty of CDs, upload them to your laptop. If you have the music part down, then its getting to what you need.
Speakers
To start out, you probably want to find a decent pair of quality speakers, preferably with built-in amplification for portability. Its also good to have a some speaker stands to get the speakers at a decent height so everyone can hear. You generally want to have the speakers at about eye level.
Mixer
A simple quality mixer with at least 2 preamps for a microphone or two. There are other types of DJ mixers that can control DJ software and take care of the audio but that will be for another update. Right now we just want to be able to get music from your laptop to the speakers without breaking the bank. With the mixer, you will need the all important 1/8" TRS male to dual TS male Y-cable. This cable will connect to the headphone jack of your laptop to a stereo channel on your mixer. The following illustration shows a basic mixer with an example of where you would hook up your laptop and how to control the volume of that channel.
Microphones
All though you don't really need a microphone to play music but you do need one if you want to interact with the crowd and to make an announcement that the food is ready. Also good to have a microphone stand to hold the microphone or to put an extra microphone on a stand out to the side for announcements done by the guests.
Setup
Here are a few basic DJ setups. More to come......
