I’m tired of getting stuck playing at a club that doesn’t have a monitor for the drummer. I want to find the cheapest way possible ($200 or less hopefully) to get my own system. I only really need to hear bass and guitar, but vocals would be nice. I’m guessing I would need to mic the guitar and bass amps and run that to my speaker, but I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff. What will i need to buy to make this happen, how do I set it up, and around how much cost?? Sorry for the length… thanks a lot for any help!
Are the bass player and guitarist also playing through the house PA, or just their amps? Even a modest PA desk will often have a spare auxiliary buss that you could take a feed from (and the advantage is that you set up a mix just for you by adjusting the amount of aux-send on each channel.
If not, another way is to spring for a cheap mixer (2nd-hand is the way to go). Whether or not it will need a couple of channels equipped with mic preamps will be governed by whether you can sniff a linelevel signal from the bassist and guitarist - certainly a lot of amps these days have an effects loop; if they’re not using it for effects you can probably sniff the signal from there.
After that, you’ll need (as you surmise) a speaker and amp (could be in the same box). Depending on how loud you play, it may need to be big.
If you’re on a budget, check out local pawnbrokers and 2nd-hand shops. Lots of people buy gear then realise they aren’t going to be the next [sub]insert your favourite artist here[/sub] and flog the gear for a loss… good luck.
Definitely spring for the cheap mixer. You can buy a decent 4 channel one brand new for 75 bucks from Guitar Center. And if it doesn’t work out, you can return it for up to 30 days.
Your string section’s amps will almost definitely have a line-out that can feed into the mixer. Our drummer did this in the early days, it worked out quite well actually.
You might not have to spring for a speaker/amp setup. I see a lot of drummers who wear headphones when playing at clubs, and if there’s not some reason that would present a problem for you, it’d certainly be a lot cheaper.
LC