I'm taking about generic pub covers bands here, nothing high end. Just a bunch (4) of modest musicians who do it for fun and a bit of beer money.
To be independent of kit hire and sound engineers we need our own PA system. But then you have the question of who owns it? Who stores it? Who transports it? Who maintains it?
I feel the best way is for one person to do that, or at least each piece of kit is solely owned by a single person rather than saying all 4 people jointly own everything. E.g. I might own the mixer, someone else owns the tops, another owns a sub etc.
Now, how does the cost and extra responsibility get covered off?
I'm suggesting to my band that I own the lot, and I take an extra cut from each gig until I've recovered, say, 50% of the outlay. From then on I'll take a smaller cut as a token fee for the effort. Maybe in s couple of years I'll be in profit, but then more kit will be needed maybe.
Main thing is to get it all agreed up front. Have I missed any factors? What if something breaks down and needs repair or replacing?
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All the rest of us have to do is turn up with our own gear and plug it in, and then help strip everything down and load the van at the end. He takes a cut of the fee for his troubles.
Mind you, we all paid for our own instruments and amps and in the smaller venues we didn't need to put guitar and bass and drums through the PA, just the vocals, so you could say that the singer should have paid for the PA himself as he was the only one who needed it, but actually that wasn't the case as we all did backing vocals and the guitar player sometimes used to sing lead.
Bottom line: get an arrangement you have all agreed to up front and don't sweat the small change. Just enjoy playing.
As a result, it is now my ‘ex’ band
I made the pair of them buy their own vocal-only PA, and the bass player his own amp. He still doesn't own a bass and according to the pics of a local music photographer on Facebook, seems to have lent mine to someone else.
Don't be like me, in other words.
In my experience it has varied. If the singer don't play they are sometimes expected to have a small pa. Some bands split gear. Some bands the leader owns the pa and sometimes a van. Sometimes the cost is split and the pa gets a percentage to repay the band sometimes not.
I depped for a friend's covers band where the pa cost a fortune and all the band money went into paying off a loan. The pa took two hours to unload and set up. I worked minimum wage most of the day as a roadie.
I didn't do it again.
If there's a clear leader then they own the pa. It's difficult to fire someone or even ask them to learn their instrument if they own the pa.
There's so many ways of doing it. We have a 4.2 ton jumbo Transit van and all the equipment inc guitar and bass amps lives in that. At the end of the gig the van is packed and it goes back to my gaff. No one lumps amps and PA into their house which is nice.
You could split the cost .... 2 people buy an active speaker each, one buys the desk. These things are sellable on their own should the band split up.
Rob
Fast forward to 2017 and I find myself playing guitar in a band featuring the singer from the aforementioned party band. He wanted to buy a PA so we weren't hiring in all the time, but I knew it would be down to me to make it sound good because of my history.
We agreed that I would buy a decent PA and the band would pay me £100 to "hire" it. I then spent the best part of £10k on a great rig (HK Audio Linear 5, Yamaha TF-Rack mixer + digital stagebox, plenty of great mics, DI boxes, cables, etc).
We ended up only doing around 20 gigs before lockdown effectively finished the band. I still have the PA!
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
everyone owns their own instruments/amps etc.
Makes the whole thing less hassle. I take £10 a gig extra to cover a bit of fuel and a bit towards the pa costs. I'm thinking Ill have to put that cost up a wee bit in the next couple of months.
I did make the singer buy a microphone as it was the only thing she had to have, but I do have enough mics to cover if need be.