08/05/2025
Choosing the Wrong PA
First of all, it has been an incredible journey, and I wanted to say thank you to everyone who chose us!
Since the start of AKsound, we have completed more than 30 events, from small and large weddings, concerts, community events, indoor/outdoor, to big school choral events. Of course, we have faced challenges and made some mistakes along the way, but more importantly learnt a lot of lessons. Here is one of the biggest lessons we’ve learnt.
- Using the wrong PA
Choosing the right PA system for the venue/events is extremely important, and it is maybe the biggest mistake we’ve made at the beginning. Typically, events with over 200 attendees are considered as large events. Although it is depending on the type of event, they usually do require professional-grade PA system.
Our very first event was a community concert with a full band and 300-plus attendees. While the PA system we chose did the job for the most part, we realised it was too small to cover the whole space; all the vocal signals were at max level with limited headroom to mix and were also close to clip/distort, the overall FOH mix was harsh and not as pleasant. We quickly upgraded our system and started using bigger speakers for similar or bigger events and decided to use only Line array speakers for large events/venues to cover greater distances and provide better sound contribution throughout the room. Made a huge difference.
There have been occasions where client want to use their own speakers, usually to save themselves $$$. This was one of our biggest mistakes we made early on as well because most of the time, speakers are way too small for their event and venue. As much as you want to help them, understand that your reputation is very important. You want to use the best tools you have to do the best job. It’s the kind of the same reason why a carpenter or a plumber would want to use their own tool to do their job.
