Separate speakers for guitar and vocals??

[two steps too many]

Is it generally best to have seperate speakers, one for guitar and one for the mic?? Some of the common acoustic amps come with a channel for guitar and one for mic. I'm not too experienced with live sound but I'm going to be going live soon so I'd like to know which is the most desired setup for quality. For what it's worth I was thinking Fender Acoustisonic head going to matching Fender speaker for my guitar. And for the mic, a tube preamp into a good PA.

I just imagine its hard for the speaker to clearly play both guitar and vocals, expecially when frequencies are close. I think it would sound muddy?

Thanks for all your opinions

[SimsUK]

The goal is not to necessarily separate the two music sources. It will help to have a stereo PA setup, but hard panning vocals and guitar to the respective speakers is going to sound absolutely terrible.

If you are playing through an acoustic amp, use it as a guitar monitor and mic it with a Shure SM57. Run that into your PA mixer. Run the vocals directly from your vocal mic to your pre and then to the PA mixer on a second channel.

Do some research on live sound equalization and mixing. The idea is to carve out a path for each instrument (including vocals) to be clear and easily heard.

Human vocal range is quite small in relation to other instruments. It is pretty easy to notch out some frequencies to get your voice through.

Test this by setting yourself up facing the PA speakers, in the middle, such that it forms as close to an equilateral triangle between you and the speakers as possible. Have the mixer right there and listen to yourself play and sing and I mean critically. Have your pared-down research about vocal frequencies (and it makes a difference whether you're male or female) and get yourself a starting place.

Toy gently with both gain levels and equalization. It's delicate.

This is why touring bands bring at least one guy strictly for this, it's not easy to do alone and it's both an art and a science.

[SimsUK]

@simsuk -- I am very much concern with your point of view. You have nothing left to explain. I think that two step too many have got the answer.

Fuh' sho.

[two steps too many]

Thank your for the response, very informative.

I think I know what your getting at when you say "The idea is to carve out a path for each instrument (including vocals) to be clear and easily heard". For example, if the vocals are in a frequency range of 80 Hz to 1100 Hz, does that mean I want to reduce those frequencies coming out of the other instruments(my acoustic guitar)? Or are there more specific narrower bands within that range that need to be reduced?? Do you only reduce if it's getting lost in the mix or muddied up?

Can you suggest any good books or online reading, especially to do with EQ'ing live sound for the singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar?

Thanks again for your help.

[SimsUK]

http://musicheights.com/forum/recording ... ncies.html