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How to Set Up and Run Your First Sound System for Live or From-Source Sound: Music Teacher Edition

Updated: Dec 13, 2022

If you’ve taught any music in public school, you know that running a sound board is expected of you even if you have no idea how to run one. It isn’t taught in our music education degree, and there are usually no courses that help us understand it. This means that we are usually left to spend thousands on a sound guy for a concert or figure it out on our own which can be a daunting task. I did a Workshop recently on the basics of sound with regard to live and from-source sound.

If you've taught any music in public school, you know that running a sound board is expected of you even if you have no idea how to run one. It isn't taught in our music education degree, and there are usually no courses that help us understand it. This means that we are usually left to spend thousands on a sound guy for a concert or figure it out on our own which can be a daunting task. I did a Workshop recently on the basics of sound with regard to live and from-source sound. A printable PDF version of the following can be found here on the Steve's Music Room Lesson Plans page from that presentation. 

Setting Up Your First Sound System: The Music Teacher Edition


BASICS

The following equipment is a list of basic requirements for live sound:

What your school will likely already have:

Mixer

Mixer for blog

2 ‘main’ speakers

main-speakers-sm

Vocal microphones

SM 58

Enough XLR and speaker cables for each

You can get by with the above equipment but to make your equipment more versatile and accommodate many live situations your school will need:


2 monitors