I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to audio set ups. However, I have been given the task of setting up a basic sound system for a family wedding. It's not a huge affair, but there will be a small dance floor area. We were thinking of just setting up an ipod with a playlist and letting it go. I have no idea what kind of speaker set up to use or how to even find basic info on this sort of thing. Who makes a good ipod dock? What sort of wattage am I looking for? ..and for that matter should I even be attempting to use an ipod or should I go with something else? Sorry if I haven't given much info. I'm just exhausted lately and piecing together a coherent thought doesn't seem so easy anymore. Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.
What's your budget? Depending on the size of the area you'll be set up in, if you have some decent speakers, a home receiver, and a laptop with a 2.5mm to rca cable and it would be pretty easy to DJ from winamp for probably just the cost of the cord if you have everything else. If you're wanting to blow some dough and get some new equipment, look up a local A/V company and ask them what they recommend and shop it around on the net.
If it's a one-off, then you can just rent the gear from one of those 'Discos-R-Us' type places. They'll be able to give you some advice, and may even set it all up for you. A moderately loud setup would consist of x4 250w speakers, a power amp, and any old mixer as the preamp. Basically the preamp acts as the volume control for the power amp.
Normally this would be my advice as well, especially for big weddings - it'll usually be cheaper and easier to just rent proper gear, rather than try and cobble something together if you're not really that knowledgeable. However, in this case it sounds like it'll only be a small number of people, so any old all-in-one hifi system with a suitable input will probably be sufficient. Guaranteed you'll know someone with one of these in their garage. A mini jack to phono cable should be all you need. Whatever you do, try and make sure you've got some kind of backup plan. You do not want to be the guy who fucked up the music for the wedding party. Bring along a portable stereo (boom box or whatever) just in case.
Alright I guess I'm just going to seek out an inexpensive possibly refurbed 1000Watt home theatre type system and couple it up with a laptop. I also have an iPod dock with some wireless speakers as a backup, just in case something explodes or whatever.
If you can find one for cheap that'd do the trick, but be aware that a lot of laptops only output stereo, so a 5.1 home theatre setup may have a few silent speakers (depends on how flexible the control unit is).
This is exactly what you need. Setup goes like this Ipod---> Preamp--->Mixer--->Speakers For Best quality you will want to get a 1/8 inch to Analog RedWhite Cable or a 1/8 inch to TRS cable. This is for the Ipod of course. Unfortunately Mixers/Speakers can be expensive to buy. It'd be nice if someone you knew had them probably or if you could rent them (I don't know if you can. Not my department of expertise )
At the place I work at we do many marquees for weddings and have sound systems to rent out, usually consisting of amp, mixer and dual cd player/shuttle wheel panel and wedge speakers. Which includes several aux in connections and microphone input. Costs £60 to rent out. Don't know how it is over in America, but you could try contacting marquee companies for similar. Though it depends on numbers at the wedding and size of dance floor. For weddings with 60 people plus customers usually have a proper sound system, at some smaller ones we've done they've just had a hifi. Seeing as you think you are just going to have a playlist running sounds like its going to be a small intimate affair?
