You definitely should have a serious talk with the person doing the mixing if you're being drowned out. I used to play with a four-piece country band, which included two guitars, a fiddle player and a drummer. The fiddle player was great, and he could play a bluegrass fiddle that just rained all over you. The drummer was pretty good also, but the lead guitarist was constantly cranking up the guitar's volume until it overpowered everything on stage. The problem was solved by getting rid of the lead guitar player. Once the individual instrument levals are set, there's usually no reason to change anything other than the main.

As for what to use, I'm going to South Jersey in two weeks to hear Barbetta's Sona-32, which I believe will cover all the bases by providing a wide frequency response, 450 watts of power and only weighs 36-1/2 pounds.

If you have a good back, I may have a pair of Peavey 600XF PA amp heads and a couple of SP5-G speakers to go with them. The amp head weighs 39 pounds, and the speakers tip the scales at 90 pounds each--but they sound great.

If there's one thing I've discovered over the years, when it comes to amps and speakers, you can always turn down a larger system and still retain outstanding quality. I have yet to hear an undersized, underpowered system turned up that still produces quality sounds.

Good luck,

Gary