Are you not going to mic the drums and the conga player? What size of a venue are you looking into covering. With that many players you'll want more than 2 monitors. What kind of budget do you have to work with? I'd say you'll need upward of ten grand to do anything decent.

A rock band you'll probably want to mic your drums. with that many keys and electric bass you'll want subs to go with your main speakers to help distribute all the sound coming out so your mains don't have to work so hard pumping out the low end.

I'm really impressed with Yorkville Pa gear. They make a Powered mixer with 22 channels. 1600 watts to front house and 500 to monitors. No external power amps needed. it would give you a few extra channels for mic'ing the drum kit or percussionist. They also make powered subs that are self-powerd so no external amps needed to run those. I think the subs run a thousand watts each. Giving you a total 3600 watts to front house. This should be quite suitable for a medium-sized venue, maybe up to 500 people. The E152 is a nice main speaker, with the U15 being better still.

the Shure sm58 is kind of a standard vocal mic, but the Shure Beta line again would be better.

The Yorkvill Powermax mixer has 2 monitor sends to run 2 independent mixes. You could get 3 mixes out of it using the effects send, but you would need to power that signal somehow. Compressors are nice for vocals to be sure, but probably not essential to get started.

Now, if you're looking to blow the roof off a building, this setup I've described will not be nearly enough. I know a guy with an awesome system who uses 8 18-inch subs and 8 12-inch tops. It must be upward of 25000 watt system. Then you're talking serious money. say 30 grand.

[This message has been edited by FAEbGBD (edited 01-27-2004).]