ok, first i want to adress the equipment because that’s easily dealt with.
in my opinion two things are imperative and two more are recommended. i think a p.a. is for the whole band so it’s not your job alone to provide one. in most cases a pair of speakers, an amp and a mixer can be borrowed somehow or bought. it doesn’t need to be the newest high-end stuff – search/ask in internet forums about what your band needs and look on ebay for instance. even 20 year old gear can work fine…
but now about your stuff: first, you need a microphone. i strongly recommend a professional one, you won’t have any fun with some cheapish-china-bob-cable-already-attached-and-available-in-fancy-colors-stupid-thing. do yourself a favour and get a decent one. it will be your friend for ages. now for the tough part: discussing about mics is like discussing about religion, i’ll take a shot nonetheless. i’m using two mics on stage: a Shure SM58 and a Shure Beta 58A and i would trust my life on them. period. the SM58 has been around for 40 years now and in my opinion it’s legendary status is well deserved. it’s been a good friend to me for 16 years and counting. it fell down so many times and has been watered just as often and it still works perfect. the Beta is a little bit different, in terms of proximity-effect, polar pattern, feedback behavior etc. – i choose one of them depending on the gig. i also own two more live-vocal-mics, a Beyerdynamic wireless (don’t know the name or the exact whereabouts but i haven’t used it in years anyway…) and an AKG D3800 which was a gift (i haven’t checked it out yet). for me the Shures are the way to go but look around yourself. decent mics cost at least around 100 bucks but as i said, a good microphone will work for decades – think about the price of a decent bass, guitar or drumkit…
the second thing i treat as a must-have are earplugs. i’m using a pair of those, called Elacin – they are custom fit and cost a lot but nowadays they are no longer a must because the ‘normal ones’ have become good enough. i’d recommend the Alpine thingies but again, look for yourself. just make sure the frequency pattern is kind of linear, meaning they don’t change the sound – they just reduce the volume. decent ones should be around 20 bucks.
earplugs are so important because they let you hear yourself and that’s essential for quite obvious reasons. and, as a bonus, they protect your ears :-). no matter how bad the rehearsal or stage sound is, even with no monitors at all – you’ll always hear yourself because of bone vibrations. it sounds a bit different but you’ll get used to it quickly. they sometimes are your best weapon against feedback as well, but that’s a different point on the problem-list…
alright, if you still have some money left, invest in a microphone cable and a stand. both should be of good quality (read the first few sentences about microphones again…). don’t buy a stand with plastic screws or some other ridiculous features. no one really needs a cupholder or an ashtray (smoking kills by the way) but it needs to be solid and robust. it’s better to wait a little and get a good one.
cool, now you’re ready to go…
i’ll get to the other points on the list very soon.
p.s. sorry if the technical stuff is not explained very well, i often experience lack of correct terms in english when it comes to such specific points. the links are just to illustrate – depending on where you are, you might find better ones of course…
