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Looking for some advice on amplification. Small venue gigging with a couple of guitars and occasionally keyboard. I typically use 3 Sennheiser 604 mics that run through a small mixer and into the PA head. We are looking to simplify and not use the PA but go straight to an individual amps - the guitar guys like that. So I am looking at running the mixer into either an amplifier or powered speaker. From what I can read, there seems to be arguments on both sides. Anybody have any advice on what you may have found works good and what make you like. Thanks in advance.

"Small venue gigging with a couple of guitars and occasionally keyboard." Been in this situation many times. Are you sure you need amplification?

When we play indoors, no I don't typically need amplification. But most of the time its outside and while the gig is small, the space is moderate in size and open.

For a tight acoustic venue needing a lil amp oompf, I go with a couple of Shure 57's for my quinto/conga/tumba setup. I have a lil TAPCO 4 channel mixer into which I usually feed 5 mics which gives me nice control. If you have an available single channel on a powered speaker or somebody's amp,, run you two mics into a splitter for a single XLR out.