Touring systems

Touring sound systems have to be powerful and versatile enough to cover many different rooms, often being of many different sizes and shapes. They also need to use "field-replaceable" components such as speakers, horns, and fuses, which are easily accessible for repairs during a tour. Tour sound systems are often designed with substantial redundancy features, so that in the event of equipment failure or amplifier overheating, the system will continue to function. Touring systems for acts performing for crowds of a few thousand people and up are typically set up and operated by a team of technicians and engineers that travel with the talent to every show.

It is not uncommon for mainstream acts that are going to perform in mid to large venues during their tour to schedule one to two weeks of tech rehearsal with the entire concert system and production staff at hand. This allows the audio and lighting engineers to become familiar with the show and establish presets on their digital equipment for each part of the show, if needed. Many modern musical groups work with their Front of House and Monitor Mixing Engineers during this time to establish what their general idea is of how the show should sound, both for themselves on stage and for the audience. This often involves programming different effects and signal processing for use on specific songs in an attempt to make the songs sound somewhat similar to the studio versions. To manage a show with a lot of these types of changes, the mixing engineers for the show often choose to use a digital mixing console so that they can recall these many settings in between each song. This time is also used by the system technicians to get familiar with the specific combination of gear that is going to be used on the tour and how it acoustically responds during the show. These technicians remain busy during the show, making sure the SR system is operating properly and that the system is tuned correctly, as the acoustic response of a room will respond differently throughout the day depending on the temperature, humidity, and number of people in the room.

Weekend band PA systems are a niche market for touring SR gear. Weekend bands need systems that are small enough to fit into a minivan or a car trunk, and yet powerful enough to give adequate and even sound dispersion and vocal intelligibility in a noisy club or bar. As well, the systems need to be easy and quick to set up. Sound reinforcement companies have responded to this demand by offering equipment that fulfills multiple roles, such as powered mixers (a mixer with an integrated power amplifier and effects) and powered subwoofers (a subwoofer with an integrated power amplifier and crossover). These products minimize the amount of wiring connections that bands have to make to set up the system. Some subwoofers have speaker mounts built into the top, so that they can double as a base for the stand-mounted full-range PA speaker cabinets.