Okay, I'm starting up a band as a vocalist. I don't have a PA, nor do I have the money. I have a Shure microphone, a receiver, and some really nice house speakers. Is there any way I could fashion my own ghetto pa until i can get a real one? All I need is something that will project my voice for small gigs (no more than 100 people), and for practice.

You may laugh, but I used an old Fender amp for a while [twin reverb] but really any GUITAR amp should work [it captures more treb than a bass amp], if it has the wattage. That way you have a little more wiggle room before you get the bad feedback.

I'll probably actually give that a try but the question is how do you connect the microphone to the amp?

wires just go to a music store and ask for a microphone-amp connector wire and a "socket" of some sort. just look in the back of the amp for a hole which says something like"mic i/o" and you've got it

Wow, thats pretty ghetto, to be honest that thing wouldn't last you in gigs, no way, theres no way that your voice can be projected over a gig situation with drums and all those instruments, but if those speakers are good then it might happen. Shure mics are pretty good, depends what series, good vocal mics are shure 58s or beta 58.

Well just what kind is your reciever? If you are looking for a cheap one that will do the job, get a behrinnger mixer, you can get small ones that have in ear aux jacks in it. Which is pretty kick ass.

tru dat! If you're gonna go with the amp idea then ask for "3 prong female, to 1/4 inch jack cables".

PA stands for Public Address.....not "Personal Amplification"

oh, whoops. well, i can either use two house speakers or a half stack

but thanks guys that's a much better idea than the one i had and i'll have to give it a try

Speaking of ghetto sound systems, when my band performed at my school, we had three vocalists, two guitars, piano, cello and drums, and all of it was amplified on guitar amps including the voices!!! isn't that shameful? In a hall 20 by 60 meters. But amazingly it worked.

that's all that matters, man. if it works. i went up to radio shack to see how much a 3 prong female to 1/4 jack would cost. 22.....fucking......dollars. Boycott Radio Shack, they've been ripping people off for years.