Basic Gigging Gear? (1/4" to XLR Gear?)

[lsc9x]

Hi!

I thought this would be an easy question to answer - until I saw the thousands of possible combinations of gear I could use.

Here is my basic setup and what I want to do. ANY help in the right direction is appreciated!

- MacBook Pro running Ableton Live
- Presonus AudioBox USB Audio Unit
- 2 1/4" outs (Left and Right) from the AudioBox

I have an "economy" setup, for sure, but what I am trying to figure out is how to get the best possible signal from my AudioBox to a typical club PA system. The AudioBox has nice output, but I am skeptical about just hooking up 2 1/4" to XLR adapter cables in a club and hoping it both works and sounds good! I would guess that at the very least I need some kind of pre-amp and possibly a noise reducer... but that's just a blind guess.

Let's assume that I have to connect with XLR cables. So, at the very least, I need 2 1/4" to XLR conversions.

But that's where my knowledge falls apart. There are SO many boxes out there and many of them do different things... I can't make heads or tails of it all! There are signal boosters, noise reducers, balanced to unbalanced (and vica versa) converters, pre-amps, unpowered units, battery powered units, signal splitters... I don't know what I am looking for!

If I were to take a "wild guess" I would say that I probably need a converter/signal booster and some kind of noise reducer. But that's really just a random guess.

Any suggestions? Thx!

[jpleong]

The Audiobox outputs are on balanced TRS 1/4" jacks so you should be fine with 1/4" TRS Male to XLR-M cables.

JP