Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

JW123 - Sorry took so long to reply.

Thank you for some really good and very valuable incites. The situation is that I am not looking to join a band but rather do my own project. Now have a guitarist with whom I seem to hit rather well. The future will show the rest. With that in mind him and I are more in control of the overall sound and what is going on in the band.

PA
I will not be getting a PA with monitors. That is I will be getting the PA but only two speakers for the right and the left. It will be used for rehearsals which is what we will be doing for a while until we are ready to hit that stage. The PA does have connections for the monitors though. I am sure it is not the kind you like because it is a small version. It is a mixer and amplifier in a same box. But it is stereo an important bit. The two speakers are on the sticks and are at the head level. Therefore I do not have to crank it up all 125 db to hear anything.

We are not talking about an auditorium but about a rehearsal room.

May be it makes sense to get the bigger and better PA right off the bat and do not mess with smaller ones but I am on a budget. Rehearsals and auditions of band members is the first priority at this stage. Besides I will be running my computer equipment through it so that when a band member is not at the rehearsal his part can be played from the recording software.

Vocals
You say it helped you hear vocals much better. How do you run vocals? Any specific pre-amp you using for the vocal mike? Any wisdom you might like to share on this subject. I am all ears

WAH
Seems you and I are using the same if not similar POD. I have got the tones I wanted all but the wah. Not sure if the stand alone Wah (post or pre) will work better with this unit, but the built in Wah is the one and only thing I do not have configured to my liking. It does not seem to have wide enough range or something. Not sure. I will have to pock around more with it.


Thank you for the information. This is the kind of stuff a store salesman would not know or tell.

AN,

For a rehearsal situation like yours just position your speakers in a manner that you can hear them well. You dont need monitors for that. Plug your preamp in the pa and you should sound great for rehearsals.

I never rehearse like this anymore, we pretty much just play live. In a live situation particularly if you are playing harder rock you will need seperate monitors to hear whats going on.

Our PA system has 8500 watts going to an 18 sub and a 2x15 top with a 2 in horn. This is Yamaha equip. We have 4 Peavey monitors with 15 in speakers and a 2000 watt amp driving them. We run our pa in mono, Ive only tried to run stereo a couple of times live and it gets real muddy or mushy sounding to me. Mono is just simple to run and in a live loud room you loose all the nuances of stereo seperation anyway.

The problem you will have is that you will get comfortable with your stereo rehearsal room and then when a gig comes up you will more than likely open for another band and play on their pa. If they dont have good monitors or dont know what they are doing you will be in for a shock, cause its not going to sound anything like what youve gotten used to in rehearsal. The larger the room the thump or presence you will feel. This doesnt bother me anymore cause Im used to it, but last fall we did an outdoor gig and its a whole different world again.

One word of advice, if you decide to play live, cut back the effects some in your preamp. All that gooey mush that sounds so good in headphones or in your pa will get lost live. Try to get a good straightford tone that cuts.

I hope I made some sense here.

Thank you once again.

Sounds like:

A) I will have some re-programming to do this weekend (no big deal)

B) When time comes for a gig I will have to upgrade to a bigger and better things to not be defendant on some-one else sound setup.

Good info JW. Thank you.

AN,

You just need some way to monitor your preamp. When Im playing at home with the POD I just put it in the Effects Return on the back of one of my amps. This bypasses the preamp section of your amp so the amplifier doesnt taint the sound. A lot of guys I know plug these all in one preamp devices to the front end of thier amp. Then they tweak their tone with the eq controls on the amp and the preamp also. The way I do it I bypass the preamp altogether and all im hearing is the POD and the amp section of my amp. I hope this makes sense again.

You really wouldnt need some big amp for a gig, just a powered monitor would work. Just plug a feed out of your preamp into the monitor, or even take the PA head you have and one speaker if its not too large. This way you would be hearing the same setup you are used to practicing with and you could raise or lower the volume of your pa head without changing the tone that you are used to. Then run your preamp into the mixer of the house main pa, I like to use the XLR output into the board cause its a lot cleaner. Read up on your preamp. My POD if configured wrong will bypass the cabinet simulator in the unit. These units are great but learn the manual if you are going to use one.

JW123
Got my new home http://www.annexrehearsalstudios.com/studios.html

I got Yamaha PA, legged it to the studio with help from my other guitarist. We got it all setup and plugged in. POD sounds awesome through it! Just had to do some minor tweaking on the mixer EQ. The tones sound like in headphone only a lot louder!

Thanks for all your input. I will be asking more questions as time goes by. POD + PA is a good combination.

Grats, Alex, that's great.

Thank you Andragon - things started to move. Chris and I now have place to workout the new material and audition members. Sweet! I remembered that soundbite you got on your profile: "There is only one rule of metal: Play it f**k loud!"

Alexander Im following up again.

I used the POD for a full on gig once again. Last week I worked on a lot of new settings, but as the gig went on I found myself returning to the Marshall JCM 800 setting Ive fine tuned. Sat I went in in the afternoon and played in the club full pa and volume to set the unit and thought I had some great sounds, but onsce we started playing, most of my new sounds just didnt cut it. By the middle of the second set I had reverted back to the Marshall sound and used it the rest of the night.

Ive got some more work cut out for me.

Our bassist was talking after the gig and said man weve got to get the amps back. Actually this weekend I had the bass overblowing my sound in the monitors. I was just getting enough sound thru the monitors of my guitar to play. Im pretty active and kept out front of the mains more than on stage so I could hear the whole mix. Out front this unit works great but on stage its a little different and takes time to get used to it. Our singer came up after our bassist said lets get the amps and made the statement We are sounding better than ever out front since you guys left the amps at home. So we may have some sort of drama brewing within ourselfs over usning amps or not. Either way we will still rock the house.

The first gig you did ampless every one loved it, the second did not worked out quite well.

The first ampless gig proved that it can be done, the second proved that you guys need to experiment and learn the proper ampless stage setup.

To fiddle around with the tones on the POD I strongly recommend Line 6 Edit software. It is much easier and much more precise real time editing. Hook up your POD to the PA and to the laptop, then bring up the editor and go to town.

The tones I use are not based on the default preset amps. It is another set of virtual amp/cabinet modulation with some tweaking and EQ. The only thing I changed on the POD for PA setup was reverb. It is off for PA, make the sound tighter.

I've noticed what a difference it makes to have the speakers on the pols, so they are at the head level instead of what I used to - on the floor.

We have a practice stage at our studios. It is being finished this week. I will try the setup on stage under controlled conditions at some point in the near future.

Warning: There's fckin language in the link. Don't like it; don't click.
Makes fun of extreme metalheads and every close-minded musician.
LINK

No the first gig sounded great and everyone loved it and the second gig was no different. I just would like to have a few more selections.I have a decent clean and a decent in between clean and dirty sound, I would just like to have more.I dont use presets I go thru the manual and pull up amps that I know what they sound like. Ive owned almost everything under the sun at one time or another. A good thing to do is if you like a certain sound a band has research the exact amp and tweak from there.Im not ver y computor literate and realy dont like using software.Im happy with the POD and have one really great sound that goes with our band, Its basically the sound Ive always strived for with my amps. Is it perfect no, but it has worked well in 2 rooms with our pa.Im just concerned my bass player will want to go back to  amps and then it will end. I cant imagine using this unit if he is using an amp. He will blow me off the stage with his volume. On the other hand the one agreement we have in my band is to keep it fun. If that aint happening then why bother.Im pretty anal about my live tone. When I walk the room this unit sounds better to me than an amp. When Im standing on stage its just no the same as the amp. Im trying to teach this dog new tricks.Heres pics I posted elswhere on here. The one Im on the floor you can see the POD in the background. 



The second picture I brought a couple of small amps as props, you can see my mini stack behind me.

Dude, Andragon, that video seriously made me laugh out loud. I didn't LOL, cause LOLing is for pussies!!! I laughed louder than that!! LOUDER!! HAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

As far as the amps go, you know, to tell you the truth, I'm really getting into my Fenders. They're great for Reggae. The little Studio 85 was kind of shocking to hear for a 1x12 solid state. I found it at a pawn shop for $50. I thought it was just a little practice amp at first and passed it up. Then I read some Harmony Central reviews on it and it had an overall rating of 9.3. So I hauled ass back there and bought it.. Freaking great score. It's every bit as good as my DeVille which is no slouch either.

At our last gig, the other bands brought half stacks and huge pedal boards. We brought:

1-1x12 Fender Studio 85
1-1x12 Gibson SG
1-1x12 Ibanez Sound Wave 25 (Bass amp)
1- Crybaby
1- SD pickup booster

And flooded that place with a killer sound.

Altogether, the cost of our whole amp and pedal setup for the guitars and bass was $450. Hahaha.

By the way.. All guitars being played were Squiers.

Andragon - I am speechless! Love it. In to the play list it goes...

Well 3 gigs into an ampless world, my bassist decided that he wants to start using amps again. I said cool. In my band I guess Im kinda in the leader role and everyone is a little intimidated with me on decisions.

I said whatever floats your boat man.

Anyway the last couple of days, Ive been playing on my half stack at the house and am loving it again. Our next show is a larger room with taller ceiling so I will probably be on the amp again the next show.

I was just messing with my Mesa Triple Rec. I put 1 pair of Yellowjackets in the tube slots and then a quartet of EL 34s. Im loving the tone of this amp other than its a little tinty sounding still on the high end. When I roll off the treble I lose too much and then when I dial it back in its too much.

I guess you can tell from my post that Im very anal about my tone and my bands tone.

Im going to keep using the POD unit for smaller tighter rooms and then maybe bring out an amp for larger rooms.

Keep Rockin

No worries, guys. Best part: "Vegetarian progressive-core metal... and Lounge" xD