General Music Chat

Equalizing the room gives you more headroom. You can play louder without distortion. If you've got something that automatically balances the EQ that's a dream come true. Isn't technology wonderful?!

Yeah JW I've done it too, get to feelin frisky and say hell with it, I'm gonna CRANK this puppy...But on the flip side, when I do I stil lkeep the rhythm parts at a good level so they blend, that's when a volume pedal is indispensible. I can absolutely scream on leads and still blend nicely for the rhythm parts. That's also a big part of the reason I use a dual amp setup with the MX for cleans and the Super Reverb for raunch. The MX [as I've said a number of times] will stay clean no matter what the volume level, and I can set it so it just gets enough volume for leads and carry on, then crank the Super to 10 and it's great for most leads except when I want really clean lead, and often for rhythm parts too, thanks to the volume pedal. The volume pedal also lets me get full pickup output at all times, so I don't lose highs when I pull it back.

If it's a bit loud even on leads, I simply don't push the volume pedal to the floor...still gets a great sound and I don't have to stop playing and tinker with the knobs if it needs fine tuning, just step on the pedal.

Then there's the really small clubs or a manager that wants you to be really really low volume...I bring the Champ for those...One place we played in Houston was run by a little short oriental lady under 5' tall, she wanted us so quiet the drummer actually brought pencils to play drums the first two sets and I couldn't crank the Champ more than about halfway...now that's just getting ridiculous...The next night we were outside and I had the MX (my only amp at that time) cranked to 7 or 7 1/2...and that's freakin LOUD...it will blow a 100 watt Marshall right out of the water at that volume level...and still clean...what amazes me is the very same speakers are still in the Kustom 2x12 and working perfect, and they were reconed when I bought them...they still sound like brand new and I've used them at volume levels I expected to blow speakers.

I was wondering about all this, I thought you were happy with the 20 watter and usually used the attenuator with the half stack, I guess it was just one of those nights...I love it loud, really loud, and always have but 99% of the time I control the urge to make the amp blow my hair around...but even at low, small club volume I still usually manage to get enough bass it sounds like a 10 foot bulldog barking on the low notes...I love that huge sound...funny thing is, it's not all bass that does it, I have to crank the mids a lot to get that affect, bass stays around 6 or 7. The only time I can't get that sound is when I have to use the Champ, it sounds great but doesn't have the bass response to get the bass pumping like that.

This is a funny addition.

Last night I pulled my amp out of the trailer. I havent touched the controls since last sat at the gig. I brought it in and plugged up. I didnt touch the master and when I turned it on I expected it to blow my head off. But, it really wasnt that loud.

Freaks me out. I guess our soundguy got happy with the volume onthe board cause its actually at a very comfortable playing level.

This is just too weird after doing all this confessing, Im not guilty after all.

Did the soundguy get happy with free drinks?

Usually I end up with the band telling me to turn it up. That's given me hell trying to get the sound I want, since the sound I want is a tube amp cranked to 11.

Same here Pete. I run sound for the band from onstage so I always think people out there are saying, "Oh, yeah. He's the soundman. That's why he's louder than everyone else." so I guess I go too far the other way and people eventually have to tell me to turn up. Back in the early 70's I had purchased a blackface Fender Bassman with the small 2-15 cabinet from a bass player who had put 15" JBL's in there. I played lead guitar through it and it always sounded great on 10, but got a lot of complaints. I had gone to band practice and a bunch of friends helped grab my stuff and carry it in and hook it up. I turned the amp on and didn't have much volume. I turned it up to 10 and it had all the overdrive and sustain, but had the volume of a transistor radio. I thought maybe it had bounced around on my gravel road and shook a tube loose, but they were all tight. Then I noticed they had plugged the cab into the ext. spkr. jack instead of the spkr. jack. I replugged it and there it was...all the volume I needed (too loud again). Found out that the spkr jack is a switched jack with a load so that if the amp were accidentally left on with no speaker plugged in, it wouldn't burn up. So plugging in to the ext. spkr. jack still let sound through, but after the switched load. This gave me an idea. I bought a Kustom 100 bass head (100 watts solid state...clean) and ran my 2-15 cab with it. I plugged my guitar into the bassman and ran an instrument cable from ext. spkr. jack out into the input on the Kustom. Then I cranked the bassman and used the Kustom for overall volume. It was great. You always had the same consistent sound, but could change the volume to suit the gig.

Rat's Ass, smart idea.

Freaks me out. I guess our soundguy got happy with the volume onthe board cause its actually at a very comfortable playing level.

This and remembering some of the other comments about this soundguy, methinks he would be handed his walking papers right about now if it were me in your shoes...

Sorry but that's the way I see it. Friends or not, once it starts making the band sound bad and you start getting complaints as a result, it's time to bite the bullet and do something about it.

The best sound man I ever saw got everything set right during sound check, then sat back and almost never touched the board all night...once it's there it doesn't need to be changed unless someone in the band lets him know more monitor or less is needed. That's the way the above mentioned sound man did it. The only time he touched the board was when I couldn't hear the vocals, I'd signal him with a finger to the ear, or when he had to bring effects in and back out in a couple of places. The rest of the time he sat back, usually with his arms folded across his chest, and never touched a thing. we sounded GREAT...always...

I was always amazed how good it sounded when I would get out in front of the PA and hear the out front mix instead of the onstage mix. Even when we were having a rough time onstage, the PA mix was like listening to the album turned up loud. I could snap my fingers into the mic during our loudest lead and you would hear it. Every note of everything was there, or he wasn't happy. The drummer had a set of chimes, like the wind chimes on a front porch. You could hear them...I even whispered into the mic one night during a quieter section of a song, he told me later he could hear what I said at the board. I did it just to see, we had talked about it before. He wanted it that good, so we decided to see if he could actually do it...but I didn't tell him when I was going to try it.

Other bands would come listen to us from a club a couple of blocks down the street during their breaks. Heavy metal bands rushing to the club to see our classic rock set, that was cool...freaked me out the first time it happened, we're two songs from a break, these four guys with 80's hair and spandex come running inside, right up to the stage, start talking to each other and pointing, grinning all the while, we didn't know what was going on. We finished the set and talked to them, they were the metal band from down the street, they had heard about us and started 15 minutes early so they could catch us before we went on break. After that almost every band that played there would do the same.

One guy asked me how we got it to sound so good, I told him "best sound man in town". He said he hadn't seen Tom touch anything, I told him that's exactly why he's the best.

The best sound man I ever saw got everything set right during sound check, then sat back and almost never touched the board all night...once it's there it doesn't need to be changed unless someone in the band lets him know more monitor or less is needed.

That's the way I try to do it when running sound for other bands, although I will occasionally tweak some eq or fx, never making a drastic move. The best soundman I ever knew was the bass player and leader of his own band. He would set the sound at soundcheck and then had a soundman to watch over it while he played. The soundman was also a bassist and would get up there and switch places with Ronnie (the band leader). Ronnie would be at the soundboard and I would watch him with amazement. They were a 6-piece band, with two lead guitarists who also doubled on other instruments. Ronnie knew every song and who did what on each song and played that mixer like an instrument. When one person took a solo, Ronnie already had that channel boosted just a bit, and if another person took a solo immediately after the first solo, Ronnie would back the first off and boost the second smoothly. It was absolutely one of the best sounding local bands in the area, mainly because Ronnie knew every nuance of every song. People don't run sound like that nowadays and most band members have boost pedals to bring up their own solos so the soundman doesn't have to stay on top of everything like they used to. Thus, Paleopete is absolutely right. The best soundman gets the sound right at first and leaves it alone unless something needs changing. No room for experimentation when it comes to a live show. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Our sound guy was ok, he built all his own sht. Including the light-show. blues and greens when we were mellow, and reds and yellows when we were rockin'. All automated (back in the 70s)
I ran sound for a band, once, it's a hard job, they wanted me back, but I didnt (allthough I probably would do it now) lol..

Another update.

We did a 3 band benefit this weekend. I played with my amp all week at gig level. I didnt turn it in cause I really didnt have it too loud.

Ive got to give props to our sound man this past weekend. We had 3 bands with complete stage changes. I set a schedule and our guy just did a great job switching between bands. When we played I walked the room some and it sounded great out front. Toward the end we had a little rumble out of the monitors. Im not sure why cause I never changed my amp all night. Sometimes I go over and twist my master up a little bit, cause my ears get a little dull, but I just left it alone sat and we sounded great. I dont know if it was the room or what but we had the kick and snare sounding as good as we ever have. I dont know what the difference was but my hats off to our soundguy. We were running in the 102 db range during our set. I actually like it in the 96-98 range but it was clear as a bell.

A little advice to all guitarist that read this. When you practice at home you probably practice at a lower level than your gigs. Something I did this week was cut back the gain on my two distortion channels. When you jump your volume to gig level you might cut back the gain on your amp a little. It will make you amp cut a little better and to my ears settle in the mix better. Both of the other guitarist where commenting on how good my guitar sounded so I guess it was working or they were drunk maybe a little of both. Ha Ha

Everyone have a Great Week and Rock On!

Been doing that for years, found out in the 80's the gain had to be cut for gigs, it tends to make the guitar sound muddy. I found out just by chance, decided I wanrted a little less gain for the place we played since it was more of a country oriented audience generally, and discovered it sounded a lot better. Been pulling the gain and saturation back onstage ever since, it does make a big difference.

I do the same for both stomp boxes and distortion channel of the amp if I use it, less gain always means better sound onstage and it will cut through the mix better without getting muddy. Tried to get that across to a local guitar player a couple of weeks ago. He wouldn't listen, it stayed muddy and indistinct all night...Oh well, his loss...