Why does it sound like shit live????!!!!????

  • Thread starter Thread starter maddnotez
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LP Freak":27wh7bki said:
Exactly, crank it up a bit. Most tube amps will love you. ;)

When ever I hear my guitar coming through my monitor I'll tell the sound guy to take it out. I'd much rather hear my cabinet.


wow well thanks guys, im glad i made this thread, definitely have given me some good tips and ideas...Ive always been afraid to turn up alot because of the sound guy getting pissed an dmaking me sound bad on purpose type thinking....Im going to blast it next time..

Maybe even bring my full stack if they let me lol


Ive just neevr NOT had a monitor on stage, even at good clubs with good sound guys....

I guess I just need to go wireless and see what it really sounds like out front.
 
Honestly a full stack is a great idea. That or raising your 4x12 on crates or something. I used to full stack it in a band and actually never had to turn my amp up as much as before because it was right at ear level. Always could hear myself, didn't kill the room and looked cool as fuck :rock:
 
maddnotez":23nrc6w7 said:
LP Freak":23nrc6w7 said:
Exactly, crank it up a bit. Most tube amps will love you. ;)

When ever I hear my guitar coming through my monitor I'll tell the sound guy to take it out. I'd much rather hear my cabinet.


wow well thanks guys, im glad i made this thread, definitely have given me some good tips and ideas...Ive always been afraid to turn up alot because of the sound guy getting pissed an dmaking me sound bad on purpose type thinking....Im going to blast it next time..

Maybe even bring my full stack if they let me lol


Ive just neevr NOT had a monitor on stage, even at good clubs with good sound guys....

I guess I just need to go wireless and see what it really sounds like out front.
Well the idea is to "crank it up" to be mixed with the band on stage though. Not so much to be so loud that the sound guy has you off out front. There's a happy medium. :thumbsup:
 
steve_k":2wbbe35r said:
You might try letting someone play your rig while you walk out front and listen to the band and have the sound man make some adjustments before you go on.

This, or use a wireless, and listen to your rig at the board. Dial it in according to how it sounds out front.
 
Just have him put a hair of your sound in the monitor if it makes you feel better. Use your cabinet volume so you can hear yourself on stage.
 
One reason to invest in a wireless...I walk all over the fuckin place and listen to the whole band during soundcheck...worth its weight in gold
 
Every reply is a good tip. I have a wireless and I'll go out to the board and talk to the sound guy and offer to buy him a drink. When you approach him with humility and treat him like he really matters, most of them come around. Of course there is always the one that just sucks. I like the idea of a full stack, I wish my back did ( I've had 5 surgeries so far). :cry:
 
Get a wireless and see how you sound out front. There were times when I gigged with a Bogner xtc 1/2 stack that sounded like The Voice of God onstage, but through the PA sounded like shit! This is one thing I really dig about my Kemper - I can send them a signal every night they don't have to fuck with on the PA - just set my levels and done, no EQ, no miking, no bullshit. What I hear in my monitors is what goes out front.

Not saying you need a Kemper, just that when you start miking an amp you really need to be out front because you could be getting fucked by a bad sound guy. Best amp in the world won't be worth 10 cents live if your sound guy sucks, unless you are playing some tiny shithole that doesn't mic the amps.

Pete
 
Even if I run 2 cabinets, I still prefer them side by side. They sound way bigger that way. :thumbsup:
 
maddnotez":2cllcfyq said:
bubbastain":2cllcfyq said:
What exactly is the other guitar player playing?


Crate Gx something or other solid state. Avatar cab with god knows what inside. (nothing good) and an Ibanez Gio :thumbsdown:


See, Tone is in the fingers.... :lol: :LOL: Just kidding. I saw a band last year at a local club and one guitar player had a B-52 100watt tube head and the other had a Marshall solid state head of some sort. Couldn't even hear the B-52 dude at all. That Marshall SS head cut like a mother fucker and sounded pretty good except for being too loud. Definitely need to get a long ass cord or wireless or have someone play your stuff so you can see what it sounds like out front.
 
squank":3osu6wqv said:
maddnotez":3osu6wqv said:
rlord1974":3osu6wqv said:
More info is required.

Does it sound like crap through your cabinet? Through the monitors? Through the front of house? Is it a house gig (i.e., same soundman every time) or are they different gigs?

This time, same sound guy as always when we play this specific club.

Hard to hear just my cab during soundcheck but I guess monitors.

Cant hear the front of the hous while on stage...

But the one really weird thing was the soundguy told me to turn up. I was at a higher volume than at practice and i could barely hear myself with the amp right behind me.
Several HUGE factors that often get overlooked (or ignored because 'there's nothing I can do about it'):

Mic - bring your own. The club may have a good name mic, but how many times has it been dropped? I wait for the sound guy to mic up my cab, and then I switch mics. I use a Sennheiser 421, so I can actually adjust the bass boost right on the mic, if needed.

As a corollary to the mic issue, is mic placement and angle. If you haven't done much recording, it will be a HUGE revelation when you start moving the mic around even a little bit. Conventional wisdom has us mic the speaker off axis, about 1 to 1.5" from the doping on the cone. What if you can't see the cone through your grill cloth? Deal with it. Find a way. Use a flashlight, take out a speaker and note its position. Either way you figure it out, mark it with some tape on your grill cloth. Then move it toward the center a little. Big change. Then angle it 30 or 45 degrees to the grill cloth. Again, big changes. This right here can solve almost ALL live tone issues.

Try all this mic placement stuff at home first, so you'll know what kind of adjustments you need to make to the mic, depending on the change you want at a particular gig.

Speaking of that, make sure you are micing up the speaker you want. If you have a mix of speakers in your cab, you'll just have to, choose the one you want. If one speaker doesn't sound great, especially after you move the mic around a bit, then try another speaker. Don't try some mid-field mix of the two, because that just won't work live.

You should be able to take care of MOST tone issues by swapping/adjusting the mic. Really learn this, and you'll never need to talk to the sound man.

Board - all boards seem to sound different. It all gets down to the mic pre. Get your Line 6 Relay wireless, and wander out to the board during sound check. Now, this is the touchy part, because most sound men are simultaneously 1) arrogant know-it-alls; 2) clueless on how to get great guitar tone from the speaker out the mains; and 3) extremely territorial about their 'sound kingdom'. The truth is, you may not get him to make any changes to the board. I've run into many sound guys like this. You just have to take it. If you try to push a soundman who has dug his heels in, it usually means he will get pissed and tube your sound even worse, or he will completely cut you out of the mix.

But if you talk with him and ask him to make basic changes, you might get some cooperation. How you ask it is very important. "Can you give me some more low end?" is MUCH better than, "Turn the bass EQ knob up." It might seem like a small difference, but the first one is asking the sound man to use his skill and equipment to make an improvement. The second one is simply you ordering him to turn a knob on a piece of equipment.

You might have a cooperative sound guy that means well, so he'll respond with, "That will sound mushy," or "you don't want to drown out the bass." Even if you think it's BS, just ask the same question another way. "Ok, man. Can you drop my highs a little?"

Good luck with it. I've fought it for years, and in the end, you just have to realize that your live sound will usually not be great. But you can make it pretty good by learning the mic adjustments.
All true ;) Great advise
Get your own good mike, find the sweet spot, mark it on the cab somehow, and get the soundguy on your side early on, they will make or break you every time you play.
 
stratotone":1g4a4vyv said:
Get a wireless and see how you sound out front. There were times when I gigged with a Bogner xtc 1/2 stack that sounded like The Voice of God onstage, but through the PA sounded like shit! This is one thing I really dig about my Kemper - I can send them a signal every night they don't have to fuck with on the PA - just set my levels and done, no EQ, no miking, no bullshit. What I hear in my monitors is what goes out front.

Not saying you need a Kemper, just that when you start miking an amp you really need to be out front because you could be getting fucked by a bad sound guy. Best amp in the world won't be worth 10 cents live if your sound guy sucks, unless you are playing some tiny shithole that doesn't mic the amps.

Pete

Pete,

If the sound guy sucks he'll make the Kemper sound like ass too. That's where having a rig can help, if possible you can aim it out to the crowd and at least that will sound good. I played with a sound guy that had me so quiet you couldn't hear me at all, this was with a 3 piece, me bass and drums. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:
 
guitarmike":3iimrwub said:
stratotone":3iimrwub said:
Get a wireless and see how you sound out front. There were times when I gigged with a Bogner xtc 1/2 stack that sounded like The Voice of God onstage, but through the PA sounded like shit! This is one thing I really dig about my Kemper - I can send them a signal every night they don't have to fuck with on the PA - just set my levels and done, no EQ, no miking, no bullshit. What I hear in my monitors is what goes out front.

Not saying you need a Kemper, just that when you start miking an amp you really need to be out front because you could be getting fucked by a bad sound guy. Best amp in the world won't be worth 10 cents live if your sound guy sucks, unless you are playing some tiny shithole that doesn't mic the amps.

Pete

Pete,

If the sound guy sucks he'll make the Kemper sound like ass too. That's where having a rig can help, if possible you can aim it out to the crowd and at least that will sound good. I played with a sound guy that had me so quiet you couldn't hear me at all, this was with a 3 piece, me bass and drums. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

I disagree. They don't have to tweak anything, just have a good level. Once the gig starts if I'm not sure of the sound guy I'll move where I can hear the mix. If I can't hear me ( or vocals, or whatever) I let him know.

Sound guys I have in my current bands are awesome. In the past though I've had guys fired if the same issues happen over and over. Sound guy works for the band, not the other way around. God help you if it's the venue sound guy though :(
 
stratotone":21dqar9g said:
guitarmike":21dqar9g said:
stratotone":21dqar9g said:
Get a wireless and see how you sound out front. There were times when I gigged with a Bogner xtc 1/2 stack that sounded like The Voice of God onstage, but through the PA sounded like shit! This is one thing I really dig about my Kemper - I can send them a signal every night they don't have to fuck with on the PA - just set my levels and done, no EQ, no miking, no bullshit. What I hear in my monitors is what goes out front.

Not saying you need a Kemper, just that when you start miking an amp you really need to be out front because you could be getting fucked by a bad sound guy. Best amp in the world won't be worth 10 cents live if your sound guy sucks, unless you are playing some tiny shithole that doesn't mic the amps.

Pete

Pete,

If the sound guy sucks he'll make the Kemper sound like ass too. That's where having a rig can help, if possible you can aim it out to the crowd and at least that will sound good. I played with a sound guy that had me so quiet you couldn't hear me at all, this was with a 3 piece, me bass and drums. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

God help you if it's the venue sound guy though :(

Exactly.......and, if said sound guy is actually a DJ pulling double duty as a sound guy for the house bands, you are pretty much fucked before you ever get started.
 
I've been gigging steadily for over 25 years.
Never had the guitar in the monitors on purpose.
Current band is one guitar, bass, drums and vocals that's it.
Luckily three of us have done FOH engineer work so we usually don't have a problem figuring out what we need to do at a particular venue.
Most of the time the venue sound guy will let us work with him. I always, always, have one of our guys stand out front and listen to the FOH guitar mix and have him tell me what to tweak.
The biggest thing I think is the the bass response of the stage and the room. That is the only part of the EQ that moves a lot depending on the site.
Empty room sound check, your levels will need to come up between 10-20% when the room is filled with screaming people.
Outdoors, your sound check levels should be fine unless the crowd is really, really loud.
 
I bought a cheap older Carvin vertical slant 2x12, put some V30's in it that I had around, and place it next to me as a side fill. This is in addition to my 4x12 behind me in the standard location facing forward. This helps me be more mobile across the stage without losing my volume and tone. You will no longer need your guitar in the monitors blowing back that crappy, thin ass tone.
 
Interesting responses here for sure.

Monitors...I've done both and gotten great sounds either way. I've done both and it's sounded like shit regardless. Sometimes a particular room or stage just sounds bad acoustically and vice versa. Then again other factors come into play...do you really need monitors, is the room too small to worry about it, is it big enough you need them, how loud will the soundman let you get...I mean I'm going to do whats best for the band. If the soundman doesn't want me cranking up as loud as I want I'm not going to throw a fit. However a good soundman...which I've worked with many usually are gonna let you move some volume out of your amp...and they'll be able to give you some monitors as well.

I will say this though...some of you guys playing hundreds of gigs and not using monitors...I guess if you say so. In my experience, if the PA's good and the soundman competent enough, the room big enough...I'll take guitar in my monitors anyday of the week. I would much prefer to have "some" than none.

I've played small rooms up to 8k and I'd much rather have some of me in the monitors. In fact I usually want kick, vocals and a bit of my guitar. That's just my experience.

Few things I did do...used 4x12 slant. Spread the sound out a bit more, made it easier for me to always find a spot to hear my guitar. Mark your mic speaker placement...as someone said, move it around find the spot you like. Yes there are some "general" placement rules but do what EVH said...what sounds best to you. Carry your own mic...and stand. Let the soundman know though...last thing those guys want you doing is plugging or unplugging a hot mic. Feel the soundman out...they'll either work with you or they want, not much you can do either way so. I've run into some real turds but by and large...most were willing to work with us because we were cool and professional with them.

Just my experience.
 
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