A question of LIVE amp placement

[SillySillyStacy]

Hi all!! I have a silly question about what may turn out to be a matter of opinion then an answer but I would love to hear opinions...
We are adding a new guitarist to our band. She is the ryth guitar and my questions is this.... Where is the most common/place of preference, as far as amp placement behind us? No amps are mic'ed if that matters. We have a rehearsal place and all the amps and drums are on the back wall with the PA speakers out front. Set up like a stage almost. This is only for practice but I would rather have them set up and ready. So does it matter if both guitar amps are on the same side of the drummer or is it better to split them?
Thanks for the input...

Stacy

[boingoman]

I tend to go for the "band in a circle" type practice set-up.

The most important thing for most of us in terms of practice are to be able to hear ourselves, each other, and not to go deaf. A circle helps with this a lot. I find it helpful to put the bass next to the drums, on the snare side. That helps them lock in, and keep the groove. Guitar amps do well up on chairs, or angled, so the person playing can hear themselves. This also cuts some of the mud. I also find that standing away from your own amp a bit helps you hear it and others better. Keeping guitars a bit away from each other and from the drums makes for a bit easier time hearing them clearly.

With no monitors, a good place for the lead vocals is at the top of the circle, opposite the drums. The speakers are next to/behind the drums, up high, pointing at the vocalist.

[Toki987]

I like the band in a semi circle setup for practive and live with the amps back about 3 to 4 ft from the player. The pickers tend to mix themselves together dynamically much better, making it real easy to put it all through a FOH system and still have the natural dynamics, just bigger. Putting the guitar amps on either side of the drummer and bassist puts audible separation between the like instruments which helps to prevent clashing of tones and muddiness. Eq difference and playing technique between the two are a large factor as well.

[earworm]

i want to add a question here:

where do you put the FOH AMPS ?

i'm used to putting the amps for the monitors next to the stage,
since i got a 16-in-4-out snake that goes to the stage,
the 4 XLR outputs come from my mixer aux and goto the XLR inputs of the two monitor amps next to the stage...

but what about the FOH amps? there's no room for extra cables in the snake, so OR you put the FOH amps next to you and use long speakon cables,
or you also put those amps next to the stage and use long XLR cables from mixer to the amps....

whats the best option? long XLR or long speakon

[boingoman]

As close to the speakers as possible.

That being said, I have a rack for small gigs that has an eq, an fx processor, and two QSC PLX amps in it for mains and monitors. I'm about twenty feet from stage, so I set my mixer on top and run 50 ft speaker cables to everything. If I have to be farther than a 50-footer can reach, the amps go on stage, and I run signal lines from FOH.

[earworm]

i'm gonna be 50 feet from the stage most of the time,

i'm starting to look out for a snake,

aren't there snakes with 6 XLR "sends" instead of the normal 4 XLR "sends" ?

and i asked around about it, seems like i can get away with a cheap snake,
i'm on a budget of course, so can't afford the real awesome stuff,
but i just hope i'll get me some stuff that doesn't break down too quick or that has bad contacts or buzzing and humming in it...

[Toki987]

Originally Posted by earworm

i'm gonna be 50 feet from the stage most of the time,

i'm starting to look out for a snake,

aren't there snakes with 6 XLR "sends" instead of the normal 4 XLR "sends" ?

and i asked around about it, seems like i can get away with a cheap snake,
i'm on a budget of course, so can't afford the real awesome stuff,
but i just hope i'll get me some stuff that doesn't break down too quick or that has bad contacts or buzzing and humming in it...

Why are you using 4 sends for the monitors?

[earworm]

ehm,
4 aux sends go to 4 monitors onstage..;thats what i mean,
the stagebox onstage has 16xlr inputs that goto the mixer,
and it has 4 xlr ouputs that come from the mixer...

is that something abnormal to do?

where do you connect your monitors to?

[Toki987]

if you are running your monitor chain in a mono configuration, you only need one output from the mixer end of the snake to go the amps and use a splitter to sub the send down to as many feeds to monitor amps onstage as you need, which would leave you with 3 sends from the mixer that could go to your power amps from the mixer, eq, or crossover. Whatever you need.

[earworm]

but that doesn't give you any controll, right?
if the guitarist wants to hear him louder trough his monitor,
and the drummer only wants to hear vox and bass,

you're talking about feeding the same "stereo" main out mix to the monitors?
is that how its done most of the time,

i thought its normal to give each monitor a different monitor mix

[Farview]

Earworm: It is normal to have more than one monitor mix, but it sounds like you are doing a small show. Are you running the mains in stereo? If you are, you could have 2 mixes for monitors (aux 1 and 2) and send the stereo mains down the snake in the other 2 snake returns.

To the original question: I prefer to have the guitar amps set up on the side, facing inward. One guitar on each side. It creates a stereo effect that helps separate the parts better. I also like this for live as well, (as long as the amps are mic'd) as this keeps the stage volume on the stage and doesn't mess with the sound guy.

[Toki987]

no, I'm talking about sending 1 mono out down the snake to the to the monitor amps and splitting it to the individual amps so you can feed them all in mono if your band can read the monitors without having to have personal submixes. Or, You could use two sends (1,2) and have stereo monitors and pan accordingly as needed, and have a stereo pair left (3,4) for the FOH amps if you wanted to work in stereo out front or use just (3 with a splitter)) and bridge the amps for mono which would give you one more to use for 3 distinct monitor amps.
I personally think stereo FOH is a waste of power and signal processing unless the room is small enough that everyone can hear the pan effects without losing something from being on the wrong side of the room.

If that is not the case, and you want stereo out front and individual submixes for monitors then you need a monitor mixer onstage that would allow you send the same discreet channels from the stage that goes down the snake, to a mixer that has multiple outs to properly pan and mix the monitor environment to suite each player providing it is supported by enough dedicated amps to power each output of the monitor mixer.

how many outs do you have on your mixer, and can you route each channel to multiple outs?

here`s a link to one brand of Monitor mixer. I used a Rane for yrs but that is old stuff now. http://www.music123.com/Crest-XRM-Ra...urce=froogleAA


I still like the old dinosaur days where you had 8 A7's and turn one on each side around to face the band .