A question for Greg (and anyone else who want's to chime in)

[Greg_L]

On the subject of the original post.
I dont know the percentages of preamp/poweramp/speaker contributions to the sound, but I know this;

The power amp tubes cooking is very important to the tone. A lot of what people consider to be the holy grail guitar tones were done with pre-master volume amps.

The power amp is very important in the good tone equation.

You know, the Marshall JTM45/Plexi/Super Leads are probably the quintessential, most often considered non-master-volume amps that have become legend because they were so loud and had famous users and all that good shit. They're generally highly regarded for their power amp distortion. The thing is though, they actually had very tight power sections. They had a lot of negative feedback. The power section stayed as clean and tight as it could for as long as it could until it just couldn't handle the power anymore. It was common for people to mod the negative feedback loop to break up the power section sooner. A good chunk of their goodness did actually come from the preamp design and phase inverter meltdown. The "volume" controls on those amps were basically just gain knobs. The amps were stupidly loud whether you had them on 1 or 10. Those old transformers contributed too. Not to mention they were most often partnered with huge cabs full of Greenbacks. They sounded killer because it was just a magical combination of things that just worked together to set the table for everything to follow.

 

[Bubba po]

The band should sound balanced with or without mics. That means everyone must match the drummer. It's not rocket science. I know for me, the bands I play with, we could play au natural. We do it all the time at practices, it's no different live. Sound men are the one's that screw everything up with their goofy hang ups stemming from pure laziness.

This is exactly right. We have our own 4kw 2-way P.A. system for our small-to medium sized gigs. We hardly ever mic anything up except the kick - the PA is beefy enough for the vocals to soar over the top with oodles of headroom and that's how we like it. It's a fact that most non-musos in the audience are happiest when they can hear the singing clearly. The bass bins give a bit of weight to the drums and that's it. We have a very unadulterated live rock sound and it usually draws compliments. PAs shouldn't be a Control Freak's chance to lord it about on a flashy desk, they should just do their job and do it well.

Funny thing happened at our gig tonight; we had a support band because we were a guitarist down and we left out the songs that really needed twin guitars. One of the band's wimmin came up to me and asked who was doing the sound, because their guitarist played loud and was always being asked to turn it down by PA guys. I told her not to worry, that we preferred it if a guitarist played at an "appropriate volume" ( ) and that he should just have it how he wanted it. They did a little soundcheck and he was really quiet, lol. I had to put him through the PA. The moral of the story is, that this poor guy seems to have been bullied by every PA company he'd worked with, for no reason! He had a good sound and he wasn't overly loud. I find that disturbing. I mean, who's working for whom, here?

 

[Greg_L]

Lol. Good story. That's about how it is. I played a show recently and the opening band's guitarist had a 200w Randall something or other. I was like, whoa, this dude is gonna be loud. So I was checking out his rig, and he gave me a demonstration. It sounded like crap to me, but they were like an industrial techno metal goth band, so it was about par for the course. He was playing and talking to me as he ran through his thousands of rack effects settings. He could talk right over it and I could hear his voice fine. So then I asked him how much he turns up for the show, and he said "what do you mean?" Lol. That WAS his stage volume.

 

[minerman]

Lol. Good story. That's about how it is. I played a show recently and the opening band's guitarist had a 200w Randall something or other. I was like, whoa, this dude is gonna be loud. So I was checking out his rig, and he gave me a demonstration. It sounded like crap to me, but they were like an industrial techno metal goth band, so it was about par for the course. He was playing and talking to me as he ran through his thousands of rack effects settings. He could talk right over it and I could hear his voice fine. So then I asked him how much he turns up for the show, and he said "what do you mean?" Lol. That WAS his stage volume.

That's funny man....I for one, have never been shy about using the volume knob at a gig.....

 

[Bubba po]

Lol. Good story. That's about how it is.

I found it completely uncanny and stunningly coincidental that the very thing we'd been discussing before I went out to the gig actually came up as a serious issue. I don't "do" spooky, but it's definitely weird.

I played a show recently and the opening band's guitarist had a 200w Randall something or other. I was like, whoa, this dude is gonna be loud. So I was checking out his rig, and he gave me a demonstration. It sounded like crap to me, but they were like an industrial techno metal goth band, so it was about par for the course. He was playing and talking to me as he ran through his thousands of rack effects settings. He could talk right over it and I could hear his voice fine. So then I asked him how much he turns up for the show, and he said "what do you mean?" Lol. That WAS his stage volume.

That's insane. Did he have in-ear monitoring? Was his drummer a noodle-wristed jessie with 7A balsa wood sticks?

 

[Greg_L]

That's funny man....I for one, have never been shy about using the volume knob at a gig.....

I think most people are pretty reasonable about it. I hear guys that are way too quiet more often than guys that are way too loud. A lot of guys are just fine with help from the PA, and that's fine and all if that's how they wanna do it. But as Lt Boob mentioned, their "finished" sound is at the mercy of a soundguy. He's gonna compress, gate, EQ, etc the guitar to sound how he wants it to sound. If you have adequate stage volume, you as the guitarist can at least be more in control for the people up close.

I kind of take the approach that if the sound guy is not telling me to turn down, then maybe I'm not loud enough! In a perfect world I'd want to be right on the edge of being too loud for me and too loud for the sound guy. I wanna walk that line. I wanna be as loud as I can be without being too loud. I don't think that is unreasonable. And I'm really not even that picky about monitoring. I bitch about it, but I always just deal with it. When playing geetar live, all I need to hear are myself and the drums. I stand in front of my amps, so hearing myself isn't usually a problem. And I've played with some flaky drummers, but this current guy is a solid hitter, so it's never hard to hear him. So most of the time I just ignore my own stage wedge. The sound guy asks me if I'm good in my monitor, and I just answer "yeah whatever" because I don't care too much and he probably won't get it right anyway.

 

[Greg_L]

That's insane. Did he have in-ear monitoring? Was his drummer a noodle-wristed jessie with 7A balsa wood sticks?

You know, I don't remember if he had in-ears. Maybe he did. They were pretty fancy with effects and gothy synths and sampled sound effect tracks and click tracks and shit, so maybe they did use in-ears. I can't relate to any of that stuff. I've never in my life used in ear monitors or live click tracks. I wouldn't even begin to know how to work that stuff.

Their drummer was fantastic. He might have been a limp wristed 7A weakling, but he played real good. I do remember that. Good drummer.

 

[minerman]

I wanna be as loud as I can be without being too loud. I don't think that is unreasonable.

^ This is how I always did a gig man, of course if it's a little room you don't need to crank up loud as fuck, but on the other hand, if I'm gonna play live, in public, I wanna be heard too...

FWIW, I was never the "crazy fuckin' loud" guy, but again, I made a point to be heard too, without being "that" guy...

That's been a long time ago too man, & around here (which is quite different than where you live btw) I really don't know how the little bars handle this now. Back in the day, it wasn't too bad, but that was then...

 

[Bubba po]

You know, I don't remember if he had in-ears. Maybe he did. They were pretty fancy with effects and gothy synths and sampled sound effect tracks and click tracks and shit, so maybe they did use in-ears. I can't relate to any of that stuff. I've never in my life used in ear monitors or live click tracks. I wouldn't even begin to know how to work that stuff.

Their drummer was fantastic. He might have been a limp wristed 7A weakling, but he played real good. I do remember that. Good drummer.

This is obviously a diff'rent strokes situation. It works for them and perhaps I'm a dinosaur.

 

[Greg_L]

This is obviously a diff'rent strokes situation. It works for them and perhaps I'm a dinosaur.

Yes, you and me both are probably dinosaurs, but it didn't work for these guys. His tone was so washy and weak that you couldn't hear him unless you were plastered up against a house speaker. And even then, it was a hiss of fizz. You couldn't hear any notes, chords, noodling, anything. It was just like a white noise of garbage distortion. His tone problem goes beyond a simple volume issue, although being louder probably could have helped.

 

[Greg_L]

^ This is how I always did a gig man, of course if it's a little room you don't need to crank up loud as fuck, but on the other hand, if I'm gonna play live, in public, I wanna be heard too...

FWIW, I was never the "crazy fuckin' loud" guy, but again, I made a point to be heard too, without being "that" guy...

That's been a long time ago too man, & around here (which is quite different than where you live btw) I really don't know how the little bars handle this now. Back in the day, it wasn't too bad, but that was then...

The last band I played with, the other guitar player always bitched that I was too loud. I disagreed because the drums and bass were still plenty audible. I wasn't too loud, he was just not properly equipped. He used a Vox AC50. Nice amp, but he couldn't hear himself because his combo amp pointed at his feet and he stood damn near on top of it. His sound beamed straight out right past his ankles out into the ether. My slant-cab halfstack filled a room with a glorious noise. I used a better rig for the situation. That's my fault? Lol. But then we'd play a show and people would literally get away from his side of the stage because his amp was blasting people right in the face. I didn't last long with that band. Our very own antichef saw me play a show with them. He said we sounded better from outside.

 

[Farview]

What I did was get my sound through a 57. Since most of the world would hear me through a 57, it made sense to me to get my amp to sound right through one. I would adjust the mic position and go.

Of course the scene is probably different now. I really dont remember playing anyplace that we could get away with just vocals through the PA and stage volume.

I do the same thing in the studio, get the sound through the mic. What it sounds like standing in front of it is irrelevant, what the audience hears is the important thing.

 

[Bubba po]

Of course the scene is probably different now. I really dont remember playing anyplace that we could get away with just vocals through the PA and stage volume.

I suppose it depends on the size of the venue and your expectations of what your band ought to sound like. We're in a quite blessed position in that the type of music we play doesn't require an enormous amount of technological input. Our instruments sound perfect for the music we perform and we use the PA to just reinforce that. The idea that in a smallish venue you just can't cut it without playing through a sophisticated system where everything is miked and blended is anathema to me. A good drummer with a quality kit doesn't need much reinforcement in a pub venue. Good kits tuned and played properly just "sing". Perhaps the kick might need a little added weight occasionally, or a bit of overhead miking. The band that supported us tonight were pretty good, but their sound was rubbish compared to ours, and they were using our kit. The reason was they didn't perform it as well. The drummer didn't hit the drums as well as our drummer, the guitarist had feeble sounds. A decent band ought to sound good before the PA stack is even switched on.

 

[Farview]

The places we played weren't really small enough to pull that off. Plus, we were playing metal, that makes a difference as well.

 

[rob aylestone]

The people on stage are the least able to comment on the overall sound balance, they're in the worst possible place. Good sound man or awful, they're the ones you have to trust. If you don't trust them you have no ability to change anything. Sure, they can be truly awful, and you suffer for their incompetence, but there is no choice. On PA supplied gigs, we still take and pay for our sound man. Sometimes he is not allowed to touch, but he happily annoys them. Other times they let him mix. Well worth it. If we asked our guitarist to mix, then we know what we'd hear, same with the drummer.

 

[Greg_L]

The people on stage are the least able to comment on the overall sound balance, they're in the worst possible place.

That's only partially true. I can't complain as I'm playing, but when I watch video or hear the recording afterwards, I can bitch all I ant. We often record our shows for self-critique. I don't know what the crowd hears as it's happening, but I know what they heard when I review the recordings. The sound in the room isn't usually a problem. My problems with those soundidiots are what I've mentioned already. Laziness, indifference, incompetence, lack of focus or caring. Another example, I sing backups while I drum. We went through 5 or 6 songs without any of my backups being audible because there was a problem with the cable. I couldn't tell because I can't hear myself anyway because the soundguys suck at running monitors. I monitor myself in my head because I have no other choice. Someone in the crowd that knew our material had to go find the fucking soundguy and tell him "the drummer's vocal mic is not working". Nice. That's the kind of half-assed incompetence I bitch about with these loser soundguys.

Good sound man or awful, they're the ones you have to trust. If you don't trust them you have no ability to change anything. Sure, they can be truly awful, and you suffer for their incompetence, but there is no choice.

That unfortunately is true. My only recourse is to shit talk them to other bands. "Keep on top of so-and-so soundman at insert-name-club because he's a lazy fuck". One sort of good thing though is that soundmen are so halfassed they often get themselves fired and bounce around, so the sucky soundguy at one club might not be there a week later if you play again. But he might turn up again somewhere else. It's like russian roulette. Some clubs are steady. Some have a revolving door of bad soundguys.

On PA supplied gigs, we still take and pay for our sound man. Sometimes he is not allowed to touch, but he happily annoys them. Other times they let him mix. Well worth it. If we asked our guitarist to mix, then we know what we'd hear, same with the drummer.

I'd love to have a competent sound guy to drag around with me. We are not allowed to do that at bars and clubs down here. They club employs their own people. Sure, if I play the Toyota Center, I'd have my own sound crew. But we play bars and clubs that have semi-pro stages, lighting, and a house sound system. Cool places, good equipment, good stages, good lighting...bad soundmen.

 

[Lt. Bob]

In a club where you're surrounded by walls I can tell fairly well what's happening out front.
But that's only because I'm mixed the PA for every band I've ever been in for 45 years.
A LOT of taking a song off and running to the back .... listening .... running back on stage for half the first set.
After doing that SO much I have a pretty good idea how the sound on stage translates to the front.

However ...... in VERY large venues and outside then there's just no way to know.

But in clubs I pretty much can tell from stage unless someone in the band insists on getting so loud they're all I can hear.

 

[Greg_L]

I can't tell what we sound like from the stage. Especially not when I'm drumming. There's no way. I wish I could. I'd stop a show just to beat a soundman to death.

 

[Lt. Bob]

I can't tell what we sound like from the stage. Especially not when I'm drumming.

fortunately for me I'm not a drummer ..... I mean for ALL sorts of reasons besides hearing what the band sounds like!

 

[Greg_L]

fortunately for me I'm not a drummer ..... I mean for ALL sorts of reasons besides hearing what the band sounds like!

Being a live drummer sucks for many reasons, but it's also pretty awesome for a lot of reasons, one of which being the drummer is usually the only guy that can actually win a bar fight.