Live: Cabs but no heads?

C

chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
I see a lot of bands doing this. Where they just have their cabs on stage. Wondered if anyone knew the thinking behind this. I presume its so all their amps are together for their tech backstage. Is there a limit to how long a speaker cable you can use in a situation like this?
 
I could be wrong on this, but I think any (properly shielded)speaker cable under roughly 20' has little to zero noticable effect on audio quality. I never noticed this except maybe with insanely big budget rock bands, where they can afford to have a tech or 2 back stage setting levels and gains and working effects and stuff. Pantera used to do this
 
It's because all the heads and stuff are kept in a separate road case. If you can catch a band at a smaller venue, sometimes you can see said stuff being hid (not so well) behind the cabs.

When I saw In Flames a few years ago both heads and some rack stuff was kept in a separate road case (that was easily just as tall and big as a 4X12 cab, which is why they don't stack them on top of the cabs).
 
chamelious said:
Is there a limit to how long a speaker cable you can use in a situation like this?
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Speaker cables have some limits...you increase resistance with Lent and that causes your amp to work harder, but with a heavy gauge, you can run a decent Lent of speaker cable without issues.

I'm not sure why a player would want/need his tech to mess with settings behind the scenes. Most players still make their own adjustments on stage with amps and pedals, and I think most would prefer to have full control...but I guess with some very involved types of "shows" it's probably easier to let the tech/soundman make adjustments. I would think for stuff like theater work, that would be the way to go.
 
What's "lent?" Only definition I know of is the season of the Catholic liturgical calendar that starts on Ash Wednesday...
 
theD1CKENS said:
I could be wrong on this, but I think any (properly shielded)speaker cable under roughly 20' has little to zero noticable effect on audio quality.
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Speaker cables aren't shielded. You can go hundreds of feet with speaker cables but you need to increase the gauge as you increase the length and/or power to prevent/minimize negative effects.

Guitar cables, at least with passive magnetic pickups, should be kept short, period. Unbalanced line cables should be kept short, but it's a little less critical than for guitars.
 
chamelious said:
Wondered if anyone knew the thinking behind this.
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Because this can't be stacked on top of a cabinet. Also, despite this rigs fairly neat appearance most rigs that I have seen have duct tape, cable clutter, writing and other less than desirable eye candy marks on the rig.

steph-carpenter-deftones.jpg
 
It's a long way from Tres Hombres... :)

I didn't think they made strings in 0.07 gauge! :D
How the f*ck do you NOT break them. I would snap through them after about the 3rd note. I like to pluck the strings hard and dig in.

Of course...Billy now plays with such a Metal/high gain rig, that he probably just twitches and gets tone. ;)
 
I'd love to meet the roadie that can hoist this up on top of a speaker cab.

Would need eight cabinets, all face to back, just to hold the weight of it!



rack.jpg
 
theD1CKENS said:
I could be wrong on this, but I think any (properly shielded)speaker cable under roughly 20' has little to zero noticable effect on audio quality.
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Speaker cables are not shielded. There is a limit, but it's longer than you are likely to need.
 
chamelious said:
...Is that one persons shizz
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That looks like the guitarist from Dream Theater's rig.

Half the time, when you see a line of stacks with the heads on top in an arena setting, the stacks are in a road case that gets the front and back put on and a fork lift puts it on the truck. Other times, it's actually an 8x12 cabinet that is made to look like two 4x12's. They have wheels on the back and are just laid down, stacked and rolled onto the truck.
 
ya' know, I have wondered why, with full stacks, the head was not stacked BETWEEN the two cabs? Seams like it would be a lot easier to reach...
 
stevieb said:
ya' know, I have wondered why, with full stacks, the head was not stacked BETWEEN the two cabs? Seams like it would be a lot easier to reach...
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Outside of an arena setting, I've wondered why anyone would EVER need a full stack.
 
Farview said:
Speaker cables are not shielded. There is a limit, but it's longer than you are likely to need.
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Really?! I bet that's where the amp hum is coming from during practice. It's not there when I play solo(ie when there aren't lots of cables on the floor)
 
theD1CKENS said:
Really?! I bet that's where the amp hum is coming from during practice. It's not there when I play solo(ie when there aren't lots of cables on the floor)
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no ...... speaker cables aren't sheilded because they don't need to be. They won't pick up anything and turn it into hum.
 
theD1CKENS said:
Really?! I bet that's where the amp hum is coming from during practice. It's not there when I play solo(ie when there aren't lots of cables on the floor)
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As Lt. Bob says, speaker cables don't need to be shielded because they are carrying high voltage (relative to any hum that may get in) that won't be getting amplified. And driving speaker loads through shielded cables can be bad for amps.

For hum to be audible it has to get into a low level signal and be amplified.
 
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