I once played a gig and we invited another guitarist to come along and jam.
He turned up with his messa heartbreaker (ballbreaker I called it) and started blasting his way through every tune.
I asked him in the pause between songs if he could turn down, to this day he feels alienated just because I asked him to turn down.
I explained that when it was his turn to solo he could turn up and then turn down in the other sections.
I seemed to me that this guitarist had never played with another guitarist so he did not know the meaning of a sound balance.He did not know the difference between light and shade everything was full blast and full pelt.
How these people can survive in a professional world beats me they give all guitarists a bad name.
A lot of pro guitarists now use perspex traps to help with their sound balance and the use of the monitor system is much more important. When you have three girl singers one of them is bound to say that the guitar is too loud guaranteed.
I will say when I first started playing I loved to be loud I suppose it's young blood.......thats my excuse anyway......

Guy, I was thinking more in terms of the last word of the sentence.

in answer to the oringinal post.....

i learnt a great a lesson early in life in this respect. In a school band this same scenario/argument was playing out. Out of the blue, a teacher went off to his car and brought back a very long guitar lead, in turn us geetarists and and bass had a turn at playing/hearing where the audience would be sitting/standing.....

we of course heard things totally differently....

with wireless, it should be possible for any discerning guitarist to have their usual set up and go hear what the audience hears, assuming that they care.....

in other words, as a musician, if you care about your sound, take responsibilty for what comes out of the PA and what the audience hears by helping the engineer. As an engineer, if you care about sound, take responsibility for what goes into the PA and what the audience hear by helping the artistes...........

"assuming that they care" - there's the rub.

A guitarist I regularly play with likes it loud, but thinks he's quiet, he can't believe we're all saying he's louder than the rest of the band put together and multiplied by thirteen. There have been times when I've not been playing but gone to see the gig, and he's obliterating the rest of the band - I can SEE drumsticks moving up and down, a bass player doing something or other to a bass, hands going up and down on a keyboard... but can't hear more than an annoying hint of interference in the general sound of unaccompanied solo guitar, even when he's supposed to be comping. His missus is there, she thinks it's a perfect balance! "Isn't he just wonderful!!!", she enthuses.

To get a guitarist to turn down? - put a page of written music in front of them. (boom boom!)


As said above - 1st rule, be civil to the SE - even if s/he is an idiot. Whether the engineer's a genius or a baboon you won't get any better sound by abusing them. And they have you by the balls!

Quote Guy Johnson:

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Quote Beat Poet:

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One guitarist I played with was so damn particular about his Marshall 4x12. He was the singer and even stood at the side of the stage, just so he could stand in front of it. He had it at a ridiculous level and asked for loads in the monitor as well. Then during the gigs, after every song he'd ask for his vocal to be turned up

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***** *** ****

(number of asterisks altered. But it is rude)

love that emoticon!

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Yeah, it's all over Gearslutz, think I nicked it from there What's the three-lettered swearword?

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Do you need real drum tracks? http://www.drumtracksdirect.co.uk/

In fairness to guitarists...

Although I've met too many of the "I couldn't possibly turn it down" brigade there are a few (10%??) who will listen.

A few months ago I was covering a gig where I'd never worked before with bands I'd never met - quite unusual for me. Because of the nature of the gig there were no soundchecks - just line-checks. Anyway, after-gig chatting to the lead guitarist of the headliners he asked what it sounded like out-front. I explained that he was 'good but loud' and it had been a struggle to balance him against the rest of the band in a small room with a mixed-age audience. He was genuinely upset by this and said he'd make a point of checking with FoH people about relative volumes at an early point in future gigs. He seemed sincere; I believed him.

It isn't only amateur rockers either. I know a guitarist, elderly now, who had a long professional career in commercial bands and orchestras. He positions his amp. in front of him, pointing at the audience, and plays consistently TOO LOUD. Maybe he's deaf. But he won't move that amp.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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But he won't move that amp.

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There's the next discussion, "guitarists who won't move their amps" I already mentioned my experience with that. Guitarists can sometimes be even more pissy than drummers about where their gear goes.

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Do you need real drum tracks? http://www.drumtracksdirect.co.uk/

Quote Mike Stranks:

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In fairness to guitarists...

Although I've met too many of the "I couldn't possibly turn it down" brigade there are a few (10%??) who will listen.

A few months ago I was covering a gig where I'd never worked before with bands I'd never met - quite unusual for me. Because of the nature of the gig there were no soundchecks - just line-checks. Anyway, after-gig chatting to the lead guitarist of the headliners he asked what it sounded like out-front. I explained that he was 'good but loud' and it had been a struggle to balance him against the rest of the band in a small room with a mixed-age audience. He was genuinely upset by this and said he'd make a point of checking with FoH people about relative volumes at an early point in future gigs. He seemed sincere; I believed him.

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That's exactly how my above mentioned guitarist reacts, but then carries on exactly as before. The soundcheck's nice and well-balanced, then he turns up in the gig. Between tunes you say "could you turn down a bit?", he turns the knob down and as his hand leaves the knob it turns it back up to where it was. Then various volumes get cranked up on the pedal board. I think it's faintly possible that he doesn't even realize he does it.

Just a nod to any guitarist here who knows they are a bit too loud but homestly think their sound suffers unless the amp does!

My recent readings indicate that a great deal of the highly desired overdive tone of amps in fact comes from the pre amp sections and often the PI. The problem is often that the amp does not have a master volume control, hence the pre amp cannot be overdiven without also driving the op valves hard, or the gain staging thoughout the amp is rather ill thoughtout and much the same effect obtains.

In this situation a simple power soak giving just 3 to 10dB of power reduction can make a big difference, demanding up to twice the drive voltage from the pre stages. Note, the soak does not need to be anything "clever" and use tone shaping inductors or the sort it just allows the pre stages to work a bit harder for a little less earbleed. The amplifier can also become more "touch sensitive".

People often sing the praises of the 6L6 as a swop for the EL34 and fair enough, good valve (as is the 6V6 but watch the ratings!.) But it is often forgotten that the 6L6 has but 1/2 the gm of the 34 and thus demands considerably more drive volts for the same row so it is perhaps moot as to what causes the change in sound!

Dave.

Our guitarist has a power soak. Guess what....? Yup, same problem!

Actually, I'm being more than a little unfair. We don't mic stuff up for the size of venues we play so the main sound if from the backline. Me (keys) and him are on opposite sides of the stage, so don't get in each other's way, it's just the audience on his side of the venue tend to say "we can't hear the keys".

I hypothesisi that one thing pluckers (and bashers?) don't realise is how the adrenelin makes them play harder and the effect is non-linear - ie we get a bit more attack in the notes so it there's a "play even harder to cut thru" approach. Can anyone validate this? And that it's not just a "amp up to 11" issue, but the physical way of playing? 'Course, when you're playing strings/organ (fixed velocity) etc, that level of "hitting the keys harder" doesn't apply, so my amp has to go up.

Hi Matt.

A certain amp power control system of my aquaintance (!) is level sensitive, so set to say 25% full welly, the harder you play the more it compresses.

And does your keyboard not have velocity sensing?

Dave.

Quote Matt_Moose:

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I hypothesisi that one thing pluckers (and bashers?) don't realise is how the adrenelin makes them play harder and the effect is non-linear - ie we get a bit more attack in the notes so it there's a "play even harder to cut thru" approach. Can anyone validate this? And that it's not just a "amp up to 11" issue, but the physical way of playing? 'Course, when you're playing strings/organ (fixed velocity) etc, that level of "hitting the keys harder" doesn't apply, so my amp has to go up.

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I certainly find myself hitting the keys harder if I can't hear myself. This often happens when playing a real piano on stage - I may be amplified to the audience but foldback may be inadequate or non-existant.

Or it may just be a crap piano. Have I told the story here of a 50s/60s rock 'n roll show I toured many years ago? One theatre wouldn't let their lovely Steinway be used for that rough kind of music. So they hired in a really nasty, brand new, Kawai upright. No tone in it at all. Apparantly I trashed the action over the week, trying to get some sound out of it. I'm sure they exaggerated :-) But the Yamaha and Steinway grand pianos I played on the rest of the tour didn't suffer at all.

Quote ef37a:

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And does your keyboard not have velocity sensing?

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Not when I'm playing Hammond OK, I have expression/swell, but sometimes I don't want to ramp it up and have overdrive all the damn time!!

Strings/pads - tonality usually changes with higher velocities, and difficult to get consistent tone/volume on some patches (I might be starting to make excuses for my deftness of touch (or lack of)

Yes, got full stage piano set up, so that get's hammered harder as we take it up a notch - in fact, I've had to turn my levels back _down_ because sometimes I do want the top-end, hard-hit piano sound to cut through - but not all the time.

Quote ef37a:

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A certain amp power control system of my aquaintance (!) is level sensitive, so set to say 25% full welly, the harder you play the more it compresses.

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Oh how I'd love to sneak something like that into the signal chain!

Oh how I'd love to sneak something like that into the signal chain!"

Well, at the risk of spamming!It works like this: Say you have the 100watter set to deliver~25watts. when you hit a string the amp is STILL a 100watter so the player gets that initial attack but milliseconds later the control cuts in and then no matter how hard he thrashed it still will not put out more than 25 or so watts.

Sort of "peak music power" but "rms" in spades!
They are not exactly cheap but then not boutique Imerican prices watt for watt! (and dare I say it? Better built than most!)

Dave.

It might be worth mentioning here that the metal band Cradle of Filth - not exactly known for the delicacy and subtlety of their music - keep their amps turned way, way down and mic'ed up offstage. And they DI the bass. That way the control of the sound is in the hands of their engineer.

Having said that they do have a very loud drummer with a very large kit!

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Gear List: reverse only.

Quote Dave Gate:

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It might be worth mentioning here that the metal band Cradle of Filth - not exactly known for the delicacy and subtlety of their music - keep their amps turned way, way down and mic'ed up offstage. And they DI the bass. That way the control of the sound is in the hands of their engineer.

Having said that they do have a very loud drummer with a very large kit!

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From what I hear/read Metal bands are not really into amp "tone"? They tend to use a very high gain, high distortion type of sound. Many of them use ALL transistorized amps FCS!

Such noises, sorry SOUNDS! Can easilly be generated by pedals and outboad pre amps/FX boxes.

Did anyone ever ask Dizzy to stuff a mute in and be amped up!

Dave.

"ask Dizzy to stuff a mute in and be amped up!"

Now there's an idea!

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PA stuff on FB

Well what an uniformed and silly rant bassdude, Australian here too, I have been both a bass player and engineer for over 30 years, and really, its complete bull that amps have to be x loud to work properly. The answer is simply dont use too big amps. Good players can make their amps sound great at any volume (As most of the good players i have worked with have demonsrated).

Loud is the hiding place of the incompetant player. The more they cannot control their volume the more likely poor quality of playing. The though of someone with the lack of competence and arrogance in your post training a sound engineeer is hillarious!

To the original poster the trick is to avoid those numpties who cant control their volume, or better still record the gig and show them what a god awful sound they prodeuce at silly levels!

After about 10 years I decided that over loud morons could just sound bad and it wouldnt worry me.

?

Congratulations on equalling the idioccy displayed by bassdude man.

Bassdude wrote: Personally I've never looked at making it commercially nor tried to go far in the industry.

Redundant mate, your post made that completely obvious.

As an Australian, Bass player and sound engineer I apologise to the other posters for this absolute rubbish posted by someone who is obviously what we pro's in call in Aus a "backyarder".

Gosh, this is all a bit intense.


The general advice for making a band quieter is: "Put some sheet music in front of the guitarist." ;-)

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

I have been forced to ask the singer if hearing the vocals was important at all for their "sound".

If the guitarists won't listen to reason, set them at each other's throats


>

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planet nine
lincoln, uk.

Quote Nathan:

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I have been forced to ask the singer if hearing the vocals was important at all for their "sound".

If the guitarists won't listen to reason, set them at each other's throats


>

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YES - I remember coaching a band with an overly loud drummer, not just loud but a thumpy horrible sound, all muscles and not really music. He implied I was a boring old classical fuddy-duddy who can't handle volume (he obviously hadn't been to any of my gigs...), but the issue was balance, not volume per se, e.g. the singer could never hear herself. I asked every member of the band one by one whether they thought the drumming volume/style were appropriate for that band. Not one single vote of confidence. From that moment on I wasn't the sole evil kill-joy any more. Actually the band split up shortly after the course ended...

Quote Falconhell:

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Loud is the hiding place of the incompetant player. The more they cannot control their volume the more likely poor quality of playing.

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It's ego as well don't forget, "f*** me my guitar sounds good"

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Do you need real drum tracks? http://www.drumtracksdirect.co.uk/

At some gigs I'm the bassplayer, at other the FOH engineer.
I prefer loud, preferably valve-driven, bassamps in both positions.
Perhaps I'm a schizofrenic?

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Preamps are Class A by default

I love this topic... ''getting bands to turn down their amps''

simple = pull the plug

I can't stands bands rocking up to a gig and making a hell of a noise before the gig has even started !

Ahhh ..... oooo it winds me up

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PA Hire Surrey
Lighting Hire Surrey

Special note on that topic for the drummers out there, hammering away while I am setting up drum mics is a BAD plan, you just deafened the guy who is about to be responsible for what the audience hears....

In general please resist the temptation to noodle around during setup, it just makes communications harder then they need to be, aggravates the crew and increases all of our noise exposure (And mangling the first 12 bars of 'stairway' is right out, doubly so if done repeatedly).

Also, soundcheck is NOT an opportunity to rehearse that new number that you all only sort of know but are desperate to make a pigs earhole out of in front of an audience, you should have rehearsed it until you cannot get it wrong before turning up to the gig.

Oh, yea, if you are touring your own sound engineer and they insist on a Digico with a whole pile of XTA outboard, and if your tour manager insists then that is what will be hired, it does not mean that I have a clue how to use it...... If your 'sound engineer' then turns out to be nothing more useful then the lead guitarists special boyfriend, who has not a clue but put the gear list together from reading major band riders, then I will laugh but will still not have a clue how to drive that gear, the tour manager (and accountant) might however get to hear the story.

Finally, please, an accurate rider, with stage plan and tour manager contact details that work is a good and happy making thing, even more so if it relates to this years tour and not the one two years ago before you gained the second keyboard player and the drummer added 6 extra china cymbals and started singing lead on a few numbers (Grumble).

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote jimdrake:

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most of the sound engineers (including me) working at the union are on a music and sound recording course that is regarded by very high standards throughout the music industry.

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That's a long commute from Surrey! I don't think any other knob-twiddling course has much credibility.

In Mr Birt's BBC that would have identified you as being "tainted by experience"

H

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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"tainted by experience"
H

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What a wonderful expression, but having had a few run ins with seniorish BBC manglement types I can believe it was actually used (and not as a pisstake).

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

It was! That was when the rot really set in. 1996/7

H

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

What do you throw a drowning guitarist?


















His Amp...

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Current live keyboards - Kurzweil PC3x - Korg Triton Extreme + Moss - Roland V-Synth V2. www.xyzband.info

Sound Engineers are supposed to enable Performers to perform. Not the other way around.

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Preamps are Class A by default

Very true, but we cannot work magic sorry to say, and sometimes the laws of physics (Or laws of budget) do rather require an accommodation on the part of the musicians if the audience is to get what they paid for.
After all, the performers as supposed to be there to entertain the AUDIENCE, not to stroke each others fragile egos.

Guitarists with big amps on overly small stages are probably just the most common cause of impossible sound engineering jobs (Together with gigs in acoustic basketball courts), this actually becomes much less of an issue once you grow out of tiny gigs as the gear gets better, stages get bigger and you start to work with acts that are competent.

Full stack down the dog and duck when the house rig is the usual pair of knacked SP2s is a **much** bigger problem then the same thing at the local arena.

73, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Nico 3313:

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Sound Engineers are supposed to enable Performers to perform. Not the other way around.

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I would not say so. Sound repro is about making sure that the PAYING PUBLIC get the best possible show. I was only in PA in a very small way but if the guy is 8 feet tall and you set the table mics for Joe Average there is not a lot you can do once the AGM is under way!

Dan, I suppose you have wireless controlled, motorized stands now?

Dave.

For those gigs, usually a very short, thin shotgun per position, with an automixer is the indicated answer, together with careful speaker placement.
Sometimes a lav is used for the chief exec.

I have actually seen a motorized mic stand (but not in that context, it was a set piece in a musical).

And yes, unless you are the monitor guy, your job is that audience.

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

+1 to that With my sound engineers hat on, I frequently find guitar players using amps that are far too big for the venue. I nearly always mic the guitar cab as it always sounds better and helps the guitar sit in the mix but I often have to have the fader right down as the amp onstage is too loud on it's own. Give the poor FOH engineer a chance to do his job (which is to make you sound the best that is possible to the audience) and understand that when he says "turn your amp down" it is so he can make you sound better.

And then, with my guitar players hat on, I use an 18 watt hand wired combo which hits it's sweet spot around about when the drummer is just hitting his, we're fairly loud on stage (acoustic drums with a fairly physical drummer) but, even in smaller venues we leave the SE somewhere to go. BTW, last year I did a low key outdoor gig (on a beach, limited mains power, small PA for vox only, the audience was around 200 people) with said drummer and used an Epiphone Valve Junior (5 watts, 8" speaker) for guitar, I'd have liked a little more clean headroom but it did the job and the vid's show I was loud enough. Playing relatively quietly but still with energy is skill giging musicians often neglect.

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Turn it down lads (but only a little bit)

I usually have a chat with everyone as they are setting up. Most are pretty good at turning down somewhat. I tell them I can always make them louder, but there's nothing I can do if they are too loud on stage. I let them know they aren't here to kill the pretty waiteresses, the stage area points at the bar. The girls let me know if its too loud. They are there to sell drinks, one band with their own rig was so loud that people were screaming their orders into the waitresses ears and they couldn't hear them. That's stupid loud.

I'm always appropriate for the room. I give the guitar players lots in their monitors. There's a couple bands that always creep. But it's not TOO bad, I just back them down in the mains.

I personally play a 100W JCM800 into a 212 cabinet but i get my overdrive from my pedals and have a quite reasonable stage volume. I usually have my guitar in my monitor. If I need more, I turn it up in my monitor instead of the amp.



Edited by robare99 (24/01/13 03:23 PM)