Direct VS ambient?

[sambrowne]

I dial with a mic in mind, I never play any shows without miking my amp. So I get my ear in front of the speakers when dialling in.

[Capt. Black]

Our shows are pretty much always on our own terms so while we are a pretty loud band, I have it on good authority that we are an easy band to mix because our onstage sound is well balanced and toneful.
I'm generally considered to be a loud amp guy. The better sound guys usually just add a little top end to the mix for definition and let my onstage sound do the rest. (I prefer to be mixed by Michelle from the Rock Factory. She just gets it so right. And she'll break prior bookings to mix us because she enjoys working with us. We must be doing something right...)
So it's kinda ironic that when my amp is mic'ed, it's primarily for foldback. Our drummer and keyboard players always ask for my gat to be really loud in their foldback. Go figure.

[aliasceiza]

For RUDENBARK, Dude, fully, I didn't mean to sound like I was trying to argue, I just believe that if micing is an option, it should be used, I reckon better to bring onstage noise down and use the foh/foldbacks to sort things, easier to control if it's all on the desk!

Also, the gear thing...I've got a Mesa DC3, and the other guy has the full Marshall/mesa preamp/poweramp thing with a closed back 212, and no matter what I do, the sounds just won't blend in a nice way!

As BG pointed out, the closed back is directional, whereas mine is not, he's got all the bottom end, sometimes a good thing, but it's more the tone of it all, and he appears to be alergic to his EQ!

Anyway, fun and games, I'm getting me some xotic pedals to play with, and it's fun trying to solve the problem!

[RUDENBARK]

....he appears to be alergic to his EQ!

Hit him a few times, see if that works. If it doesn't.....well, hit him again, just to be sure.


Actually this whole topic is a bit moot for our band at the mo', got everything going throught the PA so basically all 'mic'ed up' anyway, lol (I use the POD, bass plugging straight in, drummer runs from his own small mixer (though haven't bothered with drums mic's much yet)). Has it's set-backs, but makes it SOOOO much easier to sort everything out soundwise. If/when we sort a decent prac space though, want the bassist to start using his amp more and I'll mic it up just to give it a bit more power.

If the 2xgats is causing the main concern, have you tried having a couple of prac sessions with just you two? Try and set your gears up to compliment the each other better? (just an idea)

[Rog]

As y'all know I don't mic instruments and a bass or guitar through the PA is right up there with my pet hates. Different for concerts, of course, but for your normal venue - way too wanky for me.

I confronted this problem about 40 years ago and after moving to various distances from my amp and deviating from the central axis etc , I decided that no matter what I dialled in, it was going to sound great somewhere and total crap somewhere else. About then I decided to make it sound the way I like it to where I normally stood and everyone else could just suffer or enjoy, depending on where they were. To date I've found no reason at all to alter that opinion and at my age, its highly unlikely that I ever will.

As always - ymmv and you do it your way and enjoy whatever you do.

[Rog]

They help, but I don't reckon they're necessarily essential (conditionally speaking). Point in case, how long has 'live mixing' with mic's been around? And what did they do before that?

Well in the '60s we even sang through our instrument amps.
Did the job then, but wouldn't consider it now.

Down this way, we (forever it seems), do 5 hour gigs for $100 each. I know you big city dawgs would sneer at that, but that's real life in the provinces for ya. At the chargeout and hireage rates for sound techs etc, we'd be lucky to go home with $10 each and he'd get the rest. Ain't gonna happen.

[thehenderson]

As y'all know I don't mic instruments and a bass or guitar through the PA is right up there with my pet hates. Different for concerts, of course, but for your normal venue - way too wanky for me.

I confronted this problem about 40 years ago and after moving to various distances from my amp and deviating from the central axis etc , I decided that no matter what I dialled in, it was going to sound great somewhere and total crap somewhere else. About then I decided to make it sound the way I like it to where I normally stood and everyone else could just suffer or enjoy, depending on where they were. To date I've found no reason at all to alter that opinion and at my age, its highly unlikely that I ever will.

As always - ymmv and you do it your way and enjoy whatever you do.

What do you mean by normal venue? Like San Fran here in Wellington, just having stage sound from the amps would sound weird. Only smaller venues like Happy or Mighty Mighty would work well like that. But it puts a lot of control in the hands of often quite deaf musicians

[Rog]

I have no idea what those venues you've mentioned are. A normal venue to me is:
a pub
a country hall
a club
an outdoor marquee

Max crowd numbers around 300, if that helps.

Remember always that any of my comments are simply my opinions, based upon personal experiences. They are not an attempt to change anyone else's opinions. Mine work for me in my world. Let yours work for you in yours.

[RUDENBARK]

As y'all know I don't mic instruments and a bass or guitar through the PA is right up there with my pet hates. Different for concerts, of course, but for your normal venue - way too wanky for me.

In general agreement with you, though not strictly of course lol.

We only have the bass going through the PA as a matter of conveniance at the mo' (for prac). Sounds like absolute shit though, which is why I'm so keen for him to start using his amp given the opportunity. I'm guessing that mic'ing it up will be a necessity as it's not a huge bass rig or anything, but haven't heard him crank it yet so dunno.

Run my gat through the PA as that's how I deliberately set it up. Works really well! (To my ears anyway). But I've noticed that whenever I try to use a different PA (like 'house PA' or whatever) it just sounds plain baaaaaaaad. I really don't know why that should be, and haven't had a chance to have a good muck around with any alternate PA's I've tried to figure out what the story is.


Mic'ing everything can definitely make all the difference for the better. But I agree, for a 'normal venue', nah, not without a REALLY good reason, lol.

Although (to contract myself once again, lol) I remember one band setting up at a small as venue a while back (like, 100ppl-would-have-packed-it-like-a-tin-of-sardines small, if they would have all fit in there at all). Originally was just going to be a big party, but eventuated that they were having some big-wigs turn up they needed to impress (record deal, or contract, or something like that) so they pulled out all the stops and invested in a professional sound setup. Was quite funny to see; small as venue with all these extra FOH speakers and a multi-core being set up, lol. But shit it sounded AWESOME, really made a difference.
But that was a one-off thing. Would imagine they only played for an hour or so (didn't stay for whole set, had to pack up and take off), and it cost them $800 for that extra oompf.

[aliasceiza]

As y'all know I don't mic instruments and a bass or guitar through the PA is right up there with my pet hates. Different for concerts, of course, but for your normal venue - way too wanky for me.

I confronted this problem about 40 years ago and after moving to various distances from my amp and deviating from the central axis etc , I decided that no matter what I dialled in, it was going to sound great somewhere and total crap somewhere else. About then I decided to make it sound the way I like it to where I normally stood and everyone else could just suffer or enjoy, depending on where they were. To date I've found no reason at all to alter that opinion and at my age, its highly unlikely that I ever will.

As always - ymmv and you do it your way and enjoy whatever you do. :)

Just curious, where do you put your amps?

How does your drummer hear what's going on?

Obviously not always, but usually people put their amps in front, or at least, in front of the drummer, playing with drummers in the passed, they've always complained they can't hear the guitars at all, understandable in this set-up, hence the reason for the mics, at least to feed a foldback!

Having said that, as a 3 piece in Hamilton, Fatbellies had a shelve type bench thing running along behind the band, so we'd just throw my amp up on that and didn't need to mic it!

It helps obviously, to have someone in the band who has the knowhow of running the mics and desk ETC, and a drummer who doesn't have to belt everything as hard as he can which pushes all the volume levels into stupidity!

Our current drummer has an electronic kit, and it's awesome!

[Rog]

Just curious, where do you put your amps?

Our amps are always along the back - hence backline. The bass player's amp is always close to the drummers snare. Its only in the last few years that we've used (and in some cases still don't use) vocals foldback. I have a wireless in-ear foldback, which I also bleed my amp through, so I can hear and pitch correct as I sing.

[Rog]

Our current drummer has an electronic kit, and it's awesome!

I've always thought that if ever I lose the ability to play music, I could take up drums. If that catastrophe happened, I thought an electronic kit would be the gears. All the old fart drummers I play with sneer at them as 'beginner's crap', in the same way guitarists round here do with ss amps.

[slash-ed]

Electronic drumkits are like the Line 6 Vetta of the drum world.

And these days they even look like drums again, with the mesh pads and whatnot.

I enjoy electronic kits, I would never have learnt to play drums without one. Too noisy and too stupid sounding as a beginner.

[aliasceiza]

Our current drummer has an electronic kit, and it's awesome!

I've always thought that if ever I lose the ability to play music, I could take up drums. If that catastrophe happened, I thought an electronic kit would be the gears. All the old fart drummers I play with sneer at them as 'beginner's crap', in the same way guitarists round here do with ss amps.

It's funny, acoustic drums VS Electric drums, how is that different from acoustic guitar VS electric guitar?

The control and versitility of and electronic drumkit is awesome, hundreds of different snares, toms, cymbals etc at the touch of a button, usually some EQ and FX on top, not to mention a volume control, compared with the same five shells, four cymbals, give or take, always sounding the same, always being way too loud...this is my first time jamming with an electronic kit, and I hope I never have to go back!

It's very cool!

[slash-ed]

It's funny, acoustic drums VS Electric drums, how is that different from acoustic guitar VS electric guitar?

I would suggest that it's quite different in the respect that acoustic guitar is not a form of "modelling" as it were.

I reckon you'd learn more about playing dynamically using an acoustic kit, if you're forced to adapt to being too loud or too soft. I find that with electronic drums I'm free to bash the drums as hard as I want, but I can cinch down the volume anyway...