The eternal struggle: The guitarist whose amp doesn't sound good unless it's turned up loud vs. the sound guy who wants him to turn the amp down so he can run it through the monitors

this can't be stressed enough

(sorry for my derailment there, n/a)

Another related question.

Why do they always D/I the bass instead of miking it? I have a lovely-sounding amp, yet only the band get to hear it. :-(

I also own a guitar store, so I can share this other tidbit with you...almost every working guitarist I know has an amp that is TOO LOUD for the rooms they actually play in. People in guitar stores don't correct this error because it's more lucrative to let said guitarist play out their Rawk fantasy (well, I talk them out of it, but that's probably why I don't make any money.)

But yeah, less amp or an attenuator is the only real solution other than getting booked in larger venues.

Oh, and the answer WRT DIing is twofold. First, (and I know I'm going to irritate some of you here) the tone bass players think they should have is not always the tone that they need to cut through the mix. Second, every mic that you can eliminate from the stage gives you 3 dbs more gain before hitting the feedback point. So, a bit of laziness, prompted by the fact that feedback is the definition of soundperson not knowing what the fuck they're doing to most people in the audience.

This was all I wanted to hear. Lock thread please.

I have been able to understand the words at perhaps 30% of the rock shows I've been to in nigh on 25 years of going to rock shows. This bugs me as a lyricist, because while I enjoy playing the drums and guitar, I'd rather my brilliant lyrics get across than I remove the eyebrows of the audience with my searing guitar tone.

Perhaps what the world needs is more 15- and 20-watt tube combos. I dig a Blues Junior, but would love to see more variety on that end of the price/wattage scale.

What about the new AC15s? Would one of those have enough oomph?

Occasionally I get idiot soundmen used to rock bands and drum kits telling me to turn up. Uh, no. That's your job. We can hear me fine onstage.

There is never any point, ever, to have anything onstage ever be louder than an unmiked drumkit.

They are indeed beasts to wrestle with. I don't quite follow the "for their wattage" bit though, unless you mean the idiosyncratic chassis layout is bulky given the tube complement.

Yes, there are smaller, lighter, higher-powered amps (Rivera comes to mind), but no smaller, lighter 212s that I'm aware of.

Speaking of which, the new Epiphone Blues Custom looks very interesting: all t00b, including the 'verb, two channel, power-switchable, cathode biased 212... $500 street price... hmm... (like the AC30, weighs in at a sumoriffic 75 lbs or so)

But anyhoo, yes, the AC15CC will do the job quite nicely.

i have a smaller amp now (deluxe reverb) and i'm much happier

Better still, what the world might actually need is a bunch of 20- to 30-watt amps in unnecessarily large models that make them look more powerful, cause the truth is that if you show up anywhere with anything smaller than a Fender Twin, people treat you like a ten-year-old girl.

I mean, so far as I can tell, you could scrape together a perfectly workable stage sound putting a mic up on my two-foot 25-watt practice amp, but the amount of giggling and eyerolling and confused/derisive soundmanning that would surely accompany that doesn't yet seem worth it.

their sole product marketed for guitarist is an ultra-weird config, 4x4.5s (four four-and-a-half inch speakers), but they have several 1x12s designed for bass that weigh around 20lbs each.

Welcome to my life.

Learn to deal - the easiest way is to just knock them offstage with your playing ability, rather than the size of your dick amp.

My playing ability may not be up to this. Is there any way I could use my actual dick to compensate for my lack of amp size?

I've been struggling to get the sound I want out of a Hot Rod Deluxe (which I lovingly refer to as the "Shitbox"). One show in ten, it sounds like a dream, but most of the time, I can't wind the thing up to 4.5/5 to get it on the verge of break-up. The band I play in plays lots of small rooms. So because I can't get that warm break-up, due to the sizable amount of headroom, my tone suffers.

I tried my ancient Gibson amp from the 40s, and it didn't have the presence I needed. And the inverse occured, of course. Too much break up at the volume I needed to run it at.

I tried the Vox AC-15s, both of the reissue models, and they sounded TERRIBLE! Did I run into some lemons, or do these things just sound like ass? The last Vox I played was a mid-90s AC-30. It sounded great.

I eventually settled on one of the tweed Blues Jr's with the Jensen speaker. Great sounding amp, but a smidge boxy for the sound I'm after. I guess I should really be looking at an A/B situation. The Hot Rod Deluxe for clean tone, and the Blues Jr. for leads.

I've only run into one instance where a soundperson complained about small amps, but I kindly pointed out that Neil Young uses vintage 50s Deluxes on stage, and listen to that sound.

More often than not, egos and ignorance cause these amp issues. Mostly on the part of others. Thankfully, I play with a bunch of guys that relish low stage volume.

Depends on the audience, really.
-- nabisco (--...), August 11th, 2006 2:59 PM.

This thread has gone totally right.

I think it depends on the rest of your rig. Don't know about the old reissue, but the new AC15CC is effectively an AC30CC's Top Boost channel minus the AC30CC's valuable, treble-slaying cut control. An EQ pedal, a dark GTR, or a really really long cable (curly Vox style?) might help to smooth things out, but who wants to fight their own amp?

I eventually settled on one of the tweed Blues Jr's with the Jensen speaker. Great sounding amp, but a smidge boxy for the sound I'm after.

Great looking amp too - 15 watts of sex0r! There are those who say that the legendary billm Blues Junior Tone Stack Mod helps with the boxiness, but I've never heard a billm-modded Tweed BJ to say yea or nay.

You could probably come up with something similar just by tweaking the EQ (scoop, scoop, scoop!), but it would be a unique sweet spot rather than a base tone, just as sparkly cleans become more of a sweet spot you need to chase post-mod.

i have a dumb stoned question about guitarists that play live with like 9 stacks of amps behind them.. is this a super pain in the ass to deal with from a soundtech's perspective? are most of the cabs and heads empty (just for show)?

for the musician, it must be an insanely intense psychedelic experience to be playing directly in front of like 8 cranked marshall stacks every night..

how does shit work

I saw Dino Jr do a small venue show a few years back and J had three cranked Twin Reverbs stacked atop each other FACING HIM as his guitar monitor.

Sounds like workplace related hearing loss to me. I SAID SOUNDS LIKE... you get the idea.

sometimes guys would have you "sidewash", point the amp sideways across the stage instead of pointing it at the audience

Just don't put the amp through the PA if it's too loud

I'm always on the side of the guitarists with this, but then I would be