Anyone else face their amps cross-stage?

[LiquidMidnight]

We've done this ever since I've played in my current band. I face my cabinet down the stage towards the singer and guitarist, and our guitarist faces his rig up towards me (he has two Mesa cabs, and he use to put one on either side or up by the drummer as a monitor). I just like how this works so much better than the "traditional" way of placing amps behind the players. This way, I can hear our guitarist clearly and vice-versa. The drummer even hears me better. Of course, we're all in the FOH mix, so it doesn't matter if the amps are facing towards the audience.

Anyone else do this?

[Bard2dbone]

My favorite setup along these lines goes waaaaaaay back into those thrilling days of yesteryear. I played bass and sang lead for Fuzzy Logic. Remember them? *sound of crickets* Well...you're probably too young, or not from around here, or some other totally reaonable explanation. *whimpersniffle...sob*

We had, essentially a totally symmetrical setup for a while. Initially the guitar player used a 2x12 Peavey, which strangely, didn't suck at all. Go figure. I was playing a GK 800rb into a Hartke 4x10 ( Hartkes were brand new then) And our keyboard player had a EV/Tapco PA setup for keys and vocals. Everyone also fed into the Tapco board to go to monitors, and if the gig was big enough, the house PA. Mostly we controlled out sound from onstage. (Take THAT sound guy!)

Then, at about the same time, John and I changed our rigs, He traded the Peavey in and bought an ADA system with a stereo amp and two 1x12 cabs. He still uses the power amp. I got another Hartke. So now everyone had two cabs. So for the sake (originally) of just looking cool, we set them up on either side of the drums. My Hartke on the bottom, a 1x12 on top of it and an EV speaker on a stand kind of perched high enough to aim over them with no obstruction.

It looked cool. It sounded cool. Therefore it WAS cool. Time passes. At a gig we had too little room to set up the usual way. So the stacks got aimed inward, a little tighter than a 45 degree angle. It was COOL! Bass was too boomy there because I was backed all the way up to the wall. But guitar, keys, and vocals sounded better than ever, so we started always doing it that way.

I don't know if the improvement was real or illusion. But we dug it and we kept it.

[liquid-dream-ex]

I do that with my Basscab... i twist it inwards the stage with about 45-60 degrees. The guitarist didn't so far, but i'll tell him to.

[Mon Rominee]

Yes, I let my rig "wash the stage"... so it doesn't overpower the FOH.

Helps to keep too much out of the monitors as well. Just vocals and a little kick and snare, than-Q!

[SteveC]

If there's no PA support, I tend to "aim" my cab out to the crowd a little more. If we have some PA support I'll "wash" the stage a little more - especially if the monitor situation isn't the best.

[Philbiker]

In the last regular gigging band I was in my rig consisted of an Eden D210T cabinet and an Eden Nemesis 210 combo. The way I had it set up was the 210T cab on the bottom facing the front of the stage and the Nemesis at a 90 degree angle directly facing the drummer (and behind him the second guitar). It worked great, the drummer and guitarrists loved getting the bass so clear, and I liked getting the better sounding speaker for my own monitor and aimed towards the crowd.

[TechZilla]

Our guitar players used to do this in small venues because the monitors were usually so bad. It made it much easier for everyone to hear on stage. My rig normally didn't fit on the side so it was aimed straight out. If the room was large enough to use 2 cabs i would sometimes angle one slightly towards the drummer.

This setup worked well for us.