Guitarists and the volume war

[gotly]

I play in a cover band and we play small bars and clubs. We have a PA we set up on-site and a sound guy who is pretty good. I put my Genz Benz 9.0 into two vertically stacked 2x10s and leave the volume about 40% and never have a problem hearing myself or cutting through the mix. My setup can be low volume and I can still hear myself because the stack is so tall. The sound guy loves my direct feed and every set goes smoothly.

The two guitarists have short 12" 40 watt tube combos and are chronically turning up to hear themselves better because the sound is blasting their legs instead of their ears. Our sound guy can only do so much.

One guitarist is constantly adjusting his volume knobs on his guitar and using a volume pedal to change his own stage volume. Sound guy has to compensate constantly.

One guitarist has a kick back stand but doesn't use it.

One guitarist has a really noisy effect chain and his attempts to debug it are fruitless.

One guitarist has a DI on his amp that is a nice clean DI signal into the PA. He's happy with the tone even though most guitarists prefer to mic their cab. The other has an old school fender and would rather go from the amp's preamp out into the mixer than shell out for a guitar mic. It's noisy and kind of a pain in the butt.

I saw a cover band last night and was so envious of the small mic'd guitar amps they were using. Their stage volume was super low, everyone used tilt back stands (my guitarists don't like tilt back stands for whatever reason) so they could hear each other and let the PA do the heavy lifting.

I love playing with these guys but they don't really understand how their rig works in a live setting and I'm usually the guy who gets to debug the problems with the sound guy during setup. Why can't all setups be as easy as bass?

 

[DWBass]

I got nothing but I'm with you on stage volume. Big pet peeve of mine.

 

[jongor]

Feel your pain!

It’s amazing to me that some people just don’t care that the band sounds like crap, and will probably lose gigs, because they’re amp sounds “better” loud....

 

[sean_on_bass]

They need to tilt the amps back, or if not tilted then just raise it off the ground like putting it on a chair. Also, i always thought direct guitar signals sound pretty horrible so they should probably start micing their cabs/combos too. They could just be total jabronis, at which point there's not much you can do.

 

[buldog5151bass]

1. Get the amps up off the floor and aimed at their ears.
2. Once volume levels are set, no one but the sound man touches their volumes.
3. An SM-57 is fine for amping an amp.

If the guitarists can't live with that, they shouldn't be in a band.

 

[Major_Rager_4MF]

Fire the drummer. Then find a band who can manage their own volume.

 

[Chango Malo]

Why can't all setups be as easy as bass?

They can be. But us guitar hero's gotta pull our heads out of our posteriors. Let the drums and bass set the floor volume, add guitar until the slider monkey says "good" then leave it alone. I've known a couple guys who could handle a volume pedal, but most seem to use it to cheat the soundguy... "hey, I never touched the amp, dude". I don't know why guitarists are always the guy that actively tries to sabotage the mix, but 99 times out of 100 if someone's too loud it's the guitar god in an affliction t shirt. That other 1 time was the drummer who's really a gorilla in disguise.

These days for most gigs I don't even take a real amp, I'll run a flyrig with a wah powered by a stereo cable and shoot the works through a countryman DI to the board. Easy setup, no one is getting blown away on stage, and the I'm in the mix 100%. Heck, I work with a bass player in my main band that runs off a flyrig as well. No amps at all on stage. We see sound guys doing the happy dance all the time when we walk in.

Recording? that's different. Stuff the cab in a doghouse and melt some tubes.

 

[Stumbo]

Take your guit players to hear the other band.

Have a discussion about what the other band is doing on stage.

If they don't get it, get out. They'll never change.

It's about them, not the band.

They are inimical to your band's success.

 

[Wasnex]

I play in a cover band and we play small bars and clubs. We have a PA we set up on-site and a sound guy who is pretty good. I put my Genz Benz 9.0 into two vertically stacked 2x10s and leave the volume about 40% and never have a problem hearing myself or cutting through the mix. My setup can be low volume and I can still hear myself because the stack is so tall. The sound guy loves my direct feed and every set goes smoothly.

The two guitarists have short 12" 40 watt tube combos and are chronically turning up to hear themselves better because the sound is blasting their legs instead of their ears. Our sound guy can only do so much.

One guitarist is constantly adjusting his volume knobs on his guitar and using a volume pedal to change his own stage volume. Sound guy has to compensate constantly.

One guitarist has a kick back stand but doesn't use it.

One guitarist has a really noisy effect chain and his attempts to debug it are fruitless.

One guitarist has a DI on his amp that is a nice clean DI signal into the PA. He's happy with the tone even though most guitarists prefer to mic their cab. The other has an old school fender and would rather go from the amp's preamp out into the mixer than shell out for a guitar mic. It's noisy and kind of a pain in the butt.

I saw a cover band last night and was so envious of the small mic'd guitar amps they were using. Their stage volume was super low, everyone used tilt back stands (my guitarists don't like tilt back stands for whatever reason) so they could hear each other and let the PA do the heavy lifting.

I love playing with these guys but they don't really understand how their rig works in a live setting and I'm usually the guy who gets to debug the problems with the sound guy during setup. Why can't all setups be as easy as bass?

Many guitarist like to hear the indirect sound of the amp instead of the direct sound. Every argument they make will support their need to use more volume. It's the way they have always done it and they are probably unwilling to adapt, despite the problems they are having. It's likely you have two choices: 1. deal with it, 2. quit and find players who are willing to use a tilt back approach.

Years ago, I worked with a guy who used a vintage Fender Twin. He wanted to run the amp up around 4 so it would start to get a little natural tube compression. He knew that the 212 cabinet was beamy because plenty of audio techs had given him a hard time about the hot spot in front of the amp, so he aimed the cab across the stage. Of course it was brutally loud for whoever it was aimed at. Eventually it came time for the cabinet to be aimed at me and I suggested he tilt it back and aim it at his head. His response was, "Are you crazy, that thing will take your head off!" I said, "Yea, we all know, and we don't appreciate it!" His compromise was to aim the amp backwards which provided some relief in large performance halls. I think in smaller venues we built sort of a pseudo isolation chamber with empty foam lined road cases to try and dampen the sound a bit.

IMHO a better solution would have been a smaller amp or maybe a good compressor. I have an early Showman Reverb which is an equivalent amp and it sounds great at low volume with a Diamond CP1 to smooth things out a bit.

Just wanted to share a story so you know lot's of people have the same experience. FYI if you don't know...some DIs would work at speaker level with a 40 watt tube amp. Radial JDI even has a built in speaker emulator for this purpose.

 

[PauFerro]

Had a KB who didn't gave a D&%@ about drowning out the band, or the impact on everyone else's hearing. I saw a noticeable reduction in my hearing ability while I was in that band. I quit over his narcissism and the volume war. I even would turn down so no one could hear me to see if that would make him turn down, but he was just a narcissistic person all he cared about was himself.

 

[saabfender]

are chronically turning up to hear themselves better because the sound is blasting their legs instead of their ears. Our sound guy can only do so much.

One guitarist is constantly adjusting his volume knobs on his guitar and using a volume pedal to change his own stage volume. Sound guy has to compensate constantly.

One guitarist has a kick back stand but doesn't use it.

One guitarist has a really noisy effect chain and his attempts to debug it are fruitless.

OMG... so much truth here. I've said the exact thing about the legs and ears before. I'm no longer with those guys. There are truths that need to be spoken. You put on your nice guy/aw shucks passive voice "A better thing might be..." and lay it out gently. If they don't want to hear it: oh well. Time to move on. I was serious with them. These are my ears, motherlover. But, you know: in the nicest possible terms.

Yes - guitarists who don't understand how amplifiers work. They don't know to put their amps on chair. They don't understand the difference between gain and volume. They fail to grasp that noise is a counterproductive and cancerous parasite of their sound. You sound better with fewer, more expensive pedals than the opposite. There seems to be a glut of these dudes. Now what?

 

[Bunk McNulty]

I play in a cover band and we play small bars and clubs. We have a PA we set up on-site and a sound guy who is pretty good. I put my Genz Benz 9.0 into two vertically stacked 2x10s and leave the volume about 40% and never have a problem hearing myself or cutting through the mix. My setup can be low volume and I can still hear myself because the stack is so tall. The sound guy loves my direct feed and every set goes smoothly.

The two guitarists have short 12" 40 watt tube combos and are chronically turning up to hear themselves better because the sound is blasting their legs instead of their ears. Our sound guy can only do so much.

One guitarist is constantly adjusting his volume knobs on his guitar and using a volume pedal to change his own stage volume. Sound guy has to compensate constantly.

One guitarist has a kick back stand but doesn't use it.

One guitarist has a really noisy effect chain and his attempts to debug it are fruitless.

One guitarist has a DI on his amp that is a nice clean DI signal into the PA. He's happy with the tone even though most guitarists prefer to mic their cab. The other has an old school fender and would rather go from the amp's preamp out into the mixer than shell out for a guitar mic. It's noisy and kind of a pain in the butt.

I saw a cover band last night and was so envious of the small mic'd guitar amps they were using. Their stage volume was super low, everyone used tilt back stands (my guitarists don't like tilt back stands for whatever reason) so they could hear each other and let the PA do the heavy lifting.

I love playing with these guys but they don't really understand how their rig works in a live setting and I'm usually the guy who gets to debug the problems with the sound guy during setup. Why can't all setups be as easy as bass?

Funny, I use the identical setup--Genz-Benz through two vertically stacked 2x10s. Although I run mine at closer to 25% of volume. Our two guitarists had been using 30 watt amps, but we did a big reconfigure recently, and now both use smaller amps that sit facing them--they are now in effect monitors. This basically saved our relationship with a club in a residential area that--not surprisingly--has been plagued with noise calls. We still have enough volume to rock out, but we don't blast the room. In fact, our sound guy goes outside while we're playing just to hear for himself how much sound is being projected. Anyway, we're using this setup for everything now, even outdoor gigs. We can hear each other better and actually get more detailed with dynamics than previously.

 

[Paulabass]

Worst case scenario- plexi shields. They are the fanny pack and crocs of the guitar world, and your guitar players will be so embarrassed they will turn down.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Worst case scenario- plexi shields. They are the fanny pack and crocs of the guitar world, and your guitar players will be so embarrassed they will turn down.

Would work, but if he won't shell out for a used SM-57, I doubt they pay for anything more than beer.

 

[Christine]

Tell them it's too loud to appreciate the subtitles of their fantastic guitar playing

 

[two fingers]

The "compromise" I have alwways used is this.

"You can turn it up as loud as you want and won't hear a WORD from me..... as long as your rig is pointed at your head."

You can literally rig up a 2X4 to be an amp prop. My first question is why doesn't the one guy "loke a kickback stand"? Is it because he knows his rig would tesr his face off?

 

[Bander]

A couple more things. Guitarists with too much stuff in their signal chain, squash the dynamics, and thirst for what they've destroyed - dynamics. I've noticed with my mega rig, the louder the bass, the louder everyone else becomes. I think they are used to NOT hearing the bass, lol.

 

[Mr.Ace]

We set the volume and no one touches any knobs after. We also use IEMs and our stage volume is very low. All the sound is out front where it needs to be.

 

[ThinCrappyTone]

I play in a cover band and we play small bars and clubs. We have a PA we set up on-site and a sound guy who is pretty good. I put my Genz Benz 9.0 into two vertically stacked 2x10s and leave the volume about 40% and never have a problem hearing myself or cutting through the mix. My setup can be low volume and I can still hear myself because the stack is so tall. The sound guy loves my direct feed and every set goes smoothly.

The two guitarists have short 12" 40 watt tube combos and are chronically turning up to hear themselves better because the sound is blasting their legs instead of their ears. Our sound guy can only do so much.

One guitarist is constantly adjusting his volume knobs on his guitar and using a volume pedal to change his own stage volume. Sound guy has to compensate constantly.

One guitarist has a kick back stand but doesn't use it.

One guitarist has a really noisy effect chain and his attempts to debug it are fruitless.

One guitarist has a DI on his amp that is a nice clean DI signal into the PA. He's happy with the tone even though most guitarists prefer to mic their cab. The other has an old school fender and would rather go from the amp's preamp out into the mixer than shell out for a guitar mic. It's noisy and kind of a pain in the butt.

I saw a cover band last night and was so envious of the small mic'd guitar amps they were using. Their stage volume was super low, everyone used tilt back stands (my guitarists don't like tilt back stands for whatever reason) so they could hear each other and let the PA do the heavy lifting.

I love playing with these guys but they don't really understand how their rig works in a live setting and I'm usually the guy who gets to debug the problems with the sound guy during setup. Why can't all setups be as easy as bass?

All I can say is, I feel your pain. Why can’t guitarists be reasonable team players, who understand their gear, like bassists? Maybe the answer is to start a band with ex-bassists on guitar. Or an all bassist band.

 

[azureblue]

I'll second tilt back stands. My guitar player has one that also raises the amp about a foot off the stage and it works great for everyone, even when I'm on the other side of the drummer. His amp is a 2 -12 open back. His only complaint is he believes he loses (That is spelled with ONE "O", NOT TWO!) low end, due to lack of floor coupling.

Here - send this to them:

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/acc...and/h76084000001000?pfm=item_page.rr1|ClickCP