I hate to say it, but I'm not there. There is nothing like standing on a stack of double-18" PA subwoofers being driven with 30K watts and letting loose with the low B on a five string. Never got that with any bass amp of any size.
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I Miss The Big Stuff
- Thread starter JimmyM
- Start date
I bet your back doesn’t miss the big stuff
I’m 56 and I still have zero problems moving my bigger cabinets and my rack. I use a hand truck/dolly and I lift with my legs. The Mesa PH610 may be an exception, but I’ll always have help to move it, -if it is.
Luckily my Hired Gun days are over, when I had to haul my gear in and out by myself. But even back then my cabinets didn’t weigh over 50 pounds each, which is the same weight as a big bag of dry dog food.
I’ll only play an occasional outdoor gig in the Hard Rock/Metal band that I’m in, and when I do I’m really looking forward to bring out my big rig.
I don't miss the big stuff, because I still use it. This is my #1 Rig. You don't need an 8x10. (2) 15's do the job just fine.
Miss the big stuff, who do you think you are?
I love big gear and I cannot lie about it. In my situation the big gear is not the problem, the issue is that if I don't use IEM everyone else will want to go with amps and that's where the problems start with guys being too loud and getting defensive if you ask them to turn it down.
So IEM has given me a way to control the overall sound to make sure it's clear and balanced and no one gets out of control. Now having to move a big enough PA to cope with the whole band kind of fills up the wagon so I'm schlepping the gear anyway, it's just different gear.
For the last few years since going IEM we have achieved a better sound for the audience and everyone has their own mix so there are no volume wars on stage. In a perfect world of course the 8x10 would be hitting that stage be it large or small because I know where the volume knob is and I know how to turn it down.
So IEM has given me a way to control the overall sound to make sure it's clear and balanced and no one gets out of control. Now having to move a big enough PA to cope with the whole band kind of fills up the wagon so I'm schlepping the gear anyway, it's just different gear.
For the last few years since going IEM we have achieved a better sound for the audience and everyone has their own mix so there are no volume wars on stage. In a perfect world of course the 8x10 would be hitting that stage be it large or small because I know where the volume knob is and I know how to turn it down.
Hate to break it to you kids, but downsizing and ampless gigs didn't just start a few years ago when micros and neo speakers came out on a wide scale.
It certainly didn't feel like downsizing when we wheeled in 80 lb solid state power amps and those big "sugar scoop" cabs for the PA, but it was. And ever since PA's got powerful enough to fill venues in a painfully loud but clean way, there have been ampless musicians. Keyboard players were the first to adapt, and who could blame them? Even the smallest keyboards of the day were big and bulky and you needed a good handful of them to get gigs. So why wouldn't you run them to the PA and just monitor them with a floor monitor at your first opportunity?
But bassists and guitarists had these little instruments and often only one back then, so we hung onto our big stuff, and there wasn't much downsizing going on with us, though there were folks who cut their 810's and 215's in half and did smaller gigs with them. There were some lower wattage combo users, but most of them either had adequate PA or played quieter in smaller rooms. And they were still pretty big compared to combos today.
But the slow crawl we did to ampless setups happened anyway. I started seeing bassists do it around here. First major band I saw doing it was Devo in 1980. At first I thought they were all DI but found a couple mic'ed MusicMan combos off in the wings. A bit disconcerting, but OK. Then a few more, and a few more, and I saw a set of IEM's first time in like 1990 with Sinead O'Connor on SNL. That was really disconcerting. I was afraid it was a sound tech/singer conspiracy to get us all using them, and I hated the idea of listening to my awesome tones on a portable music player.
Well it took 25 years to become truly widespread through all of live performance-dom, sound techs and singers, but mission accomplished. IEM's are consistently cheaper and better at lower prices all the time. Bassists can tailor their DI sounds with preamps that don't cost much money or take up much room, or they can show up with an instrument cord and say, "Plug me into something and let's go." Guitarists are finally not balking at the latest in digital gear, and those who still are also have a lot of choices for running direct in other ways, all of which are perfectly usable. Even drummers will sometimes forego their acoustic drums for digital despite the flaws if it pays enough, and if they won't, you can just put them in a glass box.
And I'm certainly no stranger to downsizing, either. I've done arena gigs with a B-15 and been asked to turn down. Even did a short series of ampless gigs earlier this year. It wasn't horrible. Everything sounded fine. I've got a handful of small stuff I use pretty much exclusively at the moment ranging from top of the line to the cheapest of the cheapest practice amps, and it all sounds terrific because it's well chosen and I play more right notes than wrong
But dang do I miss hearing myself through a big juicy 810! And oh how I miss the sound of a good 412 on guitar! And I hate when the drummer goes digital or gets stuck in a box. And it's not that I want to hear them loudly, either. They sound great to me at low volumes, too. Once heard a guitarist using a 412 with a 5w tube amp and he sounded so much better than the players I work with using smaller cabs. And I've done many gigs with an SVT and 810 at B-15 volumes and it was still amazing sounding.
And you try telling that to your band and venue manager when you show up for a small patio jazz gig with a 412 or 810, and they look at you like you are a mental patient. "No no," I said, "It works quietly, too!" But they never listen. And God forbid you want to ride with someone else and insist on that 810! Even a 410 is enough to get you dirty looks these days.
So you do what you need to do to keep getting the calls. Honestly, I don't mind the reduced schleps at all. I can get in and out of gigs faster than a sax player if I don't have to tote my upright. And my stuff is all quality or at least well-chosen cheap and I don't think I ever sound the least bit bad. But dang, do I love to hear myself through the big stuff! No matter how big the small stuff is, it just doesn't have the physics of the big stuff.
I still like my Eden gear. My 2-210 cabs have different tunings, but the combination of the two is kismet. I never have to crank them even outdoors. At only 40-50lbs a piece, it really is not much of a chore to move them.
I’ve done the IEMs with a Buttkicker for almost 20 years at church, and 99% of the recording work I’ve done over the years have been done with IEMs or headphones. Frankly, comparably speaking, it’s like kissing a sister as opposed to playing a real rig, however from a production standpoint, I get it.
My one 210 is rated @ 500 wats RMS which is more than enough most gigs, but adding the. Mid hump from the other cab is sweet.
I have a full Bagend Crystal P.A.. I own an hiwatt 4x12 (the size of a 215) A Peavey 215 a Dynacord 810. A Bagend 1x15 and I can stack 4 Bagend 1x18 cabs.
The stacked 2x 112 cabs however work really well due to the extended excursion. But the cabs need to be thick for it to have the same presence as a full stack. I find tho that the old ampeg 10 inch speakers not to have a high excursion. Meaning they colour. And compress. I don’t like it. Even the EV speakers in my 1978 dynacord 810 do that. The 10 inch in a Bagend 410 don’t. The 112 of Bagend don’t either.
I do miss big stages. They just work. The energy of happy musicians transform aundiences in happy bunnies. We need more of that.
The stacked 2x 112 cabs however work really well due to the extended excursion. But the cabs need to be thick for it to have the same presence as a full stack. I find tho that the old ampeg 10 inch speakers not to have a high excursion. Meaning they colour. And compress. I don’t like it. Even the EV speakers in my 1978 dynacord 810 do that. The 10 inch in a Bagend 410 don’t. The 112 of Bagend don’t either.
I do miss big stages. They just work. The energy of happy musicians transform aundiences in happy bunnies. We need more of that.
I used to schlep around an SVT IN THE 70’s along with the rarer 9/10 cab. Nothing on earth like it!
Don't miss it at all. I begrudgingly haul a small 115 combo around for some smaller gigs and to appease the others on stage that don't do IEMs. First ones I saw do it back in the 80s was Yes, I believe. Squire was still a monster. Viva technology - especially as it comes to speakers and power.
A pair of 4x10s, an amp rack, a folding hand truck, and a couple instruments fit in a compact car. If you drive to your gigs, you can haul the big stuff without much difficulty.
Miss the big stuff?
Who do you think you are?
<sorry, somebody had to>
Who do you think you are?
<sorry, somebody had to>
In an effort to be more trendy I recently downsized.
Never parting with my big rig. When I shuffle off my mortal coil they can just pull the speakers out of my cab and bury me in it.
Yeah, sometimes I miss those times, too.
I miss instruments coming through amps onstage and vocals only in the mains.
If we could have controlled our volume to a sane level it would have been pretty cool.
I miss instruments coming through amps onstage and vocals only in the mains.
If we could have controlled our volume to a sane level it would have been pretty cool.
