Observations from a recent metal show

[Element Zero]

ABR are friggin awesome.

 

[LBS-bass]

Let night I went to a local metal show. I was introduced to a Scottish metal group, Bleed from within. They were great. Not new, but new to American soil touring.

Takeaways from their set.

• Not an amp to be seen
• Tight, clean, very tastefully done tracking/triggering
• Bassist playing a beautiful high end ibanez 5 string soundgear, 34" scale

Devil wears Prada went next.

• Not an amp to be seen
• Tracks were a bit overdone and obvious
• Sound mix was strange
• Bassist played Dingeall D-Roc 4&5, but his tone was very muffled.
• Guitarists played Dunable and Reverend!

Headliner August burns red

• Not an amp to be seen
• Great sound, tight, clean
• Kiesel basses, and one guitarist. Lead guitar had beautiful gold metal flake Ibanez

No amps at all. I didn't see a pedal board either. I think they ran there entire sets through processors (likely fractal), controlled by midi/computers. They interacted, played skillfully, focused on the crowd, and no one knew the better.

This is the present and the future. Flame on, old farts!

No flames from this old fart; I approve at every corner.

 

[LiptonJigglers]

If you're lucky, you'll get to be an old fart one day. Then you can lament over long gone days of IEM's and ampless stages that have been replaced by nmonic implants that emits the pitch perfect, multi instrument, music, from the microchip in your cerebellum and sent via thought to the synthetic speaker system in everyone's spinal colum... that you must pay in weekly instalments to Silicon Valley Investers or face switching off or cryogenic hibernation for late payments... all the while, the youth of the day abuse you telling you you're an old fart, you smell like asparagus and moth balls and frightened by change.
Enjoy it while you can for tomorrow you may not be you.

 

[No Malarky]

I like loud and somewhat obnoxious instrument amplifiers.

I may not be with the times...which suits me fine.

 

[chris1327]

sounds like a good lineup! well produced metalcore acts have been going this direction for over a decade, so it’s the past as well as the present and future!

the first band i played with that ran the whole show on rails (ampless/iem/axe-fx/triggers/backing tracks/lights/projection all syncopated) was in 2010, and our production wasn’t particularly cutting edge or unique in the scene at that time… and there was absolutely no “miming” lol

 

[logdrum]

That may be the future for big shows but small bands will need amps still. Last time I checked Mesa, GK et al are still selling amps and cabinets and many times they are on backorder - . In the jazz double bass world, we can't even get Acoustic Image heads, combos and cabs readily.

 

[Swings]

Yeah,
remember Milli Vanilli?

I blame it on the rain. Obviously too damp to risk using microphone input.

 

[Swings]

So this was acoustic drumkit but DIed instruments?
Electric drums, DI instruments?

A stage performance to prerecorded tracks ?


I have heard no amps and IEM is a thing these days.
Never ever done it that way but yeehah sounds like a great show

 

[Pauly 4001]

They weren't miming, they were playing, and doing it very skillfully. But you can tell the items on tracks at certain points. Such as sub hits, strings, etc. Some do it well, some overdo it.

You can play an instrument live, skillfully, energetically, and still employ a track to augment the sound closer to the album.

Our boomer heroes would never employ backing tracks

 

[TonyP-]

You have to have more trust in the monitor mix more then ever at that point.

Sure ideally that is great, but not every club I would trust that way.

 

[Admiral Akbar]

If you're lucky, you'll get to be an old fart one day. Then you can lament over long gone days of IEM's and ampless stages that have been replaced by nmonic implants that emits the pitch perfect, multi instrument, music, from the microchip in your cerebellum and sent via thought to the synthetic speaker system in everyone's spinal colum... that you must pay in weekly instalments to Silicon Valley Investers or face switching off or cryogenic hibernation for late payments... all the while, the youth of the day abuse you telling you you're an old fart, you smell like asparagus and moth balls and frightened by change.
Enjoy it while you can for tomorrow you may not be you.

/\/\this.

If the OP (and the rest of us) are fortunate enough to become elders in this society, we will wish for the good old days of clean ampless gigs and IEMs… as the youth blast our feeble ears and melt our over the hill minds with music blaring from amplifiers.

‘what’s old is new, and back again….

 

[bassrique]

There's a place for prrecise, but there's also a place for this:

 

[DavidEdenAria]

This old guy remembers when Geddy quit using amps. His live sound improved tremendously. He finally sounded as great live as he did in the studio.
The same with Tony Levin.

I saw Rush in 76 on the 2112 tour opening for Nugent....Rush couldnt have sounded better that night including Geddy fwiw....the 80s is where it started getting weird at times bass guitar was virtually inaudible at live shows.

 

[jvanoort]

As for backing tracks, people pay to hear the songs like they heard them streaming. "Give the people what they want" is a solid, time-tested entertainment business strategum.

I don't mind if a performance sounds like the recording, but it should not be the goal.

That may be true for other people, I don't know. But as for me: I want a live performance to add something to the recording, not sound like one! I always hope for excitement, some impro, even if only extending the solos or endings.

One of the reasons I love going to jazz concerts!

 

[Krakmann]

Salud!

At this point, I don't think anyone in an audience would give a damn about amps or not amps. Digital modeling sounds perfect live-wise.

 

[baxter_x]

All IEM? Not for me. I tried that once and it was a terrible experience. While I titally admit ampless is very convenient, especially for the soudman, I can't get used to it.
I need to here and feel my amp onstage. Now, I'm alos a responsable player. I don't bring any 810 when the stage doesn't require it.

At this point, I don't think anyone in an audience would give a damn about amps or not amps. Digital modeling sounds perfect live-wise.

I can't agree more. Whatever you play, the audience will never guess or notice it. And yes, digital stuffs sound perfect and make touring way easier.

 

[mikewalker]

Wow, TEMPUS FUGIT! This reminds me it was 20 years ago that I started gigging the full band with in-ears, digital mixer, roland drumkit plus three tonelabs... everything preprogrammed in MIDI for each song (patch changes on the drumkit, tonelabs, and mixer scene). When I did the patch change on my floorboard, the whole band was instantly primed for the next song. The only thing we didnt have was programmable lighting...

 

[el murdoque]

I've seen a show a few years ago where High On Fire opened for Meshuggah.
My main reason to attend was actually to see High On Fire, with Meshuggah thrown in as the cherry on top.
However, HoF had the stage full of amps, if memory serves, it was two full stacks per guitar.
The sound was terrible. When you stood front center, within the beam patterns of the guitar rigs, they were searing your ears off and melting your face, with the rest of the mix drowned out.
When you stood to the side, it sounded equally bad - and I was quite disappointed.
Then they cleared the stage (literally) and Meshuggah played ampless.
I did not understand the entire setup, but FOH had control over aspects of the guitar sound via laptop.
With everything running through FOH, they sounded crystal clear, the polar opposite of HOF.

Disclaimer:
I DO enjoy rock/metal concerts at concerning SPL. I was a vivid fan of Motörhead.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

Whatever works. Personally I massively prefer the feeling of playing real tube amps and I will never get rid of my amps. I might feel different about this if I still did a lot of touring though. Especially after several weeks of dragging 8x10 fridges up narrow staircases at 3 am...

From what I've seen this also varies a lot between different genres of music. I mostly see the ampless approach with event/cover bands (presumably for fast/easy setup) and with metal bands. I'm not sure why more metal bands seem to move towards ampless setups than other genres but metal guitar/bass tone is usually more about clinical precision than "feeling" the dynamics of the amp/cab. I suspect this might be part of the reason: Easier setup with no real loss of tone/feel (with "feel" being the key word). With other genres that use less distorted/compressed tones the difference in "feel" might be more of a compromise. At least compared to real tube amps (rather than more modern types of amps).

The most surprising thing to me is that GUITAR players embrace this technology. Bass players have always been more open to stuff like Class D amps and other new technology and we've been using DI-based setups on stage for decades. Guitar players are generally a lot more conservative about their equipment.

(Btw, I used to play metal and I still love metal music so this is not in any way intended to suggest that metal is an inferior musical genre where "feel" doesn't matter at all, it's just my personal observations based on what I've seen in my local area.)

 

[alembicguy]

The only people in the audience who care about amps on stage are musicians and most of them are only there to judge anyway. Regular person could care less.