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Trending? How many of us have gone totally amp-free?

Have you gone totally amp-free?

  • Total voters
    275
  • Poll closed .
#81
I try to be practical about this. Like @pbass2 and some others have already said, you kind of have to be able to cover all the gig scenarios your situation presents.

So, I have amps and cabs which I like and sound great, and I am also equipped to do IEM when those situations arise. Other than sub work, I'm pretty much doing originals and those gigs can be anywhere from small venues with 12 or 15" mains on sticks ... maybe with a sub or 2, maybe not ... to festival stages with pretty serious FOH and solid sound crews. Ya gotta have the right rig to fit the gig. Sometimes that's an amp & cab, sometimes that's a backline with wedges, sometimes that's a IEM situation. They all work for me.

Now all that being said, I'd really like to be doing more IEM gigs as I usually find the sound quality to be excellent, the mix balance outstanding, and the volume impact on my aging ears to be very manageable. Win Win Win!
 
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#83
I always use tube amps for live gigs and rehearsals (sometimes combined with a clean/dry DI at gigs).

For recording I sometimes go amp-free, but only when I actually want the tone of a DI (although I do often use a tube/transformer based DI/micpre for a bit of color/saturation, so it's not necessarily 100% "hi-fi" clean). If I want the tone of an amp I use a mic'ed tube amp. Nothing digital I've tested so far has given me what I want.
 
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#84
It's definitely situation-dependent isn't it? I've always been in bands that play organised gigs at either pubs, clubs or functions. We've always brought our own pa system and I've either been the soundman or it's been something like a festival or biker rally where there's a full pa and backline. In this kind of situation it's easy. If you play multi-band originals nights or whatever then I get why it would be harder. There's also an increasing blurring of the lines. I have a Quad Cortex and either a stage wedge or IEMs. If the wedge is being used then is that really ampless? That's just connecting the mixer in between the preamp and the power amp. There's still a bass, a preamp, a power amp and a speaker on stage.


Kevin Wolfe said:
I’m stressing about going amp free right now as a matter of fact. Don’t quite know where or how to start.
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What's the stress? Tell us more and I'm sure we can help. Without knowing anything more than what you've said I'll hazard a guess that a good starting point is to see if your favourite amp manufacturer makes a preamp pedal.

Hoyt said:
Reminds me of the use of wireless setups.

If you’re playing the local dive bar and don’t wander more than 10’ from your amp, I fail to understand the need for one. 🤷‍♂️

(Insert “harrumph” here —->______)
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About 20 years ago a guitarist stood on the cable that connected my p bass to my amp. Pulled the pickguard off, sent screws everywhere, ripped the wires out of some of the pots and one from the pickups. My "why I use a wireless" anecdote is also my "why you should always bring a backup bass" anecdote.

Ondoval said:
This. When I do gig I play punk/noisy rock in smaller venues (100-200 people rooms) and you really need an amp for this. I've seen people try, but you cant really fill the room with sound the right way without amps in this scene.
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I've been doing it for over ten years between a British indie rock band and a pop-punk covers band. I think it can be done.
 
#85
pbass2 said:
Exactly. For those bars, brew pubs, etc where it's just a couple of PA speakers on stands(no sub), but there's a live drummer with an acoustic kit who's not in the mains(maybe a little kick top end...).....you really want your bass only coming out of that? It can sound really lame if the band is at all even close to rocking out with any energy. I've seen so many bands in settings like that where it would have sounded way more "real" if they were simply using amps but knew how to control the stage volume. Instead you have everything coming out of a PA not up to the task and an acoustic drum set bashing away back there, totally disconnected.
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For me it’s the drums that make it difficult to go ampless. Our drummer has been using Vdrums for almost 20 years now, so ampless is pretty simple, and I use a Rolls PM351 when I really need “more me” and there aren’t enough aux send channels.

That said I recently bought a Fender Rumble 500 for auditions and smaller gigs. It’s smallish and light and gets loud enough for me. It kinda makes my already obsolete amps and cabs a little more obsolete.
 
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#87
BigBoneRed said:
That's a little bit surprising to me..
I had expected the % of amp-free to be a little higher🤔
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perhaps that is because of your limited data pool? unless you are regularly going to shows in different areas and seeing a wide variety of musical genres, i don't see how you could have that expectation.

i play with a GK 210 / Mesa head if the stage is big enough. our guitars typically go direct to our PA. i will go direct to the PA if the space is small. so, we are somewhat ampless but not quiet stage/IEM. we're an acoustic trio with no drums, so stage volume really isn't a concern.

i have not seen a single show in this area (Western CT) where the band is ampless/IEM. i have seen one or two that use a terrible combination where some in the band have IEMs and others are using amps....with no stage monitors. so that was bad. but with full bands i see amps on stage, acoustic drums and little to no PA support unless the artist brings it.

maybe in larger areas with a better music scene and supporting venues this would be different? we don't have a strong scene here. most venues around pay crap money and have no in-house PA. so, if you are coming from a major metro area with a strong live, local music scene i can see how you might have the view that no amps/IEMs are the norm. for the rest of us though, we're old school. amps, drums, a basic PA that really just for the vocals and a nice loud stage where you feel every drum hit and bass note. (use ear plugs!)

i don't know that i would like to play on a quiet stage using only the IEMs to hear ourselves. i know there are benefits to it and if the venue required it, i would certainly comply but we bring a PA and i get my own mix through my monitor. i think the thing i don't understand is the lack of interaction with the audience. when we play, i love hearing the audience. they sing along, they talk to us, they try to make requests, etc. with sound isolating IEMs in, how do you hear the crowd?

kgb
 
#88
In my band I want to be amp free as I have been using IEM for years now, and my band has all moved to IEM now as well....but.....my guitarist insists I use an amp so I have my mini fridge (Ampeg VR2 and 210 cab)

When I do work with another band, only the drummer is on IEM and me, so I use an amp (either the SVT7pro or the VR2, depending on the gig)

So I voted carrots.
 
#89
It seems to me that the amp-less setup for amplified music relies totally on your sound man (who might be one of the performers). I'm not particularly comfortable with that, but I'm speaking purely theoretically as I haven't any experience in that kind of setup.

To me, the instrument-plus-amplifier (for electric instruments) is the instrument, it's what you play, and being a musician includes knowing how to balance volume and adjust tone quality as needed, just as much for an electric instrument-plus-effects-plus-amp rig as for a saxophone or trombone on its own.

And yet I realize there are lots and lots of people who have no self-discipline. Thus the volume wars. And thus the DI-to-PA-with-IEM-and-cede-control-to-the-sound-guy approach.

Which leads me to MY favorite way to play music - ELECTRON less.

Now of course this takes us out of the loud rock and roll (and related music) category that gets the vast majority of attention on this forum (and this is in the Bass Guitar subforum which implies electrons, so bear with me). Take totally non-amplified instruments and use them for making music, each person adjusting volume according to what their ears tell them at the time, and I predict you can have some new and enlightening experiences!

The first time this really came home to me was when I was in my mid twenties and I'd been playing Dixieland jazz with a few guys for larks, and we got a gig for an outdoor block party. No, zero, zip, zilch, nada electrity. No piano, bass was provided by a tuba player. Now I grew up playing jazz and fusion; it was the late 70s through mid-80s so even the "big band sound" band was miked up like we were Buddy Rich or something, loud loud loud. We got out there on the front lawn, about six of us with our completely non-amplified instruments, and we played NATURAL music - and it was fantastic!

I urge anyone who's serious about music and who's getting tired of volume wars, to try the completely non-amplified way for a while.

Now it's nearly 40 years on, and I still find my most enjoyable gigs are those with either zero or minimal amplification used. In that situation, of course, the question of "DI and in-ear vs. on-stage amp" doesn't come up.
 
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#92
Not I. I have a lightweight rig (MB Little Marcus 500, Hartke HD12 and HD 2x10). I just need that backline on stage and I like having specific cab configs.

For a super small, intimate gig, I have a TC Electronic 200 watt head and a 4ohm 1x10 cab.

Still have all of my heavier rigs (GK, Eden, Trace, etc), but the lightweight stuff is working well for me.
 
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#95
BigBoneRed said:
That's a little bit surprising to me..
I had expected the % of amp-free to be a little higher🤔
Click to expand...
IMO it's probably actually artificially high because of the self selecting nature of specialized forum polls. But since your poll didn't specify "gigging musicians" as a qualifier, who knows? ;)

In any case, in my book if you plug a bass guitar into anything it's still a bass amp: IEMs, FOH, an interface with headphone output, a powered wedge,
NitroBobby said:
i don't know that i would like to play on a quiet stage using only the IEMs to hear ourselves. i know there are benefits to it and if the venue required it, i would certainly comply but we bring a PA and i get my own mix through my monitor. i think the thing i don't understand is the lack of interaction with the audience. when we play, i love hearing the audience. they sing along, they talk to us, they try to make requests, etc. with sound isolating IEMs in, how do you hear the crowd?

kgb
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You can use one or more ambience mics, or just depend on bleed from the drum or vocal mics.
 
#96
As mentioned in an earlier posting the main reason my band went to IEM’s originally was for ear protection. This led to our keyboard player immediately going ampless and I have experimented both with amp + IEM’s and ampless + IEM’s, at the moment I am still using an amp on stage. Unfortunately our guitarist is a bit old school and refuse to give up his amp and saying that it has to be mic’d up, blah blah blah.

What put me off with going ampless was that I had people in the audience at venues saying they couldn’t hear my bass, there I was happily playing away with my IEM’s and hearing a great bass sound through my ears oblivious to the fact that very little bass was actually going through the FOH. I was totally in the hands of our sound engineer, when I started bringing my amp again I made it quite clear to him the reason for doing so. I’m confident now that this has been rectified but I still bring my amp and have it at a reduced stage volume and it’s nice having it there for some stage presence and atmos.
 
#98
klokker said:
We're old school totally. Everyone has their own amp with PA vocals. No sound person.
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With a band where people maintain good stage volume discipline, conscientiously listen to each other, and are all focused on giving the audience the best show (as opposed to winning a volume war), it has worked well for years IME.
 
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