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Two 410s placement on stage with 2 guitars

Toddbass65

Toddbass65

Supporting Member
Oct 21, 2012
740
605
NY
#1
Need some opinions on this please:
Recently started playing with a hard rock band with 2 guitarists. I have been playing with one guitarist previously, so I usually just stacked my two Carvin 410s on my side of the stage and done.
Now I'm wondering......
If I do that now, the guitarist on the other side of the stage says he has a hard time hearing me often. We are working with different soundmen quite a bit, so sometimes my bass monitor gets turned up for him and sometimes not.
So I was thinking of placing one cabinet on each side of the drum kit so both sides of the stage would benefit from my sound directly. I know lots of people say NEVER split cabs as it hurts your sound, but I am not sure in what way it would hurt me. Anyone have some advice for me being I'm new to this 2 guitarists thing? Thanks for your thoughts on this!
 
#2
Toddbass65 said:
Need some opinions on this please:
Recently started playing with a hard rock band with 2 guitarists. I have been playing with one guitarist previously, so I usually just stacked my two Carvin 410s on my side of the stage and done.
Now I'm wondering......
If I do that now, the guitarist on the other side of the stage says he has a hard time hearing me often. We are working with different soundmen quite a bit, so sometimes my bass monitor gets turned up for him and sometimes not.
So I was thinking of placing one cabinet on each side of the drum kit so both sides of the stage would benefit from my sound directly. I know lots of people say NEVER split cabs as it hurts your sound, but I am not sure in what way it would hurt me. Anyone have some advice for me being I'm new to this 2 guitarists thing? Thanks for your thoughts on this!
Click to expand...

I've done/tried it and you may (or may not) like it on stage, but it usually won't cover a room well, so unless you have good sound reinforcement covering the room, I wouldn't recommend it.

EDIT: PS, and with real stage monitoring you'd never need to do that either.
 
#6
I've read many times that for subs specifically, you don't want them spaced as you can get cancellation when the sound from one hits the sound from another.

A question though, is whether you are using the cabinets JUST for monitoring, or if they are being used as something the crowd is supposed to hear. In my opinion, there is much more room for error when you are splitting your cabs. For example, say you want it louder, but now it's too loud for the other guitarist. You'll end up with a "noise war", and this is not something you want with stage gear, as everyone loses (including the crowd).

Are you mic'ing your bass cabs (do people still do that)? An alternative I would recommend to this whole thing if you still want speakers, would be to invest in a stage/monitor mixer and your own monitors. That way you're not killing the crowd, and the guitarist and everyone else can mix their monitor to taste. This takes one more job off the sound guy so he can focus on the FOH and not monitors.

Then there's the big whammy, and that's an IEM setup with personal mixes for everyone. If you're the type of guy who likes ripping with two 410's, I'm thinking you may not be interested in this sort of thing. However, if you are, I'd love to help you out and tell you a great way that you can reduce the gear you need to schlep and be able to have each individual in control of their own mix. I highly recommend this method not only for ease of use, but also to protect your hearing. Having two 410's competing with 2 guitarists in a jam room (and on stage), especially if one guy is already feeling there are volume/monitor issues, you are building a recipe for some serious hearing damage.

Sorry if I went a little off of your original post, but I think there are much better ways. Sure, you can split your cabs, and it won't be a critical problem to your sound, but it introduces other variables that may not put you in a better situation to begin with.

If you're set on using your cabs, some issues are alleviated if you can independently control the volume of both cabs, so the one guitarist can mix his own monitor. Another thing that may help is to angle (somehow) your extra cab up at the guitarist's ears. This way instead of shooting sound at his knee caps, it'll go to his ears.

And FINALLY, the last method you can try is "side-filling" your cabs. That is, don't face your cabs at the crowd at all. That is, turn it 90 degrees, so it faces across the stage. Your guitarist should have an easier time hearing it that way.

Hope this helps!
 
#8
the angling of cabs is something I thought about doing,
so that I put my stack far left of stage instead of next to drum kit. Then just angle it in maybe 45 degress so it is pointed towards the whole band. Worth a try?
Not sure we are too loud on stage, as my drummer and other guitar player near me say they hear me no problem.
Sometimes with soundmen we have worked with it is no problem getting the monitors set up properly. But some guys we are new to seem to never get some levels right....probably the least of what they are worrying about quite often.
 
#10
How's the 2nd Guitards EQ set. If he's got a ton of bass dialed in then he's creating "mud". You should be able to bump up your mids and get to where he can hear you but it's a group effort to get the dynamics correct. Reach for the Midrange knob (instead of the volume knob) next time he says he can't hear you and see what happens. I bet he'll say he can hear you much better.
 
#11
Hey....you're right!
I already bump mids quite a bit, but now that you mention it the second guitarist that is on the other side does have quite a bit of low end on his cab. He has an old marshall 412...not sure what year. But it is pretty thumpy to my ears. never even thought that he might be cancelling me out over there. Gonna see if maybe he will adjust his eq a little to help. He's cool, so I'm sure he will try it at rehearsal to get an idea if it would help.
As far as size of rooms, we generally play rooms in clubs for 100-300 people I'd say. Nothing too big, just average bar size.
I use a wireless for my bass, so when I go out front for soundcheck I hear everything in the mix just fine usually or can direct the soundguy what might be missing from how we want to sound.
 
#13
Ukiah Bass said:
Let's see, a pair of guitarists have a hard time hearing bass from TWO 410s?

Enough of this silliness. Make each guitarist stand in front of a 410, respectively, and face their own cab into the ground. That will teach 'em manners.
Click to expand...

This.
I can out run our Pa with just my one four ten.......and its not even a good one.

Tell you other guitar player to cut HIS bass and dial in more mids. The scooped v tone only sounds good in your bedroom.....it doesn't translate well to the stage. Tell him to get the hell out of your frequency.
 
#14
Toddbass65 said:
Hey....you're right!
I already bump mids quite a bit, but now that you mention it the second guitarist that is on the other side does have quite a bit of low end on his cab. He has an old marshall 412...not sure what year. But it is pretty thumpy to my ears. never even thought that he might be cancelling me out over there. Gonna see if maybe he will adjust his eq a little to help. He's cool, so I'm sure he will try it at rehearsal to get an idea if it would help.
As far as size of rooms, we generally play rooms in clubs for 100-300 people I'd say. Nothing too big, just average bar size.
I use a wireless for my bass, so when I go out front for soundcheck I hear everything in the mix just fine usually or can direct the soundguy what might be missing from how we want to sound.
Click to expand...
Great! Communication is key. I like to be enthusiastic and positive about this stuff. Tell him you studied up on it and you just needed to bump the mids. Next ask if he can back the bass off a bit because it will "open up" the sonic space for both of you and make it a better experience on stage. He sounds cool like my guitarists are and we got our stage volumes figured out pretty well.
 
#15
NYCbassist said:
Great! Communication is key. I like to be enthusiastic and positive about this stuff. Tell him you studied up on it and you just needed to bump the mids. Next ask if he can back the bass off a bit because it will "open up" the sonic space for both of you and make it a better experience on stage. He sounds cool like my guitarists are and we got our stage volumes figured out pretty well.
Click to expand...

The lesson being that EQing by yourself does not make for a good EQ in the band mix.

I prefer not to take an enthusiastic and positive approach. I would explain the above whilst urinating on his amp (even while plugged in for added effect), or some other personal article of his to really drive the point home.

Take no prisoners.
 
#16
I just bought another 810 after years of the 2 410 thing. The halfwit guitar players say. "What the hell you bring that for " and "you aint gonna need all that"

And i say..."yes I do, and this is your fault "
 
#17
Splitting the cabs may help your guitarists' monitoring needs, or it may not if they're really that dang loud. Further, splitting the cabs doesn't yield a good sound in the room. I've seen/heard a few bass players trying this approach. The sound out front is just lousy, and it really complicates things for the soundman. As others have said, I do think the best approach is working with each on your stage mix.
 
#20
Right before the first set, tell the guitarists that Joan Jett is in the back by the bar. While they go to find her, turn the bass eq all the way down on their rigs and crazy glue the knobs. Problem solved. I'm afraid to say otherwise you are going to go nuts tweaking to fix a problem that should not exist. They cant hear you because they are washed out by their own low end.
 

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