What are your guitarists' tone settings?

[Bredian]

Gig Saturday night. I brought 300 watts through 115 and 410 cabinets. Room was about 50x100, 60x120 or so, 8-10 ceiling, old wood building (great place). PA was 800 watts. Drummer mic'd only kick. 5 of us sing. BL complained the last set was so loud he couldn't hear the vocals.

Here's what I think:

He and lead play guitars through Fender Twins, unmic'd that night. It was actually the BL who was playing louder (unnoticed by him)

While I'm loading out, I notice their tone settings (both) are bass:10, Mid and treble:1. I'm stunned. The guitar e string hz is the same as the first E on the D string of the bass. Are we loading the overlapping sonic range? Likely.

I don't know if its a tone while alone thing, or as we play a bunch of Clapton, and stuff of the era, etc.

I've gleaned from many posts, gotta raise the amps (mine was 10' behind us all close to a wall) even heard about turning the twins sideways, moving them further behind the guitarists so they can hear and avoid turning up.

Love to hear spy reports of your guitarists tone settings.

 

[elgecko]

Gig Saturday night. I brought 300 watts through 115 and 410 cabinets. Room was about 50x100, 60x120 or so, 8-10 ceiling, old wood building (great place). PA was 800 watts. Drummer mic'd only kick. 5 of us sing. BL complained the last set was so loud he couldn't hear the vocals.

Here's what I think:

He and lead play guitars through Fender Twins, unmic'd that night. It was actually the BL who was playing louder (unnoticed by him)

While I'm loading out, I notice their tone settings (both) are bass:10, Mid and treble:1. I'm stunned. The guitar e string hz is the same as the first E on the D string of the bass. Are we loading the overlapping sonic range? Likely.

I don't know if its a tone while alone thing, or as we play a bunch of Clapton, and stuff of the era, etc.

I've gleaned from many posts, gotta raise the amps (mine was 10' behind us all close to a wall) even heard about turning the twins sideways, moving them further behind the guitarists so they can hear and avoid turning up.

Love to hear spy reports of your guitarists tone settings.

Maybe you guys are just playing too loud. Volume knobs tend to creep up as gigs progress. I've been known to do it now and again.

 

[sonic assassin]

one thing ive noticed about open back combos is that they dont direct sound as much as a closed back cab. in my last band, my idiot rhythm guitarist always had some sort of 4x12, while i kept an open back 2x12. i always had more midrange, less boomy bass and it didnt seem to direct sound into one place as badly. i kept mine off the ground closer to ear level. perhaps they need to get their amps closer to their ears.

if they are miced, they can be turned toward the player. otherwise i can see the sound getting muddy out in the crowd. maybe they need to be educated in the ways of "my tone vs the band's tone"

 

[stingraysvt]

I've heard players on twins that are TOO loud and players that compliment the band with their tone and are not loud at all, could even afford to turn up really...

Best practice is to get everyone to stand back and listen to each other. If you don't sound good together before you mic up then what's the hope when you get on a PA?

if they are miced, they can be turned toward the player. otherwise i can see the sound getting muddy out in the crowd. maybe they need to be educated in the ways of "my tone vs the band's tone"

Big time +1

 

[1958Bassman]

I think most bands need to re-think how they capture the sound to present it to FOH. It hasn't been necessary to have a high-powered guitar amp for decades. A smaller amp that gets the sound, mic'd and sent through the PA is a lot easier to control, easier to get a good FOH sound, easier on everyone's ears and the whole band can get a better monitor mix. There's no overlap issue, the FOH mix can be tailored to sound like music instead of noise and the crowd won't see the band fighting about stage levels.

 

[Munjibunga]

He has two tones: loud and louder.

Naw, naw, naw ... that was my last band.

 

[groove pump]

I haven't had any heavy conversations with my guitar dude about tone settings and what he's going for with his sound, but a couple things have been landmark improvements with our stage layout over the past several months. The first was getting him to get that amp up where he could hear it instead of blowing his sound across his shins all night (and wailing on our ears along the way).

He's also been able to turn down a little bit, now that we've got some of his sound going through the PA. This band has historically used a small PA setup with only vocals and the kick drum going through it, but we're evolving... change is slow.

When guitar dude got a smaller amp, things got much better. He's now using a Blackstar combo that runs maybe 20 watts and the tone he gets with it is wonderful. He can turn it up a little and let it "breathe" without killing the rest of us - gotta be easier to elevate that smaller amp, too.

Tone settings... I've sighted some bad settings on this guy's amp, too. Too much mid, too much bass, or just too damn much. I must be a rather tolerant human (put up with the ex-girlfriend for WAY too long), but I'm baffled with his eagerness to up the mids so high. Not sure what he thinks he's hearing like that, but my description wouldn't be all too kind. There's hope though - I convinced him to try his neck pickup for some solos (hoping to get away from that "cat in distress" sort of sound with the harsh mids) and we struck on some really gorgeous sounds... change is slow.

Instead of just finger pointing and making him feel bad about the excessive lows, I might just pretend that I'm getting too much "mud" in my ears and see if we can clean it up by cutting a bit of the bottom. Never easy to deal with guitar players who default into the script of turning up to: awesome!

 

[Wes Whitmore]

I wish I knew, so I could pass his settings on to other guitarists in the area...but they are all stuck in that Line6 Vetta head he has been using for years. He doesn't run a cab anymore, just goes DI. I swear he turns it on and every soundman who hears it falls in love with it. He hasn't even considered shopping for a new head in the longest time. Must be nice...
Wes

 

[monkeyland]

a twin has legs on it so that it can lean back and be heard by the player. It will still radiate plenty of sound around the room because of it's open back design but the beamy portion of the sound can be directed right to the player. The whole idea of "getting the amp up in the air" sounds scary to me with an amp that heavy, and would still result in the amp beaming into the audience.

 

[Dave W]

Where was the volume on the Twins? They are pretty well known to be a very loud amp. They also happen to sound GREAT when driven hard...

 

[pbd]

A kick back stand for the guitar amp will do wonders, also putting it a bit farther away will help a lot.

Beam blockers on the front of the speakers will help spread the sound out too so that he has a better chance of hearing it as well.

guitar player can also try a less effecient speaker, that allow him to crank the amp more to get the tube drive sound he is probably after but at a lower SPL.

back to your original question

tone knobs are set as follows:
bass 11 o clock
mid at noon
treble at 1 o clock

hope this helps

Todd

 

[1958Bassman]

I wish I knew, so I could pass his settings on to other guitarists in the area...but they are all stuck in that Line6 Vetta head he has been using for years. He doesn't run a cab anymore, just goes DI. I swear he turns it on and every soundman who hears it falls in love with it. He hasn't even considered shopping for a new head in the longest time. Must be nice...
Wes

Have him come here and post his settings and philosophy on how to set it up. He probably understands sound and hearing far better than the vast majority of guitarists.

 

[1958Bassman]

A kick back stand for the guitar amp will do wonders, also putting it a bit farther away will help a lot.

Beam blockers on the front of the speakers will help spread the sound out too so that he has a better chance of hearing it as well.

guitar player can also try a less effecient speaker, that allow him to crank the amp more to get the tube drive sound he is probably after but at a lower SPL.

back to your original question

tone knobs are set as follows:
bass 11 o clock
mid at noon
treble at 1 o clock

hope this helps

Todd

The fact that he has the bass set to 10 and the mid/highs buried tells me that the guy has wooden ears. Plenty of people can play like crazy but have no clue about good sound and won't listen to anyone's comments.

 

[Dave W]

Oh...and I have no clue how their EQ's are set. One of them is decent, but has too much low end. The other one is terrible, with too much terrible...playing into what he thinks is an awesome preamp, a crappy power amp, into an even crappy cabinet. Yet instead of trying to fix any of these items, chose to buy a wireless system instead.

We haven't played out AT ALL since he's been in the band, and he stands no further than 2' away from his amp at practice. He doesn't even use it. Good investment right there...

Trying to talk to either of them about the overall tone gets me nowhere, because they are all about how their standalone tone sounds vs. what the entire band sounds like. We don't sound bad by any means, but it could be better.

 

[dougjwray]

So much of this has to do with the classic pecking order problem.
In a better world, we would "get there first" with our tone, and guitarists would need to roll off some lows in order to hear themselves over us.

 

[Handyman]

Where was the volume on the Twins? They are pretty well known to be a very loud amp. They also happen to sound GREAT when driven hard...

If you're curious about the long term effects of a twin being driven hard, just do some research about Ted Nugent's hearing. They're some seriously loud amps.

Also, the guitarist having the bass all the way up and the mids + trebble is bad news. The guitars will likely be stepping on everyone else's sonic territory like that, which is a perfect recipe for everyone to keep increasing their volume all night long.

 

[gttim]

If you're curious about the long term effects of a twin being driven hard, just do some research about Ted Nugent's hearing. They're some seriously loud amps.

Nugent used to wear an ear plug in the ear facing the amp. He is now deaf in the other ear- or so I read in an interview with him a while back.

I have been listening to Hendrix's Winterland box set. I think on every disc he says to the audience "We do not run the sound too loud because we care about your ears." If Hendrix can keep the volume down, what guitarist needs it up? Play those sound bites to guitarists.

 

[Dave W]

I have been listening to Hendrix's Winterland box set. I think on every disc he says to the audience "We do not run the sound too loud because we care about your ears." If Hendrix can keep the volume down, what guitarist needs it up? Play those sound bites to guitarists.

Yet Hendrix was known to dime all of the controls on his non master volume amps...

Just because he didn't think it was loud didn't mean it actually wasn't.

 

[dougjwray]

Yet Hendrix was known to dime all of the controls on his non master volume amps...

Just because he didn't think it was loud didn't mean it actually wasn't.

There are also examples of him warning the audience to watch their ears, and he gestures that way before launching into the feedback intro to his historic "Wild Thing" at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Right around 1:28:
Jimi Hendrix - Wild Thing Live Monterey 1967 - YouTube

 

[treekiller]

Oh...and I have no clue how their EQ's are set........ The other one is terrible, with too much terrible...playing into what he thinks is an awesome preamp, a crappy power amp, into an even crappy cabinet. Yet instead of trying to fix any of these items, chose to buy a wireless system instead.

We haven't played out AT ALL since he's been in the band, and he stands no further than 2' away from his amp at practice. He doesn't even use it. Good investment right there...

Trying to talk to either of them about the overall tone gets me nowhere, because they are all about how their standalone tone sounds vs. what the entire band sounds like. We don't sound bad by any means, but it could be better.

I think I've played with "that guy" before, except he had a 100w Marshall 1/2 stack!!!