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What are your guitarists' tone settings?

#22
Simple solution to the guitarist who wants to cover the bass frequencies. Pull the knob off the bass pot, turn it down 2 notches, then replace the knob in same position.
To be fair, the same trick should be applied to the treble knob for many bass players;)
 
#23
Found a couple of lists on line of well knowns, including Clapton, Hendrix, JPJ, Randy Rhoads, up to current, etc. Almost all had some sort of balance 5/5/5, 7/3/6, etc. Used to play myself both jazz and rock, through a twin, but never killed off tones as much as my band mates.

I will ask for an exercise at this week's rehearsal..... rehearse a tune 1x with standard settings, then reset guitar amp tones to 5/5/5, we all turn down 2 notches on the amps and play the same tune, check.

Also rearrange the amps (raise/tilt)

I ran all the problems by the new sound guy but he had no idea - I guess he's not qualified (inexperienced kid from BL's church).
 
#24
Silas Stingy said:
Simple solution to the guitarist who wants to cover the bass frequencies. Pull the knob off the bass pot, turn it down 2 notches, then replace the knob in same position.
To be fair, the same trick should be applied to the treble knob for many bass players;)
Click to expand...

Screw the treble idea, but the rest is gold! :bassist:

I read the manual of the Marshall JCM 900 and noticed the bass knob is focused at 50hz - of course it is also raising frequencies above that, but doesn't that seem too low? Can those stupid 412 cabinets even handle that?
 
#25
Bredian said:
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.
Click to expand...

What's a BL?
 
#26
ggunn said:
What's a BL?
Click to expand...

Band Leader.


My band recently did a gig - outdoors - couple hundred people - and the guitar player used a Fender Vibro Champ... like 5 watts with an 8" speaker. Put a SM57 in front of it, and it sounded killer. I was playing a Streamliner 600 with a single 15 with just a hair of PA support. We had a small PA like 800 watts - drummer only had the kick on a mic.

IMHO, most people, INCLUDING BASS PLAYERS, use more amp than they really need.
 
#27
hennessybass said:
Band Leader.


My band recently did a gig - outdoors - couple hundred people - and the guitar player used a Fender Vibro Champ... like 5 watts with an 8" speaker. Put a SM57 in front of it, and it sounded killer. I was playing a Streamliner 600 with a single 15 with just a hair of PA support. We had a small PA like 800 watts - drummer only had the kick on a mic.

IMHO, most people, INCLUDING BASS PLAYERS, use more amp than they really need.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but the diff between guitarists and bassists (and I am both) in that regard is that bass amps do not necessarily or even commonly need to be overdriven to sound good. Bassists can turn down without wrecking their tone, so it really doesn't matter how much amp they are using.
 
#28
makkE said:
I'm quite happy with my guitarrists. Both have their sound focused on mids and not too much highs, and very little bass.

Had to teach that to the rythm guitarist, didn't need to tell the lead, because "I set my amp like BB King".
Click to expand...

That's great but midrange is where human ears are most sensitive and if you're exposed to mostly high SPL midrange, it'll be really hard to understand people when they speak because that range of hearing acuity will be much less than it should be.

Just because BB sets his that way (with a semi-hollowbody), doesn't mean it should be done by anyone else.
 
#29
The great thing about smaller (lower power) amps is that they can be driven to overdrive without peeling paint and that allows the whole band to work at a much lower SPL with the added benefit of allowing the PA to receive a good sound at a much lower level. This gives the volume slider for that channel much wider range of adjustment and it's not so much of an ON/OFF range. Then, the only loud guy onstage is the drums.
 
#31
Im having the same problem with one of my guitarists. He uses a Marshall DG and a half stack. His settings are bass 5, mid cranked w/ contour @ 0, treb around 4, and cranks his gain. His tone is ok solo, but with the band it all turns to muck with woofy low mids, boomy bass, and unintelligible notes. Of course it is fine to him because he stands right in front of his rig in rehearsals.
 
#32
Former band I was in was experiencing issues with low end feedback. Soundman swore it was the bass. To the point where there was none onstage, because I actually cut the volume pot out of my Fender. After I did that, he said it sounded better, but I could still turn down a bit more. I had no idea how to EQ for negative SPLs. Later, when we brought it up at a band meeting, it was more or less blown off that he soundguy told me to turn down a volumeless bass amp. The culprit was the guitarist cranking his low end on his head, and raising his Les Paul's neck pickup to get the big chunk chunk kind of tone. It was at just the right frequency and pointed in just the right direction as to have a effect on the drummer's kick and low Tom mics with a side fill.

Ended up getting fired from that gig. Lol
 
#34
1958Bassman said:
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.
Click to expand...

+1 Bingo!!!! Sound reinforcement is very efficient and relatively cheap these days so there isn't any need to 100w tube amps cranked to 11. At a given volume so loud that the backline is trying to fill the room what difference do the tone settings make. Loud is loud no matter what sonic range it's in.

I've played rooms in big casino's and outdoors with no more than 50w SS in my backline and another guitarist using 25w of attenuated tube power and we could talk with one another on stage without shouting. I like being able to hear my vocals in the monitor and have my hearing intact when I go home for the night.
 
#35
rolandm said:
Former band I was in was experiencing issues with low end feedback. Soundman swore it was the bass. To the point where there was none onstage, because I actually cut the volume pot out of my Fender. After I did that, he said it sounded better, but I could still turn down a bit more.
Click to expand...

i'm running into issues cutting the mix without turning up too loud. My lead guitarist has a really thick, bassy sound, even though his bass on the amp isn't really turned up much(probably through his pedals). With a rhythm guitarist who also plays keys, I'm not sure why he feels he needs to "fill" the sound out as he says...now he's talking about getting an octave pedal for lower octaves:rolleyes:

During a recent gig, there was really loud bass booming through the PA during a song, and both the lead guitarist and drummer were throwing me dirty looks...except I never turned up. So I simply stopped playing, and there was no noticeable difference after I dropped out. It was from the sound guy cranking the kick drum. I snapped at my bandmates for using me as a punching bag for sound issues, and that I just stopped playing during that sound. I'm running into this a lot lately.
 

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