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Why are 4x12s necessary for guitar amplification?

amos

amos

Oct 23, 2003
1,692
8
40
SE Portland Oregon
#1
Talking about guitar amplification at small to medium sized venues. It seems like the more and more shows I go to and play, the more I like bands where every guitarist as a 1x12 fender combo. They always seem to sound the best. The bassist usually doesn't need more than a 4x10, and can be heard, and the guitars don't overpower the drums. If they are mic'ing the drums (everything except overheads), there's no reason the guitars should be louder than the drums. That's silly.

My guitarist has an Orange 4x12. It sounds amazing with his HiWatt, but he's very conservative with volume, and the distorted tone he goes through doesn't cut very well, so I always have sound guy put him through the monitors. We love the orange but it's damn heavy and I'm getting a bit tired of hauling it. For the volume and tone he plays it seems excessive.
 
#4
As someone who works in a small venue, I totally agree that 4x12s are completely overkill. We have a very small PA, and guitarists, especially young guitarists, do not seem to understand that they need to turn down because the PA can't go any farther.
 
#8
For guitar, I play a 212 combo, and for bass I play either a 212 or a 112. It just depends on the size of the venue. I love the sound of a 412 cranked, but there are not many places that you can actually use it. My 212 guitar rig actually has kick back legs that allow me to keep the volume where I want it without really killing everyone else.
 
#9
In my experience, guitar amps are always too loud and bass amps are always not loud enough... most mediocre teen bands have a guitarist with a no-name 4x12 that feedbacks to hell and back, while the bassist lugs his 1x12 Yorkville or 1x15 Peavey TKO and is either buried, farty, distorted, or a combination of the three.

I've played shows with my SVT+8x10 where I have to turn down to about 10-11 o'clock on both gain and master volume knobs. Guitarists should do the same. I'd rather have a powerful amp that I can adjust to the right volume than have multiple amps for different gigs. I know those big amps need a lot to be cranked to sound great, but there are compromises to be made in a small venue. After all, you aren't playing the Royal Albert Hall... Maybe those guitarists you're talking about just need a 101 in volume and EQ, or maybe a soundguy would help. :D
 
#10
jenderfazz said:
In my experience, guitar amps are always too loud and bass amps are always not loud enough... most mediocre teen bands have a guitarist with a no-name 4x12 that feedbacks to hell and back, while the bassist lugs his 1x12 Yorkville or 1x15 Peavey TKO and is either buried, farty, distorted, or a combination of the three.

I've played shows with my SVT+8x10 where I have to turn down to about 10-11 o'clock on both gain and master volume knobs. Guitarists should do the same. I'd rather have a powerful amp that I can adjust to the right volume than have multiple amps for different gigs. I know those big amps need a lot to be cranked to sound great, but there are compromises to be made in a small venue. After all, you aren't playing the Royal Albert Hall... Maybe those guitarists you're talking about just need a 101 in volume and EQ, or maybe a soundguy would help. :D
Click to expand...

That's the other thing. I think if my guitarist cranked his hiwatt a little more he we get a more solid tone that cut through the symbols better. But he can't really do that for the places we play.
 
#11
amos said:
That's the other thing. I think if my guitarist cranked his hiwatt a little more he we get a more solid tone that cut through the symbols better. But he can't really do that for the places we play.
Click to expand...


maybe he should look into a powerbrake? (i think that's what they're called) I believe they basically sink away some of the power after the head but before the speakers, that way you can crank up the volume on the head to get "the tone" but get less volume at the cab. I've never used one, but I've heard they are quite useful for guitarists.
 
#12
baalroo, thank you for that suggestion, I sent him an e-mail about it. It's really hard to describe what's missing from his tone, I think it's low-mids, cause it just doesn't cut through very well at all. He uses a modified DS-1 and modified blues-driver for distortion. It sounds great but doesn't kick you in the face like an overdriven marshall.
 
#15
If he is not playing loud he will get a tone that is different than 1 or 2x12. Now do you need him to turn down? Is that the question. I play with a guitarist that uses a Bogner 4x12 or 2x12 and he plays so quietly you can talk over it. He's wailing.
Conversely I've had to take 750 watts and 6x10s to sound full next to a guitarist with a 15watt 1x12 Bruno.
Actually it sounds like a 1x12 Orange would work quite well for him. Ultimately he knows. Would you want him to say don't bring that 8x10? Now if you are good communicators and either of you really need a 1x12 for the size of gigs than talk about it.
Size matters but the ladies always say it's how you use it that ultimately counts.:eek::)
 
#16
2x12" / 50 tube watts are often well enough for a guitarist. Only on large venues or really loud gigs, a 4x12" cab can be motivated. Then a 810 bass cab is motivated too. :)

Are you kidding that the guitarist's tone doesn't cut through on the stage with a huge 412 cabinet? Make the speaker point straight to the guitarists head. Doesn't help? Tweak the eq on the distortion channel or add an eq pedal to his setup and tweak that. Adding guitar in the monitors with a 412 on stage seems nothing but ridiculous.

I mostly use my six 10" speakers (two cabs) and my 500W amp on my gigs. That seems to balance well with the guitarist's 212 Vox that sounds amazing. And he's never too loud. None of us run our signal to the PA. After years of gigging with everything through the PA, we have come to the conclusion that this kind of setup sounds really good enough on most gigs. Since we started doing that, nobody has ever complained on our volume, which they often did before...
 
#17
Not kidding about the guitarist's tone cutting through with an Orange 4x12. Most of the time I can hear him, but sometimes I really have to have it in the monitors. Although I wear earplugs religiously at rehearsals (tiny room), I have trouble wearing them on stage cause I can't hear mr. guitar across the stage. FWIW I uses etymotics hi-fidelity plugs. He sets his EQ on his hiwatt like this:

Bass: 5 (12 o'clock)
Mid: 7 (2 o'clock)
Treble:7 (2 o'clock)

It's a once channel amp with four inputs hi / low gain and bright / normal. He uses a modified DS-1 and modified blues driver as the only source for his distortion because he likes to clean parts to sound extremely "clean".

Deacon_Blues, I had a slightly off-topic question, and this is do you find any problems running a 210 and a 410 with the same amount of power going to each cab? I currently run two 1x12s and a 210 but was considering using my roommates 410 in conjunction with the 210 sometime.
 
#18
amos,

First to the bass cab question: I have no problem running the two cabs (410 and 210) on the same time. They are all of the same brand and series (Yamaha BBT) and have exactly the same power and ohm rating so I'd be surprised if I got problems with that. I'd be more careful with cabs of different brands or series, but if the specs come close to each other (at least peak and RMS wattage, impedance and sensitivity) it should work fine.

Back to your guitarist... With distorted guitars, it is easy to tweak in a sound that sounds nice as such, but that gets completely lost in the mix. I think this what he needs is a cockier sound with lots of midrange. It doesn't always sound very good as such, but it cuts through better. When you say he wants his clean sound extremely clean, I imagine that it is hard to get a very cocky sound just by adding a distortion pedal in front as you'd need a totally different eq curve. An eq pedal (as I already suggested) with a sad face eq shape would do wonders.

I'm sporadically working as a soundguy (on jazz/funk/soul/rock/heavy gigs, Sweden's most famous guitarist Janne Schaffer included) and most of the times I've gotten compliments for the mix, also from professional soundguys. Janne Schaffer thanked me for great mixing and gave me a signed CD... :) On the guitar channel, I often turn up the mids (800-2500Hz) slightly and cut the bass if the sound picked up by the mic doesn't cut through as such. That way it doesn't get lost in the mix, and to me, it sounds good.

So to conclude this post, I think the original sound is the problem here, not the volume. Boosting a scooped bass-heavy guitar sound only makes a muddy mix and your bass won't be heard as clearly as otherwise.

Hope this helps.
 

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