Honcho...
I read both your comments, and you are correct on many points. Zappa, Rush and many others are fantastic bands/musicians. However, their tones and stage systems are all unique to themselves. I live in the Detroit area, and we have many clubs/bars/music theaters that book some great stoner/doom rock type bands. I was always in awe of the tonal characteristics from the large stacks from these bands. Huge Marshalls, Orange, Ampeg.... etc. Yes, they were loud.... but, they sounded great. We have access to low wattage amps (45 watt Traynor YBA-1 w/2 15" & 25 watt homemade guitar amp w/2-12 cab), and yes they do get pretty loud.... but, they just do not sound the same. Yes, his guitar amps are excessive.... but, volumes are controlled. We have never had a angry soundman, and we do take time to discuss with them what we have and what we do. We do not have problems with loading, setting up and tear down.... we have roadies and everything is preplanned. Our methods are 'old school' and outdated for today's technology, but, that's exactly what we are going for and how we like it. We portray the spirit of the late 60's, 70's and early 80's in our show. 3 Marshall stacks is ridiculous? Sure....but, that is the fun of it.
Some here respond with "idiot", "fire him", "know where to stick your tribute band" and questioning my friendship with my guitar player. That's fine.... fair enough. I did ask "Any thoughts?" My original post was about my amp and was leaning towards on how to Insure myself on my own presence with his beast of a rig. Aside from some light hearted jokes, I am not going to acknowledge anyone who seriously thinking that my guitarist is a unreasonable stupid person. That is simply not true.
We are 3 guys and a woman, who have A LOT of fun putting on a 'old school' rock show, with the good and bad that comes from It.If anybody is in the Detroit area, come to one of our shows and see for yourself.
Everything has its place. If you do play arena gigs or at least 12500 seaters it's no problem. But there are too many bands that doesn't get it, but should insist on playing in a club with low roof and 50 seater. The thing is that you can't dime the volume on stacks or high wattage amps. It doesn't sound the same. I was in charge once as a FOH at a pub/club that had outdoor patio concerts during the summer. It faced a park and a lake so it was pretty far away for anyone neighbor to complain. I could not get the PA to sound good, so the next evening I decided to run the stage monitors as FOH instead and only then the sound came together. You can't play low in a overdone PA with speakers that can take 1000W each. They don't/won't move until you crank them.
I find it peculiar that once musicians were in awe for new technology back in the 50s, new amps, new guitars, and especially new sounds, so I find it very peculiar why that stance should still stay in the late 60's early 70's... or even around 80's as you do. As that should be a yardstick for good or great sound forever and ever. The technology has evolved big time since. As I've said, I shake my head to real famous ones too, the guitards. It's a thing of the very old days to have amps and stacks on stage, as there were no PA in those days. Plus this, is there any band who uses stacks today, chances are that they are dummy stacks. Even Yngwie plays dummy stacks.
I for one, me myself I, it has slowly dawned on me that I just like my sound coming out from one speaker element only. As fast as it is 4x10 4x12 or 8x10 I feel a phase anomaly occurs, and on bass this is a bad thing. I dislike chorus on bass too, and so I want the bass coming from a "mono source" so to speak. Just one speaker, be it 1x12 or even 1x15. As fast as I stack two 1x12 cabs on top, the sound dispersion changes in a way that I dislike, I have to stand 8-10 meters in front of it before it starts to sound reasonably good, but then I am out in the audience. No matter how high end or top notch the cab and speaker is...
You can actually try to find any band, that has connected and play through those stacks of Marshalls live. Before they made dummy props of them, they actually had amps stacked but they werent connected or turned on even. Some may have used one or two as spares ready to go on the fly, if their main rig should fry during a song.
Tell tale, why is only one speaker mic'd up?
Yngwies rig.
And what a bummer if a stage hand should happen to mic up these ones...?
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Oh, that's why they're telling them tards to turn up all of the time, 'cause the FOH man doesn't get any signal...
