Targeting tone for the listner.

[WRGKMC]

Playing live and recording you have to get your ears past the box. Its an important item for your own comfort but it doesn't end there. How that sound will translate through a full frequency playback system is what matter to your audience either live or recorded.

 

 

[h=2]Complete thinking about guitar processing extends beyond the guitar speaker, all the way to the final full-range monitors and beyond.[/h] Many guitarists only think about how to achieve great Tone at the guitar speakers. But for headphone-level cranked-tube-amp tone, and for recording and for PA systems, what really matters is the Tone achieved in the final full-range monitors - the studio monitor speakers, headphones, or PA speakers. Many guitarists think their options for effects placement are either before the guitar amp, or in the guitar amp's effects loop. But when you think in terms of the *complete* processing chain all the way from the guitar's output jack to the full-range monitor speakers, this reveals an additional place for processing: after the guitar amplifier, such as in the mixing board's effects loop.

 

If microphones are involved, mic technique and mixer technique enter the Tone equation. In the control room of the professional recording studio, compression, equalization, and time-based effects are very often used -- all this processing happens *after* the guitar amplifier and cabinet, though many guitarists chronically forget to think about what happens *after* the guitar speaker. It might sound surprising that so much post-amp processing occurs so often, but even without explicitly running the signal through processors, conventional mixers and tape machines routinely support post-amp processing, as follows:

• Each channel of the mixing board has tone controls. And with multi-miking a guitar speaker cabinet, adjusting the levels of the separate mike channels effectively creates a form of equalization -- electronically manipulating the filtering, cancellation, and summation of frequencies.
  
• Each channel of the mixing board has an effects level knob, typically used for adding reverb. And with multi-miking a guitar speaker cabinet, adjusting the levels of the separate mike channels effectively creates a form of reverb -- controlling the amount of room resonance blended into the mix, from the far mic, vs. the dry, close mic.
  
• Tape saturation has very often been used, for compression (by running the level at +6 dB)
  
• Echo and other time based effects "always" sound more natural after the mic.
  

preamp and before-amp effects -> tube power amp -> guitar speakers and cabinet -> mikes -> post-amp processing/chorus reverb echo, echo -> final power amp and full ranged PA or monitor speakers - room environment of PA or recording playback.

[onelife]

I once had an argument with the FOH guy about the volume of my Fender Twin. It was a very large stage and he kept insisting that I turn my amp down. When I finally told him I wouldn't be able to hear myself if it went any further he said he would put the guitar in the monitors. That was our solution and my life has never been the same since.

 

Not only did it put the guitar everywhere on the stage but not too loud in any one spot, it also presented the guitar in context with the other sounds and gave me the feeling of playing the PA and not just the Twin. It wasn't long after that I switched to using much lower powered amps on stage - I've even gigged occasionally with a six Watt SF Champ and regularly with a 12 Watt Princeton Reverb and a 20 Watt Subway Blues.

 

I've quite often worked with FOH guys and effects in the PA (mostly delay) where we "jam" during some of the guitar solos. We started doing this when I was playing a bunch of Pink Floyd stuff and the ideas morphed into something we could carry over to other material. There's something really big about playing solos with the guitar sound coming from the stage and the delay from the FOH. I could move around and get different "mixes" all the while being confident that FOH was mixing for everyone else.

[WRGKMC]

^^^ Its a really cool thing to hear yourself all over the place like that. What I love is the back beat echo that comes off the walls in a big theatre. You can fake it using echo units and such but it doesn't come anywhere close to the real thing. When you play on a big stage that's say 60' wide that echo coming back off the wall at you is 60" wide and it changes its reflective tone as you move around on stage.

 

What I love most is when the band syncs its tempo to that natural echo. Mysterious things happen to the music. It almost sounds like you have additional players on the stage and the entire room comes alive.

 

I think the best example I've ever heard as a listener in an audience, was when I went to see Beatle Mania in a concert hall that seats about 5000. The band was really good at copying the early Beatles stuff of course but there was much more to it. I had heard all those songs endlessly but never experienced them in a hall like that.

 

Its the tempo and the musical that changes which created this electrifying three dimensional echo that came at you from all four walls when you sat in the hall. I even got up and walked around to hear what it sounded like from different vantage points. I stood at the back for awhile and understood why those songs did what they did.

 

The Beatles wrote many of those songs when they played at the Cavern Club which echoed like a cave. They didn't have all the gear we have today. They plugged straight into their amps and used the rooms natural acoustics to get their sound. The music's tempo was timed to make the room acoustics work with them.

 

I've seen hundreds of other pro bands too. Allot of them were in really big stadiums like the Spectrum or Reliant Stadium. The ones that were most memorable were the ones that were able to make the echoes work for them. Stadiums have a really long echo sustain and the transients create a cannon like boom. Sometimes when I write music I'll add a really long and deep echo to the music to see what it would sound like being played in a place like that. You can learn allot about how your tone cuts through a thick veil of reverb applied over your tone.

[Delmont]

I had a friend whose brother-in-law owned (and played) a Stradivarius. According to my friend, it sounded harsh and screechy up close, but if you stood fifteen or twenty feet away it was... glorious.

[wasgtrjones]

I gigged w/ an AxeFX guitar modeler for a while. I didn't have an amp or cabinet, just took an XLR feed from the back of the modeler to the PA, and put my guitar in the monitors. At the beginning, it was different, hearing the guitar from the floor in front instead of behind. But I got used to hearing "the mic'd version" and then started tweaking the models and EQs so that I could either blend into the rest of the band better, or stand-out a little more, depending on what I wanted to do. Fun stuff.

[Grant Harding]

Totally agree. Guitar should be in the mix.

 

Apologies for the brevity.

[hellion_213]

It's not so much that I forget what happens as it is that in smaller venues, with vocal only PAs, there's not any post-processing. Medium sized where I can mic the amp, it depends on the sound dude. When there aren't stage monitors, I use my amp as my 'stage monitor', and typically position close to the drummer for cues back and forth. Occasionally, if I know the house PA does not include efficient monitors, I will bring my own, and a powered mixer, booms and mics. Side note - being able to set up early and having time for a good sound check really helps. A lot of times, especially in multiple band shows, individual sound checks arent possible, so you make the best of it and adjust on the fly. I try and get someone trusted in the crowd to give visual cues on the sound as the show progresses, rather than starting off mediocre and ending mediocre. Quick on stage adjustments to make it better before the middle/end.

[1001gear]

FWIW my PC has 2 maybe 1.25 inch drivers and all the guitar tone I care about fits right through 'em. I also have 2 - 12" EVs that don't even hold a candle.