Members Tomm Williams Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Another vote for fixing the guitarist------------------As GCDEF stated, lowering your FOH is not going to lower his stage volume. Do you run monitors? See if you can get him to turn down his amp and turn him up in the wedge. Or is his philosophy that his amp must be loud for tone? Doesn't matter what you do to your PA, this guy will still make life difficult. Has the venue owner complained? If so, use that as an arguement that you may never be re-hired. Fix the problem at the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ptkbass Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Works like a charm if you want a beat down from the guitarist. I hope you're joking. Pfffft....I ain't afraid. 'Course that's easy for me to say since I've never met OP's guitarist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted January 2, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 as everyone is trying to hammer through, if insane stage volume is the culprit, it is also the area that fixes the solution. However, the fact that you have blown a woofer tells me that there is more to it than that. The woofer would blow because the whole PA (includes all vocals and instruments and drums) is turned up to compensate for the guitarist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Miko Man Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 While you have a good idea about using limiting, I don't believe that limiting in the PA system will address the underlying issue of too high a level on stage from your guitarist's on-stage amp. Until you figure out a way to address that, you will continue to have issues with FOH trying to get a decent mix. Less FOH spl is not going to solve that. As asked above, what do you do for monitoring? If you are relying on the stage amps to provide guitar monitoring, and the guitarist cranks his amp so he can hear himself adequately, I suggest that is the first place to work with. I assume that his amp is behind him, and pointed at the back of his knees (and at ear level for the audience). Figure out a way to point the amp's output at his ears. That may mean mic'ing his amp and using a monitor wedge, or just tipping the amp back to point it up towards the back of his head. Once FOH doesn't have to fight stage volume, then the fader guy won't have to push your system so hard, and you won't be hurting the audience. If you can spin this as being about making it better for the guitarist, then you may get more cooperation. Good luck. Mark C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dookietwo Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 I don't know what your band does for you. If its your only income and you need it to feed your family or if its a hobby. If you need your band gigs to feed you and your family then the loud guitar player is only going to hurt you and your band in the long run. If your a hobby player and this is for "fun?" then you have to ask yourself. If my hobby was model airplane flying would I be happy sitting home and painting? If your out for the fun of it then it sounds like your not enjoying your hobby at all. It should be fun right? If your a good person and working with the other band members and they also agree the guitar player is too loud then its time for a "Band meeting". As tough as it is bands come and go. If only a hobby then let the guitar player or the band go. You can always start over and what could be worse? I've found in all my years out that being loud is part of a persons personality. Its their venue to showcase themselves. In general people don't change much. The guitar player won't be happy in his/her hobby playing at a lower volume. Another part is the playing good? Sometimes its not that the player or the whole band is too loud its just the entertainment is not that good. Trying to play Death Metal at a country club comes to mind. Know matter how low the volume people will complain about it. They are trying not to hear something they don't like. I don't think you need this but get a 2nd point of view on this. Have someone or several people who has a good ear come to a few gigs an see if it really is true. Remember one thing. YOU and the BAND you play in will be remembered at the places you play. Even if the loud guitar player is gone they will prejudge you. You don't want to tarnish your rep to the point where you can't play local. Don't become another BUT band. *They are a great band BUT they are too loud* Oh and give the guitar player a link to this thread. Dookietwo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Sure the cab might be rated for 500 watts, but it might only have a 80w tweeter. Not to mention that 100w rating is for how much the amp can produce before melting not how much power it will output. Producing square waves sends a lot of power to the tweeter and this is how smoke is made. The rating of a passive speaker system should be good for any frequency in the spec'd frequency response. So you should be able to input 500W at tweeter frequencies with no problems to the driver (done inside the spec of course). The reason it shouldn't do damage to the 80w tweeter in your example is that there will likely be somewhere close to a 10 dB pad going to the tweeter ... so in fact the tweeter could handle 800W in your example (generally speaking). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kmart Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Again, the relationships more complicated than that; we Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Buy a power brake for him. Or quit. LOUD guitarists in this day and age make me shake my head. And I'm a guy that plays a 100W JCM800 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dedmeet Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 OP, I have walked away from bands who could not control their volume. It is not worth the hearing damage and reputation damage to put up with uber-loud guitards. That will then lead to distortion which equals square wave clipping which equals DC which equals smoke. Clipping square wave DC. The above quoted statement it pure mythology and wholly incorrect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Reson8tor Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Please, I don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted January 2, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 You Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Axisplayer Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 I'd start with aiming the guitar cab at his head. With most guitar players, it will require aiming something else at his head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members madjack Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 To answer your original question; with the Crown amp with the limiters engaged you shouldn't damage your pa speakers even with the board dimed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Try turning the guitarists amp backwards, so it faces the wall. Mic it, if you need to. Or put in front of him, leaned back towards him like a monitor... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted January 2, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 To answer your original question; with the Crown amp with the limiters engaged you shouldn't damage your pa speakers even with the board dimed.Thanks you madjack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members madjack Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 The caveat is that you may get distortion from several places; channel, summing buss, etc., and typically distorted sounds appear louder to the human ear than equivalent clean sounds of the same db level, as I understand it. Maybe agedhorse others can give you more specific advise on that situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GCDEF Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Pfffft....I ain't afraid.'Course that's easy for me to say since I've never met OP's guitarist. I don't want to derail the thread, but you don't touch somebody else's equipment. Ever. There are no exceptions. Unplugging a speaker cabinet could damage the amp too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GCDEF Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Am I missing something before I order it? Yeah. You're missing that it's not the right solution for your problem. Hobbling the PA won't help with a loud guitarist. If anything, it will make things worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roadweiry Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 I understand picking and choosing battles in the band but whats so good about the band that bending over backwards to sound bad is worth it ? If he wont work with you what good is he? I suppose I dont get it, Im lucky enough to play music for a living and I rarely see this problem so bad that cant be fixed by IEM's , Tilting amp/amp stand or putting a monitor in front of him that can rip his face off. Best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Talk to him Say dude what the {censored}. WHY are you so loud. It's rediculous. We aren't playing Madison Square Gardens and if we WERE you would be mic'd anyway. We are tearing up our PA trying to keep up with you, and that's just simply rediculous. Why Why are you so loud? Then get his take/answer/reasoning on it and take it from there. We had a guitarist that was loud, and the solution ended up being a sheet of Plexi glass with a hole cut out to place a mic. It was a 410cab, so it blocked 3 of the speakers. It made a pretty good difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted January 2, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Yeah. You're missing that it's not the right solution for your problem. Hobbling the PA won't help with a loud guitarist. If anything, it will make things worse. They know what a bad mix is, but it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 Possibly consider booking significantly larger venues, with a significantly higher powered PA, where the guitarist's volume would then be appropriate for the event.My father has a nice ski-boat. He also has a fish pond (approx. 1 acre surface area) just a few hundred feet from the barn where he stores his boat. It would be much cheaper and easier to just put-in down at the pond than haul the ski-boat all the way to the lake, and the pond would be just fine for puttin around... but if it's time to have some fun and mash the throttle and let-er rip... the pond is just way too small... we'd blow all the fish out of the water, and probably end-up beached at 40mph.I few years ago, my helper Cliff was battling guitarist volume in his band, so Cliff put together a combo guitar amp/wedge monitor for his guitarist... which has been working outstanding well for the desired effect, which was to get the FOH mix reasonable. The guitarist however now bitches that his guitar is way too loud (through the guitar amp/monitor pointed directly at his face) and sometimes he can't hear the vocals in his monitor because his guitar is so loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcpro Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 If you really go through with this, my thoughts given QSC's stellar reputation for it's limiting (and Crown's less than stellar said reputation) would be to get the GX3. It would look so similar that the guitar player probably wouldn't even notice. It will knock your levels back a bit, but be aware that if your soundguy runs the board up so high that it's just slamming on those limiters without mercy, the power that amp puts out could still damage a driver. Guitarist is too loud? The complaint won Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Reson8tor Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 They know what a bad mix is, but it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted January 2, 2012 Members Share Posted January 2, 2012 I understand picking and choosing battles in the band but whats so good about the band that bending over backwards to sound bad is worth it ? If he wont work with you what good is he? Ah... band politics.The successful bands that I've been associated with all (without exclusion) had a leader... who had the final say on how it's going to be. Every communal "management" band I've been associated with all (without exclusion) languished (at best).I can't imagine how my business would work if it was communal management, and everyone did pretty much what they saw fit to do and in their own way without consideration of the common good. I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.