
#1
modern stage levels for guitar
A question for those of you who play out more than I do. I have pretty much retried after playing and running sound at the local level for some 35 years, but I still do some recording and mixing for local bands. Some of the stories they tell me about the newest crop of sound engineers they are encountering at live gigs are very confusing to me.
For example, several local guys have recently been quite hostile to a young friend of mine for bringing a model 2204 50W Marshall head and a 4X12 to a gig. The amp is a MV model so he doesn’t need to distort the power tubes, and I know from experience that he runs it a lot quieter than I would have been considered normal even 20 years ago. One sound guy told him that “no-one uses amps in this place that don’t have a direct out.”’ Another told him that he’d have to face the cabinet towards the wall, because “you can’t have the guitar amp interfering with the sound from the PA.”
I have noticed at many local gigs that I attend that the backline appears to be almost inaudible. I am not a volume freak. As a sound guy in the 80s, I was heartily disliked by a few players in town because I was not keen on people running guitars so loud that it hurt to be within 20 feet of the stage. Now, at the one sound gig I still do, I spend a lot of time asking people to turn backline UP, because I’m struggling to keep the drums out of the bass and guitar mics. I’ve met bassists who seem confused by the idea of putting a mic on their cabinet, and guitarists playing at (to me) at extremely moderate volumes who thank me for “letting them turn it up for once.”
Equally, most young musician now seem used to hearing all the instruments, including their own through the monitors rather than from the amps. Last month, faced with a request for bass guitar in all four monitor channels on a 20 X 15 stage, I suggested that they just turn the bass amp until they could hear it on stage. The idea seemed quite novel to them.
Anyone else seeing stuff like this?
For example, several local guys have recently been quite hostile to a young friend of mine for bringing a model 2204 50W Marshall head and a 4X12 to a gig. The amp is a MV model so he doesn’t need to distort the power tubes, and I know from experience that he runs it a lot quieter than I would have been considered normal even 20 years ago. One sound guy told him that “no-one uses amps in this place that don’t have a direct out.”’ Another told him that he’d have to face the cabinet towards the wall, because “you can’t have the guitar amp interfering with the sound from the PA.”
I have noticed at many local gigs that I attend that the backline appears to be almost inaudible. I am not a volume freak. As a sound guy in the 80s, I was heartily disliked by a few players in town because I was not keen on people running guitars so loud that it hurt to be within 20 feet of the stage. Now, at the one sound gig I still do, I spend a lot of time asking people to turn backline UP, because I’m struggling to keep the drums out of the bass and guitar mics. I’ve met bassists who seem confused by the idea of putting a mic on their cabinet, and guitarists playing at (to me) at extremely moderate volumes who thank me for “letting them turn it up for once.”
Equally, most young musician now seem used to hearing all the instruments, including their own through the monitors rather than from the amps. Last month, faced with a request for bass guitar in all four monitor channels on a 20 X 15 stage, I suggested that they just turn the bass amp until they could hear it on stage. The idea seemed quite novel to them.
Anyone else seeing stuff like this?