How can you not hear your amp ?? I think this photo was 36 years ago every amp had a microphone on it back then and now
hear the mix through the monitors and mains I still have the 135 watt Twin amp Billy Zoom modified for me.
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That's an awesome throwback pic.
We seldom had the luxury of miking and using a PA with monitors for the guitars. Most smaller bands that we see today don't have or use a snake with multiple instrument microphones.
In general, we ran only the drums and vocals through the monitors and all the guitars were running at stage volume and we "mixed" this during the soundcheck.
If you've never played on a stage with a setup like that, it's very different. With my Marshall Origin 50 on 6-7, the sound literally travels past you and it can be very difficult to hear your amp clearly.
I once heard a producer actually name this phenomenon, but I cannot recall the terminology he used.
Some guys will keep turning up the amp in an effort to hear it, to no avail, but their sonic "beam" is shaving heads in the back row.
Now, there have been occasions, while working with some bands for hire, that I've had a mixed amp with a dedicated instrument and vocal monitor. I think that's the best setup, but again, very few "bar bands" out here have that kind of equipment.
Additionally, in many situations where I have performed with a miked amp and a soundman, the mix has been less than stellar. If a soundman is really, really good at what he does, it can work very, very well....but at most of these events, will find yourself with too much or too little in your monitors.
TBTH, I prefer running the amps at stage volume and mixing the volume levels as we go.
In 'Bad Dog,' we had a sound tech who controlled the drum and vocal mix FOH with the board. At the time, we were using a huge, and very old, PA amp, JBL subs and PA speakers on 6 foot stands.
It's interesting that my wife has some recordings of these performances and it is surprisingly well mixed, but keep in mind that its the "old way" of doing things and there's a certain art to it.
Later on, we adopted the Beheringer X-Air which greatly reduced how much equipment we were hauling around.
At the end of the day, It would be great to be wealthy and/or retired and have unlimited resources to devote to a band's equipment, but that's not a reality for many of us in working bands that depend on their performances to earn a living.
Now, lately I've been giving a lot of thought to putting another band together for myself and call it "No More Bullsh*t."
I think I liked it better than just working as a 'hired guest.' But, therein lies another problem.
Most musicians that I know are retired and/or fairly wealthy and you can hardly get them to commit to showing up at a rehearsal. There are always last minute reschedules or cancelations.
Recently, our band at the Music Academy voted to move rehearsals from Saturdays at noon to Friday nights at 6pm. This was tough for me, because I'm working late on Fridays now, but I went along with the vote of the majority.
It struck me as kind of ironic that, after we moved the schedule around to accommodate certain members, it was those certain members who made last minute cancelations the very next week.
I'm very dedicated to whatever task is at hand, and it's hard to find people who feel the same way.
Anyways, hope you guys have a great week...
e player cant make ANY guitar sound good.
