Direct to FOH

S

Snouttrout

Inspired
I recently watched a Marco Fanton tutorial on YouTube about using FRFRs, as I’ve recently begun to go direct to FOH with my AxeFx.

I have been doing a low cut at 120 Hz and a high cut at 6500 Hz on the signal being sent to FOH. I’ve also been using a real cabinet on stage (but I’m considering an FRFR monitor on stage now.)

Do you just let the sound engineer perform the high and low cuts, or do you do it yourself? Marco was suggesting that we shouldn’t cut highs, but he did cut the lows.

What approach do you take?
 
If you're sending the same signal to both it's simpler to send them the cuts unless doing them in the global output EQs.

That being said, if they're good, they'll be cutting anything that needs to be cut... But they can't add.

I usually just tell the FOH "start flat" because many aren't familiar with modelers and will start with typical guitar cab cuts.
 
warlockII said:
Most of my presets are cut at 100Hz and 6500. The sound guy at the last multi band show kept telling me how much he liked my tone and wished the other bands would send him a more usable sound...it's always nice to make a soundman happy.
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Mine are similar... Although Dyna-Cabs is likely going to change that.
 
warlockII said:
Most of my presets are cut at 100Hz and 6500. The sound guy at the last multi band show kept telling me how much he liked my tone and wished the other bands would send him a more usable sound...it's always nice to make a soundman happy.
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I had similar comments after my gig a couple of weeks ago. So I'll think I'll stick with what I'm doing. I was just curious if other folks were setting the high cut to 20,000 Hz when going directly to FOH.
 
A guitar cab's IR seems to cut out everything after 7k when you look at the IRs graphs, however when you use the RTA block, you can see there is still content up to 20k after an IR.
Even additionally applying a cut around 8k still leaves some content up there, so all these things are no hard cut-offs, they are hard roll-offs.
 
I don't do any cuts, high or low, for FOH. The cab's already have high and low roll-off built into the IR (most guitar speakers roll off around 7khz on the high end and between 70-90hz on the low end). You wouldn't roll off actual guitar amps when mic'ing them before going to FOH, so why do it in the Axe?

You can check this by putting an RTA after your cab. You'll quickly see the natural roll-off of the cab on both ends of the frequency spectrum.
 
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boyce89976 said:
The cab's already have high and low roll-off built into the IR (most guitar speakers roll off around 7khz on the high end and between 70-90hz on the low end).
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There's still content in IRs that you might want to cut. If there wasn't then there wouldn't be multiple EQ options in the Cab block ;)

And those frequencies are often cut further by FOH or an engineer to fit better in the mix...
boyce89976 said:
You wouldn't roll off actual guitar amps when mic'ing them before going to FOH, so why do it in the Axe?
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You might, but there's not really a way to do that other than mic(s) and mic placement, which we rarely have control over.
 
unix-guy said:
There's still content in IRs that you might want to cut. If there wasn't then there wouldn't be multiple EQ options in the Cab block ;)

And those frequencies are often cut further by FOH or an engineer to fit better in the mix...

You might, but there's not really a way to do that other than mic(s) and mic placement, which we rarely have control over.
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Nah, that doesn't make any sense. If there's content in IR's then it was there in the speakers the IR's are capturing.

Speakers have a natural roll off, and you can't do High/low EQ cuts on a real guitar cab live, so why would you in the Axe? If the Axe is as accurate as everyone says, there should be no need... caveat unless your FOH guy is incompetent.
 
unix-guy said:
Correct... And you might not want it.
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Well... there goes the amp in the room argument, haha.

Seriously though, I get it, some people may not like the upper and lower frequencies, or need to tailor their response to fit a certain thing. It definitely makes sense to carve it up for recording purposes and making everything fit in the right frequency ranges, but then again, I'd leave that to the mix engineer.

Personally, I bought the Axe III for it's accuracy, warts and all. And I run it live just like I would my real amps... as raw as it can be. FOH can do the cuts if they need to (in the three rooms I play most EQ's at FOH are mostly flat, except for room corrections).
 
boyce89976 said:
I bought the Axe III for its accuracy, warts and all. And I run it live just like I would my real amps... as raw as it can be. FOH can do the cuts if they need to (in the three rooms I play most EQ's at FOH are mostly flat, except for room corrections).
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That’s my way of thinking too.

The sound coming from my FRFR is for my listening pleasure so I roll off a bit of the lows to compensate for the position of the speaker if it’s near the back wall or drum riser, and then give a separate feed to FOH that is not EQ’d for them to EQ as they want.
 
I use the same cab block for all my presets to FOH, and i have put significant hi/lo cuts on that block. I don't do any EQ on the Output 2 signal to my SS amp/real guitar cab on stage, because it's guitar speakers and they are already voiced 'mid-rangey'.

Quick story: I played a festival last weekend, and the band that was on before us had two guitarists. They were very good indeed, but the issue was FOH sound. Their sound was very bass/top heavy (scooped). The FOH guy had cranked their volume up to try and make them more audible, instead of simply doing some hi/lo cut to make their signal poke out of the mix, and to steer clear of the bass player/drummers sonic space.
 
I have no cuts in my presets using an FRFR on stage and when I ask the FOH guys to let me see what they do to my channel it's always a low cut, which they do on all channels, but they leave the top end alone.
 
RoshRoslin said:
I'll usually do the low and hi cuts myself in the preset. Some sound engineers are great, and others are clueless with a whole spectrum in between. I bet leave none, or little to chance.
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this ^^
the only caveat is that occasionally i will leave a bit more of the high end component (bring back to 9500hz) depending on the quality of the room's PA system (and the FOH person) as its more difficult to add hi's than reduce- YMMV
 
Most sound guys at venues only cut some low end, in my experience. I cut below 90hz and above 8k, usually.
 
I ditched the cabinets altogether and have a monitor feed sent to input 4 of the Axe. Just detailed the setup in an earlier post today under recordings, and it's awesome. I use an expression pedal to crossfade the volume of the AXE, using the control curves to create the behavior. The sound is awesome, and the great thing is with the crossfade I can hear the pure AXE tone with the "toe up," or straight monitor feed in "toe down" position. I use the Axe's headphone output - Plug the instrument into the front jack, the IEM/headphone extension cable into the headphone out, and tie the cables together with velcro. The cable plugs into the instrument and the headphone jack is secured to the guitar strap with velcro as well. With the two cables tied together, it feels natural - like I'm just walking around with an instrument cable, but I'm always in the "sweet spot" with a perfect mix. An expression pedal takes me from "just me" to "just monitor" mix. For performance I use a 25' guitar cable and 25' headphone extension cable, but rather than velcro I keep them together with some woven cable loom secured with heat shrink.

The IEMs weigh a lot less, and take up far less room in my trunk than a cabinet, and they're much easier on the lower back. When you get to be my age, you appreciate such things!

AXEFX III Live for BASS and IEM Mixing

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