Live woes- two guitar band and cutting through the mix

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fenderbenderlax

Inspired
Hi Folks,

I play in a band with two guitar players. My fellow bandmate uses a miced amp with a pedalboard on stage while i flip flop between going direct vs. using an amp with the fm9 as my pedalboard.

During live gigs I have serious problems hearing myself when I use the fm9 direct. When i use the fm9 live without an amp on stage i use in ears to minitir (the band mix from board feeds into the iem). i have tried using the eq but it does not seem to work as well. Maybe i’m not applying the correct eq settings. I do the usual low cut at 90 and high cut at 6500 and then use the mesa five band graphic eq in the fm9 to taste.

Any ideas on how to avoid volume wars in a two guitar setup? Many thanks in advance!!!
 
dpeterson said:
Hmm personally hate playing with 2 guitars. Maybe try some panning, if you have a stereo mix. You should be able to just turn the other player down.
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So our FOH person did that last gig but the other guitar player complained that he could not hear himself and turned his amp up further
 
Sixstring said:
There's your problem! If your other guitar player is turning up your mix will never be right. Does the other guitar player use IEM? if not he should consider it.
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I agree but the band seems to want to get the live feel and not very keen on going the IEM route. But maybe thats the direction to go. Great point!
 
Most systems have multiple AUX outs, maybe you could set up your own monitor mix to help, You could also run a line from output 2 into a small cheap mixer and then into your IEM's blended with the monitor mix. There are lots of ways to skin that cat.
 
Sully0556 said:
Most systems have multiple AUX outs, maybe you could set up your own monitor mix to help, You could also run a line from output 2 into a small cheap mixer and then into your IEM's blended with the monitor mix. There are lots of ways to skin that cat.
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Thats a good point. I did not think about adding more of my own signal through a separate mixer into the IEM. will try that out and see if that works
 
I feel your pain! I'm playing in 3 bands, 2 of them with another guitar player with amps. In one band, the guitar player can never have his guitar loud enough :( ...sadly, there isn't a cure for this that I've been able to find. In the other band, we don't have volume wars and our tones compliment each other perfectly (I use the same patches in all 3 bands). I bounce between using IEM's or my CLR (pointed at me) to be able to hear myself without impacting FOH. What does your FOH person say about your ability to cut through and fit the mix? 2 different fixes if it's changes necessary for FOH vs personal monitoring.
 
∞Fractals said:
I’m unclear on where the problem sits… Is it just your monitoring solution, or is it also a problem in the FOH?
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Its definitely a monitoring issue and I think it is also a problem for FOH. I'm using IEM's and the other guitar player shares an on stage monitor with the drummer and bassist. I think the issue is since I'm not hearing myself well in the mix, I turn up. This creates a problem in the other other monitor and hence the other guitar player turns up as well. This leads to probably a terrible FOH mix. I guess if i blend in my guitars better through monitoring, maybe I will not need to turn up and hence the mix should hopefully be better.
 
warlockII said:
I feel your pain! I'm playing in 3 bands, 2 of them with another guitar player with amps. In one band, the guitar player can never have his guitar loud enough :( ...sadly, there isn't a cure for this that I've been able to find. In the other band, we don't have volume wars and our tones compliment each other perfectly (I use the same patches in all 3 bands). I bounce between using IEM's or my CLR (pointed at me) to be able to hear myself without impacting FOH. What does your FOH person say about your ability to cut through and fit the mix? 2 different fixes if it's changes necessary for FOH vs personal monitoring.
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The FOH person gets annoyed all the time and says that the overall volumes are so loud that he is unable to get the vocals to stand out. He prefers me to go direct as it makes it easier for him compared to both of us blasting our amps with cabs on stage. Again we play small bars where I feel the amps and cabs are so loud that we probably drive crowds away.
 
fenderbenderlax said:
The FOH person gets annoyed all the time and says that the overall volumes are so loud that he is unable to get the vocals to stand out. He prefers me to go direct as it makes it easier for him compared to both of us blasting our amps with cabs on stage. Again we play small bars where I feel the amps and cabs are so loud that we probably drive crowds away.
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Are you sure you're not playing with the same guitar player I am :) My suggestion is to either get a separate mix in your IEM's so you can clearly hear yourself or blend a signal directly from your axe into your IEM's as Sully suggested. By not changing your volume, the other guitar player can't use you as the excuse for their excessive db's. I'm assuming that the FOH person hasn't been able to get him to turn down? It's incredibly hard to believe how many musicians forget that it's about how the band sounds together rather than their individual parts. I had an epiphany when having disagreements about FOH mixing with a member in a different band that many people have differing ideas of what a good mix is and partly it's due to the differing amounts of abuse our ears have taken over the years. For example he loves to clearly hear the S's and T's, whereas most FOH people I know tame the Sibilance in vocals...I think he has partially lost his ability to hear those frequencies and hence turns them up to where I find them VERY annoying.
 
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