In a perfect world would you go direct?

S

Slate

Member
I had posted a poll earlier and got some great responses but I am thinking maybe my question was too deep.

Basically all I want to know is:

If you always used in-ears would you go direct to the front house sound or do you feel an amp and cab being mic’d is key to your sound?
 
such an objective opinion, i dont think IEM determine wether people like the tone of going DI to FOH and using there cab sims rather than having a power amp powering a cab type of tone.
 
Depends on genre and project.

I am doing a project at the moment where going direct is the most appropriate way to do it.
I mostly play clean or heavily effected space organ type sounds.
Lots of other people in the ensemble who don't need a loud amp next to them spoiling their dynamics.

If it was just rock type stuff then I'd probably keep using a tube amp.
 
I prefer the Axe-FX direct to FOH as long as there is a FOH. If it is sound from stage, I would just use big FOH behind me ala amp style, but that's simply not a superior solution IMHO. YMMV.
 
Played some gigs with the ultra a little console and an IEM. Not bad, so far. Good control and clear, pristine sound, maybe the best sound ever.
But that's not all:
-Pressure on my body was missing, because of that higher risk of turning it too loud and damage the ears. Ears themselves will not hurt even if it's insane loud!
-Band wasn't hearing me anymore from my side. Some did not want a guitar loud in their faces from the monitors, and lowered the guitar in their monitormixes. They prefer to hear me from my side with my usual cab.
-Lowering my loudness on stage meant loosing some influence and to give a leading role away to bass and keyboards. They can not follow me, when they don't hear me.
You see, there is more than just sound.

I still go direct (since 3 years now), but I prefer my FR monitor.
 
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in a perfect world (which means that every club/bar had a good pa system) i would sell the rest of my gear and have a 2 space rackbag with the axe in it, and my guitar. the sad truth is that until youre making the big bucks, the places you play are not all the time fully equipped. :(
 
kag said:
in a perfect world (which means that every club/bar had a good pa system) i would sell the rest of my gear and have a 2 space rackbag with the axe in it, and my guitar. the sad truth is that until youre making the big bucks, the places you play are not all the time fully equipped. :(
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Good point. But if a club/bar is so small that it doesn't have a PA system for FOH, then wouldn't a single FRFR amp suffice as an on-stage FOH amp?
 
I use a guitar cab on stage while going direct to FOH.

This way I have my personal monitoring level, a guitar cab to easily drive feedbacks and a very good and consistent sound on front.


In a perfect world we'll have very good monitoring devices, a very vigilant stage-mixer guy, with no other problems in the world than watch the band and help us.
In a perfect world I'll go only with my Axe-Fx and my pedalboard.
 
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ABSOLUTELY !!
Like GiRa, I already do.... with an FRFR cab on stage.
The only deciding factor is whether I'm IEM or not..and that determines the need for FRFR. If IEM (and that's means the band, not just me), I don't need the FRFR on stage. If stage wedges are used for monitoring, then FRFR monitor stays.
Either way, presets do not change.
 
Slate said:
If you always used in-ears would you go direct to the front house sound or do you feel an amp and cab being mic’d is key to your sound?
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I don't like In-ear monitors. I feel that they rob you of part of your live tone/vibe. By using these, you get no natural feedback. The guitar sound never bounces back out of monitors and off of your guitar wood, strings, and pickup(s). Also, you have no "feel" of the sound hitting your body in any way. It feels very stale to me (like playing with headphones quietly at home). I definitely feel that something is lost there. Especially for rock and more energetic music. But, that's just my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Having said that, I feel that IF you DO go with IEM's, you can look at it 2 ways:

1) Going direct to FOH completes the circle of going direct everywhere and only having your guitar sound come out of the Front of House PA. This gives you much more control over the total volume and mix. It's a good benefit to trying to get a good mix out to the audience.

2) If you mic an amp & cabinet, you may be getting back some of that lost natural feedback thing that I was talking about earlier. You also can "feel" the guitar sound more. The same can be accomplished with an FRFR monitor behind you with just the guitar sound coming out of it. Use it like a guitar amp. It sits behind you and projects your guitar's sound out. ...Only, it's a full range powered speaker system.

There are benefits to either method. I'm a HUGE fan of running direct, but I would (personally) lose the In-Ear monitors. Only you can decide which positives & negatives are important to you. Think about that & decide.
 
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browlett said:
Also, you have no "feel" of the sound hitting your body in any way.
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I'm not sure I grasp the need or desire for this. What are the performance benefits of on-stage sound (for each instrument) that is so loud your whole body feels it?
 
I go direct for over a year now and no going back for me. When a place doesn't have a monotor for me I use my k12. I have never used IEM but in my current playing environment the other members don't want to "feel" the guitars they just want enough of me to be heard. We started using Aviom's for our moniters and so far I love it. Each of us control our owm monotor mix and everyone seems to be really happy to have control and not depend on a guy at a sound board to do what we want.
 
In a perfect world...

I'd like to have a stage rack setup with a rack mounted split snake and a digital monitor board. Send a technical ryder to the venue ahead of time saying that you'll be doing your own monitoring via wireless IEM's and explaining the system. We show up with our rack, plug everything into our split snake, plug the back end of the snake into the house snake and pull up our monitor mixes from last time we played that room. Instant setup.

We're actually working on doing this via Laptop with protools and a Profire 2626. Everybody goes direct into the split snake, which splits into the 2626 and the FOH snake. Run our IEM's from the outputs of the 2626 and firewire to protools. Protools handles the click track fed back into our monitor mixes and FOH gets the same signal they would get normally. We'd even be able to record the show. Hopefully we'll have most of it built next week!
 
IEM's depend on what type of music your playing, venue, etc. A smaller band may get away without but large drum kit with cymbals blasting, adding ear plugs you lose the entire guitar tone. Going without your ears will ring.

I love in-ears. BUT you have to set them up right. I hated them when I ran mono and I hated no ambient mics.

We run the A&H mixwiz mon and a full rack of effects, stereo simulators, etc just for the in-ears and its sounds killer. I always have my guitar (more me) and vox (more me) in my ears all over the stage.

Yes there is a trade off. I would love to never have to use in ears and play like I do at home. But with the loud drums, etc... the in-ears are the next best thing.

If I ever did a small acoustic or low vol drum kit set I would probably not use them.

Basically they are used when needed and not because they sound better than open air. Just trying to protect my hearing.
 
Sidivan said:
In a perfect world...

I'd like to have a stage rack setup with a rack mounted split snake and a digital monitor board. Send a technical ryder to the venue ahead of time saying that you'll be doing your own monitoring via wireless IEM's and explaining the system. We show up with our rack, plug everything into our split snake, plug the back end of the snake into the house snake and pull up our monitor mixes from last time we played that room. Instant setup.

We're actually working on doing this via Laptop with protools and a Profire 2626. Everybody goes direct into the split snake, which splits into the 2626 and the FOH snake. Run our IEM's from the outputs of the 2626 and firewire to protools. Protools handles the click track fed back into our monitor mixes and FOH gets the same signal they would get normally. We'd even be able to record the show. Hopefully we'll have most of it built next week!
Click to expand...


We contemplated that route. Our shows use a synced video with click track and time code. The laptop and pro tools was to risky unless you have a large budget and clustered fail over boxes, plus it was too much equipment, etc.

We have 2 snakes. One on the stage for our mics, bass, etc. We do not mic the drums we let the house do that. We runs 3 drums mics for reference.
The other snake splits the signal and plugs into the house. Works great, quick and simple. That way our inears are the same every gig.

Our video is on a industrial DVD player and though we do not use it we have a 7.1 dolby splitter if we ever needed more tracks. Works great because the DVD decoder chips are tried and true and flawless. Using a laptop may work for some but for us it was too risky.
 
zslane said:
I'm not sure I grasp the need or desire for this. What are the performance benefits of on-stage sound (for each instrument) that is so loud your whole body feels it?
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That's not exactly what I was trying to say. Perhaps I didn't explain myself well. I was referring more to a feeling that I get when the sound is kind of "around" you vs. Being just in your ears / in your head. There's something that I don't like about iem's. With a speaker pushing sound towards me, I feel more connected to it. It's hard for me to explain. I don't personally blast my amps or monitoring at outrageous volumes. That's not what I meant.
 
Yes, I would go direct. I never liked having a guitar cab behind me. I always prefered having the sound of a miced guitar amp in front of me. It's easier to hear stuff that is front of you (dah), and it fits better in the mix. When I used regular cabs etc, I always had the cab to the side of me.
 
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