Guitar cab vs FRFR?

A decent FOH system is going to sound very similar to a good wedge, or a FRFR speaker like a CLR, ASM12 etc, which is essentially a powered wedge (just a good quality one).

Some wedges are garbage, and some PA's are garbage. There are also some great PA's and great wedges.

A good sound company should have a rig that produces a pretty accurate sound, and it should be pretty close to what your hearing from a good monitor/IEM/FRFR speaker used for monitoring. It takes all the guesswork out of wondering if the out stage sound is close to what the audience is hearing etc.

I think there is a bit too much confusion with regards to FRFR speakers, as if they are something unique or magical. My studio monitors on my mixing desk are FRFR speakers. My home stereo system is essentially a FRFR speaker. A FOH PA system is ideally a FRFR speaker.

All FRFR means is your getting an essentially flat response, what goes in it what comes out with little coloration. A guitar speaker in a cab in not a flat response, the speaker and cab color the sound. An IR simulates this effect, cutting and boosting frequencies to make the end sound output sound very similar to what the guitar speaker/mic combo sounds like.

Depends on ones area, but in my part of the world, most venues have a pretty good PA

The days of two Radio Shack Realistic 2x15's hanging from the rafters by chain link and sounding like garbage because one of them is blown are long past. For just a couple grand a venue can get a decent rig, an easy to use digital board, and a setup that is pretty plug n play. Heck, even coffee shops have some decent powered speaker rigs these days, with small built in mixer for a few inputs.

I personally wouldn't even take my CLR to most venues, the house wedges are generally fine, or at least get the job done for a live gig.

I love my CLR for home/rehersal as its a great dispersion, and accurate system to dial in my tones. Sounds great at any level.

The less I can carry though the better. If I can show up with a couple of guitars and my Axe case, and not haul cabs, or amps etc, life is good.

I bring the gear the produces the sound (guitar, fingers, Axe) and the venue handles reproducing the sound. Works great!

Heck, I look forward to a day when venues have a house Axe system, and MFC etc. All I'd have to do was email them my patches, and have them load the correct FW, and I'd have an exact copy of my tones without even needing to haul my rack.


How could would that be ? Showing up somewhere with just by guitar and being able to have the exact same tones I use at home and in the studio ?

That's the dream for me
 
In a small bar/club room where vocal PA only is the norm it's exactly the same issue that crops up whether you use FRFR backline or conventional cabs .... stage volume. Someone comes up to you and says 'Can't hear the drums too good at the back of the room' and the drummer then whacks things a bit harder, this in turn causes everyone else to notch up their backline a bit .... then the vocalists need more monitor volume .... and war ensues.

I've played little gigs where I absolutely know that my backline is not carrying enough volume for the room but for the sake of everyone else on stage (and my own ears) I'll put up with it. Can't honestly say I've ever had a 100% perfect stage volume in any bar room gig .... it's collateral damage .... you just roll with it.

I've tried both FRFR and conventional cabs (both driven with the same Matrix SS amp) and find it's 50/50 really which I prefer in a small room. The FRFR tends to cut through better - but needs to have the correct volume set and not be too loud or you sound too 'out of character' with the other backline users. It's nice to have the EQ options built into the Cab block to be able to cut lows/highs so you can end up with something sounding between mic'd up and normal as backline. It's down to convincing yourself that your sound is better/worse when using FRFR ... the more you do it the more accustomed you become with it. On the flip side it's also nice to just fit in with everyone else without stressing and use conventional cabs

@Black Bitch I believe uses his Matrix FRFR cabs for backline driven rooms ..... perhaps he could chime in.

Well I use it for both ways - for backline but also for the pub and even with one Matrix Q12a I'm very loud and sure I don't get heart in every corner of the pub. but that's normal for this occasions and the ones who want't to hear the guitars or whatever stand usually in a place where they can hear it. I don't think the majority is using real cabs - I sold my 2 412 Marshall cabs about 3 or 4 years ago and don't regret it. FRFR cuts much better in the mix in a pub without FOH for guitar than areal cab anytime.
 
Well I use it for both ways - for backline but also for the pub and even with one Matrix Q12a I'm very loud and sure I don't get heart in every corner of the pub. but that's normal for this occasions and the ones who want't to hear the guitars or whatever stand usually in a place where they can hear it. I don't think the majority is using real cabs - I sold my 2 412 Marshall cabs about 3 or 4 years ago and don't regret it. FRFR cuts much better in the mix in a pub without FOH for guitar than areal cab anytime.


So do you find the Q12 can handle the gig as a backline?
What are your eq settings for the Q12 (treble & bass cut).
 
Different location in the room, flown mains vs a speaker on the stage floor, different different drivers in different cabinets...

Still, your FRFR on stage will usually give you the most accurate impression of what the audience hears.

Well, I'd say that once again, if you're talking about a small club with FOH for vocals only, then your not going to be comparing your FRFR cabinet(s) to some giant PA with an array of speakers and tons of power. So stick your FRFR cabinet on a pole and put beside the house PA speaker.

Obviously, no speakers are truly FRFR, so FOH isn't going to sound exactly the same as studio monitors, or a XiTone wedge, but I don't see any reason why FOH would magically sound great for performance volume levels but an FRFR cabinet wouldn't work. I mean, you have to at least have some theoretical mechanism that would account for it.
 
Agreed. I have no issue running a FRFR backline behind a vocals-and-keys PA. That works very well.
 
Having spent about 15 years doing concert photography, and having attended about 500+ shows, I can say for certain that bands that use guitar amps for their backline always have the worst live sound. Being in front of the barricade/front row to take pictures totally would kill my ears when someone would have a 4x12 with v30's. Those things were blasting an icepick tone right at what is my head level (depending to some degree on the height of the stage).

Its one thing to have a loud cab flapping your trouser leg, when your ears are about a good level higher, but from the audience position its ice pick city, unless your out of the line of fire to the side of the stage.

Pretty much every show I've been to, has been loud and harsh sounding, with the exception of some smaller trio types where its thing like upright bass, soft hitting drummer and a guitarist playing something like a 1x12 combo amp. No much in the way of "volume wars" in that setting.

Whenever its more of a rock band, its one guy with a 4x12 who thinks he has to crank it, to match the volume of the drummer, or the other guitarist, who also is cranking his rig, because again, the off-axis listening might sound good, but someone, somewhere is getting the on axis sound. Then the vocal PA usually can't deliver a clear tone when its cranked to compete with a 100watt amp and 4x12 cab, so then the vocals are too loud as well, and essentially the whole show is just loud, but not clear, full or rich sounding.

Compare that with shows where bands run ISO cabs, or IEM's and a silent stage. The whole show, with proper instrument mixes, is running through the FOH, which has a much better spread, and can tailored to the venue. Sounds so much better, its loud, but full, and clear, with no harshness. No icepick in the ears. Totally more enjoyable.

IMO, every band member should have IEM's, or just use a wedge. Given wedges vary, many enjoy using a FRFR for this purpose.

You can use a FRFR like a CLR for a backline I suppose, but I for one don't really see my CLR, with its 1x12 speaker, really as a tool to deliver sound to the whole venue. Its for my own stage monitoring, as I'm not a fan of IEM's.


In a perfect world (for me) every band would have a decent PA, if the venue doesn't, and cabs would be mic'd, or better yet, use load boxes and IR's, and all the house sound would be delivered with proper mix through the PA system.

Using an Axe-FX just helps avoid issues with carrying amps, load boxes etc, as the entire rig can plug right into the mixer.

Then its as simple as using a house wedge, bring your own monitor, or use IEM's, to have a custom monitor mix hearing yourself, and the rest of the band, at the levels each member wants.

Its the end of volume wars

This precisely!
 
So do you find the Q12 can handle the gig as a backline?
What are your eq settings for the Q12 (treble & bass cut).

I've been using my two Q12a's for al tleast 3 years as backline and in small pub I usually I take only 1. Then the most I can turn up the volume on the Q12a is a 11 -12o'Clock or I am to loud for the rest of the band. In the past I had e special PEQ for my Q12 made by Paco, but since fw Quantum I don't use it anymore. I just tweak my presets loud at gig level, like on my vids in the practice room and that's it. No special eq for bass & treble. :)
 
I prefer "amp in the room". It sounds perfect for the traditional amp/cab sound and feel. This is what I use when rehearsing. But there IS a place I use FRFR. I use both at gigs.

Recording I always go directly as anything else is pointless.
 
I've been using my two Q12a's for al tleast 3 years as backline and in small pub I usually I take only 1. Then the most I can turn up the volume on the Q12a is a 11 -12o'Clock or I am to loud for the rest of the band. In the past I had e special PEQ for my Q12 made by Paco, but since fw Quantum I don't use it anymore. I just tweak my presets loud at gig level, like on my vids in the practice room and that's it. No special eq for bass & treble. :)

Would love to try one of your patches. I have one Q12 (and the 800w matrix amp) and tried it out at a rehearsal yesterday - it has a horrible 'boxy' sound to it, it gets better if I put a graphic in and cut the 250 slider - this helps clear the boxyness on the clean setting but then the overdrive sounds thin and weedy (needed to increase the 250).
No matter what cab sim I used,it just changes from boxy to very boxy? The majority of the cab sims are identical, (I have it set to null) any suggestions?
 
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I have been using AxeFX II XL with Atomic CLR like a backline. I have played small bars like this, CLR either mounted on a pole or sitting on a chair or even on the floor facing audience. Played a few small outdoor venues (rooftop grand-openings for apartment complexes) with the same setup. Only thing through FoH is vocals, and everyone manages their own part of the mix to the audience.

Last week was the first time I used my Ax8 in rehearsal, and first time using a Fractal product plugged into the mixing board coming out the same PAs as the vocals with a patch that I tuned to sound good playing loud at home. The other guitar player was plugged into PA too. It was the "aha!" moment that restored my confidence in the sound capabilities of the unit and my ability to sound good in a live band mix.

Here are the things that I think have been hanging me up for a long time:
1. The tone I got at home, even playing loud along with recordings, did not seem to translate to the rehearsal space with loud drummer, guitar, bass, and PA-fed vocals. If it sounded good at home, it got lost in the mix, and if I tuned it to cut through better, I could cut through but the tone was unpleasant.
2. I typically had the sound projecting through FRFR past my legs, pointing toward hypothetical audience while in rehearsal, so waaaay off axis for everyone else in band (and me), mostly getting reflections off the far wall.
3. In an effort to give more space to the bass player, I was too aggressive in cutting out low frequencies. I always had lo-cuts of 110Hz or higher in cabs along with anemic bass settings in amps and no make-up in depth or post-gain bass EQ. Now I experiment with 80-96Hz and I get more meat and thump that makes it feel more real in the room. We are a classic rock cover band with a variety of sounds, but no heavy metal or doomy boomy stuff. I haven't had a problem with stepping on the bass player since making the change. I think I got that part right for our setup.
4. I am the weaker guitar player in this band, and the other guy is an analog/tube/old-fashioned guy and very vocal and opinionated. But I respect his opinion and quest for tone and frankly what he has been saying about my tone has been right (along with the diatribe about I should buy a real amp not this digital bla bla...). That has made me less secure in my tone and my playing, and I have been afraid to turn up the level more. My early feelings of not cutting through might have simply been from lack of volume and confidence, and by the time I was willing to turn it up more, I'd already made bad tweaks in my sound over-exaggerating the mid frequencies and using too much of a grating amp tone. I am just now at the stage of trusting that what sounds good at home will be very similar to what I hear through the PA in rehearsal, so I think I'm finally on the right track to be productive and explore a range of more sounds after spending almost a year in head-scratching survival mode and frustration.

In short, I did not expect there to be this much of a learning curve for me, but to be fair I have a busy life and this is a hobby for me, and I haven't been surgical and methodical and efficient in getting to the bottom of my tone problems. I hope this meandering anecdote is helpful to someone. Bottom line was using FOH and regulating the physical position and direction of the FRFR monitor to optimize for me and other folks on stage. Rookie mistakes as I gain experience.
 
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@andyp13 well I'm staring new with fw Rev 7.02. If you like one of my presets from 7.02beta which I current still use with Rev 7.02 but I might do some little adjustments. http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=5346
This is an factory preset "Still Got The Blues" which did some advanced tweaks. Also I have to say, it took me about a year to get used to the sounf FRFR, which is miced cab, but now won't miss it anymore. I can't play anymore really on real amps and cabs.
 
@andyp13 well I'm staring new with fw Rev 7.02. If you like one of my presets from 7.02beta which I current still use with Rev 7.02 but I might do some little adjustments. http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=5346
This is an factory preset "Still Got The Blues" which did some advanced tweaks. Also I have to say, it took me about a year to get used to the sounf FRFR, which is miced cab, but now won't miss it anymore. I can't play anymore really on real amps and cabs.

Cheers Black Bitch (can I really call you that?)
I will have a play with this tomorrow. I have been fooling around tonight and got a good sound but I could hear it changing as I increased the volume so I don't think the sound I have would be the same at gig volume. Will keep you informed though :)
 
@andyp13 Yes you can call me that - Black Bitch is the name of my Black Les Paul which sounds quite nasty. With tghe Q12 you have to watch out for the bass at gig volume. But this preset is made loud at gig volume. ;)

EDIT: here is a clip from last week and played with fw Rev 7.02 and my beloved Black Bitch
 
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I have been using AxeFX II XL with Atomic CLR like a backline. I have played small bars like this, CLR either mounted on a pole or sitting on a chair or even on the floor facing audience. Played a few small outdoor venues (rooftop grand-openings for apartment complexes) with the same setup. Only thing through FoH is vocals, and everyone manages their own part of the mix to the audience.

Last week was the first time I used my Ax8 in rehearsal, and first time using a Fractal product plugged into the mixing board coming out the same PAs as the vocals with a patch that I tuned to sound good playing loud at home. The other guitar player was plugged into PA too. It was the "aha!" moment that restored my confidence in the sound capabilities of the unit and my ability to sound good in a live band mix.

Here are the things that I think have been hanging me up for a long time:
1. The tone I got at home, even playing loud along with recordings, did not seem to translate to the rehearsal space with loud drummer, guitar, bass, and PA-fed vocals. If it sounded good at home, it got lost in the mix, and if I tuned it to cut through better, I could cut through but the tone was unpleasant.
2. I typically had the sound projecting through FRFR past my legs, pointing toward hypothetical audience while in rehearsal, so waaaay off axis for everyone else in band (and me), mostly getting reflections off the far wall.
3. In an effort to give more space to the bass player, I was too aggressive in cutting out low frequencies. I always had lo-cuts of 110Hz or higher in cabs along with anemic bass settings in amps and no make-up in depth or post-gain bass EQ. Now I experiment with 80-96Hz and I get more meat and thump that makes it feel more real in the room. We are a classic rock cover band with a variety of sounds, but no heavy metal or doomy boomy stuff. I haven't had a problem with stepping on the bass player since making the change. I think I got that part right for our setup.
4. I am the weaker guitar player in this band, and the other guy is an analog/tube/old-fashioned guy and very vocal and opinionated. But I respect his opinion and quest for tone and frankly what he has been saying about my tone has been right (along with the diatribe about I should buy a real amp not this digital bla bla...). That has made me less secure in my tone and my playing, and I have been afraid to turn up the level more. My early feelings of not cutting through might have simply been from lack of volume and confidence, and by the time I was willing to turn it up more, I'd already made bad tweaks in my sound over-exaggerating the mid frequencies and using too much of a grating amp tone. I am just now at the stage of trusting that what sounds good at home will be very similar to what I hear through the PA in rehearsal, so I think I'm finally on the right track to be productive and explore a range of more sounds after spending almost a year in head-scratching survival mode and frustration.

In short, I did not expect there to be this much of a learning curve for me, but to be fair I have a busy life and this is a hobby for me, and I haven't been surgical and methodical and efficient in getting to the bottom of my tone problems. I hope this meandering anecdote is helpful to someone. Bottom line was using FOH and regulating the physical position and direction of the FRFR monitor to optimize for me and other folks on stage. Rookie mistakes as I gain experience.

I'd tell the very vocal, opinionated feller, to get with the fucking program and ditch his aging Edsel...then show him a list of artists who have tossed their old tube based toys for digital modelers.
 
SteveW, I am just biding my time until I let my tone and playing speak for itself :) As far as the list of folks using AxeFX... I tried that approach, and his fallback was "well you don't have the pros backing you up to tune your patches for you. It's easy with a real amp and you can quit dicking around and spend more time playing." I'll be patient. I'm learning, and that's what matters to me.

One more observation I forgot in terms of patch creation...

Aside from 2 VOL blocks, I let nothing in the same row after the amp+cab. I used to keep a very light chorus or pitch detune block to fatten the tone, and delays, phaser, trem, rotary, reverb.... Now all that stuff goes in a parallel row and I set mix to 100% if that is an option, and if not I use output level with negative dBs to adjust as needed.

This definitely was a step forward when I figured it out. I always noticed the amp+cab alone sounded awesome, and it slowly lost something subtle as I added more effects. Now I can have the effects but still have realness in the pure amp+cab tone.

Has anybody else observed this? I don't think its wishful thinking or a placebo effect but I'm willing to accept otherwise. But that is what my ears tell me.
 
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Now all that stuff goes in a parallel row and I set mix to 100% if that is an option, and if not I use output level with negative dBs to adjust as needed.

This definitely was a step forward when I figured it out. I always noticed the amp+cab alone sounded awesome, and it slowly lost something subtle as I added more effects. Now I can have the effects but still have realness in the pure amp+cab tone.

Has anybody else observed this? I don't think its wishful thinking or a placebo effect but I'm willing to accept otherwise. But that is what my ears tell me.
The difference is the way the mix is handled. When you add your effects in parallel, your dry signal stays at the same level, so you hear more of it.

In truth, most of the effects blocks are actually running in parallel on the inside, but anything more than 0% mix will start to back off the dry signal as it brings in the wet.
 
Rex, what you are saying about the mix makes logical sense to me and that's how I thought it worked... but my ears told me something different so I formed a new hypothesis. Could there be some bit reduction or other subtle processing on the dry part of the signal when it is routed through a block? I'll try an experiment tomorrow with a bunch of blocks with 1% mix to see if I can recreate the loss of quality that I perceived, without having it confounded with other effects. Maybe that will just prove to me that it was all in my head.
 
Rex, what you are saying about the mix makes logical sense to me and that's how I thought it worked... but my ears told me something different so I formed a new hypothesis. Could there be some bit reduction or other subtle processing on the dry part of the signal when it is routed through a block? I'll try an experiment tomorrow with a bunch of blocks with 1% mix to see if I can recreate the loss of quality that I perceived, without having it confounded with other effects. Maybe that will just prove to me that it was all in my head.
All processing is 32-bit floating point. It could be the fact that, when you add the FX signal to the dry, you get a volume increase.

Either way, I'm eager to see what your tests turn up.
 
FRFR cuts much better in the mix in a pub without FOH for guitar than areal cab anytime.

Not my experience.

Occasionally I test my backline rigs side by side at band rehearsals: CLR versus power amp + cab, and switch between them while playing. Did so two weeks ago. It's close but power amp + guitar cab still wins.
 
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