Horror of horrors, I could hear my sound in my cab.

[andyp13]

Sounds like my FRFR may need to raise its ugly head and start getting used on stage. I did try it once but swapped it for my real cab during the sound check, I need to give it a fair chance I guess.

 

[TG3K]

Our band plays in small clubs about the same size as you. We run at low stage volume and put everything through the FOH PA, including a bit of the bass guitar. He's the only guy on stage with an actual amp, but being bass frequencies, it's a lot more omnidirectional than a guitar, so there's no death beam from him. I also run sound from the stage (although I'm not singing like you are). I run the FOH mix to a powered wedge in front of me and that gives me a reasonably good idea what the FOH mains sound like, and gives me enough sonic information to get the levels balanced between four vocal mics and all the instruments..Granted, it took some getting used to on my part, because I no longer hear myself as the loudest sound on the stage. But our audience gets the benefit of a good, balanced mix regardless of where they are in the room.

 

[solo-act]

But alas, no. Faces are not melted by exquisite solo mastery, it is the hellish ice pick of overly directional speakers that has caused brains to burst out their skulls and eye balls to squirt their juices,...like a road whore at a biker rally. They thought they might get laid tonight, but not laid to waste.

LOL

 

[RDH]

i bought an amp stand so I could point my guitar cab (1x12 eminence tonkerlite) to my head instead of the back of my legs. I have always liked the sound I get - or so I thought.
The sound was not good, it was scratchy and cheap sounding, the solo sound was also trebly with little warmth. I backed off some top end but though it improved it a little, it then lacked sparkle - I was really shocked. I thought if I take too much top end away to suit me, what would the audience be hearing? Possibly some muffled tone.
We use a vocal PA with just keys and bass drum through the desk along with vocals, so I as a guitarist I rely on my backline to reach the audience...... I did post a forum recently about using FRFR as backline but decided to go with the majority in this situation and stick with a real cab, but now I'm starting to wonder if the FRFR is worth reconsidering.

This is exactly the reality of the amp in the room argument we've seen so many times in threads. If one points the speaker toward your head (ears) you lose the "amp in the room effect" and hear what the speaker actually sounds like! Almost allways harsh and scratchy! so the answer is , 1- put it back on the floor and it sounds good to you? 2- A good FrFr and adjust to hearing what is really coming out of your rig ?
By all means #2 if you want to hear what everyone else does!

 

[zenaxe]

i bought an amp stand so I could point my guitar cab (1x12 eminence tonkerlite) to my head instead of the back of my legs. I have always liked the sound I get - or so I thought.

eBay the amp stand?

 

[andyp13]

Going to give my Q12 another go.

 

[Silentq2]

X-32 Rack would mean you're using an ipad to mix I would assume. Go direct from Fractal to your FOH, if you are the one running your sound set up a loop of your most commonly used tone, have the rest of the band play along with "gig intensity" walk around room with the ipad get a feel for what's going on. Once you're pleased save Fractal and x-32 presets and the gig and all future gigs at that venue instantly simplified. If your pleased with your tone out front at that point it should (with little to no fuss) please no matter the system you play through in the future.

 

[Black Bitch]

I put it on box stand above my head, so I can hear and the audience can hear as it goes above everybodys heads. The Q12 has a hole at the bottom for that purpose.

 

[StickMan]

See, that is the thing though, you don't know how it sounds out front, and regardless of what you do or don't do to get it sounding good from your position on stage, you still don't know what the audience is hearing.

That's what I don't get. You have a device that allows you to send exactly the tone you want to FOH without having to worry about mic setup or wash from an overly loud amp on stage screwing up the mix. That's such an advantage over the old way and it seems a shame to give it up. Let the mixer control the mix and you aren't going to be able to set it up properly from the stage anyways, so find a way around that problem.

 

[Eanna]

Our band plays in small clubs about the same size as you. We run at low stage volume and put everything through the FOH PA, including a bit of the bass guitar. He's the only guy on stage with an actual amp, but being bass frequencies, it's a lot more omnidirectional than a guitar, so there's no death beam from him. I also run sound from the stage (although I'm not singing like you are). I run the FOH mix to a powered wedge in front of me and that gives me a reasonably good idea what the FOH mains sound like, and gives me enough sonic information to get the levels balanced between four vocal mics and all the instruments..Granted, it took some getting used to on my part, because I no longer hear myself as the loudest sound on the stage. But our audience gets the benefit of a good, balanced mix regardless of where they are in the room.

This ^^^. We run everything through FOH. Doesn't have to be a monster PA to handle drums or even be very loud to get a predictable mix night to night. I have a full FOH mix (post fader) in my wedge with 3-6db extra 'me' (vox and guitar). This sounds & feels good on stage yet I'm where i need to be in the mix when i record from the floor. Everybody does their own mon mixes.

 

[ThelmoRego]

Dude no offense but you're just full of excuses, if it's your PA then get the levels relatively where you want it at your band rehearsal place and then that should roughly translates to the show or have another member play your guitar while you go step out really quick and see what the volume is like. It sounds to me like you enjoy sounding terrible and like to just come here and complain about it.

 

[joegold]

i bought an amp stand so I could point my guitar cab (1x12 eminence tonkerlite) to my head instead of the back of my legs. I have always liked the sound I get - or so I thought.
The sound was not good, it was scratchy and cheap sounding, the solo sound was also trebly with little warmth. I backed off some top end but though it improved it a little, it then lacked sparkle - I was really shocked. I thought if I take too much top end away to suit me, what would the audience be hearing? Possibly some muffled tone.
We use a vocal PA with just keys and bass drum through the desk along with vocals, so I as a guitarist I rely on my backline to reach the audience...... I did post a forum recently about using FRFR as backline but decided to go with the majority in this situation and stick with a real cab, but now I'm starting to wonder if the FRFR is worth reconsidering.

When using real guitar cabs/amps most people DON'T play with their ears directly on-axis to the speaker.
Guitar speakers universally sound harsh in the treble frequencies when listened to on-axis.
There is always a much wider useful listening area available of slightly to more drastically off-axis listening positions that are possible.
The trick is to place the cabinet such that the driver is off-axis to some degree (but not too much) for both the player and the audience.

Of course this is not always possible and this is the reason why so many guitar players these days are so interested in going FRFR because FRFR systems don't have these problems.
But FRFR systems have their own issues and many of us just can't get 100% comfortable playing live that way.
It just feels foreign, especially to someone who's been playing for 40 years with real cabs.

If your cab is on the floor directly behind you then, yes, the sound, especially the highs, is going into your calves since your ears are so far off-axis.
If you're on an elevated stage, then your listeners ears might be on-axis to your cab and they WILL hear all the highs.

If you raise the cab off the floor and tilt it so that the driver is pointing more towards your shoulders or your chest then you'll hear a more useful off-axis tone and so will most of your listeners.
Raising the cab off the floor will also reduce the apparent volume of the low frequencies and you may want to increase the bass in theAmp Block or the Global EQ to compensate.

If you're playing while seated you might get away with leaving the cab on the floor or elevating just a foot or 2 w/o angling it.

 

[Tommy Tempest]

I use to point the cab backwards. But these days I like to do the Bruce Springsteen thing and tilt the cab way back for stage volume. These days I use in ears, so it doesn't matter, but it's more for feel, sustain and feedback.
I did exactly what the op stated and put my cab at ear level. I was like "wow I must have sounded like crap last night" . Big mistake.

 

[andyp13]

Dude no offense but you're just full of excuses, if it's your PA then get the levels relatively where you want it at your band rehearsal place and then that should roughly translates to the show or have another member play your guitar while you go step out really quick and see what the volume is like. It sounds to me like you enjoy sounding terrible and like to just come here and complain about it.

ThelmoRego - We don't sound terrible, I just worry about being too loud if I mic up the whole band and also not hearing my sound and level out front as we are setup behind the pa. this is why I am wanting to try my FRFR Q12 for backline.
Though I think I may try setting up the full pa at a rehearsal and mike up the band and see where it goes.
Do you guys who go direct from the axe to FOH go mono or stereo? What is the norm.....

This is a clip of the band live (I don't think we are that terrible) I miked up the full band for the recording but only had the Vox, sax and keys going out of the pa.

 

[unix-guy]

ThelmoRego - We don't sound terrible, I just worry about being too loud if I mic up the whole band and also not hearing my sound and level out front as we are setup behind the pa. this is why I am wanting to try my FRFR Q12 for backline.
Though I think I may try setting up the full pa at a rehearsal and mike up the band and see where it goes.
Do you guys who go direct from the axe to FOH go mono or stereo? What is the norm.....

My presets are stereo, but I treat it as "dual mono" - guitars panned hard left and hard right.

If you've only been using a single mono cab then you can probably just stick with mono.

 

[Tommy Tempest]

Though I think I may try setting up the full pa at a rehearsal and mike up the band and see where it goes.
Do you guys who go direct from the axe to FOH go mono or stereo? What is the norm.....

We always rehearse with the full PA, subs tops, in ears. Back line is on and DI to the board and drummer is mic'd. My AXE is set to mono, my PA is 3 channel mono, (L/C/R), so I go mono (1 XLR out channel 1).

 

[Billbill]

Another case of that fletcher/munson effect? Lol. I had same issues when I move cab then sounds hit me differently. I bought an FRFR MEG2 212 cab ran in stereo, which greatly reduced associated issues, few tweaks and the further from the cab the better it sounds! The bigger the room the better! Even though it's full on FRFR if youre in a small room at loud volumes it will have some mud. Should note that on this setup I'm running some high gain settings when I play Deftones!!!

 

[unix-guy]

Another case of that fletcher/munson effect? Lol. I had same issues when I move cab then sounds hit me differently. I bought an FRFR MEG2 212 cab ran in stereo, which greatly reduced associated issues, few tweaks and the further from the cab the better it sounds! The bigger the room the better! Even though it's full on FRFR if youre in a small room at loud volumes it will have some mud. Should note that on this setup I'm running some high gain settings when I play Deftones!!!

It is not Fletcher Munson in this case... It is about "beaming" from guitar speakers because they are more directional and less dispersed, so you hear more (or less) high frequencies depending on where your ears are in relationship to the speaker cone.

 

[guitarmike]

Love the band! Fwiw...a couple of things to consider.
FRFR is less directional, but you can still get in the beam...don't get in the beam.

In my experience, when switching between an amp cab and frfr, the frfr always needs the bottom end fixed; too bassy. Since the preset sounded fine into the guitar cab, I always tried to solve this problem in the speaker block:
1st by selecting the right ir and also
by setting the lo frq cut to -12db and raising the cut up as needed to end the boom. Some times the boom may be at above 100hz in which case additional eq tools may be needed to cut the boom while not removing the bottom.

A nice clean single, like in the above vid, sounds great in the top end with frfr. But be aware that when you add od for the solo, you might get some hi's you don't want. Distortion adds frequency content that can show up at this time.
Don't be afraid to cut the hi's in the speaker block to avoid this. You can find a place that doesn't effect your clean signal but prevents extra hi's when you add od.

 

[unix-guy]

FRFR is less directional, but you can still get in the beam...don't get in the beam.

Really? With what type of FRFR have you experienced this? Because I've been using Xitones for several years now, and I can listen to them from anywhere and there is no beaming. Maybe that is possible with non-coaxial designs?