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

andyp13

Power User
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.
 
The old way you were setting up ..., did you have the Cab on the Floor ? I've heard that just uncoupling the Cabinet from the Floor can remove a lot of bass .... I doubt it's that simple, but maybe ?
 
The old way you were setting up ..., did you have the Cab on the Floor ? I've heard that just uncoupling the Cabinet from the Floor can remove a lot of bass .... I doubt it's that simple, but maybe ?
Partially it's this, partially the directionality of a guitar spraker for high frequencies.
One of the big advantages of the FRFR route (especially with something like the CLR) is the wide dispersion, that means both you and the vast majority of the audience will hear the same sound.
 
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.

Good quality FRFR is the best IMHO - get your patches sounding good with it and let the sound man do the rest. Hopefully FOH is descent quality and he can set you (mostly) flat on the board and just worry about levels.
 
I concur with NeoSound. I use my Matrix Q12's to dial up my tone at home at fairly high volume and they seem to transfer really well to the PA. To test this I A/B'd our PA against the Q12's in a rehearsal studio and they were pretty bang on.
 
Good quality FRFR is the best IMHO - get your patches sounding good with it and let the sound man do the rest. Hopefully FOH is descent quality and he can set you (mostly) flat on the board and just worry about levels.

We don't have a FOH sound man, we use just a vocal PA with just the keys, bass drum and vocals through it. The guitar and bass use our amps/speakers. So my FRFR would be used at volume - we are not a loud band though.
 
Not to say I told you so, but I told you so lol.

Guitar cabs are pretty harsh and directional in many cases. What the audience hears either micd'd, or direct if a backline situation, can be a very different sound that what your hearing on stage, especially when your listening off-axis.

Same thing goes for sticking a mic in front of a cab, your still hearing the guitar cab direct, but the close mic tone sounds rather different, its colored by the mic, its affects by the proximity et al.

Now this doesn't mean a guitar cab "in the room", or "on the stage" doesn't sound. It can sound amazing, to the guitarist when they are standing in a certain sweetspot, BUT.... is that the tone everyone else is hearing too ? usually not.


As such, the love for FRFR....the tone your hearing coming from the wedge/backline speaker is the same tone that the audience is hearing, in that both are the sound of a close mic'd guitar cab, and because of the dispersion, your sound remains pretty constant as you move around stage.

There is a reason so many guys went away from mic'ing guitar cabs live and started going direct. Its just a more consistent, and versatile, tone night after night, with less fuzz
 
but decided to go with the majority in this situation and stick with a real cab
I'd be very surprised to hear the majority of Fractal users backline with real cabs and not FRFR.

I keep an EV FRFR speaker behind me for my backline. Works well. Mirrors what the PA is sending out well enough.
 
We don't have a FOH sound man, we use just a vocal PA with just the keys, bass drum and vocals through it. The guitar and bass use our amps/speakers. So my FRFR would be used at volume - we are not a loud band though.

As you seem to struggle with your sound often, I'd advise you to rent a studio or room with a P.A. and a sound guy, and spend an afternoon experimenting. It can be worthwhile!
 
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.
Welcome to the experience of near field "beam" monitoring with a real cab - LOL
 
As you seem to struggle with your sound often, I'd advise you to rent a studio or room with a P.A. and a sound guy, and spend an afternoon experimenting. It can be worthwhile!

It would be pointless hiring a PA and sound guy, as we just use a vocal PA when we gig, the small venues we play (up to 100 - 150) are bars and we don't want to blast them out with micing up through large PA's.
When I do larger gigs (with another band) I normally mic up my cab, or if it's a show/session I go direct to FOH and use my Q12 for monitoring.
 
It would be pointless hiring a PA and sound guy, as we just use a vocal PA when we gig, the small venues we play (up to 100 - 150) are bars and we don't want to blast them out with micing up through large PA's.
When I do larger gigs (with another band) I normally mic up my cab, or if it's a show/session I go direct to FOH and use my Q12 for monitoring.

Why not run your guitars through the PA then as well ? More instruments that are going through the PA, the easier it is to control and tweak the overall levels and tone. When your trying to balance out things like a backline guitar, keys or vocals through a PA, bass (assuming its through a cab as well) and then drums, it requires a lot of relative adjustments and you run into issues with dispersion of sound etc.

Get the vocals, bass, keys, guitar et al., all through the PA/FOH and you can easily adjust your mix at the board, with just some issues with drums, which can be solved with use of brushes at quieter gigs. Nice thing when you dial in your overall band mix like this that what sounds good through your own PA, will also translate well to when your using a bigger FOH system.

You guys tend to make things really hard for yourselves, switching around with FRFR one night, guitar cabs the next, mic'd guitars the next weekend, etc. Your going to sound quite different gig to gig that way and likely never be happy.

I'd say run guitars to FOH, be it your own system or a house system, and use either IEM's or your FRFR for your personal monitoring, which will work for a small gig or a 10,000 person gig. Sometimes you might be able to use provided wedges, unless of course you run IEM, but never hurts to just use a FRFR as you own monitor. Dial it all in once and then its just an issue of how loud you need to be for the size of the venue.

Think of it like a DJ or electronic musicians. They don't worry about dialing in sound for a venue or certain system. They simply play their set and the mains output sounds essentially the same if it a 100 person bar, or a 10,000 person venue, or even a 100,000 person festival stage.
 
Why not run your guitars through the PA then as well ? More instruments that are going through the PA, the easier it is to control and tweak the overall levels and tone. When your trying to balance out things like a backline guitar, keys or vocals through a PA, bass (assuming its through a cab as well) and then drums, it requires a lot of relative adjustments and you run into issues with dispersion of sound etc.

Get the vocals, bass, keys, guitar et al., all through the PA/FOH and you can easily adjust your mix at the board, with just some issues with drums, which can be solved with use of brushes at quieter gigs. Nice thing when you dial in your overall band mix like this that what sounds good through your own PA, will also translate well to when your using a bigger FOH system.

You guys tend to make things really hard for yourselves, switching around with FRFR one night, guitar cabs the next, mic'd guitars the next weekend, etc. Your going to sound quite different gig to gig that way and likely never be happy.

We don't have a guy out front, so if I put the guitar etc through the pa I would not only know how loud or quiet I am, as I am the singer I am unable to walk out to check balance etc etc.....
By pointing my cab at my head instead of at the audience (and the back of my legs) has enabled me to hear it better and as a result the stage level is much quieter.
I would love to put the guitar through the pa along with the bass and adding some overheads to the kick and snare but I would always be worried about how it sounds out front. And before anyone says get yourselves a sound guy -
I'm in the North East UK - and the pay is not great so the expense of a sound guy even if we could find someone is not really an option. And I am getting into using and micing up a full band in a small venue which defeats the object.

The pa I have is 2xSamson D1200 (700w 12" subs) and 2xDRX10 tops (10" 1100w tops) and a x32 rack, not sure if it would take a full band anyway.
 
Ah the fun of trying to mix yourself at a club date. I see guys useing 2 techniques around here: 1) go out front and mix the rest of the band (super easy if you have a wireless system), then swap with another band member to mix your instrument level. 2) use a looper pedal and vamp a groove, then go out front and mix your looper self with the rest of the band.
 
I remember the first time I was playing at an outdoor festival. The sound guy told me the treble coming out of my amp was KILLING him.
I said man it sounds great here, what are you talking about. Get on your knees and put your face in front of the speaker.
This is what the audience right in front of your amp will hear. WOW was he right.
That was the day that changed my perception of tone forever. I had been having what I thought was good tone at my ears and sucked going out to the audience.

I started by facing my speaker cab directly to my face so I had an idea of the true sound. Many years have passed since then.
Now with FRFR and IEM i don't look back.
 
We don't have a guy out front, so if I put the guitar etc through the pa I would not only know how loud or quiet I am, as I am the singer I am unable to walk out to check balance etc etc.....
By pointing my cab at my head instead of at the audience (and the back of my legs) has enabled me to hear it better and as a result the stage level is much quieter.
I would love to put the guitar through the pa along with the bass and adding some overheads to the kick and snare but I would always be worried about how it sounds out front. And before anyone says get yourselves a sound guy -
I'm in the North East UK - and the pay is not great so the expense of a sound guy even if we could find someone is not really an option. And I am getting into using and micing up a full band in a small venue which defeats the object.

The pa I have is 2xSamson D1200 (700w 12" subs) and 2xDRX10 tops (10" 1100w tops) and a x32 rack, not sure if it would take a full band anyway.


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.

You can maybe point your cab at your head, dial in your tone so it sounds good, and yes, maybe lower your volume on stage, but what about how it sounds in the crowd ? How do you know if that quieter amp, which will be hitting the ceiling, is cutting at all from the audience location ?

Honestly, your going about your sound design totally backwards. You (like a lot of guys) are totally focused about hearing a great tone when your standing in a given spot, playing your guitar. What you should be focused on it making sure that your guitar sounds good for the people out the audience, and then work backwards so that your own monitoring of your tone also can sound as good as possible.

Yes, I totally get that its more inspiring to play when your like how you sound, and I'm not saying one shouldn't concern themselves with that, BUT, what is the point of having a great guitar tone at a gig if your the only one who can enjoy it ? If people in the crowed can't hear you, or think your sound like an ice pick in the ears, they aren't going to want to watch your set.
 
Turn off the cab sim for your guitar cab. Use a loop so you can send one signal to the PA with the cab sim, the other without the cab sim to the real guitar cabinet.
 
Using FRFR for the backline AND pointing it towards your head will solve both issues.

The FRFR doesn't "beam" and has a wide dispersion, so what you hear is what the audience hears.

I'd recommend an FRFR wedge in front of you and one more FRFR cab facing the audience.
 
Woe and pity to the fool that sits directly in front of my old marshal cab. A pinch harmonic could literally become a death ray of pain and torture to those poor unsuspecting souls. Yes, I've never played death metal in my life but I have made ears bleed on a dance floor while playing "Give me three steps". I learned to overcome the monotony of playing "Brown Eyed Girl" as I strategically aimed my death beam at the moron who shouted "turn it down", and I am convinced that a dual cab setup would have shattered glass during our ZZ Top medley. Now, I must ashamedly confess that fear, and fear alone, prevented me from ever venturing into the sacred world of dual cabs. Yes, fear has put a blight on my rock godness and shriveled my mighty nads to raisin like appendages, protruding, ...no, ...hiding under a remnant spoken of only at medical schools. I still have nightmares of exploding eyeballs and even brains, at once transfixed by the intoxicating sound of a cranked marshall on 10, plugged into a double stack and vibrating like a road whore at a biker rally, and then at the orgasmic point, and without warning, pinch harmonics straight from hell, as I ripped through my amazing godlike guitar solo. 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.
No, they don't let me play through the marshall rig anymore...too loud they say, knocks things off of the wall they say, it broke the tv, they say, its just to much, they say.
But I say, I have been working on some very interesting presets for my fractal unit...

Amp in the room, anyone? :)
 
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