I've been curious about this for a while and decided to post about it. Sorry the length!
How do you guys approach building your live sounds? To keep it somewhat consistent and common to the reason many of us have moved to using modelers, lets say we're running direct to FOH and using IEM's for monitoring. No amps and cabs or FRFR.
Obviously some of our favorite recorded tones from our favorite players are not quite what what they are perceived to be in the context of the recording when listening to isolated tracks....going a step further, they also likely didn't sound like they do in the isolated tracks when the sound was coming out of the amp or amps in the studio. Add to that in many/most cases at a minimum the part was at least doubled.... or more.
Some of these sounds actually sound pretty awful and un-inspiring alone.. but absolutely killer in the band mix context.
So, do you guys approach building your sounds to be simply inspiring to play on in your IEM and yet likely more work for the FOH engineer to get to a firm and consistent hold on or do you aim them more at what you know will work in the context of your band? Obviously, if you're a 4 piece rock band you can get away with using some more frequencies for your guitar than if you're in a dual guitar/keyboard/horns etc.band. I see many players using modelers that haven't really level matched or had at least some form of consistency in EQ on a per patch basis and often the sound guy just buries it cause he's tired of chasing the guitar going from overly bright to "blanket over the mic" sounds depending on the patches in the song combined with the huge volume fluctuations in them.
I typically approach it from the standpoint that the FOH engineer should basically be able to leave my channel flat and make slight adjustments based on what he may be doing with the system graph. This applies to EQ and volumes including solo boosts. But that approach requires some additional work in the IEM's to get the guitar to sit exactly where I want it to. Now, the other thing....I build my sounds in my studio through reference monitors(Event TR8) and vary the volume quite a bit back and forth from quiet to fairly loud to make sure things have enough top end/ not too much bottom to sit where they should in the mix ,but not rip faces off or mud it up. Is this the wrong approach? Should I be doing this through something different speaker wise? We do have a consistent sound man and he hasn't complained about anything, but his nature would be to just fix something out front instead of complaining to me....unless it were un-workable. I want to be certain that my stuff is where it's supposed to be in the event he's not available and some house engineer ends up being responsible for us. I want it as dummy proof as possible lol.
Thanks!
B
How do you guys approach building your live sounds? To keep it somewhat consistent and common to the reason many of us have moved to using modelers, lets say we're running direct to FOH and using IEM's for monitoring. No amps and cabs or FRFR.
Obviously some of our favorite recorded tones from our favorite players are not quite what what they are perceived to be in the context of the recording when listening to isolated tracks....going a step further, they also likely didn't sound like they do in the isolated tracks when the sound was coming out of the amp or amps in the studio. Add to that in many/most cases at a minimum the part was at least doubled.... or more.
Some of these sounds actually sound pretty awful and un-inspiring alone.. but absolutely killer in the band mix context.
So, do you guys approach building your sounds to be simply inspiring to play on in your IEM and yet likely more work for the FOH engineer to get to a firm and consistent hold on or do you aim them more at what you know will work in the context of your band? Obviously, if you're a 4 piece rock band you can get away with using some more frequencies for your guitar than if you're in a dual guitar/keyboard/horns etc.band. I see many players using modelers that haven't really level matched or had at least some form of consistency in EQ on a per patch basis and often the sound guy just buries it cause he's tired of chasing the guitar going from overly bright to "blanket over the mic" sounds depending on the patches in the song combined with the huge volume fluctuations in them.
I typically approach it from the standpoint that the FOH engineer should basically be able to leave my channel flat and make slight adjustments based on what he may be doing with the system graph. This applies to EQ and volumes including solo boosts. But that approach requires some additional work in the IEM's to get the guitar to sit exactly where I want it to. Now, the other thing....I build my sounds in my studio through reference monitors(Event TR8) and vary the volume quite a bit back and forth from quiet to fairly loud to make sure things have enough top end/ not too much bottom to sit where they should in the mix ,but not rip faces off or mud it up. Is this the wrong approach? Should I be doing this through something different speaker wise? We do have a consistent sound man and he hasn't complained about anything, but his nature would be to just fix something out front instead of complaining to me....unless it were un-workable. I want to be certain that my stuff is where it's supposed to be in the event he's not available and some house engineer ends up being responsible for us. I want it as dummy proof as possible lol.
Thanks!
B