ive noticed this live...

T

thricegod1288

Member
Why do bands only mic up one speaker. I dont think i have ever heard a single stereo live show its always stage left guitar mic'ed up comes through only the left side and the same thing for the guy on the right side of the stage. Why dont venues run the bass and both guitars all at the same time on both sides?
 
I'm not sure it's quite as much of a blanket rule as that, but I'd guess that would be done to help differentiate between the two players and in essence, when they're both playing together, you don't get much more stereo than that :)

Myself and the other guitarist in the band both use stereo sounds through our stereo PA, but we do bias the stereo channels on the desk a little left and right (10 o'clock & 2 o'clock) to reflect how things look and give some separation
 
Without getting too far into the theory, the big reason why only one speaker in a cab is mic'ed has to do with phase problems.
 
When I was playing '80s and '90 rock metal and I was the only one guitar player in the band, I was running stereo.
Two cabinets and two mics.

But if there are more than a guitar player, or another harmonic instrument (i.e. keyboards), going mono is way easier and much reliable.
 
running mono is easier and is mostly how ive ran through most of my gigging days.the past couple of years ive been running stereo and i have to say i personally prefer it.i think its personal preference and having a decent soundman who knows what hes doing.
 
I've run both.

I always ran mono with my Tube rigs, as it was a bitch to need two tube amps to get a "real" stereo sound, so back then I never even tried it. Sure, I could have run stereo FX to the board, or whatever, but it was to much trouble, so I just never did it.

However, when I went to Digital, I went stereo, and I love it, and now it's hard to go back. It's one of those things that when I start think about NOT doing stereo I start talking myself back into it within seconds.

Of course, I don't do multi-guitar bands, which is another thing all together.
 
What you've heard is what I would consider a stereo live show. If everything was coming out of both sides, that's a mono PA setup. I don't know why you'd want to pan one guitar hard left and the other hard right, but I do pan slightly left and right to get some separation in the guitars. In a mono setup, the only tool in your arsenal is EQ and Volume.

I don't do sound professionally and I'm still really new to FOH stuff (been futzing for about 6 months), so I could be completely wrong on this.
 
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