Let it go...Let it go!

Karl Houseknecht

Karl Houseknecht

Power User
Yeah, now that song is in my head too. Sorry.

Had a run-in with an older gentleman last night who was doing sound for us. Nice guy, pretty knowledgeable, but absolutely no experience with direct guitars. He had my Axe, in the monitors and mains, severely high and low passed to where it sounded like a wah pedal. When I asked him about it, showed him what I was hearing, and demonstrated what I wanted to hear by playing through my CLR, his response was, "Well, I can't EQ the sound in the mains and monitors like what's coming out of your AMP. NOBODY does that. It will sound horrible. The monitors can't be run flat, it just won't work."

Deep breaths...deep breaths...

I asked him if he could just humor me and remove the EQ because that's not an amp, I'm running a modeler direct. "Oh," he says, "Well that's why it doesn't sound as good as an amp, it's a modeler. Those never sound good." I asked him to please just trust me and we can put it all back if it doesn't work. He obliged. Surprise, surprise...it sounded wonderful. And even he admitted it.

So here we have an old-timer, running very modern digital mixing equipment, whose only experience is mic'ing up amps where the guitar player has obviously tweaked them to sound good off-axis. And he's stuck in that world. Hopefully I've made another convert. :) But let me tell you, it was one frustrating and very long sound check. Let it go, buddy. Let it go...
 
OMG... Sometimes you just wanna shoot... someone...... with a loud nice sounding guitar.... that's running direct...
 
Hate the kind of people who want to fight you cause you use digital guitar gear. I had a guy try and tell me we weren't going to use the Axe on our upcoming CD ... I let him borrow it for a weekend and he bought one the week after lol.
 
RockerAlex said:
Hate the kind of people who want to fight you cause you use digital guitar gear.
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To be fair, the Axe-FX is not as widely known YET in the smaller gigging scene(s). These sound guys are used to Digitech, Zoom, BOSS and Line 6 modelers, which suck live in FOH (I can say from experience). The more scenarios like this where we can curve old school thinking, the more traction we can make as "pioneers" for FAS. I'm loving these situations making sound guys nervous that they don't know what they're talking about :lol
 
ibanezfreak4 said:
These sound guys are used to Digitech, Zoom, BOSS and Line 6 modelers, which suck live in FOH
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I think with the wrong settings even the Axe can suck through the FOH. And I know THAT from experience too. :) But with the right ones, your Boss, Digitech, and Line6 devices can do just fine. I remember being blown away in Vegas a few years back at a player's tone and came to find out he was using a PODxt Live.
 
I would agree with the right tweaking its never so awful that anyone notices. Its just the attitude most people have towards modelers. I was absolutely one of them too. I try to always tell them that. Its hard to convince sound guys who've never heard of fractal that its actually different. Lots of times the nicest you can be is the best way to get through to the sound guy. Sometimes they make it so hard though. I always ask after the show how everything was too.
 
Feel your pain. I've had this same experience many times. Some of the old school sound guys in my neck of the woods have bigger egos (and closed minds) than anyone in the band...even the lead singer!!
 
Hellbat said:
Luckily, I'm old enough that I associate Let It Go with Loudness and not Disney.
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Huh, all this time I was thinking it was a Def Leppard reference. I have been fortunate in that the last several gigs I've played, almost all the sound guys are pretty happy when I tell them I've got an Axe FX and I'm going direct. They know it's less work for them. Good on you Karl for being patient and having a good attitude. That resolves things 99% of the time I've found.
 
TFC said:
Huh, all this time I was thinking it was a Def Leppard reference.
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+1. I knew by the double "let it go" it was the damned Frozen song... my kids make me crazy with it, but thankfully I haven't heard it in a while now...
Def Leppard was the song that came to MY mind though. Loved that High N' Dry album.

You know, I hate to say it but I saw a cover band at an outdoor gig over the summer use a Line6 POD HD and that guy sounded perfect in the mix. He really did a great job and I could not criticize his tone at all. Of course, it was all 80's hair rock so that is sort of what Line6 does best. Still... Direct sound should not be anything new for any sound man who has regular work any more.

I've yet to gig 16.02... but I'd shit myself if anyone had issue with my tone now. It simply slays, and I'll put my rig next to ANY amp out there.
 
Would it help to have a 3 paragraph document written with a third grade mentality in mind.?

Par.1) Explaining what we are using and why

Par2) hookup options or requirements ( like a DI or keyboard comparison).

par3) what we we would like for on stage mix, and request a mixing board set baseline.

Hand the dude the she sheet and if he has any questions then possibly an intelligent conversation may ensue after he reads the document.

Do you guys think a getting started guide would work for those that suffer thorough this?
 
Mark's Tone said:
Would it help to have a 3 paragraph document written with a third grade mentality in mind.?
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I think that's actually a fantastic idea to have for the whole band. I know a lot of guys that have these for when they deal with different sound companies at every gig. It makes things a breeze.

We generally don't have this problem. This guy was an anomaly.
 
We put stuff like that in the tech rider, or at the bottom of the stage plot / input list for smaller shows.
 
Had a theatre show a couple nights ago. One of the very rare occasions that we run into a house rig or in fact, anything other than our own rig that we carry.

The in-house techs had previously requested that they handle the sound and kindly offered to mix the whole show. We have everyone DI'd (2xAxeFX, Bass POD, triggered drums, Keys and 4xVocal mics + effects), have all the gear contained in the same rack and everything runs direct to our digital mixer - so even if we wanted to break everything out for separate feeds, it would be a big hassle.

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However, I emphasised that whilst the simplest approach would be to send them a left & right feed and mix everything through our own desk as usual, we'll happily work with them to adjust the mix / sounds to their requirement / satisfaction. A team effort is certainly more conducive to a great end result, right..?

No problems on stage as we're all on in-ears fed from our own mixer, so that was always going to be as consistent as ever
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At the end of one level test and soundcheck song, I asked what they'd like to adjust..? The answer came back, "Nothing, that's just great!". We ran through a few more different bits and pieces containing all kinds of acoustic, clean, driven, lead tones etc - all great and aside from a very slight lift in my lead vocal level, nothing else changed.

They just added a little top end to sweeten it for their rig and that was that. Was an absolutely amazing night too
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So yes, there may well be plenty of sound guys who are stuck firmly in the past, but if you can demonstrate that you know what you're doing and leave any egos to others, everyone can have a great time!
 
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