I just watched a few clips of this tour last night, and I'm SO glad I didn't decide to go see them last night in DC; LaBrie was horrible. His pitch is all over the place.Just saw DT on Sat 3/5 in Wallingford CT. Stage looked pretty empty. Nice video wall backdrop all night.
JP had his 2 1x12's pointing at him, but nothing in back. Looked like JohnM had had Bass Pedals or
footswitch on floor, that's it. Small drum kit for Mangini also. JP went up on the platform where his cabs
normally reside to use a lone Wah pedal several times. Looks like an easy setup for roadies...
But man, JP's guitar was slamming all night. So loud and clear, often too loud, and overpowered bass
and keys. Drums were mixed low, but everything came up as night progressed. Great show.
For DT at least, I don't think it's much different. JP still uses amps. They're just off-stage in iso.Wow. Makes you wonder how much of the silent stage phenomenon is about streamlining
the load in and load out, i.e., having to take/pay a smaller crew, having fewer trucks on the
road, etc.?
Correlation does not imply causation. I'm sure there are other factors in play.Also, why was live music thriving far more before the "silent stage" trends, and is now
an epic struggle----especially at the local level? Are there other factors at play?
I mean, if the argument is that it is better for the performer, the venue, and the audience
shouldn't we be seeing a growth in live music, rather than the ongoing descent that has
plagued live music for the past couple of decades??
Just an FYI that this can be really bad for your ear with the IEM in it.Great article! As a primarily P&W player, I try to leave one ear out for this very reason.
Understood, I usually have both ears in during the first rehearsal to get the correct level, and then take one ear out without changing the level for the walkthrough and the service. Our stages are super quiet, as amps go in a back room in an iso box, the drummer is caged, and we don't use wedges. For my situation it works, but I'm glad you pointed it out in case anyone was unaware of the dangers.Just an FYI that this can be really bad for your ear with the IEM in it.
The signal level you need to use to get a 1-ear setup to be comparable volume to both ears in is huge, especially if you're competing with amps, etc with the other ear.
It's strongly recommended to not do this.
This is the part I miss with a silent stage.With the Axe-FX I have a decent volume coming off my 412 on stage but mostly monitors. It's awesome when you are enveloped with the tone and the guitar is alive.
My band has been 100% direct except for vocals (for hopefully obvious reasons) for about 6 years.
I have a love/hate relationship with this setup. Many others have touched on the reasons it is good:
But I really don't care much for the way guitar sounds when injected directly in my ear holes... I've got nice, 6-driver 64Audio V6s custom molds... I find it tolerable but not really enjoyable.
- Every band member has their own mix and in our case control over that mix via iphone/ipad
- Consistent mix, always
- Hearing protection
- Stereo!
We got told to pack it up once after only playing 3 songs at a restaurant in their upstairs lounge, because they still had dinner guests downstairs that were complaining they could hear the bass & drums coming through the ceiling. Yeah, that's gonna happen... Maybe ya shouldn't have scheduled a BAND to start at 9PM, if you were still serving dinner! I got on the mic and the drummer was like, "No! Don't say anything. They won't have us back." I was like, "They ain't never having us back!"...I think my aspirations are more in keeping with what Slash is aiming for than at the local dive where the cover band is making as little "noise" as possible.