Usually bring my axe fx to club gigs solo & hope for the best..

fromthebark

Experienced
I know this isn't the best way to live a gigging life, but hey, I'm broke.. and it's gonna take a bit longer to keep stashing away for the monitor section of my rig.

since I sold my amp & most my pedals to afford the axe fx II, I am still putting away for an FRFR wedge, and the small club gigs we get, i'll arrive with just my axe, and ask for a line either mono, or if they could spare stereo to the board, to put the pad on and turn the faders down.. and just put me in my wedge & I'll be happy.. 9 out of 10 clubs it has worked just fine so far... Their PA's replicate me great, and their wedges are loud and sound good ENOUGH.. a bit icepicky sometimes, but I'm the only one hearing them, no big deal.

We finally played a club which people had warned up about a shitty sound guy (he actually turned out to be a real nice guy, but I'm good at making friends with anyone.. he did remind me of Sol Rosenberg though, If you know what I mean), & lack of monitors on stage. Hint - a NYC LES Club initialled FB. So I tried a few things. I have a passive yamaha wedge (which is a P.O.S., and even my best patches through a great monitor it sounds like sludge.. so I plugged into the front of my bassists emergency amp - an orange crush 2x12 bass amp (tried the fx loop but couldn't get a sound or level that satisfied me, but the main input actually worked 10 times better.. all knobs at 5.. TONS of clean headroom.. I'd actually liken it to say a Port City Pearl.. Just a Clean Super Flat sound, And all my patches sounded exactly as they should through it... This Orange Crush bass amp is Absolutely killer for aa last minute oh shit Axe FX monitor.. To be honest, one or two more shows sounding like that, I might just be happy and settle with this as my final rig. So Until I can afford my FRFR powered wedge... Currently have my eyes on the Atomic CLR, Yamaha DXR12, or Friedman just cause it looks damn cool..

I guess the moral is, in a pinch, Bass combos are made to stay clean as hell & get loud as hell so it makes sense they would be pretty darn good monitors for the axe fx if you are stuck with nothing else to work with.
 
a bass amp is mostly a full range system. i've done that, and keyboard amps are pretty similar too. i usually cut the lows and highs all the way though, as they are typically hyped in both systems.

gig life, right?
 
I played a show 5 years ago in a hotel ballroom where the AV people had a bass amp handy and suggested I use it for stage volume. It was actually great and did the job extremely well. Plenty of volume, absolutely clean, flat. Actually quite a bit better than vocal wedges which I've used in other settings and which I find create a brittle sound...
 
If the wedge creates a brittle sound wouldn't your FOH sound be brittle too? .I use out 1 for FOH and monitors cab Sims on and out 2 (cab Sims off) I use for power amp and guitar cab
 
If the wedge creates a brittle sound wouldn't your FOH sound be brittle too? .I use out 1 for FOH and monitors cab Sims on and out 2 (cab Sims off) I use for power amp and guitar cab

Generally that's down to having the horn in the wedge pointing directly at your face which can get fatiguing quickly. With FOH the tops are usually elevated above peoples heads so you don't get that. Also remember that a lot of wedges are mainly used for vocal reproduction so tuned to that mode (not always though and depends on the quality of system).
 
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