Setting your guitar in LIVE

[Mashreef]

well before coming to the sound engineering line....
i used to have no idea's on live settings and other shits
i used to tune up my drums setup it up and start banging it...
some shows i get good sounds
some really band sounds
The thing i want to ask is
Do you pan your guitar's in Live ??? cause i dnt..... im thinking of doing it from now on
Whenever i make a guitar tone in my multi-effect processor... in my small amp
it completely changes in live :S after i connect with the Marshall Stack amp with no effect or direct to the console board
nobody does any micing in live (indoor's)
i asked the man behind the console he said he does micing only in Open air shows..... so like how do you set your instrument's in live?? to sound more better... my live shows comes as Mono :S
and real bad... any ideas folks?

 

[LiberaScientia]

I don't do any live work, but one think I can say is that in a live situation panning guitars, or at least hard panning them, doesn't make any sense at all. Since at a show, the speakers are a fair distance apart, you'd have to be quite far back to get a true representation of the stereo field. Sure, I'd pan a little bit (maybe 10/15%) just to get a little bit of seperation, but that's it really. Most live guys seem to do everything in mono though, which you can't really argue with. Especially with bigger shows.

 

[Sloan]

I work at a huge venue and they run stereo at front of house, which is okay I guess since it's kind of a narrow space. I prefer running my small live setup in mono so the audience can hear everything all the time. If your running stereo, there's a chance someone on the other side of the guitar player isn't gonna hear his ripping solo etc...

Also, running mono is just technically easier. You can use one power amp for two different signals (foh/monitors).

 

[Firaxis]

From an audience perspective (mine) I'd say mono is better, nothing more frustrating than watching someones fingers moving at a million miles an hour but only hearing powerchords!

 

[agentmetal]

Whenever i make a guitar tone in my multi-effect processor... in my small amp
it completely changes in live :S after i connect with the Marshall Stack amp with no effect or direct to the console board

This is perfectly normal, because the amp has a huge influence on the sound, even if you're using it on the clean channel and plugging an ampsim before it.

When you design your tones, I recommend using the very same gear you'll be using live : same guitar, same effects and settings, same amp and, if possible, same cabinet. Sometimes you won't know in advance what cab will be available on stage or you won't be able to access the same model in your rehearsing place, and so you'll have to do your best and fix things on the fly during soundcheck. This usually means going fast and, therefore, you must know what you want, what problems to listen for, and how to fix them in a matter of seconds. This takes experience and a trained ear, unfortunately...

If you're using a multi-effect board and plugging it in your amp's FX loop, its EQ can often be used to fix common problems that can't be addressed by other means. This is almost necessary if you want to get a clean mix in a small, non-miked gig, and can lead you to way better mixes than those of bands with super-high-end gear but no consistent approach on sound. I often put an EQ in the guitar amp's FX loop and use it to remove boomy low end and make room for the kick and the bass when moving the cab away from the corners isn't enough (or is impossible), to tame fizz when it's not possible to change the cab, to reduce 3-4 kHz when there's a conflict with the vocals and the Presence knob won't help or doesn't exist, and so on...

However, for this approach to be effective, you have to think with a mixer's perspective - and DEFINITELY NOT with a guitar player's perspective. You do not the guitar sound to be as huge as possible, you want it to fit with the rest of the band. This of course also applies to other members !

 

[Mashreef]

This is perfectly normal, because the amp has a huge influence on the sound, even if you're using it on the clean channel and plugging an ampsim before it.

When you design your tones, I recommend using the very same gear you'll be using live : same guitar, same effects and settings, same amp and, if possible, same cabinet. Sometimes you won't know in advance what cab will be available on stage or you won't be able to access the same model in your rehearsing place, and so you'll have to do your best and fix things on the fly during soundcheck. This usually means going fast and, therefore, you must know what you want, what problems to listen for, and how to fix them in a matter of seconds. This takes experience and a trained ear, unfortunately...

If you're using a multi-effect board and plugging it in your amp's FX loop, its EQ can often be used to fix common problems that can't be addressed by other means. This is almost necessary if you want to get a clean mix in a small, non-miked gig, and can lead you to way better mixes than those of bands with super-high-end gear but no consistent approach on sound. I often put an EQ in the guitar amp's FX loop and use it to remove boomy low end and make room for the kick and the bass when moving the cab away from the corners isn't enough (or is impossible), to tame fizz when it's not possible to change the cab, to reduce 3-4 kHz when there's a conflict with the vocals and the Presence knob won't help or doesn't exist, and so on...

However, for this approach to be effective, you have to think with a mixer's perspective - and DEFINITELY NOT with a guitar player's perspective. You do not the guitar sound to be as huge as possible, you want it to fit with the rest of the band. This of course also applies to other members !

Thx a lot buddy

 

[agentmetal]

You're welcome !

Also for the mono/stereo question : I wasn't sure from your post, but I assume you're the sound guy at the gig (not the guitar player) and the guitar amps are being miked. If you have the choice, well, mono is the easiest solution, but there's a huge drawback : if the band has two guitar players, whenever they play the same thing, what comes out of the FOH speakers will sound mushy as hell if you don't spread them wide enough, unless the guys are REALLY tight, which rarely happens in small bands...

On the other hand, hard panning will work fine as long as they play the same thing, but whenever they don't, the result can be weird and many people in the audience won't hear everything. This can be very frustrating during solos, as Sloan and Firaxis said.

I'd say the theoretically best solution is to ride the knobs : pan them wide when they double each other and get them back towards the center whenever there's a solo or clean part on one guitar, but this either requires knowing the songs inside out in advance, or being EXTREMELY responsive (and having no major problems to tackle at the same time !). Anyway live sound is often a matter of compromises, sometimes you have so little time to work on so much stuff...

Finally, keep in mind that if you pan guitars at the center, it is even more important to cut the low-end shit out of them, or the resulting conflict with the bass guitar and kick drum will cloud the lows of your mix, sometimes to the point of making it horrible.

 

[slo77y]

i mix quite a lot live (mostly smaller venues, the biggest shows to date where around 5000 ppl) and heres my tipps:


most PA systems (especially line arrays) are heavily tweaked sound wise. as a guitarist i would _ALWAYS_ try to deliever a pretty "un EQed" kinda sound, meaning it should be perfectly well balanced in terms of frequencies. it should not be scooped (HUGE fail live), nor bass boostet etc. try to deliver a dry sounding 'boring' kinda guitar sound, if u know what i mean with 'boring'.

with the line arrays, u have a LOT of the trouser moving bass-shit (50hz and below), but on most systems, very little low mids (120-250hz), so delivering a scooped guitar will result in a TINY, chainsaw like sounding guitar sound, which is pretty unusable without extensive EQing from the foh guy. note that most live shows are pretty loud (my shows around 100db +-) and at those volumes the fletcher munson curve changes all the ppl hearing a lot, meaning too much high mids can really start to hurt your ears etc.

bottom line: there are a lot of PAs that sound A LOT different, so applying any EQ-curve without knowing the system, venue, etc. very well will be a huge gamble. and if u deliver an un-eqd sound and the foh guy is any good he will get a decent guitar sound with some EQ in no time.

i often find that with live-guitar-eqing i do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what i would do when i mix guitars in the studio.


for panning; this is my rules:

one guitar player: mono
two guitar players: if they play mostly the same stuff (and lets be honest, a LOT of metal bands do it) pan them hard, and PAN the guy that does solos in the middle when hes playing a solo (thats why its called LIVE MIXING: mix while the band plays)
of course, if there are really two guitar voices, dont pan them hard, about 20% max; so that everyone can always hear everything.

i find if u run your live shows in too much mono, you have problems with everything fighting the vocals, which of course need to be VERY LOUD live.


thats about it. hope you can get sth. out of it.

 

[Habsburgs]

i dont know but i hate your huge laptop picture. There are some forums with huge gifs and shit for signatures.. the fuck. stupid kids

 

[Firaxis]

PAN the guy that does solos in the middle when hes playing a solo (thats why its called LIVE MIXING: mix while the band plays)

Some sound guys do this, and the ones that do usually have the best sound. A lot of sound guys set up and then go and have a cigarette whilst the band is playing. I have seen this happen even at festivals.

Don't be one of those guys.

I totally agree on having a different tone live to the studio, I use more mids and less bass than I would in the studio and usually have no problems cutting through. You have to be very careful about the treble too because everyone in the audience is usually at speaker level.