Live sound part 2....

[DavidE]

Played my lace sensored strat into my Naylor tonight. Sound guy tried some things and lo and behold I could be heard! But, help me out with something on my end.

I had a few pedals on my board that I used: mostly an RC boost for lead, an analogman modded TS9 for more gain and a Mosferatu for loads of gain. In each case, I had the output volume of the pedal louder than with it off, yet the sound guy said that when hitting some pedals, the sound got lost. I had to turn the volume on the RC boost ALL the way up (gain around noon, bass and treble at 2 o'clock) before he said it was almost ok. Now, there was a huge volume boost at the amp and not a ton of gain added.

I can see the pedals needing to be a little louder when on, but cranked to be heard? What am I missing?

[m chops]

Destructive interference of the sound waves? I normally play pretty clean, occasionally with a little overdrive. On the rare occasion that I play heavily distorted, it seems I have to turn WAY up to be heard when playing with the other guitarist. Yet if I were to play alone, there is no need.

The only thing I can think of is there must be some sound wave cancellation going on.

[DavidE]

There's some physics principle that explains why a distorted sounds must be louder than a clean sound in order to cut through a mix. And I do make them louder. But each pedal cranked?

[Jamie K]

Just a thought from a technical novice who has been in your situation - if your amp is miked and the amp volume increases at the source as you engage effects (and your ears are positioned such that you are hearing basically the same output as the microphone), then he's got to be overly compressing/limiting or mid-scooping the signal at the board such that the initially subtle volume increase you create at the amp (the cut of which is usually somewhat offset by overdrive/distortion effects due to mid frequency clash) is being quashed, and your boosted amp signal is actually lowering the overall audible output in the PA. Ask him to run your channel unprocessed and relatively flat EQ and see if that helps. If you need to produce ear splitting boosts for engaging effects in order to have them heard in the PA at the same level as your basic clean tone, then the mike on your amp is not properly set up to listen to what the speaker is doing.

Jamie

[DavidE]

I don't run totally clean with this band since the other guitar player plays a clean acoustic. I'm not using effects other than gain boxes and delay in the loop.

[BCR Greg]

He's compressing the crap out of you.

Tell him to run you WITHOUT COMPRESSION.

Again, GO OUT FRONT, have someone else hit your pedals while you are playing your parts. Listen for yourself.

This guy sounds like he has gear that he doesn't understand.

I occasionally compress snares and hihats, alway compress acoustic guitars, NEVER compress electric guitars.

[Guest teefus2]

+1 on the compression. i ran sound for some local bands for a few years. the easiest way to bury gutiars in the mix was to have compression on them. the p.a. owner that i worked for would compress vocals and instruments (at their respective subs) until he got a feel for the band. just in case someone on stage did something really stupid. after he got used to the band he would back the compression off and out completely. when you step on the r/c booster you are adding some compression yourself. comp+comp=buried.

your guy might have some compression on the whole p.a. as a safeguard.

[DavidE]

Good thing I took my compressor off the board last week. I'll check with him on the compressor.

We did MUCH better last night.

Different sound guy Saturday. I'll see what happens without touching my rig.

[Zoner]

I would add that it is helpful to go for as little distortion as possible (while still getting the feel you need) to "cut" the best through a mix. I play in a band with another guitarist and have been setting my rig up to be progressively "cleaner" as things get louder and more indistinct out front. We run sound ourselves and most of my volume is from the stage, but finding the right tone to sit in the mix is pretty easy for me as long as my sound is never super gained out. On occasions when I do use tons of distorto, I am also running an EQ pedal to zone in on some select frquencies to make it through the mud and still be heard. I agree that compression is probably your nemesis here, as playing dynamics help your sound "jump" out of a mix and compression is designed to kill the dynamics. Keep after it and you'll be happier in no time, especially with all the great advice from the cats on this board. Z

[DavidE]

I confirmed that there's no compression on the guitar channel.

It's kind of hard to tell since he's not at signalling me as to what's working and what's not, but the thing seems to be that I hit the RC Boost for a solo (to boost volume and gain) and he says it gets lost out front but it's lots louder at the amp.

At the suggestion of someone here, I might try doing the opposite: use the booster pedal as a volume CUT for rhythm and use its tone controls to fatten up the tone.

I'm not sure whether he Mosferatu I use for high gain (and we're not talking Mesa Rector nu metal scooped shit here) also causes a perceived volume drop out front when it's louder at the amp.

[BCR Greg]

The guy's incompetent.

Regardless of your feeling for him, he is not up to the task.

To have this degree of difficulty getting a good sound out front is silly.

My experience has been that guitar tones are the easiest to get, just run the channel flat and let it rip.

How are the vocals out front?