What you hear what we hear

TheBigDipper

maltingsaudio said:

Going to start this from my perspective as the front of house engineer, therefor hearing what the audience hears. I did two events over the weekend the first a club gig with one band, then a multi band event. On the first gig I also supplied backline for a four piece band drums lead guitar acoustic guitar and bass playing covers. For this band I gave the guitarist a Bluguitar amp 1 with an 8”200 watt cab into which he plugged his guitar and pedal board. There was 1500 watts of monitors on a 3k front of house. The result was a near as dammit perfect controllable guitar sound ( to my ears ) where I was capable of lifting the guitar where needed and burying it when it wasn’t. The tone of it again to my ears sounded great. The gig went very well and the audience of about 150 people were very happy as  were the band but at the end of the gig I spoke to the guitarist who said he would have preferred a bigger cabinet for “his sound”. Had I done this then I know, from experience, all we would have heard was guitar!

On the second gig, there were a lot of metal bands with a selection of 4x12’s and heads from all the usual suspects including Kempers and none of them gave me sound which was anything but mid/bass mush. None of them complained about their sound and the audience were happy but I found it very hated to pick out anything distinctive to boost to the audience.

So the point of this is how much attention do you lot pay to your guitar sound relating it to how it sits in a mix as opposed to what you think it should sound. And I suppose how many would take advice from a FOH engineer on what you could do to make it sound better to an audience or do you just insist on “your sound”   

My AMP1 sounds great in a band mix at a gig - the type of use it was actually made for and the reason I bought one. Tonally, it fits in with the band and you can hear the guitar balanced with everything else. 

I do whatever the sound engineer wants. It's usually their room (the venue provided them and the PA), so it makes sense to me. They'll know how to get the best out of it and us. All you want to hear on stage is enough to play well and to hear everyone else. I'm much more interested in playing "my notes", "in time" than I am in "my sound". 

smigeon

TheBigDipper said:

All you want to hear on stage is enough to play well and to hear everyone else. I'm much more interested in playing "my notes", "in time" than I am in "my sound". 

Amen!

uncledick

Never had a sound engineer.  The mixer sits on top of the bass player's amp.  I have wireless so can wander out front when we do a sound check.  Crap I know but we have a laugh.

pintspiller

When there is an engineer I will do what he says. My happiness with the gig is down to whether I hear what I need to hear in my monitor

rico

I was fortunate to witness a ‘discussion’ shall we say between an experienced engineer and a relatively inexperienced heavy band and the awkwardness between them as he tried to advise that they can’t all have the bass cranked was so thick you could almost taste it. In the end he had to walk on stage and do it for them and they did actually sound very good. 

fastonebaz

uncledick said:

Never had a sound engineer.  The mixer sits on top of the bass player's amp.  I have wireless so can wander out front when we do a sound check.  Crap I know but we have a laugh.

 Lol this describes my band perfectly.