Perhaps THE biggest tone component of all...

[Balok]

...is the room your in. I did a gig the other night on a stage where my cab was a foot away from a 15' stretch of smooth drywall extending out to the dance floor. Could not buy a decent tone for a million bucks. It thought about it and suspect that in addition to a nasty middy early reflection, I was getting a lot of phase cancellation. As I turned up the lows it went straight from wimpy to boomy. I thought I might have tossed a 6l6 or a speaker at first, as it sounded like a browned out 6" speaker.
Next time I'll move the cab to the edge of the stage or stick the bass player with that side.:AOK

I got a great sound recently playing with a wall to my immediate right side. The key factor was that it was all varied surfaces and inconsistent shapes, including a fire place, a bookshelf and round columns and things. Just heavenly high end and fatness.

Other stories of stage conditions giving you tonal heaven or hell?

[pir8matt]

I played on a sort of makeshift plywood stage before that I got all kinds of weird vibration from. It would take the vibration from my cabinet and cause weird phase-cancellation to the bass players rig, at least thats what he thought was happening.

I thought it sounded ok, but something was definitely weird about it.

With that said, I wonder sometimes if its better to leave your cabinet/amp on the floor, or put it on a chair or other type of stand. I usually leave my rig on the floor, but a lot of times I'll elevate it - I wonder what kind of effect that has.

[seiko]

With that said, I wonder sometimes if its better to leave your cabinet/amp on the floor, or put it on a chair or other type of stand. I usually leave my rig on the floor, but a lot of times I'll elevate it - I wonder what kind of effect that has.

I generally find its easier to hear yourself/co-guitarists with the amp up on a chair or whatever, I've heard some people argue it cuts the bass response a bit but up on a chair always sounds clearer to me.

[Balok]

I go to a smallish music store thats packed with cabs, hanging guitars, amp heads - all kinds of varied shapes, pegboard on half the walls, displays of stuff. The sound is fantastic in there. Helps sales, but drives a lot of returns too.

[Bo Faulkner]

Saturday I had my amp off the edge of the stage. it was only about a foot high so the bottom half of my speakers were throwing under the stage.. I was able to run my club 40 pretty hot and I gotta say the tone on the stage was about as good as I have ever got.

[Guitar Dave T]

I played on a sort of makeshift plywood stage before that I got all kinds of weird vibration from. It would take the vibration from my cabinet and cause weird phase-cancellation to the bass players rig, at least thats what he thought was happening.

I thought it sounded ok, but something was definitely weird about it.



Parasitic oscillation from wooden stages is a real and often disruptive issue. Best thing to counter it is to "sandbag the stage"; floating the stage floor on sand bags, in addition to a sturdy frame reinforcement.



With that said, I wonder sometimes if its better to leave your cabinet/amp on the floor, or put it on a chair or other type of stand. I usually leave my rig on the floor, but a lot of times I'll elevate it - I wonder what kind of effect that has.


Here's a great experiment to demonstrate the difference: Play through a small practice amp while you have a friend lift it in the air then set it back down on the ground. For natural room sound, guitar amps are designed to be close to the floor. For close mic'd sound it doesn't matter. Close mic'd sound always sounds different than natural room sound, and you just hope and pray your sound man is talented enough to use placement and EQ to create as close a fascimile to the real sound as humanly possible.

[ghost]

I saw a coupla dudes around here recently that had these cool hollow box-like amp stands that ported the sound from the back of the combo out the front??? anybody know what I'm talking about?

[doublee]

^

yes I do know what your talking about. They tried to make a business out of it and I believe they are just on Ebay now. Interesting concept and I dont know why it doesnt get more interest.

Anyway, the ROOM is major effect on your sound, more than anything else, and thats why one needs a couple / few amps of various wattage to take advantage of the possibilities,

[sgsupremep90]

Played a fundraiser for a new Y the other night.......in the gym, on a stage constructed of risers, in one corner. No bass, couldn't get rid of the brights (treble at min on everybody and the pa), no return, couldn't hear ourselves. The sound projected well, got good feedback on the music, but we were saved by the mix in the monitors, otherwise it would have been totally disorienting.

[Guitar Dave T]

^

yes I do know what your talking about. They tried to make a business out of it and I believe they are just on Ebay now. Interesting concept and I dont know why it doesnt get more interest.

Anyway, the ROOM is major effect on your sound, more than anything else, and thats why one needs a couple / few amps of various wattage to take advantage of the possibilities,

A friend had one. It slightly elevated the amp, but more importantly, tilted it back. The reflex was there to compensate for the lost bass frequencies.

I can only guess why they didn't make a big splash. That guess would be that the stands were somewhat bulky and not collapsable. And because of their odd shape, you couldn't stack things above or below them.

[doublee]

Well also what it does is project the noise coming out the back, forward, so you got both happening. I saw their clip somewhere and it sounded very good. I think the bulky aspect didnt help....and also...they didnt get the hype going on TGP, big marketing mistake!

[Guitar Dave T]

Well also what it does is project the noise coming out the back, forward, so you got both happening. I saw their clip somewhere and it sounded very good. I think the bulky aspect didnt help....and also...they didnt get the hype going on TGP, big marketing mistake!

Also, in a small club, I frankly could not hear the difference on stage, but off stage the amp, a 2x10 Maz 38, still seemed to suffer from lack of bass reflectivity the way tilt backed amps usually do. Plus, you'd be surprised how much of the back of an open back combo you're actually hearing as part of an amp's sound in small club.

At the end of the day, IMO it is a mistake to place the amp up on a chair or tilted back. You're going to lose base response and end up with a hot spot that you will more than likely over compensate for in one way or the other. And it is a major distraction to anyone else on stage inadvertantly caught in the line of fire.

Better that you slightly elevate the amp on something no higher than a pedal board case or 4 wheel handtruck, keeping it level. In my experience, this brings it up high enough to be able to hear noticeably better, but still interacts with the floor the way it was intended to.

[Telecaster62]

Yep, ain't physics cool? Played outdoors Saturday and my amp sounded nothing like it did inside the night before.

[semi-hollowbody]

I knew before opening the thread it was " the room"

and I agree...Ive taken my gear from basement to basement to living rooms and my tone completely changes...I guess its important to get experience adjusting the rig to fit different environments...

[amoodymule]

I've seen what those guys built and though I would try building one for my Marshall 4-10 cab (they're light, about the same as a 2-12 combo)
Just get it off the ground about 6 to 10 inches and lean back a bit. It wouldn't take much to build one and/or buy one of the ones made up for combos, like I said, the cab is light, ....I wonder if it makes that much of a difference, I use to take the casters off my cab and have it on the ground, but it makes it hard to haul, or just a pain to haul to gigs, ...I still wonder though, I feel a experiment comming on:dunno:bong:huh

[Rotten]

I used to have one of those things. It was an interesting concept, but made my open back cabinet sound like a closed back cabinet and to me made the bass kinda muddy.

When is someone going to start a thread about tone being better if you are reflecting off a wall with traditional lead-based paint rather than modern paint. It would give us all something new to endlessly debate about.

[recordmusic]

The other thing about a room is how many people are in it. When we rehease at church in the empty room, the room is so hot (sonically) and the highs are harsh. When the room is filled with 300 people it sounds totally different and much better.

[Lightningrt]

The other thing about a room is how many people are in it. When we rehease at church in the empty room, the room is so hot (sonically) and the highs are harsh. When the room is filled with 300 people it sounds totally different and much better.

Yep, a bit of tweaking can often be necessary as the room fills up. I love it when you play a really small venue with no stage and the people are really close up to you and you really let it rip. If you are close to your amp the sound stays within that small space with you in the middle between amp and audience. Introduce a carpet/rug to the proceedings and you are in heaven!