Consistent live tone: Fighting the war on rooms, speaker directivity and projection..

[toneispower]

I've been researching for a while and have learned a lot from these forums. Yet, there are a few problems that still remain a mystery to me.

Getting a consistent live tone.

Do you guys ever have a venue where no matter what knobs you turn the room always seems to wins?

I recently had a show at a regular venue I always have good tone at, but for some reason this time sucked. My performance is greatly connected to my tone, so I was twisting knobs the whole set.

I'm beginning to notice not only room size and materials affect my tone but other instruments as well.

I've been trying to take notes on each venue and try to solve my problems. I've even switch various amps at sound check to see if it may help, but most of the time its lacking.

I really want to get in the know of having a consistent even tone through out the venue. Do you guys have any tips or reading material? Since every venue is different, its always a different battle.

Anyone!?

[speakerjones]

Live performance and live sound, where everything is a compromise. The sooner you accept the fact that you'll never really have complete control, the better off you'll be. There are so many factors which can contribute to differences in sound, that to try and compensate for them all would be insane. And no matter what you do, you'll never control the weather or the size of your audience, 2 huge factors on how sound travels. Just a 5% humidity and temperature drop can be like lifting a blanket off of an amp. An open backed speaker cab will sound waaaay different depending on how far it is away from a wall. If you play with your amp on the floor/stage, the material and how thick that floor is - big time sound changers. On axis of the speakers, off axis? How's the voltage? Is it steady? Are you miced, going through the PA? Imbibed in any drugs or alcohol? How about your sound guy or your audience. Now everybody's hearing something different.

My advice to you? Try to separate your performance from your tone. As long as you're at a reasonable volume relative to the band, and your tone isn't totally getting lost or totally overpowering everything else, you're fine. Your audience doesn't care. They came to hear you tear it up, not watch you fiddle with knobs. You could implement isolation cabs and sound measurement software with real-time spectral audio analyzers and time adjust the PA system to your guitar amp and a VariAC to control voltage, preheat your tubes, bring a complete environmental/HVAC system to every show, and then it might sound consistent for half of the night, to half of the audience. Or you can learn to embrace this term - "It's close enough for rock and roll".

If you really want to understand better, I would suggest a text book called "The Science of Sound". It goes into the physics of acoustics and electrical energy as they pertain to sound. Pretty deep stuff.

[hransbug]

I hear, feel, and live your pain, too!

I play at a few places and have noticed that tone changes. The number of folks in the room will impact the tone. Bodies impact acoustics. After playing second DJ with some guys at clubs and events, I have noticed this on many an occassion.

Placement of the amps plays a huge part also. Proximity to the bass amp and subwoofers are impact too - according to one sound guy I spoke with. I have not nioticed the latter, but I have noticed that moving the amp to an alternate spot on stage changes it's tone and projection.

I also use a longer chord if I can and stand away from the bandstand a bit to work on the tone. The amp on the floor vs. on a stand will impact the tone.

I try to remember my settings on the amp and the guitar (no pedals for me unless my reverb is shot!) so I have a baseline to start from. That's where I began the process to finding the sweet spot. I usually never leave it at the baseline when playing live.


Wish I knew more to tell ya!

H

[shredtrash]

I never really have those problems. I guess if I was playing vastly different places every night where the amp was relatively far away, it would make a difference. However, I just don't notice major changes from club to club or anywhere where the amp is in close proximity to me. As a matter of fact, I play in one band where my volume and settings never change no matter where we play. That's usually the case for me in any situation after a while though.

[9fingers]

Dealing with imperfection is a big part of playing live. I get the best sound I can during sound check and go with it, unless the sound person tells me to adjust something. As jalford so aptly says "Your audience doesn't care. They came to hear you tear it up, not watch you fiddle with knobs."
We also find that if EVERYONE keeps their stage volume modest and lets the sound person do their job, we can all hear much better. I had a great sound man tell me once that if you can hear yourself perfectly on stage, you're too loud. I have to accept my part in a mix.

[capt4inslow]

Be nice to the sound guy. Working together with the guy out front would be very important in making sure you sound good out front as well. Conversely to what our ears tell us, the sound out front is too different from what we as musicians hear on stage (although not finding your tone will probably frustrate you greatly in your playing).


I come from a sound engineer's forum and guitarists are notorious for just cranking their 4x12s hooked up to the 100w Marshall cranked to 11---when a 15w Blues Jr. would have been overkill for the room they're playing (I am not insinuating that you guys are this lot, but there are tons of these guys out there).

If you're playing gigs where the amp will be mic'ed up and fed through the PA, it'll be best to invest in a small amp where you can find your tone without cranking it out. If you're playing rooms where the cab volume contributes to house sound, find amps that can really breathe out their tone even at lesser volumes.

If you're playing a cheaply built smaller venue where the stage is built out of wood, it can resonate at certain frequencies and totally put peaks and dips in your guitar sound where you least expect it. It's worth taking into consideration that it might be beneficial to build an "amp riser" that will isolate any unnecessary contributions with the surrounding materials.


I also agree with what the others have posted--it's all about compromise when you're out on stage.

[The Kid]

So many factors. (a lot mentioned so far) I've actually been using my amp as a side fill more and more when I'm mic'd. I want to be in the FOH mix even if my amp can easily carry the room. I like to hear & feel my amp, but also like to know that I'm not forcing the guy mixing to pull me out of the PA.

[RocksOff]

Man... a lot of it has to do with voltages. Carefully use a meter and test all the receps with nothing fired up. Check them again when the bassist plugs into the same damned circuit. Power hogs, those bassists.

[RamóN]

I hear you too, i miss so much those younger days when i played at two bands and never had or care for testing sound before playing, i just pluged my guitar set the volume high and rocked.

[toneispower]

Hmmm..this voltage drop you speak of seems interesting. But man...its mainly an eq thing.. Its almost like I can never get enough sustain sometimes because the room (or other members) soak up the tone. Even saturated lead tones sometimes just don't carry.

This would probably come off as unnoticed to some of you at the same show...but its mainly notes I milk, don't tend to carry frequency wise and "sing" sometimes.

I find myself fighting low notes being to dark and hi notes being too high, despite my efforts sometimes.

Oh well.. Anyone else? Haha

[RocksOff]

Originally Posted by toneispower

Hmmm..this voltage drop you speak of seems interesting. But man...its mainly an eq thing.. Its almost like I can never get enough sustain sometimes because the room (or other members) soak up the tone. Even saturated lead tones sometimes just don't carry.

This would probably come off as unnoticed to some of you at the same show...but its mainly notes I milk, don't tend to carry frequency wise and "sing" sometimes.

I find myself fighting low notes being to dark and hi notes being too high, despite my efforts sometimes.

Oh well.. Anyone else? Haha

Like I said... it could be because your amp is power starved. It would be like the equivalent of having the tubes biased too cold. No sustain, flubby and pastey sounding. There are a lot of places out there that will have the entire stage on one circuit or two. Bring in big sound and put the power amps on stage... forget that circuit. Bass player? Forget that circuit. Guitar players can share I guess. Telling ya... get one of those power conditioners that shows voltage available and amps used. You'll see what I mean.

[dk123123dk]

This is why I am now running direct. Once the PA is dialed in correctly, my guitar sounds consistent from night to night. I can still use dynamics in my playing, and with some PA systems I can get musical feedback. I am really loving the fact that I no longer need to lug an amp with me. And for someone who carries the PA every night, dropping 75lbs of weight at the end of the night is a BIG help.

I really feel like the posatives out weight the few negatives. And the audience certainly doesn't notice, but having a bunch of signature tones nailed with a modeler is a great thing for making the music sound right in my cover band.

dk

[EastCoastRocker]

Originally Posted by jalford

Live performance and live sound, where everything is a compromise. The sooner you accept the fact that you'll never really have complete control, the better off you'll be. There are so many factors which can contribute to differences in sound, that to try and compensate for them all would be insane. And no matter what you do, you'll never control the weather or the size of your audience, 2 huge factors on how sound travels. Just a 5% humidity and temperature drop can be like lifting a blanket off of an amp. An open backed speaker cab will sound waaaay different depending on how far it is away from a wall. If you play with your amp on the floor/stage, the material and how thick that floor is - big time sound changers. On axis of the speakers, off axis? How's the voltage? Is it steady? Are you miced, going through the PA? Imbibed in any drugs or alcohol? How about your sound guy or your audience. Now everybody's hearing something different.

My advice to you? Try to separate your performance from your tone. As long as you're at a reasonable volume relative to the band, and your tone isn't totally getting lost or totally overpowering everything else, you're fine. Your audience doesn't care. They came to hear you tear it up, not watch you fiddle with knobs. You could implement isolation cabs and sound measurement software with real-time spectral audio analyzers and time adjust the PA system to your guitar amp and a VariAC to control voltage, preheat your tubes, bring a complete environmental/HVAC system to every show, and then it might sound consistent for half of the night, to half of the audience. Or you can learn to embrace this term - "It's close enough for rock and roll".

If you really want to understand better, I would suggest a text book called "The Science of Sound". It goes into the physics of acoustics and electrical energy as they pertain to sound. Pretty deep stuff.

AMEN to THAT, Brother ! I've preached that same advise myself soooo many times. A great performance on a mediocre system is still a great performance, and a band that sucks through a good PA still sucks...
You can't always fight the elements, but you can stop fighting yourself. But don't give up on the tone quest. Eventually you'll come to find an equilibrium.

As for books, try Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook.
I haven't looked a a copy in 23 or so years, but I'm sure it's as pertinent today as ever. It's not a guitar tone or performance handbook, but you'll learn all about live audio in an easy to read format.

Good luck.

[kimock]

Originally Posted by toneispower

I've been researching for a while and have learned a lot from these forums. Yet, there are a few problems that still remain a mystery to me.

Getting a consistent live tone.

Do you guys ever have a venue where no matter what knobs you turn the room always seems to wins?

I recently had a show at a regular venue I always have good tone at, but for some reason this time sucked. My performance is greatly connected to my tone, so I was twisting knobs the whole set.

I'm beginning to notice not only room size and materials affect my tone but other instruments as well.

I've been trying to take notes on each venue and try to solve my problems. I've even switch various amps at sound check to see if it may help, but most of the time its lacking.

I really want to get in the know of having a consistent even tone through out the venue. Do you guys have any tips or reading material? Since every venue is different, its always a different battle.

Anyone!?

I very rarely find myself in a venue that "wins", which may be partly the result of a 40 year evolution of my own production adapting to lousy rooms, but it's also partly the result of checking certain stuff to make sure the room doesn't have an unfair advantage in trying to beat me.

The first thing you should do is make sure you're setting the band up on stage with consistent geometry to itself and to the foh mains.

Normally the mains are pretty tight to the front of the stage, and I've found that the front of the kick drum needs to be about eight paces behind the mains to keep the overheads clean enough in the house for my purposes.
So that's consistent, and I build from there.

There's some stuff I do with cabinet orientation onstage that I think is critical, but everybody is going to have different ideas about what's taking priority for their own trip, so let's just say that consistent placement and orientation of whatever you're using onstage is critical if you want consistent results.

The number one way the room is going to beat you, and it happens too often, would be the mains are out of phase with the stage.
I always check with the bass by sustaining a low string, letting it ring with the house off, and then bringing the house up against the stage sound to confirm if it sums or cancels.

When this does occasionally happen and I don't catch it, like when we just do a line check and then hit, the effect is pretty much the same as a stereo image out of phase.
Everything feels disconnected, no bass, things disappearing, the band doesn't punch, the other side of the stage is a rumor, and the monitors just make it worse.
You really want to avoid that, the house sound reinforcement canceling with the stage, and it's easy to check with the bass, so do that without fail.

Otherwise the big problems onstage for me are usually a result of too much bass, either a hollow wooden stage with subs under it, in which case you're going to need to get speakers off the floor and/or stamp around until you find a joist to put the bass amp on, or the subs are pushed up against the stage, in which case you just push them away. It's not necessary to push them far, but if you can avoid the subs directly coupling with the stage, it helps.

As far as the guitar is concerned, if you want consistent results you're going to be keeping track of your own phase between the guitar and the amp along with whatever effects you're using.
It's a touchy subject, but basically which pickup you're using along with whatever effects you're using are either going to be in a positive or negative feedback loop in terms of the acoustical relationship between the guitar and the amp, and you're going to want to stay on the positive side of that equation.
If you don't, that's the "The harder I hit it the more it goes away effect" which is extremely unrewarding and fatiguing.
"Waddaya mean, dynamics? I'm hitting it as hard as I can!" That shit.
That's not the room, that's you, not keeping track of your own shit.

Anyway, that's scratching the surface.
Every venue is going to have some challenge, but if you can avoid the big stuff that I mentioned you'll be a step ahead.
Finally, don't be afraid to hit it. In terms of stage volume vs. front of house volume, the obvious answer is: as quiet as possible, as loud as necessary.
But you can't cheat on your own dynamic range.
The important part there is "as loud as necessary", for you, the material, and the audience.
I can't overstate the importance of dynamic range in performance, it's a crucial link in the band/audience interaction.
Don't get bullied out of that, it'll f*ck your performance and your audience, and any notion of consistency in your production.
Once you've satisfied that, that's when "as quiet as possible" kicks in, but not before.

So, what you need is consistent geometry on a phase coherent stage, with foh reinforcing, not canceling, the guitar in a positive feedback loop with the amp, as little omnidirectional masking/standing wave weirdness from the low end as you can possibly avoid, and an uncompromising approach to ensemble dynamic range, and you're on the right track if you're looking for consistency.

.02c, peace

[9fingers]

kimock. Steve, great post as usual! So if the "Stage is out of phase with the mains" what is the solution? Same question with guitar & amp "phase"- how do you correct it? Gracias!