Stage Volume

[waldo041]

Exactly!

~waldo

[chipperj]

Lot's of great advice here, thanks all!

[mijknahs]

I like to tilt by 2x12 cab back so it is facing the back of my chest (not ears).

If playing a small bar I like to have it kinda loud for the people up front and just perfect for the ones in the middle and back. Our band gets LOUD but we can still all hear each other but the guitar does need to be on top of it all.

[ccw3432]

There's some great suggestions here. Keeping well mixed stage volume is so crucial especially when you're not using a PA to make adjsutments to the front of house. This is something well worth discussing and working on with your band. If it's not right or if you're not in agreement, I would reccomend discussing it together constructively. You can play your instruments amazingly well, but if the mix of intruments and vocals is not on it can sound like crap as a band. To do it well it takes work and coordination with everyone involved and above all listening to each other with awareness of the overall sound. You can try recording a song from the listerners vantage point and play it back to see how it sounds. In fact recording practices is a great way to work on this as well.

[Chuckles]

+1 on most "Jerry Rigs" being totally inappropriate for the typical smaller clubs many of us play. Yeah, that rack looks really cool all stacked up back there, but honestly, if you can't drive those JBLs at a higher volume, you're not going to get a vey good JG sound anyway. Instead, you'll sound thin and reedy... Or be too loud for the venue, and your bandmates.

I actually scaled back to an Orange Micro Terror, which, when coupled with an EH rvb, I get something not quite perfect in terms of exactly emulating JG, but at 20w it - plus a single K120 and a small pedalboard - is completely passable for a smaller gig. The full rack and the HT cab come out for outdoor shows and the like, but are complete ovkill for a practice or club environment.

Plus, if you like Zep, the Orange will give you killer Pagey tones and lower volumes!

[jahozer]

I like my Fender Pro for that reason. 40 Watts and I rarely go above 3 or 4. A twin is just loud. Every band I see in a bar with a guy with twin, its like "oh the guy with the Twin is here".
In my last band the bass would be so honking loud, and he would tell me to turn down. He had a 4x10 cab and sub and an SVT head. He got away with being so loud because it was omni directional. It was never that death beam of treble that people hear as loudness. I would be apparant when we couldnt keep the monitors loud enough without feeding back. Hes gone, and its at a much more reasonable level.

[williamsaut]

I'm playing lead guitar

I'm presently playing with a 2x12 open back and a solid state Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight amp which runs a 125watts through the 4ohm cab. I put my cab on a chair about 4' to the drummer's left. I stand about 7' in front of the cab (11 o clock to the drummer), and find that I can run pretty loud. The rest of the band can here me fine since my cab is the farthest back and more importantly the drummer can here me fine perhaps better than anybody. We never use a sound guy, mix our own vocals through a head and a couple of powered 1x12 cabs on stands. We've never gotten complaints of excess volume and I'm actually told to turn up once in a while.

IMO in a perfect setting ALL the instrument amps should be about a foot away from the back wall in line with or a little in back of the drummers throne and a foot or so off the floor in an unmic'd situation. If the amps are mic'd, they should be tipped back and pointing right up at the musicians heads.

Stage volume is a weird thing that changes from room to room. We're lucky to pretty much play the same places. There was once place we played at for 10yrs. I miss that room and would love to hear what my current rig would sound like there.

Outdoors always seems to be the biggest challenge. The open backs don't have a wall to bounce off of so we loose that. The sound coming out the front just goes out and never comes back. It makes it very hard for us to hear each other. Outside, it's tough without monitors, miked amps and a sound guy. It's sort of like playing by feel sometimes.

[CountryMile Cadillac]

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So..what's on the plate Bob is pointing at and handing off... that could make someone a little loud..

[JonnyBoy]

In my limited experience, I have tried using other amps and such to only find I prefer my SMS Mac setup even at low volumes. Lately I play a 1x12 k120 in my deluxe HRD3, just as a cab, then I have that amp there just in case. Last gig I had my guitar rig so low I could barely hear it behind me, but I could hear it awesome through my monitor. The stage volume was really low from the amps themselves. The sound guy made us do it, insisting that it will sound better out front. Ive had sound guys say this but not this extreme. He was right. I was amazed how comfortable it was, and my amp itself seemed like it was barely on relative to how I usually play it. I really could only hear it from my monitor. After that, I will insist on us doing that every time. In that application, a 5 watt amp will suffice. The tone was a little different, but the playing was a lot better and enjoyable for everyone. I was just amazed how well I could hear vocals. I always thought I had to push my amp and speakers to sound the way I want. And sometimes I can, but most of the time we're just loud as hell. I can really see the appeal of the AxeFX in this application.

I reccomend people try that approach if stage sound is bothering you, or you can't hear your vocal monitor. It's all worth it when your listeners say you sound the best playing at that venue. Everyone has to play by the same rules, or it seems like it won't work. Hope that helps OP...

[JonnyBoy]

I also noticed that the drummer in further at sweet water was using hotrods for sticks meaning they must be really low on stage these days.

[jenkins]

I feel like the drummer makes all the difference when it comes to stage volume. For some reason so many drummer play just wayyy to f'n loud, they pound the drums. I find it extremely difficult to get a proper volume with a drummer that's too loud. I'm of the opinion that your ears shouldn't be in pain & you should be able to yell or talk in the other bandmember's ear him be able to hear it.

Watch Dead videos & see how billy & Mickey births drums, they're never pounding as hard as they can but rather they're totally laid back & chillin; hitting the drums pretty softly actually. The drums are a very loud instrument & they're not meant to be pounded. Good drummers know this & that's why they have the dynamics that loud drummers don't.

But I have to agree with Johnny boy as far as turning the amp down & pushing your volume with the PA. Ever since I figured that out I've been able to hear myself so much better. It sounds like I have my amp set a little louder than you were talkin to where it's like half coming from my speaker half from the monitors. I think there's a much bigger, much fuller sound when it gets cranked properly through the PA. I'll even have my guitar volume at barely halfway when sound checking to give myself a huge dynamic range.

To play true Jerry-style you almost have to have the volume cranked. He would do some of the most mellow, nuanced things which the volume of your guitar jus has to be really loud for it to be heard over the bass keys & drums. Thats why. It's selection is critical. Garcia was the master of note selection & voicing. It's extremely rare to hear him play anything that doesn't sound awesome. A lot of people don't get the fact that it doesn't have to be raging jams all the time, it needs to sound good all the time. I was a big offender of this for a long time when I first started playing out, trying to jam it too hard all the time.
The trick is laying back in the cut & listening to everyone else in the band; ideally you won't even be paying attention to what you're playing, not even thinking about it, you're listening to the rest of the band & what you're playing just fits. That's the goal, & there's those times that it happens just right & everything just falls into place without even trying really. When you're at that point nobody will complain about your guitar being too loud because it's supposed to be the loudest in the solo sections, & then you turn it down for rhythm sections/vocal sections.
Jer was a master at volume control, watch videos he's all over he guitar's volume knob, you kinda gotta be when your volume is cranked.

I thought that's why he always used such big amps, so he had the full range of his guitar's volume to work with, & even turned down half way he could still keep up with the whole band no problem. That's crucial.

I think keeping your Amos back as far as possible helps a lot too, around 7' is probably perfect maybe even a little more.

[zambiland]

Watch Dead videos & see how billy & Mickey births drums, they're never pounding as hard as they can but rather they're totally laid back & chillin; hitting the drums pretty softly actually. The drums are a very loud instrument & they're not meant to be pounded. Good drummers know this & that's why they have the dynamics that loud drummers don't.

I think you've been misled by the miracle of video. I've played with Billy and the dude is loud. Way loud. I've been on a stage with the two of them, and it's crazy loud.

You are right, though, it's crucial for everyone on stage to play with dynamics. I'm blessed these days to play with a band that really covers all the dynamics. Especially the drummer. It gets quiet enough on stage to literally hear a whisper (and all the people at the back of the room yammering away). Loud doesn't mean nothing if you can't play soft, too.

[easytoslip]

probably doesn't help the original poster, but for what it's worth, I go to up to 6 or 8 live music venues a month and EVERY show is too loud from the audience perspective. I've finally said fuck it and started plugging ears with tissue and they RARELY come out. Not sure if this will ever change?

[zambiland]

probably doesn't help the original poster, but for what it's worth, I go to up to 6 or 8 live music venues a month and EVERY show is too loud from the audience perspective. I've finally said fuck it and started plugging ears with tissue and they RARELY come out. Not sure if this will ever change?

I wouldn't count on it. I bring my Westone ear plugs wherever I go. I always wear them on stage when I don't have in ears and I always, always, always wear them in the audience. Pretty much every show I've been to in the last 30 years has violated the OSHA standards for hearing levels. I do have tinnitus and I have no desire for it to get worse.

What's interesting is that I'd be willing to bet that the majority of shows we perceive as too loud are actually more distorted than they are loud. 90db of clipped music sounds a lot louder and feels much rougher on the ears that 105db of clean sound. Most sound people don't feel that it's adequately loud unless they get that edge of distortion. When I saw my first GD show in '76, I thought it wasn't that loud until between songs and Mickey was tuning his hihat I realized it was very loud, but it was incredibly clean (this was the interesting cobbled together Sansui powered rig). No pain and great sound. So, we should encourage our soundpeople to keep the levels down and the gain structure clean.

[Phil Lesh101]

When the stage volume gets too high its usually the guitar players fault... Because they need to play at a certain volume to get that damn jerry tone