How come Garcia's tone didn't suck in '92...

[hogan]

...and most of '93 for that matter? They were in-ear by that summer and his tone wasn't garbage. Was it a cab being mic'ed off stage somewhere? It's strange that his tone decline is blamed on going direct but that same tone didn't appear until approx. a year after the removal of cabs, and monitors from the stage.

[unnbrokenchain]

Loss of good tone was due to the guitar signal going directly into the PA with the removal of the JBl's and Mac, thus no clipping and a sparkling sterile clean tone. It's possible that they started the ear piece monitor system before the removal of onstage speakers and amps. That is what they do now a days.

[playingdead]

If I recall correctly, they were first using speaker simulator devices, similar to the ADA Microcab ... bet Garcia bypassed it and liked it over the in-ears.

[hogan]

Loss of good tone was due to the guitar signal going directly into the PA with the removal of the JBl's and Mac, thus no clipping and a sparkling sterile clean tone. It's possible that they started the ear piece monitor system before the removal of onstage speakers and amps. That is what they do now a days.

Not to come off hostile, but, no shit. All audience facing instrument cabs and band monitors were gone by the summer of '92 if not May. This coincided w/ the IEM.

Vic, I figured it was some sort of of stage micing or cab sim. It's funny though, I don't recall cab sims being that convincing back in the early '90s. I suppose coupled w/ a decent eq and a guy that knew what he was doing it could be pretty good for the time.

[unnbrokenchain]

Loss of good tone was due to the guitar signal going directly into the PA with the removal of the JBl's and Mac, thus no clipping and a sparkling sterile clean tone. It's possible that they started the ear piece monitor system before the removal of onstage speakers and amps. That is what they do now a days.

Not to come off hostile, but, no shit. All audience facing instrument cabs and band monitors were gone by the summer of '92 if not May. This coincided w/ the IEM.

Vic, I figured it was some sort of of stage micing or cab sim. It's funny though, I don't recall cab sims being that convincing back in the early '90s. I suppose coupled w/ a decent eq and a guy that knew what he was doing it could be pretty good for the time.

sorry if I bursted your bubble Hogan. It's probably a variation of all the things you listed. That's how it is when you introduce new equipment to replace over 10 years worth of old equipment. Don't think there is a definite answer.

[waldo041]

hogans correct that the first official run without the wedges and cabs onstage was summer 92 with Steve Miller. he was actually already using the system. but i think that the GD first tried the IEM's that tour by using offstage speaker cabs for there feeds to the board, thus why it doesn't sound the same as subsequent tours. i don't think they were totally sold on the idea, but were into the idea and tried to deliver the best product they could. however, this one didn't do so hot. imho, that 92 summer tour sounds the best "on tape" with every run after getting worse and worse as they tried different configs and cabinet sims and FOH. while the SBD's hypothetically could be manipulated later, the SPL's, DB's that was lost with the speaker removal during the actual live show was and always will be what was truly missed and why it was hated soo much. while that summer 92 run was not all that off from what they had sounded like before, it definately felt different then before. they went from in your face rock n roll show to 5.1 dolby digital theatre surround sound.

peace,
waldo

[Chuckles]

I think Waldo's got it 99% right. The missing 1% is the switch to Bolt in the fall of '93 and how its inherent tone was incorporated into the new mix as provided by the technology. As stated, they went through a lot of experimenting during 92/93 before settling on the final IEM/direct solution... which, according to one of the Ultrasound guys, put them all in their own little worlds where they were playing for themselves rather than the crowd/group gestalt. In a pissy mood, they'd even sometimes completely turn off someone they were upset with in their personal mix (according to this guy). Great technology; horrible result.

[myoung6923]

I think Waldo's got it 99% right. The missing 1% is the switch to Bolt in the fall of '93 and how its inherent tone was incorporated into the new mix as provided by the technology. As stated, they went through a lot of experimenting during 92/93 before settling on the final IEM/direct solution... which, according to one of the Ultrasound guys, put them all in their own little worlds where they were playing for themselves rather than the crowd/group gestalt. In a pissy mood, they'd even sometimes completely turn off someone they were upset with in their personal mix (according to this guy). Great technology; horrible result.

Jerry played Bolt with JGB while still using his 3x12 JBL cab and it had the exact 80's - early 90's tiger tone.

[waldo041]

nope, wasn't bolt that created that tone. i have to believe that they began to try various or stuck with a certain type of cab simulator direct to the board and stopped mic'ing speakers offstage around that time. also the switch from healy to cutler played a part also.

peace,
waldo

[RiverRat]

1

[keirweir]

I think Waldo's got it 99% right. The missing 1% is the switch to Bolt in the fall of '93 and how its inherent tone was incorporated into the new mix as provided by the technology. As stated, they went through a lot of experimenting during 92/93 before settling on the final IEM/direct solution... which, according to one of the Ultrasound guys, put them all in their own little worlds where they were playing for themselves rather than the crowd/group gestalt. In a pissy mood, they'd even sometimes completely turn off someone they were upset with in their personal mix (according to this guy). Great technology; horrible result.

Jerry played Bolt with JGB while still using his 3x12 JBL cab and it had the exact 80's - early 90's tiger tone.

Great point Mike!
There was a youtube clip of him with JGB ripping up the Bolt with a nice Rosebud-ish tone. I can't seem to find it now.

[waldo041]

MC2300 and JBL E120's!!!

How come Garcia's tone didn't suck in '92... and most of '93 for that matter?

I'm with Waldo... Dan Healy was still doing FOH!


It wasn't the FOH boards, the Gamble EX56's were acquired in '87 or '88. Cutler inherited the 56's and continued to work with them...

Same board, different soundman.. Blame the new sound guy!

imho, healy was a live sound soundguy and cutler was a studio engineer. in other words, healy mixed for the room, and cutler mixed for the tape. 2 different worlds, 2 different results. just my opinion.



peace,
waldo

[hogan]

It's not the soundman. The most glaring jump from the old tone to the new one was under Healy's watch. Healy was canned after the march '94 Az. shows. I was at the very next shows that were Cutler's debut and the band sounded the same, only quieter. I found out Healy was gone that night as I was setting up my taping rig. It sounded suspect but was later confirmed by Bear at the greenpeace table out in the hallway. I digress...
I'm not buying that they remixed or sweetened SBDs after the fact. The only time i've ever heard them doing something like that was for official releases.
The reality is everything came off the stage in '92 and it didn't sound that different until the Eugene shows in August of '93. Where it sounded completely different, and the guy that had been doing sound for them for the previous 25+ years was still there.

[jeffm725]

Maybe this has already been stated in this thread and maybe I am wrong, but I was always under the impression that there were constant changes to the IEM system, both very gradual and small changes and also big sweeping changes. I think the beginning of every tour was little different config than the tour prior.

I always thought that the earliest 92 shows with the in ears had all the cabs off the stage as mentioned, but actually still USED the cabs either in back rooms and/or under the stage. So while, yes, everything was off the stage to facilitate the in-ears, they still used instrument cabs in a real way, mic'd and fed to the board, it was just that the instrument cabs were off stage in a back room, or under the stage. I KNOW for a fact, A leslie for Vinces organ sounds sat in a backstage room. As far as Jerry and Bobs cabs, I am not so sure.

But using real cabs off stage at the beginning and the moving to cab emulators could certainly account for a perceptible change.

[tigerstrat]

LOVE this thread title LOL

It's not the soundman. The most glaring jump from the old tone to the new one was under Healy's watch. ...it didn't sound that different until the Eugene shows in August of '93. Where it sounded completely different, and the guy that had been doing sound for them for the previous 25+ years was still there.

HRYK about the Eugene run... for a good comparison, listen to Truckin 8/21/93 http://www.archive.org/details/gd1993-08-21.sbd.nawrocki.561.shnf

vs the previous Truckin 6/19/93 http://www.archive.org/details/gd93-06-19.sbd.miller.28298.sbeok.flacf

Unfortunate that the debut of Bolt coincided with that weekend, drawing the blame for the cringe tone. Then there's the guys that actually admire the post 8/93 tone reading this thread with incredulity....