Lead Boost?

[dvuksanovich]

So I'm wondering if sound guys typically prefer controlling the volume of the lead guitarist's solos or if they prefer a guitarist to use a lead boost.

 

Thoughts?

[Caevan O’Shite]

Y' mean as in the person running the sound bringing up the guitarist's volume during solos? If so, it seems to me- with admittedly limited experience- that within reason- that is, reasonable range of volume, low to high- it's best for guitarists to use their volume-knobs, pedals, etc. for a range of volume, presence, tone, and clean to overdrive sounds.

 

If you've got a really good soundperson, and you work closely with them, I'm sure that having them boost and cut on cue throughout the performance can be very effective. I've known soundpeople like that; they'll also work with you and your doing it yourself if you show them that you can keep it under control and not get too loud- or too soft.

 

I use my guitar's volume-controls a lot as I play, but with some compression inherent in a cranked tube-amp and/or preset in my digital-modeling DI, the range of volume is fairly minimal- just enough to stand-out here and hang-back there without it being a problem of being too loud or too soft. Plus, there's also picking-dynamics.

 

I rarely ever step on a footswitch for a solo volume-boost; the one I do stomp for that most often is the 2nd-Channel switch on one distortion pedal that I have, a Radial Tonebone Plexitube, and just as much for a fatter lead-tone vs the leaner rhythm-tone I have its 1st-Channel set for- and lately I only use that pedal for one song.

[Lokair]

Just saw this play out a couple of weeks ago. Guitarist was smokin, but way too loud during solos. Sound guy just cut him off, his sound was loud on stage but not out front. It was shame because everyone in the band suffered during solos as they were lost , except on stage. Not to mention the sound guy tried everything he could from the board during the first couple of solos, just had to mute the guitar players channel. After the solo the band sounded right again. I left before seeing the band at the bar to ask Joey(the guitarist) why. Just gotta talk and listen to the sound guy and this would have been a much better gig. Nice 400 seater half full , could have been much better.

 

Lok

[Caevan O’Shite]

Just saw this play out a couple of weeks ago. Guitarist was smokin, but way too loud during solos. Sound guy just cut him off, his sound was loud on stage but not out front. It was shame because everyone in the band suffered during solos as they were lost , except on stage. Not to mention the sound guy tried everything he could from the board during the first couple of solos, just had to mute the guitar players channel. After the solo the band sounded right again. I left before seeing the band at the bar to ask Joey(the guitarist) why. Just gotta talk and listen to the sound guy and this would have been a much better gig. Nice 400 seater half full , could have been much better.

 

Lok

 

I try to keep it reasonable and balanced, especially the volume on stage.

[pinkjimiphoton]

the problem i've seen is most sound guys don't have a clue, and are more eager to swill down liquor than pay attention to the stage.

 

if they do their job RIGHT, then you should be able to control it from the stage.

 

sadly, most don't...or worse, turn stuff down when someone tries to rise above the din to solo.

 

fwiw, i ALWAYS control my volume myself, and always make sure i have headroom if need be....i've yet to see a soundman that gets it "right".

[whitefang]

At first, I thought you meant another kind of lead(led), but I shoulda known.

 

At the Greektown Casino, an otherwise good band had their guitarist ruin it all on one tune through no fault of his own. When he started his solo, which was barely audible, the other band members all started yelling "STEVE!" at the top of their lungs. I wondered if it was part of the tune until some guy ran from the bar and started adjusting the board! Seems Steve was the sound guy, and he wasn't on the job! Forgot it wasn't his night out with the boys, but WAS a paying gig. To me, it would have been his last.

 

Finding a way to adjust your own volume during solos might be preferable, but distracting to some. If you DO feel the need for a sound man, this is a lesson in the need to hire a teetotaler.

Whitefang

[Caevan O’Shite]

Find good paid professionals who love and care about the music...

[Larryz]

I think it's easier to work with a clean boost on/off pedal (ie **click** this is my lead volume and **click**this is my rhythm volume) and any soundman 3 sheets to the wind should be able to handle that one...using a volume pedal and guitar controls work well in smaller venues but can be tricky on a larger stage situation...then is it a big venue or small? outside or inside? sold out or empty room? all of these are considerations...I like controlling my own sound system on smaller venues and rely on the band members to stay under the vocals and the leads to be sensitive and fade back in to the mix when finished...on smaller acoustic open mic's you have to rely on the PA host to know what he's doing and eq the room...

 

problem 1: I hate playing a small room where the owner and the people want to talk (wine down Friday concept) and just want background music that they are not really interested in really listening to as an audience...I like to rock out a little...if you just want background music, play a CD.

 

problem 2: I have to be able to hear myself when I play and need at least one monitor nearby or have them mains behind me even in small venues...the PA host is usually incharge of the setup and runs only outfront mains...when you have no monitor, you have to rely on the soundman to make your presentation sound it's best in the room while you're singing and playing blind...I don't use the IEM's and hope not to ever have to...but I would, if that's what it takes to hear myself...

 

problem 3: Drunks suck, to include soundmen and players...a little buzz is OK...and soundmen need to give it their full attention and keep their minds off of BS'ing in the crowd and picking up chicks...

 

I can use a clean boost, compressor or my Tech21 blonde for on/ off leads in larger venues and use my guitar volume or volume pedal for smaller venues...or just let someone else play the leads...I also have friends in the audience who let me know if I get too loud...you just have to adapt to each new situation :idk

[dvuksanovich]

Thanks, all. Insightful stuff as usual.

[Scott Fraser]

Speaking as a guy who mixes sound for a living I can tell you that I like to have musicians control their own dynamics themselves, which is to say, they should be able to make sensible musical decisions concerning the making of music, & dynamics is a big part of making music. Note that I don't mix bar gigs nor rock bands. Musicians should not have to rely on sound engineers to make their dynamic decisions for them. That said, I have found an extremely small percentage of sound engineers whose work I feel is actually very musical. Add that to the fact that clubs & bars pay sound guys absolute crap wages, so you have to expect that the guy running the desk in those venues is at the bottom level of the profession. If I were you I would work as well as you can with the sound guy, but take responsibility for all balance matters within the arrangements you're playing.

[Bartholomew]

I second that - only took me 40 years to learn how to use the volume control on my guitar.

[dvuksanovich]

It is hard, though, to know what the house sound mix sounds like, since it might be different from what I'm hearing on stage through the monitors. I'm fine with making decisions about dynamics and levels, but it's hard to do so if I don't know what the audience will hear.

[Scott Fraser]

It is hard, though, to know what the house sound mix sounds like, since it might be different from what I'm hearing on stage through the monitors. I'm fine with making decisions about dynamics and levels, but it's hard to do so if I don't know what the audience will hear.

 

Regardless of what the house mix sounds like your dynamics need to make sense relative to everybody else in the band. It's the internal dynamics within the group that the band needs to control. If the sound guy can get a great balance, he should be able to walk away from the desk & the band should sound perfectly balanced from that point on. It's really just part of having good arrangements.

[dvuksanovich]

That makes sense.

[picker]

If the sound guy can get a great balance, he should be able to walk away from the desk & the band should sound perfectly balanced from that point on. It's really just part of having good arrangements.

 

Agree to a point, but it depends on the band. I worked for a long time with a band that was both electric and acoustic, and a had a very wide dynamic range from song to song. We had a difficult time keeping a consistent level in some rooms, and the semi-trained soundmen we ran into sometimes didn't help.

[Winston Psmith]

A few random thoughts -

 

First of all, do some research. If you have an upcoming gig at a nearby place you don't know well, go to a show there and check out the scene, the sound and the set-up, maybe even introduce yourself to the FOH guy, start to establish a relationship. Ask around, if you know anyone who's played there. This won't just help you with sound - check out parking, and your load-in/load-out scenario, while you're at it.

 

Second, don't go to war with the sound guy. Find a way to work with them, or around them, if you have to, but remember, they can kill your whole set with the turn of a knob. The worst case isn't always dealing with a tin-eared drunk - sometimes it's dealing with a skilled person and alienating them, because you treated them like some tin-eared drunk.

 

If, by some miracle, you do get a soundcheck, however brief, use it! This is your last, best chance to work out any issues, before your audience gets to hear you.

 

Finally, consider using a Treble Boost effect to cut through the mix, instead of just adding Gain or Distortion.

[Caevan O’Shite]

I second that - only took me 40 years to learn how to use the volume control on my guitar.

 

Hahh! I do know what you mean!

 

...consider using a Treble Boost effect to cut through the mix, instead of just adding Gain or Distortion.

 

Are you talking about the very old-school Rangemaster Treble-Booster types, that are sort of like an upper-mid-boost/parked-wah/overdrive-boost type of effect, like Clapton, Brian May, and others have used?

 

If so, cool.

 

 

Man, I remember being the defacto-sound guy for a volunteer coffehouse (most other folks there were intimidated by the cheap little powered mixer, and it was routinely hooked up in all manner of bizzarre and incorrect ways), and winding up doing a solo show for Ani DiFranco...

 

Another night we featured a local legend-in-his-own-mind that some of us "insiders" had secretly dubbed "The Mandolin Windbag". Somehow, this guy had enlisted the accompiniment of a number of other instrumentalists that were as good or often better than he was, certainly nicer, that he often would use as the "fall guys" in his inane and insipid canned-sounding "stage patter". (Surprisingly, we felt that he was a real jerk!) We would groan and roll our eyes whenever the calendar once again rolled around to a night of "The Folk Nazi"!

 

Well, in the middle of the fifth song of his first set, the Windbag stops everyone in his band, makes a quick crack about the mandolin-banjo (accompannying him in the able hands of a soft-spoken gentleman to his left) being the most obnoxious instrument ever made, and then proceeds to address me, the sound guy- and getting my name wrong, to boot- over the mic, and states that "something doesn't sound right; there's too much bass, too much... treble... and...too many, mids!"

 

I looked at the guy next to me in disbelief, then a fiendish look stole over my face, but only briefly; I quickly looked up to ol' Windy, looking as sincerely sympathetic and repentant as could be, and, nodding my head up and down while gazing at his worship, I began to turn down ALL of his levels, and then opted to simply PULL OUT EVERY ONE OF HIS PATCHES. A rapturous glow overtook his face, and he mouthed the (effectively pantomimed) words "Thank-you...that's MUCH better!"

 

(I turned to the guy next to me and quipped, "How's that for "un-plugged"?!?"

 

Of course, I left the rest of his band fully amplified, and even brought up their respective monitor levels a bit. It seemed that a lot of people got what had just happened, including some of the performers onstage; and, smiling knowingly, kept it a well-known but unspoken secret all night!

 

How's them there apples?!?

[Scott Fraser]

(I turned to the guy next to me and quipped, "How's that for "un-plugged"?!?"

 

This is but a very mild version of the stories in circulation in the sound world about why it is unwise for a performer to insult the sound guy from the stage.

[Caevan O’Shite]

(I turned to the guy next to me and quipped, "How's that for "un-plugged"?!?"

 

This is but a very mild version of the stories in circulation in the sound world about why it is unwise for a performer to insult the sound guy from the stage.

 

Conversely, Ani DiFranco was wonderful to work with, an absolute pleasure. Mid-show, she thanked me over the mic, pointed me out and introduced me to the audience from the stage, and caused the large contingent of man-disliking, militant-feminist types to suddenly love me instead of seeing me as the enemy (which had been pretty apparent up to that point).

 

Ani was great! And to top it off, she was such a force of nature on both guitar and vocals that she probably could have done the whole show with no PA at all.

[Scott Fraser]

Conversely, Ani DiFranco was wonderful to work with, an absolute pleasure. Mid-show, she thanked me over the mic, pointed me out and introduced me to the audience from the stage,

 

I had the same experience when mixing a Stephane Grappelli gig. I went back to his dressing room in the intermission to make sure he was happy with the sound on stage. He invited me in, poured me a whisky, & was a total gentleman. At the end of the gig he thanked me by name from the stage for the good sound, thanked the whole crew & the performing arts center that brought him to LA. A VERY classy act.

[skipclone 1]

Well a mixmeister should absolutely be treated as a member of the band. But that cuts both ways-if the other band members are experienced and the sound guy is a last minute, second thought replacement-then everyone better have their controls at the ready including plenty of headroom. Bad sound guys can be a force of nature too-it`s either too much or too little. I`ve seen people get totally muted for being a little too loud. Thank goodness it hasn`t happened to me, and there have been times where, if the sound guy turns it to 1 while thinking it`s 11, I`m screwed. But yeah, no way would I count on someone else for my levels. The exception is of course, if monitoring sucks, for whatever reason.

[dvuksanovich]

And this discussion is at the heart of where my original question came from. There are sooooo many variables. It sounds like I should have my own boost available so I can use it if necessary, but to sound check the boost (if possible) and adjust it as necessary based on the room, sound guy, etc. And then if I come across a sound guy who wants to ride the faders himself, I just won't use the boost.

[dvuksanovich]

There were no issues like this back when I was playing classical guitar.

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

There were no issues like this back when I was playing classical guitar.

 

 

's'cause ya played so damn loud playing classical rock that ya couldn't hear the people bringing up these issues. Hey you kids, stop bangin' so loud on them rocky-rolly Ramirezes and get off my lawn!!

 

[dvuksanovich]

Mine was a Brune, thank you very much.

 

[Winston Psmith]

...consider using a Treble Boost effect to cut through the mix, instead of just adding Gain or Distortion.

 

Are you talking about the very old-school Rangemaster Treble-Booster types, that are sort of like an upper-mid-boost/parked-wah/overdrive-boost type of effect, like Clapton, Brian May, and others have used?

 

If so, cool.

 

That's the beast, Caevan! A bunch of the Brit Prog guys had them, too, Steve Howe, for example. I've seen a few modern variations on the theme, like the BBE Freq Boost, and the EHX Metal Muff w/Top Boost. These will deal with the OP's issue of being heard in the mix.

 

Loved your story about the Folk Nazi - you probably did him a favor that night. I'm sure it was the best he sounded all year!

[Terrell]

It kind of depends on the music, the group, the system and the venue.

 

You might find if the sound man is pushing the system to limits, he's going to want fewer dynamics. Like a metal band on a house system for a small club.

 

If the system has plenty of headroom for the venue, that's not as much of a problem...

 

If the mix is complicated with many pieces and live sources, he's not going to have time or attention.

 

It really depends.

[p90jr]

http://phousemusic.com/images/dragon1.jpg

[Caevan O’Shite]

[font:Comic Sans MS]Lizard Leg 'Flying Dragon Boost'[/font]

 

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice...

 

I have a Catalinbread 'Super Chili Picoso' clean (to not so clean) boost. It's much more transparent than most such boosts and overdrives, though perhaps not quite as transparent as the Flying Dragon is supposed to be. It works great as a buffer/line-driver and has the added usefulness of having two "phase-inverted" outputs, most excellent for connecting to both inputs of "blackface" and "silverface" Fender type amps with "Normal" and "Reverb/Tremolo" Channels.

 

As a boost and especially as an overdrive, the SCP gets on better with some amps than others, and surprisingly, it works particularly well with digital-modeling devices.

 

___ http://cdn1.gbase.com/usercontent/gear/2063525/p2_u1us3zuqz_so.jpg

[dvuksanovich]

So my solution to this (after reading a bunch of forums on Line 6's site) is to patch the FX loop send directly to the FX loop return on my POD HD500. Then I can add the FX loop to my signal chain inside the POD and have control over the db levels of both send and return. I set send to 0 db and return to +3 db. The FX loop is tied to a footswitch on the POD so I can turn it on and off. Problem solved!