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In Favour of Amps


cheddatom

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Just a few experiences in favour of amps and volume...

 

I'm playing drums in a 2 piece band. The guitarist uses a submarine pickup through an octaver for the bass sound. He always struggles to hear his own vocals, so I set us up a "silent" rehearsal rig. Both of us used in-ears for vocals, bass and guitar, with only the drums making any real noise. We thought it was brilliant. One day, when setting up a big rig to record his guitars for the album (stereo guitar rig, full stack for the bass sound), we thought it'd be good to have a jam with it. The vocals went back through the PA, our ear plugs went back in, and F*&K ME we both said, this is awesome. We've not gone back to the in-ears

 

My main band have an Xair-18 which we bought to record our album in a bigger, more covid-secure room. Our guitarist has always used his POD and recently bought a fancy new modelling pedal. He's really into the idea of a quiet stage. Again, the singer struggles to hear himself on stage sometimes. The bassist always used a small TC combo. He's been talking about getting a new amp all year, and at first I was trying to convince him to go ampless, but there was no way. We played a festival where they had an Ashdown Rootmaster into an 8x10 on stage, and it had us grinning at each other the whole set. So, he bought a Rootmaster, and a Barefaced 4 x 10. We had our first rehearsal with it last night and F&(K ME we both said. 

 

Maybe this is just the drummer's point of view, but with a great big bass sound, everything is grooving better

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3 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Just goes to show that you really can't beat moving a bit of air.

 

Absolutely. Spending lockdown rehearsing/playing with bands via Jamulus with headphones on made me swear never to get involved in any "silent stage" nonsense. It was better than nothing (just) but soulless and unsatisfying.

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8 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Just goes to show that you really can't beat moving a bit of air.

Definitely. In my band we wear earplugs as the drummer is just so loud (my ACS plugs deal with this tho) but I can feel the air from the rehearsal rooms 810, it’s very satisfying. 

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I used to gig with a bi-amped rig and an Akai Unibass pedal. 

The highs went to a 4x12 cab, the lows to a 2x15 cab and the distorted octave up plus a fifth above went to a Line6 guitar amp. 

Absolutely rediculous... 

 

... but immense. 

🙂👍

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19 hours ago, Skybone said:

Just goes to show that you really can't beat moving a bit of air.

 

Actually what you can't beat is a decent song that sounds good at low volume.

 

Pretty much anything can be made to sound exciting when it is loud.

Edited by BigRedX
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Totally agree. 

I'm doing a lot of gigs without in ears at the moment and I'm enjoying being able to crank up my amp a bit, old school style. Having said that, I still like having an amp behind me when I'm using in ears, for a bit more feel.

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8 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Actually what you can't beat is a decent song that sounds good at low volume.

 

Pretty much anything can be made to sound exciting when it is loud.

Im with you. In ears allow us to sound bloody good because there's no ambient amp noise and no bleed! 

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18 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Actually what you can't beat is a decent song that sounds good at low volume.

 

Pretty much anything can be made to sound exciting when it is loud.

 

9 hours ago, gapiro said:

Im with you. In ears allow us to sound bloody good because there's no ambient amp noise and no bleed! 

Whilst I love the sound & feel of big amps going (they don`t have to be massively loud tho, just to drums level)  I have to admit that since wearing ear-plugs (ACS), which really reduce the volume of the whole band down, I can hear much more of what each instrument is doing and it does make rehearsing much more enjoyable. I`m yet to do a gig like this so can`t comment on that aspect.

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I can totally get behind this, having tried an in-ear setup without amps on stage and going back to a 4x10 to move some air and properly "feel" my bass.

Curious though: how did adding extra stage noise help both singers in any way?

 

On 29/09/2021 at 10:50, cheddatom said:

I'm playing drums in a 2 piece band. The guitarist uses a submarine pickup through an octaver for the bass sound. He always struggles to hear his own vocals

 

 

On 29/09/2021 at 10:50, cheddatom said:

Again, the singer struggles to hear himself on stage sometimes.

 

 

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I love playing loud at rehearsal. There's something satisfying about that wall of sound from 3 sets of big amps and a loud drummer. 

The cab contributes quite a lot to the sound, I think distortion sounds horrible if it doesn't go through a good cab. 

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4 hours ago, cheddatom said:

I'm wearing custom moulded ear plugs with -30db filters in them. It's more about "feel" than sound. There's a connection between the low end coming out of the bass rig, and the bass drum, and it's just not there otherwise

 

Which ones have -30dB filters?

 

All the ones I've seen are between 15 & 20dB, which is one reason why I've never gone down the custom route.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I missed some of these replies sorry. I'm not sure how it helped the singers, but they both preferred it

 

My -30db plugs are ACS

 

I think the wearable subs and in-ears thing misses the point of the room. I've tried the P&D drum throne with built in sub. It's pretty cool but it's not the same. I think there's something happening in the time domain but it's very difficult to define

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