Why learning to use your gear bloody works

[maxrossell]

I'll try to make a long story short.

I used to be the more-or-less lead guitarist in a five-piece combo. I'm also the lead vocalist, and we had two other guitar players and a bass player. And a drummer (but they hardly count, of course).

The bass player left for various reasons, and rather then f*ck about trying to find someone to fill in for him, we decided that we'd strip down to a four-piece and I'd take over on bass, since it was the first instrument I ever started playing in bands anyway, and I dig it. The other guys didn't get why I'd be so willing to do it, since they see 6 strings to 4 strings as a demotion - but whatever.

Anyway, we've started jamming as a four piece, and the first thing I realised is that all the time I'd been playing guitar I hadn't realised just how piss-weak the other two guitarists' tones were.

To give this some context, I'm a total gear maniac. I will literally spend entire days poring over gear websites and reading setup tips and listening to tone soundclips and watching demos and figuring out how amps work and all that jazz. My two guitar players aren't into that kind of stuff at all, they like playing, but know comparatively zilch about gear and how it works. The result of which, as above, is that they had horrible sounds, and this from a Les Paul Custom into a Mesa Dual Rec, and a modded Fender Tele Custom into a Marshall DSL100, because like most people do they just dialled in a sound that worked on its own and wrongly assumed that it would also work well in the mix.

So we took a break, and I spent half an hour tweaking their sounds, showing them how to get gain and breakup from their clean channels and how to use their overdrives to boost the gain levels rather than as just a "loud noise" switch. I showed them how midrange works as a cutting tool but also gives body and texture to your sound (they both had a "mid scoop" thing going on) and explained to them how EQ, not volume, is the key to getting heard.

The result is that we went from tinny garage band to glorious sizzling thick dynamic tone, with just a few tweaks, in a matter of minutes.

I don't know how many bands do this, but I do know that none of the bands I know personally do it, either because it hasn't occurred to them or because they think that working on sound is gay or whatever, so most of them end up just playing volume wars and deafening themselves. Either way it was definitely worth it to me, and now we sound kickass.

Bragging over.

Edited April 30, 2009 by maxrossell

[OldGit]

Don't offer this as a service do you? Both the guitarists I play with have no idea of how to work their gear.

[Bilbo]

It shows the value of an effective MD. I think one of the things we do badly in this UK is the practice of working together as a team to ensure the best possible product. Due to circusmtances, we all tend to tolerate 'adequacy' without comment, preferring not to rock the boat (its a very British thing).

A good producer of MD should be able to stand in front of a band and say stuff like:

Weak sound, change your gera.

Drummer is weak, replace him.

Great snare sound but that ride cymbal is undermining the guitars.

You guys need to tighten up your backing vocals

But, I guess whenever those of us who can see/hear what is wrong mention it, egos can trip in and things can get bumpy. For me, humility is something that is cheap (not as costly as a new PA that's for sure) and deeply effective in allowing a flow of ideas and creativity. If a producer tells me to use fretted bass, I need to try it, even if I think differently. Someone needs to have the big picture in mind and it is often the case that musicians are the worst people for seeing that. So many bands struggle to improve because not everyone is pulling in the same direction.

In your case, kudos to your guitarists for being big enough to let you help.

[BOD2]

I always assumed that every player took as much time to understand their gear as they did to learn to play, but so often I can see this is not the case.

I was at a friend's gig the other week. Nice venue - low cielings, carpet, should be a good sound. My friend explained they'd had real problems with low bassy feedback from the vocals-only PA and might have to ride the volume control all night to prevent problems. It wasn't until halfway through the first set that I realised they had setup with the PA speakers BEHIND the band. The guitar amps were on top of PA bass bins and PA tops were right at the back either side of the band. All of this pointing straight into the vocal mics !

I was aghast ! At the interval I tried to subtly point out where the problem might be, but it was too late to change things by now. They got through the gig ok but the volume was severely limited by the potential for feedback.

Yep - learn how to use your gear and you'll get the best out of it.

[BigBeefChief]

It's a shame none of the pissed punters you play to will give a sh*t though.

Oh well, I'm sure it massaged your ego all the same.

Edited April 30, 2009 by BigBeefChief

[Kiwi]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='475790' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:37 AM']It shows the value of an effective MD. I think one of the things we do badly in this UK is the practice of working together as a team to ensure the best possible product. Due to circusmtances, we all tend to tolerate 'adequacy' without comment, preferring not to rock the boat (its a very British thing).[/quote]
Good grief yes although band members taking criticism too personally can also act as an obstacle to improvement too. Its important for the band leader to couch their comments in a way that the rest of the band find palatable (spoon full of sugar and all that...). Jools Holland is superb at this, from what I've heard. Also the band leader needs to be accepted by the rest of the band as the leader. There's no point in someone charging in and critiquing before the rest of the band have understood why he should be leader. The leader has got to take the rest of the band along with them in any decision making process and that, to some extent, is influenced by the pace of the least cooperative member of the band. Or it can alienate and split the band up (as I'm sure many others will have seen for themselves with dictatorial band leadership).

The other thing I'll add is that knowing your gear intimately can also help save you money. I was all set to look at another effects unit in addition to my MPXG2 because I needed something with twin inputs. I did a bit of digging around in the user manual and discovered I could use the Insert loop as an extra pair of stereo inputs in parallel with the input jack, instead of just a stereo effects loop switched in series! So now I get to combine the stereo signal from my MIDI bass rig with the dry out and apply stereo effects to both. Bloody amazing little unit.

[cheddatom]

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='475800' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:48 AM']It's a shame none of the pissed punters you play to will give a sh*t though.

Oh well, I'm sure it massaged your ego all the same.[/quote]

They may not care about the sound consciously, but more people will be on the dance floor if the guitars aren't piercing your ear-drums with horrible tinny distortion at maximum volume.

[BOD2]

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='475800' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:48 AM']It's a shame none of the pissed punters you play to will give a sh*t though.

Oh well, I'm sure it massaged your ego all the same.[/quote]

While I'd agree with the first part of that (true, the majority of punters won't notice the difference) I don't agree with the second part.

The difference between a good player and a mediocre player for me is their sound. You can play all the right notes and be technically brilliant, but if your sound is thin and weedy - or no one can hear you because you don't cut through - then it's all a waste of time. A great sounding band makes you want to stop and listen - a crap sounding band just gives you tired ears.

The best players have a great sound, often an immediately indentifiable sound, as well as being good players. I think most of us on BC would want to at least try and get a good sound, even if we don't always succeed.

[cheddatom]

[quote name='BOD2' post='475807' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:00 AM']A great sounding band makes you want to stop and listen - a crap sounding band just gives you tired ears.[/quote]

Exactly - whether you're a musician or a studio engineer or just a friday night punter.

[Bilbo]

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='475800' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:48 AM']It's a shame none of the pissed punters you play to will give a sh*t though.[/quote]

The reality is that they will only notice subliminally but they will notice.

I used to work (PA/lighting) with a band in Wales who had a great reputation and a very successful local career. Their reputation for having a good live experience was based on quality gear (Bose, Ovation/Adamus guitars. Trace Eliot gear (when it was good), top flight keyboards, a credible soundman, good lighting (me) and some mature musicality from the players. The punters loved it. I have no doubt that they didn't know WHY they loved it but, if the sound is good, people respond.

[maxrossell]

[quote name='OldGit' post='475782' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:27 AM']Don't offer this as a service do you? Both the guitarists I play with have no idea of how to work their gear.[/quote]

I do some production occasionally, but I'm not sure that your guitar players would appreciate some random guy telling them how to set their amps up


[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='475800' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:48 AM']It's a shame none of the pissed punters you play to will give a sh*t though.

Oh well, I'm sure it massaged your ego all the same.[/quote]

Yeah, actually I mainly did it for my benefit (I don't enjoy practicing if it doesn't sound right), although I would add that if your experience of live performance is playing to drunks who don't give a toss what you sound like, you may be playing the wrong gigs.

[Bilbo]

I actually believe that a good sound is the secret to a good groove. If you just play all the right notes in all the right places, it will probably still not groove. If you do that AND have a great sound, the pocket is yours and the music comes alive.

[maxrossell]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='475804' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:56 AM']Good grief yes although band members taking criticism too personally can also act as an obstacle to improvement too. Its important for the band leader to find a way of couching their comments in a way that makes them palatable (spoon full of sugar and all that...). Jools Holland is superb at this, from what I've heard. Also the band leader needs to be accepted by the rest of the band as the leader. There's no point in someone charging in and critiquing before the rest of the band have understood why he's a better leader than any of the rest of them. They've got to take the rest of the band along with them and that, to some extent, is influenced by the pace of the least cooperative member of the band.

The other thing I'll add is that knowing your gear intimately can also help save you money. I was all set to look at another effects unit in addition to my MPXG2 because I needed something with twin inputs. I did a bit of digging around in the user manual and discovered I could use the Insert loop as an extra pair of stereo inputs in parallel with the input jack, instead of just a stereo effects loop switched in series! So now I get to combine the stereo signal from my MIDI bass rig with the dry out and apply stereo effects to both. Bloody amazing little unit.[/quote]

Fortunately I'm friends first with the guys in my band, and bandmates second. Not to say that I'd avoid a difficult decision if it might upset a friend. But I write most of the material and I suppose I occupy the position of general leadership, although the other guys are by no means subordinate to me if you see what I mean. It's not a case of "what I say, goes", more a case of I'm usually the one to come up with a good solution to something, and the other guys quite like that.

I also agree on the cash front. One of the guys who rehearses next door to me goes through whole new setups every six months trying to find a sound that works, not realising that the problem is the way he uses the gear in the first place. But he's not the kind of guy who lets other people give him advice on stuff like that.

[bumfrog]

nice idea, but you'll find a lot of guitarists who won't let you touch their stuff because they have a sound they like, not what works with the band. We call these people eeejits

[BigBeefChief]

It depends. There's crap and there's crap.


The OP admits he is "gear maniac" who spends hours listening to the nuances of sound. A below par sound will scream out to him much more than it will to a pissed punter on a saturday night.

If his band truly sound that terrible (to him and the ears of the public), then yeah, sort it out. It's the constant knob twiddling that pisses me off! You're doing it to please yourself and no one else.

I played a gig last saturday at the 12bar club on Denmark Street (a few guys on here have also played it). Showed up with just my bass as I always do, quick soundcheck (which is mostly pointless) and we're good to go. Those who know the venue will know how tiny the stage is. Regardless, we still fit all 5 of us on there.

The band before us, also a 5 peice, fit 3 of their members on stage. The reason? Both the guitarist and bass player have about 15 footpedals each in huge flight cases. Someone suggested perhaps they could play without them, which they were dead against. Instead, you've got 3 people on stage, 2 people standing with the crowd.

Was the bass tone any different to mine? Not once it had gone through the sh*tty house PA.

Likewise, played the Bull and Gate last year, didn't get a sound check because the band before us took so long trying to get "their sound". Cheers lads. I hope the 8 people watching noticed the difference.

God, I'm bitter.

[Geoff]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='475817' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:06 AM']I actually believe that a good sound is the secret to a good groove. If you just play all the right notes in all the right places, it will probably still not groove. If you do that AND have a great sound, the pocket is yours and the music comes alive.[/quote]

I totally agree with this. If you had the same band playing the same song, one time with the gear set up really well and the second time with the gear set up badly, you could easily agree which one performance was more enjoyable for the band and the crowd.

Our guitarist bought a new amp recently and for the first few weeks of practise it really crowded the bands sound and almost threw us off a bit because he hadnt dialled in the sounds very well. After taking time to set it up, we sounded a hell of a lot tighter and we werent having to fight the sound. As weve all taken the time to sort our sound out it means we can usually turn up to a venue and plug in and play with less faffing around by the sound guy to sort the levels out.

[cheddatom]

tBBC - I get why knob tweakers annoy you. I play with a lot of pedals but it takes me 1 minute to set up and I never tweak the knobs. I play with lots of pedals to get a good sound, and I always do. Whether or not the punters actually think "that's a distinctive bass sound!" or not doesn't matter. As a whole band, we sound and play better because we know exactly how to get a good sound within a couple of minutes. Sounding good is important, but being able to set up quickly and all on a stage is equally important.

[Paul Cooke]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='475790' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:37 AM']In your case, kudos to your guitarists for being big enough to let you help.[/quote]

I think it helps that they know he knows guitar and isn't just a jumped up bassist telling them what to do...

[51m0n]

I've done this to several bands I've been in.

Its always difficult to explain why you need to do it, and that the players in question will gain from it. Usually I say if I dont make the band as a whjole sound/feel and work better they can all change back and I'll buy everyone a pint for their trouble.

The caveat is we record before and after the sound in the room of the band. Put the two takes away for a week and then listen with some punters (ie significant others) and let them judge.

I've never had to buy a pint yet.....

Guitarists _always_ underestimate the need for midrange, and overestimate the need for gain. They never understand the concept of frequency mixing until it is actually drawn for them (ie little graphs). Worse still they always try and sneak back to their bedroom rock god sound unless you stay on their case. And dont get me started on over use of delay and reverb by guitarists in a live situation, what are they on????

I sometimes wonder how any of them get by at all......

[HeavyJay]

[quote name='51m0n' post='475859' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:56 AM']And dont get me started on over use of delay and reverb by guitarists in a live situation, what are they on????
.[/quote]

Forgive me for getting you started on this but, please could you get started on this?

The guitarist I play with is a big fan of digital delay.

[maxrossell]

[quote name='51m0n' post='475859' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:56 AM']Guitarists _always_ underestimate the need for midrange, and overestimate the need for gain. They never understand the concept of frequency mixing until it is actually drawn for them (ie little graphs). Worse still they always try and sneak back to their bedroom rock god sound unless you stay on their case. And dont get me started on over use of delay and reverb by guitarists in a live situation, what are they on????[/quote]

That's quite interesting. With one of my guitarists, I showed him how to get a decent tone out of his sh*tty Ibanez Toneblaster stack. I found that since the gain channel on those things is so completely horrible, the only way to do it is to use the boost function on the clean channel - with the clean gain already at max - to break it up into some responsive tone. So I show him this, and then show him to use his distortion pedal into the amp as another boost, by turning the gain on it way down, but cranking the output volume. So there's his clean channel, which is clean but warm and even breaks up a bit if he forces it, and then a boost takes it into smooth, responsive, mid-high gain.

The first thing he does is to switch off the boost on the amp, which takes it back to a thin, shrill, sh*tty clean sound, and then switches on the distortion pedal, which makes it worse. Eventually I just disconnected his footswitch, threw it away and told him that from now on it was a single-channel amp.

[skankdelvar]

Half the problem is that what sounds good when you're sitting practising in the bedroom (lots of scoop) doesn't work in different environments - rhsal + gig.

Trouble is, people neither learn nor are taught how to set up a good basic sound. It's rarely covered in mags or forums (kudos to the OP). And nowhere near as interesting (to many) as discussing the ([i]by comparison[/i]) superficial tonal impact of fitting a badass or valves vs tubes. Additionally, many of the 'gear settings' shown on sites and in manuals are voiced for the bedroom not the stage.

Amazingly low profile subject, with little source material. OTOH, we know all there is to be known about stacking cabs on their side!

(OT, I don't disagree with BBC - or Cheddatom - about pedal boards though. Guitarist with literally 6 sq feet of pedalboard, just to turn a Boss driver on and off. Sigh)

Edit for:

[quote name='maxrossell' post='475874' date='Apr 30 2009, 12:08 PM']I just disconnected his footswitch, threw it away and told him that from now on it was a single-channel amp.[/quote]

You're scary. I bet they're terrified of you.

Edited April 30, 2009 by skankdelvar

[bumfrog]

[quote name='BOD2' post='475807' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:00 AM']The difference between a good player and a mediocre player for me is their sound.[/quote]

sorry, gotta disagree with that. If you are good player you are good player. If you spend ages messing about with amps then you also know about electronic sound. Doesn't mean you're a better player, just means you know how to use equipment. Conversely I have met sound men who can't play for toffee, but can get a good sound.

What about acoustic stuff? Does that mean because somebody isn't using an amp then all of a sudden they become a worse player?

Sorry if I sound a big facetious, I'm having one of them days

[Steve_nottm]

Interesting topic.

Whilst i'm aware that guitarists sometimes use a "bedroom tone" that doesn't work in a band situation I can struggle to say clearly what needs to be done to change it. I tend to tell them to boost mids and highs to avoid "my" area.

Any pointers?

[maxrossell]

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='475880' date='Apr 30 2009, 12:11 PM']You're scary. I bet they're terrified of you.[/quote]

Not really. I think they find it funny more than anything else.

I also agree with the pedalboard thing. It's kinda the point of what I'm talking about, also. A lot of guitarists "make" their tone using pedal after pedal, not realising that without a basic decent guitar/amp interaction it's gonna sound crap. The first time the guitar player in my old band got a distortion pedal he couldn't figure out why no matter what he tried it sounded bad. It was just that he hadn't paid any attention to how the clean channel he'd put it into was running.

As you say, I don't know why magazines don't go into this more frequently and more in detail - and in fact seem to occasionally push the opposite view, that as long as your guitar sounds awesome on its own that's all you need to worry about.