The future of amps & cabs - stage props only?

[Wombat]

Yes, yes and yes. But it’s all horses for courses.

 

I used to hate seeing a band and getting stuck in front of (insert whoever you like except the bass player here) and not being able to hear anything else except their amp. But the ‘sterility’ of getting stuck in front of a PA speaker with everything in it and wondering why I can hear the bass player when they are ‘over there’ is weird.

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Tech21NYC said:

An IEM is not a musical instrument amplifier. The idea is that it takes the place of wedges for monitoring. FRFR speakers are designed for sound "reproduction" vs sound production.

 

Well, yes they are, which is why i have something acting like a preamp, or basically an imperfect amplifier.

 

2 hours ago, Tech21NYC said:

 

The electric guitar and bass were designed to be used with a musical instrument amplifier not an IEM. It works and if you like it or prefer it that's cool but know it for what it is. When I'm at home and play guitar or bass I don't look for my IEM's to play through. 

 

I don't either, I generally play through my big headphones, or sometimes with an amp, but when I am playing at home I am not competing with any other musicians.

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

 but rather whether amps have a specific aura, or at least look, that contributes to live music in a bigger way than just sound...

 

It does in some things. If you went to a Rock or metal gig, you would expect to see a whole load of marshals along the back, even if they weren't being used. Otherwise it just looked wrong. In other groups, it is probably less important, or you don't even notice. 

[Harryburke14]

For us the decision to go "ampless" was more out of convenience than anything. Getting a consistent sound through a modeller for the guitarists without thinking of mic placement, pedalboard set up, how warm the amps were, etc, is incredibly useful.

 

That's not even mentioning it the task of setting up physical amps and mics and pedalboards (often in a space that's half as big as you'd need to do all that comfortably) when you're on the clock at some local pub and just want to get in, get on, get done, get paid and get gone.

 

Does it sound worse than amps? I don't think so. Different maybe. But more consistent and a whole lot easier to mix properly in a shorter space of time.The quality of more affordable modellers and profilers is increasing seemingly every year, to the point where you're not longer saying "your average punter wouldn't be able to tell a difference" but instead a lot of musicians wouldn't be able to tell a difference on a recording or through a PA speaker what's a real amp and what's a model/profile.

 

The only big loss imo is the "feel" of real amps, but if you're running IEMs or have a good monitoring setup through wedges/foldbacks/sidefills/whatever, then a lot of the time you'd be hearing that instead of the amp itself anyway.

[gjones]

On 09/05/2025 at 23:06, Stub Mandrel said:

 

 

 

Either your drummer and guitarist are huge giants, or that drumkit is teeny tiny?

[Stub Mandrel]

25 minutes ago, gjones said:

 

Either your drummer and guitarist are huge giants, or that drumkit is teeny tiny?

 

It's not a huge kit but I think there's some wide angle distortion!

Here's a more proportionate pic:

 

[mazdah]

21 hours ago, SimonK said:

 

That's a bold claim that probably hasn't been the case for most technology like this produced in the last twenty years. While I do prefer amps, it is very definitely not for this reason.

 

 

With the bass the situation IMO is easier - we mostly have volume pot full open, we like compression most of the time.

With the electric guitar I tend to use one channel and get clean - rhythm - and solo tones mostly by using volume controls (and rarely booster). I found it very hard to get achieve this kind of reactions on Cortex even with some quite pro third-party amp captures compared to the same real amps standing next to FRFR cab connected to Cortex.

 

With Tonex (well maybe IK Multimedia, because I haven't used their hardware, only plugins):

Amplitube 4 is plain terrible, Amplitude 5 is much better, but still for bass Ampegs and Fender TBP-1 (which I own in my rack) are just plain awful compared to real ones.

For guitar - same as Cortex, but worse. Maybe my problem is that I tend to compare them in a very straightforward way: I know this amp "in real life" and I know how it would react, and when the digital version of the same amp doesn't do that - I get upset  It's strictly for playing - I haven't compared recorded tracks yet. 

 

The digital technology came a very long way and is fantastic and very convenient. But still this convenience degrades sound quality. 

 

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, mazdah said:

 

The digital technology came a very long way and is fantastic and very convenient. But still this convenience degrades sound quality. 

 

 

If that was the case FOH and recording studios wouldn't have converted to digital many years ago.

[BigRedX]

13 hours ago, Tech21NYC said:

An IEM is not a musical instrument amplifier. The idea is that it takes the place of wedges for monitoring. FRFR speakers are designed for sound "reproduction" vs sound production. The electric guitar and bass were designed to be used with a musical instrument amplifier not an IEM. It works and if you like it or prefer it that's cool but know it for what it is. When I'm at home and play guitar or bass I don't look for my IEM's to play through. 

 

That conveniently ignores the fact that musical instrument amplifiers only form part of the "sound" because when amplified instruments first started appearing the technology wasn't up to producing clean tones at any serious volume. The original idea of the electric guitar and bass was that they replicated the sound of their acoustic counterparts put louder. Of course with what was available and, more importantly, affordable in the 30s and 40s that was impossible, so they settled for being able to be heard over the rest of the instruments in the dance band. Listen to early amplified guitarists and they are all favouring clean sounds. The "character" that the amplification process imparted on the sound was an annoyance and not initially a desirable feature. While it is possible to build a clean valve amp, it's not cheap and it's not very efficient in electrical terms. Had the idea of the electric guitar and bass not come along until solid state amplification was well-established and easily affordable, the sorts of sounds we'd be used to would be very different.

[lemmywinks]

Some wild takes being spouted on here veering into misinformation/disinformation.

 

Amps are fine, they're fun to use and if you enjoy the preset eq voicing, the way your cab reproduces that and can hear it well enough on all the stages you play then great, enjoy yourself. I have a traditional bass rig I very much like (two of them in fact) and I enjoy using them at rehearsals/dep gigs.

 

IEMs are fine, they're fun to use and with a digitial desk you can eq your bass however you want it, if you know what you're doing the scope for sculpting your sound is staggering and that's before you add in any external preamps, pedals or bass specific processing units. You have consistency on every stage you play no matter if you're stuck in a corner or have acres of space, the level of control is unsurpassed and in no time you can get a great personalised mix at whatever volume you choose.

 

For all live work with my main band I'm going through the PA straight from my DI so it doesn't matter to me, I can do either but always pick IEMs for sound quality and practicality. For cramped pub stages where you're right on top of your amp they're a total gamechanger. The first time I saw bands playing without cabs on stage it did look a little weird but after a couple of times I didn't notice it at all, just another way to gig which often has significant advantages over the using amps for individual backline.

[Chienmortbb]

The one thing you cannot reproduce through IEMs or amp less through the PA, is the trouser flap. Stand in front of  a well designed front ported bass cab at volume, feel the noize.

[BigRedX]

26 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

The one thing you cannot reproduce through IEMs or amp less through the PA, is the trouser flap. Stand in front of  a well designed front ported bass cab at volume, feel the noize.

 

I have never produced "trouser flap" even when I had my massive bass rigs. 

 

Firstly I haven't worn trousers with enough material to flap since some time in the mid to late 70s which was before I started gigging.

 

Secondly if I had been playing that loud, I'd be even more deaf than I am already.

[lemmywinks]

Buy a desk fan FFS.

[Chienmortbb]

50 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

I have never produced "trouser flap" even when I had my massive bass rigs. 

 

Firstly I haven't worn trousers with enough material to flap since some time in the mid to late 70s which was before I started gigging.

 

Secondly if I had been playing that loud, I'd be even more deaf than I am already.

To be fair, my loud, at 73 is not stupid loud and the trouser flap is caused by the velocity of air leaving the port on an LFSys Monaco. The port is at knee height and standing in front of it you really can’t feel it, of course, with a long slot port like on a Barefaced, you would not get that concentrated draught of air. 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

The one thing you cannot reproduce through IEMs or amp less through the PA, is the trouser flap. Stand in front of  a well designed front ported bass cab at volume, feel the noize.

 

Or stand on a bassboard and really feel it!

[SimonK]

16 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Or stand on a bassboard and really feel it!

 

Yes I've been very tempted to get one of these, although they seem crazy expensive for what they are: https://www.thomann.co.uk/eich_amplification_bassboard_xs.htm

[Woodinblack]

6 hours ago, SimonK said:

Yes I've been very tempted to get one of these, although they seem crazy expensive for what they are: https://www.thomann.co.uk/eich_amplification_bassboard_xs.htm

 

I am currently leaning on one. Well, its under my seat until i find somewhere else for it to be. Not new though, and they don't come up used often. Its a small. Small is actually pretty big in your living room!

[mazdah]

10 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

If that was the case FOH and recording studios wouldn't have converted to digital many years ago.

 

Which part of FOH? The mixing desk? It's a tool I think they are awesome and I wouldn't expect anyone to take Neve to a bar gig

 

As for the studios - yes, we did used a computer to record the sound coming out of our amps but I don't think I can say that this or any respectable studio I know converted to digital: