Leading With Guitar Pt. 2 - Guitar Amplifiers
January 11th, 2006 by Travis Swan | Posted in Gear
This article comes partly from my own personal experience with guitar amps, as well as from advice by Chris Liepe, an old friend of mine, former lead guitar player for my worship team, now a professional producer/sound engineer at Sweetwater Productions studio.
With amplifiers, the first decision you must make is tube vs. solid-state. Solid-states amplify current, whereas tube amps amplify volts, and have lower input capacitance. In other words, tube amps create a sound that I’d describe as fuller sounding - warm, with a sense of space. Tubes modify and color the sound being input. Solid-state amps are much cleaner, and will reproduce the input sound as identically as possible, but don’t have the “warm” coloring that is typical of tube amps. Most “serious” players lean towards a tube amp. Hybrids have come out, combining tube preamps with solid-state amplifiers - but I haven’t really messed with these too much. Consider buying a two-channel amp - stereo effects might be something you want to mess with down the road.
In building your rig, you need to have a clear understanding of where you are going to use it. I play regularly in a room that seats 1300 and is built for an acoustic choir, so stage noise can be a big problem. As a result, I’ve chosen a smaller tube amplifier as my main amp. Tube amps sound better when cranked. You don’t need a 350 watt Marshall stack or a full head – if you use it in a small venue or low volume situation, it won’t sound that great. Less wattage will sound much better at the lower volumes, because the tubes will be more saturated.
Smaller guitar speakers produce higher frequencies than larger speakers, so in general, a 10″ speaker is going to have more clarity, or “top end” than a 15″ speaker. A 12” speaker is pretty standard. Personal preference will dictate here, just remember that your 4×12 cabinet might frustrate your sound guy when he finds out your stage volume is louder than what’s coming out of the P.A! Your fellow band members might also complain that they can’t hear anything but you. Not to mention it’ll be hard to lug up and down those stairs and out to the car every week! Power is actually more of a concern than size when considering speakers – lower wattage speakers will break up nicely – meaning distorting a little easier at lower volumes, which sounds sort of cool, but won’t be as smooth as higher wattage speakers. Again, personal preference. Try before you buy.
Electric guitars obviously need to end up being put through a P.A. at some point - you can do this by micing cabinets, or you can forget all this amp stuff and utilize the amp modeling technology that’s been coming out lately. I’ve played with a Line 6 POD XT Live - and it actually sounds pretty good - thin, but fine if you’re not a purist. Modeling is a good option if stage volume is a huge problem. If stage volume isn’t a problem, or isn’t MUCH of a problem, I’d always choose to mic an amp. You’ll have a warmer, fuller sound, more punch, and more control of your tone. Also, use an amp stand, lean the amp back and point the cone right at your face. You’ll have much more control this way.
Micing an amp can really affect the sound that comes out of the P.A. I recommend first of all getting great tone out of your amp before even touching a microphone. If you send a muddy signal to the soundboard, it’ll sound muddy in the P.A. No amount of EQ from the soundboard can fix bad tone. Also, don’t overwhelm your sound by sending too much bass tone through your guitar cabinet – it’ll just make things muddy. Run your EQ pretty flat, and maybe even take some of the lows out for more clarity. Your sound person can add some lows if they need to, and it’ll sound much smoother done from the board. Take into account that the bass guitar in the band really should provide the lows you’re looking for. Think of the overall band “sound.” Since you’re playing live when you lead worship, direct micing with a Sure Beta 57 mic in front of the speaker, pointed right at the center will provide your best sound. Pointing straight at the speaker will give your mic better isolation, there won’t be as much stage bleed – if you point the mic off axis, you can round off some of the highs and add some lows, but you should just do this from your master EQ before micing, as getting it right each week can be problematic.
Remember that everyone has different tastes, and be willing to work with your sound personnel, your worship leader, and the rest of the band. If they say your amp is too loud, it probably is. Be humble and learn to play at a lower volume. As we dive into the extremely subjective topic of effects in the next article, I’d like to caution you - don’t have an over-reliance on your amp or your effects. Remember that the ultimate sound of your guitar is in your fingers, not in your equipment.
Next article: Effects!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Gear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I think a key point here is being humble and willing to listen to input on your tone and volume.
I agree with everything you just wrote as far as amp recommendations
David Crowder’s guitar player Solley posted his setup and some thoughts on Mic-ing a cabinet here. Thought it would be an interesting read.
Spot on article!
When mixing, I always shelve the 100hz on guitars. When playing, I always ask the sound guy to do it for me. I’ve found that a close, direct mic will ‘perceive’ low frequencies that aren’t necessarily heard when you stick your head in front of the speaker cone. Also, a guitar really has no business being in the PA subs (boomy, muddy, ruined tone), so this is a quick way to prevent that.
Also… a 4×12 will have the same ‘real’ volume as a 1×12 if the amp is set the same. The sound is just more dispersed. However, one really good speaker is more important for tone than 4 pretty good ones, so I’d recommend spending the money to get really, really great speakers, just less of them. Also, I hate carrying things, so a 1x or 2×12 is much more appealing.
“More dispersed” sound is generally perceived by the rest of the band as “louder.” My smaller 1×12 cabs are very directional, and unless you’re standing right in front of them, you can barely hear them.
I boost 6k a little to add some presence to my sound - I found the sound guys like my sound a little better that way. Right around 100~120hz we’ve got major room mud, so I’ve got those almost cut altogether. Even with those frequencies cut, I have to watch my palm muting right around Bb. And everything lower than 80hz is rolled completely off . . .
A note to any sound persons out there:
when mixing, I always ask Travis to walk down from the stage and listen to how his guitar is sounding out of the PA (if he doesn’t come down on his own). Obviously, Travis knows how he wants his guitar to sound, therfore he is the best reference when trying to EQ it from the board.
Travis will walk on out, play for a while, then tell me it sounds to harsh, I’ll take out some 2.5-3 kHz out and the process continues.
That is, of course, if your guitar cord is long enough. Or if you’re wireless. Oh to be wireless . . .
I like Solley’s article, and yes, cookies would be appreciated… =)
you guys really need to stop being wusses about stage volume. I mean, are we playing (Christian) rock? Sound guys need to deal with it man. Aerosmith has huge amps, Pantera, Led Zeppelin all had amps on-stage…Sound man: “blend the sound.” Come on people, really.
Question about micing the electric guitar: I play a Zion Strat thru a Rivera amp and we have grown so much as a church that we were having alot of problems with stage noise … so I tried to run a line out from the amp to the PA … but when I do, the amp now as monitor gives me great distorted tone, but the sound through the PA is really bad … like a broken-up distorted sound … one guy said he thought the distortion sound was being clipped but we don’t know how to fix it.
Douglas, the line out on your amp should provide pretty decent direct tone to your PA, depending on the model of course. Here are my suggestions:
Push the line/mic button on your mixer. A line level signal is MUCH louder than a mic signal - and could be peaking out the mixer channel. Some mixers have a -20dB pad button as well that’ll really crank that gain back down.
Guitar amps only have woofers, the big speakers that reproduce only lower frequences. They don’t have tweeters, but main PA systems do, which means if you send a signal directly to a PA that’s meant for a guitar cabinet you’ll get a really funky high end distortion out of the tweeters on your PA. However, most line outs on an amp or preamp will compensate for this, but if yours doesn’t, you’ll have these issues.
Make things easier on everyone and set up your amp backstage in a closed room or hall or something - crank the volume up to optimal tone, and mic it there. I prefer a miced tone any day over direct, there’s so much more presence and punch to the sound. Have your sound person send the miced amp signal to your monitor on the stage so you can hear what you’re doing - and that should solve everyone’s issues.
In response to Derek’s post about stage volume and not being “wusses,” Aerosmith, Pantera, and Led Zeppelin all played huge arenas that had massive sound systems pumping out volume levels way beyond the ability of most of our church service volume levels. Their sound guys were able to overcome the amp sound coming from the stage with the sheer power of the PA. Most of us don’t have that luxury, and honestly, if you value the hearing God gave your congregation, you’ll turn down a bit from rock concert levels to protect their ears as they come to worship week in week out. I’m not saying that the volume should be wimpy, but it shouldn’t cause hearing damage. Also, some auditoriums such as the one I’m used to playing in are designed to pump stage noise out into the room - if the stage is loud at all, the mix in the room gets muddy and no one can distinguish anything. Give your sound guy a break and crank your amp backstage. That and protect your ears - they’re the only ones you’ve got, for the rest of your life.
Douglas, I hope these suggestions help you - let me know if you have any more questions.
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