Prong playing on the sidewalk in front of a record store

[GuitarBilly]

Apparently they agreed to do this to release their new album, which is cool. It's not often that you see a established band doing something like this.


Unfortunately it's hard to hear anything but drums and vocals. Modeling strikes again. How hard would have been for these guys to take a pair of heads to this gig?

[MacaroniSalad]

Along with just getting buried in mixes, they also make lots of players sound the same, and now modern players all sound the same. Must be using the same profiles. They trade quality and uniqueness for versatility they don’t need.

[GuitarBilly]

KISS doing sort of the same thing but with amps. Notice how the drums instantly fall into their place instead of eating up the whole mix:




My band.. same thing... amps not mic and my cab was not even in the line of sight and it still sits right and pushes the drum to where they should be in the mix.






I am genuinely mad because I wanted to hear that Prong show Huge fan. Ruined by modeling lol

[RaceU4her]

i dont know if this is cool or just sad, it dosent look or sound like theres many people there id hope a band with Prongs stature could do a little better than that

[GuitarBilly]

i dont know if this is cool or just sad, it dosent look or sound like theres many people there id hope a band with Prongs stature could do a little better than that

They can. They played Baltimore Soundstage recently and it was sold out, that's a 1,000 capacity venue.
This was a surprise, one-off thing.

[Ostinato Rubato]

This is your band

vs

This is your band on Helices




Any questions?

[GuitarBilly]

^^^^

[Dave]

Cool to see a pro band playing an improvised show and having no trouble pulling it off.

But yeah, fuck... that guitar tone is weak af! It's like an afterthought which is okay for some styles, but sure as shit not Prong.

[GuitarBilly]

yeah it's a weird world when KISS has a heavier live sound than Prong.

I saw them live in 1997 and Tommy was running a pair of 100w Valvestate heads and they sounded awesome. And that's a $300 head? It's crazy. Sound quality is going backwards.

[RaceU4her]

i dont know if this is cool or just sad, it dosent look or sound like theres many people there id hope a band with Prongs stature could do a little better than that

They can. They played Baltimore Soundstage recently and it was sold out, that's a 1,000 capacity venue.
This was a surprise, one-off thing.

oh thats cool then. i didnt think they had fallen off that much

[Shask]

yeah it's a weird world when KISS has a heavier live sound than Prong.

I saw them live in 1997 and Tommy was running a pair of 100w Valvestate heads and they sounded awesome. And that's a $300 head? It's crazy. Sound quality is going backwards.

Is the guitar weak, or just turned down way too far? I thought it sounded like it needed to be like double the volume.

[Mike Oxhuge]

Modelling is like buying a sex doll with AI that always has to big of a headache to put out.

[GuitarBilly]

yeah it's a weird world when KISS has a heavier live sound than Prong.

I saw them live in 1997 and Tommy was running a pair of 100w Valvestate heads and they sounded awesome. And that's a $300 head? It's crazy. Sound quality is going backwards.

Is the guitar weak, or just turned down way too far? I thought it sounded like it needed to be like double the volume.

It's not volume, It's density. It's like ice vs vapor, they're both the same exact thing, but one will hit your face hard and the other just dissipates.
In the beginning when the drummer is just playing the cymbals you can hear the guitar just fine then as soon as he hits the drums, bye bye guitars. I mean they're there, there's just no weight to them compared to the unmic'd drum kit or vocals.

On the clip I posted for my band, the guitar is not even loud, I'm running my DSL on 2.5. But since the density is there, the drums levels with it instead of swallowing it. Same with the KISS video, I doubt they're cranking the amps in that room. But it's solid analog tone.

[Dave]

yeah it's a weird world when KISS has a heavier live sound than Prong.

I saw them live in 1997 and Tommy was running a pair of 100w Valvestate heads and they sounded awesome. And that's a $300 head? It's crazy. Sound quality is going backwards.

Lmao right. He was using that same valvestate rig when I saw them and it was crushing.

[greatmutah]

I’ve seen the density thing first hand. A buddy of mine’s old band played a gig with my last band. I was super pumped to be playing with them because I was briefly in that band and they’re all friends of mine. My friend Kyle was running a Line 6 HD500X into a Randall solid state amp with a Marshall 1960AV. By all rights the speakers alone should have helped him cut. His other guitarist didn’t have an amp so a mutual friend of theirs let him borrow his Mark V and 2x12 cab. The Mark buried Kyle. They asked me to EQ the amp because they knew I knew how to run a Mark series amp. So I did. It wasn’t even a contest. And Kyle’s amp’s stage volume wasn’t quieter than the Mark. In fact they told Nick to turn down the master a bit for the board.

[GuitarBilly]

Yeah I bet if your friend just went straight into the Randall he would've sounded better.

I've seen that happen so many times. I usually don't care but it sucks when it's a band I really like.

Prong used to be a killer live band. Obviously they can still play and Tommy's voice is still strong. It sucks that his guitar sound so neutered. The rigs are not even small. Tommy's Kemper rig is about the same size of say an EVH 50w head. Or something like a PRS MT15. Or even a Bluguitar amp, that would have been smaller and lighter. All of these options would've worked out better.
The bass player does have an Ampeg head on stage. Just go straight in.

[Shask]

Billy,

I was thinking about this last night. I know you have said you think the digital stuff just dont carry the weight in the low end vs analog. I can definitely hear this using a Fractal vs. a tube rig. Its like you can dial in a ton of bass, but it never really feels bassy, if that makes sense.

I was wondering, what do you think about if there is A/D or D/A conversions in there? Say you use an all tube setup, but then use a pretty transparent, modern digital effects unit, so it converts your tone to digital, and back. Do you think this still takes away the weight of the low end, or does it still work pretty well overall?

I do a lot of parallel mixing, but wonder how necessary this is with modern ADA converters sometimes.

[linthat22]

I've been revisiting Prong since they released the one single from the new album last winter. Tommy has been putting the work in and hearing him doing sweep-type runs in his solos have me agape.

Dude is a machine.

[GuitarBilly]

Billy,

I was thinking about this last night. I know you have said you think the digital stuff just dont carry the weight in the low end vs analog. I can definitely hear this using a Fractal vs. a tube rig. Its like you can dial in a ton of bass, but it never really feels bassy, if that makes sense.

I was wondering, what do you think about if there is A/D or D/A conversions in there? Say you use an all tube setup, but then use a pretty transparent, modern digital effects unit, so it converts your tone to digital, and back. Do you think this still takes away the weight of the low end, or does it still work pretty well overall?

I do a lot of parallel mixing, but wonder how necessary this is with modern ADA converters sometimes.

I don't think it's the A/D/A conversion. Converters are pretty good these days. And digital is usually fine for sound reproduction. I think the issue is in the tone generation. Because it's not only guitar. Piano, drums, etc.. it's the same thing. It sounds great until the acoustic/analog version is next to it. Then it still sounds good but the depth/weight of the real thing always overpowers it.

IMHO the trick is to go all in one way or the other. If you go digital do it for the whole band, drums included. It sounds fine that way. And all analog is obviously great. The hybrid approaches are the ones that throw me off. You have modelled guitars and a real drum kit on stage, the drums will overpower it. Even if it's in an stadium where you can't actually hear the kit. The analog source just punches harder. But if you go all in it's fine.

Listen to the video I posted of Sammy Hagar playing Howard Stern. Modeling guitar but since drums were an e-kit everything sat in the mix well. Then look for the Metallica videos playing the same set. It's drum fest. The guitars sound good when they're playing by themselves but as soon as Lars hits the drums they get tucked in the back. They're loud, you can hear them but there's no weight in comparison with the drums.

[Yarbicus]

Probably the best live show I have ever been to was Prong, Voivod and Soundgarden. Ringing in my ears for days but so worth it.

[Mike Oxhuge]

KISS doing sort of the same thing but with amps. Notice how the drums instantly fall into their place instead of eating up the whole mix:




My band.. same thing... amps not mic and my cab was not even in the line of sight and it still sits right and pushes the drum to where they should be in the mix.






I am genuinely mad because I wanted to hear that Prong show Huge fan. Ruined by modeling lol

Agreed. Fuck modeling in ass for live use. Notice Paul Stanley is still using the Engl Artist.

[GuitarBilly]

Yeah Paul has been using that ENGL since it came out. His live tone is awesome.

[GuitarBilly]

I've been revisiting Prong since they released the one single from the new album last winter. Tommy has been putting the work in and hearing him doing sweep-type runs in his solos have me agape.

Dude is a machine.

Yeah man Tommy is a really underrated player. Not only for his lead playing but his rhythm playing is beyond tight. One of my favorite 90s bands.

[MacaroniSalad]

Its funny, since this thread I have gone back to using a live cabinet with the band instead of Captor X-> PA, and It just FEELS better. I will still definitely be using the Captor at home and cranking the shit out of amps that way, but you just can't deny a real setup live. (Also, the tone through my monitor is much better than the PA, so even when shit sounds killer at home, I run it through the PA and it cuts the teeth out).

[GuitarBilly]

Also, the tone through my monitor is much better than the PA, so even when shit sounds killer at home, I run it through the PA and it cuts the teeth out).

This an issue I also had. I used my studio monitors to dial my direct tones and when I tried through a PA it sounded completely different.