Guitar Gear Forum

How did you find soundmen took it? It's something I've tried out a few times in the past; first with an AC30 and Night Train in Stereo, then with an AC30 and AC50cph a/b'd for clean/ distortion, and finally with two AC30s in stereo.

In the vast majority of cases, soundmen would approach my setup wondering which one amp they should mic up, then upon hearing me ask them to put both through the PA they'd get confused. They'd do it, but most would go on to fuck something up. Here's the sort of stuff I had to deal with;

- Running one amp much louder than the other because they "preferred its sound".
- Running the two amps out of phase.
- Panning the clean/dirt amps to opposite sides of the PA.
- Doing as I requested, but explaining that because of "phase being picked up by both mics ( ) it'd sound much better if I just used one amp.

Occasionally we'd have a sound guy who's worth his salt and understood what was going on.

Anyone else have that kind of trouble using two amps?

Maybe have your own small mixer and mics. Let him use out from your mixer. I have a 4 chan Peavey. I sometimes run my Vypyr clean with effects, JCA for dirt

tell them you left home the other 2 and the leslie

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJFHIEJncHo[/video]

i used a half stack on each side with my old band for a few gigs when our other guitar player was MIA, it was no different than any other gig

you think you have difficulties op , try asking for a mic and DI out of a bass rig . simple request right ???

I've seen this from both sides. Being in a band, honestly, I've had way more trouble asking for fretless's mic and DI bass combo than dual running amps. I think the important thing is to mix your band to itself before you gig. It sounds silly, but if you tailor your volumes and general tones to make your band sound good with as little input from the sound guy as possible, you make his job easier and will get a far better sound live. The singer of my old band used to play two Pro Jrs together. One EQd a little hotter and middier, one EQd a little cleaner and "champish." Never once did we have an issue micing both and making them sound good at any venue we ever played alongside my guitar, bass drums, and 3 vocals. If they work together naturally, he can do it.

On the flip side, if you make a sound guy work for it and have to balance out your already fucked up volume spikes and drastic tone changes, he's going to have to make due with what you're giving him, and getting a usable sound out of what's there is going to be priority over making sure both of your amps are equally treated in the mix.

Get in a room with no PA or anything, and just make sure it all sounds good together when you play, and that you can hear everything. If it doesn't, or you can't, no sound guy can fix that.

Also, some sound guys are dumb and don't understand things. Let's not ignore that possibility either.

I've used a multi-amp set up and ran into every single problem mentioned by the OP and invariably ended up with a worse FOH tone than I would with a single amp. Same shit with X-pattern cabs, always an issue to get the sound right out front.
If you don't have your own sound guy, just forget about doing this and make your rig as simple to mic up and bring to FOH as possible.

macgaj3 wrote:I think the important thing is to mix your band to itself before you gig. It sounds silly, but if you tailor your volumes and general tones to make your band sound good with as little input from the sound guy as possible, you make his job easier and will get a far better sound live.

It doesn't sound silly, it's great advice. Unfortunately, it's something I already do and it's advice I've given out myself on various forums. I always set my rig to be well balanced in relation to the acoustic volume coming off the drums, and take the time in practices and sound checks to make sure my various sounds are all at good volumes relative to each other.

What I'm talking about is that I'll have set an even volume between two amps in a stereo rig, and the sound guy will come up to me afterwards and say he didn't like one amp so he only used the other in the mix. Or When using a clean/ overdriven setup, friends will come up to me afterwards and say every time I switched to the overdriven amp I was lost in the mix... even though the overdriven amp was set to be slightly louder than the clean one (the way I like it) on stage, and I know how to dial in tones that cut.

We practice in a rented lockup so we can always play at good volumes and we take pride in sounding good without the need for a guy working magic on our mix.

Which I guess only leaves...

macgaj3 wrote:Also, some sound guys are dumb and don't understand things. Let's not ignore that possibility either.

I would make sure that my 2 amps were in phase and sounding good together on stage and then just let the sound man do what he wants.

For me, it was important to have the sound I want on stage, and my 2 amp rig at the time did that.

But IMO it was also important for the soundman to get what he wants in the FOH, so other than setting my stuff up the way I want on stage, I let him do his thing out front.

I've always operated under the idea that the stage was for "me and my sound" and the FOH was whatever the soundman thought was best.

I've worked with soundmen who were kinda clueless and they seemed to appreciate the insight I'd give them as to what I wanted.
I've had soundguys who were assholes when it came to my setup, but by letting them do what they want, the FOH sounded better.

While sometimes it doesnt seem like it, they arent there to make you sound like shit (unless you are a dick). If the band sounds bad, its a reflection on the soundguy sometimes,too. IME, an audience can tell when the soundguy is shit, or when the band is.

I never really had the issue. Mic'd a band with two guitar players before? Than you can mic this just fine.

Needs a klops to prevent phazing.

Cirrus wrote:

macgaj3 wrote:I think the important thing is to mix your band to itself before you gig. It sounds silly, but if you tailor your volumes and general tones to make your band sound good with as little input from the sound guy as possible, you make his job easier and will get a far better sound live.

It doesn't sound silly, it's great advice. Unfortunately, it's something I already do and it's advice I've given out myself on various forums. I always set my rig to be well balanced in relation to the acoustic volume coming off the drums, and take the time in practices and sound checks to make sure my various sounds are all at good volumes relative to each other.

What I'm talking about is that I'll have set an even volume between two amps in a stereo rig, and the sound guy will come up to me afterwards and say he didn't like one amp so he only used the other in the mix. Or When using a clean/ overdriven setup, friends will come up to me afterwards and say every time I switched to the overdriven amp I was lost in the mix... even though the overdriven amp was set to be slightly louder than the clean one (the way I like it) on stage, and I know how to dial in tones that cut.

We practice in a rented lockup so we can always play at good volumes and we take pride in sounding good without the need for a guy working magic on our mix.

Which I guess only leaves...

macgaj3 wrote:Also, some sound guys are dumb and don't understand things. Let's not ignore that possibility either.

Yeah, that I can definitely understand. I know Christopher used to just tell the sound guy every show to mic both but keep them even in the mix, and not pan them off each other, but he did make it easier on them by running them both all the time and in mono, so it's kind of the easiest of any of the aforementioned scenarios. We never hit an issue unless the sound guy was short on mics.

At the venue I ran sound out, when we played and had someone else do sound, that guy used to just bus them into a single fader and control them all at once.

macgaj3 wrote:

Cirrus wrote:

macgaj3 wrote:At the venue I ran sound out, when we played and had someone else do sound, that guy used to just bus them into a single fader and control them all at once.

If I was doing sound for myself, that's what I'd do. Keep it simple.

We made a friend out of a sound guy and he comes to a bunch of our shows now to do sound. So I think I could probably get more reliable results now with the two amp rig. But, on the other hand, It's so much easier to have one amp and one cab.

Cirrus wrote:If I was doing sound for myself, that's what I'd do. Keep it simple.

We made a friend out of a sound guy and he comes to a bunch of our shows now to do sound. So I think I could probably get more reliable results now with the two amp rig. But, on the other hand, It's so much easier to have one amp and one cab.

Yeah. As much as I love running my Gibson and Sunn amps together to get that wall of sound while we practice, I will definitely just use the Sunn when we play live.

guitarbilly74 wrote:I've used a multi-amp set up and ran into every single problem mentioned by the OP and invariably ended up with a worse FOH tone than I would with a single amp. Same shit with X-pattern cabs, always an issue to get the sound right out front.
If you don't have your own sound guy, just forget about doing this and make your rig as simple to mic up and bring to FOH as possible.

Yep this is the voice of reason. Unless you know the venue's sound guy knows his shit and is open to doing this sort of thing it's not worth it and as Billy said, will likely sound worse, not better. On recordings, sure, blend 'em. You're playing a great venue and actually get a proper sound check? Sure. Some little dive with a monkey that is normally the bar-back "running sound"? Don't bother, IMO.