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Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 05:06:50 EDT
From: Spschn~ol.com
Subject: Re: Audio Sample and On-Stage Amp Positioning

I side with the Marks. Elevating your own amp should help you hear it
better, but I'm not a big fan of tilting it back so that it's pointed at my
head. Anything we hear better, the microphone is likely to hear better too,
and tilting the amp is really bad for that in my experience, points the
focus
of the highs right at ye mic. Kim Wilson gets away with it, judging from
the
picture on his new live CD, but one also notes the presence of an upright
bass, which indicates that everyone is playing quieter because they know it
works.

Who needs to reposition their amp is those guitarists you're playing with.
If they're playing direct and you're running your SJ2 through the PA, it
sounds questionable already. Maybe 8s are not great speakers for offstage
projection and your amp needs some help to reach out, but where stage volume
is concerned a good-sized harp amp like that should be the canary in the
coal
mine for the rest of the band: If it can't be heard, everyone else needs to
get quieter. You should not be having to cope with something like
this--you're already putting effort into coping that should be going into
your music instead.

As the Ironman says, one thing which is especially helpful to everyone in
the
building is for the guitarists to reposition their amps, preferably tilted
back & pointing at their (insert adjective/expletive of choice here) heads.
That should be standard operating procedure if they are playing direct
instead of miced thru the PA. They will hear themselves better all the time
without imposing additional volume on everyone else, and in a best-case
scenario their latent instincts of self-preservation will kick in and
prevent
them from playing loud enough to hurt their ears, or anyone else's. The
guitar sound will still fill the room up, no worry, but it'll be nicely
dispersed, without the focal points out front that hurt audience members,
who
therefore remain in the establishment & buy more delicious and
life-enhancing
adult beverages, which makes the band look good to the proprietor. It's a
beautiful thang.

Another point: Putting two guitarists' amps right next to each other very
often makes both of them play too loud, because each can't sort their guitar
out from the other one readily enough. So put the guitar players across the
stage from one another, or at least as far apart as possible. I'd rather
have a guitar on my side of the stage than two guitars on the other side,
most times.

Furthermore: Does the drummer have a smaller kit he/she can use? Does the
bass player have a smaller rig to use with that smaller kit? I find that
big
drum kits are really insidious for raising the noise floor of the band,
making everyone else play louder. Arena-sized kits are seldom necessary
indoors, a lil' old jazz kit can be surprisingly adequate for blues &
blues-rock bands. Your bandmates probably have little idea just how good
your band would sound if everyone turned down--all sorts of detail &
dynamics
will emerge.

Back to the harp amp--warning, personal hobbyhorse follows: A really great
way to reposition your amp for your besieged situation would be to put the
SJ2 atop an extension cabinet. I put my 4x8 SJ1 on a headless 4x10 tweed
DeVille cab and get much more volume/presence/projection without feedback
and
without taking up more room onstage. It seems to me that harp is more
sensitive to total speaker area than guitar is, when it comes to making it
work onstage. But that's as far as I go. If my tweed stack isn't loud
enough (when tubed for max volume), then either I'm off the stage or
everyone
turns down--their call.

And if you're trying to get a really dark, fat tone out of your amp, well,
that's just making your own life difficult. Bring the middle and treble up
and get some definition on the tone so it cuts through the mix better. It
won't necessarily sound as bright to the audience out front as it does to
you
onstage. The dark, fat thing works a lot better in bands with one
hollowbody
guitar and an upright bass and everybody miced if it's a big room.

I assume you've got the 12AU7 inverter tube in there, not a 12AY7; the 12AU7
is a lot less feedback-sensitive. Using a 5751 in the preamp tube slot
instead of the 12AT7 is a good move with the 12AU7 inverter--gives you a
more
gnarly tone and a touch more volume without being much more
feedback-sensitive than the 12AT7. And what mic are you using? Some give
you more without feedback than others do--I'm partial to 5Meg converted
JT-30
crystals in that regard.

Sorry I haven't listened to the sample, but my sound card is kaput at the
moment.

Stephen Schneider
Houston, Texas