A Trainwreck, Sound Engineers worst nightmare?

[marcoloco961]

OOops. Sombody pissed off the sound man. LMAO

[paulster]

As far as attenuators used by pro's in big venues... it just goes to show how acceptable it has become to persecute the guitarist. I bet if they felt they weren't going to piss off the world they would play straight through.

Well, I can quote three people specifically who choose to use methods to reduce their stage volume that don't need to.

1. Joe Bonamassa. Alan here supplies one of his amps and he can verify that Joe uses the plexi shields because he says that running 2 100W heads at any one time (as he does in his rig) rips his head off unless he can project the sound upwards and away from the front of the stage.

Not a guy I imagine who's particularly persecuted by sound guys,

2. Pete Thorn of Chris Cornell, Don Henley and Melissa Etheridge's bands. He started using his Faustine Phantom out of personal preference on -4dB because he found it easier to blend in with the rest of the band and to get a good sound in his monitors and out front. The sound man was happy as a consequence but it wasn't a driving factor.

3. David Ryan Harris of John Mayer's band. JM has no qualms with stage volume and is quite happy for his other guitarists to play loud, which is why Robbie McIntosh uses his Jackson Britain 2.0 in high power rather than low power mode since there are no restrictions placed on them and JM particularly favours having lots of headroom. David chooses to attenuate his rig with an Ultimate Attenuator because it suits his needs (he really out to check out a Phantom though, but that's another story).

All of these guys are in positions where they can play as loud as they like and yet they realise there is something to be gained by looking at things from a band (and audience) perspective.

Perhaps you're missing a part of the equation. And it doesn't involve modelling amps.

[Structo]

I think also the musicians are better protecting their hearing than previously.
Although I notice Joe B. doesn't wear in ear monitors.

[andrew4566]

Paulster,

It is interesting to get that perspective. but in the case of two 100 heads that is hardly comparable to an express, so to suggest that because he uses plexi deflectors to control stage volume is because he feels his tone should be compromised for the benefit of the mix is a bit of a stretch.

I can see the point that if your stage volume is somewhat insignificant to the audience it does make sense that a guitarist might think more in terms of comfort and mix then ...more akin to the practice type of scenario. their world on stage being almost separated from the FOH world.. Still -4db is a pretty insignificant amount and not the sort of reduction to make the local sound guy happy.

One thing that surprises me is that a purposely inefficient speaker hasn't been found that still has the desired characteristics of good guitar tone.