Guitar Gear

Nope, even though I’m displaying an amp to the left, this post isn’t going to be about describing gear. It’s about a subject not too many people talk about, but often just assume everyone knows. And that subject is about positioning your amp, and where you are in relationship to it when you play.

Why is this important? Simply because how an amp sounds up close and at a distance are oftentimes worlds apart. I don’t know how many times I set up my gear based on being up close to my amp, only to hear it sound like shit off-stage and through the PA.

That creamy overdrive that sounds so luscious when I’m 3 feet away can sound like mush in the audience area. Or cleans that I think are too harsh up close actually sound fantastic off-stage.

The reason for this is because as the sound waves travel from the speaker they interact with the air molecules and bounce around and through them. Plus, there’s also a bit of a Doppler effect going on. Since sound travels at constant rate of speed, it reaches the player faster because of his/her proximity to the amp and just a little slower getting to the audience. That small difference in time can have an impact on tone.

Case in point: Before I did last year’s youth retreat for my church, I had set up my Katana 50 and pedal board at home, so I wouldn’t have to worry about dialing it in at the venue. Once at the venue, because the stage was a bit small, I had everyone put their amps offstage on the back line, and just had everyone lean their amps back against the wall so the speakers could angle up. In that configuration, I was about 15 feet away from my amp.

Once we did sound check and we got our volumes worked out, I found that all the time I had spent dialing in my sound at home was completely wasted! My tone was absolute shit! It was way too warm. I was not cutting through the mix at all! So I added treble on both the amp and all my pedals, which took a considerable amount of time while we warmed up for our first set. Talk about a high blood pressure moment! Luckily I got it mostly dialed in by the time the teens arrived, then made some minor adjustments over the next day, and all was well.

So what I learned from that experience was that I now flat-line everything before I go to a venue. I don’t bother tweaking beforehand because I know that the room will dictate what I need to do.

If I’m familiar with the venue, I now always tweak while standing at a distance so I can get close to what I need for the venue, then just make minor adjustments once I’m there.

This past weekend, we went back to the same venue for this year’s retreat. But because I was so busy leading up to the retreat, I didn’t get a chance to tweak my gear. I just loaded up my car and drove to the retreat center. Thank goodness I didn’t spend any time dialing in my sound beforehand.

The retreat center completely changed their sound system! Instead of the 21″ ceiling-mounted mains and huge subs they had before, they replaced them with what amounted to a DJ PA, and not a very good one. The rich tones that I absolutely dug last year were supplanted by speakers that produced WAY too much midrange. Luckily I had a great FOH guy to work with, and we spent about an hour getting everyone dialed in.

And through it all, I spent a lot of time going back and forth between the stage and my amp. This time, I had a smaller group, so I had the amps placed to either side of the stage, pointing in. With my Katana Artist, I ran a TRS cable directly into an XLR port and had my bassist do the same from his amp. We were just going to get enough volume on stage to hear ourselves, and let the FOH guy deal with the balance and EQ. But just to make sure the audience was getting a good sound, I went back and forth from my amp to the floor.

It really did sound A LOT different up close. I actually thought I sounded too warm. But because of the PA’s mid-range hump, that warmness created a zero-sum game. Plus, I had our FOH guy scoop the mids a bit to help things along.

So you see, what you hear up close can be worlds apart from what your audience hears…