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By the end of the year I hope to be playing once a week in a restaurant. I am working to nail down my equipment. It's going to be my Strat but I need to figure out my amplification.
Here's the question. If you are playing a gig like this do you always play through a PA or do you just play through your amp. I am trying to keep the weight down, the trips down and the costs down.
If I have to play through a PA then I will maybe use use a Zoom G3 or a Tech 21 thingy and skip the amp.
I'd kind of like to just play through an amp and have less pieces to haul. I haven't found anyone doing this locally, just playing with a combo and using a PA.
What are your thoughts about this??
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02-13-2014 04:59 PM
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just instrumentals or are you singing?
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Any backing tracks, or just solo guitar?
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if just instrumentals you can totally get away with just an amp. If you're singing you will want a pa system. Depending on the sound ur going for you can get by on the cheap these days with some great products. I did an entire tour of the west coast with just a fishman mini singing and playing solo guitar. Roughly 200.00
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Just instrumentals for now and no backing tracks! : )
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While a strat can work for a lot of stuff. I think you may find that a strat will get a bit monotonousness on it's own. Solo work seems to work best when you have two guitars to switch back and forth. It allows the patrons to give their ears a break. One of those guitars really should have some strong acoustic properties. A strat and a nylon can work nicely as well.
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Here is a nice setup of a solo guitar player I met in Rome. His setup worked great! He had back tracks playing through his guitar and then would solo over them.
http://i1361.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5451bd70.jpg
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I actually have been just running my vocals and guitar through a Polytone. Seems to work for me. In larger venues that have a PA, I use that instead. Sometimes I think people get too carried away with the rig/tone stuff. Especially for jazz, as long as the sounds are clear with a decent tone, you'll be okay. In a restaurant or coffee shop it's going to be noisy anyway, so your bedroom tone isn't going to transfer.
Video evidence:
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I have done a couple hundred restaurant gigs with an amp. If I need to do vocals, I use a two-channel acoustic amp. I have an Acoustic Image Corus now, but I used a Roland AC 60 mounted on a speaker pole for years. The Fishman Loudbox gets a lot of love here. If you are not doing vocals, any guitar amp will do. It helps to get it up off the ground like ECJ did in the videos above.
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Yeah - definitely always get it off the ground.
I really want to invest in something small that has dual channels. I'll have to look into the Fishman stuff. My only worry is that I've never liked the tone that my archtop gets through amps designed for acoustic/electric instruments.
My weight limit is 25lbs. Anything more than that is too big a pain to haul around on the train/buses.
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I tried a Loudbox Artist and a Solo last summer and both sounded pretty good with a guitar. I didn't have the chance to mic my voice though. While I was trying to decide which one made more sense for me to buy, I came by a Jazz Kat and it's the amp I play the most at the moment. It works great for vocals and it could do a good job for a restaurant gig too.
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BTW ECJ, nice videos. You are right about the noise at a restaurant gig. It's not a concert where everyone is hanging on your every note! My best advice to any guitarist who is getting out there to play by doing those kinds of gigs is to relax and have fun! There is no better way to cut your chops than to get out in front of people.
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Thanks, Chazmo.
Originally Posted by Chazmo
Could not agree more re: getting out and gigging.
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The Fishman Loudbox Artist is a great versatile amp. I have played acoustic, archtop and solid bodies through it and they all sound great. It has a tweeter which can be attenuated and a sweepable antifeedback control which is great at getting rid of muddy frequencies. I haven't used it for vocals, but it works well from what I've read. It also has an auxiliary input for iPod, etc., which can be used for backing tracks.
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i gig mostly solo , with no vocal and use a ZT acoustic lunchbox as is for small restaurant gigs and then line it out to a powered speaker from the line out if i need to be louder i use an archtop and like mentioned above if the guitar is solo then you need one with a lovely warm tone that fills the sound ,in my opinion a strat may be too thin sounding if you use the stock pickups .....but best advice you can take is just experiment, keep trying out different amps/guitars/pickups till you ,yourself think you getting the tone you want...and you will be surprised how sometimes gear you would NOT think would work or that people on forums slate can be perfect for you ....only you will know what you want ...so experiment away till you happy
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I had a long term restaurant gig and got smaller with my rig as time went by. By the end, I used a Phil Jones Cub and a little Behringer mixer to make up for the single input amp. I actually only had to project to one room or patio, the venue had a Sonos house system and I just plugged in a 1/8" stereo cable from mixer to the Sonos "bridge." The owner would walk through the various rooms and patios of this big joint and adjust levels with his iPod Touch over the wi-fi. Pretty cool...
If I start looking and find another restaurant or coffee house gig, I plan on using the Cub and a large capsule condenser mic to pick up voice and guitar/ukulele. My tinnitus is such that I don't want to play loud again. I just want a little sound reinforcement so that I don't have to strain on vocals, or play too hard on guitar/uke.
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It's wonderful to hear of the diverse choices that are available. It's hard to find any of these amps locally to try though.
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for me the ears are fine ...but my back and ageing body demands i try to be as lightweight as possible for solo jazz guitar gigs Originally Posted by tejastani
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and yes i agree that once you start gigging solo you will find you need the bare minimum of gear to get good sound ....
and most restaurants appreciate the fact that you you as an artist have a small footprint as normally space is always an issue, so a compact stage is always preferable to small bistro /restaurants and being "soft" that they can place a table near the musician without it being too loud gets me many gigs in this restaurant scene,
i definitely approach a restaurant /bistro gig differently than i would a gig with my trio in a jazz club ...
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Maybe a Quilter Micropro 8? It has an xlr input in one channel. Originally Posted by ecj
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Interesting. I'll have to give it a look. Thanks! Originally Posted by fep
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For voice, you want something that provides accurate reproduction. For a stratocaster, you want something that will add color the sound. I don't really like the sound of my strat through amplifiers designed for accuracy. Sounds like, you know, a plank with a single coil on it. However, I do like it through a Fender tube amp.
If I were doing an instrumental solo jazz gig with a strat, I think I would go for a Princeton RI. If you go to voice and/or a guitar with more acoustic qualities, you have Fishman amps which many good players here like a lot for a reasonable investment. You can also get Acoustic Image and Schertler at the higher end which are really good for voice and acoustic instruments.
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I wish there was a video of a Fishman Mini with an electric guitar. . .all I could find is acoustic players using it. .
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i can pull off guitar and vocals with just my dumpy old jc77. two inputs, but you don't get much control, as they share a volume and eq. you'll have to do all that in the chain before the amp, but it works. one amp, two cables, a mic and a guitar. and you could still run your guitar (or vocals) through a pedal board if you like. not the lightest thing in the world, but it does have casters. and 2x10 is pretty loud, and reproduces the needed frequencies pretty well.
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OP
Here is an amp that should be available locally. Roland AC 40 Stereo chorus. Stereo with 1 xlr in and 1 guitar in. 11 lbs
https://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1282/478
Or if you need more power, they make stereo AC60 and Ac90 but they are 21 and 24 lbs.
I would use something like a Sansamp for my guitar tone.
As far as the guitar, I think a Strat can work fine with the right tonal shaping options. Plus it's a guitar that you have and are comfortable with.Last edited by DRS; 02-19-2014 at 11:23 AM.
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I play a Strat through the FLM Artist today and loved it. The built in effects are pretty nice and very adjustable. . .I'm going back tomorrow with a dirt box and see how it takes that.
Thanks once again for all your feedback, I may have found the right tool for the job. I am amazed at the wattage and the quality and the features in this small package. .
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