Playing loud and / or amp breakup

[guavajelly]

Last night my christmas gift, an Ibanez GB10 had it second outing. Half an hour with our organ trio on a jam night. I used the provided old blues jr. while our organ player used a powered speaker AND the provided bass amp. So we had massive bass frequencies on stage. The tiny guitar amp was at the edge of breakup with the master on 3/4 and the volume (gain) in about 1/3. The guitar was at the edge of howling though not actually getting into permanent feedback mode. I kept dialing out bass and middle during the set to get a more controlled tone but to not much avail.
On the first outing I used a Peavey Bandit – I thought it was as loud or louder (we had bass, horns, keyboards and everything) but didn't have the same problems. Maybe because the amp has more headroom.
I know, I shouldn't play a full hollow at this volume, but I just love the tone and didn't get along very well with 335 type guitars. And it worked like a charm the first time,
I should have asked the organ player to take out some of the overwhelming bass – but I was not sure if that was just where I was standing. Sometimes it's hard to judge tone from the stage. We got very mixed feedbacks on the sound of the band. Most said it sounded great, only one person commented that he could hardly hear the guitar because of the organ's volume. OTOH I think we need the dynamics – we don't play standards but Jazz/Funk/Soul and the drummer must be able to hit his drums hard when we play a loud song.
Taking everything into acount I think we can optimize the bass content from the organ (much less!) but still I'd have to use an amp with more headroom to get a cleaner tone and prevent feedback. My bigger amp is a fender vibrolux – I wonder if I should get one of the small solid state combos like mambo or henriksen to get a more transparent and loud tone without much breakup and feedback? What do you think?

[Ray175]

Lots of f-hole plugs available out there to reduce feedback.....
If you're looking for a clean sound, then the mambo, henriksen or polytone minibrute are worth exploring.

[Hammertone]

Organ Trio?

And God invented the
-Fender Twin Reverb / Fender Pro Reverb
-Ampeg B12XT / Ampeg VT-22 / Ampeg GV-22 / GV-15
-Standel (whichever models fit here)
-Polytone 104
-and so forth
...and it was good.

[mr. beaumont]

I know you're talking about a situation where your sound could have gotten out of control, but the idea of playing completely clean with an organ group makes me sad.

You might try the all mids, no bass or highs trick. Sounds like garbage at home, but with a group...and it's not shrill but absolutely no woofiness that gets you into feedback trouble fast.

[wintermoon]

way back in the day I played a gig w/a new to me organist and drummer.
after the organ player said he liked what I was doing but did I have a bigger amp [my Vibrolux was struggling to keep up, a Hammond B-3 and Leslie can choke many amps]
next week I bought a '67 blackface Twin and it's been my main gigging amp since

[ruger9]

I know you're talking about a situation where your sound could have gotten out of control, but the idea of playing completely clean with an organ group makes me sad.

Preach it!

[KirkP]

I’ve learned that when playing a full hollow guitar near a loud bass player that the bass’s sound couples to my instrument, making it much easier for my own playing to feed back. Even if there is no howling feedback, it messes up my tone.

Possible mitigations: move away from the bass player’s speaker or walls that might be reflecting it; cover f-holes; bring a different guitar, ask the bass player to turn down. Dialing back my own bass knob can help, but I think it’s best to deal with the root cause (bleed through from the bass). Of course, in your case the organist is the bass player.

[Cunamara]

George Benson puts clear packing tape over the f holes to solve this very problem. Use that Peavey- the Fender tone stack is bass-heavy and mid-cut which tends to provoke feedback, but the bass frequencies from other instruments can induce feedback in a hollow guitar.

Another idea- tell the organ player to turn the **** down overall, not just the bass frequencies. Clearly he is not listening to the balance.

[ccroft]

Ithe idea of playing completely clean with an organ group makes me sad.

Preach it!

And listen to Wes comping for Jimmy on Mellow Mood. Filthy goodness!

[guavajelly]

George Benson puts clear packing tape over the f holes to solve this very problem. Use that Peavey- the Fender tone stack is bass-heavy and mid-cut which tends to provoke feedback, but the bass frequencies from other instruments can induce feedback in a hollow guitar.

Another idea- tell the organ player to turn the **** down overall, not just the bass frequencies. Clearly he is not listening to the balance.

Well both the Peavey Bandit as well as the blues jr. were backline amps provided by the venues. I have a fender vibrolux that works pretty well.
Our organ player Alex? I often have to tell him he should turn up a bit. He as well as our former organ man Matthias use digital organs, Alex a Hammond, Matthias a Nord. And they seem to think that if they take the bass-role they have to sound especially fat. I played with Raphael Wressnig once and it was all balanced. He had an old Hammond and Leslie. His bass was present, but not overwhelming.
I spoke to Alex about it and he will try to control ist better next time. If we ever get a chance to play again – the first music club just went bankrupt here in Cologne. I'm afraid there are more to follow.

[Alter]

There are many ways to go about it, but the easiest for feedback is a laminate or semi hollow. I play in organ trios in all kinds of places, so as much as i prefer a hollow body, a 335 is more workable for me.

Ideally I would like a semi that is full hollow though..