-
I have been using tube amps my whole life as I really like the warmth they produce. They definitely color my tone, but in a good way.
But...they sure are heavy. I use a Laney VC30-210 which weighs 48 lbs.
Has anyone had a good experience plugging their archtop directly into the PA?
I wonder if it would sound good. I also wonder if the guitar sound coming out of the PA and not directly behind me would throw me off or feel odd.
Any thoughts?
(BTW: Hiring a roadie is cost-prohibitive, so not a good alternative...)
--Charley
-
12-19-2022 07:10 PM
-
FWIW ..my .02 cents......modern PA,s have no tubes.... you now depend on the sound person having the right plugins to emulate your sound...depending on size of PA, you'd need monitors, again, with someone else mixing/adjusting or, you could do that yourself but it's more time and more work . If you could dial in your sound before sending it to the console/PA (before the di) that would be a great plus...and perhaps use small lightweight solid state amp as a monitor ?
Originally Posted by charleyrich99
S
-
With pedals you can emulate a good tone trough a PA these days. Some say it's not like the real thing, but it can sound good - did many gigs with an archtop, a few pedals and a PA.
Just plugging the archtop direct does not yeld a tone I appreciate, but some people do it and like the results. It's a more dry, acoustic sound, quite different from a tube amp's tone IMO.
-
There are some great sound systems and people at facilities all around the world. Many are set up with good DIs, and I wouldn't hesitate to use them. So I think it all depends mostly on the specific system you find at the venue and how / by whom it's controlled and monitored. If you're talking jazz gigs and straight ahead warm jazz tones, all you need if your guitar puts out the sound you want without processing is a good neutral DI box and a knowledgeable sound person with a sympathetic ear. If you want to color your own tone, you need a front end to feed the DI. This can be as simple as a little tube preamp like an ART or a bit more complex like an Iridium or a Caitlinbread preamp pedal. I use either a Superblock US or an ART because they both have XLR balanced outputs to keep it quiet. Typical unbalanced effects pedals may or may not like a central sound system, depending on how noisy they are and how much of the sound you like results from interaction between your effects and your amplifier.
The specifics of the local setup are key, too. If the "system" is a few mics for vocals, a 6 channel powered mixer and two pole-mounted speakers, you may not be happy with the sound you get. But a good system can let you sound like you want to sound. The system at the club in which I play twice a week has multiple top quality DI boxes including a fabulous tube unit for guitars, and is absolutely top shelf - if you played here, you wouldn't need anything but your guitar -
Black Eyed Sally's in Hartford, Connecticut and the World Cafe Live in Philly are two other examples of local places I've played in which you can use and trust the systems and the sound people. But you need to find out what's there before you arrive and have a plan to provide for your desired sound.
-
I plugged a Danelectro straight into the PA at a theater for a section of a performance that needed a straight clean guitar tone. Sounded fine to me.
-
The PA is a pair of Bose L1-16's and a Yamaha 12 channel mixer, without any monitors or experienced sound person. It is a straight ahead Jazz gig. But I guess this is probably not sufficient. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
There are some great sound systems and people at facilities all around the world. Many are set up with good DIs, and I wouldn't hesitate to use them. So I think it all depends mostly on the specific system you find at the venue and how / by whom it's controlled and monitored. If you're talking jazz gigs and straight ahead warm jazz tones, all you need if your guitar puts out the sound you want without processing is a good neutral DI box and a knowledgeable sound person with a sympathetic ear. If you want to color your own tone, you need a front end to feed the DI. This can be as simple as a little tube preamp like an ART or a bit more complex like an Iridium or a Caitlinbread preamp pedal. I use either a Superblock US or an ART because they both have XLR balanced outputs to keep it quiet. Typical unbalanced effects pedals may or may not like a central sound system, depending on how noisy they are and how much of the sound you like results from interaction between your effects and your amplifier.
The specifics of the local setup are key, too. If the "system" is a few mics for vocals, a 6 channel powered mixer and two pole-mounted speakers, you may not be happy with the sound you get. But a good system can let you sound like you want to sound. The system at the club in which I play twice a week has multiple top quality DI boxes including a fabulous tube unit for guitars, and is absolutely top shelf - if you played here, you wouldn't need anything but your guitar -
Black Eyed Sally's in Hartford, Connecticut and the World Cafe Live in Philly are two other examples of local places I've played in which you can use and trust the systems and the sound people. But you need to find out what's there before you arrive and have a plan to provide for your desired sound.
-
If you take the time to set it up at a sound check beforehand and have another player you trust listen as you do, it could work. But it’ll be hard to know what you’ll sound like without monitors and you’re stuck with your settings once the gig starts. You don’t say what kind of music you’re playing, how big the group is, or what you’re playing. Especially if you’re a lead or the only chording instrument, you’re taking a chance you may regret. Originally Posted by charleyrich99
-
I just learned that's whats happening tomorrow. I'll let you know how awful it was Wednesday morning.
-
[QUOTE=mr. beaumont;1237706]I just learned that's whats happening tomorrow. I'll let you know how awful it was Wednesday morning.[/QUOTE
Good luck! LMK
-
With a good DI (I use the SansAmp Para Driver DI, which I sometimes run straight into a powered speak, although that's pretty dry) you can sound all right. There are many options now. I have an ART mic preamp that sounds pretty good too. Reverb pedal in front of that helps. I kind of like not having the sound coming from a single point.
-
There are lots of tube preamp boxes and pedals out there that can run direct to a board, with varying levels of functionality. I use this one and think it sounds great:
Last edited by Hammertone; 12-20-2022 at 03:13 PM.
-
The L1-16 is designed to be placed behind the band and to serve as the monitor. The line array is suppose to minimize the feedback issues that would ordinarily create. But it’s intended for mics and/or an acoustic guitar pickup system. For magnetic pickups I’d want to have a DI that simulates a clean electric guitar amp or take the DI output from a guitar amp. Originally Posted by charleyrich99
Manual:
https://assets.bose.com/content/dam/...1_pro16_en.pdf
-
175 straight into a PA. Sounds better than it has any right too.
generally, live sound engineers hate micing anything they don’t have to and seem to be increasingly impatient about needing to mic up an old school amp; last week the guitarist had a thing I could DI, what makes you so special? To be completely fair, I can understand. Use an amp with a DI for a quiet life lol.
Of course there’s axe fx and so on, but I don’t generally like the engineer having control over my foldback volume it always seems to be too loud or too quiet.
you also lose that 3d quality of a real cab and it can end up sounding really flat though a monitor speaker.Last edited by Christian Miller; 12-20-2022 at 06:29 AM.
-
With 10 bazillion threads here about small, light amps, you’d think we’d have gotten to that by now on this thread. OP: Yes, it’s weird playing through a PA. Try a lighter amp. Many good options are discussed on this thread
-
Thanks. We tried that and unfortunately it didn't work out. I am playing in a big band with 8 mics and we had a lot of feedback issues with the L1's behind us. Originally Posted by KirkP
-
I rthink that's the best all around option, John. The right systems and setup can let you sound fine going direct, but that's usually not what you find when you get to the gig. Joe Pass carried a DI with him instead of an amp for the last part of his career, and he seemed to be happy with that arrangement. But I suspect Joe Pass got a bit more atttention than most of us ever get Originally Posted by John A.
-
He also mainly played solo and didn’t have to deal with band mixes. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
I rthink that's the best all around option, John. The right systems and setup can let you sound fine going direct, but that's usually not what you find when you get to the gig. Joe Pass carried a DI with him instead of an amp for the last part of his career, and he seemed to be happy with that arrangement. But I suspect Joe Pass got a bit more atttention than most of us ever get
-
I agree with that .... Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I’ve plugged my humbucker jazzbox
straight into the line input of
small pa systems with a jack lead
(no DI no nothing)
and surprisingly it sounds absolutely fine for a clean sound ....
(it shouldn’t work technically because
the pa’s line input is expecting a lower impedance but hey it works fine)
this is with two PA full range speakers on stands behind the band , no wedges ....
if the PA speakers are forward of the
band it doesn’t work so well as you
are hearing the side response of the speakers which is nasty
-
also I played a jam last week where the electric stick bass plugged straight in to the small PA .... it worked great
with
pno acoustic, small drum set acoustic
tenor sax acoustic and a vocal mic through the small PA
it worked great (at moderate levels)
there is a house guitar combo there
so I used that ....
(I do love the minimal gear shlep thing !)
-
The L1 system seems tailored to small ensembles with most instruments plugged direct. Here’s an interesting blog on prototype testing. There’s a section on electric guitars, using amp modelers. Originally Posted by charleyrich99
L1(R) Research Project History - Bose Portable PA Encyclopedia
-
Joe talks about this starting around 4:00 and why he preferred to go direct.
I saw Gene Bertoncini, Ike Sturm (bass) and Dane Richardson (percussion) play in a church at Saint Paul MN probably 15 years ago. Gene went direct into the building sound system and the other two were miked. It was really an excellent listening experience, far better in my opinion than the typical jazz club arrangement. It was like jazz in SurroundSound. When you are listening to somebody playing through an amp which is also coming through the sound system, sometimes there are some odd sonic artifacts that result from that.
One of the problems with playing with an amp on stage is that you tend to adjust the sound to be good for you, but what the audience and other musicians are hearing may be very, very different due to the directionality of guitar amplifiers. Somebody straight on the center beam may be getting a very spiky, bright sound and somebody 30° off of that might be getting a very muddy sound. Going through the PA may mean that everybody is hearing you about the same, but it does mean giving up that sense of control over your sound- and I, like many people, tend to over-value that sense of control.
I was in an R&B/jazz band for about a year that never managed to make it out of the rehearsal room to perform in public. The amps in the rehearsal venue sounded terrible to me (one of them was a Line6 thing with digital menus and what have you, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to work the doggone thing). I brought my Para Driver DI and just plugged it directly into a Quilter/QSC powered speaker and called it good. It was remarkably effective, got a great jazz tone with my GB10 and that set up. It was very dry but the room had enough natural reverb to make that OK.
-
I have also used this excellent quality device from Carl Martin.
It is not tube driven but works quite well, and has been around for years.
Mine is an older AC-powered model. Current versions use a separate 12 volt power supply.
3 Band Parametric EQ | carl
Last edited by Hammertone; 12-20-2022 at 10:53 PM.
-
I've played a couple of gigs going into some sort of preamp and DI. Never for Jazz but Funk and Pop. I sometimes use that setup for rehearsals with my organ trio too.
The preamps I've been using have been a Harley Benton American True Tone and a Tech 21 Fly Rig. It sounds OK – good monitoring is mission critical here. I still think an amp can sound better. But sometimes portability beats tone details. Especially if you're using in ears so you won't hear the sound from the speaker anyway and if the guitar is not like the lead instrument in an 8 piece band with brass and keys. For the organ trio I prefer a tube amp.
-
I was forced to do it for an entire summer when I was doing the show, "Smokey Joe's Cafe".
The band is supposed to be visible to the audience, and they thought the amps took up too much space.
You're in the hands of the sound person, and if she's an idiot just out of college like this one was, she'll only turn you up for your solos.
The contractor came down and said, "You sound great on your solos, but I can't hear you otherwise."
We spoke to her, and it went in one ear and out of the other. My family came down after that, and said the same thing.
I'll never work at that theater again.
-
I tried my archtop into my Fishman Loudbox 100 to see if it would work well as a monitor if I began using a DI into the PA.
Unfortunately, the sound was just not great. I tried tweaking the EQ on the amp, but couldn't make it sound pleasing. Chords were acceptable, but single notes just sounded muddled and unpleasant. I turned off all effects which didn't help.
The pu on the archtop is a Biltoft floating humbucker which sounds wonderful through my tube amp.
Reply With Quote
New Painting
Yesterday, 10:46 PM in Everything Else