Gig sounded awful

  • Also now that i remember, it had another strange effect. The tone was sounding kind of distant, just like you would hear it from another room, like loss of proximity, don't know if i made myself clear

    Ohh, check output settings, could be a stereo output setting when you want mono....

  • Did you use the same outs for the FOH and the IEM mix?

    I guess so, but want to make sure.

    Yeah, his IEM mix was sent from an aux on the FOH console.


    I'm suspecting a badly tuned PA/room or some other bad processing on your guitar's path through the console.

  • You were wright. The output was set to master stereo. But i can't tell if it's a difference between stereo or mono, at least not on my studio monitors. Could this played out the proximity effect?


    DonPetersen i was using only 1 main output to the board that was feeding the foh and my iem.


    Tested now on monitors the tone from the gig. Loads of mids..no bass at all..no treble at all..the effect of fletcher munson. Pretty dark and telephone like. Btw, the monitor out was set Master mono

  • If your friend's sounded better than your's ask him if you he would take a look at your configuration by sending him your backup file , and comparing output settings etc. Just remind whomever does it to back up their unit prior to doing it. Also from your description it sounds like you may have lost signal somehow also.

  • Are you saying you are mic'ing your kemper cab or you are going from your monitor out or what?

    I do not think they cut the frequencies they say they do. I think they shelve them , cause you can cut above 80 hz on a graphic , but when you go to the 80 hz band and boost the gain on it you hear it coming back in.

    ? Where did you get that? I said My sound transfers great. Meaning, what I hear from my studio monitors, From My IEM's, and from my Cab, Sound the same as when it goes to FOH. That's why I suggested he check the quality of what he is monitoring on at home and at rehearsal If it is sounding different from FOH. Only as good as the weakest link.

  • I have another likely (I think) culprit. Try using a normal guitar cable (or 2) from your Main output into one of the "non-mic" inputs on the mixing desk. In your situation the desk was probably adding some preamp, thinking it was a mic due to the XLR.

    You need to make sure your output volume is high enough to be about line level.

  • ? Where did you get that? I said My sound transfers great. Meaning, what I hear from my studio monitors, From My IEM's, and from my Cab, Sound the same as when it goes to FOH. That's why I suggested he check the quality of what he is monitoring on at home and at rehearsal If it is sounding different from FOH. Only as good as the weakest link.

    To me that is not the case. I have 3 scenarios (iem, studio monitors, rehearsal space) they all sound completely different. Maybe slight nuances

  • I have another likely (I think) culprit. Try using a normal guitar cable (or 2) from your Main output into one of the "non-mic" inputs on the mixing desk. In your situation the desk was probably adding some preamp, thinking it was a mic due to the XLR.

    You need to make sure your output volume is high enough to be about line level.

    I originally thought that was the most likely culprit too but the OP is getting the IEM feed from the mixer and this sounds OK. If the XLR cable was overloading the mic pre on the desk I would expect the IEM signal to sound bad as well as FOH.

  • Some profiles are Really good for the studio but horrible live. I think about topjimi for example. His AC/DC’s pack is excellent for recording but it is so thin it really does not translate well in live situation.


    Which profiles did you use?


    Another tip. Use a wireless transmitter and on each soundcheck and check and see what the sound guy is doing of your tone and speak with him. Be nice and approach the guy with things like « hey what do you think about the sound? Not sure if it yet, curious to know what adjustments you’ve done ».
    that human part on gigs is really important


    I’m also having hard times finding some good profiles for live sound after a year of use. It’s really not that easy to be a guitar player and also a sound engineer.

  • Another tip. Use a wireless transmitter and on each soundcheck and check and see what the sound guy is doing of your tone and speak with him. Be nice and approach the guy with things like « hey what do you think about the sound? Not sure if it yet, curious to know what adjustments you’ve done ».
    that human part on gigs is really important

    This is SO true but so often ignored 👍

  • OTOH,

    inviting a guitar player to set, influence and discuss his sound over the FOH will very often lead to:

    - too much bass/low mids

    - an already annoyed engineer


    unless the guitar player has enough live mixing experience, in which case his sound will need few if any adjustments to begin with

  • It doesn't matter if you like the sound, but take an M. Britt profile from his Rig Pack with the kind of gain you like. His sounds often sound dull and mid heavy in recording for me, but are know to work really well live. At soundcheck run that rig to see if it balances well at FoH and then compare with what you are using.


    It may well be that you profiles that don't work at volume. I use quite different sounds live compared to on an album. The Fletcher-Munson effect changes everything.

    Karl


    Kemper Rack OS 9.0.5 - Mac OS X 12.6.7

  • You were wright. The output was set to master stereo.

    I think there are multiple things at play here this is probably one of them - depending on the effects, the distant sound could be caused by only having 1 side of the stereo image. It needs to be set to master mono if just using one output.


    Another aspect is - it will sound different. Is different bad? We all know that some guitars sounds on their own are thin and weak but sit perfectly in the mix.


    I don't think there is any harm is asking the sound engineer what he thinks of your sound but as Don said, tread carefully as we all like to think we are sound engineers. He will focus on the overall sound whereas we will obsess over our guitar sound.


    Personally I would just go back to rehearsal, put the guitar through the rehearsal PA using the same method and crank it up and see. If it sounds great then it must be that venue. If not then at least you can trouble shoot.


    Rehearsal will sound different to IEM's to different venues but not night and day...

  • I built my profiles for playing live. I put a QSC K8 on a stand in my room and then put my amp next to it. I set my amp to the volume I would normally gig at. I then turned the mixer up to get the same volume out of the K8. That is the volume I dialed it in at and made it sound like the amp did in the room. I honestly didn't have to do much tweaking at all since I profiled that amp at that volume right were it was setting. I am very happy with the results of doing it this way.


    I then did a little recording last month. I didn't like the sound of my profiles at all. They were too dark. I had to make some adjustments and select a guitar that had a thinner sound to get tones I was happy with. Volume is everything with these units. If I can get myself to spend more time recording, I will make a copy of my profiles and tweak them to sound like I want them to for recording. IMHO, if you are using the unit for both purposes, you are going to need profiles dialed in for each use.


    I was actually surprised at how different the same profiles sounded. With what I experienced, I don't think I would try to dial in profiles for live use through headphones. That may work for dialing them in for recording. My plan going forward will be to dial them in for the specific use case that I am going to use them in.

  • Thank you for all for the feedback! I mostly play high gain tones that are known for the difficulty of dialing in at high volumes. For me at least. I also have been searching for some high gain tones that works well for live situations, just like MBritt profiles, but he's are not high gain or at least i don't know. I tried to talk with the soundguy at the club, but from he's perspective all was good but believe me, i went to hundreds of shows and i know how a good tone is supposed to sound, although i am not able to get one:D:D Like i said in this post earlier before and other posts, i am using STL tones and JTM profiles. These are top notch for studio in my opinion, very pleased with them. But i find it hard to get a good tone for live use, so i will have to keep searching to find that pack that plays well live. I asked the foh guy about the post eq's on every channel, and he's response was that it didn't have any post processing. But maybe he didn't knew very well what was going on or i don't know. Now that i am thinking, the sound at the rehearsal room is a good tone and we don't have top of the line pa system as far as speakers go.

  • To me that is not the case. I have 3 scenarios (iem, studio monitors, rehearsal space) they all sound completely different. Maybe slight nuances

    You need to get a consistent sound on those. I don't know how you can possibly get a good sound for a show if what you are dialing in elsewhere is "completely different" it won't work. Are you using the IEM's at rehearsal?

  • I use the same sounds I used on our album for live gigs as well. The only thing I change is dial down the gain a bit (about - 0.5 to -1) and also dial down treble and presence a bit (- 1 to -2) due to a lot of PAs in metal clubs working at their limit and that is when the loudspeakers get shrill.


    Otherwise they sound as good live as they do in the studio. But I tune the presets at my homestudio on good monitors in a treated room and they have to sound good really loud AND quite as well.


    (regarding the problem the OP had: I guess the main problem here was a bad PA (too much bass and treble sounds like prosumer 15 inch speakers like JBL 835) in combination with a bad sound guy.

    The take away here is: hire a good soundguy. At least ONE time for a gig where you have some time for soundcheck to help you find a good tone for future gigs)