Gig sounded awful

Quote from Kellerblues

I honestly have problems understanding the issue. Had an open air gig yesterday, my soundcheck lasted 5 min (the drummer one took almost 30 min). Sound was phenomenal (stage and audience). Sound guy was a pro studio engineer, btw....

In my opinion this is really the only issue here: too many people that sits behind a mixing console without knowing what they are doing..

I think the other side of this is we are now very aware of our FOH sound.

Back in the day with a valve amp, we only thought about our on stage sound and then with limited options, so we accepted it and enjoyed the gig.

Like you, sound check is a dream for me. On Friday mine was literally a level check and done. The bloke on the desk wasn't particularly adept but the sound was cracking.

I get lost when people talk about high and low cut filters and 5db off 4500hz :).

Quote from V8guitar

I think there is a real risk of people over thinking it as well.

i totally agree with that.

Before those units we just took our amps, tweak a little the eq on the amp and that was done.

Now, we over think a lot, and maybe we ( me at least) tend to want of complète mastered track sound out of our units.

Honestly sometimes I just don’t remember how a amp really sounds, I overthought everything since I got the kemper.

I went to listen to some stem tracks (isolated guitars) to refresh my ears and was really surprised how I forgot the high mids and the highs importance in a guitar tone for example.

Quote from Johndoebh

Do you play high gain rhythm tones?

Yep

Quote from JoshuaL1

i totally agree with that.

Before those units we just took our amps, tweak a little the eq on the amp and that was done.

Now, we over think a lot, and maybe we ( me at least) tend to want of complète mastered track sound out of our units.

Honestly sometimes I just don’t remember how a amp really sounds, I overthought everything since I got the kemper.

I went to listen to some stem tracks (isolated guitars) to refresh my ears and was really surprised how I forgot the high mids and the highs importance in a guitar tone for example.

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Yeah its that classic " that guitar sound is awesome" but out of context its thin and weedy...to cut through the band. So it only sounds awesome because it fits yet we tend to audition our sounds in isolation. as a result we want the biggest, fattest, fullest sound possible, which often conflicts with cutting through.

We are a funny breed

Quote from Johndoebh

it is becoming a real pain in the ass, all that running for the perfect tone. I find that what works today, doesn't work tomorrow. It is crazy. I found some profiles that i liked very much, after a week or so i find another one that i like. A/B them and i keep saying to myself, this is the one, the other one was meh :)))

I call it profile blindness. Its totally normal and all in the mind - its what drives GAS.

The good thing is you know the KPA hasn't changed. No valves not warmed up etc. so its "only" your perception because nothing has actually changed.

This fact has liberated me and I no longer look at profiles, I have what I've set up and I'm happy because I know even if I try something else, in reality its not actually any better.

Now I only look at other sounds to experiment not to replace...

Quote from Johndoebh

I don't get it how different from venue to venue can this be...you loose all the control of your tone. How should eq my tone in order to have at least 50% of it everywhere?

That's exactly the same as with a mic in front of a valve amp. As soon as any sound goes to FOH you have no control over it. The Kemper is more consistent than a mic'd up valve amp as it removes mic position from the equation but you are still at the mercy of the FOH engineer and the venue. Venues all sound different a good engineer will work to compensate for this and make the overall band mix sound as good as possible. All we can do as players is make sure we are sending the best possible tone from source to give the engineer a fighting chance.

Some things which guitarist are often guilty of that make life hard for FOH to mix;

1. Using too much gain
2. EQ'ing to sound great in isolation rather than in the context of the band mix which often ends up with way too much bass and low mids that end up making the guitar sound muffled and distant as well as using up a lot of headroom in the mix
3. Using way too much delay and reverb (nothing makes a guitar tone sound like it was coming from backstage in another room like adding too much reverb)

As far as setting up tones to give the FOH the best chance goes, I would treat it like mixing an recording. What I mean is...

• mix on the best, flattest monitors you can
• at a decent volume but not too loud that it becomes fatiguing
• in a well treated reasonably flat control room
• double check on headphones
• triple check on multiple systems (the car test)

A well mixed album sounds good on most systems. It won't sound exactly like it did in the room when it was being mixed on any of them but it will translate well to most environments. If you apply the same logic to getting good live tones you shouldn't be far wrong.

The PA from venue to venue will differ greatly, and more importantly, the way it is set up. Especially if there are DJ events as well. Often the crossover frequency for the bass speaker will be set way too high since the DJs like 'that' sound.

Our sound guy always brings his own board and begins by fixing the most obvious errors in the PA and it's setup.

I totally agree. You cannot magic away the problem and I would also advise against giving the Sound guy advice on the mix. All you can do is get the best sound into the PA.

Hi!

Thought I'd just give my 2 cents here. I've been a professional sound engineer for 10+ years, guitarist for 20+.

I usually work at big clubs, 2000/3000 capacity, but I've been in pretty much every sort of live environment you can think of. And let me tell you this: there are a LOT of engineers that have no idea what they're doing (even those touring with the 'bigger' acts). Besides that a lot of venues don't have their sound systems set up correctly.

As a guitar player you just can't win all the time, 'cause you're at the mercy of the system, room and engineer. All we as Kemper players can do is make sure we know our sound is as good as possible, and hope they don't fuck it up. I always ask sound-engineers to keep the EQ on my Kemper feed as minimal as possible, because I've spend a lot of time tweaking it in different scenario's. It only takes one big EQ change to fuck up your whole sound.

It will take a while and a lot of live playing to get your tone to a point where it always works. And even then there will be gigs where it won't sound great because that's just the way playing live works. Unless of course you start a stadium tour with your own PA and crew

Quote from Johndoebh

it is really anoying because you invest a lot of money on instruments, profiles, you invest time and effort, and yet the sound does not make the cut. Maybe i should step back and let the sound guys do the math. Still, at one gig the sound engineer managed to fuck up so bad, my guitar was lost all the way down in the mix, also the backing vocals...these are the guys that should be fired from the job

In all honesty: maybe invest in a soundguy you know and trust for important gigs.

Quote from tenderboy

In all honesty: maybe invest in a soundguy you know and trust for important gigs.

Yep, we always saw our sound guy as part of the team even in relatively small bar gigs.

Sound Engineer:

Someone who has learned all aspects of sound production (technical and artistic) and has enough experience and knowledge to deal with musicians, musical performances, the rooms where the performance takes place and the technology at hand.

Sound Technician:

Someone who has been trained just enough to plug in microphones, do line checks and (when you're lucky) has learned how to deal with musicians. But he/she still lacks the experience and knowledge to properly deal with rooms, PA systems and mixing desks.

Sound Guy:

Strongly pretends to be a sound engineer before the gig and blames the musicians during and after the messed up gig. Will be massively overburdened with most tasks. Will try to convince everyone that he did the band a huge favour when he offered his low-priced "service" and will prove his point by being the laziest and most unmotivated person in town.

Musician:

Often someone playing an instrument good enough to gig but trying to mess around with their sounds to compensate for only hiring a budget sound guy.

Quote from lightbox

Sound Engineer:

Someone who has learned all aspects of sound production (technical and artistic) and has enough experience and knowledge to deal with musicians, musical performances, the rooms where the performance takes place and the technology at hand.

Sound Technician:

Someone who has been trained just enough to plug in microphones, do line checks and (when you're lucky) has learned how to deal with musicians. But he/she still lacks the experience and knowledge to properly deal with rooms, PA systems and mixing desks.

Sound Guy:

Strongly pretends to be a sound engineer before the gig and blames the musicians during and after the messed up gig. Will be massively overburdened with most tasks. Will try to convince everyone that he did the band a huge favour when he offered his low-priced "service" and will prove his point by being the laziest and most unmotivated person in town.

Musician:

Often someone playing an instrument good enough to gig but trying to mess around with their sounds to compensate for only hiring a budget sound guy.

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My problem has always been The “Musician” definition is what most “soundguys” that think they’re “sound engineers” go with. I can usually tell with a brief conversation who I’m dealing with. As with in life anyone who thinks they know everything always knows the least. It’s a defect all “sound guys” seem to share. It’s that way because you can never learn anything if you already know everything. I never have issues with “sound engineers” . They feel me out as much as I do them. It’s about 20 seconds. It’s always a smooth easy show. But you deal with what you have to deal with. You can’t win with a “soundguy” they see “musicians” as beneath them.

From my perspective I've had so few issues with out front sound, plus we only play pubs and clubs of cover material so no gig is ever going to make or break our career but I can see how its more important for others..

I've walked from the stage with a wireless to the board, fixed the mix and returned to the stage, sometimes with applause.