Tone Settings on Stage

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 17 Jan 2005 4:23 pm

When our band plays, I like to get to the venue early and set up my steel while the room is reasonably quiet. I like to give the guitar time to sit and settle in to the room's temperature and humidity. After tuning up I tweak the amp's settings to fit the room. I play a Mullen guitar through an Evans FET-500.

Why is it that on the very first song of the evening, that beautiful tone that I was getting just moments ago completely disappears? On my side of the stage it is just me and a guitar player. He plays an old Gibson SG through a Fender solid state amp that has one 15" speaker. He gets lots of big, bottom end with his set-up, along with lots of very bright highs.

It sounds like my amp is putting out a very narrow range of frequencies that just don't cut through the overall mix of sounds that are on stage.

I remember there was discussion about this on the Forum some time ago. I just can't find it. I believe Ricky Davis had some good advice about the topic.

Lee, from South Texas

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 17 Jan 2005 8:27 pm

Regardless of the room, I find that you can hear the full tone range of pedal steel only when playing alone, or with a quiet backup group. When you are with a loud group, the rythm guitar, snare, horns and vocals overpower your mids; cymbals and lead guitars overshadow your highs; and the bass drum, toms and bass guitar cover your lows. About the only thing left is the whiny upper-highs. You can get a really powerful amp and two speakers and fight back, but people aren't really use to hearing steel overpower a whole group like that. The best thing you can do is brighten up your amp settings a little, and play from the middle of the neck on up.

jerry harkins · Post by **jerry harkins** » 17 Jan 2005 9:09 pm

Lee,
I fight the elements every night I play too.
Sadly I,m stuck next to the guitar player and he thinks he's in some kind of volume competition or something.
Every place is different, but the fact is that what matters is how you sound with the band as a whole.
I found that you have to have enough presence to cut through all of the trash sound that's around you.
Right now I use one amp,but sometimes I use a chorus fx that seems to fatten up my sound and keep things in better tune with whoever is out of tune.
The closer in tune the band is the better your tone will be. just my OP.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 17 Jan 2005 10:00 pm

IN all but a very few bands I've been in the guitar player is on the OTHER side of the stage.

The reasons for this are threefold. It helps "center" the "artist" or Front Person.

You can more easily adjust through monitors how much guitar you want to hear. Some people like an ear bleeding twin blaring in their ears, making every little intonatio glitch a tooth loosening affair. I don't.

Intonation problems are not going to take your head off. Similarly "walked on" parts are not as critical

Don't take my word for it. Check out a few current bands, like Dierks Bently. Gary Morse is on the extreme other end of the stage from the fine guitar player, and they play together very well minus the minuses I mentioned.

Optimum for me is a Bass right next to me. Intonation problems are gone.

Keyboards I like too because I tune the same way they are.

Try it. If you have a two channel amp and miss the guitar, you can plug a line off him or her into your amp.

That allows you to adjust your own tone a whole lot better.

Check out some top bands instrument placement.

Having the guitar and steel on top of eachother is a thing of the past.

At least in most of the bands I've been in where I had anything to say about it.

EJL

T. C. Furlong · Post by **T. C. Furlong** » 18 Jan 2005 6:58 am

I am very fortunate to be able to play with an awesome guitar player. He keeps his volume at an appropriate level and knows how to stay out of the way when it's my turn. I do my best to return the favor. We call it "having your radar on". I have been in bands with him for 20 years. We have played every show right next to each other and I can't imagine playing some of the twin stuff we do, with him being on the other side of the stage. I think the precision would suffer. Oh by the way, this guitar player is not a timid player by any means. His playing will make your jaw drop.

Maybe I am a dinosaur, but I think playing together is about playing together. Like I said, I am very fortunate.

TC

Ricky Davis · Post by **Ricky Davis** » 18 Jan 2005 10:00 am

Unfortunatly what happens is the sound and tone/texture of all the instruments on stage; will affect the way you hear your sound. It helps if everyone on stage has really good equipment and has a good tone; and the monitors have a good tone. I do like the guitar players amp right next to mine; probably because I play with Redd Volkaert and his tone is Awesome

and I like to hear his amp in relation to mine, because we play alot of twin stuff together and feed off each others Vibe>so to speak.
I don't find the change in the way I hear my Tube amp; as the extreme amount of change the way I heard my solid state amps I played through for years. It just seems to me the vibrations/sound waves coming from my tube amp speakers; do not get altered in the way I hear them, from the other tones on stage>but I did notice them being altered quite a bit in my solid state amp days.
Ricky

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 18 Jan 2005 10:46 am

On the other side of the stage is another guitar player, who plays mostly rhythym, and the bass player. The bass player is the lead singer and the two guitar players both sing harmonies.

The guitarist on my side of the stage, the bass player, and I have been playing together since about 1972 or so. The guitarist and I work together very well, after that many years of playing together. I don't have the problem of him playing over me. It just seems that once the whole band starts playing together, my guitar just doesn't sound as good as it did when I first set up.

I'm trying to figure out what is muddying up the sound. Competing mids, competing lows? 51 year old ears???

Lee[This message was edited by Lee Baucum on 18 January 2005 at 10:49 AM.]

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 18 Jan 2005 11:40 pm

Lee,

In acoustical circles the phenomena which you are experiencing and to which David, Ricky and perhaps others have alluded, is called "masking," and is the result of another instrument (or noise source) occupying the same slice of the tonal spectrum as what you are trying to hear (in this case, your happily dialed-in steel tone). It might be a guitar, a bass, a keyboard or even a noisy air conditioner.

Just as the trick in playing with a vocalist is to not both occupy the same slices of TIME and thus step on each other, the trick in hearing the various instruments in an ensemble is to also not occupy the same FREQUENCIES as another. We may both play the same fundamental tone, but the overtones of the instruments, including those that we emphasive or de-emphasize with our EQ controls, are what allows the ear to identify the individual instruments of a group.

I sometimes find myself cranking up the mids on my Steel Man 500 to a point far beyond what I would ever consider desirable in a practice setting in order to fill out and be heard in the only tonal space left between a fat bass and a trebly tele. On other occasions I find I may have to cut the same mids to non-existant in order to avoid colliding with some other instrument (or even the same instrument with different tone and amp settings).

This whole science is a big part of what makes a great arranger or producer successful, not to mention what makes a great sounding band sound great - a space for each instrument and each instrument in its space, tonally speaking. With enough familiarity with your gear you can eventually learn to work around almost any other noise source, unless it becomes an issue of it's just too d**n loud in the first place and no one else seems to think it's "their" problem in which case its' possibly time for you to start working on your exit strategy.

Best of luck with them there knobs, it's a new world and you're on your own now, bucko...

dg[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 18 January 2005 at 11:44 PM.]

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 19 Jan 2005 3:47 pm

I think I've got it, now.

I'll just crank up the ol' Evans a bit and do some "masking" myself. Let the other guys start cranking their knobs to find their missing tone! I usually keep the treble set at about one and a half. At two, I can peel wallpaper off the back wall. Three will break bottles!

Lee

Jody Carver · Post by **Jody Carver** » 19 Jan 2005 3:58 pm

.[This message was edited by Jody Carver on 19 January 2005 at 05:59 PM.]

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 19 Jan 2005 4:44 pm

I'm with Ricky..although I don't play with Redd Volkaert..

I do set up before the gigs but it's not like reinventing the wheel, I am pretty close each night out..perhaps tweaking in a tad more bottom or highs , but not seeking the whole deal.

Working alongside Matt, our young Tele dude, allows the two of us to communicate and have fun each time out..we are not really playing strong at the same time so the clash thing is really at a minimum..

we did try opposite stage sides but we were missing each others music so back we went..

He Ricky..tell Redd that I'm in the phone book ! ha !

t
[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 19 January 2005 at 05:25 PM.]

Billy McCoy · Post by **Billy McCoy** » 19 Jan 2005 11:50 pm

When I play with Janie Fricke....guitar and steel on the right side together.

That is the same for every other band I have been in. Local or National artist.

Keyboards, acoustic and Bass are generally together on the other side of the stage.

Most bands are this way....some have the left and right side swapped ..but for the most part is is this way.

The reason for this is: lead instruments together and rythm section is together on the other side.

Rythm section consists of: keys, bass, acoustic...then drums (generally center of stage).

I play in church venues as well....same thing there...MOST ALWAYS guitars and steel if applicable are together and the other side of the drums is the rythm section.

Eric...they must do it different when they hit town in the north east.

b

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MSA Millennium D10, Walker Stereo Steel, Stone Tree Custom Tele, LINE 6 Vetta II and POD XT PRO

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 20 Jan 2005 5:26 am

In all fairness to Eric..my commnets about playing on the same side with the TELE are based on the unstated fact that there is or was a Keyboard on the otherside..

I ain't playin' next to no Keyboard player on the bandstand..you wanna get drowned out with clashing notes/frequencies etc... as well as volume ? just go ahead and set up next to an Electronic keyboard.....especially a player who thinks it's a Keyboard based band...

t

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 20 Jan 2005 6:41 am

I've been there, Tony. Not much fun.

Lee

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 20 Jan 2005 7:08 am

To support what Dave said- I've found that when I sound full and rich to my ears the sound is lost out front and that most of the time when I am hating my tone I get compliments from the audience. It seems as though I need to jack up the mids way beyond what I like to hear personally in order to let the audience hear me clearly. So basically I use two settings- one with the mids notched when I play alone (which is most of the time) and one with them peaked and the bass rolled off for performances.

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 20 Jan 2005 7:26 am

I play steel and keyboard, so there's no clashing there, just a challenge to bounce back and forth between the 2 in a song.

But, I try to have the set-up as follows: Me, bass, drums, fiddle and 2 guitars on the other end.

We have separate monitor mixes, so I keep them out of my own mix and just loud enough to hear them.

If I can have it this way, I'm happy, the other guys are happy, the sound man is happy, everybody's happy. It's just flat out a happy time.

In fact, it makes me happy thinking about it.

Conversly, when it's not this way, I wind up with the same experience you are relating to and I'm not a happy camper.

------------------
MCI D10 8+5, ZB 11/10 8+3 Early 30s Dobro, Harmony Lap Steel, ad infinitum

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 20 Jan 2005 9:21 am

I am situated far stage left and the bass player is next to me. Just as Lee stated, You can get to the gig early and set up with a tone you think is nice only to start playing and start making quick adjustments to the amp to compensate.

At the next gig you setup and test the tone with the setting from the last gig and you think it sounds horrible. Go figure?

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 21 Jan 2005 11:36 am

I got out and played the other night with my friend Ken Brewer's band and as I was the last one to arrive the only room for me was right next to his keys. Practically sittin' on top of the Leslie cabs. After a bit of getting settled in we both had a ball blending the steel and organ under the guitars, some fun!

Of course, Ken is an ace musician (he can really sing and he plays a mean guitar, too) and he actually LISTENS, maybe that's why it worked so good.

c c johnson · Post by **c c johnson** » 21 Jan 2005 1:09 pm

I know what you are going through Lee. When I play by self with trax I can set my tone before I start and then no change with the backup trax. With the Haw group, uke, 3 different drums, rhythn guitar lead guitar. All ok. The full blown ctry and west swing bands; fight the tone for the first set. The pop std combo, drums, bass, rhythem guitar piano. No sweat. confoozin isn't it. CC

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 22 Jan 2005 12:09 pm

Good tone steel guitars suffer under most live conditions. A Fender 1000 through a Webb amp will cut through jackhammers and ramjet engines.