tmidgett wrote:

zom-zom wrote:I have to say though, Metallica was pretty awesome that night, in the middle slot.

I saw Metallica on the And Justice for All tour, and they had zero amps onstage, that you could see.

It sounded like God. I guess they sideamp a lot. They had a massive, incredible PA.

Cult opened with wall of stacks jazz. Sounded terrible, but I think Metallica was only letting them use about 1/8 of the PA.

In my old band, we once did a short tour before going in to record. When we were playing live, the guitars went through a Sequis Motherload (the engineer had an endorsement) and from there straight into the PA. We still had cabs on stage for monitoring.

It was probably the best live guitar sound I've ever achieved.

scott wrote:

space junk wrote:Isn't there a point where you can't generate any more volume, or it diminishes or something? Can you have an equal signal going to, say, ten 100W amps? I'm sure you're right, I'm just interested.

To split your signal ten ways, I would suggest an active setup. Passively splitting it that many ways, I dunno.

What are passive and active set-ups?

tmidgett wrote:

zom-zom wrote:I have to say though, Metallica was pretty awesome that night, in the middle slot.

I saw Metallica on the And Justice for All tour, and they had zero amps onstage, that you could see.

It sounded like God. I guess they sideamp a lot. They had a massive, incredible PA.

Cult opened with wall of stacks jazz. Sounded terrible, but I think Metallica was only letting them use about 1/8 of the PA.

Don't Metallica have an acoustically treated trailer in which they run their miked amps, which are then piped into the auditorium?

MrFood wrote:

Adam CR wrote:Don't Metallica have an acoustically treated trailer in which they run their miked amps, which are then piped into the auditorium?

You have got to be shitting me. Cite your references sir.

Although thoroughly ridiculous - it's not all that unfeasable I suppose.

Perhaps I imagined this; I can't find much evidence...

The best tone that I ever heard J achieve was on "You're Living All Over Me" and the rig he toured with on that was just a simple Marshall stack, a big muff, a rotovibe, a wah, and his Jazzmaster. Sounded good, and was plenty loud. By Bug he had added an extra stack, and had gone up in volume, but apart from that didn't sound any better. The last time I saw them was the tour for Green Mind, three stacks if I remember right, sounded ok, but wasn't any louder than My Bloody Valentine (who played the same bill) Kevin Shields was using two Marshall Valvestate (8100?) heads on top of a 4x12 each.

...of course, those are two very loud bands.

Two of the best live guitar sounds I ever heard (which were very similar) were:

Allister Parker from Bailter Space (Robot World era): slaved 3 Marshall Heads into a single 4x12 cabinet with a split signal running to Vox AC30. Very loud, but great sound.

Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom (Let Me Come Over): 3 Marshall Heads into a single 4x12 cabinet.
I think he may have had a Fender Twin on the side for his clean sounds, but he may not have.

Both Bill and Allister were using foot switches to reroute the signal so that they could add layers of distortion from the Marshall heads. Kind of like a big huge heavy expensive tube driven distortion/boost. Worked great though. Loud enough (and in Bailter Space's case was incredibly loud) and great tone.

I've seen thousands of other guitar rigs, but for some reason those two stand out for me. Apparently I really like the sound of slaved Marshalls. Janovitz's setup in particular really impressed me - I need to write to him and ask him what the hell it was exactly, so I can rip it off.

owens wrote:

zom-zom wrote:

owens wrote:I use a lot of amps because I like the way it sounds and I can.

What band are you in? I like a good larf.

Lords. What's a larf?

Hey? what?
I'm in Lords too. Damn this name problem thing.

The band I'm in uses quite a few amps and the reason is dead simple, if we put the drums at the front then we can all hear each other and the monitors can just have vocals in them. Even on a big stage. It means we're in control of what it sounds like up there as much as possible and also it means less time soundchecking. We can just set up and play. And in smaller rooms you're not at the mercy of a sound person you've never met. Also, our drummer's really loud and it just makes it all seem to feel better on stage to run through 2 1/2 stacks or whatever.

Owens - if you're in the Louisville Lords, we'll see you guys at SXSW. We got an email saying we were playing with Dead Child then realised someone at SXSW fucked up so we're playing earlier on the Thursday then I'm going to leg it to see you guys play...

A larf is a laugh when you're extremely cool.


I started a band with a drummer who was born the same day and year that John Bonham died. He carries the spirit of percussive battery. I'd have complained about the volume but it just sounds so good! So I started out with a 600 W combo that had kicked ass in the last band. Not loud enough to compete with the drums. Got a 1200 W 4-channel power amp, ran to 4 cabs! Still not loud enough. Had to get a 2000 W head, running to a 2000 W 4x12 and a 1000 W 2x12. Now it's loud enough and the band broke up. Feh


Still, it rules to be heard. Go Big

honeyisfunny wrote:if we put the drums at the front then we can all hear each other and the monitors can just have vocals in them. Even on a big stage. It means we're in control of what it sounds like up there as much as possible and also it means less time soundchecking. We can just set up and play. And in smaller rooms you're not at the mercy of a sound person you've never met. Also, our drummer's really loud and it just makes it all seem to feel better on stage to run through 2 1/2 stacks or whatever.

Oh, hi chris from lords, this is chris from lords.

Uncanny...exactly what we do and for pretty much the same reasons.

lords party at sxsw!

Agreed! See you at your show on the Thurs...

You guys should totally swap shows, like the British Lords put on American accents and everything, that would really confuse those label bigwigs...