Last night I was doing one of my hobbies, which is sound mixing for bands.
I heard this 2 piece band for the first time last week and the first question they had was “will this amplifier be ok for a room of 100 people?”. That was a definite NO. It was a portable 4 channel guitar amp with some effects on a vocal channel. They already had it setup before I arrived with the speaker pointing from behind the band, directly into the microphones. A recipe for feedback! So we discussed using the amp as a foldback and borrow or buy a pair of powered speakers.
To help the band with their mix balance was the task
To help the band with their mix balance, which was all I was meant to do, we used the little amp as a foldback and it was very average. It was great on the acoustic guitar, which is expected as it is a guitar amp. But the vocals! What a mess. Unfortunately musicians don’t like being told something is not suitable when that is what they were sold it for. Still, better blaming the gear than having to tell them they can’t play or sing. Always a touchy subject.
Let’s get some new gear
During the weekend I get a call from the guitarist asking me to look at a pair of second hand Quest speakers on the web and what mixing desk I think would suit. A bit of research on the speakers and I suggested he grabbed them. $900 for the pair was a good price. Now I love working on Mackie sound desks but they are expensive. He did want my advice, so I suggested a 12 channel mixing desk with independent levels on every channel for front of house sound to that of foldback. Bugger me, he bought the lot. But not the model I was suggesting, a level up which also had USB recording and playback at a price I’m guessing around $1800.
It took a very average sounding band to quite a nice sound
So last night we set it up. Same room and microphones. Same small amp for foldback but the sound was amazing. It took a very average sounding band to quite a nice sound.
So what’s the message here?
It’s the old story that not only do you get what you paid for but you also need to match the gear to the application. A great quality guitar amp will never do the job of a Pro sound system in the same way a great quality CCTV camera will never work in all environments. You need to select the hardware that suits each application specifically.
PS.. If you are after a band for hire, try Happykatz
