Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

We played a show on saturday in a pretty big room with a fairly large stage. My guitar player ran his '72 Orange 200 into two Orange 4x12's, plus his Matamp 120 into a Matamp 4x12. I ran both my early 70's SVT's into two 8x10's.

Total stage power = 920 all tube watts.
Twenty-eight speakers.
Pant legs a-flappin!

PA? Who needs it!

Ask '70s rockers like Nugent about sustained stage volume. "...huh what did you say?"

I'll take PA and ear monitors please!

Sounds reasonable to me.

who needs a PA? ...

uuuhh ...

the singer ...

actually with all of those amps and speakers you would still sound better with a modern PA ... the drummer needs it for his kick drum to be heard through all the music ... a good PA will produce subsonic frequencies that you feel ... it gives the band a full bottom for a pleasing warm sound ...

can you hear me now?

I think a PA should only augment the stage sound, that way you doin't end up sounding like a big stereo system. Kick, vocals, maybe a little guitar, bass, and keyboards, I think the majority of the PA should be vocals and drums unless you are in a huge room. The problem nowadays is that most sound men are drones, they try to mix the same way in every room. Some rooms need more of this, some rooms need more of that. etc.

There was a really nice PA there, we just choose not to use it for guitar and bass. We use the PA for drums and vocals, that's it.

Why?

Because a lot of soundmen don't really know good sound, and the overall mix ends up with tons of bottom and icepick treble with no warmth (smiley face EQ = YUCK!). I don't want to have to rely on anybody but me for my sound.

And I don't need the PA to reproduce frequencies that you can feel - EVERYBODY in that club was feeling the bass, trust me.

HAHA! Bob, that was scary... We just said almost the same exact things at almost the same exact time.

Great minds think alike, haha!

For a concert the pa is what the crowd hears ... a lot of bands are now handling the club gigs like a concert ... the problem is you can't really mix your sound properly by each person dialing in their own volume on stage ... they can only get what sounds good for where they are standing ... but a sound man with a good pa and everything miked can mix the sound for the whole room ... and if you don't mike the drums then you require your drummer to just beat the hell out of his kit ... the kick drum can't punch through without being miked ...

when run through a good pa the whole band sounds full ... I have played with bands that played loud and just miked the vocals ... it sounds unpleasant ... certain frequencies are produced too loud and others not loud enough ... and the stage amps are too directional ...

there is a reason why concerts are done the way they are ... and the same approach can be applied to a club gig ... getting a good pa and using it properly can really improve your band's sound ...

Well Jeff, I have to disagree with you. I have never been to a large concert where the sound was any good. Large PA's always sound boomy and thin at the same time to me... it's that whole smiley face EQ thing that all soundmen seem to use that sounds just awful.

I much prefer listening to bands in small clubs with cranked amps and drums/vocals going through the PA. I just move around the room until I find the sweet spot.

I agree with part of what you say ... the smiley faced eq can suck ... and part of the reason big concerts can sound bad is not the sound system but the room ... if you play a sports stadium it is going to be hard to get a good sound ... but I saw Pink Floyd in the 70's in a Hockey arena with their state of the art Quadraphonic PA ... it sounded pretty damn good ...

Also my band uses a drive rack plugin for the pa ... it analyzes the room and adjusts the eq for optimal preformance for each room you play in ...

when done wrong a big pa can work against you but when done right it can really enhance your sound ... my bass actually sounds better coming out of the mains than in front of my bass amp ... it project the full spectrum better than my amp can ...

and a small room with a good blues band playing quitely can sound wonderful ...

I think they are a good thing for a big concert, big 2000 person rooms etc. but little clubs? Naaa.

"my bass actually sounds better coming out of the mains than in front of my bass amp ..."

You need an SVT Jeff, I've never heard a bass sound better than coming directly out of those 8 or 16 speakers. I've actually gotten compliments from pro sound men on the SVT's sound.

Another thing to think of is being able to hear vocals on-stage. Big, loud amps are fine for large/deep concert-sized stages, but are inappropriate for most club stages. Most soundmen would rather no volume at all come off the stage - which is totally unrealistic, but lower volume will help them do their jobs better.