Category Archives: Your Big Amp Is Annoying

Your Expensive Guitars Are Annoying Too!

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The Flute Squad isn’t exactly rolling in cash, so when we buy stuff we do a lot of research in order to get the best value for our money. We certainly never skimp when it comes to quality, be it spending a few extra bucks per t-shirt for a nicer cut and material, paying monthly to be hosted here at Squarespace (for ease of use and their excellent analytics), or buying a microbrew for the kegerator. Our track record for not buying crap is pretty good.

I hope most bands would agree with our philosophy of buying quality gear. But I’m completely flabbergasted when I see a local band playing their third gig ever, and the guitar player pulls out a $1500 Fender Strat Deluxe. Even worse was when a metal guitarist we played with at The Black Hole Rock Club rolled in with a huge case filled with 7 guitars, all of which were easily over $1000 each. For a 30 minute set at The Black Hole?! In Dundalk!?!

Look expensive guitar guys, I get it, you have a small penis. But the ladies can’t tell the difference between your $2k Les Paul and my $150 Hondo II LP clone. They’re both shiny and sound the same blasted at high volume. You’re better off buying the cheap guitar and using the leftover cash for hairplugs.

Seriously, the only people who might be impressed that you’ve blown mucho moola on a really expensive guitar are other guitarists. So aside from the name on the headstock, what is the point of spending the extra money on a high-end Strat or Les Paul? Well, let’s run down a list of features to see if we can sort this out. We’ll compare a mid-level Gibson Les Paul and a mid-level Agile from Rondo Music.

$2000 Gibson Les Paul Standard

 

-Maple Top

-Mahogony Body

-Set Mahogany Neck

-Rosewood Fretboard

-Grover Tuners

-Alcino Pickups

-Case with Gibson Logo on it

 $370 Agile-3000 LP Knock Off

 

-Maple Top

-Mahogany Body

-Set Mahogany Neck

-Ebony Fretboard

-Grover Tuners

-Alcino Pickups

-No Case ($60 extra)

So…. Yeah, not much difference in features. To be fair, the pickups are different, so let’s add in another $130 to match those (Burstbucker 3 is $60 on Ebay and a 57 Classic is $70). But let’s subtract $50 because the Agile’s ebony fretboard is actually more expensive than the rosewood on the LP. Do the math and the price you’re paying for the Gibson logo on the headstock and case is $1490. That’s just bullshit and a monstrously huge fucking rip-off to boot.

“But the Les Paul plays so much better!” I hear guitar snobs whine.

No. Wrong. Fail.

With a proper setup the Agile will play just as well as the Gibson, and to be honest the Agile folks probably spend more time setting up the guitar before it leaves the shop than Gibson does. So out of the box the Agile might actually play better! Plus, “better” is a relative term anyway. What feels good to you might feel like shit to me. What if I like my strings to be 1-inch off the fretboard? With either guitar you’re probably going to have to spend some time tinkering with the bridge, truss rod, and pickup height to get it to where it feels best for you.

“But the Les Paul sounds so much better!” those same snobs shout.

Really? You’re going to tell me that with the same wood and pickups you’re going to be able to tell a difference? Here’s a challenge: go to Guitar Center and ask someone to take an expensive guitar (Les Paul, Strat, Tele, or whatever) and a cheapo clone with similar specs off the wall. Turn your back on that person and have them play both guitars through the same amp, randomly switching back and forth between the guitars while playing a variety of riffs, leads, jazz chords, etc. After each switch-off, tell me which one sounded better.

I bet that:

a) you won’t be able to tell the difference

or

b) if you can tell the difference you’ll prefer the cheapo knock-off 50% of the time.

In fact, DMFS is willing to put our money where our mouth is. If anyone wants to take us up on this blind listening test, we will give you $100 in cash if you’re able to pick out the expensive guitar more than 80% of the time. Message us here on the board and we’ll work out a time to meet up at Guitar Center or Bill’s Music! (of course if you lose, you’ll have to be Horsepower’s personal butler for a week)

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much the guitar costs. What matters is the person playing it. If you suck you’re going to suck just as bad on an expensive guitar, and if you’re awesome you’ll be able to make any guitar sound good.

Case in point:


 

Your Big Amp is Annoying: Why Our Live Setup is 75% Less Girthy Than Most Bands

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So, how can you make sure your band is going to sound as good as it can in any venue?  How can you avoid feedback, have crystal-clear vocals, and sound loud and punchy without making everyone’s eardrums bleed?

Here’s the answer: Let the sound person do as much of the work as possible.  They’re out in the audience, you’re not.  They’re hearing what your fans are hearing, and believe me, everything sounds different out there than it does up on stage.  Plus, like I said, they’re paid by the venue to make you sound good.  When you limit their options (i.e., by turning up so loud that they can’t feed any of your instrument through their speakers because you’re already overpowering everything else in the mix), you’re basically not letting them do the job they’ve been trained on, and are getting paid for.  They know the venue, they know what frequencies cause feedback and which ones cancel out.  They know how loud the room can get before people start to leave and management gets pissed.  That’s their job.  Let them do their job!

There are a variety of ways to do this, but The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad takes it to the extreme. And by extreme, I mean extremely tiny.

Here’s our setup:

Guitars

Both go through little 3W practice amps.  One of them is an Esteban.  It sounds awesome.  All of the distortion and effects come from multi-effects units, not from the amp. 

“Small”We also split the signal coming out of the effects pedals to DI boxes with cab simulators.  This way the sound person can either use the DI signals, or mic the practice amps, or both.  The practice amps are mainly used as monitors, so their volume stays very low.  Sometimes we’ll ask the sound person to put some of the guitar in the floor monitors, but this is often not necessary because our overall stage volume is so low.

Drums

We use a Roland TD-6v electronic drum kit.  It takes literally 3 minutes to setup.  Pull it out of the car, unfold the arms, attach the kick pedal and cymbals, and plug it in.  Done.  The samples are great and the feel is very responsive.  If you’re a drummer and you can’t play well on this kit then you need to switch to tambourine and let a real drummer take over. 

The sound module has a ¼” output that goes into a DI box.  There is no discernable stage volume from these drums.  The sound person has complete control over how loud the drums are for the audience.  This is awesome.  Even though the sound people are usually good about putting enough drums in the monitors, we almost always split off the signal to our own little amp so we can tweak the stage volume if necessary.

Bass

Little combo amp.  Like the guitars, it’s turned up loud enough for everyone on stage to hear (which isn’t very loud, because remember, we don’t have a drum kit blasting our ears out).  DI out from the amp into the sound board.  Again, as with the drums and guitars, the sound person is completely controlling the relative volume of the instruments from the audience’s perspective. 

The net result of all of this is that every instrument can be heard clearly, both on stage and in the audience.  Our stage volume is so low that we don’t even have to wear earplugs while playing.  And the audience actually understands our vocals and laughs at all of our extremely witty lyrics.  The venue is thrilled because people are having a good time and drinking all night instead of leaving because their ears hurt, and the sound person is stunned that they were able to quickly setup a great mix without fighting feedback the entire set.

At the end of the night the venue’s management asks us to play there again, our loyal fans congratulate us for another great show, and we sell some merch to new fans who liked us better than the band they came to see.  All because (gasp!) we sounded awesome.* 

*Actual results may vary

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Your Big Amp Is Annoying is written by Ryan Graham, lead guitarist and producer for The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad.

In The Future: YBAIA will be a segment devoted to hacking live setups and recording gear for the best sound possible on an ultra-low budget.

Your Big Amp is Annoying: THERE IS NO FUCKING ‘I’ IN ‘BAND’!! YARRRRRRRG!

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Sure, it’s convenient to blame the sound guy, the fucking cockwad drummer, your mom, or any number of people for why things went wrong at your last show. But that sort of misses the mark, doesn’t it?

This post is dedicated to showing YOU (I mean you, Mr. Reader) how to analyze your own egomaniacal pitfalls when it comes to playing out live.

Guitar Players: Playing at a small/medium sized venue like Charm City Art Space does not call for a full 100 watt Marshall stack.  You crank that thing past 4 and you’re basically going to blow out everyone’s eardrums (including your own) and piss off the management, because 50% of the crowd is going to immediately walk out the door.

Plus, dude, see that little black thing pointing at ONE of your 8 speakers?  That’s a microphone.  It takes the sound coming out of your amp and brings it to the mixing board.  Then, the sound guy/girl (the person paid by the venue specifically to make you sound good) EQs the signal from that microphone to get rid of your shrill ice-pick-to-the-brain tone, and sends the resulting, now moderately pleasant audio to speakers that are much bigger and more balanced than your little 12-inch Celestions.

But if your amp is so loud it’s overpowering everything else in the room, the sound person can’t do shit aside from scream at you the entire set to turn it down.  And the rest of your band (aside from the drummer, who we’ll get to in a second) is going to be pissed that nobody in the audience could hear anything they were singing/playing.

Drummers: Why do you need 6 toms and 8 cymbals for a show at The Windup Space?  It looks ridiculous, it’s impossible to mic, and it just annoys the bands before and after your set who have to wait 30 minutes for you to get that crap on and off the stage.

Believe it or not, some people actually manage to play perfectly well (i.e., better than you) with one tom, one snare, and one cymbal:

Drummers (you get two): If you’re playing in a place the size of a coffee shop, why are you hitting your kit like you’re in a stadium?  

Play softer. 

If you can’t play softer, use brushes instead of sticks.  If you can’t do that then put some muffles on your drums and cymbals.  And if you can’t do that then you shouldn’t be playing the gig.  Go home.

Bass players: I understand that you need big speakers in order to get those low bass notes.  But with the shitty acoustics of most venues, nobody can hear the notes you’re playing, no matter how loud you turn up.  So don’t bother; you’re just adding to the mess.  Make it as loud as it needs to be for you to hear it, and call it a night.  99% of the time the sound person is going to take a DI line straight out of your amp into the board, and control the volume from there.  Trust the sound person.  They know their crappy space and how to get the bass to be semi-audible.  If you’re trying to overpower them with your amp, they’re just going to turn the DI down, and now all of your attack and clarity is gone and you sound like a big pile of muddy turds.

Vocalists: We all feel bad for you.  You’re the only “instrument” that most of the audience gives a shit about, but most of the time we can’t hear or understand a word you’re saying.  And if we can by chance hear you, in all likelihood you’re singing out of tune because your monitors won’t cut through the drummer, guitarist, and bassist without feeding back, so you can’t hear yourself.  Sucks to be you.  You should probably fire your band.

Key Takeaways: Once you’ve recognized the problems of your live setup, it’s time for each band member to analyze what they can do individually to make the whole band sound better. Most of the time it involves losing the ego about your specific job and focusing on the big picture.

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Your Big Amp Is Annoying is written by Ryan Graham, lead guitarist and producer for The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. Next Week: The tried and true methods of downsizing your live set up or how The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad manages to do their best to sound great (even though we suck and everyone knows it.)

 

Your Big Amp is Annoying: Recognizing The Symptoms Of A Bad Live Setup

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You sound like shit live.  No matter where you play, you sound like shit.  Big venues, small venues, it doesn’t matter.  You think you sound awesome?  You’re wrong.  You sound like shit.

 

The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad plays a lot of shows at a lot of venues with a lot of different bands.  Many of these bands are technically awesome and have amazing songs, but there’s no way to tell because they sound like a big pile of shit.


Some common symptoms of sounding like shit:

  • Indistinguishable vocals. 
  • Constant feedback
  • “Buzz saw” guitar
  • Snare sounds like you’re hitting a wet cardboard box
  • Kick drum fights with the bass guitar for all the low frequencies, and they both lose.

It’s a mess, and everyone tunes out or leaves after 2 minutes.  Sorry, you’ve failed.

 

The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad have been playing live since 2005. We’ve been fortunate enough to have Jeff Mewbourn tape most of our performances.  His recordings don’t lie.  If we sounded like shit, we’ll know it the next day when he posts the audio.  So over the years we’ve been able to refine our stage setup to a point where we know we’ll sound as good as possible at any venue we play.  Because of lousy acoustics or a bad sound person, we might still sound terrible at any given gig, but we’ll still sound better than the rest of the bands on the bill.

 

Key Takeaways: Quit blaming the club for your bad sound. Recognize exactly what is not sounding that great at your shows and start to take action in changing these aspects.
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Your Big Amp Is Annoying is written by Ryan Graham, lead guitarist and producer of The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. Next Week: Some of the major setup issues most crappy-sounding live bands have in common.