Guitarist and unknown amp?

[RK]

How do you feel about having to play on a guitar amp unknown to you. In an
instant you have to connect your stomp box
up to an amp you never tried before, audience is waiting and the first notes
just doesn't sound anyway near what you wanted--
Ever tried this and what was your remedy?

[Mikey]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 23:25:34 +0100, "RK" <flemm...@mail.tele.dk>
wrote:

Ok... i've done just that 3 X in a row lately. The 1st time was a
miked 30w Crate, then a miked 10w SS Marshall. Then an unknown
un-miked amp with, too many knobs. I covered that by bringing my stomp
box, pre-rigged with 3 different degrees of over-drive. I also plan a
means of egress behind the stage..... in case they start throwing
things.....

I now own the 30w Crate. MX15. Freakin' loud and nice tone.
Also if it means anything to Marshall owners.... my 4104 JCM 800 was
under 4 feet of water. 6 months later..... it still works, after a
through contact cleaner treatment and bias adjustment. Those things
are tanks. Good thing because just 1 of the 2 Celestion G12-65
speakers is $200.

mikey

[Nil]

At that point, if aren't prepared for the situation, there is no
remedy. All you can do is suffer with what you have been given.

You should be prepared for that kind of situation before you get into
it by carrying a rig that doesn't depend on the amp to get an
acceptable sound.

Read the "Amp du Jour" section of Nels Cline's gear page for a good
perspective on this:

http://nelscline.com/tech.html

[Rufus]

Last time I did that I was doing sound and one of the guitar players got
heat stroke and had to be taken home before the last set was done...and
the rest of the band made me step in.

Hardest part was finding the switch to get the guy's amp out of standby
after getting through the tons of stuff he had on his pedal board...once
I got that done I just picked up his guitar and didn't touch anything
that wasn't labeled "volume" and just played.

That's my remedy. Other than just not doing it...

--
- Rufus

[WB]

On 2/5/2012 4:25 PM, RK wrote:
>
> Ever tried this and what was your remedy?
>
>

Been there -- done that ... I was likely better than
anyone judging -- no BFD !

[Squier]

well yeah... sort of anyways (I have played through tons of
amps so I have a general idea if it going to be Fender type circuit
or Marshall type thing or Voxy or Mesa/Boogie etc..)

but to me at that point the main concern isn't tones -
its to quickly dial in the right volume for the mix.
It might not sound great but at least get volume dialed in.

I usually start with everything at noon and go from there.
Quickly get a nice clean and then add in stomp - start playing.
Volume adjust and maybe a quick visit back to the amp along
the set list to give a tweak to tone controls.

Grin it a bear it and just play the set.
If your volume is good for the mix then you're good to go
for the first songs or the first set.
next set - some slght adjustments and just play.
you're not going to get tones you might like but
if you're in that situation - chances are whoever
you are playing with is grateful you're there filling in.

[Flasherly]

Since "unknown tones" don't really make good equipment advertising,
unknown to you hopefully is within an understanding to the rest of the
band ... else it's going the night of suck if all-around an orphan
wildcard baby is what you're left to deal with. . . .Hey, look here,
all the tubes are crap. ...Try, I'll play but don't expect cover or
signature sounds. If you're otherwise unable get a handle on it, I
suppose the best thing to do would be to blend for some minimum level
of unobtrusiveness -- efficacy at the golden mean of lower volumes. If
no one else there knows squat more than you about playing that
particular amp, other than it's an amp another regular member has
(somehow) managed, might be fun making up really outstanding excuses.
An ancillary aspect to creativity overall for competent musicianship
on a stage of the hardened-skin persona. . . .Past sucking tonal air
out of the sails of everyone around, if you're certain you technically
play well enough for the mix, relax, what's left to feel about great
and glorious spoonfuls of humble pie?

--
'I always keep in mind what I'm giving in return to people paying me
their wages.' -Fogelberg, CCR

[DeeAa]

Just once, for proper...when I was just beginning gigging and not that
experienced....and the bad thing was the amp had no means of turning
on or off overdrive channel, or it had just one channel - I forget
which was it. I just had my Les Paul with me, no pedals either.

We played grunge, with loads of switches from clean to lots of drive á
la Nirvana...what I did was I quickly dialed in a rather clean but
crunchy sound best I could, and just played with that. Felt horrible
the whole gig, but I just played.

Turns out, several people commented on my sounds, they really liked
the clarity etc.
So it was a valuable lesson - that's when I first realized you usually
need way less gain than you think - to the audience/listener it
usually sounds much better with less gain than too much. After that
I've gone by the rule that when recording or playing a gig, find the
gain level you like and then turn down the drive till it's too little
for your taste, and then it generally sounds way better in the mix.

Cheers,

Dee

[jtees4]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 23:25:34 +0100, "RK" <flemm...@mail.tele.dk>
wrote:

Just get the amp as clean as possible and rely on a distortion pedal
and get ready to tweak the tone knob on the pedal as needed.

[grinner]

"RK" <flemm...@mail.tele.dk> wrote in message
news:4f2f01de$0$56791$edfa...@dtext02.news.tele.dk...

first thing i would look for is the master volume and then the other one,
make sure that's there ;-).

[Miles Ahead]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 01:27:43 +1100, "grinner" <gri...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>first thing i would look for is the master volume and then the other one,
>make sure that's there ;-).

Not been near that spot in years, but yeah. Also, unless the guy
had some wall of sound pedal board, plug into the amp, adapt
from there. Trouble is, today, I'd guess, one's sound IS one big
web of knobs. Ya don't want to change all his settings, and maybe
they are not your's, but MV is key. I'd also guess you had some kind
of advance time to have a look, and/or it was sane in the 1st place.

Music has also changed enough from the past, when all you needed
is 3 chords, a Twin, and something you thought was close to the truth.

Hope the guy was ok..


JJTj

[dugjustdug]

On Feb 6, 3:04 am, DeeAa <aephei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So it was a valuable lesson - that's when I first realized you usually
> need way less gain than you think - to the audience/listener it
> usually sounds much better with less gain than too much.

Yes, Yes, YES!!! Dee nails it.

The times I've faced this, I get as clean as possible and let the
pedals do the work. I really try not to over-tweak it.

[jh]

..you'd propably fail with my 5E3....

sometimes it's just - leave it where it is, play, adopt to what you
hear, play


I know that many "modern" guitar players have a problem with *that*, but
it would be soooo easy. Everytime they activate their stomp distortion
units during our jams, I think: you're missing the whole fun the amp is
capable by itself.....

regards

Jochen

[RK]

Great link! He covers most of my findings. Having no rehearsal facility of
our own we practice in different "pay per hour" facilities which is equipped
with most a band need.
Depending which studio is vacant the amps differ and so there's a tedious
adjusting going on to find a usable tone, this has indeed been the case with
fender deville an hot rod types (not to mention Peavey).
What I have found is that many newer amps (even tube types) can drive the
input circuit into distortion (this was almost impossible in vintage tube
amps you simply can't overload my 65 AC30) I suspect newer tube amps to be
hybrids including solid state circuits??

[Grinner]

hope so, i guess my point is the MV is the first thing i'd look for, then
the other volume knob which is gonna give you some amp distortion then
tune the rest in from that.

a bit of tank reverb is always nice too.

...then all those transistorised noise thingies you gotta put yer feet
all over to stop the hum.

[TheChris]

On Feb 5, 5:25 pm, "RK" <flemmin...@mail.tele.dk> wrote:

You just go with it. The beauty of using pedals means that as long as
the amp can get a clean sound, I can get all the other stuff out of
it. Once I did a gig, and had a borrow one of those crappy Vox SS
amps... had a bunch of effects and crap... I just got the gainiest
sound I could and turned off all the reverb. When I was done, the
owner says, 'You didn't touch any knobs did you?' - I said, "Nope!" :)

Trust me, I made his amp rock! :)