The WORST thing about using HX Stomp Live [and MOST Digital Modelers]
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- For my Presets visit: johnnathancordy.gumroad.com/ Right so I had a gig last night, and it was one of the typical experiences (for me at least) where you're filling in for someone else, so there's like a digital desk with channel settings etc and you just plug in and kind of hope for the best. Here are some of the reasons that I think generally it's a real coin toss as to whether I actually get enjoyable results out of the HX Stomp (or indeed any modeler) live. Too many variables outside of my control.
This preset is "JC Gig 2022" - leave a comment below if you want me to drop it into the folder!
/ johnnathancordy get my backing tracks here
www.buymeacoffee.com/johnnath... - if you like what I do and
only if you wanted, you could buy me a coffee!
I've decided to make it possible to grab both my Helix/HX Stomp bundles (the expression bundle with freeze presets has always been separate) together for £5 - www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... - I will then email you a link to both bundles!
You can get my EXPRESSION patches in this bundle using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Try my patches (60-70+) for Helix or HX Stomp in this bundle for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Try my patches for Pod GO for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
/ johnnathancordy get my backing tracks here
www.buymeacoffee.com/johnnath... - if you like what I do and
only if you wanted, you could buy me a coffee!
00:00 Intro
2:07 Not an April Fools...
2:54 HIDDEN Global Functions that can be crucial
5:03 Trying to figure out what went wrong - in Ears?
5:38 Trying the headphones straight into HX Stomp - actually sounds how I'd expect
7:50 Silent stage - totally different experience than we are used to?
9:00 The main problem - you're not in control of your tone
9:35 Could this work?
11:25 Conclusions and what works for you?
Being in the music business since the 90's I can tell you this: it's not the gear, it's the sound guy. I played all kind of stages, from 200 seats clubs to 5000 seats arenas, using all sorts of gear from tube amps to modelers. Until my band had the money to hire a sound guy to travel with us, the sound was 50-50% chances to go either direction.
As an engineer (sound guy) who does shows from
I’ve had my best success tweaking my sounds with tracks similar to the material I have to play, then making small adjustments (global eq) based on the actual gig - it’s almost never what I really hear in my head though, we’re constantly at the mercy of the sound engineer 🙏🏼.
High quality IEMs are a must to protect your hearing and get an enjoyable live tone. I also use a Powercab 112+ as a stage amp in FRFR mode to get the feel, and interaction between the speaker and the guitar. The problem some poeple have with modelers is not enough switches and limited direct access to knobs to make changes while playing live.
Hardest part of modelers for me is the amount of interface “under the hood.” I like knob per function when problem solving. Cheers.
Complete agreement here.
Anyone got any tips for stopping soundpeople from (intentionally or otherwise) making decisions that totally brutalise your tone?
Asking for a friend.
I think so far:
-"Please can you make sure the aux sends/in ear mix is set to pre-fader please" - (i.e make it Anakin, not Darth)
-"I don't know what the usual guitarist uses, but I've got this going direct, it might be worth putting it into a fresh channel?"
-"Has anyone seen the sound guy?"
-"Who is that grabbing the bridesmaid?"
-"Oh no, not again."
Yeah FRFR cabs and power amp. Or a PA and a normal cab.
re the the global eq. I dont use (nor have ever used) that feature. Why would I? I would just use the amp eq or an eq as part of the signal chain.
If I really wanted a global eq I would prefer to do it on another unit like an EQ floor pedal or a rack unit (depending on where it needs to happen).
I don't like the idea of having hidden biases in my workflow. Even a little light wouldnt be enough.
I come from the days of rocking a half stack with a 100 watt head on stage. Even then we did try and work with the sound guy to achieve good levels but still keeping the tone. Generally then you would make adjustments at soundcheck, mind you playing in an empty room, then once the gig happens, volume would creep back up and the audience would absorb some of the sound. Still gigging and now using low wattage amps (occasionally running direct) and generally less frivolity all around.
You do have to work with the sound guy and figuring out how to get your tone at a low volume is key.
@@sacredgeometry so you just to hell with the (relatively new) idea of a silent stage and insist that some on stage reinforcement will be necessary?
Use a real amp? Works nicely
@Philthy Casual absolutely!
You could ask your engineer to change the aux sends on the board to pre-fader or pre-FX rather than post-fader. This will give you your direct signal to your IEMs without baking in his compressor, EQ, etc. -- Also, like SouthPaw mentioned, you can have a splitter before the inputs of the stagebox and run your own IEM rig with a XR18 or X32 Rack and skip the mixing engineer all together. You may already know this and I'm just beating the dead horse. Love your playing man!
Yeh Ericken! I think I said in the video that the most enjoyable time I've had with just in-ears, I used the headphone out of the HX Stomp into a mixer of my own, and then had a send from the board (sans guitar) and blended that with my own signal....
Sorry, I missed that bit at the end. Glad you've got it figured out. It can be very difficult to play creatively when you're not getting that positive feedback loop from your tone that you're used to. All because the sound guy only knows how to move faders. 😩
@@johnnathancordy Yeah man. That's the way to do it. I either have a mixer on stage for helix or bass stuff, or I run my monitor mix through the kemper aux in and use that as my headphone amp. It's good to find your safe volume levels with your guitar sounds ahead of time and then on the gig you've got a landmark to work the rest of the mix around so you don't hit yourself with too much.
I really appreciate your tasteful arrangements. Over and over again when watching your playing, I feel "I would have gone that direction as well.." which makes it more entertaining and engaging. Already been using full fat Helix Floor on tour for 5 years, but after seeing how effective you can make the stomp, going to get the Stomp XL for fly gigs. Keep making videos! Cheers.
The problem with modeling is not so much modeling per se. The problem with modeling is it puts the musician utterly at the mercy of inept sound engineers (who unfortunately happen to absolutely DOMINATE both the church and festival gig worlds.) 🤦♂️
How does using a non-modeling amp solve for an inept sound engineer, though?
@@evanmargol3408 i had the exact same thought! If the sound engineer is inept he's going to be inept regardless of using a modler or a 100w amp with a 4x12 cab 🤷🏽♂️
@@evanmargol3408 maybe doesn’t wholly solve for but could certainly mitigate.
It’s an assumption, but I would think that a FoH engineer is going to be capable of handling a signal from a mic’d amp/speaker better than a DI feed from a modeler - generally speaking, assuming a good percentage are inexperienced with modelers.
I've used my helix a couple of times live. It sounds great. I use in-ears at rehearsals and make any adjustments. Also helpful is that we record our rehearsals...so its good feedback to see how the helix sounds with the full band.
Very good thoughts here. I'm just starting to work with these issues. We used to take amps to our shows and in my case a Vox AC30 from 1964. Because of obvious reasons that all gigging musicians know we all had to downsize a little, so the idea was to skip the amps and use simulations (started with a Palmer Pocket Amp on my effects board). We have played around 50 shows since then and I have to say I did miss the amp on various occasions. Got the HX Stomp yesterday and will see how that plays out. You are definitely extremely at the mercy of the soundguy regarding your stage sound (btw. we don't use in ear monitoring) if you go down that road. GREAT VIDEO and THOUGHTS. Loved watching it!
I do a lot of sight reading gigs or gigs with bands I don’t regularly play with. I’ve tried using modelling but have found that the results both in monitoring and FOH are really variable and that patches that sound killer at home don’t translate to the stage due to differences in setup and gear. Also if something is wrong then these devices aren’t really compatible with fixing it on stage. I’m back to using a combo now and it’s so straightforward. It’s stressful enough playing with a new band without adding to it! Most times I’m asked to use IEMS there are live drums so I can’t see there’s much point as on stage volume is already high anyhow!
Great video an input as always. As an amp an board guy normally I've recently gone to the fm9. I'm digging the versatility with every show learning something new. That being said u brought up a good point. We are traveling and performing at a venue using their sound tech an house system. I never thought of asking for a blank strip if I use my FM9. Makes perfect sense, thanks for that!
Hey John
I've been gigging with modellers exclusively for the last 5 years. Like you it took a while for me to learn about global EQs, high and low cuts, never to dial in gig presets through headphones and all those other little things that can have a huge effect on your tone. I'm lucky that our band has a rehearsal space and we rehearse through the PA that we more often than not gig with, and we almost always do our own sound. That means I'm able to tweak things at a decent volume at rehearsal and then adjust the global EQ if necessary when we set up at the gig. I don't like gigging with in ears as I want to hear what's going on out front - when we get a crowd who are having a great time and singing along, I want to be part of that. For monitoring we have 3 small FRFR wedges and I always have the FOH mix through mine so that I can hear as much as possible what the crowd are hearing and whether I need to increase or decrease my volume for different parts accordingly. I'm pretty happy with my tone, but often feel the other guitarist's tone is fuller regardless of what rig he plays through - that could well just be my ears and insecurities though! In the time I've been using modellers I've learnt to treat it like a physical rig as much as possible and to avoid going down the rabbit hole with dozens of IRs etc. Also to make small and minimal changes at a time and to use half as much gain as I think I need!
With modellers and in ear monitors I miss how the guitar behaves/reacts when it’s not being hit by the sound from an amp.
From a band perspective, we employ a closed system (IEM with an individual mix by each member via their phone) with feeds to FOH. We use a hybrid setup for bass and guitars via real amps/cabs and modelers (optimum IRs, no FRFR) with no issues as we have tweaked and honed our sound to work as flawlessly as possible. So far no issues/concerns. I would say it requires good system design and pre-production during rehearsals prior to live. FOH is going to do what they are going to do unless you have (ideally) a dedicated FOH engineer as a member of your band. Informative video BTW, thanks!
This has been my exact experience this past year brother. Spent too much on modelers and IRs, but at the end of the day most PAs sound like trash so theres no salvaging it. Unless they let me eq at the desk lol. So I'm off modelers too. Lugging around a 1x12 combo now.
Why not use a power amp and the pedal for the preamp. I know there is still an amp involved but solid state amp/pedals exist and you can get a nice 1x12 of 2x12 that will push some air.
Never know how my Presets will sound at Church but determined they were always insanely bright. I've learned in time to darken the daylights out of them and, If I'm not on the front line, I ditch the In-Ears for Headphones which helps.
I'm going to send this video to our sound techs and other electric guitarists. One thing though, if you dial in your patches with IEMs you're going to have to hope that transfers well to FOH. You want to hear good tones, and you want the crowd to hear good tones. If the method you use for monitoring during patch construction is not equal to what comes out of the PA ( even with a blank channel strip) then you're choosing what's more important -- you're experience on IEMs or the audience experience.
Thanks for your video!
I have made similar experiences like you. One day I played a kind of a nylon stringed silent guitar in a divine service. But the man at the desk came too late and we had no time for a sound check. And, guess what, he plugged me right into a channel with a heavy compressor setting. Worst experience ever!
Oh yeah, and one day we played an instrumental gig with in-ears and all sounded great and we had a good feeling - but the audience looked sort of puzzled at us. After some songs, one headphone fell out and I had to realise: most of our electronic devices and Play-back were routed to nowhere. It was a strange sound with no melodic line!
Greetings from Germany
I feel like this is exactly why Powercabs are so great. You can change your high and low cuts without it affecting the FOH signal, or you can run it in Speaker mode or LFR flat mode and have it mic’d up with one of those settings. My usual method is just running IR’s on my Powercabs through my mix ready patches and going XLR out, letting FOH take care of the rest. I think at the end of the day, you can only do so much to compensate for lazy sound engineers. It’s still better than throwing an sm57 on a cab during a 10-15 minute sound check. Either way, an engineer that doesn’t touch the EQ or compression on a guitar preset will not get as optimal results. I really like your suggestion about asking them to turn off their compression on the way in!
John, first up - love your playing and you have some great tones and i am learning a lot about HX from watching you, so cheers for that.
Here is my 2 cents after gigging with in-ears, silent stage, desks with dynamics destroying noise gates, engineers that are not sure of the purpose of electric guitar and all sorts of other joy sucking tone mutilating environments…
In a lot of your backing tracks (where i am guessing you do a lot of dialling in and practise with the presets), the drums and in particular hi hats, and cymbals in general are not particularly prominent, contrasted with playing live with a real drummer, this can be very different thing and can cause you to disappear in a mix. In ears can filter out a lot of that high end and of course low end depending on fit etc… in the old days having a amp sitting nearby allowed us to to quickly adjust the eq and volume to compensate for the environment, but having to dive into menus on presets is just simply less practical in the moment. So a mixer of your own to adjust the band levels and your own eq can make all the difference to your experience and therefore playing.. it doesn’t however solve what is heard out front, but that then is the sound engineers problem not yours…
Your JCClean sounds awesome when I play at my wife’s church. It’s become my go to. Everybody has a personal Behrenger PM-16 mixer behind them to adjust their own mix settings. The problem we’ve had when our regular sound guy isn’t there is that the back up guys goes through and readjusts everything, so the bass tone (bass player also uses a stomp for his amp sub) is so compressed that it’s just thuddy and lifeless.
Played literally thousands of gigs with pedalboard in front of combo or half stack/2x12s, often in tiny places.
Main working band has switched to IEM and ampless. I'm using my Stomp mostly as my clean amp platform and delay only - means I can still adjust tone quickly with pedals. We have a stagebox digital mixer. My thoughts are:
- if it's a digi mixer and a very small gig, are you able to access via phone/tablet and see what processing is on your channel?
- after a successful dep gig, ask them to save the mix scene or whatever with your settings in case you dep for them again.
- I don't really see much point in FRFRs or powered monitors: it doesn't drop the stage volume or the weight/car space. If I'm doing that I'll take a real combo.
FWIW I love your tone, and you're my go-to guy for Stomp stuff. I've had bad sound with a real amp on dep gigs, just for different reasons.
Your point about the global EQ is very prescient!
FWIW, another thing to be careful of that's in global settings is having the output set appropriately for where it's going on the board (line v. mic) and where trim is set on the board. We run our sound from stage most gigs, and usually get good results, but I'm usually using a powered pa speaker for guitar monitor near me. Working with the master output higher on the stomp/helix and minding the board/trim is something I've been doing better lately and it makes a noticeable improvement. I've found that the mindset for using this can feel very counter intuitive compared to the traditional amp/pedals thing, but I had 30 years to get pretty good at that. The other thing to remember, that you suggested as well, is that using an amp isn't always magical either. I think that on the whole, I've had much more consistency with the modeler than I ever could manage with an amp from room to room, etc.
Such great comments here Jon, always good content and thoughts. One thing I have noticed while dialing in tones on my PodGo with in ears has been when I go to my weekly church gig, And plug-in to our in her system. it always sounds just the slightest bit different. It’s almost as if The board itself and whatever preamp is in the board affects the tone just that much. Also, the mix we hear in our ears, is pre-EQ so theoretically it should sound exactly like when I dial it in at home. So, inevitably what I end up doing is going up to the gig on my own time, and dialing in those presets to my liking. All that to say, totally agree that it can be annoying and sometimes frustrating to play live with modelers even in a scenario where most everything can be controlled and is basically set the same every week. Cheers!
One thing to consider is what you are plugging your in ears into. I find that wireless packs can degrade clarity, particularly in the low end. As a bass player, that’s not ideal. If I can, I will ask for a wired pack, OR, if you’re willing to set up your Helix floor, I’ll just ask for the send cable from the board to my Helix returns and just plug my in-ears directly into the headphone jack of my Helix. It’s a bit more complicated, but it puts you in control of your monitor. No bass in my mix and I can adjust the monitor mix to taste. You’ll have to use at least 1/2 of one of your paths on Helix to work, but this method has worked really well for me.
Nailed it. I'm currently having the same issues. Our band uses IEM for live shows, sounds checks and rehearsals.....no amps and electric drums. Plus we actually like to move around on stage so ears makes it so easy. I use shure 535 and I find the tone from my powercab is awesome when used, but with the band and ears, thin...brittle.....just completely removes the joy of it all but we dont use any other monitoring because it's less equipment to lug around. I'm also learning the control strips because I don't think any of us really know how to mix our ears properly. We don't have the luxury of a sound guy so we have to do it ourselves, but we do have a digital board so we can all connect with our ipads/phones to control our own mixes on stage remotely. We bring a router with us so even with gigs that have sound guys, they'll usualyl let us hook teh router up so we can control our ear mixes if possible. However, the interface is not the full deal as I can;t see the advanced EQ, comp or limiters, just sliders. I've often wondered if I can do an EQ or something to my ears.....work in progress and will read the comments. TY for this topic. As I'm reading I see lots of players doing their own mixes so I'm trying to wrap my head around it all to translate text to a picture in my head.
I think that's the kind of situation that is most common for me - there might be a sound guy, there might not, but in most cases it's all a bit of a rush etc.
The lack of joy thing nails it. It's just. A bit of a chore when the sound is not there?
I’m in a little different situation. My gigs are small club/stage where nothing is miced, vocals only through the PA. I’m using a pod go wireless into a Headrush 108 frfr as my amp. It’s hard to adjust eq, gain, etc. on the fly. And if I don’t like the sound in the room, it’s hard to adjust. Thinking about going back to pedalboard/amp and using the pod go for the studio.
I find that the eq on modelers can be absurdly unreliable for reasons unknown to me.
There was a gig where I found that my guitar has extreme sub frequencies that only surfaces if the system is huge. I got punished because I didn't roll the global bass down that one time.
The overall harshness/exaggeration at random frequencies has been a constant scare for me.
Hmm yeh that's a real issue too because through some aggressive subs those frequencies are going to be trouble, but in your ears, you want as much of that as possible to enhance "feel"
Awesomely crisp focus on those amps during the section on the in-ears 👍
LOL....i had a similar experience. My tuner was off by 4 hz, and it was driving me nuts for month, and I didn't realize it. I now always check the tuner configuration before playing. You are absolutely correct, a checklist is a must for these digital gears. Things are just getting more and more complex....tweak..tweak...tweak!
With Kemper I have always listened to my own guitar sound direct out of my Kemper and then asking for an auxiliary return from the monitoring desk (into the kemper), without the sound engineer returning my own guitar signal to me. Gave me all control and I was not at the mercy of what happened on the monitoring board for my own sound. Worked perfectly.
Now trying to figure out how I would want to do this with the HX stomp.
What about using the stage monitors(if available at the venue) for monitoring guitar? Isn't that what was done traditionally in combination with the stage volume?
Do you find presets annoying? When I had a midi based set up it was always frustrating trying to get a sound that suited the mix and the room from presets I’d put together earlier. With a good stage sound front of house bothers me less I think.
Your music and playing never disappoints!
Interesting video. There's also the perspective of the audience: Since so many guitarists and bands in general rely on digital gear, in-ear monitoring and subsequently a somewhat "quiet" stage with no monitors, gigs in smaller venues can potentially sound worse for the audience. This is something I experienced when I attended a concert in a room with a capacity of about 150-200 people. The PA was totally overwhelmed, the guitars were almost inaudible and the drums totally dominated everything because there was practically no stage sound going on at all, apart from the drums for obvious reasons. It would have been way better with actual guitar amplification on stage.
Totally - right - so many gigs I've been to the guitars are like nowhere to be heard, you can hear vocal and drums and that's like it?
It comes down to communication with the sound guy. When I was first doing silent stage gigs with the Stomp it was a bit of a struggle to get a good tone. But after multiple conversations with different sound engineers, I was able to dial in good patches and communicate what I needed from the sound guy for my wedge or my in ears. For me it was, if you can send me a flat signal of me to my monitor, please do that.
It can be a coin flip for sure and it can be really frustrating. If you know what you need, can communicate it and the sound engineer listens and executes then things are good. If not then I just move on. Oh well.
For loud gigs with the stomp the powercab with its own preset is amazing to me and is my preferred way to play live now. Super light and I get consistent tones every time with very minimal at gig tweaking.
How often on gigs are you actually able to run wireless and go out there and hear the end result from the audience’s perspective? This is actually usually my role during events, seeing the whole situation is conforming to standards at set distances and sending feedback to a sound guy, be it one with the band, or one we have brought in. The PA itself is usually always the same and used with a mix of DJ’s or live bands and it’s most often with live music that I hear problems with the overall mix. I’m a bit curious as to how many of these problems would be resolved by using traditional Amps. Reckon this would make a good video series seeing it from not just the guitarist’s perspective but the rest of the band and the actual sound guy.
You think this is possible ?
i used amp and pedalboard setups for over 30 years and went to a mostly helix approach about 8 years ago. my gigs lately have been in a church setting where they have inears for the musicians. i use a wireless so i can walk out to the console and work on my sound in the house with the sound person. i also use really good open back headphones rather than inears. this lets me hear the live sound on the stage which is helpful. some may think that looks a little weird but in a church setting i am not trying to be the center of attention so i just try to hide a little. we don't have individual monitor mixes so i insert the monitor mix on a return in my helix that's after my send going to the house so i can make my guitar level exactly how i want it in my headphones. i also have high and low shelving eq blocks tweaked for each individual patch to avoid the excessive lows and spikey highs in the house. i think of this as making my sound be more like an amp and less "hi-fi". i use acoustic sometimes too so i do less high cut on that patch because i want that to sound more hi-fi. i'm thinking about getting a neve direct box for going to the house but i don't know if that will be worth doing yet. after all this i still do strongly prefer hearing an amp and do that when possible but i'm trying to best cope with each environment. not everyone that's part of my "signal chain" has a musical ear so i try to coach them to try to hear more musically. that's helpful too.
If you set up your tones at playing volume, through an Accurate pair of studio monitors ( i.e. Genelec or even Mackie HR824's ) your tones should translate without the need for EQ on the console... ask the engineer to run you flat on the board... I use the AxeFX III, and it is glorious... same exact sound night after night, no worrying about bad tubes or dying transformers and the live mixer ( me ) can get a cleaner mix without having to fight stage volume. For in-Ears, try Comply Isolating ear tips.. they seal well and don't let bass escape... I have ours mixed like it would sound in the studio, with delays and verb... inspiring to play. Lastly, Hi-pass should probably be set somewhere around 80Hz, if you set your tones right. I tried the Helix Native, but couldnt get it to sound alive and without ice-pick, for my life... but choosing the right IR for my AxeFX III or FM9, and I hardly had to do anything with the tone ( IR's are about 90% of the tone, it seems... ) Hope this helps. Thank you for all your videos... your playing is fresh and inspiring !
You ever tried gigging with modeling, but reinforcing your sound with an FRFR or a floor monitor? You should try it out and let us know if it helps the problems you're describing. I am currently looking at the EV PXM-12MP floor monitor to use at home for practice, but also to monitor at gigs. Its fairly cheap and supposedly it works really well with modelers because it has on-board DSP you can use to tune it to sound the way you think it should.
The Global EQ thing is big, I agree. I've been messing with the Ampero II, and I really appreciate the touch screen for that reason, you can check things like that super quickly.
If you really want control you could use an individual in ear mixer for in ears and that way you could blend a pure signal from the helix with a mix from the desk. CIEM make a big difference with the seal too, you don't even need to spend big money on lots of drivers.
Quick follow up, I'm getting my in ear setup ready for the summer gigging season. I'm planning on running a Behringer P1 and running two mono inputs. That way I can blend between a summed mono mix from the desk and the signal from my modeler.
So on my XL I will use stomp mode and dedicate one knob for the EQ (?)
how do you feel about using your presets through a clean amp with loads of headroom? i have a sovtek and im looking at getting a hx stomp but not sure how it will take amp modelling presets or if if i should just use it for a multi effects pedal
Best bet if you are amp modelling is to use a FRFR amp. Line 6 has their power cab, Headrush Makes an affordable unit, and I use the Tech 21 Power Engine DD. These don’t color you sound as much and allow the modelling to be a bit more faithful.
I’ve had a similar experience but in a studio session. When I get in my tone sounds bad but the when I play live or even in my own studio my tone sounds great
I would also add that the Global EQ in Helix makes such a huge difference when the Low and High cut are dragged back. It takes it from that processed thin sound, to something more like a real amp sound....again imo.
I used to gig with my FM3 into an FRFR monitor or back line but I couldn’t rely on most sound guys to keep my levels right. Pro guys were no problem but otherwise trouble. I’ve now switched to running the FM3 into the front of my Quilter Micropro stack. This gives me an amp behind me that I can feel as well as tweak and enable s me to adjust my volume as needed. Best of both worlds IMO.
How is it that so many people have the same lament and no manufacturers are addressing it? My HXStomp presets sound nothing like they do in headphones when sent through a house system and monitored with in-ears. I had the same issue with a Cerberus before buying the HX Stomp.
At practice and at gigs I plug my HX Stomp XL into a small coaxial powered speaker called a DLM8, made by Mackie. Visually it’s just a nondescript looking little cube, especially if you pull off the Mackie running man logo on the front, and it weighs just over 20 lbs. I park it on a stool or on top of the bass amp depending on how much room there is, and I’ve been very pleased with the sound coming out of it. I feed the sound to FOH via the XLR on the back of the speaker and my patches translate very well. While they are not cheap new, I got the DLM8 second hand for $250, and more recently got a pair of DLM12s for $700. Live sound equipment is often sold off VERY cheap by churches and hobbyists.
I am pretty basic with my direct set up. I have global eq off. I go left channel to desk and eq front of house with channel eq. I then go to my IEM from the right channel and add a 7 band EQ between them or a powered FRFR speaker instead of IEM. I get lots of feed back to me and a great font of house sound.
I have expensive IEMs and some high-end Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones. With the IEMs I always notice this sort of "marbly" texture to guitar tone, and the low end issue you mention. I have found if you can pan your guitar slightly and the rest slightly the other way it seems to help. The Sonys seem to fix the fidelity and loss of low end overall, which I really prefer the sound quality. But.. you look like a DJ.
I use Sensaphonics In ears (soft silicone), and quite honestly, they do more with dual drivers than most other (hard acrylic) types accomplish with quad drivers. If you go custom, they are the ones to get.
We're doing our second gig this weekend where we'll have someone else doing the sound and the first time not using our own mixer. Good tip about the channel strip, I'll mention it to the sound guy. Is it customary to tip the sound guy if he's really done a bang up job? I'm not using in ears but will be plugging a stage monitor directly into my Quad Cortex. That way, I can control my own stage sound.
I think sound people who do a good job should be praised, especially these days with digital desks etc and so on I think it can be a tricky job - at least say great job?
I think the Global EQ is a useful tool, but not being able to easily see when it's On/Off is unacceptable. I had planned to post some suggestions about it on IdeaScale. For instance, I'd like there to be at least 5 Global EQ "Profiles" I could set that could be Selected/reloaded when using different guitars/pickups, etc., and a way to know if any is on or off. I posted the suggestions.
Remember "A=440 Hz" as a standard for pitch? That A is the one one at the 5th fret on the 1st string; the fundamental frequency for that note is 440 Hz. That means the fundamental for the A on the 2nd fret of the 3rd (G) string is 220 Hz, and the fundamental for the open 5th (A) string is 110 Hz. If you have a low cut (hi pass) filter set to 100 Hz, that means you're cutting the fundamentals at around the low A note. So it shouldn't be a surprise that settings above that make a mess of your tone. The low E string's fundamental is ~82 Hz. A low cut with a frequency much above that will really start affecting the guts of your tone. That may be fine in a mix (e.g., to keep from competing with the bass), but it may not be fun to play with in your ears.
Speaking as someone who sometimes does sound for others, a guitar tone that sounds great on its own may not work well in a mix (b/c of the aforementioned competition with the bass, in the low end, or the vocalist in the mids, etc.). If the engineer has your channel EQ'd for the mix, but can only send that processed signal back to you in your monitors (floor or in-ear), you may be unhappy even though the audience is quite happy. Ericken's point about the aux (monitor) sends is getting at this.
As for making patches for your in-ears, I'm not so sure that's a good idea. IEMs (esp. inexpensive ones) have EQ curves that vary a lot. Even expensive full-size headphones have quite non-uniform EQ curves. You don't want your patch to sound good in your IEMs if that means it's sub-optimal for the audience hearing it through the FOH speakers. If you want to fix your IEM sound, you probably want to put a separate EQ in front of it. If the IEM's response is screwing with your guitar tone so much that it's distracting, then it's probably also screwing up the sound of the rest of the band, and adjusting for that with a separate mix should make the whole monitor mix sound better. Well, you probably know all that better than I do. But maybe some viewer/reader won't! 8-)
I've been experimenting with IEMs for live monitoring for something like 20 years (I only gig occasionally, so these aren't extensive experiments). I've tried models that cost anywhere from $80 to $200 or so, two or three with custom molds, the rest with various foamies. None of them have ever sounded good. I think some of us have ears that just don't work as with IEMs as other people's ears. That said, they probably sounded about as good as a wedge+amp at that price sounds-and probably better, for a bad room!
-Tom
My first introduction to inears was with a fairly expensive set of iems. Westone AM 3 Pro. They are ambient inears that let in some of the background sound. At the time I was using a CabM direct to desk. The sound coming back from the desk was terrible. Really harsh brittle sounding due to the engineer returning me the post mix value of my guitar. After that i bring a small pocket mixer where I took the headphones out of the cabm and into the mixer and then also took a signal from the desk off all but mine. I then control the 2 levels myself. I moved over to the HX stomp about a month ago and had first gig at the weekend. I spend hours on setting up this thing and had intitally thought that all sounded great in headphones not iems. In rehearsals the guitar just wasn't cutting through the band. Im guessing there are a few params to look out for such as reducing early reflections and boosting the magic mid section. I recently started looking at some of the new 3.5 DIR presets and they sound really good in that the sound is much fuller and closer to the ear. I think my presets suffer from being a little too distant. It is a learning curve and one I'm happy to keep working on. Still not sure about iems though. For me its unnatural to hear an amp in isolation so close to your ears.
It is a crap shoot and too much dependance on the sound of the monitors. Even when using a amp w/mike, I don't like to have too much guitar coming out of the monitor. I'm in Nashville and 90% of the time I'm using a real amp.
@Philthy Casual I would hope for the love of God if you have to go direct you at least get your own monitor mix.
I know that it's absolutely possible to get a good tone with modeling gear, tons of large, well known bands leave their amps at home now. But I think a dedicated sound engineer is worth their weight in gold in those kind of situations. The few exceptions I can think of are Nita Strauss, who does her solo gigs with nothing but a Boss GT1000 straight to the board. For my part, I kinda do half and half. Tube amp straight to the board via a two notes torpedo, but all my effects are run through the Line 6 HX effects. I always tell myself that if my tube amp died tomorrow, I'd absolutely go get a HX Stomp to replace it, but tone is very important to me. I'd end up doing exactly what your thinking about, requesting the sound board guy to start with a blank slate on both my channel and IEM monitor feed.
Hey Rodney, I think it's also the case for a lot of us at this level you know where we are just kinda showing up to gigs and often times there's like an hour or two to set up, and there may not even be an actual sound guy, it's just one job of someone in the band. But yeh it's very frustrating sometimes and a little embarrassing when they're looking at you like....why does it sound like that....Sigh
Man, I can 't t live without an amp. I tried powered speakers etc with different modelers but it is not the same . The problem is loud drummers , a bass player with an amp . A powered speakers is loud enough but all I do is trying my modeler to sound like a simple amp tone and build from there. But it reacts never the same. So , I told myself ...take an amp . A clean tube amp . I discovered the Brunetti singleman 30 . Awesome amp. Small enough. Good wattage. 3 Pedals an done. But I play in bars ...blues, rock and roll and some country music.
I love your channel btw . And your playing too. Some nice boogies in the background . Take them with some pedals and enjoy the gigs agian😉
That intro tune might be the best so far! Wow! 🤘
Couple years ago i sold my fractal and bought a real set again. It made me enjoy live performing again. IEM gave me loss of hearing. i play with a tube amp behind me that i set at a volume that the soundman can work with and a couple of powered wedges with guitar speakers that i can turn up to hear my self properly. I don't mind the carrying around of my gear. Church music, silent stage music is not my cup of tea anyway.
I don’t gig anymore but if that happens I’ll get a solid state power amp and use any cab available at the time…
This has been my issue with digital alternatives to traditional amps on stage. Every sound guy is different, not every rig is eq'd flat and so on. I'll spend hours at home perfecting a tone, usually high gain, and get to a gig and it sounds like a buzz saw. WTF?! What I have determined is that a real amp bleeds volume offstage, in most situations, and is blended with the mic'd sound. Same with on stage if your guitar is feed back through a monitor. You get that combination of amp and mic'd amp in your little area of the stage. It's very rare that a mic'd amp sounds exactly like standing in front of an amp and with a modeler you don't get that "in the room sound" too. Not to mention every mic on stage contributes to the overall sound and if there is no amp making sound it's even more dependent on the modeler. Also, and this is I think missed by almost everyone, the volume you create your modeled tones is so important. If you craft your tone at low volumes, you won't detect the rumble or the obnoxious high end. You need to simulate stage volumes to find all the frequencies that ruin a good modeled tone.
Most local sound guys don't know how to eq. Especially guitar. Which is mind boggling to me since most play music through their PA. It's not hard to pay attention to how things sound in your favorite music and try to mimic those sounds, but I digress... Long story short, an amp on stage, in most gigs, can be heard in combination with the PA's mic'd version and that's why modelers sound so much different and are hard to adjust to.
I've been trying for a decade to get away from my amp/cab set up with kempers, fractals, Helix and many others and I always go back to the real amp. But here's the giant elephant in the room. Nobody cares. If you play like John you can play a first act guitar and a distortion pedal straight into a FOH and people will love it.
I agree. Thank you!
Just curious why don’t you use stage sound with an FRFR or an actual amp/cab of some sort? I use my stomp in the 4CM and sometimes just straight in the fx loop depending on the setting and it has much more of that “amp” feel and obviously stage volume. (But be easy on me; it is just an honest question from a local gigging musician)
Hey Jose! I think I'm going to insist on it in future, sometimes it'll be due to smaller stages, or then other times the soundchap has basically wanted only drums making noise.....
I have spent more on in-ears than guitar stuff in the past year. Getting a natural sound with a clean bass boost is a must for me, and totally changed my experience of silent stages. I actually prefer using in ears over having an amp blasting at me, as I can hear every nuance of my tone, but I still have the slam of the low end in my head. And with all the chifi options out there, they don't have to be crazy expensive.
I totally agree about the sound guy though. Only once did I have someone high pass my signal at 150, and it was the most difficult gig I have ever played. After that, I made sure that there were absolutely no effects and filters on my channel.
Is there a way that you've found works to get people to be receptive to that request? I think it kind of feels like treading on someone's toes to ask?
@@johnnathancordy I'll usually start off by asking them how my tone sounds from their end and what changes I need to make for the room or mix, then let them know I can make the adjustments on my end so they don't have to eq at the board. They usually don't want me to change all that much, but it still makes them feel in charge.
Then again I know most of the sound guys since I live on a tiny island so it's pretty easy to have an open conversation about it.
Moral of the story is moving to Maui solves all problems, in ears included.
I like to put an SM58 infront of an amp. Easy. If you have a drummer, you don't have a silent stage. A sound guy is there to make my life easier - not the other way around.
Also, silent stage/IEM gigs require tech knowledge that’s often lacking at FOH. Under hurried conditions, “you can’t fix stupid” often applies. Carrying a compact mixer with 3-band EQ on at least 2 channels can save the day. As you pointed out, run a line from your modeller, and tailor your own mix!
I'm new to this and I have an hx stomp I also sing, will get the headrush 108 as my speaker and which small mixxer do you recommend?
The only problem would be whatever they’re doing to your signal will still be going out to the FOH mix, no?
Your playing is insane !!
Are you using studio monitor headphones or just regular headphones. Huge difference.
I played at church recently, and I wasn’t used to using in-ear monitors. There was that little thing that let me mix my headphones. Mid- service, the left headphone made a “CKSHHHHHHHH” sound, so I tried to just pull that one out. But the drummer was on my left and it was ripping my ear off, so I put it back in to block the drums, and I went to try to pan my mix right so I didn’t get the “CKSHHH”. I accidentally cranked the master, and then that was all the attention I could give it before I had to just play my parts and take the pain. Except it wasn’t just pain, I’m sure I lost some hearing. I wish I’d just missed some parts and not lost some hearing. No getting that back.
I don't know if sound engineers in Sweden are more timid, but I make it clear pretty early, telling him/her that I've cut the lows and the highs at my end and put the eq where I want it and then we go from there. Using wireless standing with the engineer compromising together. Many times he doesn't have to do much, just tweak the low mids and the high mids. I took responsibility for this around 2009, noticing that your sound pretty much sounds as good as the engineer is interested of his job! Talk to them!
Peace and Love! ✌️❤️
So I use in ears always. I use shure 535 but the key is that everyone is different in terms of your ear canal so you have to find the iem tip that seals for you and gives you the best low end response to me I had to change the stock cushion tips for the flexible plastic baffle ones. They aren't as comfy but they sit in and don't move at all in my ears. Maybe give them a try. Also I manage the in ear mix on a separate mixer coming out of the axefx 3 so the sound troll doesn't feed me cheetos
Interesting video man... re the global EQ. I never use mine unless it’s a gig... i save it in case of a problem room & it’s my “back pocket tool’ to use at a gig if I need it.
Modelers aside... bro i think you are so good... so listenable is unreal.. great feel and technique .. where are you from ? Sorry where are you based?
Very happy with the interface on my Headrush gigboard. Super fast to change settings (including global eq) with the touch sensitive screen. Haven´t even read the manual. Sold my HX stomp because I couln´t the stand the pedals interface. Software was ok though but who wants to have a computer connected in a live situation :-)
What works for me: Kemper (no Line 6 stuff), ear molds for isolation and good bass response for in ears and Aviom in ear monitor mixing.
For me it’s the amp tone mixed with the house speakers that make it sound so live as appose to using an hx stomp and taking one in ear out and hearing how dead it sounds 😭😭
I've posted a link to this video on several church sound/musician forums and generated quite the discussion. In the U.S., I've read that the vast majority of live music played weekly is in churches, so I suspect many watching videos like this ( as well as buying patches) are using them there. And we have guitarists of varying skill levels, but also sound technicians who are often untrained volunteers. I'm getting some traction on the idea of a blank channel strip. We bought a Behringer X32 console last Fall. No training, and I just found that a volunteer had placed a compressor and EQ on the guitar channel for a specific problem on a specific day for a specific guitarist --- and then left that in place for months regardless of different guitarist using different gear. :-)
ask them if you can mix yourself on a remote device. my last band had a behringer setup and being able to directly access my channel in the mains and do my own monitor mix was unbelievably great. the software is called x air and it is free and available for ios and android. after using that you won't know how you lived without it.
@@scottv8410 I have. Behringer p16 on order 😊
I’ve got a kemper stage and have had nothing but hell with it , don’t program nothing into it because it’ll disappear at random lol . If I use it I use one profile and my volume
Make sure your ears feed is set to prefade. On most mixers, that will also be pre dynamics and EQ. That will leave your guitar unmolested in your ears, while still allowing the sound person to adjust it for the overall mix out front.
YEP! Put that on the list of things to ask soundperson?
@@johnnathancordyI posted that before you mentioned using a separate mixer. If that's the way you want to go, the Rolls PM-351 is a really nice way to do that. Small, three inputs(stereo instrument/line in which then feed XLR outs), line/monitor in, mic in and through. All three with separate level controls, feeding a headphone amp. Under $100USD.
I have had the opportunity to hear the Fender GTX 100 version of the Deluxe Reverb, The Fender Deluxe Reverb Tone Master. No way do they sound
even close to hand wired 60s/70s black face/silver face DRs.... But neither do the Fender Reissue Models. Problem is that reviews have all become
Associate Marketing. Just BS !!!! The only tube sub that Fender has ever made that reaches greatness was the 90s 112 Deluxe SS Amp. Fantastic!
Fender should have held on to that electronic engineer. All down hill since.
If FOH cuts your low end up around 150-160 Hz, it might be a hint that you’re pushing too much low end in the first place. Try to connect with the tech. Asking them open-ended questions like “am I giving you what you need?” can help to start you off on the right foot.
In this case - it's not a situation like that because it was only because that's the setting that was on their the last time for the chap who gigs with them using a Fender Twin or whatever.
This is something I've noticed that a few sound people seem to be doing and sometimes they haven't even realised they've done it - I totally get at a more professional level it'd be a different conversation but generally that's not been where I've had these kind of problems.
Whilst I think modelling can be great in a studio (if an amp isn't convenient, such as home recording), I will always prefer a real amp on stage.
I use a Headrush 108 with my Helix for live work. I find having one IEM in and one out gives me a nice balance between the live and monitored sound. IEM's imo, don't sound great and I also find wearing both makes me feel isolated, but one gives me the frequencies I need to hear myself on stage, mixed or balanced off with the live or surround sound. The difference I heard out front going through my JVM head and cab miked, verses the Helix ( after some tweaking ) is close enough to save the hassle of transporting. lifting and setting up my old valve amp set up. Anyone want to buy a Marshall JVM lol......
We use a few pencil mics on stage to capture ambience and pass them into our IEM feeds. It helps alot defeat the isolation feel. I've been curious how the westone IEM with the ambience ports work that allow a natural bleed in sound.
I think the noise I hear from your Guitar that I call Fizziness must be that WHITE NOISE you mentioned in ONE video. It was not present when you did the Carol Ann AMP demo the other day. Because that one was not thru your interface and you near the Computer when you played it.
First off, you a monstrously fine player. I mostly use a Fender Tonemaster (deluxe) with only a tuner bewtween my guitar and the amp, so I wouldn't have the challenges you have. Peace.
Wouldn't you have the same problems with the guy running the desk having the compressor and high cut on if you were sending him the signal from your amp? The difference being that you wouldn't hear it because your amp is like your monitor, but the sound going to the audience would still have those extra effects added if it's going through the house system.
You are right. But modelling is the future. All my amps and pedals gather dust these days as I’m recording an album
Try using headphone cans, Paul Gilbert did it for many years. They sound better and are easy to get on and off. Only downside is if your play to a click track, sometimes the audience can hear the metronome during quiet parts
I use my powercab every time I can. And I will argue to use it even when it's silent stage, and sometimes the arguing works 😁😎
I think the main thing that is lost with modelers is the guitar/amp interaction. Even with a good FRFR something is not there. With only in-ears the guitar will feel very dead sounding.... Not inspiring at all to play.
Thanks John, what about HX Stomp latency? I'm thinking to buy HX ( mainly due to your great videos) but i'm suspicious about latency.
I’ve been playing a Stomp XL live for over a year and it’s never been a problem. We live stream out every Sunday and the tone is impeccable both on the room and out to different boards.
You have less latency with inears and an HXStomp then playing amp 1m in front of you.
Here's a simple system: use good full-range (powered) monitors for the whole band, and feed the EXACT SAME signal to the monitors as what's going to the PA. Whatever you hear mirrors what the audience hears. It's not for everybody and not for in-ears, but it's worked surprisingly well in one particular cover band. Everyone is responsible for sounding sensible, and there's no separate sound guy. ;)
More important question is how your global eq settings got changed. Was this a software bug or did you change them and forget to change them back. If the second, them blaming modeling is neither fair or productive
Playing Quietly is an acquired skill, it's difficult, lack of sustain etc. Sometimes when you are being told to turn down on stage, you don't have to reach for a knob just play softer. I find sometimes you are getting told to turn down because of the intensity of your playing rather than the volume. You have to realize in a lot of situations, your just background music.
yes, please drop this one in the package, sounds a bit like your Eric Lead btw
Would an external EQ pedal be a solution?
I had this exact thought in the last video. Not sure it could be used on the line out. Yea it’s another pedal but way less weight than an amp or power cab.
Not really - because what's happening is moreorless unsalvageable if the person running the desk makes certain choices - so unfortunately in a lot of cases where I'm just showing up it's not really up to me - they might be shelving off lows up to 500hz, they might run a compressor with totally random settings from a Fender Twin - in many cases they're just using a desk preset that someone else has programmed....
What has worked in the past is taking another small mixing desk (much like drummers often do) so that you have more control, and can just take the output straight out of the headphone of your modeler - this has been the most satisfying solution if I'm not able to change the actual desk itself?
@@johnnathancordy I was just thinking it would solve the issue of modelers hidden global eq. I like your idea of the small desk mixer. I usually use my stomp more as an amp in a box into a Revv like Keith @fivewattworld did. I do believe if I spent more time in settings I could get something I like even more out of the stomp. I’ve also played with the idea of an hx effects but don’t need it,
The first and most important thing in using amp modeling is that you should go to the sound engineer and kick his ass before every performance. When I started playing POD HD 500 live, with IEMs and a silent stage, that was terrible cause everything that I set at home sounded different at the stage so it took a lot of time to find a good sound, and there were many fights with a sound guy(but I always played at the same place)
But as many people mentioned here in comments to feel more comfortable on the stage with the amp modeling and silent stage you need to have access to change your mix in your in-ear and especially it would be good if you have a personal physical mixer with EQ, cause I could change EQ for every instrument in my in-ear mix Now I'm thinking of buying HX Stomp and use it live
oh well there is allways going back to huge pedalboards and giant tube amps . me i am fine using modelers so that makes me a kid in my bedroom with a line 6 right ? lol ...
I'm totally all over modelling in the bedroom too, and I think the convenience factor will always mean there's a multi-effect/modeller on the floor, but sometimes it's just a bit of a coin flip with the kind of folks I'm giggin with
Talk to the sound guy before and find out their set up. Send the Sound Guy the Modeled Amp Cab and send the direct to a real amp on stage.
Regarding the Global Eq, I have never used it on the Stomp and rely on a PreAmp pedal going into the Stomp’s input, so I can control the Eq from the Pedal.
We don’t have to chose between Modelers and Pedals we can use both and get the best of both worlds.