Difference of sound between Auditorium Speakers and Guitar Amp?
- Thread starterDestrox
- Start date
Its completely true. What he is actually saying is that the amplifier that he plugs into is an extension of the instrument. He is saying that plugging the guitar straight into the PA vs plugging it straight into the amp will give a different sound... and it is a better sound. A guitar is designed to be hooked up to an amp and played that way. As an audio engineer, you should always treat a guitar amp as part of the instrument. You should them mic amp and them amplify that. Guitar amps might not have perfect audio clarity when you hook a mic up, but they are not designed for that. What they are designed for they do very well.
bishopthomas
Well-Known Member
I think it's funny that that's the general consensus for guitar amps, but not true of bass amps. The same concept applies but we tend to DI a bass more often than miking the amp. As a (former) bass player I always like to mic the amp as that is the sound I am going for. Also, harp amps are typically miked rather than DI'ed.
Tis true.. and also very very true. I used to play bass as well in a past life... can't tell you how many groups I nearly cry at that come through with a nice Hartke amp and the input list calls for only a DI.
I tend to like to throw on both. Its easier to just run the extra channel then to do that after/during sound check. Some people like a DI to only feed monitors... better to have it in the bag then to not.
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DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
It all depends on what he is talking about.. if he is saying (as footer said) that his guitar sounds better from the guitar amp then yes he is correct. Now if he says plugging in an mp3 player and hearing off that he must have worked around some very poor equipment or operator.
sent from my Droid incredible using tapatalk.
sent from my Droid incredible using tapatalk.
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
My Droid would disagree with you.
Bit rates have nothing do with the player.
GoldPhoenix
Member
1. When tube guitar amps "clip" they distort the signal and sounds beautiful (given that the player and the set up isn't in question). When PA amps (almost all being solid state) distort it sounds horrible.
2. A guitar amp and it speaker cab determine a large amount of how the instument sounds. If you remove them from the equation and DI a guitar into a board, it sounds very sterile and dry. though it is seen... the guitar in the chorus of "another brick in the wall" did not use an amp for the studio recording.
3. there are soooooo many possibilities when it comes to mic'ing and working with amps and cabs that (at least for me) i would only put a guitar right into the board or PA if there where no other choice to get the job done.
Look at THIS and you can just see how much more there is available to work with if you use an amp and cab.
But at the same time, i wouldn't want to have an sm58 as an input into a guitar amp and use to for PA.... Right tool for the right job....
~Allan
2. A guitar amp and it speaker cab determine a large amount of how the instument sounds. If you remove them from the equation and DI a guitar into a board, it sounds very sterile and dry. though it is seen... the guitar in the chorus of "another brick in the wall" did not use an amp for the studio recording.
3. there are soooooo many possibilities when it comes to mic'ing and working with amps and cabs that (at least for me) i would only put a guitar right into the board or PA if there where no other choice to get the job done.
Look at THIS and you can just see how much more there is available to work with if you use an amp and cab.
But at the same time, i wouldn't want to have an sm58 as an input into a guitar amp and use to for PA.... Right tool for the right job....
~Allan
Different, most likely. Better, that is subjective and completely dependent on the desired goal. I think Kyle said it best when he noted that a guitar and is often an extension of the instrument, in fact it may actually be an integral component of the instrument.
Also relevant is that they are probably addressing how it sounds to them standing a few feet from their amp and not addressing how it sounds out in the audience. You'd need a very straight path, well designed guitar amp and a very poor sound system for the guitar amp to sound cleaner, the issue is usually exactly the opposite with the amp adding distortion, harmonics, etc. and a DI into the house system sounding too clean and thin without any processing.
DiscoBoxer
Active Member
I would also agree that the amp is best described as an extenstion of the instrument. Many amps have built in effects that would be tough to reproduce direct to the console, without a plethora of processing equipment.
Almost all electrical components have a "signature" that they add to the audio. The combination of the guitar, amp and style is what makes the guitar player's sound unique and adds to his/her personal artistry. I believe this is also true in the design and application of the complete audio system. Different speakers, amps, consoles, etc., will all add their own "flavor" to complete the sound......hence why you may hear some say the love/hate the sound of a Yamaha console or a Robert Neve console/component, or for guitar, tube vs solid state.
Almost all electrical components have a "signature" that they add to the audio. The combination of the guitar, amp and style is what makes the guitar player's sound unique and adds to his/her personal artistry. I believe this is also true in the design and application of the complete audio system. Different speakers, amps, consoles, etc., will all add their own "flavor" to complete the sound......hence why you may hear some say the love/hate the sound of a Yamaha console or a Robert Neve console/component, or for guitar, tube vs solid state.
I would agree with this statement, and say it depends more on the space and the quality of the amp vs the quality of the house system. As the board tech for my college's talent shows, more times than not, I will insist that they DI into our house system (controlled via a Roland M-400 digital mixer), especially with the "cheap" amps that I've seen around campus. Our auditorium was originally a gymnasium and has a plethora of sound difficulties that our sound system was specifically designed to defeat. The only time I will ever mic an amp in our auditorium is if they have FX built into their amps, and then only begrudgingly.
It depends on the sound the musician is looking for. In many instances the sound the musician is desiring is based on the amp/speaker combination, and using a DI is simply not going to replicate this. While you might be able to get away with this insistence at a talent show, it is not likely to be the case with a touring artist.
I am not trying to be overly harsh, but in most cases the FOH job is to work with the artists desire, not dictate to the artist. At a minimum allowing the artist to hear the two options and then choose is typically the better path
Sharyn
Sharyn
I would definitely agree with giving a professional touring artist who knows their stuff and has decent equipment the choice. But in my case, we rarely (maybe 1 time a year) have to make that decision. Most of the personal amps that we get around here was bought at Target/Walmart...
Please have someone shooting video while you attempt that.
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It also seems that the amp/cabinet emulator and effect devices available are getting much better and becoming a more practical option. Here are some videos that someone I jam with occasionally recorded direct using his VOX Tonelab ST and an old Alesis Quadraverb, YouTube - dlrdanny's Channel. Of course musicianship also has a lot to do with it, but a $200 pedalboard and an old effects unit that can be purchased on eBay for $100 or less, and that he probably got for next to nothing, seem to provide a pretty good, and quite flexible, sound and to be a viable alternative on stage.
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A hammond/leslie organist isn't likely to have an instrument/amp combo that cost less than the mic that is used on it... nor is a professional artist. College students who aren't even on the local bar scene aren't likely to have the kind of equipment that would do a better job in a nasty dead auditorium space than my $13,000 mixing system with some nice crown amps and very decent speakers behind it would.
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You appear to be a college student so I'd assume that the college musicians' equipment could be just as high quality as your sound reinforcement gear and I've indeed encountered some high school, much less college, students that have very nice gear. However, I think the critical aspect here is separating the sound creation aspect from the sound reinforcement aspect. It's true that a cheap guitar combo, or even a very nice combo, is probably not going to do as good a job of reinforcement as your rig. At the same time, your rig by itself is probably not going to do as good a job getting the sound the guitarist wants. These are two different roles with very different goals, thus the equipment to support them also tends to be different.
