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Conference napalm::guitar

Title:	GUITARnotes - Where Every Note has Emotion
Notice:	Discussion of the finer stringed instruments
Moderator:	KDX200::COOPER

Created:	Thu Aug 14 1986
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	3280
Total number of notes:	61432

2813.0. "Effects - Live v Studio/Home" by LARVAE::BRIGGS_R (Four Flat Tyres on a Muddy Road) Mon Sep 27 1993 02:41

    
    Well, I've recently reached some conclusions about the use of effects
    whilst playing live. Anyone care to comment?
    
    For the past year I've been struggling with a BOSS ME-6 multi-effects
    pedal unit. Struggling? Well it seemed that whilst playing in the
    comfort of my home the effects sounded brilliant but when playing live
    they sounded weak and basically awful. The other week I recorded our
    group during rehearsal (to create a 'practice tape') with my Hi-Fi
    cassette deck plus a decent Sony stereo mike. The recording was
    surprisingly good. However, it did highlight that my effects sounded
    rubbish.
    
    On one particular track I was using a touch of chorus and and delay in
    the intro. This sounded fine at home but on this tape it sounded non
    existent. As this was our opening track at a gig last Saturday I
    thought 'To hell with it" and increased the relevant effects so that
    they sounded well over the top at home. I was going to make an impact
    if it killed me!! Would you believe that on the big night it sounded
    brilliant!
    
    I'd also found that what sounded like perfect overdrive/distortion
    and reverb settings at home started to sound brilliant live by
    significantly increasing the relevant settings (doubling in the case of
    reverb).
    
    So, my conclusion is that when playing live there's no room for subtle
    use of effects (except maybe for quiet numbers). The subtleness just
    gets swamped by the other instruments (drums, vocals bass etc). This
    sort of makes sense to me because the 'effects part of the signal must
    be at a lower level than the main or unmixed signal and therefore it's
    not surpising if it gets lost. 
    
    Home/studio use though is totally different.
    
    Anyone care to comment?
    
    Richard
    Reading, UK

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2813.1		KDX200::COOPER	Testing my new personal name	`Mon Sep 27 1993 08:25`	11
	Yep... When you use effects in a live situation, you need to remember that the rest of the band is there - they'll stomp all over your hard work (in getting your presets ready). You can still be subtle, but subtle with the rest of the band may seem a little obnoxious at home. I don't know about on the ME6, but I have a master effects level on my QV. I get the sound I want, and just tweek the level when I'm with the rest of the kids. Parhaps that'd work for you?? jc
2813.2	chorus only?	NAVY5::SDANDREA	IfoughtTheLawn&TheLawnWon	`Mon Sep 27 1993 09:05`	10
	I have found this to be true as well, but to different levels depending on the effect being used. I find that real sweet chorus-ing seems to get swallowed up by the band, but distortion and delay don't. Even when I use a phase shifter, I can hear it on recordings, loud and clear. I can remember playing with too loud of a stage volume and I couldn't eveb tell if my chorus was on without looking at the LED. Is it a "chorus only" problem? sd
2813.3		HEDRON::DAVEB	anti-EMM! anti-EMM! I hate expanded memory!- Dorothy	`Mon Sep 27 1993 09:43`	7
	I find that I tend to mix the effects too heavy at home (love them verbs) and have to bring them down with the band so I'm not lost in the mush of multi-effects your milage may vary dbii
2813.4		GOES11::HOUSE	and he put the load right on me	`Tue Sep 28 1993 14:03`	24
	Like dbii, I used to have problems with getting lost 'cause I had too much effects on. Now I'm using very little and it's fine. However, I've been noticing something similar with the new band I've been playing with... I've played either with just a drummer or a 3-piece (guitar, bass, drums) for about 3 years now, no full bands, and developed sounds that I liked that used a bunch of subtly different levels of distortion/overdrive. One of the first things I noticed when I started rehearsing with the bigger band is that most of that stuff's just lost. Two or three degrees of overdrive are fine 'cause you really can't hear much difference. Clean, crunch, and quite a bit of gain. Kinda bummed me 'cause I liked the sort of stuff I was doing before, but I guess it doesn't matter for the material we're doing (crusty old "classic rock" stuff). I've found the "lost effect" syndrome when recording as well. My friend and I recorded a song on my old 4-track that depended heavily on a delay for the rhythm guitar part. I recorded it with the effect where I thought it should be and the track sounded fine by itself, but when I added the other instruments/vocals, the delay just simply disappeared. I was bummed 'cause there was no way to fix it (it'd already gotten bounced in with other stuff). Greg
2813.5	Multiply by 1.50	BLADE::ANDRE	I think, therefore I am, I think	`Wed Sep 29 1993 08:01`	8
	Re: 2813.4 I can't speak to using effects live, however the general rule-of-thumb when recording with effects such as reverb or delay is to use approximately 50% more than you think you need. I've found this to be somewhat true WRT recordings I've made over the years. Andr�
2813.6		16421::HEISER	AWANA	`Wed Sep 29 1993 13:00`	1
	but Greg, you told me effects are for dweebs?!
2813.7	Instant guitarist: just add distortion	GOES11::HOUSE	Warning warning, danger Will Robinson	`Wed Sep 29 1993 13:54`	4
	Guess you didn't read the second paragraph in my message, eh? 8^) gh
2813.8	Nothing a good headbutt wouldn't fix	GIDDAY::KNIGHTP	get me a gin and pentatonic	`Mon Oct 04 1993 02:09`	12
	re instant guitarist = add distortion. That is true. On friday night I was in the middle of "Walking by Myself" (Garry Moore) doing the guitar solo, some drunk decides he'll come up on stage and be part of the band, lept in the air, toe catches the top of the foldback wedge, arms flail wildly, steps on my foot pedals and deselcts distorion and gives me a wimpy clean sound, then just to make sure I can't do anything about it he collapse at my feet and lays non compus mentus on my foot controller, I realised how much I rely on distorion to get me thru that solo. 8^). P.K.