Marble Sound

By Lance Winslow

 I’ve been to a lot of live gigs lately, small bands playing in little pubs, and I’ve seen the identical scene every time. The fold back is on verge of feedback nevertheless the singer needs more, the whole mess is painfully loud and screeching, and therefore the band are looking nervous because there are way more people walking out than there are walking in. The area in front of the stage may be a sonic void that no-one wants to pass through, let alone stand in. It does not take a genius to work out what’s wrong: IT’S ALL TOO LOUD.

What is the matter with musicians and small public address systems is it too hard to perceive that a box containing two fifteen inch drivers and a horn isn’t any match for two quad boxes, a bass amp, and a drum kit at full blast. Clearly, musicians don’t perceive the fundamental principles of good live sound. Therefore, I now present “Four Steps to Better Sound through Small public address systems”.

Step 1: Garbage in, garbage out

This is so blatantly obvious, I can not believe I’m writing it. If you sound sort of a wisp on stage then you may sound like an amplified wisp through a PA system. On the opposite hand, if you sound sensible on stage, a good engineer will make you sound nice - and you will blow away the opposite bands that also sound like wisp. So how do you sound smart on stage?

Step 2: Play balanced

Sounding good on stage begins by sounding good in the rehearsal room. Next time you’re in preparation, move into the middle of the band and take a careful listen. Can you hear all the instruments clearly? Is anyone instrument dominating the others? Does it sound sort of a outlined musical event, or sonic mush? If it’s sonic mush, you’ve got got to do one thing regarding it.

Step 3: Play soft

With all the instrument amplifiers all the way down to zero, start playing a song. Listen to the drums. Change the level of the PA so that the vocals are in a good balance with the drums. Take it slow to get it right, because the vocals and the drums are your points of reference. Now, begin turning up the bass amp till it sounds balanced with the drums and vocals. Add the other instruments, one at a time, turning their amps up slowly until they fit into the right balance within the room. If an instrument drowns out the vocals or drums, it’s too loud. By now, you ought to be able to hear a a lot of better balance of the band, and the PA system will now not appear sort of a useless piece of howling wisp.

Step 4: Learn to like it

I know what you’re thinking now: “my amp is not giving me the right tone”, or “I can’t get enough sustain”, or any of a zillion different excuses for turning your amp up. Bad luck. The fact is that if you want to sound good through a little public address system, this is your only option. There are solutions to most of those complaints that do not require turning up the amplifier.

Now that you’ve got got your volume settings and instrument layout sorted, use the same settings and layout when you play live (however turn the vocalist around to face the audience, after all!). Keep your amps playing to yourselves, and let the PA play to the audience. You’ll get a lot of better live sound, and you may have so much less issues with fold back. If the venue’s PA is particularly small, work with the sound engineer. You may need to repeat these steps during sound check.

Amperes Global Marketing was incorporated in 2002 as a partnership company, the corporate early stage operation concerned small sales and marketing in Amperes Product. Year 2005, Amperes Global Marketing Sdn Bhd was formstarted and have grow and expand gradually in our brand awarness, market share in PA System Services as results of growth in company talent pool and expertise.

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