Sitting at FOH, you watch the bassist turn on their bass amp. It's pointed right at you. You hear every thumping note that's played. There is no way you're getting them to turn it down. What do you do?
The first thing you have to take into consideration is the direction of the amp on stage. An amp pointed directly at you means that you're going to base your channel volumes around the amp volume. You're also going to base your mix around that amp sound.
The problem with basing volume/mix on the amp is that your ears are in the minority. Most of the rest of the people in the room probably aren't directly in the sound path.
Resolve the directional amp issue by having the bassist point the amp off-axis to you. This can be done either left or right or tilting the amp up. Now you're basing your volumes/mix off of what the majority of people are hearing.
The second option is using the amp as a stage monitor. Some amp's have the capability to run a signal to the house as well as be used as a monitor. If this is the case, have the bassist place the amp at an angle to their head. Using this method, they hear what they need to hear and you have the majority of control over the house sound. Yeah, I know they probably still want to crank their amp – but a short lesson in stage volume and how it affects other musicians might do the trick.
Finally, remember that your words speak volumes to the musicians. Telling them their volume is too loud is pointless – and they can easily counter with "I don't think so!" It only builds that us-versus-them mentality. Therefore, use phrases like "I can't get the best sound from the house mix unless we change your amp setup. But you'll still hear what you need!"
Please note the size of the room can impact how you work with any stage amp. Also, the above also works for guitar amps.
Question: How Do You Deal With Stage Amps?
Jeremy says
April 15, 2012 at 2:36 am[MARKED AS SPAM BY ANTISPAM BEE | Empty Data]
I’m fighting stage sound right now at my church. With the full band playing which includes 1-2 electric guitars, their amps on stage and the bass with it’s full setup on stage, plus and unshielded drum, the levels in the house have to go up pretty high before you even notice them.
When I first started I tried the, “I need less electric guitar from your amp” conversation with one of our electric guitarist at practice one night. He tried to work with me at first and then, to my frustration, told me to just deal with it at the board. Yeah, needless to say I stepped away from what I was doing, prayed then called my friend who does sound at a large church in Atlanta. After his encouragement and his ear, I decided to approach the electric guitarist, present the “I’m on your side trying to create great worship just like you” discussion to win him over, then convinced him to turn the amp back towards the stage and not out. It made a difference that helped me tremendously but it’s still loud.
I’ll have to talk to the bassist to see if I can get him to turn his amp or set it up monitor style. While it doesn’t fix the issue we have it will lesson the affect of the stage sound issue.
I’ve seen the isolation cabinets used at North Point Church in Atlanta (where my friend started after college). They are AWESOME. The electric guitar players gets that hot ROCK amp sound with next to nothing for stage noise created by his amp (besides what might come out of a wedge monitor if In-ear monitors aren’t used).
By the way your site has been great for me since my 12 year sabbatical from doing sound at my last church. The interviews are encouraging and the articles are right in line with what I needed since getting back “behind the mixer” 6 months ago.
Jeremy Martin
Muncie Alliance Church
Muncie, Indiana
Chris says
April 16, 2012 at 11:08 amJeremy, thanks for your kind comments. You made a wise decision to pray and then call your friend for help. Much better to do than than to start the argument that’s so easy to start.
Always nice to hear from a fellow Hoosier, too.