Greetings, and a question

Hi - new member here, so I thought I'd introduce myself and ask a question that's bugging me at the moment.

I play electric ('97 Korean Squier), acoustic and bass at a church with attendance of around 900 each week across two services. We play mostly Hills-style material with songs from various different sources. I've been playing guitar in church for many years but only discovered the joy of Telecasters last year!

The thing that's bugging me...

I spend time at home practicing my parts but then spend half the rehearsal trying to get the right sounds. I'm playing through a borrowed Fender Hot Rod Deluxe which can't be played at a sufficiently loud volume at home (at church it's in a room behind the stage, mic'd up and fed into IEMs). It's frustrating that I can't turn up to rehearsal with my sounds as well practiced as my playing. The only solutions I can see are amp modelling instead of a phyiscal amp, or a very low-powered amp that I can play at the full volume at home.

Anyone else share this frustration and/or have a solution?

No solution, but I know the problem. I get all my tones and settings worked out at home, and when I get to church I can't even hear it anyway.

No solution, but I know the problem. I get all my tones and settings worked out at home, and when I get to church I can't even hear it anyway.

Never have a problem with hearing it - in fact I had to ask the PA guys to turn me down in my IEMs! The problem is what I'm hearing at times!

amp modeling won't fix the problem. it will still sound completely different at home and at church. in fact, nothing will fix the problem short of building an exact replica of the room you play in at church in your home. the relative volume of the amp is only one portion of the problem you (and every guitar player ever) are dealing with.

amp modeling ... will still sound completely different at home and at church....Well, I'll disagree. And, I don't mean to start any battles here. I fully understand the amp vs. no sound on stage struggles we all have dealt with.

But, the problem is a little more basic. How do you take some sound you hear at home and have that be something you can transfer/translate to the worship service?

Simplest, of course, is a live amp that you practice on at home (at stage volume), take that same setup to church, and they stick a mike in front of it.

Many of us don't get to do that. So, the options start to spread out.

For most of us mortals, that means you have to learn how to take what you hear at home, and "translate" that in your head to what it will sound like at the service. Your situation is a little more difficult, so I agree that a smaller amp may be the simplest solution. See if you can borrow a Champ or somthing in the 5W or less range for home, and just take that.

Or, maybe an isolation cabinet for home. Build one, get a mic and mixer for less than $100, and listen to yourself that way.

Me, I like modeling, because I *know* that what I hear at home is what is going into the board. I figured out I can have the sound person come over and plug their headphones into the modeler, and I say, "That's what I hear, and that's what is going to the board, so why isn't it coming out of the house/monitor?" *Eventually* it gets worked out.

I had that problem, getting great tones then they sound crappy at church.
Solution.....I got a board mix, took it home and tweaked my modeler (then was a Boss GT 8) with the tones of the other instruments, especially the piano. If you don't have a bold enough tone, the piano will make you sound like a weanie no matter how good your tone is.
Good luck, RKH

I had that problem, getting great tones then they sound crappy at church.
Solution.....I got a board mix, took it home and tweaked my modeler (then was a Boss GT 8) with the tones of the other instruments, especially the piano. If you don't have a bold enough tone, the piano will make you sound like a weanie no matter how good your tone is.Good luck, RKH

The piano drowns out everything in our band. The band leader (piano player) is always saying "I need more piano in the monitors!"

Well, I'll disagree. And, I don't mean to start any battles here. I fully understand the amp vs. no sound on stage struggles we all have dealt with.

But, the problem is a little more basic. How do you take some sound you hear at home and have that be something you can transfer/translate to the worship service?

Simplest, of course, is a live amp that you practice on at home (at stage volume), take that same setup to church, and they stick a mike in front of it.

Many of us don't get to do that. So, the options start to spread out.

For most of us mortals, that means you have to learn how to take what you hear at home, and "translate" that in your head to what it will sound like at the service. Your situation is a little more difficult, so I agree that a smaller amp may be the simplest solution. See if you can borrow a Champ or somthing in the 5W or less range for home, and just take that.

Or, maybe an isolation cabinet for home. Build one, get a mic and mixer for less than $100, and listen to yourself that way.

Me, I like modeling, because I *know* that what I hear at home is what is going into the board. I figured out I can have the sound person come over and plug their headphones into the modeler, and I say, "That's what I hear, and that's what is going to the board, so why isn't it coming out of the house/monitor?" *Eventually* it gets worked out.

You missed my point. Or more likely I didn't make it well enough. Room size, acoustics, bodies in the room etc. etc.... all play a large part in how any guitar amplification system will sound in any given room. There will ALWAYS be adjustments that have to get made from a practice space to a performance space or from one performance space to another. Or for the same performance space, empty vs. filled with people. Modelers get rid of only one of the these issues. That being the gain setting that can be used on a particular amplifier.

You missed my point. Or more likely I didn't make it well enough. Room size, acoustics, bodies in the room etc. etc.... all play a large part in how any guitar amplification system will sound in any given room. There will ALWAYS be adjustments that have to get made from a practice space to a performance space or from one performance space to another. Or for the same performance space, empty vs. filled with people. Modelers get rid of only one of the these issues. That being the gain setting that can be used on a particular amplifier.No, I get and agree with that part of it. I was saying something similar - you have to learn how to "hear" so that you can tell how what you play at home will sound at church. My (too wordy, probably) point was that, for me, the modeler removes the amp setting part of the transition from home to big room+PA, and it doesn't sound "completely different," at least not as different as an amp gain on 2 vs 7.

The OP's problem is complicated because of the very different amp settings, and in his case, the amp is actually not contributing to the sound in the house, since it's all coming through the PA. In that sense, it's more like a modeling metaphor, so if he's going to use an amp, my suggestion if figure out how to make the practice at home more like the performance setting; i.e., use the same amp settings in both place, with either a tiny amp, or a way to practice loud (isolation box).

Does anyone here actually use the mic'd up tiny amp approach?

I think modeling will make the sound more consistent for you. I guess you would need to practice at home with IEMs to be exact.

But I also think you can never exactly translate the tone from home to church; no matter what situation. Someone else may be changing their tone, louder, softer etc.

What I do is dial in an approximate tone. One that I know I can tweak to the situation if needed. If you try to be exact you'll get frustrated and you'll waste time at practice if you do it there. Also, another thing that aids me in this classic dilemma is that I just try to sound like me rather than dialing in the tones used by the original artist.

I stopped practicing tones at home. I still mess with them to learn 'em, but I am pretty comfortable in adjusting on the fly, if I needed to.

Does anyone here actually use the mic'd up tiny amp approach?

I use something similar. My amp is an Egnater Rebel 30 with a direct out and a switch to mute the speaker. It sounds pretty passible in our IEMs, and would probably sound much better if my IEMs were designed for that job instead of staying attached to my head when I run. I used to use a VOX ToneLab Le, but switched to a conventional amp and pedalboard, which seems better for tweaking on-the-fly.

I've been really tempted to to the mic'd amp bit. If I did (or when I do) I'd get a VOX AC4 and run it just at the point of breakup. IMHO, it's one of the most "honest" sounding amps around and delivers killer tones at wonderfully low volumes.

Or get a beast of an amp and run it into a Redbox. :mrgreen:

Does anyone here actually use the mic'd up tiny amp approach?

I do! I use either a Fender Blues Junior mic'd up or my Vox Night Train. They are both 15 watt amps. I believe they are a fantastic solution. The low wattage allows to get some really good tones a low volumes (at church or at home).

At our church we do not use in-ear monitors, so I use my amp as my monitor, using an amp stand to point the cone of the speaker right at my face. That is the exact sound that gets mic'd. I would recommend this for home practice too. Some people have mentioned room acoustics...while they do play a role, I do not believe they have a huge effect on the sound of your amp **right at the point of the speaker**. Make sure the cone is always pointing straight at you to figure out a tone and settings that work. I have only needed very limited, tiny adjustments when I am on stage.

I have used modeling pedals/gear before and just do not personally care for the quality of sound at live volumes.

I play electric ('97 Korean Squier), acoustic and bass at a church with attendance of around 900 each week across two services.

I would strongly recommend investing in a higher quality guitar. A good amp is more important, but a good guitar is important too.

Does anyone here actually use the mic'd up tiny amp approach?

I do, as well. I usually use my 20 Watt ToneKing Imperial (sometimes a Vox AC4) in an iso-cab with IEMs.

Even if I work out my tones at home, I still need to tweak the amp a bit once I get to our Thursday evening rehearsal. I know that the iso-cab sounds very different from my basement. Now, I use the same amp settings each week and tweak my tones and modulation only with guitar knobs or pedals.

Most of the time, I use a completely different amp (due to volume) at home anyways and know that I will do some tweaking once I get there. That is the nature of the beast.

You're in a very frustrating situation. I just try to obtain a monitor setup so I can hear myself very clear and just do my job. I never check the front of house sound, I know I may be 'crushed' lol.

I feel bad for players who have to deal with a stage hog. Maybe time to seek greener pastures. Best of luck to you.

I'm glad to hear there are 900 people in attendance at your church...YOU MUST ROCK!!

Does anyone here actually use the mic'd up tiny amp approach?

I do too- a 15 watt el84 based amp or a vox ac4. I play both set low and let the mic and soundboard do the heavy lifting. For leads, I step on a boost or bad monkey set just slightly higher.

I would strongly recommend investing in a higher quality guitar. A good amp is more important, but a good guitar is important too.

Serious question, without being too defensive of my guitar... would anything other than the pickups make much of a difference?

I've played electric for 15 or so years now, got this Squier from eBay at a great price with the intention of selling it on at a profit, and ended up keeping it instead. I'm suddenly getting compliments from people that barely noticed I played guitar before!

That's not to say I'd never replace it but unless it was causing me a problem I don't see a need to do so.

I'm glad to hear there are 900 people in attendance at your church...YOU MUST ROCK!!

We try! Mind you, that's not 900 people in the hall all at once - that's across two services, with the kids in another hall, but we often have more than 500 in the first service in the main hall.

A follow-on question for those that do use small amps, and I think it applies to all the models mentioned... FX loop? I've noticed that it's common for the smaller amps to be lacking in a lot of the features of larger models. I've always put my modulation and delay effects in a loop and am wondering whether I'm limiting myself unnecessarily by thinking any small amp I buy should have a loop? They do exist, but I'm wondering whether it's as important as I've always thought.

(I must have knocked the dials on the borrowed Fender amp in transit today as it was running pretty hot, and that was with the gain and volume set to 4. The amp's owner was helping run sound and he checked it and said that there's almost no clean headroom at those levels! As it turned out it was a great sound and I managed some cleaner sounds with the volume control, but it just showed me again that I need my own amp where I know the levels because I've had a chance to experiement and set them at home.)

A follow-on question for those that do use small amps, and I think it applies to all the models mentioned... FX loop?

Good question, really everything put in front of the amp. This could mean that you modulations and everything are messed up **IFF** (if and only if) IMO you are trying to use the amp's overdrive or distortion channels. I've always put everything on a clean channel and then use pedals to get the overdrive I want. It is very possible to get an amazing sound with it. Just make sure your OD pedals are before your modulations.

Good question, really everything put in front of the amp. This could mean that you modulations and everything are messed up **IFF** (if and only if) IMO you are trying to use the amp's overdrive or distortion channels. I've always put everything on a clean channel and then use pedals to get the overdrive I want. It is very possible to get an amazing sound with it. Just make sure your OD pedals are before your modulations.

Ah, that's really helpful advice. I've been so used to 2 or 3 channel amps with loops that I've always thought in that way. It's only since I noticed that the drive channel on the Fender doesn't seem to respond well to my guitar that I've thought that adding a distortion pedal to my overdrive on top of a great-sounding clean channel could be the best sound.

That opens my options up again - thanks!

I use a small 1966 Vibrochamp. Also no effects loop. I run OD > Delay > Tremolo and it sounds really good. I used to own a 60 watt Fender Hotrod Deville III with an effects loop and IMO it didn't sound any better using the loop. It only sounded better, like fenderbender01 said, if I tried to use the pedals before the drive channel on the amp. When I run them after the OD pedal into a clean channel it sounds great.

Also, I got rid of my Deville because I found 60 watt 212 was insanely loud. Pretty much uselessly loud. I now have a 5 watt amp and a 15 watt amp, both tube. I will never own an amp more than 15 or 20 watts again. Not unless I really improve and start filling arena's. But that's just me... I'd rather mic a small amp than crank the volume on a large amp.

Strange question to me. I practice songs at home with a semi acoustic electric (guild starfire), not hooked up to anything. I know the sounds in my head. I have MESA, Fender, and Marshall amps, plus a few more. I sound the same thru all of them. So at church, its usually my DRRI on 2,mic'ed, with my pedal board palette of sounds. I've used bigger amps (Marshall half stack 100 watt) and still sounds like me. So the amps do not matter as much as my pedal board.

funny, I played through a borrowed Hot rod deluxe too! But i got an ac30hw2, which is an amazing amp. I understand your problem, even though i have my amp at home, i can't play it at full volume, and I can tweak it during practice. Though my amp is 30 watts, it can be dropped down to 15, and 15 is actually not to bad a wattage for bedroom. It gets loud, but you get the full tone at a manageable level. Now I don't know if you live in a house or an apartment. But if you live in a house, where you can make some more noise, I would suggest an amp that is around 15 watts, (That is if its a tube amp). Master volumes are amps friends.

I've played through IEM and you will never hear the same sound that is coming through the PA. What your guitar sounds like in your monitors will not be the same through the PA, unless your IEM are amazing quality, but even then, it will be different.

If you are in an apartment, a 5-10 watt tube amp might be the way to go. If you dig the sound from the amps around that range, I don't see why not. The Marshall class 5 has good reviews, the ac10tv i believe it is has good reviews.

I would personally not suggest an amp modeler, for a few reasons. They just do not sound the same. If you go to the line6 modelers, or boss modelers, you will just hear a lower quality tone. A guy at my church uses a Pod, and through the house you can tell its a modeler. The main worship leader at my church has one of the most expensive modelers. I think he spent upwards 2-4 grand for it, and I will say that thing sounds good. It just doesn't feel right to me, it takes all the fun out of gear. You just have downloaded set of things to choose from. But something tells me you aren't going to spend 4 grand on an amp modeler.

Any amp will take pedals through the front just fine, I have never used an effects loops, and i have not run into an amp that takes pedals badly, (Though my experience is little). I only used the hot rod on the clean channel, and had an overdrive, reverb and delay. I got a great sound from that amp. But i get a better sound from my new amp :grin:

Sorry for long-windedness, hope it helped!

Thanks for the continuing input guys!

I'm yet to be convinced by modellers. If you'd talked to me a year ago, when I was still using my hybrid Marshall, I might have been swayed, but ever since playing a full valve amp I'd probably be unhappy with anything else. It's the warm clean sound that I've never heard from any solid state or hybrid amp, or from the cheaper multi-fx type modellers I've tried.

The experimentation has begun. My brother-in-law, the owner of the Hot Rod, also has a 5W Epiphone Valve Junior - a throwback to the unhappy time when we had amps on stage and weren't allowed by the PA team to turn them up much past 1. It's been sat gathering dust while we've taken turns with the Hot Rod but I decided to borrow it and bring it home to mess around with and try out at rehearsal on Thursday. With the volume set just past 1/4 it's got plenty of output (my wife and daughter both asked me to turn it down!) and can start to deliver a good crunch sound when I hit the strings hard on full volume on the guitar. Turning the guitar down does exactly what a good valve amp should - cleans the sound up without losing much overall volume. It responds really nicely to my Boss OD3 as well, and seemed to cope okay with wah or delay (quite noisy when the delay setting is maxed, but I use that setting for one song only). The only possible downside is its simplicity - just a volume control. It doesn't necessarily have the highs that I'd like and there's no way of EQing short of an additional pedal or using the treble end of the wah. But we'll see how it sounds on Thursday.

So I'm pretty much sold on the 5W amp idea, just need to see if this is the one or if I need to go hunting. There are plenty of good options out there at the moment, especially if I want to buy local - I live within ten minutes' drive of both the Marshall factory and VOX head office. :D

Well, that didn't really work for me. To run at the sort of volume the PA team wanted meant that it was higher than I'd use for home rehearsal and also more difficult to get a really good clean sound. That specific amp was also very mid-heavy and lacking the sort of clarity I've become used to. So it's back to the Hot Rod Deluxe on Sunday, and when I go amp shopping I'm probably looking for something more in the 10-15W range.

SoVeryTired - an common predicament when using IEMs. something critical that has not been mentioned:

MIC SELECTION AND PLACEMENT

Seriously, and in a big way. Here's what to do:

1. Stick with the Hot Rod and use pedals for drive, modulations after.

2. Buy or borrow a pedal with basic looping function eg Sound on Sound setting on a DD20. Buy or borrow high SPL reducing earmuffs - for machinery or guns etc.

3. Play a short loop that covers clean strumming arpeggios, crunch and drive tones. Let that run.

4. Run a long headphone cable to the amp (or even better if you have wireless IEMs), wearing the earmuffs OVER the IEMs.

5. Go fishing with your mic placement - and make sure that it's a decent cabinet mic like a am57 or e609 or MD421. Start dead centre then move towards the cone edge. Repeat, except with the mic on a 45degree angle. Keep eq flat first (presence off) then tweak once your mic is in the sweet spot.

I often use the house HRD, two mics- e609 flat and centre, beta57 on a 45degree angle. Eq usually bright and presence off, treble 5, mid 6, bass 6. Volume 2.5 is plenty. I set my amp dark because I use a Durham sex drive early in the chain, tone almost all the way up. Figure out what works for your signal chain.

Good luck.

Thanks - the PA guys are on the ball when it come to mic positioning (SM57). We've played around with the HRD and my old Marshall Valvestate and marked the best mic position with tape on the grille so there's consistency there.

I don't think there's a direct solution to my original problem of not being able to play live volumes at home, but just thinking, talking and testing through the issue has been very helpful for me. I've learned that 5W doesn't give me enough clean headroom, I'd want the flexibility of tone controls on the amp, I don't need an FX loop, the HRD clean channel is actually a great sound and I don't need the other channels, and the volume control on my guitar is a powerful tool!