Anybody playing 100/200 cap venues with a drummer without a cab?

MaximumZargon

I get how 500+ venues would totally allow for confidence in the ability to monitor guitar or bass from the monitors, but I play underground/diy type places and we've only ever played  with one band who were cab-free, and they used programmed drums.

Seems like a real gamble to me; one of the other players in my band sometimes says that he won't bring his cab (he's kemper) and I get the sweats and tell him no!

Fiftyshadesofjay

IMO (and people will disagree) if you have any scenario where the crowd are hearing at least a mix of stage volume and PA, then you need a cab to sound good. 

Even more so if you can’t check the spec of the PA beforehand.

Roland

I play those size of venues, with an AxeFX into the PA. However I always take my own powered monitor. There are a couple of reasons:

1. I can turn myself up if I’m too low in the mix, or my IEMs fail. Over the years I’ve had faulty batteries, a broken aerial, and radio drop out.
2. Without on-stage monitoring there’s a dearth of guitar between the PA cabs, just where the most enthusiastic dancers are. Drums you can hear, bass is always audible because it’s not particularly directional, and our singer is pretty loud when you’re that close. 
3. My guitar gets lively when the volume is there.

Danny1969

Your always better off getting a good balanced sound of drums, bass and guitar before a PA is even switched on. Then the PA can reinforce that and add in the vocals etc. Cab-less in a pub, small club etc type venue doesn't really work as it  means the people at the front get to hear a drum kit and the back of the stage monitors 

I've done loads of small theatres of 200 ish cap with no cab but these places have front fills for the audience and it's seated so cab-less does work 

topdog91

Interesting thread. I have never seriously considered going cabless (although am going to start trying the Helix instead of my effects pedals and see where it goes from there) but I wouldn't have thought venue size had much to do with it. Can someone ELI5?

borntohang

topdog91 said:

Interesting thread. I have never seriously considered going cabless (although am going to start trying the Helix instead of my effects pedals and see where it goes from there) but I wouldn't have thought venue size had much to do with it. Can someone ELI5?

Many small or DIY venues have underspecced PA and minimal monitoring which can make cabless a crapshoot if you don't know what to expect going in. Nothing like turning up to find you're all sharing a mix or they only have two knackered wedges with blown horns and also you have 10 minute changeovers between the other 6 bands on the bill (the joys of the DIY all-dayer). 

Smaller stages also mean the audience are right up against you and likely to be hearing as much stage sound as PA, which can be an odd sensation if you're running silent stage and they're only getting the guitars coming from the sides. Personally I think standing front barrier means you need to accept crap sound in exchange for proximity to the band, but I don't go to shows any more so hey. 

topdog91

borntohang said:

topdog91 said:

Interesting thread. I have never seriously considered going cabless (although am going to start trying the Helix instead of my effects pedals and see where it goes from there) but I wouldn't have thought venue size had much to do with it. Can someone ELI5?

Many small or DIY venues have underspecced PA and minimal monitoring which can make cabless a crapshoot if you don't know what to expect going in. Nothing like turning up to find you're all sharing a mix or they only have two knackered wedges with blown horns and also you have 10 minute changeovers between the other 6 bands on the bill (the joys of the DIY all-dayer). 

Smaller stages also mean the audience are right up against you and likely to be hearing as much stage sound as PA, which can be an odd sensation if you're running silent stage and they're only getting the guitars coming from the sides. Personally I think standing front barrier means you need to accept crap sound in exchange for proximity to the band, but I don't go to shows any more so hey. 

Thanks for the explanation. We always bring our own PA so I never really thought about it like that. We also do pubs and social clubs, just us for the evening, so I guess the thread isn't really for me.

octatonic

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

IMO (and people will disagree) if you have any scenario where the crowd are hearing at least a mix of stage volume and PA, then you need a cab to sound good. 

Even more so if you can’t check the spec of the PA beforehand.

Agree 100%.

It is a lot less hassle for me to turn up with one of the Matchless combos and just plug my pedalboard into the front of it.
Any straight-to-FOH solution I've tried has been demonstrably worse.

jellybelly

If you're playing with a drummer it's hard to get away from a blaring amp that's acting as your personal monitor and the mix being the responsibility of FOH. 

If youre not playing with a drummer, it's the exact opposite, and a blaring amp is a huge liability. 

Everythingon10

I've been doing it for the last six months in a punk band.  From my perspective, it's been great. On two gigs my wedge hasn't worked properly and I've been reliant on what guitar I could hear off the FOH cabs, but that was enough to get by.

The other comments here have me thinking I probably should take a cab for the benefit of the audience directly in front of the stage. No one's complained about not being able to hear me though, and I've had lots of praise from sound engineers about my tone.

jellybelly

Everythingon10 said:

I've been doing it for the last six months in a punk band.  From my perspective, it's been great. On two gigs my wedge hasn't worked properly and I've been reliant on what guitar I could hear off the FOH cabs, but that was enough to get by.

The other comments here have me thinking I probably should take a cab for the benefit of the audience directly in front of the stage. No one's complained about not being able to hear me though, and I've had lots of praise from sound engineers about my tone.

If it's punk, is that mainly rhythm/power chords? I could imagine that having quite an even rhythm sound would work with that setup well - as in, you're not picking out notes in chords and trying to be extra dynamic or expressive. 

Could be misunderstanding what you mean by 'punk' though!

bencam1997

To be fair, even just in a rehersal rooms I have been finding cabless setup
to show its weaknesses. Just due to bad PA / desks that try their hardest to ruin my sound

Often the other guitarist will use the house head/cab and sound better than my well dialled in quad cortex through a bad PA in the room

So im looking at either buying a power amp to stick on my quad cortex board or just plugging into the fx return of these house amps