Went to see three bands in the last week or so.
Suede at Rock City: Full backline, as you’d likely expect.
My mates band in Islington: On a three band bill. But only one band was using trad backline. The others all used Helix’s or those Zoom modeller things I forget the name of. The majority of guitar sounds that night sounded great. Maybe one of the guitars I heard sounded a bit thin. But otherwise I didn’t notice any other guitar sounds.
Local Blues band in Nottingham: All traditional backline. Sounded great.
I’ve seen a couple of mentions on YouTube of people abandoning amps to use modellers. Especially metal acts. Is that really the case at small gigs now? I’m not sure I’ve been out enough recently to form an opinion.
What has everyone else seen?
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I must have done 30-40 bands this year...I can count on one hand the number that were completely digital/ modelling, and probably only a few more that had one or more members using digital.
Still mostly traditional back line for me.
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Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youI expect it'll continue to grow as the tech to do it well improves and becomes more affordable.
Personally I think using modellers at small gigs straight into the PA causes more problems than it solves as it means you now need extra centre fill PA. Otherwise the people in the front middle wedged against the stage barrier just hear drums . Using a modeller into a PA speaker as backline just seems bizarre to me, now it's just as bulky as a combo amp. I know people think they now can sound like a black faced Twin or Twead or whatever but does it really ? I've been playing guitar for 35 years and I can't tell your modeller is now doing a perfect impression of a Matchless DC30 so I doubt the audience can.
They certainly make more sense for large gigs where bands like Mettalica have embraced the tech and cut down on truck space. Modellers do tend to do the very heavy and very clean sound very well too. They also scale well on medium and large systems. I was watching a video someone posted on FB with my POD going through the PA at Grand Central liverpool and it did sound pretty epic. Still miss my amp though.
Ironically, the answer is that it doesn't matter on big stages where you're relying on the amp being miked up and having stage monitors, and where the FOH mix isn't relying on the backline.
On a small stage, in smaller rooms, that's when the sound dispersal from the backline matters and where a modeller can cause problems. What do I mean by that? Well, I think like a producer/ mixer - not just "are things balanced right" but from note to note, chord to chord, is the guitar behaving the way I want it to?
I tried a Helix and FRFR cab, and while I love it for recording I had some problems with lumpy low end in practice environments - some notes/chords would drown out the bass guitar and have the whole stage vibrating, others would lack low end. The attack of notes didn't feel right, I was constantly having to engage my left brain to work out why and what to change to try to fix it.
I changed it out for an AC30 and hey presto, I pretty much always sit where I want to in the mix. I'd rather deal with the compromise of having to run that below its sweet spot* than the problem of trying to get a modeller to feel like a real amp sat behind me.
*My strategy is thus: Have a HX stomp on my board, which has a transparent volume control. If I need to turn that down so low that the ac30 genuinely sounds bad (and that would be very quiet indeed), I have a patch with a modeller on that can be run straight to the PA.
Also as a final point, we are quite visual creatures and I think having a bunch of ostentatious backline around you helps the audience feel the sound viscerally.
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I do go quite traditional into a power and and guitar cab.
I made the jump because I used rack fx anyway (tc gmaj at the time) and I coukd never find an amp I liked across clean, crunch and Lead. Thete was always compromise.
The fractal route allows me to fine tune the different gain levels to my "in my head" sound and I'm happier for it.
I wouldnt go frfr on stage though but happy to feed the pa (with cab sims) in larger venues.
It's super common for people like function bands that play a lot of volume limited venues (And also electronic drums), pit bands for theatres, session musicians playing for pop artists and a lot of pro touring bands.
I run an AxeFx3, other guitarist a Helix, bassist uses a MarkBass head direct into the mixer and for 90% of gigs or drummer uses his electric kit (full size, not pads, so it looks like the real thing!) with a Roland V Drums module.
For monitoring we have 3 monitors at the front, the drummer monitors with in ears and we have a bass cab to fill in a little bit of low end on our side of the PA.
We have everything dialled in pretty good, so setup/souncheck is a well drilled operation now. The beauty of the electric kit is that we can play as loud or quietly as the venue requires rather than being dictated by the volume of an acoustic kit. Not sure of the model but it's one of the high end Roland modules and the drums sound incredible, understandably our drummer prefers his acoustic kit though.
It works for us and we've had nothing but compliments on the sound, mind you it's the culmination of several years of trial and error and tweaking.
This is after years of using conventional backline with floor monitors. Apart from the hassle of dragging multiple wedge monitors to every gig, I could never get a good and balanced sound at my playing position without being too loud for the room. I also always used earplugs (the posh expensive kind with allegedly "flat" response), which can't help but decouple you a bit from the visceral feeling of using a real amp. So, I eventually went to in-ears, and the move to modellers is just a natural extension of that for me.
Obviously all this is much easier to achieve when you're doing your own sound, and it does take a bit more care in terms of dialling in the PA. I can understand why many aren't up for making that leap.
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We all use IEM, drums are acoustic but I believe he uses triggers so there's no mics needed.
I never thought giving up my setup with my valve amp until I joined this project and, for this situation, I can't see a better option, although I've suffered from endless tweaking sometimes and that's why, in another band I'm in, I still use a valve amp but we haven't gigged so far. Since it's a style where I can use "my" sound, I prefer having a basic amp sound and adding a couple of effects on top when needed.
The one thing I have noticed is the profusion of drummer-less bands playing over backing tracks.
I've had various modellers over the years (Boss, Line 6, Fractal etc) and have always preferred traditional pedalboard/amp to them. I don't think they sound as good (especially for cleaner tones actually) and it doesn't feel the same as using a nice valve amp to me anyway.
Plus there always seem to be a need to tweak the sounds a lot more depending upon the venue in my experience.
Solo/Duos with or without backing tracks or acousic based band (with a lead guitar, bass and cajon) are seem to be making up the bulk of the live scene in my locale. There are a few fairly well established bands, but a full band with drummer seems to be a dying breed around the pubs and clubs near me. Amps are still very much in the majority for electric guitars though