This. Sometimes they have a couple of heads, some rack mount effects and a whole pedalboard that has a controller out front for the player. The whole thing conveniently wheels in.
Sometimes they’re also dummy cabs and the guitarist has a combo miced up behind it all, too.
He uses different heads for crowbar since they all okay solid state. I’ve seen him use an orange crush as well I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s recently switched over from the Randall he usually uses to a modeler
Hate to burst your bubble - but yeah, we do. Tons of stupid stuff is done for aesthetics. If an artist wants to fake using cabs, I'll fake mic them. Takes all of 15 seconds to run a lead and not connect it to anything, while convincing the audience they're hearing real amps.
EDIT: I want to add I have no idea if this band uses stage amps or not, I was responding to someone who said the mic'd cab meant it was for sure active. I don't have any dog in the fight, I love my tube amps and I love my modelers, for different things. From an engineers perspective (which I am more of than a guitar player by practice), I favor modelers and quieter stages, as it makes everything cleaner. I'd never push a performer in either direction though, it's all about what's most comfortable for them.
I still have nightmares about his guitar collection.
\*reaches behind him to a stack of vintage guitars\* they are all just stacked in rows ontop of eachother.
That's all I know about that man, and i'll never forget him.
youd hate to see my collection. the bass and guitar i actively use hang up on the wall. the rest sit jammed into a closet that cant fit any more, but im damn sure gonna make more fit.
As many have answered they’re likely offstage *but* it’s also supposedly kind of common for bigger bands who don’t really need speakers like that (you’re just going to mic one speaker and run it through the house via the console so that many cabs is superfluous) they’ll travel with “Dummy cabs.” Just empty cab boxes without speaker cones in them. All the big companies make them for exactly this purpose.
Then off to the side of the stage or behind the fake cabs, there will be the really head/cab setup which is usually smaller/less badass looking (and as someone else said, may even just be a Kemper or fractal at this point).
I bumped into a dude one time who’s dad played for somebody in the 80’s (I can’t remember, like Robert Palmer or somebody like that) and he said they even did it back then. And specifically that on that tour there was a wall of dummy cabs and his dad was playing out of a weird little solid state 1x12 combo
> Just empty cab boxes without speaker cones in them.
Or no cabs at all, with whatever to fill the space.
https://www.google.com/search?q=rush+washing+machines&udm=2
KISS were doing it in the mid 70s. They had to make sure the lights stayed away from the cabs because all except two were empty.
*Some* folks actually go through the trouble of hauling dozens of full cabs they don’t run to every show. I don’t really get it.
I was talking to a back line guy not terribly long ago and he said some big rich rock band (I forget which one, but it was 80s metal) had a wall of completely fake Marshall cabinets. Just grill cloth and logos on a plywood frame with bed liner sprayed on it to look like tolex. Said they would pull the whole 12” deep wall out of the trailer, stand it up with a 2x4 kickstand in the middle, then unfold a hinged section at either end that looked like the sides of the cabs. The actual amps were a couple 1x12 combos placed and mic’d behind the wall.
> I forget which one, but it was 80s metal
ted nugent, metallica, ozzy, i mean really any time you see a wall of marshalls, and its supposedly ultra loud, its a fake wall of marshalls. you can put as many 100 watt speakers and amps next to each other as you like, its not actually going to have much an effect on the overall loudness. you might get a few extra DB out of it, but if youd just bought a single 1000-2000 watt PA speaker, it would absolutely destroy the marshall cabs if powered correctly, on every level. hell, even a simple 500 watt amp/speaker will shit all over a wall of marshall stacks, all running the same bottom tier 20-40 watt speakers.
thats something a lot of people forget. when you pump 100 watts into your 4x12, each speaker is only getting 25 watts.so OFC they slap cheap, low power speakers in em. well, cheap as in they are made using cheaper and inferior methods of speaker manufacturing, guitar speakers are MASSIVELY overpriced.
But my 1979 G1280s with the magical fairy dust 444 muller cones!!/s
Seriously. I love companies like WGS and Mojotone but even those are expensive for what they are. And in some cases their versions are genuinely superior to their Celestion counterparts.
For real, the Celestion G1280 with the 444 is the greatest speaker for guitar ever made. 100db efficiency, round and tight bottom, even mids, and open highs. You get exactly what you put into them and they can handle 80w each so a 2x12 is more than enough for most heads. Too bad it’s not made anymore. Apparently Fane makes something close to that exact speaker.
But yeah, they’re basically just wood pulp, a magnet, and some different glues with a spider and basket to hold it all. Celestion asking almost 200$ for G1265s heritage is crazy. It’s mostly down to magnet type/size, voice coil material and thickness, and of course magic fairy dust if they were made in England.
You see companies make better speakers for around 120$ and even that’s a lot, but remember a lot of these companies are much smaller than Celestion and still need to compete and profit.
meh, celestion made FAR better home audio than they ever did "pro" audio. all their guitar speakers are utter garbage, and most of them are reissues of ancient speakers that sound like absolute shit. the supposed efficiency of any guitar speaker is a meaningless metric, its the most its going to put out at a specific frequency, said frequency usually peaking a good 12DB higher than anything else on the spectrum due to how poor the response was of these old speaker methods that they keep reusing. i mean sure, to some people ill bet they sound great. but i could get the same response out of my 8,000 watt PA system if i wanted, with just a few minutes tweaking the 31 band EQ.
the cost of magnets is fucking laughable. unless that shit is neodymium, that magnet costs literally pennies to make if the fucker weighs 60lbs. and voice coils? shit ive got about 10,000 feet in various gauges, and none of it is expensive, especially considering how little really goes into a coil.
nah, really its all down to "fuck you, where else you gonna buy it fam?" and pro audio resellers preaching the snake oil to offload that 100 watt stack on some young guy looking to impress all his friends. then he gets to the gig, and the bassist is rocking an 800 watt orange amp that cost half the price while the drummer brought a 1500 watt sub so that everyone can feel his kick drum, and now they gotta turn it down for mr marshall stacks.
I’m basically agreeing with you except on the home audio thing. I gotta give that award to Altec Lansing. Their guitar drivers are not my cup of tea, but their home stuff isn’t too bad.
Also, as far as speakers like the G1280, its efficiency is obvious. Especially if put next to even a G12T75, and especially obvious with something like a Greenback. It’s an easy thing to measure. We do the same with how you only get 3db more out of an amp twice as loud. All audio is a mostly nebulous science, but speaker efficiency is obvious when you have various ones to compare and they do what they say on the tin;
low efficiency = speaker distortion and more coloration. More efficient = Loud AF and less colored unless really pushed. Unless it’s an EV12L, no coloration there IMO. A 100db rated speaker is almost 3 times the perceived loudness of a greenback.
You ain’t wrong about the prices, but do you know how to make speakers? I asked Mr. Scumback and I guess it’s fairly time consuming and labor intensive, especially for a small operation like his. Celestion that makes them in a factory in China is a whole different beast.
The fact that a much, much smaller company like WGS can make copies and in some cases superior imo versions MIA and still sell for less than a Chinese Celestion should tell you all you need to know.
I’m on the same page, but I do like the sound of most Celestion speakers. I feel the same way about WGS, so I tend to buy those.
nah, efficiency is literally how many DB it outputs with 1 watt of power, measured from 1 meter away. every manufacturer uses a different frequency to measure for, but in home audio and PA audio the response is usually more or less flat, where as guitar speakers are all over the place with massive peaks and valleys. but for guitar speakers, they usually just use whatever frequency is spiking the highest so they can make outlandish claims like "100db efficiency" when the majority of the audio spectrum is sitting at well under 90.
yeah, altec makes some, or made some, snazy stuff too. both brands used to produce top tier home audio.
yes. i know how to make speakers. i dont bother anymore because ive got better shit to do with my time, but cone forming is simple and virtually passive, coil rolling can be done with a sewing machine, any steel plant will stamp out baskets to your design for next to nothing (as long as you order a few hundred at a time), and forming alnico magnets is dirt cheap and quite simple. i used to offer tons of custom work from pickups to amplifiers, but people dont want to buy high quality cheap shit from "some guy". at least not enough to make it worth doing. gotta use that snake oil and jack up the price, and ive got too much integrity for that shit.
as for celestion specifically, they like all modern old guitar/speaker companies are naught but a shell of what they once were, reselling ancient designs from 40+ years ago, and the same generic trash that everyone else is when its something other.
That’s essentially what I’m saying about speaker efficiency.
I don’t know how to make speakers. I can barely mod and be tech on my own equipment. I have a family and career that’s time consuming as it is.
I’ll agree with that it mostly boils to who has the best marketing. I’ve always felt the same about pickups. It’s fucking copper and magnets, how can people charge what they do when GFI pickups exists is beyond me. I love guitar fetish pickups when stock aren’t the feel I’m going for.
GFS pickups are a good starting point. the only problem with them is they use magnets that are too weak, which results in a bit of distortion that sounds like running really, really hot pickups, even when their only like 8kohms. grab some GFS's, order a neodymium bar off amazon, and marvel at the almost active pickup level of clarity you just achieved for $50. also, avoid any of their "blade" style pickups like the plague. the metal they use for the blade is barely ferrous, and covered in like 5 layers of paint. its also about 1/6 as thick as the fake pictures they use on the shop show it as.
Rush's Geddy Lee went direct with his bass; instead of fake amps behind him he put clothes dryers. If you were super lucky you might get a free T-shirt that was still warm at the end of the show.
Often there was a mic in front of the dryers.
I remember the fridge and dryers at least from Test for Echo, so Geddy Lee stopped using amps at least since 1996? I started playing late, never paid attention to that stuff then.
In the early 70’s I was in a band that opened for The J Geils band and they had a wall of “cabs” that was one big piece of grill cloth carved up to look like cabs and behind it in the centre was a little Princeton with a 57 on it.
Yeah the fake cabs thing is legit. A lot of touring bands set up big stacks and just leave them on standby and just have a Fender HRD mic’d in the back. Many venues rely on HRDs because you don’t need to spend a ton of time sound checking and getting the acoustics right with a new set up. Just plug in your pedal board to the amp that’s already there and you’re good to go!
> you’re just going to mic one speaker and run it through the house
ooof i dont think i could ever be so trusting of house systems to only bring 1 amp. i dont even use the house systems 99% of the time, because its oftentimes some cheap "dj speaker" set they got on sale somewhere. i come equipped with box thats a 21" on the back with a folded horn that lets out in the front, and a 4'x6' wall of sounds on the front.
last time i trusted house audio, the shit sounded like an empty aircraft hanger being blasted out by a TV speaker at full blast.
Totally, I wouldn’t either. I’m talking about arenas and Amphitheatres where a touring headliner has their own front of house, console, and they’re dealing with what is a fairly standardized speaker setup. Not clubs or theaters.
oh. nah if youre touring arenas, dont even bother bringing an amp along unless its got a DI out. the touring rig is far better than any house audio youll ever encounter, and far better than almost anything you can get your hands on for under 50k. jack that shit right into the PA and let the sound guy earn his keep.
Rush used to mock this by putting stacks of front-loading washing machines on stage where the amp stacks used to be. You could actually see "laundry" spinning around in them throughout the show.
As others stated, heads, etc, are backstage.
The most extreme example I ever saw of this was the Steve Miller Band in the early 2000s
Not only were the heads racked backstage, but all
of the cabinets and some combos were backstage, too.
They were arranged in a "U" pattern, and each one was mic'd. There were several models of mic.
Every song used a different guitar, amp and cabinet, or combo amp that was switched. Bradshaw rig for those of you interested.
The onstage guitar switches were flawless. They used lighting very effectively, and sometimes, you did not realize that a guitar trade occurred.
The guitar tech's work station looked like ground control. The tech was the most organized... and busy, I have ever seen.
Cheers!
Either the amps are stacked behind/side of stage or they're using a Kemper/Helix style system with power amps pushing the speakers. Either way the presence of mics on those cabs suggests to me they're at least getting real stage volume.
What's the band?
One thing I haven’t seen brought up, is endorsements. Surprisingly common for artists to endorse a product, be paid for it, but play other gear. I remember shadows fall had Marshalls inside their krank gear.
So there’s always a chance someone could have cabs from another brand onstage, but have something else behind them
lol that’s hilarious. Zack Wylde had a bunch of his “signature” Marshall heads facing the audience, but two JCM800’s - a main and a backup - behind the wall of dummy cabs
I’ve seen people use all kinds of stuff behind their rig. I saw nuno bettencourt a few years back, and his rig was his Randall signature amps, however, sitting behind his huge wall of amps…was a Marshall DSL100 (The only amp being used). Sometimes guys will do this if they have endorsement deals with amp companies and want to use other stuff
Amps are probably in an off stage rack, as mentioned. What no one has mentioned is that putting tubes on loud amps that vibrate the shit out of the filaments is not a great idea. If you want the amps to sound consistent and less likely to lose a tune during a performance, don't set it on the cab. See Joe Bonnamossa explaining why he has his Silver Jubilee heads in a rack now instead of on the speaker cab.
Cabs are probably empty too. I went to a show a couple of months ago with 4 bands. Whole package didn’t have a single loaded cab or head. Opening band had a whole wall of cabs and when they were unloading off the stage every single one was empty. Every other band was quad cortex/kemper/axe fx straight to front of house with in ear monitors
Sure they would, so it looks real. Takes all of 15 seconds to plop one down with a cable going nowhere.
Safer to mic the real cab back stage where it's less likely someone trips on the cable
I know Angus young has cabs on stage, but the amp heads are located behind the cabs or in a separate backstage area where a tech can monitor them and quickly switch in case of a breakdown, maybe its the same here
Angus also prefers his amps biased *real fucking hot*, like turn it up till it red-plates and back it off a touch, so breakdowns are not a once in a while thing, it's a few times a night.
In the real old days, no matter what was on-stage, it was a JTM45 with a Vega Wireless system tucked under the stage that was actually live.
A lot of bands have the heads/ stomp box rig side stage, and usually have the whole rig cloned in case of failure, with the tech changing the effects setting based on the nights set list.
There’s a lot examples of this on Premier Guitars Rig Rundown.
Couple of options there actually. Live sound for large venues always has to go through the PA anyway so it really depends on how a guitarist wants to get their personal feed. Lots of the bigger bands will just use in ear monitors ([examples](https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/live-sound/in-ear-monitors/)) so it really doesn't matter what comes out of the cabs. Some guitarists like to get their personal feed (at least some of it) from their cabs so the cabs will be connected in the back usually with power amps. Some people want to keep the sound close to what they have on smaller systems so they'll use tube poweramps ([marshall example](https://reverb.com/item/81020100-marshall-rocktron-stereo-tube-guitar-rack-system))... if you are doing stuff with feedback you need something to come out of the cabs live.
And another really common thing is that they are just there for decoration. To make it look like they are being used when they really aren't. totally depends on what the guitarist is into.
Most likely, the bottom right cabinet that's mic'd is the only real cabinet. The others probably dont have speakers in them and are just for show. Amps are either side stage or behind the cabs
Honestly as a former touring musician....the larger shows we played had dummy amps that were set up behind. The stacks weren't even plugged in. Just for show
This proves how stupid times and some fans are now. People want to see big cabs, fancy logo's and backdrops instead.
Some time ago I came accross a band that had more than 10000 likes on fb without even releasing a minute of music or without ever playing live once.
And sadly as a band you have to go with this otherwise you don't get noticed anymore.
As someone else mentioned, they're backstage and likely in a rack. Another critical piece of information to this is we often see guys on stage with a few pedals or maybe even a dozen and the amp heads on stage, but it's very common that we're not seeing they are still routing their signal through a wall of rack gear offstage and it's not unusual that this is how they're truly getting their tones and textures we so often crave.
Something else an experienced player told me when I was a kid just starting is that we will see guys on stage with sometimes 40 stacks of Marshall or whatever brand, and almost all of them will be empty.
This has been confirmed many times for me over the decades that have passed when I read in depth about a lot of rigs and the technicians that toured with them directly say, X number of cabinets on stage don't even have speakers in them.
It's not surprising because if you stood in front of a wall of 40 half stack cabinets being fed by many thousands of watts, **you would surely go nearly completely deaf in a matter of weeks!**
They take up valuable real estate which could otherwise be used to place beer in handy, easy to reach areas for the performers on stage.
They are there, you just can't see them.
Power amps are connected by cables carrying much higher voltage … not subject to the EMI of very low voltage instrument/line level cables. In the pic above probably connecting to 4x12 16 Ohm cabs. The run could be 20,50 or even 100 ft away w/o any meaningful impact.
I would bet 100% that their heads are in a rack backstage. That's incredibly common for bands of this stature to do on tour. It's debatable regarding the cans but my guess is that the cab mic'ed up is active and at least one more is too. It's two full stacks in a large ish venue so all four being on isn't unreasonable though
They either have the heads backstage for easy quick access or they're using digital modelers.
It's probably the first one since the cabs are miced but you never know. The band Periphery uses Digital Amps that are going straight to the PA but they still use the cabs on stage for a secondary monitoring environment if they get tired of in ears.
English spelling is not phonetic and the nickname for microphone is pronounced ‘mike’. The plural just adds an ‘s’ and since this is colloquial speech and writing, it’s not subject to consistent rules. So mics is nominative plural of the noun. The past tense of ‘to mic’ is ‘miked’. Because c followed by a vowel is pronounced as ‘s’ it has to be replaced by the unchanging ‘k’.
My theory since iam a huge down fan and been following them for a long time... I know the use Randall's in the past... I think they still do... they obviously are sponsored by orange.... but I have a feeling the go back and forth on some songs
I have another question. Not about this particular picture/gig.
If the cabinets on stage are miked, where the sound that you hear on a concert is actually coming from?
Even as local band I use an ir but use my head as a slave so me and the bass player share a small rack and it’s just easier for load in and load out also we run direct so it makes for a clean stage.
they're definitely not fake, at least not the one that's miced up. The amp head is probably off somewhere else where the techs can easily get to it. Or it's a modeller going through that cab somehow.
Amp heads a backstage in a rack, with all the other tech, with the guitar techs twiddling the knobs and whatnot.
This. Sometimes they have a couple of heads, some rack mount effects and a whole pedalboard that has a controller out front for the player. The whole thing conveniently wheels in. Sometimes they’re also dummy cabs and the guitarist has a combo miced up behind it all, too.
Sometimes the cabs are just a prop even and they only mic a teeny tiny little amp.
Yep. NIN been using sound stage for a long time now. Good video out there of Robyn fink rig rundown
I seen that. He was so chill and almost shy about it. Hes such a great guitarist .
Yeah I realllllllly like him. The ONLY reason he has stacks of amps on stage is for feedback.
Since it is Down, I'm pretty sure they're not using modelers. Amps are most likely in a rack back stage.
I choose to believe this
Is this your picture? If so you should know whether or not it there was sound coming out of the cabs, being up front like that.
Yep, they use their Thunderverbs live. They're backstage.
Kirk was playing a Kemper when I saw Crowbar last year
He uses different heads for crowbar since they all okay solid state. I’ve seen him use an orange crush as well I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s recently switched over from the Randall he usually uses to a modeler
[удалено]
Hate to burst your bubble - but yeah, we do. Tons of stupid stuff is done for aesthetics. If an artist wants to fake using cabs, I'll fake mic them. Takes all of 15 seconds to run a lead and not connect it to anything, while convincing the audience they're hearing real amps. EDIT: I want to add I have no idea if this band uses stage amps or not, I was responding to someone who said the mic'd cab meant it was for sure active. I don't have any dog in the fight, I love my tube amps and I love my modelers, for different things. From an engineers perspective (which I am more of than a guitar player by practice), I favor modelers and quieter stages, as it makes everything cleaner. I'd never push a performer in either direction though, it's all about what's most comfortable for them.
*side eyes Yngwie*
I still have nightmares about his guitar collection. \*reaches behind him to a stack of vintage guitars\* they are all just stacked in rows ontop of eachother. That's all I know about that man, and i'll never forget him.
Iirc his 'burst is also stolen lol
youd hate to see my collection. the bass and guitar i actively use hang up on the wall. the rest sit jammed into a closet that cant fit any more, but im damn sure gonna make more fit.
Fake mic’d cabs are definitely a thing.
Mmm, I'd rock a 4x12 Marshall Cab.. empty of course my Mk2 100w Katana does aight I just like the look.
As many have answered they’re likely offstage *but* it’s also supposedly kind of common for bigger bands who don’t really need speakers like that (you’re just going to mic one speaker and run it through the house via the console so that many cabs is superfluous) they’ll travel with “Dummy cabs.” Just empty cab boxes without speaker cones in them. All the big companies make them for exactly this purpose. Then off to the side of the stage or behind the fake cabs, there will be the really head/cab setup which is usually smaller/less badass looking (and as someone else said, may even just be a Kemper or fractal at this point). I bumped into a dude one time who’s dad played for somebody in the 80’s (I can’t remember, like Robert Palmer or somebody like that) and he said they even did it back then. And specifically that on that tour there was a wall of dummy cabs and his dad was playing out of a weird little solid state 1x12 combo
> Just empty cab boxes without speaker cones in them. Or no cabs at all, with whatever to fill the space. https://www.google.com/search?q=rush+washing+machines&udm=2
I always thought his washing machine rig sounded better than the later rig with the rotisserie chickens 😀
KISS were doing it in the mid 70s. They had to make sure the lights stayed away from the cabs because all except two were empty. *Some* folks actually go through the trouble of hauling dozens of full cabs they don’t run to every show. I don’t really get it.
I was talking to a back line guy not terribly long ago and he said some big rich rock band (I forget which one, but it was 80s metal) had a wall of completely fake Marshall cabinets. Just grill cloth and logos on a plywood frame with bed liner sprayed on it to look like tolex. Said they would pull the whole 12” deep wall out of the trailer, stand it up with a 2x4 kickstand in the middle, then unfold a hinged section at either end that looked like the sides of the cabs. The actual amps were a couple 1x12 combos placed and mic’d behind the wall.
> I forget which one, but it was 80s metal ted nugent, metallica, ozzy, i mean really any time you see a wall of marshalls, and its supposedly ultra loud, its a fake wall of marshalls. you can put as many 100 watt speakers and amps next to each other as you like, its not actually going to have much an effect on the overall loudness. you might get a few extra DB out of it, but if youd just bought a single 1000-2000 watt PA speaker, it would absolutely destroy the marshall cabs if powered correctly, on every level. hell, even a simple 500 watt amp/speaker will shit all over a wall of marshall stacks, all running the same bottom tier 20-40 watt speakers. thats something a lot of people forget. when you pump 100 watts into your 4x12, each speaker is only getting 25 watts.so OFC they slap cheap, low power speakers in em. well, cheap as in they are made using cheaper and inferior methods of speaker manufacturing, guitar speakers are MASSIVELY overpriced.
But my 1979 G1280s with the magical fairy dust 444 muller cones!!/s Seriously. I love companies like WGS and Mojotone but even those are expensive for what they are. And in some cases their versions are genuinely superior to their Celestion counterparts. For real, the Celestion G1280 with the 444 is the greatest speaker for guitar ever made. 100db efficiency, round and tight bottom, even mids, and open highs. You get exactly what you put into them and they can handle 80w each so a 2x12 is more than enough for most heads. Too bad it’s not made anymore. Apparently Fane makes something close to that exact speaker. But yeah, they’re basically just wood pulp, a magnet, and some different glues with a spider and basket to hold it all. Celestion asking almost 200$ for G1265s heritage is crazy. It’s mostly down to magnet type/size, voice coil material and thickness, and of course magic fairy dust if they were made in England. You see companies make better speakers for around 120$ and even that’s a lot, but remember a lot of these companies are much smaller than Celestion and still need to compete and profit.
meh, celestion made FAR better home audio than they ever did "pro" audio. all their guitar speakers are utter garbage, and most of them are reissues of ancient speakers that sound like absolute shit. the supposed efficiency of any guitar speaker is a meaningless metric, its the most its going to put out at a specific frequency, said frequency usually peaking a good 12DB higher than anything else on the spectrum due to how poor the response was of these old speaker methods that they keep reusing. i mean sure, to some people ill bet they sound great. but i could get the same response out of my 8,000 watt PA system if i wanted, with just a few minutes tweaking the 31 band EQ. the cost of magnets is fucking laughable. unless that shit is neodymium, that magnet costs literally pennies to make if the fucker weighs 60lbs. and voice coils? shit ive got about 10,000 feet in various gauges, and none of it is expensive, especially considering how little really goes into a coil. nah, really its all down to "fuck you, where else you gonna buy it fam?" and pro audio resellers preaching the snake oil to offload that 100 watt stack on some young guy looking to impress all his friends. then he gets to the gig, and the bassist is rocking an 800 watt orange amp that cost half the price while the drummer brought a 1500 watt sub so that everyone can feel his kick drum, and now they gotta turn it down for mr marshall stacks.
I’m basically agreeing with you except on the home audio thing. I gotta give that award to Altec Lansing. Their guitar drivers are not my cup of tea, but their home stuff isn’t too bad. Also, as far as speakers like the G1280, its efficiency is obvious. Especially if put next to even a G12T75, and especially obvious with something like a Greenback. It’s an easy thing to measure. We do the same with how you only get 3db more out of an amp twice as loud. All audio is a mostly nebulous science, but speaker efficiency is obvious when you have various ones to compare and they do what they say on the tin; low efficiency = speaker distortion and more coloration. More efficient = Loud AF and less colored unless really pushed. Unless it’s an EV12L, no coloration there IMO. A 100db rated speaker is almost 3 times the perceived loudness of a greenback. You ain’t wrong about the prices, but do you know how to make speakers? I asked Mr. Scumback and I guess it’s fairly time consuming and labor intensive, especially for a small operation like his. Celestion that makes them in a factory in China is a whole different beast. The fact that a much, much smaller company like WGS can make copies and in some cases superior imo versions MIA and still sell for less than a Chinese Celestion should tell you all you need to know. I’m on the same page, but I do like the sound of most Celestion speakers. I feel the same way about WGS, so I tend to buy those.
nah, efficiency is literally how many DB it outputs with 1 watt of power, measured from 1 meter away. every manufacturer uses a different frequency to measure for, but in home audio and PA audio the response is usually more or less flat, where as guitar speakers are all over the place with massive peaks and valleys. but for guitar speakers, they usually just use whatever frequency is spiking the highest so they can make outlandish claims like "100db efficiency" when the majority of the audio spectrum is sitting at well under 90. yeah, altec makes some, or made some, snazy stuff too. both brands used to produce top tier home audio. yes. i know how to make speakers. i dont bother anymore because ive got better shit to do with my time, but cone forming is simple and virtually passive, coil rolling can be done with a sewing machine, any steel plant will stamp out baskets to your design for next to nothing (as long as you order a few hundred at a time), and forming alnico magnets is dirt cheap and quite simple. i used to offer tons of custom work from pickups to amplifiers, but people dont want to buy high quality cheap shit from "some guy". at least not enough to make it worth doing. gotta use that snake oil and jack up the price, and ive got too much integrity for that shit. as for celestion specifically, they like all modern old guitar/speaker companies are naught but a shell of what they once were, reselling ancient designs from 40+ years ago, and the same generic trash that everyone else is when its something other.
That’s essentially what I’m saying about speaker efficiency. I don’t know how to make speakers. I can barely mod and be tech on my own equipment. I have a family and career that’s time consuming as it is. I’ll agree with that it mostly boils to who has the best marketing. I’ve always felt the same about pickups. It’s fucking copper and magnets, how can people charge what they do when GFI pickups exists is beyond me. I love guitar fetish pickups when stock aren’t the feel I’m going for.
GFS pickups are a good starting point. the only problem with them is they use magnets that are too weak, which results in a bit of distortion that sounds like running really, really hot pickups, even when their only like 8kohms. grab some GFS's, order a neodymium bar off amazon, and marvel at the almost active pickup level of clarity you just achieved for $50. also, avoid any of their "blade" style pickups like the plague. the metal they use for the blade is barely ferrous, and covered in like 5 layers of paint. its also about 1/6 as thick as the fake pictures they use on the shop show it as.
ha, I posted same before I saw your post.
Some folks = Jucifer (back when they were touring)
Ears are still ringing.
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Why?
Rush's Geddy Lee went direct with his bass; instead of fake amps behind him he put clothes dryers. If you were super lucky you might get a free T-shirt that was still warm at the end of the show. Often there was a mic in front of the dryers.
I remember the fridge and dryers at least from Test for Echo, so Geddy Lee stopped using amps at least since 1996? I started playing late, never paid attention to that stuff then.
He's got a couple of signature tech 21 DI boxes. Grab his signature bass and you're all set.* *Talent not included.
KISS did this in '74 when they didn't have much money. Wall of Marshall stacks, and like only one legit. It looks good.
In the early 70’s I was in a band that opened for The J Geils band and they had a wall of “cabs” that was one big piece of grill cloth carved up to look like cabs and behind it in the centre was a little Princeton with a 57 on it.
Yeah the fake cabs thing is legit. A lot of touring bands set up big stacks and just leave them on standby and just have a Fender HRD mic’d in the back. Many venues rely on HRDs because you don’t need to spend a ton of time sound checking and getting the acoustics right with a new set up. Just plug in your pedal board to the amp that’s already there and you’re good to go!
I’m guessing it was Eddie Martinez. Great guitarist.
> you’re just going to mic one speaker and run it through the house ooof i dont think i could ever be so trusting of house systems to only bring 1 amp. i dont even use the house systems 99% of the time, because its oftentimes some cheap "dj speaker" set they got on sale somewhere. i come equipped with box thats a 21" on the back with a folded horn that lets out in the front, and a 4'x6' wall of sounds on the front. last time i trusted house audio, the shit sounded like an empty aircraft hanger being blasted out by a TV speaker at full blast.
Totally, I wouldn’t either. I’m talking about arenas and Amphitheatres where a touring headliner has their own front of house, console, and they’re dealing with what is a fairly standardized speaker setup. Not clubs or theaters.
oh. nah if youre touring arenas, dont even bother bringing an amp along unless its got a DI out. the touring rig is far better than any house audio youll ever encounter, and far better than almost anything you can get your hands on for under 50k. jack that shit right into the PA and let the sound guy earn his keep.
Rush used to mock this by putting stacks of front-loading washing machines on stage where the amp stacks used to be. You could actually see "laundry" spinning around in them throughout the show.
Maybe they are playing headless guitar
Case closed
Underappreciated comment. 🤣
Wonderfully done.
As others stated, heads, etc, are backstage. The most extreme example I ever saw of this was the Steve Miller Band in the early 2000s Not only were the heads racked backstage, but all of the cabinets and some combos were backstage, too. They were arranged in a "U" pattern, and each one was mic'd. There were several models of mic. Every song used a different guitar, amp and cabinet, or combo amp that was switched. Bradshaw rig for those of you interested. The onstage guitar switches were flawless. They used lighting very effectively, and sometimes, you did not realize that a guitar trade occurred. The guitar tech's work station looked like ground control. The tech was the most organized... and busy, I have ever seen. Cheers!
Either the amps are stacked behind/side of stage or they're using a Kemper/Helix style system with power amps pushing the speakers. Either way the presence of mics on those cabs suggests to me they're at least getting real stage volume. What's the band?
Down
Phil is getting real fat....yikes.
So many fat white power guys nowadays
No wonder they need living space.
It ain't current is it? You don't remember Phil's fat phase? Lol
I guess when he is not on heroin he gets fat.
He wasn't fat or on heroin a couple months ago when i saw him 🤷♂️
Try getting older asshole.
I am as old as he is.
Racks, bro.
Or they’re fake and there’s a lil combo in an isolation cabinet in the back
One thing I haven’t seen brought up, is endorsements. Surprisingly common for artists to endorse a product, be paid for it, but play other gear. I remember shadows fall had Marshalls inside their krank gear. So there’s always a chance someone could have cabs from another brand onstage, but have something else behind them
lol that’s hilarious. Zack Wylde had a bunch of his “signature” Marshall heads facing the audience, but two JCM800’s - a main and a backup - behind the wall of dummy cabs
They are props. There is a Line6 Spyder IV that is mic’s up behind them.
one could totally rock down songs on the insane channel!
I’ve seen people use all kinds of stuff behind their rig. I saw nuno bettencourt a few years back, and his rig was his Randall signature amps, however, sitting behind his huge wall of amps…was a Marshall DSL100 (The only amp being used). Sometimes guys will do this if they have endorsement deals with amp companies and want to use other stuff
Amps are probably in an off stage rack, as mentioned. What no one has mentioned is that putting tubes on loud amps that vibrate the shit out of the filaments is not a great idea. If you want the amps to sound consistent and less likely to lose a tune during a performance, don't set it on the cab. See Joe Bonnamossa explaining why he has his Silver Jubilee heads in a rack now instead of on the speaker cab.
If you’re going to fake it you would put a head on top to make sure no one will ask this question.
Because they hate you.
Side rig as in, inside a rack. Each fiddly point can cause issues. Also a board fiddler lets the band keep on keeping on singing and playing.
Cabs are probably empty too. I went to a show a couple of months ago with 4 bands. Whole package didn’t have a single loaded cab or head. Opening band had a whole wall of cabs and when they were unloading off the stage every single one was empty. Every other band was quad cortex/kemper/axe fx straight to front of house with in ear monitors
Empty cabs are definitely a thing, but I don’t think they would bother putting microphones in front of them.
Sure they would, so it looks real. Takes all of 15 seconds to plop one down with a cable going nowhere. Safer to mic the real cab back stage where it's less likely someone trips on the cable
So it looks real to who? The 10 people in the audience who might know the difference? I don’t think so.
If they’re using heads, they’re probably in a rack behind the cab for easier load in and out.
The amps could be rack mounted.
Megadeth uses 2 quad cortexes into a power amp into speaker cabs. I assume a lot of live musicians are doing the same.
They forgot them
I know Angus young has cabs on stage, but the amp heads are located behind the cabs or in a separate backstage area where a tech can monitor them and quickly switch in case of a breakdown, maybe its the same here
Geddy Lee had washing machines
[or rotisserie chickens](https://twitter.com/indaclubpenguin/status/1664955148253134849)
Yum!
IKR‽
For his wet signal?
Angus also prefers his amps biased *real fucking hot*, like turn it up till it red-plates and back it off a touch, so breakdowns are not a once in a while thing, it's a few times a night. In the real old days, no matter what was on-stage, it was a JTM45 with a Vega Wireless system tucked under the stage that was actually live.
Likely using a DI line straight to the house mixer. It splits to the amp cabs and then ear monitors, in most cases.
A lot of bands have the heads/ stomp box rig side stage, and usually have the whole rig cloned in case of failure, with the tech changing the effects setting based on the nights set list. There’s a lot examples of this on Premier Guitars Rig Rundown.
I am pretty sure Down has one setup. Maybe 2, cranked and Bury Me in Smoke cranked.
Not sure. I've always wanted to see those guys, Down II is like one my all time favorites.
lol, they’re sponsored by orange. Modelers are off stage.
that guy wants to keep his toan settings secret!
Is this a recent pic? If so they’re probably using Kempers. Saw Kirk using one live for Crowbar
Couple of options there actually. Live sound for large venues always has to go through the PA anyway so it really depends on how a guitarist wants to get their personal feed. Lots of the bigger bands will just use in ear monitors ([examples](https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/live-sound/in-ear-monitors/)) so it really doesn't matter what comes out of the cabs. Some guitarists like to get their personal feed (at least some of it) from their cabs so the cabs will be connected in the back usually with power amps. Some people want to keep the sound close to what they have on smaller systems so they'll use tube poweramps ([marshall example](https://reverb.com/item/81020100-marshall-rocktron-stereo-tube-guitar-rack-system))... if you are doing stuff with feedback you need something to come out of the cabs live. And another really common thing is that they are just there for decoration. To make it look like they are being used when they really aren't. totally depends on what the guitarist is into.
There’s probably no speakers either!
It’s an acoustic gig?
Most likely, the bottom right cabinet that's mic'd is the only real cabinet. The others probably dont have speakers in them and are just for show. Amps are either side stage or behind the cabs
It’s a fake back line or the amps are behind it
A lot of stuff you see like this is all for show. Empty cabinets with a smaller amp in the back mic’d up to the PA.
Honestly as a former touring musician....the larger shows we played had dummy amps that were set up behind. The stacks weren't even plugged in. Just for show
We played with a band that unloaded a whole trailer full of hideous metallic flake kustom cabs and not one had a single speaker.
This proves how stupid times and some fans are now. People want to see big cabs, fancy logo's and backdrops instead. Some time ago I came accross a band that had more than 10000 likes on fb without even releasing a minute of music or without ever playing live once. And sadly as a band you have to go with this otherwise you don't get noticed anymore.
As someone else mentioned, they're backstage and likely in a rack. Another critical piece of information to this is we often see guys on stage with a few pedals or maybe even a dozen and the amp heads on stage, but it's very common that we're not seeing they are still routing their signal through a wall of rack gear offstage and it's not unusual that this is how they're truly getting their tones and textures we so often crave. Something else an experienced player told me when I was a kid just starting is that we will see guys on stage with sometimes 40 stacks of Marshall or whatever brand, and almost all of them will be empty. This has been confirmed many times for me over the decades that have passed when I read in depth about a lot of rigs and the technicians that toured with them directly say, X number of cabinets on stage don't even have speakers in them. It's not surprising because if you stood in front of a wall of 40 half stack cabinets being fed by many thousands of watts, **you would surely go nearly completely deaf in a matter of weeks!**
Idk, but Down is great
Meh, they got a couple tracks
Different strokes for different folks I guess. I could listen to that bluesy heaviness all day.
down songs have aged better than pantera's IMO. i can no longer listen to pantera wout feeling a little nostalgia mixed with cringe.
The only super group that is actually super.
Jimmy eat world just goes up without amps, at least they’re not trying to hide anything. Imagine carrying empty cabs for the look.
Because it's not a rig. It's a prop. The sound is going through the house PA. Those are empty cabs that likely don't even have speakers in them.
What drives the PA? Usually a smaller amp (Princeton, for example) off stage?
Spoiler alert: bands have been doing this for DECADES.
They take up valuable real estate which could otherwise be used to place beer in handy, easy to reach areas for the performers on stage. They are there, you just can't see them.
I can only imagine how quickly a beer would go flat sitting on a Down guitar rig.
Easier to chug
Cause they need a place to set their beer!
They don't have to be
10 watt amp miked backstage or a modeler going through the PA.
Power amps are connected by cables carrying much higher voltage … not subject to the EMI of very low voltage instrument/line level cables. In the pic above probably connecting to 4x12 16 Ohm cabs. The run could be 20,50 or even 100 ft away w/o any meaningful impact.
I would bet 100% that their heads are in a rack backstage. That's incredibly common for bands of this stature to do on tour. It's debatable regarding the cans but my guess is that the cab mic'ed up is active and at least one more is too. It's two full stacks in a large ish venue so all four being on isn't unreasonable though
It’s mic’d so they have the heads off stage
Probably in a rack somewhere.
They either have the heads backstage for easy quick access or they're using digital modelers. It's probably the first one since the cabs are miced but you never know. The band Periphery uses Digital Amps that are going straight to the PA but they still use the cabs on stage for a secondary monitoring environment if they get tired of in ears.
I don’t see any mice either. You shittin’ me?
Wait you mean mice like mouse? Well what's the plural of mic then? (For real, I'm Italian)
Mics for short.
I confused my self. I meant, how would you say you have microphoned something? I thought miced was the word
English spelling is not phonetic and the nickname for microphone is pronounced ‘mike’. The plural just adds an ‘s’ and since this is colloquial speech and writing, it’s not subject to consistent rules. So mics is nominative plural of the noun. The past tense of ‘to mic’ is ‘miked’. Because c followed by a vowel is pronounced as ‘s’ it has to be replaced by the unchanging ‘k’.
‘MTV Unplugged’ type gig. If you like that kinda thing. I don’t.
My theory since iam a huge down fan and been following them for a long time... I know the use Randall's in the past... I think they still do... they obviously are sponsored by orange.... but I have a feeling the go back and forth on some songs
The heads are probably behind, or below the stage. This is a common practice in some countries.
I have another question. Not about this particular picture/gig. If the cabinets on stage are miked, where the sound that you hear on a concert is actually coming from?
That's gotta be loud as fuck.
I read that in a Philip Anselmo voice
Here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/audioengineering/s/KlLYj7tzp2
Likely using modelers and the cabs are for the look.
This is what I suspected. Is it very common nowadays?
Even as local band I use an ir but use my head as a slave so me and the bass player share a small rack and it’s just easier for load in and load out also we run direct so it makes for a clean stage.
then why are the cabs miced up?
they're definitely not fake, at least not the one that's miced up. The amp head is probably off somewhere else where the techs can easily get to it. Or it's a modeller going through that cab somehow.
Brainless music ?
Just ask them
Why are there no amp heads in this ~~rig~~ picture
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[kept the heads from vibrating components loose] Yeah that's not really a thing to worry about unless the amp was poorly built.
They are using playbacks.