Amp Placement

[Mickguard]

I raised this discussion a few days back in the newsgroups, read the responses, thought about it, came to a few conclusions of my own. None of which are scientific, more commonsense than anything else.

1. Amplifiers are made to sit on the floor. That’s why they all have feet. They’re not meant to be tilted back either, otherwise they’d all have those Twin-style stands built in. Not all of Fender’s ideas were genius, you know. Seated on the floor, an amp can develop the full richness of its tone. Placed in the air, the bottom drops out, and you have to drive it harder to get the richness back.

2. An amplifier in the air and pointed at your head will make you deaf faster than an amp sitting on the floor. Not only are you taking it directly in the ear, but you’ve also had to boost it to compensate for the lack of tone. And because you’re now playing too loud, all the other guys in the group have to turn up too.

3. Placing an amp on the floor provides a cushion of air between you and the speaker…gives more space for the sound to develop. It’s like the difference between a fatbody acoustic and a thinline. This is just pure commonsense. Square roots and all aside.

4. Placing the amp on the floor directs more of the sound to your body, which is better able to “hear” the vibrations—means you don’t have to play as loudly to ‘feel’ the sound. It also provides more of a buffer between the sound and your ears—I believe the ears need distance in order to properly appreciate sound.

5. When playing with a group, whether in rehearsal or onstage, amplifiers should be placed in line and directed out towards the ‘audience’. The player should position himself directly in front of his/her amp. Makes it easier for relative sound levels to be sorted out by all the players.

6. Unless you have a monitor system and all instruments miked, amps should be grouped closely together to either side of the drummer. That way the sound comes from a unified direction, making it easier to get a good mix. Also helps to keep the volume levels down.

7. Unless you have a monitor system ALL electric instruments should have an amplifier. In my group, the keyboard player doesn’t have one, and plugs into the PA…of course, he can’t hear himself that way, so he always plays too loudly, and forces the rest of us to follow. Since I’m the singer, I end up shouting not singing in order to hear myself. And our rehearsal space is way too small to handle all that volume, so it ends up sounding like mud.

My goal is twofold: Protect my ears. Produce good-sounding music.

What's your take?

[GregP]

There's something to be said for isolating an amplifier from the ground. I don't mean necessarily pointing it at your head (ie. I'm not referring to the direction of the sound waves), but just decoupling it with the surface it's on. On a wooden stage, the coupling could cause an inordinate amount of bass vibration. You don't necessarily need a tilty thing. There are dense foam supports that function to decouple a speaker cab from a surface.

Also, by tilting it back, you're ensuring that bass frequencies don't just bounce of the wall behind it, which can have a hugely negative effect. Either the waves can become in phase and therefore twice as loud (giving you far too much bass) or they can go out of phase and therefore cancel each other out.

In short: decoupling good, avoiding negative reflections good.

Gotta agree about protecting your hearing, though. Wear earplugs, too. Screw anyone who thinks it looks dorky. People with tinnitus will tell you that it's not worth 'protecting your image' or whatever superficialities you're concerned with.

Greg

[Mickguard]

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[lovekraft]

If you want to protect your hearing and let the sound guy make you sound good, get the amp up where you can hear it, and turn it down!!

[TenderSurrender]

Heh this is all well n good for stage placement, however many other things need to be taken into account when recording.

Angling amp's does help when recording so that sound does not 'Cross' over between different channels on the mixer.

Mic placement is also important, 'room' mics helps a lot but if you mess it up your mix will end up like rubbish

Eeee cant wait to start music tech next year eee

~ Slain Angel ~