well hello friends and welcome to ask
0:27
Zack today we're going to talk about a
0:30
solution for when you are given the
0:33
buzz kill of the Year phrase from one of
0:36
your bandmates or venue cats when they
0:41
tell you you got to turn
0:44
down man especially after you've just
0:47
played like a great Solo or you thought
0:49
you played really well on something and
0:51
you're expecting to hear man that was
0:53
great
0:54
Zach instead you hear hey Zach can you
0:58
uh turn it down some it's really uh too
1:00
loud for the stage too loud for the room
1:03
um it's a buzz kill So today we're going
1:07
to talk about some solutions uh we're
1:10
going to talk about baffling and we're
1:12
going to talk about different methods
1:14
and uh yeah and we're going to give kind
1:17
of the pros and cons of each CU all of
1:19
them have kind of you know pluses and
1:21
minuses for uh you know what they uh
1:24
what they
1:25
offer so but before we dig and before we
1:28
dive in I should say
1:30
I want to thank my patreon members that
1:33
really are what keeps this show going
1:36
and they mean so much to me they get to
1:38
see the episodes early without
1:40
commercials and uh they're really near
1:43
and dear and so I'm very appreciative so
1:46
if you want to find out more go down
1:48
into the description and you can follow
1:51
the link to
1:52
patreon all right let's dive in so
1:57
you've been told you're too loud well
1:59
well you know on on the Fly there's you
2:03
know a number of things you can do when
2:05
you don't have anything with you per se
2:07
you know you could physically turn the
2:09
amp down but as we all know when you
2:12
turn the amp down a lot of times you get
2:14
a different tone a different sound now
2:17
if you can turn it down and and it still
2:18
be acceptable great you know you do that
2:22
uh if you can't then you're finding
2:24
different ways of blocking the sound
2:27
some way basically you're baffling so
2:30
you know one you know you can turn the
2:31
amp around which means you're going to
2:34
get Less Direct sound toward the
2:37
audience uh but you're going to get a
2:38
lot of Ambient sound on stage because
2:40
you've got that you know all of a sudden
2:41
you've got the back of the amp you know
2:43
kind of doing its thing but it's not not
2:45
a terrible uh thing and it certainly
2:48
will work in a pinch uh another thing
2:52
you you can do is you can put cases in
2:55
front of it which this is kind of a it
2:58
can it can work but it's kind of a an
2:59
eyes sore so I mean you can take um you
3:03
know road cases so I've seen guys that
3:05
have Telly flight cases you know big
3:08
rectangular ones you know Anvil type
3:10
cases and they will just uh put them in
3:13
front of the amp to uh block the sound
3:16
coming off of it uh that that can work
3:19
you know that that can do a pretty good
3:20
job uh you'll get some reflection off
3:23
the uh the case and depending on how
3:25
your case looks it can be kind of an
3:27
isore if you have like stenciling on it
3:29
and a bunch of crazy stickers that are
3:32
it just can be kind of a distraction and
3:34
an
3:35
eyesore another thing you can do in a
3:37
pinch is uh and I've seen Guthrie trap
3:40
do this is some you know on uh on fly
3:43
dates he'll request two reissued Deluxe
3:47
Reverb amplifiers and and if he's told
3:49
that he's too loud he will just put one
3:52
of them in front of the other so he
3:54
requests two of them so that he has a
3:56
backup and in case one doesn't sound
3:57
good but also he can just take one of
4:00
them and put it in front of the other uh
4:02
and uh that way you know you get you
4:05
still get some sound coming through uh
4:08
you know because of course you have the
4:09
opening and but you know it's all kind
4:11
of coming through the cabinet itself and
4:13
the speaker so uh not that anything
4:16
electronically is going through there
4:17
but it just kind of helps to block some
4:19
of it off another thing that I'm amazed
4:22
that people don't think about more is
4:24
just turning the amp away from the front
4:26
of house guy or gal and uh I can't tell
4:30
you how many times I've seen somebody
4:33
with a twin or a marshall 412 or
4:35
whatever and they point it right toward
4:38
the F of house guy and it's like what a
4:41
stupid move uh yeah another thing you
4:43
can do is just turn the amp turn the amp
4:45
away from your singer and the front of
4:47
house guy angle it outward or something
4:49
like that angle it off to the
4:51
side uh if that still doesn't work then
4:54
you really uh you know and those are the
4:57
kind of in a pinch things then you have
5:00
to start thinking about well can I run a
5:03
speaker and a speaker C I mean can I run
5:05
a head and a cabinet and then I can put
5:08
a uh you know a blanket over the speaker
5:11
cabinet uh and that that kind of does
5:15
its own thing because it really kind of
5:20
deadens the sound because you don't
5:22
realize how much you're used to the mic
5:25
picking up little bits of the room and
5:27
things like that and so when you put
5:28
that that that uh mic on the speaker
5:32
cabinet and then cover it with a blanket
5:34
all of a sudden you're getting this
5:35
really dead sound um and that's not
5:39
always bad but it's just something that
5:41
you kind of have to get used to so now
5:44
let's talk about some techniques that
5:47
you can do when you're a little more
5:49
prepared and let's say you're
5:51
religiously getting the uh the comment
5:55
from your singer front of house
5:56
bandmates that you're too loud and
6:00
you're just kind of dead set on my amp
6:02
has to be set at this volume and uh
6:07
that's just the way I'm going to do it
6:09
well you know back back in the uh you
6:12
know years ago people started taking
6:14
their amps and they would run uh run it
6:18
behind like the uh the drum Riser or any
6:22
other kind of Riser that or or even just
6:24
back behind other things they would run
6:26
their amp the the the pros to that is of
6:30
course you get Less Direct sound going
6:33
out into the audience the cons are if
6:37
it's a regular stage and especially if
6:39
it's the back of the stage is a hard
6:41
surface you get a lot of reflection and
6:43
you get a lot of just ambient noise that
6:48
just goes on and it just kind of
6:50
clutters up a mix and it's just it's not
6:53
the end of the world but it's not it's
6:55
just not
6:57
great uh another thing that you uh you
7:01
know that's can be problematic and I've
7:04
had this happen to me a couple times
7:06
either playing or teching is that I've
7:09
had an amp where it was running behind
7:11
the stage and especially if it's an
7:14
outdoor festival and there's an open
7:16
area at the back of the stage people
7:18
think they can just walk through that
7:20
and sometimes there has to be security
7:21
there to stop people from walking
7:23
through and I've had people you know
7:27
trip on a mic cable or something like
7:28
that and all of a sudden the mic on my
7:31
amp you instead of being on it it was
7:33
pointed down or it's pointed to the left
7:35
or right or whatever and you know you
7:37
start the show and all of a sudden it's
7:40
like whoa my guitar is like it has no
7:44
volume and it sounds terrible and you
7:46
know then you have to you know get
7:48
someone to help you or you have to go
7:50
look around at the back of the stage
7:52
which is bunch of nonsense and destroys
7:54
your show and then you see that your
7:56
microphone has been moved and you have
7:58
to reposition
8:01
um probably a good another problem with
8:05
that is the uh the cable run so of
8:07
course you're going to have to run much
8:09
longer you know regular you know guitar
8:12
cables which are really not the best
8:15
thing to run uh you know a lot of guitar
8:18
cable just because of the uh the
8:19
capacitance and signal loss so radial
8:22
and other companies have little boxes
8:24
that will take your signal down to uh
8:26
you know low impedance and then it'll
8:28
you know convert it back to High
8:29
impedance you know back at The Amp and
8:31
you can do that probably a better thing
8:33
to do is to run to a head that's on
8:36
stage with you and then you have a
8:37
speaker cabinet that's you know running
8:39
to the back of the stage uh because it's
8:41
much better to run uh run run long
8:44
speaker cables than guitar cables
8:46
because there's much higher level of
8:48
signal going through a speaker cable
8:49
than there is a guitar
8:51
cable if we want to move up from there
8:55
then uh let's let's get on to real
8:57
baffling with you know probably the most
8:59
common baffle that you see on Pro stages
9:02
and that's the plexiglass Shield which
9:05
is usually a uh you know two pieces of
9:08
plexiglass that have a little hinge
9:10
connecting them and they're usually kind
9:12
of put in a
9:14
vshape you know in front of an
9:17
amp um this is a good method uh one it
9:22
uh you keep kind of the stage look and a
9:26
lot of guitar players really like this
9:28
because you can still see the amp it
9:30
doesn't hide the amp which you know a
9:33
lot of times if you're you if you've got
9:36
some cool Vox amp or a vintage Tweed
9:38
Fender or or you know or some Boutique
9:41
thing or something like that or a red Dr
9:43
Z or what have you you you know you kind
9:47
of got that amp because you like the
9:48
sound but also sometimes you like the
9:50
visual look of it and you want people to
9:53
know what kind of amp you're using maybe
9:54
you have an endorsement yada yada yada
9:57
so with that you know you can use the
10:00
plexiglass Shield you can open that in
10:03
front of the amp people are still able
10:05
to to see it and also it prevents a lot
10:09
of sand from coming
10:11
forward the con of this is that
10:15
it's doing this by reflecting the sound
10:20
so it's not absorbing anything it's
10:23
taking all the sound that's coming out
10:25
of the speaker and it's reflecting it
10:27
back so you're going to get some
10:29
reflection that goes into the microphone
10:32
you're also going to get a lot of dep
10:34
especially if you have your amp on stun
10:36
and you have these things in front of it
10:38
you're going to get a lot of ambient
10:40
stage volume that's not even going to be
10:42
really
10:43
um you know very defined sounding it's
10:46
just going to be kind of this kind of
10:48
guitar sound that's kind of be just
10:50
spreading all over the stage like a a
10:53
bad
10:53
disease
10:55
um again it can be dealt with the
10:58
reflection
11:00
uh you know they can deal with that EQ
11:02
wise CU it's you know the reflection is
11:03
going to be a lot of you know especially
11:06
right there from the plexiglass to the
11:09
microphone and the amp you know you're
11:11
going to get some some highend coming
11:13
back and of course they can EQ that out
11:16
uh another you know
11:19
methodology is one that I learned from
11:22
Todd Sharp and of course Todd Sharp has
11:24
Todd Sharp amplifiers and of course as a
11:26
guitarist he worked for Rod Stewart and
11:30
you know all sorts of other cats and uh
11:33
he had original dumbles and uh and of
11:37
course he has his own wonderful line of
11:39
amps but he uh for a long time he was
11:43
really into Ampeg U you know V2s
11:46
v4s and he got you know those those are
11:50
not quiet amps they're pretty loud and
11:53
so he learned a lot of methodologies for
11:57
making it more uh stage friendly
12:00
especially certain sizes of stages and
12:02
and when he was getting requested to
12:04
turn down especially like if you were
12:06
doing TV if you're doing Austin City
12:08
Limits or something like that then uh
12:10
you know you kind of needed to really
12:12
deal with that volume issue so he would
12:16
at times disconnect some of the speakers
12:18
in the amp and take it even down to
12:21
where it was just one speaker instead of
12:23
four and then also he had another method
12:26
where Todd would take a piece of heavy
12:29
black felt that was the exact same size
12:33
as the grill cloth on the amp and he
12:36
would attach it to the front of it to
12:38
the grill cloth and then he would go all
12:41
the way down and then he would peel up
12:43
just from the bottom of the amp from one
12:46
of the corners he would peel up just
12:47
enough where you could mic it up where
12:49
you could get the edge of the
12:53
speaker and that's how he would run the
12:56
amp how he wanted it to sound and he
12:57
would just run it through one speak
13:00
and then he would have that piece of
13:02
heavy black felt which that's going to
13:04
absorb sound and it's especially going
13:06
to get a lot of highend and that's going
13:08
to be what's really going to get people
13:11
uh you know getting in an uproar real
13:13
quick is is highend you know especially
13:16
any kind of piercing highend that that
13:17
hits them uh so that's a a good you know
13:21
methodology where you're actually
13:24
absorbing some of the sound and then of
13:26
course he's um
13:29
disconnecting some of the speakers now
13:32
there are load boxes and things like
13:35
that which I have not had a lot of luck
13:37
with those um unless you're just using
13:40
it in a subtle fashion like if if you're
13:43
just a little bit too loud then a load
13:46
box can work well okay because it's just
13:50
kind of having to take it down some but
13:52
when you're having to to really bring
13:55
down your volume a lot with a load box
14:00
unless you've just found the magic load
14:02
box I think most of them just kind of
14:04
they don't really have a lot of
14:05
responsiveness and it ends up just kind
14:06
of sounding
14:08
anemic all right let's get to uh you
14:12
know the the final you know option that
14:14
I'm going to you know throw at you and
14:17
that's there
14:18
are what we used to do uh back you know
14:22
20 years ago was many times when we were
14:25
told that we were too loud and we and we
14:28
brought stuff with with us was we would
14:31
take a piece of plywood that would have
14:33
oralx or some type of foam on it and we
14:36
would just prop it in front of the amp
14:38
it didn't look good uh especially if it
14:41
was on the front but if you were amps
14:43
were backwards you know if they were
14:44
facing the back of the stage and they
14:46
were behind stuff then that was a really
14:48
good way of taking the stage volume down
14:51
and there was a lot of sound being
14:54
absorbed by the foam instead of it just
14:57
you know being reflected back everywhere
15:01
and so that was you know that that was a
15:03
good you know method but it just looked
15:06
really ugly especially if you had it on
15:08
the front side of the stage and all of a
15:09
sudden you've got this piece of plywood
15:12
even if you've painted it black and
15:13
you've got nice foam on it it's like
15:15
then you've got this piece of wood yeah
15:17
leaning up against your amp well more
15:20
recently a guy named John Spate he came
15:23
up with a uh a bit more uh Advanced take
15:27
on this and much better looking and he
15:29
started making Spate baffles and
15:32
so this is
15:35
it so as you can see it kind of looks
15:38
like an amplifier it's got tolex on it
15:41
and a handle it's got Grill cloth the
15:44
difference is it's
15:47
skinny uh and on the back
15:52
side it is filled to the brim with sound
15:56
absorbing material so you've got
15:58
different types of foam
15:59
and and they've got this Grill and
16:02
everything that's used here is
16:05
specifically used to really absorb as
16:09
much sound as possible and not reflect
16:12
it back so that really solves a lot of
16:15
issues with uh with baffling where you
16:19
don't have the reflection issues and
16:22
creating all this ambient stage volume
16:24
it's really absorbing it and so here's a
16:28
little clip that I did you know kind of
16:30
a quick and dirty clip where I got my
16:32
Vox ac10 and I cranked it up you know
16:35
about halfway and played a couple licks
16:38
you know of uh played a little bit of
16:39
Hello Trouble on there the solo and
16:42
played it you know without the baffle
16:44
and then with the baffle just so you
16:45
could see how much sound it is absorbed
16:48
by
16:52
[Music]
16:57
it
17:07
[Music]
17:15
all right so there you could see that it
17:17
it does a a really good job of of taking
17:20
the uh volume level down for the person
17:23
that's uh you know even even in that
17:25
clip where you're you know just a couple
17:27
feet away from the amplifier
17:29
the one downside you know is that you
17:33
know of course you know you're going to
17:34
have to carry this thing around so you
17:37
know it's light it's you know it's not
17:40
heavy but it's another thing to carry in
17:42
and uh you know you would just need to
17:44
be you know prepared for that and if
17:47
your amp sound is important and this
17:50
solves it then I mean I'd rather use
17:53
that than a you know a load box or
17:56
something like that so uh
17:59
yeah these are being used on a lot of
18:02
big stages and uh you I've seen Tom bu
18:06
back use them out on the road and all s
18:08
and Justin Butler with through tone who
18:11
has been playing out with Gary Allen and
18:13
other acts and they're getting more and
18:15
more popular and they're even becoming
18:17
really popular here in Nashville at
18:20
venues which I think it's really smart
18:23
for venues to buy these things because
18:26
it's a way for the venue to have a
18:28
solution when the guy comes in with an
18:30
amp so uh yeah I've there are old red
18:36
and a number of other of the big clubs
18:39
here on Broadway they have the Spate
18:41
baffles there and um and they don't care
18:44
if you bring your amp or if you use
18:45
their amps or whatever but they've got
18:48
that there to uh you know to kind of
18:50
keep it down to a volume where people
18:52
are still able to uh enjoy a drink and
18:55
uh have a conversation and and such and
18:59
uh and and be able to enjoy your music
19:03
uh I do need to add that of course you
19:05
know this one looks like a Fender amp
19:07
you know with the uh fendry tolex and
19:11
Grill cloth but you can get them with
19:13
more of a Vox or Marshal look and
19:15
different colors that you can uh custom
19:18
order but these are uh really nice so uh
19:22
yeah you can uh I'll put a link in the
19:24
description so that you can uh go check
19:27
out John's site
19:29
so all right guys well I hope you've
19:31
enjoyed today's episode I hope you uh
19:34
you know got some different ideas and
19:37
solutions for when you are told that
19:39
you're too loud so you know some kind of
19:41
quick and dirty ones and some ones that
19:43
you could actually you know plan for and
19:46
uh and know you know kind of the the
19:49
pros and cons of each uh solution so
19:53
again I need to thank my patreon members
19:55
and I hope you all have a great week
19:58
bye-bye