Guitar Volume Tips for Small Rooms
The performance space of Stage D.
On Saturday, I volunteered to run sound for Fusion Shows‘s Livingston Underground benefit festival at the Hartland PAC. The event was a great success, and I enjoyed meeting the bands and running sound for them during the fast-paced day.
Saying it was fast-paced is an understatement: We had 15-minutes between acts to load-in, load-out and soundcheck. Each of the 13 acts played 20 minute sets. Plus, the performance space for Stage D was a former classroom, a space not acoustically designed for live music. Whew! I wouldn’t have survived the day without stage manager Lalita’s help and the bands’ patience and swiftness.
After reflecting about the successful festival, I thought I’d share three tips for young guitar players to consider when performing in non-traditional performance spaces:
1: Use your guitar’s volume knob
- Don’t simply use your amp’s volume knob to control your volume. Your guitar’s volume knob can help you maintain headroom while performing and control volume more accurately. If your amp is a little too loud and the sound guy asks for it to be a hair lower, use your guitar’s volume knob to lower it. Then, you will still have some head-room during the performance.
- You don’t need to have your chords’ volume be as loud as your guitar solos, double stops, or single note leads. Again, uses your guitar’s volume knob to give your single note leads a boast when needed, or get a volume pedal.
Talon performing at LU
2. Practice getting the right volume when engaging guitar pedals
- Over drive pedals and distortion pedals are going to affect your volume. Consider why you are using the pedal: Is it to add tone/distortion to chords during a chorus? Is it to add a new sound on the solo? All of these reasons need to be taken into consideration when balancing your volume. Know your guitar pedals’ sensitivities.
3. Consider borrowing, sharing or bringing a smaller amp for smaller shows
- Professional guitar players have multiple rigs for different groups and different settings. This isn’t a luxury at the pro world, but it’s usually not a possibilty for us when we are starting out. A new guitar player often buys the largest amp they can afford. Sadly,
Avery Black doing an acoustic set at LU.
this amp is usually too loud for the rooms they will start performing! The fact is a 4×12 cab isn’t going to be necessary for a room that’s 30 x 32. Even a 2×12 inch 100 watt amp is going to be too loud when seeking the sweet spot of the tube amp’s tone. I admit when using a tube amp, I want to get the gain cranked to get the sweet spot of the tone. What if the that sweet spot is found at way too loud of a volume for the room? Be open minded to having a smaller amp for smaller shows.
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