Advice please: playing outside

[JimN]

If your amplification is limited, try to set up with a wall or fence behind you. It will reflect otherwise-wasted sound radiated in that direction, helping you and the audience to hear better.

I remember once doing an outdoor 4th July gig (and barbecue) at a USAAF airbase in East Anglia, where the organisers had helpfully placed something like a cricket screen behind the spot where we were asked to set up.

JN

[fullerton62strat]

All comments so far are very valid, especially about having the amp on a chair or at waist level with about a 5 degree tilt upwards so that your sound passes about shoulder height at its loudest. Monitor speakers in front of you, but set slightly to one side and NOT directly screaming in your face.

Apart from the above, as a guitar player, keep your guitar in the open air for at least 1/2 an hour but protected from wind/draughts before you go on (lay down in the guitar case with lid open perhaps), but most importantly check the tuning 10 minutes before you go on and keep checking and adjusting until you start the gig. Once your off the warmth from your hands and body will keep it pretty stable. Damp conditions are the worst, but some sort of wind-break or tarpouline type roof cover helps a lot. Your guitar may still go out of tune slightly though if temperature fluctuates.

Have fun and a great gig.

John

[roninnes]

And for the drummer make sure you set up on a mat and ensure the stool is on a solid base like a piece of plywood, as having that sinking feeling is not pleasant.
It happened to me once, never again.

Ron

[PGibson]

Thank you to all of you for your comments and advice. I have been amazed at how much I have learnt in the last couple of days in reading what experienced people like yourselves have written. Thank you again. All we need now is a mild dry evening!
Paul

[geoff1711]

Hi

mic-ing you all up and putting all of it through the PA won't overload it, remember whilst you only sing in yours they are also used and designed for any sort of sound reproduction which could be Drum'n'Bass, public speaking, rock concerts

My PA is used for disco and starts at 250 watts per side and can go up to about 1.5K per side before I start hiring in.

As regards sound levels it depends whether you are there for background music or dancing, if the later you'll need more power.

I haven't worked outdoors for a number of years, and then it was only background and PA for a fete, from memory I used around 750 watts per side.

However I quite often work in marquees and I believe me the sound levels just melt away, having said that they do carry a long way as well, so you get the double problem that on the dance floor it can often not be loud enough, but on the other hand people 1/2 mile away can hear it if they are in their gardens.

Quite a lot of my recent work has been disco support for tribute bands, they always mic everything and power wise they seem to start start around 2.5K but one outfit I supported came with a big (and I mean BIG) Mercedes tour bus - half coach half lorry - their rig was quite large at 30K, bigger speakers than I'd want to lug around and they carried their own generators, although not needed on that occasion as the venue could handle those sort of power requirements, at 2K my PA sounded puny so we all went through theirs, they had a good sound man and it all sounded excellent.

Power trips are a good idea but can be a nightmare if you use any computers or modelling because if it trips out then it all has to be rebooted, but if it was me I'd make sure my power lead was in good order, plugged in indoors at the other end, and my end kept dry and me and the kit under cover and I'd leave the trip at home.

Have fun

Geoff

[noelford]

I sometimes think we have gone power-mad! My 75 watts-per-channel Peavey Escort portable PA for BTs and 50 watt amp for guitar have never had to be wound up anywhere near flat out for any gigs I've done indoors or out.

[RayL]

I sometimes think we have gone power-mad!

Don't forget, though, that the ear's response to sound is not linear, so, for example, 100 watts is not twice as loud as 50 watts. Also that a PA capable of handing the full output of a band (bass guitar at 40Hz up to cymbals at 10KHz and above) needs to have considerable 'headroom' so that it can handle volume peaks at any frequency without distortion. Your guitar amp is only handling the limited needs of one instrument. A full-range PA needs to be capable of handing everything, hence the need for high power.

The Beatles' gig at Shea Stadium could be regarded as the pivot point. Done on the cheap, it was completely inadequate. The modern PA industry was born on that day.

Ray

[noelford]

Yes, I appreciate all of that, but I was speaking in a more general way. Although I live way out in the sticks, the next village to ours has a large 'pavillion' (built with Euro money) which hosts the annual May Ball for the students at Aberystwyth University. We live over a mile away from the venue and at three in the morning we lay in bed, unable to sleep with the volume of the music. And not just the bass and drums, the whole band and vocals. And remember, that was an indoor gig! Excessive? I think so.

[ecca]

We played at Wasall Arboretum, August Bank Holiday 1963 and the PA was a Marshall 50 watt !

Best advice of all Paul is......... make sure you've got your mac.

[geoff1711]

Hi Noel and others

well yes things are much more powerful, when I started disco in 1969 my power amp was a mono linear solid state job which quickly got upgraded to 2 30 watt valve Eagle PA amps run in stereo, that lasted a couple of years until upgraded to a Discosound unit with in built 100 watt mono amp, which I used in some fairly large venues until I packed it in in 78 /9.

But when I came back to it 20 years later and I started getting kit together and was looking for a 100 watt PA people looked at me as if I was from another time, so that first toe in the water was actually on 200watts per side and it's built since then, is it much louder? well no I don't think it is.

I don't think CD's and now MP3's put out as much grunt as the old vinyl used to so need more power for the same sound levels, of course it could also be that these days there is heavier and stronger bass lines which draw more power.

All I know is that where I stand, when working, sound levels are about what they've always been albeit I'm using 20 times more output power, but we are getting somewhat off topic here, talking generalities a Shads style band is likely to be listened to where as a disco is going to be danced to, most people won't get up until they can feel enveloped by the sound, can sing along without being heard too loudly, so I am judged not by bums on seats but feet on dance floors, on the other hand people like to listen and be able to have a chat if it's live music at a function particularly if it's a Shad style rather than a function dance band.

So where does that get us? I suppose ask your Bass guitarist not to be so precious about the PA you won't bust it by all being mic'd up and overall you'll sound much better, of course then you have the other problem of having to go out and buy a lot of extra mic's!

Geoff