Imagine... You're on stage. You're about ready to play your first set of the night. Your guitar's in tune, your effects are dialed, your hair is killer, and your clothes are lookin' fresh. You get the count off from the drummer and, yeah baby, you're into it! Within a matter of seconds you notice the singer, the other members of the band, the soundman and the audience all looking at you with the single question on their faces... Why are you so loud!? Obviously they are not appreciating your Marshall full-stack towering handsomely behind you.

Actually, these days it doesn't even require a stack of Marshalls to be too loud for your gig. Being able to control your volume to fit the situation, yet still having a big sound is a challenge most guitar players are constantly working on. This is even more critical if you're predominantly working in environments like hotel lounges and casinos.

Hearing Yourself...

In the optimum situation, you want to confine your on-stage guitar sound to your area of the stage. Then everyone else in band can control the level of guitar that they hear in their monitor, and the person running sound can easily control the level of guitar out in the house.

Several things can be done to help you accomplish this. The first thing is to set up your amp (or speaker cabinet if you're using a rack system) so that it's pointing directly at you, yet away from everyone else so you are the only one directly in it's path.

For example, I use a rack system and use a small Mesa/Boogie 1x12 enclosed speaker cabinet that I place at the front of the stage pointing directly back at me. I even angle it a little away from the rest of the band to make sure I'm the only one in it's path. The 1x12 cabinet sounds big and warm, and since it's back is enclosed there is no sound shooting out the back of the cabinet. Anyone who has ever tried this with an open-back cabinet, or combo amp, has probably found out that an incredible amount of sound actually comes out the back of the cabinet, as well as the front.

Making Sure Others Hear You...

Now, the next step is to make sure that you are actually heard, at the desirable level, by everyone else in the room. You can accomplish this a couple different ways. The first way would be to mic your speaker. Most players use a mic, such as a Sure SM57, to mic their speaker.

Please Take Note: where you aim the mic does make a difference in your sound. As a general rule of thumb, the further you point the mic into the center of the speaker cone gives you a darker sound, and the closer you aim to the edge of the speaker cone will give you a brighter sound. Use these guidelines to experiment, and find out what mic placement sounds best for your particular gear.

Another quick and simple way to get your guitar sound in the P.A. is through the line-outs from a guitar preamp/processor. These days, a lot of preamps and processors provide you with line outputs that use speaker simulation. This allows you to run a line directly from your preamp/processor into the soundman's mixer and get a pretty decent sound. This is also great for reducing the amount of live microphones being used on stage, which can reduce a number of problems (but that's a subject for a different article).

Managing your stage sound will make everyone happy. It will reduce your level of dirty looks from the rest of the band, the looks of pain in your audience as you shred your way to the climax of your burning solo, and it will help to improve your bands overall mix in the house, making the whole mix more controllable, and ultimately more professional sounding.