Volume

Landon Roberson · From: Church Hill, Tennessee, USA

I am playing a GFI Ultra SD-10 thru a GK MB115 200 watt amp I replaced the speaker in the amp with a SICA 4 ohm 15" speaker and I use a RP250 pedal when I play at church I turn the gain to 12 O'clock and the master volume to 2 O'clock the high and high mid to 11 O'clock and the low mid and low to 2 O'clock my steel gets lost in the rest of the instruments at church and people say they can barely hear me play. What should I do and suggestions will be greatly appriciated. Thanks, Landon.

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

Difficult to know what your set-up sounds like in your church, but if you want to "cut through" without becoming too loud, I suggest you set "low" to 9 or lower, "low-mids" to around 12, "high-mids" to 15 and "high" to 12 - more or less the opposite equalizer setting compared to what you would use when practicing at home. Such a "raised in the middle" setting will make the fundamental tones from your GFI get through better in large settings without it having to compete with all other instruments and voices.

Of course, you will probably have to turn up the master volume a bit too. Use "trial and error" to get the levels right.

If you use chorus/reverb/delay I suggest you turn those off or so low that you can barely hear them. Such effects are rarely ever necessary in churches and will only contribute to masking your steel.

Jim Priebe · From: Queensland, Australia - R.I.P.

Landon - I don't know which pickup is in your GFI (the 111 is sharper than the ll) but on my setup (I have an alumitone pickup) I find I set the volume on the MB200 no higher than 11 o,clock (alumitones are pretty strong output), I don't use the switches (pad and scoop) up at all, as that is not needed - although the scooping switch is good for getting in behind vocalists and keeping out of their voice frequencies.
As far as the tones go, remember that they work from Right to Left Bass, lo-mid, mids, highs (treble)not Left to right as most pre-amps do (eg. peavey).
I find the bottoms (bass) on about 12-1, low-mid about 9 - 10, high mid 8-9 and treble 9 -12 (o'clock works for me running into an EV 12L speaker open back.
Having said that I also use a Zoom effects box in front of the amp but mostly just for Delay or Reverb.
If you are getting drowned out remember it may not really be you that is the problem !!! Over egoed electric rhythm guitarists and drummers can contribute to this too.
cheers
priebs
_________________
Priebs GFI ('09)Short-Uni10. GFI ('96)Short-Uni SD11. ('86)JEM U12
www.steelguitardownunder.com

Bud Angelotti · From: Larryville, NJ, USA

Yeah It's hard to find that sweet spot in the mix when your doing it yourself and you have no idea what it sounds like to the rest of the room. Assuming you have plenty of head-room with your equiptment, maybe try moving your speaker further away from you. This forces you to "give it more gas" as you mix it, in your ears, on the fly.

Landon Roberson · From: Church Hill, Tennessee, USA

Yeah I had the amp sitting right beside me on my left hand side and to me it was kinda loud but people in the audience could barely hear me. My amp has a XLR Direct out should I run it through the sound board?

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

The question comes to mind if the issue is your not being loud enough or not having any space in which to be heard. Doesn't matter at all what volume you play with if the other players are already filling every nano-second with their noodles...

Landon Roberson · From: Church Hill, Tennessee, USA

Good point Dave, it does get a little busy at time on the hymns with the piano, organ, drums and the horns.

Clete Ritta · From: San Antonio, Texas

If it sounds good on stage, dont change anything. Just run that XLR to the PA so the mixer can allow you to be heard in the audience. If you turn up on stage, everyone else will and you will end up needing earplugs.

Clete

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