Good tone defeated by product placement

David Doggett · Posted 11 Apr 2005 7:59 am

I just gotta tell ya this one. Saturday night I played with one of a dozen acts in The Brotherly Love All-Star Show, which was billed as a night of Philadelphia's musical memories. This sold out show was being filmed at the brand new state of the art World Cafe Live studio and performance complex built by the local college radio station, WXPN, that has become a monster with a national network. This show had the original Orlons (Don't Hang Up, South Street, etc.), The Soul Survivors, Nazz, and Charlie Gracie, among others. Gracie had '50s no. 1 hits with Butterfly and Fabulous, and he can still tear it up on guitar.

We were told we didn't need our own amps. But knowing they would have nothing suitable for steel, I brought my Super Twin head and 15" cab, and our lead guitar (Mike Albrecht) brought his beat up Vibrolux, in case he didn't like what they had. Charlie Gracie came out for his sound check and plugged his beautiful old '56 Guild hollow-body archtop into this little Ibanez solid state amp they had on stage. He fiddled with it for awhile, and was very unhappy with the sound (sterile clean or cheesy solid-state overdrive with really puny reverb). Mike plunked down his Vibrolux and told Charlie he could use it. But the stage men ran up and took it off. Ibanez was one of the sponsors, and they only wanted Ibanez amps on stage. They didn't want "any of those old amps." Ibanez is a local company that makes very good low-priced guitars. But who even knew Ibanez made amps? Strangely enough, you could play any guitar you wanted to, but could only use the Ibanez amps they provided.

They had two of these little guitar amps (25 watts with two 10s [http://www.ibanez.com/accessories/spec.asp?m=8]) and one Ibanez bass amp. In their little minds, each group would have no more than one lead guitar, one rhythm guitar and one bass player. I guess steel guitar or double lead guitar never entered their head. But everything was miked, so I figured I would just turn one of those little amps all the way up for stage volume and let the PA handle the house volume.

Charlie Gracie was very upset. His trademark sound is that '50s vintage Fender tube sound drenched in EchoPlex. But they worked with him to get the best they could from that little Ibanez. Then they told him they would keep the controls that way for him. They taped over the input jack and put a sign on the amp not to touch it. So now I have no amp. When I pointed that out to the sound man, he told me to go play with the amp and to remember my settings. So much for their promise to Charlie.

When Charlie played his set, he had to fiddle with the amp again during his first song. He got it sounding okay, but not great the way he is use to sounding. Guitar players were fiddling with those little amps all night long.

We came on last as a blues band backing old school Philly fusion sax man Byard Lancaster. I ran out on stage with my Zum and plugged into that little amp and did the best I could. I could barely hear myself on stage. My volume pedal was maxed out with no sustain left. There were no monitors pointed at me, so I couldn't tell how I sounded in the front mix. The monitors were all at the front of the stage pointed up for the standing singers, or back by the drummer pointed sideways. Sitting down in the middle of the stage I couldn't hear them. But it was blues, and I was playing guitar licks through a guitar amp, and people in the audience said the sound man was good and they could here me fine. I'm glad someone could.

Now here's the kicker. For the grand finale, we kicked off Got my Mojo Workin' and everybody came out on stage to join in. So here comes Charlie Gracie over to my amp holding his chord in his hand. Both being old Fender users, we immediately looked for a free jack on that little amp. Remember in the old days when two singers and two guitars would plug into the four jacks on a Fender guitar amp and fill a small honky-tonk? No such luck. The little Ibanez has a clean and an overdrive channel, but only one input jack. So after playing the first verse, I'm looking at Charlie Gracie standing there with his guitar chord in his hand. I'm thinking this guy is one of the legends I listened to over the radio and at junior high record hops. I jerked my chord out of the amp and plugged him in. He rocked out and I clapped in rhythm through the rest of the finale.

So once again, the music is strictly secondary. The product is the thing.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 11 April 2005 at 09:16 AM.]

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Sounds pretty bad. Here is where a Pod or other modeling amp can save the day. I am confident it will sound a lot better than any lousy off-brand solid-state practice amp. If I play a show like this where I have to use someone else's equipment, I just use my Pod, give the PA guy a balanced line out, and I have been able to make any piece of garbage work as a monitor by just running it as neutral as possible. One time, there was no amp allowed and no monitors, so I used a pair of lightweight headphones to hear myself.

We can debate the fine points about whether a modeling amp is as good as a nice old Fender, blah, blah, blah...., but there's no question it's a lot better than this kind of junk. I never go to a gig without it, regardless of whether I plan to use it or not.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

It's stories like that one that keep me in the production business, David, just trying to take good care of my brothers and sisters. Seems like nearly every horny-to-be-hip wanna-be rock-and-roll musician who gets a bit part in show business has a perspective that only goes about as far as the laminate pass they were issued for today's show.

I am certain that NOT ONE of those "stage men" OR the production supervisors that they took orders from had a clue who the artists they were working with were or what those artists needed to do a simple job. If they only put out the two amps they probably had never even worked on a music show before. But they've sure got a GREAT job with that super-hip college radio station so now they're all experts about anything and everything that has to do with music.

Congrats to the folks at Ibanez for trashing what could have been a wonderful evening. I doubt if they even have a clue how bad it was for the players and how wrong it was to do things that way -- in fact somebody out front in the marketing office is probably getting a raise today for working out such a great television product placement opportunity for the company!

And the band played on....

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Dave Grafe - email: dg@pdxaudio.com
Production
Pickin', etc.

1978 ShoBud Pro I E9, Randall Steel Man 500, 1963 Precision Bass, 1954 Gibson LGO, 1897 Washburn Hawaiian Steel Conversion

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 11 April 2005 at 10:43 AM.]

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

You probably can't blame Ibanez. The, ahem, "sound men" probably said "Just send us two small amps, that's all we'll need". Ibanez makes 100-watt 2-12 amps, and I have to believe that if they wanted to promote their stuff, they would have sent more than 2 dinky little amps to a show featuring 6 bands.

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

David... you handled it better than I would have... I would be itcing for a fight in that situation. It has happened to me before and I HATE it!! I also agree,it was the sound co. and not Ibanez. Man I would have come out swingin'!!

bob

[This message was edited by Bob Carlucci on 11 April 2005 at 02:57 PM.]

Larry Hamilton · From: Amarillo,Tx

If was me, I would have plugged in and turned it all the way up and hit the low A chord and tried my best to blow it up and see what they do then. They might have had better amps in the wings. Still a bad situation. Sorry about the bad experience.

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Keep pickin', Larry

David Doggett · Posted 11 Apr 2005 5:15 pm

Yeah, one of the frustrating things was it was hard to find who to blame. Ibanez does have bigger and better amps, and I'm sure a warehouse full of them. The sound people may have wanted small amps so they could keep control through the PA (it's what I would call a medium sized room). The producer should have told us we couldn't bring our own amps, and should have asked us what we needed. They probably had no idea we had a steel guitar or what that meant. Our manager should have made clear to somebody what we need. And I should have made clear to our manager what I needed and how to ask for it.

For a guy like Charlie Gracie, with a well known vintage sound, they should have made sure they could deliver his sound, and should have written down the settings to dial him in when he came on. There was a huge state-of-the-art board, so I'm sure the sound guy could have added more reverb for Charlie's guitar.

In spite of the amp problem (which we mostly just laughed about), we all had a blast. It was really great meeting people like the Orlons and Gracie. And I'll probably get some work out of it. It's all music. It's all good.

Jeff Agnew · From: Dallas, TX

David,

Forgive the slight detour, but - Nazz? Nazz!?!?!?!?

I don't suppose Todd was with them?

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

I think I still have my old Nazz Nazz album.

J J Harmon · From: Reynolds, GA 31076

GS-10 is the best. Has 2 little speakers so in this instance you may have heard some of yourself.

David Doggett · Posted 12 Apr 2005 7:56 am

They call themselves "Stewkey's Nazz" (http://www.stewkey.com/Stewkey2.htm). It's the latest reincarnation with some of the originals (not Tod Rundgren). Hey, it was billed as a trip down memory lane. If you can remember these guys, you must not have been as stoned as you thought you were back then.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 12 April 2005 at 09:06 AM.]

Dave Van Allen · From: Doylestown, PA , US , Earth

Did Nazz do "Under the Ice"?

David Doggett · Posted 12 Apr 2005 7:31 pm

I was backstage tuning up and didn't really notice what Nazz was doing. But they rocked out pretty good.

Jeff Agnew · From: Dallas, TX

Too cool. I had all three of the Nazz LPs. May still have them tucked away somewhere. Great band.

Didn't need no stoner drugs back then, man. I was low on life

Paul Honeycutt · From: Colorado, USA

If the sound guys were pros, they would have hid your amps undersome table skirting or off stage making it look like you were using the Ibanez amps. And they couldn't move one monitor for the steel player? What a bunch of idiots.

Bill Bosler · From: Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, USA

Those "Stage" guys WERE idiots. The easiest way to hide the steel player's amp is to sit in front of it. Duh! If they wanted to get real picky about it, just turn the power head around and no one would know what you were using. Take your buddy's Vibrolux and hide it behind your speaker cabinet. The incompetence and lack of imagination in people today is mind boggling.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Too many people simply do what they're told without question. Independence of thought is being carefully trained out in both school and workplace these days. We pay lip service to critical thinking, but the real message, told by actions, not words, is "Shut up and do what you're told, or else." Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending this, but this is not surprising.

I used to occasionally have ugly scenes on stage over this kind of thing - it does get old. I remember reading an interview quite a few years ago with Doc Watson that changed my point of view on this. The interviewer was asking him about getting a live stage sound. He said something to the effect that he preferred the most natural possible acoustic sound, but it was not practical. Instead, he used an internal mic and pickup, run into his own blender/preamp/eq, and just handed his signal over to the sound man and said to just amplify it, he'd take care of the rest. This was fairly radical thought back then, taking the sound people largely out of the loop. But with sophisticated blenders and amp modelers, that's possible today. Is it a perfect system? No, but it's pretty good, certainly good enough for a stage mix. Why fight it?

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

To get back to the original question. I've played in situations where there is a sponsered backline which I didn't want to use for some reason or other. WHat I have done in this situation is just bring in my own head, use the speakers from an amp in the supplied backline, and position the head so that nobody will even know that I'm not using the approved amp. I usually don't ask for permission, because they usually will just say no. I have a double female 1/4" connector in case the speaker chord isn't long enough. Some amps (e.g. Peavey classic 30) have a hard wired speaker, but I've usually found something to use.

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www.tyack.com

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Good solution, Dan.

Shucks, even Ted Nugent with his twin Marshall double stacks set up for looks is actually plugged into a Peavey tube amp head hidden behind them. Gotta get your sound!

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 18 April 2005 at 10:57 PM.]

T. C. Furlong · From: Lake County, Illinois, USA

Wow! David,that's just plain lame. I am the audio designer and equipment supplier for an HD TV series on PBS called SoundStage. Part of my job is to line up backline for the musicians. I would never ask a musician to use anything but what they are completely comfortable with. It is all about getting a good performance on tape. I had to find a Marshall Silver Jubilee Head for one guitar player. I did, he loved it and played amazingly well and with a smile on his face! Hello! This is TV! Make the performer happy and they will look good. Last month, there was a drummer that had to have a vintage 10" rack tom in his drum set that I was responsible for supplying. There were none in the country. Ludwig was back ordered for months. So my backline guy bought all the parts, an original Keller shell, the matching silver sparkle covering and made one. He even got the correct Ludwig badge. That drummer sounded great. I figure, musician's get crapped on a lot during their club and touring lives, the least we behind-the-camera guys can do is to make them happy for TV. By the way, the show is sponsered by Shure microphones. Many times the lead singer is more comfortable with another brand. Shure is very cool about this and has never once said a word about an artist's preference. Good company.

TC

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