Amplification
Strategies for the Performing Acoustic Musician
by
Harvey Reid
© HARVEY REID 1990
used by permission
Harvey Reid has played and taught guitar for 30 years, was a former
national Fingerpicking Guitar Champion, and has released 14 solo recordings
of original, traditional, and contemporary acoustic music. In 1980 he wrote
the first college textbook for folk guitar. He now lives in Southern Maine.
About the Author
One of the most frustrating and common experiences for any performer is to
walk on stage, ready to play music, and then have the performance defused by
sound problems. It might be feedback squealing all though your quiet song.
Or you might not be able to hear yourself. Your voice and instrument may not
be balanced properly. Or you may be in a group and not be able to hear the
other members. The easiest response, and one that many seasoned
professionals employ is to blame everything on the equipment or the
soundman. This does not help the audience hear any better, and creates bad
politics at the gig. If you and your instruments are properly prepared for
each performing situation, you can do a lot to make sure that you spend your
time on stage playing music and not fighting with sound.
Deciding what specifically to do or what equipment to buy depends on a
number of factors: the kind of music you play, the instruments you use, the
volume level you want, and the performance setting itself. There are so many
variables and tastes that there is no simple answer or piece of equipment
that will make you sound good in all situations. Yes, folks, this means that
you will have to learn something and make agonizing and expensive decisions,
rather than just learn or buy the answers. In this article we'll try to get
a quick overview of the choices you'll have to make.
Unless you are lucky enough to only perform for quiet groups in acoustically
excellent rooms, you will have to use a PA system for performances. Even
concert halls that have been built specifically for music listening tend to
be designed for operas or symphonies, and are really too large (in spite of
what anyone says), for a truly effective performance with just an
unamplified acoustic guitar. Those of us who play and enjoy music must learn
to cherish those times when we have a great acoustic setting at home, at a
party, at the beach or at a bluegrass festival out in a field with the bass
thumping through your feet and the sound of all the instruments and voices
projecting through the air like magic. And we must learn to accept all the
shortcomings and trade-offs that come with the use of a sound system. Only a
few people can crowd around the bluegrass band in the field before the sound
that reaches outer listeners becomes muffled and changed. With the use of
amplification and recording, many more people can share in the experience of
the performance. Although an amplified performance or a recording can never
capture the true spirit and content of the music, it captures something of
value. Every person who performs or enjoys music must decide how picky they
wish to be on matters of "purity" and reproductions. Some people are happy
just listening to a small kitchen radio, while other people have compact
disc players in their cars and are still unsatisfied. If you've never been
in a small room with a skilled musician playing a quality instrument, you've
missed something. But it also is undeniably fun to listen to your favorite
song on your Walkman as you walk through the woods or to be at the concert,
even if you are in the back row.
Looking for "natural" sound is not really the point; what you are looking
for is good sound. And the decision as to what is good is maddeningly
subjective. In a quiet coffeehouse, all you need to do is mike your guitar
and make sure you are behind the speakers to minimize feedback. But if you
try to mike a Martin D-35 with a Shure vocal mike like they do at most
coffeehouses, you will not get the best of results, because in order to get
the maximum stage volume, you'll want the guitar as close to the mike as
possible. But directional mikes (almost every mike you'll ever encounter;
the opposite of omni-directional mikes) have a property known as the
proximity effect which means that when you get the sound source closer to
the mike, the bass response increases. Singers love this, but it makes a
guitar, especially one with lots of bass like a D-35, roar and rumble
excessively in the PA. So you need to EQ the mike to remove some of the bass
or choose a mike that is better suited for the instrument's sound. And mikes
designed for vocals have an EQ curve built into them that makes singers
sound better but that can make guitars feed back.
Now this same mike setup might make you completely happy at the coffeehouse,
and it might give enough volume for a lounge gig at the Holiday Inn, but
there you run into some other problems. Because the last 20 people that
played that gig all had pickups in their guitars, and because the kind of
music you would be expected to play at a Holiday Inn lounge relies
considerably on signal processing, you would simply sound wrong to the
audience if you tried to do the gig with your Martin and your Shure mike.
And it would be a fashion thing more than anything. You would sound like a
coffeehouse. And if you try to run a mike signal through a chorus box or
compressor it sounds dreadful I think.
So you might decide you need a pickup, to get more volume and that modern
sound. There are several types of guitar pickups: magnetic sound hole style
pickups, piezo-electric pickups that attach to the body of the instrument,
and piezo-electric pickups that fit under the saddle. For sound and
convenience you might think about installing a pre-amp and control knobs on
the guitar. Then again you might not want to drill holes in your 1956
Martin, and you might just want to just use an endpin jack and use external
controls. More decisions. And the best answer depends on what you need or
can afford, and not on some world standard.
You might like the natural sound of a mike, and want to use a mike and a
pickup together on stage. This is often an excellent choice, but if there
are 5 people in your group that all want 2 instrument channels and a vocal
mike, you need a 16 channel mixer and a 30 minute sound check for even a
short showcase gig. Or if you use wireless gear, this means two wireless
units at double the expense, bulk and double the risk of something going
wrong. You might want to install a mini-mike inside your guitar. This adds
volume and convenience, but causes some new wiring problems, and can be
expensive if you use several instruments on stage. If you play in a band
with a drummer, a lot of your choices are made for you. You pretty much have
to give up the idea of miking the guitar because of the stage and monitor
volume, unless your band's PA can allow you to send only the pickup signal
to the monitors and the mike and pickup both to the house. At extreme
volumes you might even have to stuff your guitar with towels to lessen its
resonance and feedback.
If you want to be heard, you might as well do your homework and keep
informed as to the best way to amplify yourself. New equipment comes out every
year. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Musicians who spend
years learning to play their instruments often don't realize that it is of
almost equal importance to learn to use the sound system when performance
time comes. Choosing not to deal with the issue is still making a passive
choice, and if you don't use your PA properly, it still makes a statement to
the audience, just as you make a fashion statement when you dress sloppily.
You might be playing great music or speaking deep truths, but if the mikes
are feeding back and the tweeters are blown in your speakers the effect of
the truth and music may not be felt. Another performer with a great sound
system and less truth is likely to connect better with the same audience.
The more that you the musician yourself understand what is coming out of the
speakers, the more effectively the whole music will come across to the
audience. Artistic decisions underlie all the technical talk, and artists
should make them. You really owe it to yourself and your listeners to spend
some time and care learning how to make yourself heard properly. In future
articles in this series we will look at the specifics of how to choose the
right equipment for your needs and how to use it to your best advantage in
various performing and recording situations.
WOODPECKER RECORDS
P.O. Box 815 York, Maine 03909 USA
24 hr. phone (207) 363-1886 • 363-7263 (fax)
info@woodpecker.com
About the Author
Harvey Reid
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harvey
Reid has honed his craft over the last 30 years in countless clubs,
festivals, street corners, cafes, schools and concert halls across the
nation. He has been called a "giant of the steel strings" and "one of the
true treasures of American acoustic music." He has absorbed a vast
repertoire of American contemporary and roots music and woven it into his
own colorful, personal and distinctive style. His 15 recordings on
Woodpecker Records showcase his mastery of many instruments and styles of
acoustic music, from hip folk to slashing slide guitar blues to bluegrass,
old-time, Celtic, ragtime and even classical.
Reid's skills and versatility on the guitar alone mark him as an important
new voice in acoustic music. He won the 1981 National Fingerpicking
Guitar Competition and the 1982 International Autoharp competition. Yet
he's also a veteran musician with a long list of studio and band credits, a
strong flatpicker who has won the Beanblossom bluegrass guitar contest, a
versatile and engaging singer, a powerful lyricist, prolific composer,
arranger and songwriter, a solid mandolin and bouzouki player, and a
seasoned performer and entertainer. And he plays the 6-string banjo and the
autoharp like you've never heard.
