Starting band need help for live!

Question

When playing live what do i do with a do I plug the guitar amp to mixers or what and how?

Be very detailed

Answer 1

If you're playing electric guitar, you can actually do one of three things -

Level the volume of your amp with the PA volume.  This is my preferred way to do it when I play, because that way I can hear my amp the best.  Works best if you're playing a very small gig and you don't need to be very loud or if you're outside and stage noise isn't really a problem.

Or, you mike the amp speaker and run the microphone directly to the mixer or via a "snake" box.  Shure SM-57 microphones work best, and that's kind of the industry-standard for miking instrument cabinets.  The problem with this is that you usually have to turn way-down in order to blend with the other instruments that're also going into the mains.  You're best bet if you have to do this is to turn your amp facing you so you can use it as a monitor - otherwise you'll probably lose yourself in the mix.  

Finally, if your guitar amp has a line-out on the back, then you can run a microphone cord from the amp.  I've not tried this myself, and I've had sound guys tell me it doesn't sound as good as miking the speaker b/c you don't hear as much of the actual amp - but it is a very "direct" connection, and a lot of folks must do it b/c many amps have that capbility on them.  

Good luck with it.  :)

- C

Answer 2

There's a a couple of ways to do it.

1.  If there's a PA system, run the vocal mikes through the PA and adjust the relative volume of the guitar amps to balance them with the PA. So you're mixing the guitars with the vocals by controlling the amp volume from up on stage, IOW.

2.  OR, set the volume for the guitar amps VERY low, then mike the amps and run them through to the PA mixing board along with the vocal mikes.

3.  OR, forget the amps altogether and run the guitars through direct boxes directly into the PA mixer (this works pretty well for acoustic guitars, not sure how well it would work for electrics).

4. OR, for an acoustic guitar with a pickup in it -- run the guitar pickup through a direct box direct into the mixer as described above -- AND set a microphone to pick up ambient acoustic guitar sound, then blend the 2 signals at the mixing board to optimize the acoustic sound of the guitar.