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Post subject: Better location for a Hot Rod Deluxe to get the perfect tone
Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 1:22 am
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I have realized that amp location has a lot to do with the tone. For example, raising the amp on a stand cuts the bass, while putting it on the floor emphasizes them. Also if it is very close to the wall the bass are bigger. This a a trick, because the speaker has a lot to do, so maybe an amp with a very bassy speaker sounds better standing up, while an amp with brighter ones can sound better if close to the wall, to increase the bass.

Finding the perfect location it is a difficult journey. So which are you preferences?
Mine (Speaker Jensen Alnico P12Q): HRD on the floor, 40 cm away from the wall, playing 2 meters away in front of it.

Thanks to all!


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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:43 am
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Its amazing how amp placement changes the sound. I put my twin reverb RI up in the air and did not like it at all. It has that extra bass when on the floor, even more if its placed it a corner of a room.


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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:13 am
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PeterGrant wrote:
Its amazing how amp placement changes the sound. I put my twin reverb RI up in the air and did not like it at all. It has that extra bass when on the floor, even more if its placed it a corner of a room.


yeah! Totally agree. I played once in an open venue with a Reissue Twin Reverb which was standing up quite height, and I disliked it. I can not believe my ears, no bass at all. In fact, it felt like a different amp.

Some people say the Twin Reverbs are best placed just above the floor of the flight case (sth. like 10-20 cm up from the floor). I haven´t try it yet, because I don´t have a flight case ;) ... Anyway, my HRD lays on the floor.


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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:50 am
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i'm sorry, but i'm picturing all you guys meticulously placing your amps around the room with meter sticks and putting chalk marks on the floor and walls...and frankly im laughing at how silly it looks.

i might be wrong, but i dont think placement has anything to do with how much bass you get from an amp. it DOES affect how you hear the speaker attack. basically, if you have the speaker pointed at your head, you will hear the full audio spectrum coming through the speaker. and as you proved, it will seem "brighter" and more present. when the amp is flat on the floor pointed at your knees, you're hearing it differently. you're only hearing what flanges off the outer portion of the speaker, which is usually the lower frequencies. doesn't sound as bright, and thus you think bass has been added, but thats not true.

this is why the many guitarists who play live and place their amps on the ground rather than tilted (and who don't realize the nature of this) blast their volume like they're trying to raise the dead, and have their treble cranked. why? so they can hear themselves. meanwhile the audience is being impaled and cant hear the singer, because the speaker is pointed at their heads more or less. this is especially true if the stage is raised. the simple fix is pointing that speaker at the guitarist's head. he'll hear himself better, volume will be at a reasonable level, and yet the full mix will still sound balanced throughout the room. mic'ing the amp helps too.

i've read that the highs tend to reside in the center of the speaker attack. i've also noted with mic placement, the further away the mic is from the center of the speaker, the less highs it will pick up.

there are two things i do agree with. if the floor and walls are padded, they will soak up highs. otherwise, the highs will be reflected and emphasized. i also agree that placing the amp (open back cab) close to a wall has effect, in that it may create some more presence. it almost simulates a closed back cab, because any sound that flies out the back will bounce forward. amp in a corner will also do this and may actually cause the sound to fill out a wider range, since the soundwaves are approaching the wall at 45 degree angles, thus are bouncing offset to the original speaker attack. thats a clever idea.

all in all, this lies in the nature of acoustics and perception. the only way you can add bass is by using the EQ. i realize this whole post has been partially discovered already, but i'm just trying to clear up confusion, based on my own observations. just trying to help, i'm not trying to be some arrogant troll.

i understand about the wall idea, but honestly if you ask me, the minute you whip out a meter stick, you should realize you're overdoing it. :lol:


Last edited by msvolpe on Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:51 am
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I never take my Twin off the floor or even use the tilt back legs. Not to be a wise guy but Twins have tone controls and a pretty nice tone stack. Once in a while some of the places I used mine had an elevated equipment setup thing going on. Why? I don't know. I just cut the bright switch and turned the bass up a little. Problem solved. Position is more important with open back cabinets. I will leave the HRDlx position/location wise cracks out of the conversation.
You already have a good speaker but the size of the room, ceiling height, floor material and the amount of people in the venue all have a bearing on tone.

I run closed backed ported cabinets so it takes a lot out of the equation.

There is no real hard set answer. There are too many variables.


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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:57 am
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msvolpe wrote:
i'm sorry, but i'm picturing all you guys meticulously placing your amps around the room with meter sticks and putting chalk marks on the floor and walls...and frankly im laughing at how silly it looks.

i understand about the wall idea, but honestly if you ask me, the minute you whip out a meter stick, you should realize you're overdoing it. :lol:


+1
I've played some places where the stage is so small that if I were to play 2 meters away from my amp, then I'd be playing in the middle of the dance floor! :P

I'm of the thought that it's neccesary to be flexible depending on your surroundings. No two places are the same. Just because the amp 40 cm from the wall and you 2 meters from the amp might sound good at home, doesn't mean it will sound the same at the gig. Besides, if the best tone from your amp is at 2 meters away, then does that mean the people in the audience and other band members that are further than 2 meters away are hearing a bad tone from your amp?

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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:42 am
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msvolpe is exactly on the right track. How and where you place the amp only changes your own perception of how the amp sounds because it's position changes relevant to you. Put your amp down low on the floor and then cut a hole in the floor where you normally stand and build a platform in that hole to stand on several feet below floor level. Then, when you stand on the platform down in the hole in the floor, the amp's position relevant to you will have been restored to the same as if it were raised in the air and as if the floor was intact and it will sound exactly the same. The only difference then would come from the reflective surface of the floor, being closer to the directional focus of the speaker, might change your perception of the room's level of natural reverb.

The other thing msvolpe alluded to is that there is almost always a bunch of other stuff on the floor. Might be furniture in your house. Might be drums or pedal boards or lights or fans or stage monitors at a gig. This stuff gets in the path of high frequencies and reflects them and/or disperses them. Lower frequencies have a much larger wave length and can therefore go around much larger objects before becoming reflected or dispersed so they tend to permeate the room much more easily.

In other words there are two reasons the amp will seem brighter if you raise it. One, your head is closer to being in a straight line with the speaker's focus. Two there are fewer objects in the vicinity which might cause interference.

One thing to bear in mind when considering all of this is that sound travels differently than light because the two waveform types are perpendicular to one another in their method of propagation. Light waves oscillate back and forth in 2 of the 3 planes of our 3 dimensional universe, those being side to side and up and down. (height and width) Sound waves oscillate on the other remaining plane, being forward and back. (depth) This is why sound waves can go around corners and light waves cannot. Because of that significant difference in wave properties the objects in question do not have to be in direct line of path to become a source of interference for sound waves. So just because the vocal monitor is not between your amp and your head does not mean it's not affecting how you perceive the amp. It's in the vicinity so it is a factor. Yes, it would be more of a factor of it were in direct line but simply moving it off to one side does not completely remove it from the equation. Proximity still exists. Hard to fathom I know but that's the nature of physics.

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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:01 pm
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eladin wrote:
yeah! Totally agree. I played once in an open venue with a Reissue Twin Reverb which was standing up quite height, and I disliked it. I can not believe my ears, no bass at all. In fact, it felt like a different amp.


Of course it did - half the sound is going out the back of your amp into a big open venue, changing the sound of the amp. Play the same amp up against or near a wall at a club or at home, different sound. This is why open backs have different tonality depending on their location/placement.

Try putting a road case or even your guitar case open behind your twin and you may find it helps slightly outside.

Tilting, raising vs. on the floor for live playing - first of all unless you're playing on a 40' wide stage, a Twin is too much amp. There's nothing worse for a sound guy, the rest of the band, the audience then "that guy" with whatever amp dimed while aimed at his ankles. Don't be that guy.

Figure out how to hear yourself either with Tiltback legs (they've worked since the 60's, and yes they decouple the amp from the floor, but in live work that's desired) or up on an amp case. It may sound slightly different to you, but to the mic on it and the crowd, it will sound much better because now your amp sound can blend with the rest of the band vs. being "that guy."

Part of playing live is understanding that live is a compromise on sound - figure out how you can get the best sound out to FOH and to hear yourself. It may be through the monitors. But don't be the idiot who brings a 100 watt Marshall or a Twin Reverb to a 50 person bar.

Which comes back to why when everyone asks "Which amp?", time and time again it's the Deluxe Reverb. Plenty loud, and for more volume, put a 57 or an e906 on it and you're covered. If you're playing a 40' stage or bigger, than by all means roll out the Twin Reverb, Dual Showmans and other heavy artillery.

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