If you’ve ever played live before, then you know that sound can be a tricky topic. You may have had the experience where what sounded great the one day sounds terrible the next. Or you may have been in situations where you couldn’t hear yourself at all! In truth, these are obstacles every live performer has to deal with at some point in their career. Today we will be taking a closer look at behind the scenes footage of well-known guitar players in order to get a closer look at what their stage sound is like.
This first video shows footage of Joe Bonammasa, Steve Lukather and Lee Ritenour performing Bonammasa’s song So It’s Like That.
The first thing you will observe is some minor feedback issues right at the start (00:35). All in all, things are sounding pretty good and a number factors are contributing towards this outcome. The obvious one is of course a skilled stage engineer, however each musician is also playing with a lot of dynamics and feel. The rhythm section is also making a big contribution to the stage sound as a whole. Having Dave Weckl on drums does help a great deal.
If you scout the gear on stage you, will notice high quality tube amplifiers. Notice that none of the guitar players have any of their sound applied to the stage monitors, as their tube amp provides sufficient monitoring. There is also some audio bleed from the main PA speakers.
This next video shows an on-stage recording of Steve Vai and Eric Johnson playing the Hendrix cover Little Wing. Right at the start of the video you can hear Steve Vai asking the sound engineer to turn him down. It was probably an off-the-cut jam with little or no sound check.
This is an interesting scenario because Eric Johnson is using in-ears and Vai is going off the stage monitors. Vai does motion to the stage engineer to turn up Eric’s guitar at one stage. Just like the above video, everyone is audible in the mix (despite Eric being very soft in some parts, you can still hear what he’s playing) and the same contributing factors of good musicians coupled with good gear goes hand in hand here.
Sound is relative to so many contributing factors. At the end of the day, it’s about sitting comfortably in the mix without occupying frequencies that belong to other instruments like bass guitar. If you happen to catch a rogue sound engineer at one of your gigs, then there’s probably not much you can do from your side to make things better.
