Its not only the Stones that changed, its the audience as well.ġ*) The guitarist's sound is coloured by his amps' speakers.so I think there is the possibilty that passing an amp's sound through a PA is then affected by the PA's speakers and may not be the sound the guitarist originally intended. If that would happen with modern Stones public -paying $350 to see them from 24 th row at exactly 20.30 PM cause the kids go to go to school at 07.40 AM and mid-level meeting you just can't miss starts at 09.30 AM - the Stones would go bankrupt by all the claims of people leavig at 21.00. Then the show went o.k., but the guitars where out of tune half of the show, and at the end the amps starting squeeking and squeeling like madmen. They hired or lent stuff, and went on stage at 0500 AM, only to blow another amp just before Carol. Well, this is all very fine, but also in the past they would arrive at the venue to find out several amps did not survive the trip from the previous venue. Presumably the PA was only used for vocals, drums, piano and other acoustic instruments. Nowadays his small amp is mic'd into the PA, but back in the 70s it seems the guitarists had rows of amps that provided their main amplification. To get a clean sound you can roll back on the guitar volume (like LIV on Ya-Yas). Why does he need a reverb unit, compressor etc? A venue will have natural reverb. It seemed a lot simpler in the old days and the sound was great (especially the Ya-Yas guitar sound). He had the odd spare guitar, and having more than one amp meant there was backup. In the past he just plugged into an amp (or amps fed into each other) and got a great sound. The people on the sides of the stage would only hear Mick, Charlie, and the bass, unless the amps were facing every direction. You might get a little kick drum and bass through it. The other problem with rows of high powered amps is they are tremendously louder directly in front of them so the people in the center of the first 20 rows on Keith's side would not be able to hear Charlie, Mick, or Ronnie, (or the other Mick depending on the year). Even in medium sized clubs, you gotta mic the guitar amps to hear what you're doing onstage. To turn an amp up loud enough for people to hear in the back of an arena would make the stage volume unbearable and most likely make the band sound terribly sloppy. If to record Ya Ya's they had used the same equipment they used to do SAL, the differences would probably be less dramatic. Rows of amps are all show in most cases by the way: what you see on stage are just empty boxes.Īs for the live records, much has to do with how the recording was made. I am quite sure that the Stones never used a row of amps. I don't know when the stones first started using a PA (probably in 66/67), but for sure those amps in Ya Yas were microphoned. I'm rambling a bit now and I speak from my limited experience as an average guitarist, but I hope my points above make sense. With the rows of Ampegs in our example, the guitarist is right by them and can hear what they sound like and make adjustments. The guitarist's sound is coloured by his amps' speakers.so I think there is the possibilty that passing an amp's sound through a PA is then affected by the PA's speakers and may not be the sound the guitarist originally intended. I appreciate that large stadiums still need PA systems, there's no other choice, but at least with arenas or smaller then the rows of Ampegs (or other amps) is a possibilty. My view then is that perhaps rows of Ampegs would be preferable to mic'ing small amps into the PA. As I have heard them in large venues in the 90s and 00s, and I've heard their 90s / 00s live recordings, then I can deduce that I would have prefered their live sound from the old days had I been at the gigs. I'm too young to have experienced their live sound first hand back then, but we do have the live records. However the Stones' live guitar sound seems a lot better to my ears from back in the 60s/70s as compared to now. I'm sure Keith's current rig sounds pretty cool.
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