Live Music and Monitors Help

[Aragorn]

Ok ladies and gentlemen, I'm new to this forum although not to the site. First read the site around 2003 in college though I lost it for years (don't ask). And, I need some advice! I'm extremely new to the finer details of audiophile-dom, although technically literate (at least mostly). Reason I am posting this forum instead of the Beginner's one is that this concerns something different than how to set up receivers or sub placement. This is a question about stage monitors for live music!

Short of it is, I am a guitarist and I am looking into ditching the traditional amplifier/speaker cabinet set-up. Why? Well, I want something that does not color my sound AT ALL, and of course amplifiers and cabinets are meant for their signature coloration.

The reason for this is something called the Axe-FX II. It is a high level rack mount processor designed for studio recording and touring musicians. The processor contains over 180 different amplifier models--complete circuit, preamp tubes, transformers, choke, filter caps, power amp tubes, everything. It also contains over 500 speaker cabinet impulse response models. Not to mention more special effects than you could ever use in a lifetime. If you listen to rock music or virtuoso material, you have heard it in the studio albums and concerts, though you may not know it.

Of course you see the obvious problem: with so many options to shape my tone, down to changing the variety of "speakers" I use in my simulated "cabinet", I want a speaker system that doesn't color the sound with the "signature" of X company of amplifiers!!

For live sound playing with a band, I need something that can act as monitor/amp and have a good off-axis response as well, for venues and stage playing walking around. Now I am NOT a pro touring musician or I would have a staff of people . I'm just a music junkie that gigs and wants to get the most out of his gear.

Does anybody have any ideas?? Surprisingly (or not, really) most of the musician forums don't understand ANY fundamentals of loudspeaker construction. I'm far from an expert but I know myths when I hear them. Sorry for the long post.

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

Of course you see the obvious problem: with so many options to shape my tone, down to changing the variety of "speakers" I use in my simulated "cabinet", I want a speaker system that doesn't color the sound with the "signature" of X company of amplifiers!!

That would require a speaker with perfectly flat response. Hard to find, even with expensive home hi-fi speakers, and I'm sure considerably more rare with guitar speakers. As you noted, high fidelity is not exactly what they are designed for.

Your best bet is probably to get the best smallish active (e.g. 10”-12” woofer) PA speaker you can afford, maybe something from QSC, JBL or EV, as they can and (often do have) built-in equalization to compensate for less-than perfect response, and use an outboard parametric EQ to further flatten its response. Of course, this will require some measurement software and calibrated mic to determine what its frequency response is.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Aragorn]

Wayne

Thanks for your reply. I should have clarified that I understand that no speaker will be exactly flat . Posting was the last thing I did before leaving work and I left my thoughts rather unorganized. Poor writing.

At any rate, the frequency for guitar fundamental tones is typically 80 Hz open low note - 1200 Hz at the highest string fret possible. Overtones and distortion etc would throw it up to between 6000-10,000 Hz, but not much higher and most of the time you're cut to 8000 and below for engineering purposes.

So, my questions--

1) what about stage monitors instead of a PA system? I understand a bit of the basics but I'm far from a speaker engineer; I was under the impression there were distinct differences between monitors and PAs

2) To go along with #1, do you know of any PA or monitors without horns? Because I have never heard a horn based speaker that didn't sound completely strident and fatiguing to my ears.

3) About how much does the software and a quality calibrated Mic cost? These are things I do not have.

The "entry level" PA systems that I have encountered do not particularly impress me much as far as their ability to put out quality sound. Loud maybe...

 

[Aragorn]

I should clarify that I am not in need of any "guitar specific" speakers or cabinets. Just ones that respond well within the lower half of the audible frequency range (80-10K ish) and wondering if anybody knows of speakers that have a pretty wide angle of dispersion and response. I understand that wide dispersion and directivity is complex issue and hard to pin down--just looking for general directions on that because I am not informed on it.