Why Your Amazing Bedroom Guitar Tone Rarely Works Onstage – It’s Not Your Fault!

Does the following scenario sound familiar? You’ve always dreamed of playing guitar in a band, so you boldly decide to take that all-important first step and start learning how to play. Then, after countless hours of diligent practice in the privacy of your bedroom, you finally feel you’re ready. So, your next move is either to audition for a band looking for a guitarist or to gather up some like-minded friends and form a band of your own. Then, armed with your trusty bedroom amp, you crank up your favorite tone and launch into your first-ever experience of playing with others. Trouble is, you can’t hear yourself over the bass and drums. No problem. You merely have to crank up your amp some more, right? But no matter how loud you turn up your amp, your guitar just won’t cut through — it’s effectively sonically invisible. Believe it or not, it’s probably got nothing to do with volume either... unless you’re using a tiny, 10-watt amp, of course! Instead, it’s highly likely that the problem lies in your favorite “this sounds amazing in my bedroom” tone.

Let me explain. In a nutshell, due to the low volume of your bedroom settings and the very nature of the room itself, the chances are incredibly high that you’re doing one or more of the following to make yourself sonically invisible in a band setting:

Too much gain

Too much reverb

Imbalanced EQ

The above trio can have a tremendously negative impact on your ability to be heard onstage.

Too Much Gain

Often, more gain sounds great at low volume: your sound is nice and big, notes have more sustain, and there are no feedback issues. Plus, all that gain makes playing seem easier,  smoother, and, as Uncle Ben Eller would say, “betterer”! As you start to crank up your amp’s volume, though, too much gain tends to make your sound muddy and less defined. It is also much harder to control; and what was once sustain turns into a hiss-filled, screeching mess of feedback.

Too Much Reverb

Once again, at low volume, piling on the reverb sounds great — especially in a carpeted room or in headphones. As the volume of your amp rises, too much reverb will actually make your sound smaller instead of bigger. Your sound loses its cut and becomes washed out and muddy. Remember, reverb is there to emulate the natural ambience of a room or hall in an otherwise dead environment. Once you’re playing in a large room or hall, said natural ambience will already be there to a variable degree. As a studio engineer I once worked with put it, “Adding reverb is like salt or chili pepper. It’s a great ingredient, but it can quickly get overwhelming!”

Imbalanced EQ

At low volume, the perceived loudness of both the low and high frequencies tends to fall off as far as the human ear is concerned. The same is not true of midrange frequences, however, as the human ear is most sensitive to these frequencies. As a result, when your guitar amp is at low volume, the tendency is to crank the lows and highs while cutting the mids. When the amp volume is raised, however, this “scooped” sound doesn’t fare well in a band situation — after all, the guitar is a midrange instrument! The boosted low end invariably gets muddy and flabby and already fights a losing battle against the bass guitar and bass drum. The simple truth is your beloved guitar needs those precious mid frequencies to cut through a band, and you’ve effectively neutralized them!

Note 1: If you want to learn more about how the human ear responds to volume, then try looking up “equal-loudness contour.” Interesting stuff.

Note 2: Certain amps boast a button or switch labeled “loudness” or something similar. When active, this feature boosts the high and low frequencies to compensate for the fact that those frequencies sound subdued at lower volumes.

Temper Your Tone

So, when playing in a band, back off the gain, roll off some bass, tone down the reverb, crank those mids, and have at it! The results may well surprise and delight both you and your bandmates. Please, never forget the importance of the midrange frequencies when it comes to the guitar. As the great James Hetfield once told me during a cover-story interview for the English monthly magazine Guitarist: “Midrange is good!”

I’ve met quite a few players who use a lot of delay on their bedroom practice amp. If you’re such a player, then a word of warning before you try to do the exact same onstage, my friend: simply put, to quote Spinal Tap, “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid!” And that truth can apply to delay. While said effect can be amazing, when overused, it will cloud and clutter your sound. And, once again, what may seem perfect at a low volume may well be the exact opposite at stage volume. So, tread carefully!

And if you want to talk tone — and the guitars, amps, pedals, and processors to help you craft it — call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer today at (800) 222-4700! They understand the guitarist’s never-ending quest for the ultimate tone, and they’re ready to provide expert advice and personalized recommendations to help you achieve it!
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