Hi Mike,
I’ve got my first gig (singing and playing guitar) in a couple of weeks and am hoping you can give me a couple of tips on configuring my rig and effects to sound great, at the moment I’ve got an amp and microphone, the amp has 2 channels.
Thanks
Simon
+61412355996
mike@mikerizk.com
Hi Simon
Thanks for the question. I get asked this often by newbies entering the ‘giging’ world for the first time.
you could ask this question to 100 musicians and get 100 different answers but generally most will agree that if the venue is small you can get away with just using your amp
I’ve assumed that you’ll be playing indoors in a small venue with 50 to 70 seats or less therefore your amp will need about 150 to 350 watts of power. As you’ll be using your own amp you’ll need to do the mixing yourself (guitar and vocals) so both channels will need their own controls. Add some Reverb and that will help hide any mistakes 🙂 and also help give a great effect. There are loads of pedals with effects you can use if effect not built into your amp already, you’ll need to experiment to see which works best.
Vocals through a guitar amp isn’t ideal, when you start making some money and get bigger gigs look at getting a PA system with separate mixing console
Hope this helps
Mike
Hi Simon,
Another thing which I tried recently is if the venue has a PA system what you could do is ‘mic’ your amp to the PA. I found this to be a supper cost effective way of getting your sound across the venue without blowing too much cash on speakers, mixing consoles etc.
Let me know if you have any other questions
Mike