Gigging musicians: how many of you have ACTUALLY downsized?

[Guitarbilly]

Well FRFRs are in fact, amps. They may not be guitar amps but they have a preamp section, a power amp section and a speaker= amp.
So I don't see it as downsizing tbh. From a half stack, sure. But a FRFR, OX and a pedalboard modeler is not that different in size than a small head with a DI out, 1x12 cab and pedalboard.

If think if I ever downsize to something DI, I'd just get a modeler pedal or my IR-D, mount it to a board with the effects I need and go straight in and deal with the monitoring available at the venue. If I have to carry multiple boxes and speakers, I might as well put a regular rig together.

[spawnofthesith]

The idea of going direct at a gig makes me shudder, but honestly one of these days I'll probably have a go going direct with the captor just to try it out

[Guitarbilly]

The idea of going direct at a gig makes me shudder, but honestly one of these days I'll probably have a go going direct with the captor just to try it out

I did it for a while with our electronic duo. But that was different because there was no drum kit on stage.

My problem was not with the rig itself, it was relying on random soundguys and P.A.s for monitoring. Eventually I put together an IEM rig on a rack, but then of course I had to carry that around and set it up on stage every time, then still deal with the soundguys not knowing how to connect to it.

If our band always carried a PA and soundguy I'd consider it. But for the type of shows we play, which is original shows with multiple bands, house PA etc it's just easier to bring an amp, get my sound quickly and the soundguy can do wherever he wants on the FOH.

[spawnofthesith]

I already rely on random sound guys our IEMs are very barebones, we just take aux sends and have the sound guy mix our in ears instead of wedges

[Guitarbilly]

I already rely on random sound guys our IEMs are very barebones, we just take aux sends and have the sound guy mix our in ears instead of wedges

Right but you also have your cabs onstage in case you need to hear them, no?

[spawnofthesith]

I already rely on random sound guys our IEMs are very barebones, we just take aux sends and have the sound guy mix our in ears instead of wedges

Right but you also have your cabs onstage in case you need to hear them, no?

Oh yeah totally!!

In fact, even with the IEMs sometimes I'll pop one of them out as a little treat because I miss the cab experience

[Guitarbilly]

IEMs are a bit claustrophobic to me because I feel "boxed in" with the sound. With an amp, if I want to take a break from it and give my ears a rest I can just step away from the cab for a few moments to a quieter area of the stage, then come back and return to Awesomeland when I want to
with IEMs the sound goes where you go. You can set it low and have a bland-ish sound at all times or set high enough to sound rocking but then it gets tiring. I like to be able to hear the stage from different perspectives.

[fastredponycar]

IEMs are a bit claustrophobic to me because I feel "boxed in" with the sound. With an amp, if I want to take a break from it and give my ears a rest I can just step away from the cab for a few moments to a quieter area of the stage, then come back and return to Awesomeland when I want to
with IEMs the sound goes where you go. You can set it low and have a bland-ish sound at all times or set high enough to sound rocking but then it gets tiring. I like to be able to hear the stage from different perspectives.

I felt that way until I got the ASI Audio IEM's. They have mic's built into the actual ear pieces and let you blend in as much or as little of the sound around you into your ears (kinda like the apple airpod pro's)

They're really nice and let you have a dedicated EQ on the IEM pack itself so despite what a sound man may do to your sound, you can always fine tune your EQ in your ears with the bluetooth app. It works REALLY well.

The built in limiter can sometimes disagree with a loud drummer and you'll experience a pretty aggressive compressor that tries to keep the sound in your ears from clipping but I ended up just disabling that and ignoring the distortion I get from the cymbals in exchange for a signal that stays uncompressed.

It's pretty cool at the end of each set, I'll have forgotten that I have IEM's on because I can just hear everything like normal but then flip the power switch on the ASI pack off and it just totally mutes everything and I hear nothing at all and realize how transparent the IEM's actually were with the room sound.

[spawnofthesith]

IEMs are a bit claustrophobic to me because I feel "boxed in" with the sound. With an amp, if I want to take a break from it and give my ears a rest I can just step away from the cab for a few moments to a quieter area of the stage, then come back and return to Awesomeland when I want to
with IEMs the sound goes where you go. You can set it low and have a bland-ish sound at all times or set high enough to sound rocking but then it gets tiring. I like to be able to hear the stage from different perspectives.

I felt that way until I got the ASI Audio IEM's. They have mic's built into the actual ear pieces and let you blend in as much or as little of the sound around you into your ears (kinda like the apple airpod pro's)

They're really nice and let you have a dedicated EQ on the IEM pack itself so despite what a sound man may do to your sound, you can always fine tune your EQ in your ears with the bluetooth app. It works REALLY well.

The built in limiter can sometimes disagree with a loud drummer and you'll experience a pretty aggressive compressor that tries to keep the sound in your ears from clipping but I ended up just disabling that and ignoring the distortion I get from the cymbals in exchange for a signal that stays uncompressed.

It's pretty cool at the end of each set, I'll have forgotten that I have IEM's on because I can just hear everything like normal but then flip the power switch on the ASI pack off and it just totally mutes everything and I hear nothing at all and realize how transparent the IEM's actually were with the room sound.

I AM very interested in something like this

But not ready to spend 800 on something like that yet

[Marc G]

Well FRFRs are in fact, amps. They may not be guitar amps but they have a preamp section, a power amp section and a speaker= amp.
So I don't see it as downsizing tbh. From a half stack, sure. But a FRFR, OX and a pedalboard modeler is not that different in size than a small head with a DI out, 1x12 cab and pedalboard.

If think if I ever downsize to something DI, I'd just get a modeler pedal or my IR-D, mount it to a board with the effects I need and go straight in and deal with the monitoring available at the venue. If I have to carry multiple boxes and speakers, I might as well put a regular rig together.

Agreed 100%..... when modellers and FRFRs were becoming the rage I had a few friends telling me how much easier their rig is now to take to gigs etc.... but when I looked at it they were making the same amount of trips, lifting the same amount of boxes and basically getting the same sound, but now they were out more money since they bought a high end modelling unit and a FRFR speaker..... I just stood there.confused.....


as for going direct.....I've realized pretty quickly the only time I will go direct is if it's my gear 100%.... as in my band's PA with our engineer... we did this a couple months ago and it was a pretty good experience, cut to last weekend we played a gig and the engineer couldn't get ANYTHING right... stage mix was a mess, people were coming up to me mid set telling me to turn my amp up because they couldn't hear my solos, I had to tell them talk to the engineer because if I turned my amp up any more I wouldn't hear the rest of the band lol.... so I'm not going to put myself in the situation like that with engineers who can't get shit right....

My drummer who has been using in-ears for maybe over a decade now brings a small mixer, and his Yamaha EAD-10 to more or less every gig. He uses the EAD-10 to input his drums and mix an ambient sound of the room in to the mixer on one channel and just gets the engineer to send whatever he needs to compliment what he's already getting from the EAD-10... it works for him and he at least has some control of what he's hearing