The aesthetic still matters to me. No matter what the venue is I like seeing the pro serious-ness behind the band. But not overkill. I also like to see the band members playing near each other. Never cared for that 80s giant stage thing with folks running laps and going out into the audience. CCR at Royal Albert Hall to me is what I like. Or even Jackson Browne with the band and singers and pianos and equipment. You know what I mean - live music comes first. I never really needed a Show.
@@davidjonorato3554 Dave! Hey do you remember a weird/dumb swap we did with a cherry sunburst LP deluxe for a bunch of rack gear? That stupid pop keyboard band needed me to have the rack/strat rig. You also got me a killer old Schecter/Tom Anderson Mary kay hardtail strat that had the huge baseball tele neck. -Skeet
I like Geddy Lee's approach: a wall of washing machines is more honest than a wall of switched-off Marshalls. Music is hard enough without having to be a set designer.
This was great, guys. The 3 of you talking, reminiscing about gear and experiences are just great. So many stories of my own from studio times in the 70's. Thank you.
Great conversation boys, always a joy to listen in. I'm with you, I like real people making real music, with all the flaws in there making it unique. 👍❤️
Rick, love your videos! And these chats with Dave and Rhett are my favorites by far! Love to hear all of your opinions, and the genuine friendship that shows through is infectious!!
There is a video, I think a Paul Davids video, where he and Adam Neely play a more in tune guitar. When Adam plays a D chord it sounds unnatural like midi because it is actually in tune compared to how a guitar sounds. Pretty mind-blowing to hear 🙂
"real people seeking real music"...I believe it is happening already--I watch a great deal of younger folks do reacts to music they have never heard and it is Wonderful! I am 67 and I watch them listen to songs I have known for 50 years or more and to watch their expressions and comments is priceless! BTW, thanks for doing the Christmas special on your Beato courses! I treated myself! ☺
Yes, I have come away from many of these reaction videos with the exact same thought, with a hopefulness in songs written by musicians who have developed a craft in song writing. Being reminded that it actually shows. You can tell the difference, proven through the response of these people who've not experienced such song writing. But still, this is a small, a very small group of people. I am personally very worried about the effects A.I. technologies will have on our culture.
Always love when you guy get together and chat. LOL 24:10 is hysterical when Rhett says "he would sing some idea completely out of tune and it'd be like ok??"
Happy New Year guys! Great to see you back together. One item you didn't mention about stage amps is intentional instrument feedback. I recall going to shows and guitarists standing in front of the speakers and using the air they move to create specific feedback sounds - screams, howls, etc. Those noises were part of the live rock and roll show experience.
Man this takes me back. At an audio engineering college back in the 80s we were taught how to maintain Studer machines (multi-track and 2-track). I must have paid attention because I won the Golden Screwdriver Award for Tape Machine maintenance. All this is so old school, yes, but it was the reality back then and you got into it. Really appreciate Rick's older viewpoint, Dave's obvious knowledge about all things tech, and Rhett's experience in both worlds. Great video, gents.
I dont play anything...but love the music I grew up on...and so much concert going...just did the 70 year old thing...learn so much fom this channel...thx!
The late 70s and almost all of the 80s were great for guitar players it was a fun time I remember most of it because I was awake for a good part of it thanks to coca cola lol
I always wind up making a hundred comments on Rick's videos because they're so engaging. I just love these conversations❤! Even when I disagree with one of you (which rarely happens....) They are so great.
One aspect that many people don't take into account (tonewood doesn't matter arguments, graphite rods in necks, not using a cab with a mic on it, etc)... ALL sound is vibration. Whether it's our vocal chords vibrating the air, or a string warbling while resonating and decaying while bolted to a plank of wood, or a stick smacking the skin of a wooden tube. Ultimately the speakers vibrate the air and the listener hears and feels those vibrations. If you're playing on stage and your instrument is vibrating against your guts, and every gesture of your hands and the notes that come out of your face move the air between you and the listener it can create a visceral or emotive connection.... THAT is the most tangible MAGIC imaginable. ☮❤🎶
David Gilmour said being on stage with the team working around him and sound touching his body is his instrument and nothing is comparable. (Paraphrasing)
I must agree about the factors that don't matter. Glenn at SMG keeps saying, tone is in the speaker. After that there isn't much else that affects tone.
Rick Happy New Year buddy I have been enjoying your posts for at least a year and I thought it was about time I told you so. This is also one of my favorite examples of quality songwriting......maybe THE best. Loved your analysis as usual. I am a Connecticut based keyboardist working in CT NY NJ and MA mostly, also a ps teacher in Waterbury CT hope to hang out sometime thanks again.
Love it. I've been playing guitar around a campfire for 40 years (Gen X'r) and will tell you it is 100% human emotion. It's a connection between human beings, no matter the size of the crowd.
@inboxRichardJohnBeato yeah not that I don't trust an empty account on social platform that does ask to connect on a different platform, but... I don't.
I worked on a 24 trk board with a 2 inch tape.. for years. Man ,the bloody thing was like a huge old washing machine. I'm with Dave, man. If it lacks the humanity ,then it not for this human. love these conversations Rick . They are priceless treasures.
Rick, love this channel. I’m learning a lot, and enjoying the conversations like on this particular video. I came to you through red Shores channel. Just want to let you know how much I enjoy this channel and the Rick Beato channel. Please keep both of them going if you can thanks again.
There's an art to being able to play your songs live! Not relying on laptops for taped parts. I loved the days of rehearsing to get my parts down tight and going into the studio and recording the record. After we finished the record we would start rehearsing again to play the songs live. Those were great times for me. There is nothing better than standing on a stage and feeling your pant leg moving from the percussion of the Marshall cab!
Love this episode. Aesthetics in a live band is important as you discussed. So is the wall of amps and rack of guitars in your studio on your RU-vid channel in the back ground. I can't imaging The Rick Beato Channel being as fun, interesting, or as creatable if you were sitting at a empty desk in front of a plain blue wall with only a potted plant to look at. Keep making great content.
I so much enjoy these talks. Live streams repel me. The distractions remind me of "participation awards". Please make more videos like this one. Thank you.
I just love how you can ask a guitarist a question and not get a response from them until they complete the riff or whatever is inspiring them at the moment. 😂😂 The shot looked good Rick!!
Cher may be the first auto tune, "Life After Love". It sold, rinse and repeat. Rolling Stones click on OD in "Satisfaction", then Kinks cut a speaker for fuzz on "You Really Got Me". First time's a charm. The masses will buy a kazoo orchestra tune if it has a drum loop, is 2 minutes, has a nursery rhyme hook. Great chat, keeep awn!!
I'm a 27 year old boomer. My gear is 50 years old. One of my amps is a 70s Quad Reverb that was cut down to a twin. 2 of my guitars are 70s Gibson knockoffs. An Aria SG and a Univox ES-330 style. Plus my favorite acoustic is a Harmony H-162.
Gary Backstrom from Massachusetts here Just wanted to thank you I love this stuff You guys are like my musical brothers that I’ve never met But I’d like to
Fascinating discussion. I was an IT engineer for the DOJ, and keeping the servers running sounds a little bit like what you guys were doing. Removing cards like network cards, memory DIMMS, drives going down and having to replace them, building servers, installing Operating Systems, etc. Fun times. Now I'm retired, and I use an AXE FX III although I own a Twin Reverb. Mostly I use the modeler, but I am a basement player and not on stage.
I love the stage sound and look of expected instruments…. I’m not into in ear monitors for live shows, I love that live chemistry in the air… The immediate sound and relationship between audio energy on stage is vital to the groove and pocket… Stage sound and space help set the pace and guide for the larger scale front house sound. Sound tech listens and recreates that on the larger scale for the entire audience to be enveloped by it. A great stage balance always helps interpret into a great front house mix. Not to mention most amateur iPhone videos really suffer without some amount of stage sound or bleed. Preaching to the choir, but love the topic!😉 God bless those who enjoy in ears!
Wow. You guys covered a lot of ground here. Great stuff, and you all made valid points. I'm a hobby guitarist who used to gig. As far as amps on stage, I think if it's a rock/metal show and there is anything less than a 412 cabinet, I'm disappointed before they even start! I do love gear and different tones, so I always want to hear how "whatever" amp/piece of gear sounds like in person. Most other genres can get away with just about anything(visually), but seeing a little combo amp doesn't bum me out, especially when the player really makes it sing. I could write a novella, but I digress. Keep up the good work!
I was an engineer / producer at the University of South Carolina back in the 1980's. We had a 2 inch 16 track, a 32 channel Neve board, and we would mix down to a quarter inch 2 track Ampex. I loved that Ampex machine. We had Varispeed on it. It was a beauty to edit on. Even back then, in the late 80's, technicians were hard to find and expensive. We had our in-house staff for some things, but for the really specific stuff, we'd hire an outsider. Once, we get an east coast Ampex tech to take care of some trouble with the quarter inch machine. He comes in, fiddles with a few things, stops, and turns around and looks me right in the eye. "You know what's wrong with it, don't you?" Without a pause, "You turned it on. If you'd stop doing that, it'd be fine." Laugh and groan at the same time. LOL.
Learned how to ping-pong multiple cassette decks in the early 1980's. Purchased my first four track Tascam around 1983, and purchased a brand new Tascam 488 MKII in the late 1990's. Everything I did back then was on cassette tape. Pro studios in the mid 1990's were using DAT. Computer recording was beginning to become a new tool that everyone seemed to gravitate to. It wasn't until about 2000, when I got my second computer that I started to learn how to record using Cakewalk Sonar and MIDI. I loved how easy it was to fix everything. Then, the technology started to push further and further away from imperfections, and more into having perfect, exact, precise, spotless recordings which sort of took away from the human element. I love the sound of music coming from analog. It's what I grew up with. I still have all of my vinyl and cassettes, but I also have my CD's too. Music is an art to be felt by humans. Loud, obnoxious amplifiers pushed to 11, will always accomplish that feeling. I play Fender amps exclusively.
Great discussion,and dialogue. I saw The Cream live /" Wheels of Fire" in Montreal, Hendrix, Doors, Beatles, Stones and all the rest of the greats. I could imagine them without amps on stage, if the same sound would have happened. For vinyl is so true. It's the inner action that is part of listening to music. I still have my 8: track reel to reel from 1974, yes demagnetizing the heads was a drag.
Screw visuals. It's all about power! If I don't feel it.....the audience won't feel it. Rock= Power The wall of amps and cabs behind you guys says it all. Great discussion.👍✌️
The main thing that I've taken away from playing lots of shows is that an audience loves nothing more than seeing someone persevere through adversity on stage with a smile on their face.
I absolutely agree about the difference between robotic music and the sound of real people playing. I'm in Rick's age bracket, never produced or played professionally, but I hack with friends and sometimes we get off on a tangent and just play. And it's great - warts and all (except when I make the mistake 😕 ). And I still go to live shows and I still see and love the mistakes...a bit flat, a late start, whatever. People making music. Great chat, guys.
Way back when I was young, there was already an overwhelming majority that just consumed music and did not care how it was made. And there were music lovers who knew more than was sane about how it was made and who demanded a lot. And I think that will never change. The difference today is social media which makes the consumers who do not care and those who cater to them more visible.
All totally on point!! I'm in a band doing RnB and Jazz, we're about to record in a few weeks and I'm dreading the vocal session because our singer is never happy with her takes. In my own personal music outside of the band I am starting to employ some things like quantisation and it's making a difference to my ears.
Live music needs to make a comeback. Like the revival in vinyl, I hope people start appreciating live performances again. I don’t want to see a laptop live, I want to see musicians.
Two factors may prevent this. Price and covid. A third might even be worthwhile artists. There are none I'd be motivated (or could afford) to go see as an older person. And the stuff the younger folks like is just unacceptable.
@@garyarmstrong9542 Covid is still a government problem, not a health problem. Every time you walk into a public place, there's a chance you can catch a cold, or the flu, or strep etc... I still have an immune system, so I'm going to go out into public places just like I did in 1980. The USA is hit by a viral pandemic or epidemic about every 3.5 years. Live music is going strong in Texas and most places.
@@TexanUSMC8089 I went to an open mic night last week that was packed. I didn’t realize at first that nearly everyone in the bar, except for the people waiting to play, was there to watch the game. Game ended, everyone left. It was sad.
@@TexanUSMC8089 That's funny, my neighbors both caught covid around Christmas Eve and they're both still feeling sick. So it sounds like a health problem to me.
Great video, I was out today in the 300C with the Alpine cranked up listening to the 1974 Album “ No Heavy Petting “ by UFO and talking about vocals not being totally spot on, Phil Mogg was way out but it suits the heavy groove that UFO had back then. You can hear the Amp breakup on Michael Schenker’s Pig Nose Amp. That was raw rock. Recording on the run with the tools we had back then.
@@Ottophil Do you realize that for the last 20 years, the wall of Marshalls on stage aren't even on? PA's have gotten so sofisticated that having 400 watts of guitar from a single player would fuck up the mix for the audience.
@@gbaxter6465 at least one of them is on though. And it’s just flat out cool as hell visually. Makes for a better experience as an audience member in my personal opinion. Obviously based on the band and type of music, but I much prefer to see some amps on stage.
As a rock musician who has done a lot of large shows and festivals, it's just not necessary. In Europe, my guitarist used a 100 watt Marshal combo on stage. I'm the keyboard player and had my own keyboard amp. We had a lot of front monitors. No in ears. We rocked the crap out of every audience and I quite assure you that nobody cared if we had a wall of cabinets or not. We were playing in front of several thousands with our biggest show headlining for 30,000.
In art…… There is perfection in imperfections. There is a reason 70’s and 80’s music is still trending. Full of imperfections yet still considered by many to be the best era of music ever. It was cutting edge art.
As a live sound engineer, small little combos mic’d up is the best compromise to reduce stage volume, especially in smaller venues. There are times I’ll prefer modeling in smaller venues to help minimize stage wash. Most of the modeling players will still bring a little powered speaker to put behind them so they can feel it, but I’ll still send a bit of guitar to their wedge. Less amp volume on stage , controling stupid loud bass rigs and cymbal bleed makes a HUGE difference in getting a clean vocal mic up front when the band is on a tighter stage. HPF/LPF are the most important tools for live!
I have purchased a $2k TopHat amp with the “I’ll give you $600” and a pair of Event 20/20’s with the same phrase. Fair price but lowball. You guys are Awesome for these conversations!
It matters still but I think there may be a generational thing. I, being a Gen-Xer, still THRIVE on the atmospheric aspect of Rock music. The amps, as you guys stated, the stage show, the stage presence that influences every little move the band members make. The wind (when it's an outdoor venue), the look of the band, i.e. the clothes, the hair, the makeup, when applicable, and the stage setup. The elaborate stage setups like Iron Maiden with the giant Eddy character, the floating pig flying over the audience during the Pink Floyd live show, Angus running through the audience and then standing on the rising platform that ascends to 30 feet above the the floor seats, while he shreds his brains out, etc... Thinking of all of the live shows I've been to brings back priceless memories of amazing shows by entertainers that put every ounce of themselves time and time again, night after night, for the privilege of the people that love them immensely. Sometimes freakishly and irresponsibly.
Walls of amps are the same thing as seeing huge drum kits. But I am from the same generation as you Rick..it's what I recall seeing at every rock show I attended.
FUN TALK I mixed films in NYC in the 80s and 90s where there was a room full of mag dubbers which were tape machines that played 2 tracks each. We had a full time tech staff day shift and night shift. Since we were part of a film lab we also had a full machine shop as well. I still have weird nightmares working with that stuff. It a blessing not to have to run tones and set bias for each recording since the tape stock varied batch to batch.
Awesome, it's been a while! I love the look and a bit of stage volume next to the drums for sure (half stack is all I'd need). Having said that, still to this day nothing tops Geddy Lee when he brought out the Maytag dryers.
I grew up with parents who owned a bar, with live music every weekend. Every once in a while they'd let me hang out and watch the band play, and I always loved seeing their amps and the big PA speakers on stands. The first time I bought an amp, I bought a huge amp that sounded like crap but I loved because it was HUGE to me (in reality, it was a 2x12 combo). Because of all that, to me, the amps make a huge difference. I want to see what's making all that noise sound so damn good.
If possible. You guys should make a video on how to record in the modern era and avoid all the issues you guys talked about here. Because I dont think a lot of people know about this stuff and are running into issues they dont even know are issues and dont know how to fix them. It would be great to see all your guys’ knowledge streamlined into how to produce and make a record in the modern day. All the best.
I saw Billy Squire on the don't say no tour in the 80's. He took off his guitar for Stroke Me... climbed his stack of Marshall's and slipped and fell from the top. We heard a loud thud...buy he never missed a beat... great performer.
