Are we wimps or just getting old?

[gui_tarzan]

Some of the best sounding amps (in my opinion) are the old, large, heavy-as-hell amps that we are all familiar with. But I was reading an old thread just now and one of the posters said we have turned into a nation of wimps because we don't want the old 4x10 Twins or SRs, or something with 2x15 or, God-forbid, 8-10s to gig with.

I don't know about the rest of you, but at 52 I can't lift or carry the weight I could when I was in my 20s. Most of my musician friends are in the 40-60 age range and we just can't do the heavy stuff anymore. Are we wimps?

[g1]

We moved my V4 head with a wheeled cart yesterday. At load out a younger type picked it up and carried it back. He didn't want to heed our warning so we let him show us we were wimps.
A bigger concern for me is hearing damage. More big stuff for me just means needing more hearing protection. Maybe wimpier is smarter .

[Justin Thomas]

I don't think not being able to carry a heavy amp makes you a wimp. It's your inability to turn it on 10 that makes you a wimp!

All joking aside, I am also more concerned with hearing damage. But...

Many of you probably came from a time when professional gear had a certain "bulk" to it. I just happen to play an amp that predaates the British Invasion. My bass predates the moon landing. I <expect> an amp to be heavy. So, sometimes when I lug my (1974) Bassman 100 into church, some teenager will take note that I grunt when I pick it up, and so they will kindly offer to help me move it at the end of the service. I say, sure, go ahead. They lean over, grab the handle, jerk up at the waist, and the amp just stays on the floor. Then, they try to lift it for real, knowing what to expect. They still can barely lift it. So, guitarzan, no, you're not a wimp. It's the kids who are wimps these days, because they SHOULD be able to lift these kinds of weights!

Occasionally, one of my "chronologically superior" friends will offer to carry my amp. I genuinely warn them, though - broken vertebrae and knees are no joke! Occasionally they'll say "I had one of those when I was your age, carried it around all the time!" So they hoist, and realize they forgot how heavy their gear was. So I let them carry my cable bag, and even that is too heavy for them, if I'm playing guitar that day (extra pedals).

Myself, I'm going to haul my heavy hot inefficient tube amps as long as I can and bask in their glorious tone. Meanwhile, I'll build a stockpile of little 10-20W heads in pine cabinets, to enjoy in my old age, and just plug them into whatever speaker cab is lying around wherever I play.

Justin

On second thought, it's Sound Guys who are wimps, with their incessant whining of "you're too loud, I can't control you, I need to be able to decide how loud you are in relation to everything else, there's too much stage volume, why don't you want keys in your monitor, waa, waa, waa!" When I let the sound guy control my room volume, my friends tell me they can't hear me. When I do it myself, they compliment me. Guitar players - they're not ALL a bunch of out-of-control morons!

[52 Bill]

Yesterday when I went in to work, I noticed a large head sitting on the floor by the incoming repairs. I pulled the ticket and quickly read Ampeg SVT DOA. I left it sitting there, while I did every other repair I could do.

Well the end of the day was approaching and I figured that I had to deal with it, so I grabbed a small cart and rolled it next to the amp and got ready to lift it up, dreading the thought of lifting it to the cart and then having to lift it to the top of the bench. So I bent over, bending my knees grabbed the handles and almost fell over when I lifted it up. It turned out to be a solid state head.

[Enzo]

In my late 60s, and having lived in the hospital a few times for heart failure, I tend to be careful. Some things I just can't comfortably lift any longer. I often tell customers they will have to tote their amp out of the warehouse area. It is embarrassing when it is "just a girl". I mean the customer, not the amp.

Back 45 years ago, when we were touring, had a big 18 foot truck for the band, bed at dock height, maybe 4 and a half feet? I could get everything in and out of that truck myself except the B3. And I mean the Leslie even. I could grip it, swing it around, and slide it down my knees to the ground. We had a pair of Marshall 4x12s, and I was macho enough to turn them on their sides, step between them, and carry them both, one on each side. I won't be doing that any time soon.

The doctor told me not to lift anything heavy, so I have to sit down to pee now.

[Mickey]

Some of the best sounding amps (in my opinion) are the old, large, heavy-as-hell amps that we are all familiar with. But I was reading an old thread just now and one of the posters said we have turned into a nation of wimps because we don't want the old 4x10 Twins or SRs, or something with 2x15 or, God-forbid, 8-10s to gig with.

I don't know about the rest of you, but at 52 I can't lift or carry the weight I could when I was in my 20s. Most of my musician friends are in the 40-60 age range and we just can't do the heavy stuff anymore. Are we wimps?

The main issues with playing with a large amp (my Marshall JCM900 with quad box) is that the venues now have only very limited space for bands so I have to use alternate amps, also our sound levels are strictly controlled by local councils who measure the total output of the band which in turn means that I have to rely on stomp boxes rather than being able to drive my valve/tube amps into the glorious overdrive sound that the amps are so capable off.
I am nearly 69 years old and although I'm reasonably fit the amp that I struggle with the most is a Fender twin reverb (early 70s model), it is as heavy as and again as it is also rather loud I am now looking at smaller amps to fill my needs.
No wonder we oldies lament for the "Good Old Days"!

[Leo_Gnardo]

On second thought, it's Sound Guys who are wimps, with their incessant whining of "you're too loud, I can't control you, I need to be able to decide how loud you are in relation to everything else, there's too much stage volume, why don't you want keys in your monitor, waa, waa, waa!" When I let the sound guy control my room volume, my friends tell me they can't hear me. When I do it myself, they compliment me. Guitar players - they're not ALL a bunch of out-of-control morons!

Hey sometimes that sound guy is ME! And it's WONDERFUL to have a band that's fairly well self balanced, so I can actually put some guitar in the PA. Bottom line is, if the bartenders can't hear the orders, the band's too loud, my rule of thumb since the late 70's. Of course that's seldom a problem with church bands, they have their own set of problems we won't go into now. And there are a lot of sound guys now who couldn't mix a rum & coke even if you gave 'em a recipe. Including some so called pros who pull down a couple grand a week, it burns me up. Saw Jeff Beck about 8 weeks back, I had to yell at mister mix-hipster "Hey it's a GUITAR CONCERT!" Never got a good balance all thru the show, phooey.

[TomCarlos]

Amen Mickey.... I too have a Twin '65 Reissue- I always wanted to have a Twin. But there is no way that thing is leaving my second floor music room. If I go out jammin' with my buds, I take my single 12" Fender Stage 100. It does the job at half the weight.

No, I don't think we're wimps. I think we finally have a situation were smaller got better. Amp technologies have improved along with stomp boxes. So we can get some cool tones out of single 12's.

Ok... there are some guys who still insist on traveling with their double 4x12 speaker cabs. A couple years ago, I saw Eric Johnson here in Sacramento. By comparison, you would say this place was a "small venue." But Eric still hauls around his massive amp setup. I couldn't help laughing when I saw his amp was turned 90 degrees- pointing to the side of the stage and right into a thick curtain to absorb the sound. And what's the point in that?

Anyway... you gotta take precautions with lifting heavy objects, or even lighter objects if you are not square and bend your knees. This is part of moving into the next stage of life :-)

[Tom Phillips]

Back in the day, I built a 4X12 speaker cabinet of the Vox super Beatle size out of real 3/4" novaply. (sides, back and baffle) It was loaded with JBL D120's. I would stand on the station wagon tail gate, grip the speaker cab by the top rails of the Vox trolly and lift it straight up onto the tail gate then lay it down and slid it in the back of the station wagon. If I tried that now I can't imagine that I would survive to walk the next day.

[Chuck H]

I'm not telling my age because I'd get too much grief from the fossils But when I was gigging I was the only guy that had a truck, the drummer was drunk by the end of the second set and the bass player had a steady that brought her girlfriends to all the shows. Anyone here knows what that means. No! I wasn't scoring with the babes. I was moving 80% to 90% of the gear myself. No man likes to admit this, but I'm not a big guy. 5'9" and 150 soaking wet. I was probably 145 when I was gigging. And I moved all that crap over and over again just so I could get on stage and play. Fast forward twenty two years...

The entrance to my house involves about twenty stairs. I recently had to haul a 2x12 combo up them, roughly Twin weight. I was simultaneously reliving my glory days and feeling ashamed. An unpleasant combination. Back in "the day" I used a Marshall half stack, I owned the entire PA and my bass player used an SVT!!!. If I had to do all that gigging again I'd surely use my little fifteen watt 1x12, only play gigs with a house PA and tell the bass player to move it or leave it. Not my problem.

[km6xz]

Yes

Next question.
Big iron sounded good because it is associated with songs we liked and learned what "good" was but good is very subjective, varies with culture and era. There is no objectively "good" guitar sound, but here are learned associations. Light gear will be the norm in a few years, particularly for gigging. One of the problems, of many, for gigging is audiences and clubs/venues have changed as much as players have. Bottom end is dominate even in small clubs with cheap high power amps SPL at low frequencies has increased the demand for power and prices keep dropping so any beer hall can afford 5,000 watts of Class D amps, most of that devoted to portions of the spectrum that prior generations did not even associate with music or expect it. Who ever needed or expected 136db at 32hz in the rock era? The high power on stage and imbalance of most bands make it tough for a venue, sound guy and audience. More people don't go to live music as a percentage of the whole, than ever. Few people ask the majority who do not go to live music venues, why they stopped going if they ever did. The answer is pretty obvious, it is painful and not fun to be assaulted by sound so loud that vocals are completely unintelligible. When SPL increases, clubs lose out also, since the business model of most small venues is alcohol sales, the louder the music the less sales. There are a number of reasons but one is the simple fact that the waitstaff can't be communicated with. I've consulted with dozens of club owners about their business issues and show them graphs of their own sales rate by 15 minute slots of time through the night. Volume is killing gigging by killing bars and clubs which support the musicians, if you can call paying a band paid 1/2 a DJ makes, support.
The same sort of problem is in dance clubs but of a different nature. There, a place is dead if it is not active and packed. The most packed have fewer sales after it getting too crowded after 1-3 in the morning because the wall to wall crush of people can't get to the bar or waitstaff to order anything. Far too few bands, sound guys and clubs consider the customer experience, and for an amazing number never figure it out after spending a ton of money, promotion and work, but tank because they never understood customer experience and why little things they do is putting them out of business. Face it, with all the talk about tone chasing and high end capacitors making the difference, why is it all these bands, when assembled on a stage, sound horrible, by imbalance, too loud monitors, too high SPL on stage and in the hall. Everyone seems to think they are the only ones with needs and problems when it comes to gigging. The club owners are blamed for low pay or being greedy, the clubs complain that the bands bring the wrong customers and are irresponsible and demanding and the customers blame both or just stop going out because the club starts to charge a cover charge.
Big heavy gear on stage complicates everything and sounds now better because everything is too loud and distorted to hear any differences. At least when I go to a dance club I know what the sound will be and expect it, but 1/2 the time I go to rock or other live clubs, the sound is a gamble as to whether it is enjoyable or painful. Too often it is painful.
Take if from oldsters, exposure to "loud" is a cumulative type of damage which has serious long term effects on hearing. I don't record or mix anymore because of Tinnitus, it is no laughing matter. Sitting in loud control rooms for years, plus being a pilot and a auto racing participant in years past did not help but surely it was the sustained loud sounds for many hours each day that takes its toll.

[Enzo]

1970. 100 watt PA head. 200 watts was killer. What is a subwoofer? My 100 watts of PA competing with Jimi Hendrix - every band had one - and the 100 watt Marshall with 8 12s. Today it is thumping kick drum thudding your chest, back then it was more a cracking snare.

I was with a Canadian band a little while. They had a tiny 6 channel Traynor PA mixer, but they had a 100 watt something or other with a mic in front of the kick drum, and its own speaker in front of the stage. They were innovators.

[Mick Bailey]

I think one of the main differences between lifting something when you're 20, or handling the same weight when you're in your 50s is the attitude to injury; when you're 20 you think you'll get better if you hurt your back. When you're 50 you think you won't.

[Justin Thomas]

And it's WONDERFUL to have a band that's fairly well self balanced...

To which I say, "is it drowning anything out? (No...) Does it sound like @#$%??? (No...) Is it even coverage? (Yes...) Then my amp is doing its job!" "BUT I CAN'T CONTROL YOU!" "Good, and I plan on keeping it that way. It's not your job!"

It's all about control, because the newest generation of sound guys are being told that THEY are the ones in control. Um, no. Your job is to make things sound good, not to control musicians. Despite my attitude, Leo, I bet you and I could work together...

Justin

[Mick Bailey]

The latest generation of bass amps are pretty attractive, if only in terms of weight. A 600w amp the size of a car radio. And when it goes wrong just flush it down the toilet and buy another.