RE: distortion, overdrive,fuzz,crunch,special sauce, secret goo (goo especially)

["Rainer Straschill" <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Sjaak,

you wrote a lot of different things in the goo discussion, which I'd
like to comment:
> > I wonder if piano players have these same sort of discussions?
> They do :). [...] Example discussions are Analog vs. Virtual Analog, Mac 
>vs PC, hardware vs software
Or Steinway vs. Bösendorfer...

> And what I learned playing live is that you often play in a venue where 
>the sound is so bad that it really doesn't matter if you use synth A or B 
>or FX A or B.
Generally, I believe that, even without the room acoustics completely
ruining the picture, in a live context a lot of details get lost most
of the time.
What's more interesting is the situation where in the studio synth
patch A might work better, while in a live situation patch B would be
the best choice.

> Another phenomena I see a lot is that many artists have a bad sound.
Also true, but only to a certain part to blame on the artist, simply
because you as an artist usually do lack detailed info on the
properties of the room and the pa system. On the other hand, in many
situations the p.a. guy may not know (or simply not be interested in)
the goals of the artist regarding sound. And finally (and that's where
the artist comes into play, but only in cases - like for most of us -
where the artist supplies a somewhat crafted sound to the FOH desk),
often the artists send a crappy sound to the FOH desk (for whatever
reason, one possibly that the artist does not have the means to do a
completely independent mix for his inears and can't or won't rely on
the foh engineer for that).
Of course, part of that is - as you mentioned - to know how to use
your gear, but in that context I think the problem isn't that lots of
guys arrive with a GML or Cranesong on their 2bus and do something
with it which they could also do with a Behringer, the problem is that
they don't know exactly how to properly use a compressor (or eq, or
whatever).

(On that issue: back in the days of my improvised dance band "Eclectic
Blah", we'd use a 32ch digital desk with powerful channel strips, 1/3
Oct EQ and a Finalizer on the 2bus and cared for the sound ourselves.
With a combination of proper sound check/setup and disciplined
players, we sometimes would get really pristine sound and could avoid
bad sound even with adverse room acoustics).

> I think I'm one of the few keyboard players here using guitar stomp 
>boxes.
(Rainer raises hand)