Wondering about cab placement in practice room

[breadtruck]

I know relatively nothing about the science of sound. Of course when you play live the guitar and bass cabs are facing forward, in the direction of the crowd and the band, but what about when you're in the practice room? How do you position everything? What will give the optimal sound so you can practice efficiently?

My band and I never gave much thought about this. The place we practice is a reasonably sized square room. The drummer sets the drums up at the back of the room, the bassist plugs into the bass amp which is positioned to the right of the drummer, but facing the middle of the room, and me and the other guitarists put our amps and cabs at our respective sides of the room facing the middle. Looksee I even made a diagram:

I never was that good at drawing

The speakers from the PA are at the front of the room, opposite the drums, and they're also pointing roughly towards the middle. We tend to be pretty damn loud when we practice and sometimes it can sound a bit mushy, like I can't hear much definition in anything. I'm wondering if our positioning might be hindering us here. Is it wise to have all the cabs pointing to the middle of the room? Should we have the guitar cabs behind us, like when we play live? What do you guys do?

Maybe this is overthinking things but if I can find a way to make our practices sound a bit clearer then I'll be thankful that cared to ask these questions.

 

[noUser01]

The answer is simple: set it up like you would set up for a live show.

That's the goal, isn't it? To sound great live? That's why we practice together as a band, so that we can reach that end goal of a better live performance. If you're not setting up like a live show then what's the point, you know?

I mean you could point things centrally if you really can't hear how those new guitar parts are meshing with the bass or whatever the situation may be, but if you're just practicing then set it up like a show.

 

[HUGH JAYNUS]

The answer is simple: set it up like you would set up for a live show.

That's the goal, isn't it? To sound great live? That's why we practice together as a band, so that we can reach that end goal of a better live performance. If you're not setting up like a live show then what's the point, you know?

I mean you could point things centrally if you really can't hear how those new guitar parts are meshing with the bass or whatever the situation may be, but if you're just practicing then set it up like a show.

my band does this, but the drums are a little bit in front of the amps. also, our bassist has 2 cabs. a 1x15, and a 4x10. he puts one on each side, and we put each guitar cab on top of the bass cabs, and face them all straight ahead. it helps tremedously. PA speakers everywhere though. like 2 15" mains, and 6 12" monitors around which we also mich the bass drum through. and our singer uses a wireless In Ear monitor lol.

 

[Orgalmer]

My band does the same thing as the OP, only minus one guitar. I set up in the left corner and bass player in the right corner.

I'm gonna try out setting up as though live and see how we go

 

[breadtruck]

The answer is simple: set it up like you would set up for a live show.

That's the goal, isn't it? To sound great live? That's why we practice together as a band, so that we can reach that end goal of a better live performance. If you're not setting up like a live show then what's the point, you know?

I mean you could point things centrally if you really can't hear how those new guitar parts are meshing with the bass or whatever the situation may be, but if you're just practicing then set it up like a show.

Naturally I wanted to do this when we first practiced, but at the time we were borrowing most of the gear, and when we entered the room it was already set up like my diagram, so we just plugged in and kept it that way.

Ideally yes I would love to practice exactly as we would be live, but annoyingly we tend to get our cabs mic'd up at every show we play (even though they are all small venues). I understand why that would be better for the sound engineer and better for the audience if he balances it right, but it means we end up having little control over our sound anyway.

Either way I think I'm going to suggest the standard approach next band practice and see if it sounds any different.

 

[TheWarAgainstTime]

The answer is simple: set it up like you would set up for a live show.

That's the goal, isn't it? To sound great live? That's why we practice together as a band, so that we can reach that end goal of a better live performance. If you're not setting up like a live show then what's the point, you know?

I mean you could point things centrally if you really can't hear how those new guitar parts are meshing with the bass or whatever the situation may be, but if you're just practicing then set it up like a show.

QFT

My band used to practice with the guitar and bass amps facing the drummer in a semicircle, but after a *....ing terrible* show with no PA in a bad room, we started setting up like we would at a show so that we would learn to listen to the rest of the band better. As an added bonus it helped me develop what little stage presence I have since I could focus a bit more on that rather than making eye contact for cues/time from the drummer.

 

[noUser01]

Naturally I wanted to do this when we first practiced, but at the time we were borrowing most of the gear, and when we entered the room it was already set up like my diagram, so we just plugged in and kept it that way.

Ideally yes I would love to practice exactly as we would be live, but annoyingly we tend to get our cabs mic'd up at every show we play (even though they are all small venues). I understand why that would be better for the sound engineer and better for the audience if he balances it right, but it means we end up having little control over our sound anyway.

Either way I think I'm going to suggest the standard approach next band practice and see if it sounds any different.

So? Being mic'd up doesn't mean you don't have control over your live sounds, it just means there's a chance the sound guy might actually do a good job.

Being mic'd up doesn't make things worse unless you have an awful sound guy (which could happen), but keep in mind that the people in the front aren't going to be hearing the PA very well anyways, they'll mostly be hearing the stage sound. And at the very least you can still setup the same way at band practice for the sake of both having a better sound on stage for you guys to hear yourselves, and to get a better idea of what you're putting out there in general.

 

[breadtruck]

So? Being mic'd up doesn't mean you don't have control over your live sounds, it just means there's a chance the sound guy might actually do a good job.

Being mic'd up doesn't make things worse unless you have an awful sound guy (which could happen), but keep in mind that the people in the front aren't going to be hearing the PA very well anyways, they'll mostly be hearing the stage sound. And at the very least you can still setup the same way at band practice for the sake of both having a better sound on stage for you guys to hear yourselves, and to get a better idea of what you're putting out there in general.

I guess we've just had terrible sound guys half of the time because I swear they don't know what they're doing. For some reason they usually make the guitars inaudible. I ask the crowd after we've done playing for feedback and the most common thing they say is that they couldn't really hear the guitars (with quiet vocals being a close second). The reason I said it's kinda out of our control is because we get told to have the volumes quieter than we would at practice because obviously they're using the mics to balance levels.

But idk maybe I got unlucky but that's just my experience with sound guys. One guy even had the drums mic'd up which seems hugely unnecessary to me considering the small venues we play. As if we needed a reason for the drums to be any louder But maybe it's for another reason which I don't understand. Either way it doesn't seem necessary for a small gig; I much prefer the one gig we played where there was no mics on anything besides vox.