Hi guys,
How do you tend to monitor at home when setting up your sounds ahead of a live venue session?
I plug in to the headphone jack (with IEMs) on the QC and over the last few days, I think (thought) I finally managed to really dial in a tone and effects that made me want to play more and also look forward to finally coming together with the band.
Today at the venue with the band, I plugged (with DI) straight to FOH and used an IEM feed from house to monitor myself. Sound man at the board let me know that my sound (the ones I loved at home) was sending no bass signal and very little mids. Even in my IEM mix from FOH my sound felt tinny and super distant despite many rounds of tweaking. I had my tele with me, which I kept on the neck PU all the way, in case anyone asks.
This session was hard. At times I felt so disengaged that I was playing for the sake of.
So that’s that. Any advice would be most appreciated. What on earth am I doing wrong?
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I have experienced a similar phenomenon. I set up my QC presets using my studio monitors at home. Then I bring the unit to my church and plug directly into FOH. Different room, different speakers, who knows if the sound guy is doing [unnecessary] EQ and compression…
Usually I take a moment during practices to play guitar and hear the QC’s sound in the room, and tweak accordingly. I usually need to turn gain settings down and also dampen everything above 5 kHz [it kills me a little bit because I love high gain, but it’s the right approach for the room I’m playing in]. The beauty of the QC’s UI is that I can make quick changes on the fly and move on.
Conversely, when I take my QC home, the preset I made tweaks to when playing live sounds dull when playing it back on my studio monitors. I’ve learned to live with it.
Your listening environment matters. Presets created while using headphones are for sure going to sound much different in FOH. Ask your sound guy if he will let you just play guitar for a minute in the room so you can hear it at concert volume.
I don’t use the headphone jack in the QC, but there are other discussions in this forum on that topic. Might be good to do a search and find out what people are saying.
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Years ago (the 90’s) I was using DigiTech GSP 21. I had constant problems with FOH putting some EQ on my device, so eventually I dropped it. 
Later I learned, and still doing it to check my digitally generated guitar sound, same way like one is checking mixes (when not using pro built studio): I am going well known to me headphones (usually DT880, DT770, ATH M-30x and cheap Chinese in-ear KZ monitors), and then my Kali, cheap Mackie and - LG home cinema system. If there it sounds OK, then FOH (not equalized) shall sound OK also.
(to be honest, I am staying now mostly by DT880 and Kali with some special EQ added, as I simply trust what I hear there).
EDIT:
I am also using my affordable Headrush FRFR 108 with flat Contour switch. I am using them as my on-stage monitors also.
I experienced once huge f…up, when FOH guy left some noise/eq correction (as he was correcting all guitars - read amps - like that) and once something related to IN/OUT impedances (which I did not understand, as I am not sound engineer).
I am playing very rarely live, so I simply might have been lucky. And - I am ALWAYS using balanced XLR outputs, and those also I am checking at home.
Best!
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One additional thing - I am always preparing my guitar sounds in a band context. After I dial my guitar sound alone, I am listening to it with the playback of the rest of the band. And then making adjustments. (sorry, if that is obvious)
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Appreciate your chiming in folks.
Going to have to figure out a different mode of monitoring at home rather than the headphone jack straight out to to the Shure SE425s.
I guess the conundrum here simply is that these were never an issue when using straight up pedals, running stereo into an Iridium to FOH. May be with a bit of adjustment on volumes, with advice from FOH.
Had honestly hoped that I’d be able to leave the large board at home and take the QC to sessions; give my deteriorating lower back the relief it requires.
Using an FRFR or a PA speaker/monitor at home for designing presets is probably the most likely to translate to a good FOH sound. If you use a power amp to a cab or a traditional amp/cab set up that should get you in the ballpark - even if it will be miked afterwards.
Some people use headphones/IEMs for preset design but learn to anticipate the adjustments to the EQ, etc., that they will need to make to get it to sound right in the PA. Some folks do get lucky using headphones and find they need to make minimal adjustments when playing out, but I think they are the exception. The equipment you use while designing your presets can and usually does impact on what you finalize on as a “good” preset tone.
Also per Fletcher-Munson, using a volume closer to your performance level will often make a big difference in the perceived tone.
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sound that u hear from in-ear monitors will never be same as a frfr speaker, thats why global eq can be added to specific outputs, use eq only on the outputs you use for monitoring yourself with in-ears if u can, otherwise try to find compromise between what is pleaant for you and what is ok for FOH, and always ask to sound guy to leave the channels of QC flat and uncompressed.
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