Whether you are mixing in a club, at a house of worship or almost any venue for that matter — what is the age-old problem? The stage is too loud, right? You tell the drummer to play softer and he complains. You tell the bass player to turn down and he says he can’t feel it anymore. You tell the guitar player to turn down and he says that now he doesn’t have good tone. Being a guitar player turned sound guy, I can’t say that I disagree with him. If you can’t turn the amp up, it’s hard to make it sound the way you want to. But as an engineer, especially in a house of worship, I want to kick the speakers out of the amp and throw it away.
The Gear
I’ve been searching near and far to find a solution that works for me at front-of-house and keeps my musicians happy at the same time. In comes the AxeTrak. At first glance, this little guy looks rather unassuming. It’s a box that’s about one-square-foot with a quarter-inch speaker jack and an XLR on the side of it. Inside is a custom-designed speaker and microphone diaphragm.
It’s as easy to use as it sounds. You connect the speaker output of any amp, whether a combo or just a head, to the speaker jack on the AxeTrak. Next, you take the mic cable for your guitar mic and plug it in. Turn on the amp and play. It’s as simple as that. Said and done, it only makes about 65 dB of ambient noise. Away goes my stage volume, but we don’t have to sacrifice the tone because it’s still a speaker with a mic.
The Gig
Our church is fairly large. A sanctuary that can seat up to 3,000, but on any given Sunday we’ll have between 1,500 and 2,000 in attendance. The room is a gigantic concrete box with an open-beam ceiling. I liken it to mixing in a huge fish bowl — reflection everywhere. Our pastor has asked that we mix front-of-house at around 95 dB; however, our stage volume is typically 97+ dB. I told my guys we needed to fix this and they were willing to work with me.
I called up Jeff at JLH Products. It’s so cool when you call to order something and you actually talk to the guy that made it. I said, "I saw your product on the Internet and I want try it out. How soon can I get it?" He said, "You're with a church? I’ll ship it tomorrow." We went over the par-ticulars: You can order the device in whatever ohm load matches your current setup so that there's as little change to your tone as possible. I de-cided on 8 ohms because that’s what both of my guitar players use. Jeff shipped them and I had them in two days. No joke, two days. I actually got service and the guy was cool over the phone. He even gave me a shirt and hat just for ordering his product.
I unpack these cute little guys and I’m already thinking of some clever story to tell my guys about how they are going to sound. Quite frankly, they don’t look like they are going to have the fat sound that a guitar player is used to. I walk into the rehearsal with what looks like my lunch in my hand and say, “Here we go guys, this is an AxeTrak.” The look could burn a hole in lead.
I plug it in, fingers crossed, and head up to front-of-house. We used it on a Vox AC30 with a Telecaster. He starts playing and I wonder if it works because I can’t hear anything at FOH. I look at the channel and I see a strong signal. I say a prayer, un-mute it, and slowly push up the fader. What to all of our wondering ears should appear but the sound of Mike’s guitar just as it’s sounded for the last two years. We unplug the AxeTrak, listen to the amp and plug it back in again. PERFECT! Right out of the box it sounds just like his AC30. My sigh of relief could be heard around the world.
The boys at JLH have also added two other features to help you if you need it. There’s a port on the side of the box. Removing the cover helps cre-ate more low-end if desired. Also, there’s a high-end roll off switch on the box. I didn’t need to use either of them — I just plugged it in and it worked great. It was a solved problem right out of the box.
Without the guitar volume on stage, I was able to turn everything else down and now my stage volume is 88 dB at FOH. I can mix the service at our pastors desired level without having to sacrifice the quality of our sound. For a relatively small price tag, it’s the best solution I’ve run across for this problem.
If you mix in a large church like I do or you have a small church, I would recommend the AxeTrak to anyone. It flat-out rocks. They also offer the AxeTrak in a version for bass as well as a 3×12, 1×12 and bass cab with 3 6s and a 15. Jeff and his team did their homework on the AxeTrak and it really shows.
JLH AxeTrak
What It Is: Sort of a direct box for guitar amps. Sort of.
Who It’s For: Anyone who needs to control stage volume without sacrificing tone.
Pros: Small and easy to hide, Easy to use. Great tone right out of the box.
Cons: You can’t create controlled feedback. They don’t make one for every instrument on the stage.
Price: $399 (Factory Direct).
