Like I said, gentrification sucks.

In the U-District we lost the Rainbow but the Blue Moon is still running strong.   The Crocodile re-opened to much fanfare and the Moore still does live shows every night.    There is also the Tripple Door for a more upscale scene.   There are a couple of places out in West Seattle, the Skylark Cafe most notably, but all the real action has moved to Ballard.  The Tractor, High Dive, Sunset Cafe and Connor Byrnes are kind of ground zero right now.

Gentrification sucks, but it still rains a lot up here, meaning lots of dudes locked inside with guitars.  Fret not,  live music is still *cough* alive and kicking in Seattle. 

(I apologize for two puns in one sentence.  My shame is great)

Oh, absolutely on the in-ear monitors.  I'd be happy with powered monitors.  Right now we're using these heap-o-garbage passive things on the floor, and they're terrible.   For the most part, we're happy if we play places with their own sound system, though. 

on a side note: not many live band venues left up your way Jerome. Remember the cool venues like the Fenix underground and Shark club? aside from SOHO and Bumpershoot, seems like there's not much left except DJ's and cover bands at the casinos...sad because Seattle had such a great history of live music and the cool venues have all shut down....DJ's killed live music bro.......

Cheers

The Sm58 is certainly a staple for vocal mic's, I use the beta58 versions on stage for many reasons but, mostly because it's a dynamic mic and that makes it more reliable than death and taxes...as for the acoustic guitar, I would recommend a guitar pickup over a microphone. In the end you'll find it easier to setup, operate and control.

I like to chat with musicians that have no ego to fuel. thanks for inviting me into your E-house.....

I'm with you.  Unless you're on stage where feedback is a problem (and for me, that's frequently :)  ), I'd mic a guitar with large diaphragm condensers over any dynamic mic every time.  The response curve on dynamics (SM-58s in particular) isn't going to be particularly friendly to a guitar.

Note that open E on a guitar sits at about 80Hz.

Compare that with a pretty low budget condenser (AKG Perception 420)

And you can see what you're losing on the low end.

I like to chat with musicians that have no ego to fuel. thanks for inviting me into your E-house.....

sweetmix4u wrote:

Going direct into the amp using a microphone to amplify the guitar is not the ideal situation for live application.

I don't think we're suggesting that.  We're talking about close micing the amplifier, not micing the guitar.

If all you want is a vocal mic, the Shure SM58 is as reliable as the rain.

Didn't Bass Viking say he mic'ed his guitar with a Shure SM57 to get a signal to the amp?   

- Zurf

Going direct into the amp using a microphone to amplify the guitar is not the ideal situation for live application.

I don't think we're suggesting that.  We're talking about close micing the amplifier, not micing the guitar.

If all you want is a vocal mic, the Shure SM58 is as reliable as the rain.

Going direct into the amp using a microphone to amplify the guitar is not the ideal situation for live application. I'd recommend getting an actual acoustic guitar pickup. While using high quality mic's are great for studio recording, live use is a completely different situation. by using a pickup, you'll have much greater control over all the amplifiers parameters like, gain before feedback, tone, volume and, with some higher quality pickup's, you'll actually enhance the natural resonating tone of the wood. simply put, combining a good amp and pickup is a hard combo to beat for a live performance with an acoustic guitar.

I don't know for sure if you were talking to me, but my guitar is an acoustic/electric with a built in pick up. The microphone is for my voice, not my guitar.