Quote:
Originally Posted by Superman
The sound guy showed up about 15 mins before the gig was to start. There was no 'sound check.' And again, stage sound was terrible. I'm feeling pretty crappy today. I really don't have time for all this BS. Going to jam with some new people next weekend anyway. It's no wonder this band has gone through four bass players in the last couple of years. Pretty fed up. The audience actually danced more to the DJ music during our breaks than they did to our music. Perhaps because the break music mix was (of course) correct. I'm just still pissed.
But I do have an actual question. The guitard with the Fender HotRod Deville had his amp on "6" last night. His excuse: The drummer was too loud. Now......this drummer is pretty forceful, but I just question the degree to which a forceful drummer would make a guitarist feel like he needs to crank it. I've never been scared of drummers stepping on my sound. Can anybody verify for me that a loud drummer is a poor excuse for a volume war?
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First off, while life is short, the reality is that some gigs suck. So do some bands. I've been in good and bad groups, and even the good ones have issues. It is the nature of the beast.
The HR Devilles are loud amps. I'm willing to be that his amp was on the ground and not tilted back or on a stand with tilt? That the the first step towards solving the "I can't hear myself" problem with guitarists. Loud drummers are often the catalyst for volume wars, but guitarists often are deaf to their own playing for some reason (I have this in one of my current bands).
Personally I don't like 15s, and I think that is part of your problem. What you can hear on stage are mids, so you need to eq for that and I vastly prefer a 2-10 or 4-10 cabinet. Since I play a lot of smaller gigs I have a 2-10 cab as a 4-10 is overkill. I have a second one that I stack vertical for larger gigs. But last night I had good FOH support so it was the Aguilar TH500 head with a single Bergantino AE210. My master wasn't even to 9 o'clock.
You really need to get the guitarists to tilt their cabinets. They need the speakers pointing at their heads so they can hear themselves while standing in front of them (instead of having them pointing at their knees). Also, guitarists also often eq their amps wrong - way too much bass. They dial in their amps for what sounds good at home playing by themselves. Then they get into a mix and there is way too much low end (fights with the bass player) and too much highs (fights with the cymbals).
The good thing is that a good bass player can always find another band. So if it is miserable, then look elsewhere. Or just play with these guys when they have a gig.
My gig last night was a blast - we had some really good vocalists coming up, and I even had fun playing "Rolling in the Deep" multiple times. This was the first gig for the new Monarch (the last new bass for awhile - ha!). Mmm, koa...
