The proverbial gig volume dilemma

Moltisanti

unless it's an enormous pub you don't need to be mic'd in my opinion, just the vocals. There's nothing worse than watching a band being ridiculously loud with thundering bass drums in a building the size of the average house.

A hard hitting drummer hitting an acoustic kit is plenty loud enough in a pub.

hywelg

Ossyrocks said:

Has anyone tried or is using a Clearsonic shield?

Yes, Ive had one for quite a while and gigged with it way back. I find its very useful for dispersal of the sound. Be aware though that they're not all the same. I talked to Matt Schofield about his, he has the 4 section one that forms a \/\/ , he said to avoid the 3 section ones as you get unwanted reflections from the middle section.

I made mine, this was before they got into Thomann at much better prices (they used to be £300+!!), they sell the hinge section in  Studio Spares 1.5m lengths(IIRC) and I bought 6mm perspex online. I then had to route a v-groove for the hinge to lock into.

John_A

Telejester said:

Last band I was in was a twin guitar setup and never again.

Me too, however I've been in bands with some great guitarists and as long as you play with each other rather than turn it in to a volume competition it really can be amazing.  IfI ever turned up to an audition where the other guy was setting up a Perspex shied id pack up and go home, there's just no need

ChrisCox1994

It's all about complimenting each other's tone. 1 guitar is midragey and other more low and high. Sounds great when done properly.

and don't mic the drummer in a pub- unless he's got a jazz kit any you wanna play rock, maybe mic the kick.... maybe.

Cabicular

I mic the kick and the snare
he plays quieter if I do
if I don't he beats the shit out of it and hurts himself in the process
it seems counter intuitive but it works

Voxman

I had the same problem. But gig clips proved I have a way better understanding of gig volume balances than our drummer who also sets up our monitoring and volume levels. I'm now wireless so I can go out and hear the balances from audience perspective. The problem with a lot of drummers is that they constantly hit too hard and play too loud so everything has to go up in volume to compensate. The moment they hear something louder than them, its too loud! 

Drummers generally have to learn to better balance their playing.

PolarityMan

I was listening to a clip of me and the drummer jamming while the rest of the band were making tea and I loved the way you could actually hear my micro dynamics and he responded better in kind. I wonder if sometimes having another 2 instruments playing the same or similar riffs actually robs the music of that touch responsiveness. I should post a clip to demonstrate what I mean.

slacker

PolarityMan said:

I was listening to a clip of me and the drummer jamming while the rest of the band were making tea and I loved the way you could actually hear my micro dynamics and he responded better in kind. I wonder if sometimes having another 2 instruments playing the same or similar riffs actually robs the music of that touch responsiveness. I should post a clip to demonstrate what I mean.

It's people, not numbers. I played in a 3 piece with excellent dynamics until we added another guitarist. I replaced a drummer in a band and made a drastic improvement. 

I've played bass in a band with drums, keys, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, sax and percussion. Excellent dynamics, dialogue etc. Played in a similar band that was just a nightmare or volume and mixed frequencies. I used to get complaints about the bass volume-even when I turned my bass volume knob off. The keyboard player was using a 500w combo and too much left hand. 

ICBM

slacker said:

It's people, not numbers. I played in a 3 piece with excellent dynamics until we added another guitarist. I replaced a drummer in a band and made a drastic improvement. 

I've played bass in a band with drums, keys, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, sax and percussion. Excellent dynamics, dialogue etc. Played in a similar band that was just a nightmare or volume and mixed frequencies. I used to get complaints about the bass volume-even when I turned my bass volume knob off. The keyboard player was using a 500w combo and too much left hand. 

This.

I've played in a six-piece band with electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, percussion and five vocalists (I was the only non-singer) and the mix was always fine. And in a five-piece with two guitars, bass, drums and two vocalists that was terrible. The difference was that in the second band, the rhythm guitarist and the drummer both thought that 'dynamics' meant playing as loud as possible all the time…