Sound guy

jpfamps

Oddly I've never had many issues with on stage sound; I can usually heat everything OK.

I don't play with loud drummers though.

re singing, the main issue here is poor technique. You need to develop a bright resonant voice that will project. It's not about the volume, more the timbre of the voice.

ICBM

Jeremiah said:

I don't know if this is something other people experience or if it's just me, but I find it *really* hard to hear myself in any kind of mix, to the extent that if I can just barely hear myself then I know I am way too loud and everyone else will be complaining.

Do you have your amp pointing at your ears, or directly out front at floor level, or somewhere in between?

Jeremiah

ICBM said:

Jeremiah said:

I don't know if this is something other people experience or if it's just me, but I find it *really* hard to hear myself in any kind of mix, to the extent that if I can just barely hear myself then I know I am way too loud and everyone else will be complaining.

Do you have your amp pointing at your ears, or directly out front at floor level, or somewhere in between?

Actually, it's been so long since I've played or rehearsed with a band that I can't remember...
But even if I'm just playing by myself, as soon as there is any background noise I have real difficulty picking out what I am playing.

The same thing happens if I'm playing along to a backing track or other pre-recorded parts on headphones; I can't hear what I'm playing, but then if I record it and play it back with all the levels the same, I find the part I've just recorded is way louder in the mix than everything else even though I could hardly hear it while I was playing it.

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

thomasross20 said:

Danny, fully agree. 

Ideally we all go through PA...

Sorry to ask again but what amp do you use? If going through PA then no need for some huge beast.

Well I'm in 4 bands and one of them is  sponsored so in that band I have a Marshall rack system but in the other 3 I use a simple Blackstar HT5 head and a 1 x 12" combo ..... always mic'ed up no matter how small the gig

You see the hard true fact is most of your band mates can't hear you properly when you gig simply because most muso's go for what I call an EGO mix ..... as in 80% of them and 20% of the rest of the band. They can't hear you because they are stood in front of their own amp or sat behind their own drum kit and the volume of that far outweighs what they hear from you. It's just physics and the louder you play the more people have to have an EGO mix. I've also noticed the older people get the more this holds true too and for those suffering from hearing loss which is ironically caused by loud ego mix's

I wouldn't go back to not using IEM's. I really enjoy listening to the other guitarist in my band and the keyboard player in the other bands. When you can hear in detail exactly what the other guys doing you can lock in harmony perfectly in terms of phrasing. And it sounds great, like a studio mix. The down side is you can hear every little imperfection like a note not fingered correctly or a clipped keyboard note and they can obviously hear every little fuck up you make but that's kinda the point, it forces you to be a better band

I would seriously pay you to teach some of the guys in my band that lesson!

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

 and wouldn't use a wedge now, they are a waste of time for anything other than putting your foot on and posing

So what you're saying is go IEM's and take an unloaded wedge too?

ESBlonde

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

 and wouldn't use a wedge now, they are a waste of time for anything other than putting your foot on and posing

So what you're saying is go IEM's and take an unloaded wedge too?

I think dump the wedge and use a set of steps like Ricky Nelson of Cheap trick.

http://www.eyeneer.com/video/rock/cheap-trick/come-on-come-on

appear about 1:30 and he climbs them about 1:45

jpfamps

ESBlonde said:

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

 and wouldn't use a wedge now, they are a waste of time for anything other than putting your foot on and posing

So what you're saying is go IEM's and take an unloaded wedge too?

I think dump the wedge and use a set of steps like Ricky Nelson of Cheap trick.

http://www.eyeneer.com/video/rock/cheap-trick/come-on-come-on

appear about 1:30 and he climbs them about 1:45

I suspect you don't mean Ricky Nelson......

koneguitarist

jpfamps said:

ESBlonde said:

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

 and wouldn't use a wedge now, they are a waste of time for anything other than putting your foot on and posing

So what you're saying is go IEM's and take an unloaded wedge too?

I think dump the wedge and use a set of steps like Ricky Nelson of Cheap trick.

http://www.eyeneer.com/video/rock/cheap-trick/come-on-come-on

appear about 1:30 and he climbs them about 1:45

I suspect you don't mean Ricky Nelson......

Cmon its late, got ta get on home!

koneguitarist

I must admit, I think people worry too much about PA, instead they should learn how to play with each other and create a mix and just have vocals through mix.

If you have the band listening to each other, close up and not stand too far apart, use monitors for vocals only. To me some people put guitars bass and drums through monitors, yet they also have amps banging away, bring the level down onstage and learn how to balance off each other. 

Record yourself with a camera phone, tape deck etc so you get an idea of the balance. Sometimes it's not the volume of an instrument that's too loud but the frequency, you could have guitar amp turned down low, yet it's up on a chair and rest of band can hear too much of it, so turn up themselves. Bassist could be standing right next to amp and can hardly hear it, yet 10 feet in front it's blasting away. 

Try setting up then using long leads or Radio system walk further away all playing and listen from the audiences point of view, generally your point of view changes as well. 
 

Danny1969

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

 and wouldn't use a wedge now, they are a waste of time for anything other than putting your foot on and posing

So what you're saying is go IEM's and take an unloaded wedge too?

You probably know Mafia, a hair metal covers band gigs around Southampton (one of my old bands as well) Steve the singer has IEM's but use's a fake wedge monitor with the speaker removed to conceal his lyric sheets. Trouble is he has to bend down like Quasimodo to see em ...... I thought he had a bad back when I watched him for the first time