So I'm in a band which is quite fortunate on that our singer lives in a decent sized house with a room at the back of the garage that is used solely for band rehearsals. Personally I think it has spoiled us a bit as if we were having to pay for rehearsal time then I suspect we'd have got our shit together a lot quicker....Anyway that's another issue.
The only downside is we do need to be respectful of the neighbours of course and there is also an ongoing debate within the band of going iems or wedges for gigs.
As a way of getting a taste of in ears, keeping the neighbours happy and (most significantly for me) hearing what we really sound like before it's pumped the through the PA at a gig, I suggested we all go into our mixer and then from that into a headphone amp where we all have a volume control to set the level as we like it and rehearse with iems.
Our drummer has an electric kit and our bassist DI's into the PA at gigs anyway so the only sound in the room will be guitars loud enough to be mic'd - which doesn't need to be very loud I don't think? And of course our singer. So it's all doable within the space we have.
So the other night we tried it for the first time and although I can see it has potential it certainly didn't sound as good as I was hoping - or as when we've recorded live in the room. The guitars were DI'd which for me is part of the problem as I've never got a sound I liked from the redbox on my H&K
One thing it did highlight is that with two guitarists in the band finding tones that complement each other is very important. I think on a few my gain is way too high which combined with his guitar = noise!
I may be guilty of trying to dial in tones which mimic the full band mix rather than just what the guitar is actually doing.
I guess what I'm asking is can anyone give any tips on getting a good mix and approaching dialling in guitar tones that will sit properly in a full band mix?
We're all new to it but want to get it right. After years of playing along to things at home through headphones I'm beginning to suspect that what I think is the right tone for a song is possibly complete overkill!
Comments
We found it didn't sound natural in any way, and encouraged us all to use the mixer to set levels, tones and control dynamics, rather than doing it by our playing.
I agree with Danny that there are a lot of problems caused by practicing too loud too, but I'd far rather fix that by playing quieter - you may need a quieter drum kit, my drummer got a 'Flats' kit, which also proved very useful for small gigs.
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