mattmc3287
Active Member
My rock band played our first full gig a few weeks back. The venue has recently completed massive renovation to add a stage, a second bar, a huge dance floor, and a couple more bathrooms. What was not included in the renovations was any kind of sound treatment to the room in which the stage is located. This room is probably 2500-3000 sq ft with 20ft metal ceiling. The walls are cinder block and the floor is concrete. There is also no PA equipment provided by the venue, just lights. We were the first full band to play in this room and it was the first our first time running our full PA setup in a little over a year. Long story short....it was a nightmare trying to get a decent mix. I muffled everything with tape (including cymbals) to the point that there was little to no tone differentiation between toms and cymbals which is exactly what you want when you spend thousands of dollars on gear and hundreds of hours practicing and tuning. Even still, the guitar player (also my brother) was constantly throwing around passive aggressive comments about how loud the drums are and that we wont be able to get the vocals loud enough without feedback (while simultaneously refusing all of my offers to help adjust levels and EQ). We were able to get a halfway decent sound after the first few songs. at least we got the vocals to come through nice and string anyway, the band sounded a bit muffled and everything but my snare was pretty much muted out front. Whatever, it was a good show and I was happy we got the vocals to cut through because that's really the most important thing.
Fast forward to last night. We were all at my house getting the practice room put back together and decided to try a different setup. Recently we have been running in ears for practice but it just hasn't been quite what we were hoping (because, you know, the drums are just too loud) So, we tried going back to the old school method of putting everything through the mains. I was exhausted and not really feeling practice as I have been rehearsing and gigging my butt off the last couple months, so I only set up hats and ride with one up and one down and played about 30% of the volume I normally do when we practice. Basically just holding tempo and the back beat. Guess what? Still couldn't hear the bass and now we couldn't hear the vocals either. I just sat there grinning whilst watching my brother fumble around trying to adjust the board having inadvertently proven that my volume is not the sole culprit for our sound problems. Also, as we were sitting around chatting afterwards everyone agreed that they dont like practicing with me playing that way... "it changes the whole feel of our band and we need your energy" Oh reeeeaaaalllly? Ya dont say...
Fast forward to last night. We were all at my house getting the practice room put back together and decided to try a different setup. Recently we have been running in ears for practice but it just hasn't been quite what we were hoping (because, you know, the drums are just too loud) So, we tried going back to the old school method of putting everything through the mains. I was exhausted and not really feeling practice as I have been rehearsing and gigging my butt off the last couple months, so I only set up hats and ride with one up and one down and played about 30% of the volume I normally do when we practice. Basically just holding tempo and the back beat. Guess what? Still couldn't hear the bass and now we couldn't hear the vocals either. I just sat there grinning whilst watching my brother fumble around trying to adjust the board having inadvertently proven that my volume is not the sole culprit for our sound problems. Also, as we were sitting around chatting afterwards everyone agreed that they dont like practicing with me playing that way... "it changes the whole feel of our band and we need your energy" Oh reeeeaaaalllly? Ya dont say...
