Grateful Dead Music Forum

It seems my band is ALWAYS too loud. It is partly due to our drummer who bangs the living hell out of his drums,(a NIGHTMARE while practicing). But I think maybe a solution to this problem could be putting all the instruments through the PA, something we are all reluctant to do. Reason -->shitty speakers. I am thinking now mabe that it is just a necessity. Here are our problems, I would REALLY appreciate some of your guys expert advice.

1.)Vox - too low (but we have good mics)
2.)keyboard - too low - solo's are inaudible
3.)guitars - always good to my and crowd's ears (I have a Twin Reverb and worry the sound might get distorted by our shitty speakers)
4.)bass - volume ok because its blasted through the PA (shitty bass cab)
5.)drums - when we ocassionally have a a spare mic - just the kick

Essentially, a sound guy would get sick listening to us. Everyone in the crowd says we sound fine but I am pretty certain we don't. We're all 23-24 and don't know too much about mixing.

A Twin is a LOUD ASS amp
I dont know what size places you are playing at but dont forget to leave room for the other instruments - its not all about the git.
You say the band is too loud but want to remedy it by putting all the instruments thru the PA doesn't compute ...
Stick to the kick and vocals and keys maybe.
Peace

Actually putting all instruments through a PA makes mixing from stage a breeze with mature players.

One of our venues we run 2 guitars, bass, and 4 vocals and I run the board from the stage with 1 mix and it's stupid simple.

Problems begin when players want to be louder vs. the song needs them to be louder, hence my maturity statement above.

Another challenge is ears. When setting up a "direct rig" you need to shift gears that you won't sound like your amp via mains.
Your goal is to sound like a properly mic'd amp in an isolated soundbooth in a studio. Can be done but it's a mindset shift...

But to do it right you need quality modelers/processors + a quality board + quality poweramp(s) + quality monitors + quality mains.

Another option is to tell your drummer to buy and use one of them plexi glass shield which should tame him down some since all his sound will be BLASTING right into his face. But there is the inherent risk with some drummers whereby you say to play quiet and they slow down. It's not them being obstinate but rather they cannot play softer and keep their time.

The idea that putting everything through the PA is actually a very good one. Once you have the full sound of the band through the PA, you should be able to tame the stage volumes since the backline is not need to fill the house. Getting everyone to relinquish some control of their stage volume is another story.

Putting the drums through the PA to tame them is completely valid but getting a drummer to back off and not lose their timing is tough. Some drummers just can't back off in power without losing stick velocity and that screws their timing up.


Drum isolation systems are nice, if you can afford them... And it doesn't have to be all reflective, these system offer reflection AND absorbtion.

Good points strummin, I agree with all of the above statements. On the other hand, I was watching the GD from Deer Creek 91, now when I say this I dont mean that every mix should be like the deads at a shed, but those drummers hit harder than any drummer Ive ever played with sans maybe one, plus Hornsby who I feel was almost always too loud and then there was Bob who you could barely hear and Jer with only 2 JBLs was sounding very distorted volume wise. I would have to say that for this thread my opinion is you must have a good quality PA in order for it to make sense to mic everybody at once. It really depends on the venue. Just my 2 cents I like a band to be LOUD even in a bar. Overall quality of each members rig's and ones playing ability all play a part in this. I guess in the end all of my favorite bands play or played very loud onstage so there is a soft spot for ear pounding bands as opposed to a studio setting where its just not the same. But then again Ive seen the dead where they played more like an "orchestra" and you really had to listen to hear everybody.

oops

Everything above is valid but I think maybe above the level that the original poster's band is at - since they're 23-24 years old I'm going to assume they have the same sort of cobbled-together budget gear and shoestring budget that I had at that age.

If I'm right, you've got a few different basic problems to overcome before getting to the nuances. Very common problems to new bar bands IMHO.

1. the drummer is too loud. This is a tough one and can even be a deal-breaker. Thinner sticks might help or more damping on the drums. Also it's important for a drummer to use cymbals as accents, not constant background noise - with the exception of hi-hats and tasteful ride cymbal work. There's nothing worse than a drummer who hits their crash cymbals more often than their snare drum.

2. your amp is plenty loud. A Twin will keep up with ANY bar band all by itself.

3. Your keyboard and bass player do not have good enough gear. It takes a lot of good clean power and fairly fresh speakers to keep up with a Twin and a bashing drummer.

4. Your PA is not good enough to keep up with a Twin and a bashing drummer. It takes a pretty good system for even just the vocals to keep up with your stage volume, even better if you're hoping to help the bass and keys keep up as well.

Basically you've got two REALLY LOUD band members and three really soft band members if you count keys and combined vox. You're going to have to either tame the two loud items or spend some money boosting the three soft items cleanly. Clean sound is key - budget gear distorts when pushed hard, muddying your mix into one ugly sound that fatigues the listeners' ears.

If I were in your situation, I'd try to swing the cash to buy a pair of JBL Eons. With any decent mixing board, you can have a pretty solid PA for about $1500. Even one would help a ton - stereo sound in a bar is way overrated IMHO since only a tiny fraction of your audience will be in the right position to hear it properly. http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=500918 They're light, reasonably priced, have the depth to help with bass and the clarity to help with vocals.

Stupid question: We are planning on playing out very soon. In most bars, is the band required to bring EVERYTHING sonically related?

Depends on the venue. Some have a house PA, some don't. If you are trying to establish a name for yourselves and your PA isn't up to snuff, I'd reccommend renting one or hiring someone to run the sound for you. There's nothing worse than going into a new place and sounding like crap...

Thanks everyone for your input....

Rusty, that was exactly why I didn't want to put the instruments that i thought sounded good into the PA - muddying into ugly volume coming from the speakers (which are just pieces of crap given to us from a bar we played at). You're absolutely right with the tight budget, and it seems that the consensus is that the bass + keys + vox = too much for these speakers to deal with. Distorting instruments is exactly what we are fighting with when trying to set up the volumes during the sound check.

Yep, I've been there. If your speakers are pieces of crap you don't want to rely on them for much beyond vocals if you can help it.

It's possible that they are just in disrepair and the bar didn't want to bother fixing them. Sometimes they can be reconed or repaired fairly cheaply - it'd be worth looking into that.

My personal list of upgrades would be in this order of importance:

Speakers
Power-amp
Mixer
Monitors
EQ/Effects
Highfalutin cables

With the caveat that whatever power amp you run in the mean time should be suitable enough not to blow up your speakers. They can be had fairly cheaply if you're willing to lug around a 3 or 4 rack space beast - many bands and sound companies are going to high-dollar one-space high-tech Class D lightweight stuff and flooding the market with the old technology.

Another thing I would NOT do if I could help it is expect the band to have communal ownership of the PA gear. That rarely ends well. It's best if each member can buy a piece and own it, even if it all travels together.

There are lots of short-cuts you can take... One thing would be a powered mixer like a Yamaha.
Add in some BR15s for mains and use your current speakers for monitors.

Sounds like first things first and that's to get folks with upgraded equipment and chill out your drummer.

dleonard wrote:You're absolutely right with the tight budget, and it seems that the consensus is that the bass + keys + vox = too much for these speakers to deal with. Distorting instruments is exactly what we are fighting with when trying to set up the volumes during the sound check.

This is a gain structure issue... or a shitty speaker issue... or both!

if it's shitty speakers, it would be apparent with just a single source and enough volume.

Setting gain structures to get the cleanest mix is an art and a science. I posted this link before but check it out:

http://www.rane.com/note135.html

here is another link (cache since the original is a word doc), it's tailor to someone using a Mackie board but the principles still apply:

Setting gain Structures

Here a link on Mixing philosophy:

http://www.atps.net/notes/Mixing%20Part%202.pdf

This is a post here that I made about setting gain:

http://www.rukind.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... =30#p68062

Alright, tonight we're going to put the guitars through the PA...Any advice on EQ'ing on the board for guitar? Thanks

dleonard wrote:Alright, tonight we're going to put the guitars through the PA...Any advice on EQ'ing on the board for guitar? Thanks

Yes. Turn down the low end! There is no more effective way to muddy your mix than by running the guitars with a lot of low end.