Live sound: Delusions Of Grandeur

Executioner213

Ultimate Meatbag
Sep 2, 2001
1,689
1
38
Spokane, WA
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I had an epiphany last night after practice. My bassist thinks what we hear onstage when we play...and at practice, for that matter...should be this even, homogeneous blend just like he hears when he listens to music on his massive stereo system.

This all came about when we got into an argument about hiring a sound guy for our show this week. He wants to hire this dude, who is really just a friend of his who runs his own sound company but is very expensive and really isn't worth what he does. We can't afford him...it's not our show, so we don't have the liberty to hire the dude...he is so hit-and-miss on whether he does any good or not...he's all talk (I mentioned him in another thread recently, that he got thrown off his board and he says he has all this equipment stored all over town, etc)...and we can't afford him.

So I told him it would be a no-go. He got all pissy with me, saying "Fine, we'll just play with fuckin shit sound then like we always do. Fuck, whatever, I don't care then"...being really mature about it. Every time we play out, even when a production company was involved, the monitors have always sucked. It's also been an issue, regardless of who's running sound, that he (my bassist) has his fuckin bass up so loud that no monitoring will bring any amount of salvation to the stage mix.

He also got a little defensive earlier during practice when he asked me to turn up, and I came back with "maybe you should turn down some?". It wouldn't have helped, as my stack was facing away from him, so turning up to his liking would have just overwhelmed our drummer.

I must also add that he's over 40, and still thinks like a 16 year old...he still thinks all we need to do is get signed and he's never going to have to work again. :rolleyes::ill::puke:o_O:loco::lol:

Anyways...after I had left, because I wasn't going to get into an argument about the shit, I realized he expects everything to sound perfectly blended and louder than kingdom fuck onstage. Anyone else have this problem in their group?
 
The guys in my band let me dial in their amps. :)

Same here for my old band.. the lead guitarist was bitchy at first, but caved in after a while.
He always complained that my rythm-sound was louder then his leads, when he had bass 10, mids 0, treble 10 and gain 10 + boost.. i walked over and pulled the bass, treble and gain down, and the mids up, then he heard him self!
But he still was bitching because it "didnt sound metal enough".

Bass players are the worst though.. the only ones that suck more then drummers! :lol:
 
I've tried that before, but he always sets it back to sound like his hero: Gene $immon$. I try to look at the bright side of it by *pretending* he's got "Hell Awaits" bass, but it usually doesn't mix with what our guitars sound like. He doesn't look at the big picture...how instruments should be complimenting eachother for the entire sound, making up for weaknesses in each aspect of the other...he just thinks he's the backbone and should be heard. It's rather frustrating.
 
That is the true loudness war.
My other guitarist always sound louder on stage than me. Everybody in the audience tell me that when the show finishes. I think he does the sound check in a level and then before going into stage he turns up a bit.
He always wants to play at incredible loud volumes...more volume, more macho... it is like having a member of Manowar in the band...
Rehearsing is the same.
I hate that.

We now hire a guy for live sound so he can balance everything during the show.

I only ask for monitors just vocals and a bit of of drum, the rest i prefer to listen to the amps. Otherwise we start asking for so many things that stage become a ball of sound. So we try to monitor the less possible.
 
the guys in my band also basically let me dial in their amps, at least in situations when I appear to know better (which isn't always the case :lol: )

the problem recently at reheasals has been that the other amp sounds way quieter than the other for some reason, even though the levels are set the same.
 
That is the true loudness war.
My other guitarist always sound louder on stage than me. Everybody in the audience tell me that when the show finishes. I think he does the sound check in a level and then before going into stage he turns up a bit.
He always wants to play at incredible loud volumes...more volume, more macho... it is like having a member of Manowar in the band...
Rehearsing is the same.
I hate that.

We now hire a guy for live sound so he can balance everything during the show.

I only ask for monitors just vocals and a bit of of drum, the rest i prefer to listen to the amps. Otherwise we start asking for so many things that stage become a ball of sound. So we try to monitor the less possible.

:D
 
Wow, what a coincidence. I was using a Valveking for the past weeks at rehearsal while my amp was being serviced. Unfortunetaly I can't really help you. I had to crank that amp to the point where it would instantly feed back when I wasn't playing just to get to a volume level where I would stand a chance to hear myself at all. Long story short: That amp doesn't seem to be very loud in the first place.
 
yeah, they're their first tube amps and sound fairly good IMO, but they won't get too loud. They're getting TS7's, I'm kind of hoping it would help the situation for now. Too bad they also need gates BADLY but probably can't afford them anytime soon.

I'm going to have to investigate and see if the tubes need changing, or if there's something wrong with his guitar...