Live tips

smy1 said:
Nah, I agree. That sucks! I am talking about knowing what you wanna say at certain points between songs. AND already having said it 5 or 10 times before so you don't fuck it up all the time and go "and now ... ehhh ... I think ... ehhm ... we ... uhm ... yea ... so, listen everyone ... ehh ... the next song is ..." :D

Just saying what you really wanna say out loud in rehearsal will help be more confident and smooth. That's the base. From there you can be spontaneous. And if you have nothing spontaneous to say that evening ... at least you come across professionally :)
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then we 100% agree :)

I remember a couple of rehearsals (my ex-band or friends of mine) making fun of the "gig talking" by saying retarded stuff to some imaginary audience in between songs.
 
I'll add:

If you use a pedal board have two tuners with mutes. One at the pedalboard and at the amp. That way if you need a quick tune up you can do it at the board but when switching guitars or during pauses you can tune away from the front of the stage and be less conspicuous.

Tape all your rig cables that hit the floor with tunnel tape so that you don't trip over them. The center part of the tape has no sticky so that your cables don't get gummed up.

If you have more than one cable, put them into a cable snake with all the ends color coded and labeled with glow in the dark labels.

Practice the set as a complete set including all song transitions, instrument changes and the like.

Keep a first aid kit in your gig bag. You will eventually need aspirin, a band aid or some kind of medicine at a gig. Have it before you need it.

Never leave the stage without someone designated to watch your gear. Pedals, guitars and even amps tend to walk away when you least expect it.
 
It's common sense that you can become more adept at anything while drunk the more often you do it, within measures of *how* drunk...

This was meant to be about actual tips/secrets that you guys might know, and that the rest of the community might not, about furthering your performance and setup...not beating the same old horse of "you should be well rehearsed" or "you should know what to say inbetween songs".
Please, carry on.
 
Record your rehearsals. Use them to get better.
When performance is measured, performance improves.
The tale of the tape as it were. And record in any way possible your actual performances, and critique them as though it was YOU that paid the $50 for the ticket. Or $5 or $500, whatever. The point is were you as good as the recording/touring act that just came through town? Could you release it? Would it hold up if placed on the shelf beside Nevermore, Megadeth, Arch Enemy, Slipknot, Machine Head ?
Do you play covers in your set? If you played a recording of your band playing the cover for a friend would the response be "man, Megadeth RAWKS!", or would he wonder WTF was up with Chris Broderick that night?
 
SuperD said:
Record your rehearsals. Use them to get better.
When performance is measured, performance improves.
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That's absolutely true. When we had a gig coming up, we used a quick recording setup with a minidisc and two mics in the room just to capture the playing, and then our bass player/singer/frontman listened to the recording at home, sent us the tracks and told us what parts of our playing sucked the most so we could try and fix them before going on stage. It really helped pinpoint the biggest problems.
 
_Brutalism_ said:
I don't particularly sweat but I had problems keeping focus on my grip so in my earlier years I tried electric tape which sucked. Tennis Racket tape is much better, however if it is too thick it may unbalance the stick and make it uncomfortable so be careful on trying to balance the same amount on each whilst being comfortable.
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Many use hockey tape instead, because its a lot thinner

_Brutalism_ said:
Of course, now there are gloves that have the same function and they will serve you for a long time, however in my country I wasn't able to find a good pair of good grip drumming gloves.
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Go to a sports shop and ask for cycling gloves

Flat Fifth Fury said:
Tape all your rig cables that hit the floor with tunnel tape so that you don't trip over them. The center part of the tape has no sticky so that your cables don't get gummed up.
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After being a house engineer at 8 different places, I just HATE it when the bands tape the wires down with gaffer tape, even if its not their own cables! Ruins the floor and makes the cables sticky

Flat Fifth Fury said:
Keep a first aid kit in your gig bag. You will eventually need aspirin, a band aid or some kind of medicine at a gig. Have it before you need it.
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Meds are personal stuff and your hangover is your personal problem, but cuts and injuries are not, so band aids etc belong to the first aid kit.

....

But my personal suggestions: Use as little mics as possible.Usually 1 per instrument is enough, but sometimes even that 1 mic in front of cabinet is too much in smaller clubs.

I have noticed that during ~900 gigs as sound engineer (~500-600 FOH and 80% being rock/metal gigs), I usually haven't even opened the drum overhead mics with metal bands, except at festivals. You can still pretty much hear the fucking cymbals in any place that has a customer capacity less than 1000 without overhead mics. I just usually balance the band to the cymbals.
 
LOL!!! Nope, not with IBM ( or anything like it !! )...although I admit to nodding off during a motivational video or two !! But what seems obvious to some is not so to others...I have seen ( and even been a member of ) bands that have infinite patience for all the wrong things ( oh I dunno, pyro, backdrops, props...), while missing some very important things, many of which you guys are mentioning in your posts. If your intent is to make your living as a recording ( and touring...) act, then YOU and your music are your product, and like it or not will be judged alongside other 'product', like that of the aforementioned bands.
Nope, I don't have one of those great deep voice over voices either darn it.
 
One I saw which was handy was if your getting a buzz ground hum on your guitar, where if you touch metal it goes away, is to stick a guitar string going from the offending jack to your body, it'll kill the hum. I know its not really safe but it'll kill the hum for a night before you get it fixed.

i never go to a gig without a spare mic or 2 and a few extra good XLR leads, often with a stand or 2 too. Also extra plugboards cause if you haven't played the venue before you might not know how far away the power is.

A really stupid thing I've seen is people holding back at soundcheck volume wise, especially drummers. I've often seem drummers say they played quietly during sound check for various silly reasons- defeats the purpose of the soundcheck if they're going to turn up to 10 for the gig and be way louder. Mightn't be an issue at massive shows but for smallish gigs where you'll be using the amp volume to help the FOh and onstage monitoring its retarded
 
Something i'm seeing from a guitarist of one of my old bands on youtube leads me to a tip here:

Never ever bend/sustain a note in a solo if you are not 100% sure it's in key or you can keep bending it till it is.
 
SuperD said:
LOL!!! Nope, not with IBM ( or anything like it !! )...although I admit to nodding off during a motivational video or two !! But what seems obvious to some is not so to others...I have seen ( and even been a member of ) bands that have infinite patience for all the wrong things ( oh I dunno, pyro, backdrops, props...), while missing some very important things, many of which you guys are mentioning in your posts. If your intent is to make your living as a recording ( and touring...) act, then YOU and your music are your product, and like it or not will be judged alongside other 'product', like that of the aforementioned bands.
Nope, I don't have one of those great deep voice over voices either darn it.
Click to expand...

i agree
 
Gonna give this thread a bump - I'm setting up my live rig with a pedalboard, and I want to join the three cables (amp footswitch, guitar, and power) going from it to the back of the stage together. I'm planning on just taping them, which of course isn't the most elegant solution, so does anyone have any other suggestions? Or if not, any suggestions for the best kind of tape to use? Electrical and Duct leave a shitload of gumminess IME, so I'd like to pass on that...
 
I've always avoided running power and audio cables together ? Wouldn't noise be introduced ?
 
RE: Cables - when I was using the 4C method with a Boss GT8 I had to find a way to tidy up all the cables going from and to the amp. (2 line signal cables for the loop, one to the power amp and one for channel switching)

What I 'invented' and I don't pride myself on it because it's quite stupid but nonetheless effective. What you do is you buy the necessary length of gardening hose (in my case 4metres) and stuff all the cables inside, then tie both ends with cable ties to stop the cables from moving away. Now instead of 4 cables you only have one big one to worry about on stage. Saves you a lot of trouble and a lot of time setting up. Just make sure you buy a 'soft' hose, not a hard one, they have a mind of their own. :lol: Or you could just use a lot of cable ties to that effect.

And FWIW I always run the power cables separately.
 
Heatshrink metaltastic, you can cut it into smaller strips and do it at like 1 foot intervals... doesnt go all gooey, can be cut when needed etc.

The only problem is that it can't be reaplyed unless carrying a heat gun is how you role.

Joe
 
Fuck yeah dude, that'd be perfect! And I wouldn't ever plan on cutting it, so the heat gun issue...isn't one :) Thanks!
 
Anyone have any suggestions on how to record rehearsals? My singer has one of these, could it handle the SPL's?

EDIT: Fuck yeah, it has XLR inputs for other mics! Problem solved!
 
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