Practice Setup

[Jalien]

I was just wondering how others have thier eqiupment setup when practicing with the other members of the band. right now i am jamming with a drummer and a guitarist. heres how its setup right now. the drummer has his kicks mic'd through a 1000w amp.the guitarist is playing through 2 fullstacks. the 2 fullstacks are in stereo formation behind the drummer, well, sort of on either side of the drummer, so if the drummer was facing you the stacks would be to his 4 oclock and 8 oclock positions. the pa speakers are in stereo formation next to the fullstacks (further from the drummer). and my bass stack, if the drummer was facing you, is at his 4 oclock postion next to 1 fullstack. so to the left of drummer(facing you) is bassstack, guitarstack, pa and to his right is guitar stack, pa. now, i play through two amps, 1 carvin 300w basshead going through a 18" cab and 1 500w peavey power amp going through an 18" 2x10" cab. my problem is, ive never needed anything more than just a 300w head going through a 15" 2x10" cab even when i played with a 5 piece death metal band!! and i could hear myself! these guys are freakin loud!!!!! i think too damn loud for practice! they got enough wattage to paly the whiskey without using thier pa system! i have to wear earplugs (cuz its so loud) so it blocks a lot of sound out thats necessary to hear. especially the drummer. is it some kind of power trip? do i need to tell these guys to turn down or do i need to buy another bass rig or is there another practicing configuration where my current setup will be heard clearly? help!

[RevGroove]

Dude, for simple rehearsal, that's overkill...miking the kick for a private jam? 2 marshall full stacks (well, that's a guitarist for you...)

Hope you're protecting your hearing.

You guys can definitely scale down for practice, but if you're going to play with them live with that setup, you'll likely need more wattage or a line to the PA.

[Eric Moesle]

We save our big rigs for the gig. Its hard to make rehearsal's meaningful and productive if you can't hear the nuances and cover up the slop and problem areas with pure volume.

At gigs, I use two 4x10 cabs and 2000 watts of power. At rehearsal, I use a tiny 160 watt SWR Baby Blue II combo, and the guitarists use little combo's as well instead of their Marshall stacks. We all set up "in the round" facing each other, with monitor wedges in between for vocals.

If you practice with megawatts, you aren't practicing - you are simply jamming for fun, IMO, and aren't getting any work done.