Working with a Keys Player - Advice?

I've been really lucky that the pianists I've played with have never had that issue. One of them, when I'm soloing, will change his comping to accommodate where I am on the fretboard!

I'd just bring it up as letting him know that what he's doing is really creating a muddy low end where both of you are losing clarity, and offer a way to fix it (play a little higher on the keys, not use his pedal the whole time).

It's not being an ass telling him in a polite manner that his playing interferes with your sonic space. He should be glad that you're helping him improve his playing anyway

jmattbassplaya said:

Howdy all,

So the guitarist finally got a keys player in the band and it`s honestly been a pleasure so far. The guy is nice, knowledgeable of theory, and can lay down some sick textures... but like all posts on TB there has to be a problem.

Basically, he gets in my space... my sonic space... and it`s making us sound like poo. Not only that, he doesn`t notice when he does it. He also uses his 'let ring' pedal religiously and that just muddies everything up... I could keep ranting but I`m tired and I think this`ll suffice.

Anyways, how do you think I could best bring this up to him/the band? I don`t want to be an ass, but at the same time it`s like, "hey man, how come you can`t hear the part your playing doesn`t match mine? Do whatever you want on top, but don`t mess with my roots."

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Record your rehearsals & engage everyone in a discussion about improving the way you sound together.

Be ready to let the Keys free you up to create music elsewhere in the mix. Vacate some space to make music in new ways.

Go with the flow.

I had a similar problem,and we just cut the low end a bit off the keyboards so it doesn't rumble the PA system in the lower registers. The keys should be heard,not felt. Thats the bass and drummers job.

I've had this exact problem for almost a year, but then I figured I'd just change my frequencies (he's taken over the lowest frequencies), so now I have A LOT more mids. My mids are basically at full o' clock. I'm a lot more happy with my sound now than I was before, but I'f you've already found you sound, you should talk to him.

If my experience with this is any indication, you're screwed. He won't change his approach, I can almost guarantee it.
This is a common problem with keys guys, many of whom do lots of solo gigs and are thus conditioned to play this way.
You'll probably have to fire the guy, or quit.

Hmm.. maybe you should put duck tape over the dark half of his keyboard?
Or just tell him to stay the hell away from your low end.

get you keyboardists amp off the floor and let him use it as a monitor, if hes in the PA get him out of it. make sure you amps arent facing each other. boost you eq in the 3k region for rehearsals as well. he'll need to eq his patches as well to keep from conflicting signal wise. his bottom speaker needs to be at around same height as his belly button or lean it back on a stand. if he has a leslie good luck with that, its the hardest to work with. stay on opposite sides of the drummer as well

when a keyboard player joined one of the bands i used to play with, he was kinda noobish with his band experience. so anyway i'd ask him to hit his octave button twice
that was my favorite button to press lol slowly he understood and started creating his parts accordingly

Most keyboards let you split the keyboard and assign the split point. So just take the lower part of the keyboard, and assign it to a null patch. He can bang away all he likes, but nothing will come out... And eventually, he will take the time to learn how to be a good comping player.

I also had this problem in a band - the synth player would play octaves at the low end of his keyboard, and drown me out. I would stop playing and the maroon would not even notice. So, after several "discussions" about this, and him still doing it, I got a fuzz box, and whenever he would start playing the bass part, I would play a fuzz guitar part on the bass. Then he'd ask, "why'd you quit playing the bass part?" And I would tell him, "because you were, and there's not room for both of us down there, so I decided to create a guitar part, since you wanted to play bass." It worked, finally.

jmattbassplaya said:

Basically, he gets in my space... my sonic space... and it`s making us sound like poo. Not only that, he doesn`t notice when he does it. He also uses his 'let ring' pedal religiously and that just muddies everything up...

Anyways, how do you think I could best bring this up to him/the band? I don`t want to be an ass, but at the same time it`s like, "hey man, how come you can`t hear the part your playing doesn`t match mine? Do whatever you want on top, but don`t mess with my roots."

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I knew this would be your issue - even before I began to read your post. It's by far the Number One issue between keyboard players and bassists. By far.

Basically, just because one is adept at playing keyboards, doesn't mean that one is adept at playing keyboards in a band context. World of difference between that and playing solo.

The specific way you choose to bring it up to him is up to you. That's not the real issue here anyway. The real issue is how best to arrange your parts and his parts - especially his left-hand parts - in a way that complement one another, not get in one another's way. You're going to have to do some woodshedding together to find some alternate chord voicings he can use that will sound more transparent and not as deep and heavy, as well as have him adjust to playing a bit higher on the keyboard, use less pedal (as you've suggested), lay out more on the low end, etc.

You also may need to rearrange some of your parts, according to what makes best sense for the music itself, and for the band as a whole. You should treat this as an opportunity to learn from one another at a deeper musical level, and thus, to grow as musicians.

MM

jmattbassplaya said:

This issue actually came up once in a rehearsal, too. I tend to lead chord changes in jams and i love to change the roots up of chords to give the songs different feelings. Anyways we were jamming on one song and every time I'd try to signal a chord change he'd either not follow or wasn't quick enough to catch on to what I was doing. As such we got stuck playing the same 3 chord progression for 10'minutes. That same day we were working on an original and I already had an established bass part. Almost needless to say, he tried changing up the entire thing without informing me or anyone. Sure, what he was playing could work, but it did not coexist with my part at all.

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Sorry to say, but this is just bad musicianship - pure & simple. Listening to one another closely, being willing & able to adjust & improvise on the fly, etc., these are just fundamental aspects of being able to play effectively with other musicians. And it applies to you as well as to him (i.e. who decides who gets to lead the changes and who should follow, in what circumstances, etc.). If it gets to be a turf war, well that's a very bad sign right off the bat. Cooperation - from everyone - should be the name of the game...

jmattbassplaya said:

I stopped the song and brought this to everyones attention and i did tell him to lay off the left hand, but the guitarist at the time just suggested we move on.

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Another red flag - and a glaring sign of lack of professionalism, IMHO. If there's an issue that clearly needs to be addressed and resolved, but one of the band members won't deal with it in the moment, this just invites the unresolved issue to become a permanent problem. What the heck is the purpose of a rehearsal, if not to nip such things in the bud - before they create serious musical dysfunctions in the band? I just don't get it...

jmattbassplaya said:

I hate the idea of a passive-aggressive approach... it just isn`t me. If that 'null' keyboard thing is possible then that might be a great thing to try.

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I agree entirely: getting snarky with a bandmate serves only to introduce pointless ego squabbles, and thus put people on the defensive. It certainly doesn't serve the music - or if it does serve the music, it does so at such a price that the band itself may not survive anyway...

But I don't agree with the philosophy of trying to implement a technical "solution" (i.e. cutting off signal to the lower portion of the guy's keyboard) to what is clearly a non-technical problem (i.e. lack of suitable musicianship). Address the issue at its core - rather than trying to apply technological "band-aids" that are ill-suited to a real solution.

jmattbassplaya said:

What I don`t understand is how no one else seems to 'get it' when I bring up the whole sonic space thing. They act as if it`s just me being stubborn (which I guess in a sense I could be), but when I`m doing it with the intentions of making us sound better I don`t understand why they`d be so against trying new suggestions... What surprises me even more is how no one else seems to notice it but myself (for the most part). I hate how it seems like the bassist is the only one who ever really cares about the as-a-whole sound, as opposed to ones individual tone.

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What no longer surprises me is how few players can truly be regarded as "musicians", in the complete, professional sense of that term. If they can't perceive the bona fide issues that you're addressing, and/or if they're too lazy to work on them with you, maybe that should tell you something about them...

MM

"What I don`t understand is how no one else seems to 'get it' when I bring up the whole sonic space thing. They act as if it`s just me being stubborn (which I guess in a sense I could be), but when I`m doing it with the intentions of making us sound better I don`t understand why they`d be so against trying new suggestions... What surprises me even more is how no one else seems to notice it but myself (for the most part). I hate how it seems like the bassist is the only one who ever really cares about the as-a-whole sound, as opposed to ones individual tone."

This means you are playing with "players" not musicians. They are not listening, as you are, to what the band as a whole sounds like -they are just listening to their instruments and what they are playing. There is a world of difference between the two, players and musicians. You are correct, and what you hear about working within the song, will help you go a long way as a bassist. The best bassists know how to make the song groove and make everybody else sound great. Stick to your guns.

But back to your problem with the keys player. You are going to have to tell him to learn to comp within a group setting. That means he will have move his hands closer together, revoice his chords and pay attention to you and the guitar player so he doesn't muddy up the sound. He has to learn to work with the guitar player's parts, not just yours, and, over all, learn to play less. Keys players have a hard time with playing "less" and allowing other musicians to carry the tune. Otherwise, he will just make the group sound bad. There are books on how to play "rock" keyboard, but you can hand him recording by a keys player whose style you like and tell him to play like that..

jmattbassplaya said:

We tried demoing this song for the first time at last nights 'gig' and sure enough he was playing the same thing he was before...

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Habits are hard to break. Even if he (by some miracle) agrees to change, he will frequently forget, and play the hand positions he is most familiar and comfortable with.

Good luck; this doesn't bode well.