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Disdain For Your Audience
- Thread starter JimmyM
- Start date
Mostly talking about the bass players that bury themselves in the mix so much that you can't hear them.
It is NOT always the guitar player's fault that you can't hear the bass player. There are plenty of bassists that are just as guilty of "bedroom EQ".
Maybe that's the way the band like it, but when I can't hear the bass player it's hard for me to believe he cares about his sound. Unless its the sound guy's fault, which it is sometimes, but not always.
I'll remind folks of this line from my original post:
"Sure, nobody will walk out on you if you don't have the finest gear in the world, but that is so not what I'm talking about."
Thank you.
"Sure, nobody will walk out on you if you don't have the finest gear in the world, but that is so not what I'm talking about."
Thank you.
disdain |disˈdān|
noun
the feeling that someone or something is unworthy of one's consideration or respect; contempt
I'm aware of the meaning of disdain...
The OP was about how bass players often say it doesn't matter what they sound like because the audience isn't "sophisticated" enough or whatever to hear the "subtle nuance" in their tone...
And basically saying if you don't care about your tone, the audience won't.
I was continuing that by saying that a sign of bass players not caring about their tone (and thus, not really caring about their audience) is when they bury themselves in the mix to the point where they can't even be heard.
Not exactly the same idea, but related. So I don't understand why you felt the need to post this.
Sorry. I thought you were looking for the insecure bassists thread. It's two doors down the hall on the left next to live mixing 010 and across from the tin ears anonymous meeting.
No, it's not at all related. It's a pretty weird concept that a bass player would dis an audience by playing too quiet.
I understand this, and made no claims that they were the same concept.
This isn't that complicated guys...
I think I'm getting what you're saying, but I don't consider it disdain if a player has a mix that isn't working for the band unless he/she willfully makes it sound bad and refuses to critically listen to those who say it doesn't work. That's disdain.
If you're going to stray off topic expect to be given the gears. Like you say it isn't complicated.
I've waited a couple of days before responding, because I wanted to come up with a thoughtful response. After giving it awhile, I'm not so sure I could come up with one.
As usual, I tend to agree with JimmyM. I'm not so sure I would have come out & said everything exactly that way. It's not always necessary to say (or write) everything that one might have on one's mind. Between the lines, I can't help wondering if there was some "last straw" event that triggered it, but that's irrelevant & may be none of anybody's business.
Most of what I could say would just be redundant. I will add, though, that such attitudes poison the well for everybody. Those who have them don't just hurt themselves, they hurt everybody.
Bottom line: Entertainment is essentially a customer service job. The do-the-least-you-can-get-away-with, phone-it-in mentality is all over the place, not just in (live) music.
Meh. I am going on ten years playing in a place that is more restaurant than Bar and whose food totally sucks but they stay in business because of location and atmosphere. The owner has zero incentive to care, because the people keep showing up.
In a previous career I worked on a fish farm, we sold fish to wholesalers but also direct to upscale restaurants. I used to see these restaurants advertising the product we sold as "the freshest possible" and that it was swimming at minimum the day of or the day before you ate it. Except that in reality, sometimes that fish had laid on ice for 7 days. Neither the hotshot chefs not their big money customers could tell the difference. Sure we could have offered them a price break on the old fish, but with them not knowing, or caring about, the difference, there was zero incentive to do so.
How I bring this home to this thread is the following: if I need to spend 10 extra hours a week in band rehearsal and personal practice in order to tighten up musical or sound issues that only 5% of the audience notices, you can call it disdain for the audience. I choose to call it intelligent time management.
I would call it a lack of professionalism. I know the audience doesn't hear the nuances, or the mistakes for that matter, but I do and it offends my sense of professionalism to not do the absolute best I can. If that means more personal practice or more rehearsal well that's the price of doing it right.
I respect your choice but to me being a professional implies at least making smart business decisions. My time is worth money, for me I choose to (in terms of music) invest time at the expectation of financial reward. If I am pretty sure the investment of time won't pay off with better or more gigs, the choice is really, really, easy.
It's not either or. Everyone has to balance the amount of effort they put in with many other factors.
For me, if I feel good about our sound and have fun at the show.....and the crowd likes us....that's about all I need.
Perfectionism.....or sloth.........both pretty much suck.
For me, if I feel good about our sound and have fun at the show.....and the crowd likes us....that's about all I need.
Perfectionism.....or sloth.........both pretty much suck.
Hmm.....usually, when I see you explore this topic, it in posts such as this:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/solid-states-more-popular-now-917935/index4.html#post13223515
They usually involve the discussion of tube vs SS. You seem to come at these conversations with the assumption that tube provide the holy grail of tone, and anything else is a compromise. You typically seem to blow them out of context, and we end up with threads like this.
I've got a lot of expensive gear. My main gigging bass cost over $4000 new. I play them because I enjoy them and they sound and feel good to me. That said, I'm not so delusional as to believe that the average crowd gives one rat's ass about the name on my headstock, or the subtitles in tone that I prefer in my gear. I sweat the small stuff........most of the audience only sees the big picture. The fact that I can admit this does not mean that I have disdain for my audience. I think this is the point you frequently misunderstand.
agreed. Been seeing live bands for 40+ years. Never really listened to the bass player until after I started playing bass.
Not surprisingly, the only audience members who ever commented on my playing/sound/tone/gear (either positive or negative) were musicians/bass players.
I guess I have to keep repeating post 43 so guys like you quit misconstruing my point:Hmm.....usually, when I see you explore this topic, it in posts such as this:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/solid-states-more-popular-now-917935/index4.html#post13223515
They usually involve the discussion of tube vs SS. You seem to come at these conversations with the assumption that tube provide the holy grail of tone, and anything else is a compromise. You typically seem to blow them out of context, and we end up with threads like this.
I've got a lot of expensive gear. My main gigging bass cost over $4000 new. I play them because I enjoy them and they sound and feel good to me. That said, I'm not so delusional as to believe that the average crowd gives one rat's ass about the name on my headstock, or the subtitles in tone that I prefer in my gear. I sweat the small stuff........most of the audience only sees the big picture. The fact that I can admit this does not mean that I have disdain for my audience. I think this is the point you frequently misunderstand.
From my opening post:
"Sure, nobody will walk out on you if you don't have the finest gear in the world, but that is so not what I'm talking about."
Thank you.
