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Getting decent sound in rehearsals

J

JoeNage

Sep 18, 2009
18
0
#1
Hi all,

Last summer, I met some guys who want to play blues together. We meet weekly in a low ceiling attic room and cram in a drum kit, two guitars, keyboards, harp and bass.

I'd say the level of musicianship is ok, most have been playing for decades. (I'm the beginner, so I keep it simple on bass.) But the sound ends up being a loud mush.

Of course, I'm used to hearing recorded music where you can make out each individual instrument and they are all BEHIND the singer or soloist.

I kind of have the expectation we should be able to do this, but it's not as easy as it seems. Is this an unrealistic expectation, given the room we are playing in?

How do bands ever get tight in rehearsal space when there is so much sound in the room?

I asked my brother who has lots of musical experience and he suggested:

* play at lowest volume
* try to eq the amps
* cut the low end
* place amps in same direction along length of room.

Does any body have other suggestions?

Also, I'm finding that asking your band mates to play at a lower volume is a touchy subject. How to approach that?

Thanks for any tips.
 
#2
There's also the health and safety of your ears.

Here are some tips we use in our 20X20 practice room with singer, drums, guitar, bass and organ/piano/synth.

- Turn Down the volume
- Eq the bass out of the guitars, keyboard and vocals - this is where mush comes from in a practice room IMO.
- Turn Down the volume
- We stand in a circle and play across from our rigs - you can hear much better, thus will be able to turn down the volume.
- Turn Down volume
- Drummer doesn't have to be heavy handed in practice.
- Turn Down

Rehearsal is about making improvements. So if you cannot hear enough during rehearsal to make necessary improvements, then it's just plain and simple too loud. Rehearsal should not be a dB contest. It should be productive and efficient.

My sarcastic response is if you can get tight in that environment, then you will be super tight during a gig because gigs don't always have the best setups for clean stage sound.

Oh, and turn down. If not for the sake of the music, do it for the sake of your long-term hearing. Tinnitus is nothing you can give back.
 
#3
viper4000 said:
- We stand in a circle and play across from our rigs - you can hear much better, thus will be able to turn down the volume.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I'm not visualizing the circle configuration. Can you give me more, please. We are also in a circle, with amp next to each player facing in towards the circle. How does 'across from our rigs' work?
 
#4
put your rigs across the room facing you instead of behind you.. Oh and TURN DOWN..

Can't be stressed enough.. It's rehearsal.. You should be quiet enough that the singer can sing without a microphone or with very basic monitor support. Otherwise you won't be able to hear accurately.. or for long..

Did I mention, you should all TURN DOWN.. oh and give the drummer some chopsticks or brushes..
 
#6
Volume is almost always the culprit. Guitarists and drummers are usually the accomplices. +1 to every speaker against the wall facing you, not behind you. If one wall doesn't have room, maybe set them up on the left/right sides, pointing in. Good luck convincing everyone to play quietly.

good volume, onstage or at rehearsal boils down to one concept:
the vocalists must be able to hear themselves well.
This idea should trump anyone's personal need to hear themselves or have "my tone" by cranking up.
 
#7
the real volume culprit, in our band, is the drummer. If you can convince them to mute the drums by whatever means, you won't have to crank the amps. Using Hot Rods works, but many drummers will give you the stink eye when you suggest that.
 
#10
I used to tease my sound guy when the screaming loud guitar player would ask for more guitar in the monitor with "Hey Gene. Can you make everything louder than everything else?"

Volume is a big deal on stage or at practice. If you can hear it over the drums, it's plenty loud enough. My right ear is a little funny after 20 years of the hi hat being right there without hearing protection.

Play safe! Play smart!
 
#11
What do you all think about this?

I wrote an email to my band mates with the various suggestions for making the sound better in the small rehearsal space and I heavily stressed "TURN DOWN."

The guitarist resonded basically saying: "I think the bass and keyboard need to turn up more. If anybody thinks it's too loud, he should get ear protection."

Can anybody suggest good ear protection? Is there anything special for musicians, or will any ole ear plugs work?
 
#12
Usually the problem is that drums are acoustic, so for the drummer to play the same way they play on a gig, it's going to be loud in a rehearsal setting. That means that everyone else usually has to match volumes to the drummer. The drummer could use hot rod, an electric kit, or a small kit (like a hip gig), but that might not be something he/she wants to do. I agree that placing the amps further away from everyone will help clean up the sound, since the sound waves will have more distance to stabilize. Definitely adjust the eq to fit the room, that's what it's for. My eq changes drastically from rehearsals to gigs.

Those things will help clean up the sound, but it'll probably still be loud, so you actually should consider ear plugs if it's hurting your ears.

Good luck!
 
#13
And looking at this a second time, I really can't stress enough EVERYONE turning down the bass frequencies. They really muddy up the sound in a small room, and most people (especially non bass players) don't realize how important that is.

Also try picking your amps up off the floor, we rehearse in an attic too and when I put my amp on a chair instead of right on the ground it took a ton of woof out of my sound.
 
#14
JoeNage said:
What do you all think about this?

I wrote an email to my band mates with the various suggestions for making the sound better in the small rehearsal space and I heavily stressed "TURN DOWN."

The guitarist resonded basically saying: "I think the bass and keyboard need to turn up more. If anybody thinks it's too loud, he should get ear protection."

Can anybody suggest good ear protection? Is there anything special for musicians, or will any ole ear plugs work?
Click to expand...

Wow. That sucks. Sorry your band is reacting that way.

I'm making small strides toward getting some support from the rest of my band to get one guy in line. Hope we reach a deal before my ears are wasted. :scowl:

As for earplugs, the regular foam ones didn't work for me. I have these:

Amazon.com: Etymotic Research ER20 ETYPlug Hearing Protection Earplugs, Large Clear Stem with White Tip (Clear): Electronics

They cut a lot of dB and still let some of your band's sound through. But... it's still not working for me. I like it loud and I like hearing the sound that the audience hears. Also, any earplugs will cut down your ability to communicate with the band on stage.
 
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#16
JoeNage said:
What do you all think about this?

I wrote an email to my band mates with the various suggestions for making the sound better in the small rehearsal space and I heavily stressed "TURN DOWN."

The guitarist resonded basically saying: "I think the bass and keyboard need to turn up more. If anybody thinks it's too loud, he should get ear protection."

Can anybody suggest good ear protection? Is there anything special for musicians, or will any ole ear plugs work?
Click to expand...

So you've gone from trying to hear everyone better to stuffing foam in your ears? ;)

You're learning an important lesson: a lot of musicians are idiots. Even many of the experienced ones still subscribe to the "if it's too loud you'e too old" train of thought. There's another lesson here: you're not going to hear everything on stage as clearly as you would in a recording, especially for smaller bands in smaller venues.
 
#17
JoeNage said:
The guitarist resonded basically saying: "I think the bass and keyboard need to turn up more. If anybody thinks it's too loud, he should get ear protection."

Can anybody suggest good ear protection? Is there anything special for musicians, or will any ole ear plugs work?
Click to expand...

When I started bass and joined a band, I found the sound uncomfortably loud. To the point of feeling the effects while going to sleep that night. I tried to ask everyone to turn down, then tried to convince them that we'd sound better, then went passive aggressive by keeping my volume low, but was just asked to turn up :rollno:

So after only a couple practices I bought earplugs. They worked, but I found them uncomfortable, but not wanting to give up, I bought a different pair - better, but still not that comfortable. I finally bought a third pair, and these I like, and use every single time.

The moral of the story? Sometimes you can't change the world. That's when you just have to protect yourself and play on. There are many kinds of earplugs, and I suggest you walk into your local music store and ask.

As for my personal choice, I ended up with the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], for small canals (I found that funny, since I'm not a small guy). They attenuate enough to let me be comfortable at insane volumes, and absolutely no sonic discomfort after the jams.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
What's nice about the attenuation curve is it lets me hear bass better, since it attenuates higher frequencies more than the low.

Alternately, an even better recommendation is to go to your local audiologist. For around $200 you can get custom moulded earplugs with pro attenuators. These will give you maximum comfort, since they are shaped to YOUR ears, instead of generic "cones".

Dekker
 
#18
This story has a happy ending. My band mates took the suggestion to line all the rigs up against the opposite wall facing us. And I got Hearos High Fidelity earplugs. Rehearsal sounds MUCH better to me, and others agreed.

Thanks again for all the tips.
 
#19
It's all about the volume. Excess volume can mask all sorts of other problems, which are exactly the problems that you should want/need to hear so that you can fix them! Ear plugs can help protect your hearing, which is a great idea, but it isn't going to solve the base problem, which is all that noise bouncing around that room. It's just another masking technique, like playing too loud to begin with. Ear plugs can help save your hearing, but they aren't going to reduce the "mud". If anything, they may tempt people to turn up even more.

Everybody needs to be able to hear everything. Those who are so focused on their own particular part that they aren't aware of, or care about, anything/anybody else aren't doing the band any favors. When you can't hear something, don't turn up what you can't hear; turn down everything else. It'll fix the balance (or "mix"), reduce the muddy sound, & help preserve your hearing all at once.
 
#20

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