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Guitarist plays too loud

#61
When I was in that situation I asked the band "lets play that song again but this time NO GUITARS DURING VOCALS". Some guitards just can't "NOT play". But those that do, come back with "wow awesome dynamics" "sounds great" "we need to do that more" etc. etc. etc. But the very next time we play the song........... the guitards "mow down the vocals".

A good guitar player controls his volume. You describe an amatuer guitar player.

Here are some facts. The best "tone" you can get out of most tube amps is with all controls dimed. When most begginer guitards figure this out there is no turning down. If a guitard does turn down NO ONE in the audience will miss his "tone".

Your guitar player is simply in love with his amp, tone, guitar and his chops. What he is doing is important to him and he cares about nothing else. Getting him to change will be futile. I think your options are obvious. But if you live long enough he may mature.

YMMV
 
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#64
The rules we've applied for all of us during rehearsal, and studio space is the following, which cost us a bundle, actually:

1. We do have - even with the bass cabinet - let us built for us large speaker steel stands that can take the weight of - say - a large aquarium filled with water. And we have moved up EVERY amp to our individual height where our ears line up EXACTLY at the center core of the speaker. And no, I don't have an 8x10 bass cab in rehearsal. It's a 12 inch combo (however, lined out at the pa).

The guitarist refused to do this at the start. Cause he wanted feedback, and thus, wanted speaker at waist level.

2. We did that with ANY vocal, or PA monitor too, no floor, or wedges.

End result was that if anyone played too loud, he would hear it FIRST and turned down. The person to be struck FIRST by too loud volume, was none but yourself. Do you think anyone turns down after that? YES! If the drummer can't hear the guitar, we raised it instead at the monitor (since each one is miked or lined). The overall volume, including drums, dropped considerably and the balance is terrific now. Everyone can hear their singer.

------------------

Think of it like this: Any drummer has to play at a certain volume to get that crash cymbal to sound "CRASH"! He can't just brush it at low volume, or low velocity of his sticks.

As fast as you have an acoustic drummer, the overall volume and dynamics seems "set". An acoustic drummer can play quite loud, as well as extremly silent. It's called DYNAMICS. An electric guitar with any pickup on, is by default, a very weak instrument, when it comes to dynamics. The distance from the softest note to the loudest ONLY DONE WITH THE PICK ATTACK is very narrow, at least compared to a drummer who can just tap lightly and a sound is heard faintly, and then go WHAM on the snare at 120 db. Guitarists WANTs to compete with the drummers dynamics. Or at least, not be worse. So they automatically raise the volume, in order to hear all nuances, and to compensate for inherent dynamic weaknesses. To be able to do that, you'll have to move up to excess amounts of PA wattage, guitar amp wattage, as well as the rest of the amps. And especially on TUBES amps, they induce quite an amount of natural compression to the sound, not exactly helping the dynamics out. Then you have to raise the volume even more to compensate for that! Weird.

A 30 w Vox, or a 50w Marshall is really way too loud when taxed to the max for rehearsal pruposes. At a certain level, the guitar just starts to sound "good" - for the guitar player that is. But I have read interviews with drummers and bassist - I think it was Peter Erskine (not sure though) - who said that he EVENTUALLY understood the loudness weirdness of guitarists. That only at a certain level, the guitar amp and cabinet starts to sound good, and cut through a dense mix, or a busy band. But you can have a 20w combo for that. No need to have huge Marshall stacks for it.

A huge wattage guitar amp, just starts to sound "good" at a certain level. But then it's often too loud. Normally it has to do with, when the speaker cones starts to move and behave properly. If you play too low volume on a huge amp, the speaker cone doesn't move and work at all at "optimum performance", since they are manufactured to take the full wattage, and be able to cope with loud levels, or full watt levels (say 100 or 135 watts).

Get your guitarist a smaller amp, and move it up to HIS ears. Do not buy wedged, or angled guitar amp stands. A STRAIGHT LINE from the speakers into his ears. An angled amp at the floor pointing upwards is a no no and is simply not enough. The distance's too far. Actually a double Marshall stack ain't enough either. I e stacking speaker cabs on top of each other. Speaker cones will usually fall somewhere in between the distance to his ears.

If he refuses, he's not mature enough to be in any band. Really. A band is a mutual compromise among it's members. Get another guitarist then, or dissolve the band altogether. No one benefits from anyone - not only guitar players - trying to be louder than everyone else, in a band situation. If he's the star, or a solo artist, well, then just move on to another band, where the singer can get heard.

All the suggestions around here, so far, will do as well. Power Soak or attenuators, or why not a "Speaker Bra" ? It may induce phase differences, but since you guitarist seems a little inconsiderate anyway, about good tone or not, he wouldn't detect it anyway.

-------

Remember, even Frank Zappas FOH tech, said to him "Frank, you have to turn it down..." and everyone else around him, said "well, how dare you! it's his show!..." And then he recorded a stereo recording with a dummy head, at one of his shows, and Frank admittely afterwards said that it sounded better. Much better. When he got the all the volume he needed (or lost from his amps) from the monitors instead. There you go.
 
#65
Get him one of these white Z amps, The "LUNCHBOX" or whatever it's called. A tiny small 5 inch speaker, that you have 250 watts with. You can have it in your guitar case too. Ha ha.

Or best solution. An Ultra Axe-FX rack modelling unit and run it through the PA. If both Steve Vai, and John Petrucci, swapped ALL their amps for that one, it'll sure fit your guitarist too. Getting all the tone he wants.
 
#66
Actually, the very first question that comes out of my mouth, all of the time - when playing the first tune, in any new, band or jam setting, on stage/studio/ is this:

"Do I play too loud" ?

Both on bass or guitar. Because I know from the start on that I am too biased anyway. And have absolutely no obejctivity on this, no matter what instrument I am on. Bass, guitar, or keys.

If the answer is "no" by the rest of the members, I know I've done it the right way. If they ask me, even, to turn up, I have a smile on my face all the time, because then I am, sort of, backed up by this rase in volume. Like, OTHERS told me to turn up. Not me. If they ask me to turn it down, I won't turn sour.
 
#68
Honch said:
Already there, alarm bells should go off. That would do it for me really. He's NOT A GOOD GUITARIST by definition. Period. No mitigating circumstances at all. Seriously. He's not a good musician at all, regardless of instrument.
Click to expand...

I think the out-of-tune comment was about the vocalist not being able to hear himself because the guitar was too loud...
 
#69
smeet said:
I think the out-of-tune comment was about the vocalist not being able to hear himself because the guitar was too loud...
Click to expand...

Either way, all evidence says that the guitar player just isn't very good. The OP, in his op, said, "...the guitar player and he's very good..." However, every detail since suggest quite the opposite. "Very good" in what way? He can wank? :rollno: Sorry, but once in a band environment, he's got to be able to share space & contribute to the overall sound of the band.

If he's trainable, train him. If he refuses to learn, & holds back the band, drop him.
 
#70
Our guitarist uses a 50 watt Mesa 1X12 combo at half power, and never cranks it, and it's plenty loud on stage and at practice.
It sounds GREAT, clean or dirty and no one's losing their hearing.

At gigs, it's miced and blended through the PA with everything else so everybody sounds good.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
 
#72
That would not give him the same sound, as it would properly drive neither his preamp nor his poweramp. He either needs to get his saturation from a pedal, or get a lower-powered amp, or mic it in a separate room. Or just play clean. A good guitarist can do any of these and still sound good.
 
#74
as i said befor you need to talk to him about it. i did it with one of my bands guitar players. plus he used to like to play with my amp settings so i was less "out there"

tell him honistly "your too loud. now were not saying you cant use your own head BUT turn down the volume because were all having trouble dealing with it. we dont want to kick you out the band but its really starting to look like we might have to because if we cant hear ourselfs over you then esencially were just watching you show off without really being a part of the music."

thats what i had to say to mine when he was using 2 100watt marshall tube stacks
 
#79
Yeah it may be the singer that can't hear himself, and not hear if he's in tune. And if everybody else hears that the vocalist is out of tune, EXCEPT THE GUITARIST, then he's bad to the bone, lackadaisical about anyone else being in tune or not, and just cares about himself, that he gets heard. One question though, of importance:

IS THERE ANY SECOND GUITAR PLAYER IN THE BAND or is it just him?

You know, if a suggestion comes from another guitarist he MAY listen to his opinion, because most guitards are like this "You don't know nothing about guitar sound, so keep your mouth shut..." Granted, should the second guitarist be of the same arrogant breed, then you'll have problems. But chances are that the "other" guitarist says "Hey, you're overpowering me.." to the first one, and sort of - well - it's more likely that they sort it out between each other. If he says he must play with high gain even at rehearsal or small club, then, well, point hin to numerous interviews with world famous and class guitarists, what THEY use in studio. Gary Moore used small amps, Frank Zappa used a Pignose at times, and there are too many to be namedropped who uses VERY small amps. The only one I can think of using stage gear is Eric Johnson who also uses 100w Marshall amps in studio. Ask Eric about why he got his tinnitus then...;-) On a large stage, and outdoor gigs that's no big deal, it's even required to go high wattage.

But in studio and rehearsal, such things are totally bollocks. Tell him that if John Petrucci and Steve Vai have swapped to modelling rack gear, and get the same tone at low volume, then he can too. Period. Guthrie Gowan uses a Cornford 6 watt in studio and rehearsals. Well, go figure.

----------------------------------

As one gets older I've come to this conclusion, and turned more arrogant towards musicians that have an arrogant view on loudness, and volume from the start on. Same with drummers not keeping time or - basically - all musicians whose playing is completely off.

The sophomore years are way behind me, and I have no qualms about telling out to people that I don't even know that they suck big time. In any areas. I've fed up, and had enough of people that don't hear or detect certain things. That thinks they're so terrific no matter how bad they suck. Like, their perception of their own playing is too different from what the rest of the people around him thinks.

Last year I played with an 'seasoned' drummer that put up ads in music shops. He's been doing that for years, ad:s for people to play with. He still does. It turns out that he's so bad, that he will forever keep on looking for musicians to play with. They just leave after playing with him for once or twice. It's a jazzbo thing. He couldn't keep time, and started to play a bossa beat in the middle of a swing tune, just because he got tired in his wrists. And such things. I told him, that he has missed a large portion of music, there's a big hole in the middle. Some antics he could do, but holding a straight beat at tempo seemed impossible, and on top of this, he was the one to choose the tunes that he could "play". Conclusion: he couldn't hear it, even if he were told to what to listen for. And couldn't do anything about it. It was just too late. Bad habits honed in and stuck in his DNA.

Many people think that this stance is very rude. But the thing is people don't think that someone else STARTED to get rude with me or the rest of the band. If someone is playing VERY loudly and overpowering anyobody else, is very rude by default. just like someone is giving you the finger, or saying f*ck you! The very bad playing, or excess volume of guitarists or anyone is - by default - rude and arrogant in the first place. And when faced with their very same medicine they can't take it. They turn sour and show diva behaviour, or start explaining or excusing themselves in an "artist soul" behaviour.

When I was starting out, my teacher scolded me if I was off in timing, playing, and told med what to practice on. Now, time has moved on, and I am not the one that is eager to please all of the time. It seems that if I am in band where someone is of less technical proficiency, or timing and tuning is off, it's alway us - that have some experience and can play better - regarding volume, tuning, timing (of drummer) that have to compromise and adjust ourselves to the weakest link in the chain. Not ever have I been in any setting that requires the bad one to go home and hone it in, and do some woodshedding. It's always the more proficient ones that has to adapt to the not so proficient ones. If my colleagues are - like - 12 years old and starting out, then it's another thing. But if they're plus 40 and have played for all of their life, and still hasn't got CERTAIN THINGS down, I sure will tell them so, very frankly and brutal honesty. If it's THEIR band, I'll just leave them, and tell them why, there are still too many other bands out there, that sure's better. I am fed up with all this being courteous and critizing them in a constructive way, because, I AM NOT A TEACHER. If I had that knack I would be a teacher. And as time has passed on, I KNOW THAT BEING CORTEOUS DOES NOT HELP.

And of course, since I've heard this statements about myself ages ago, that I have some things to work on, I expect that people will behave the same way against me, when my playing is off. If I suck, I'd rather have the people tell me that right on. And if I can't do something about it on the spot, then I do not fit in that band at all. I'll leave. Today, I know pretty much in advance before entering any band, or outfit, if I fit in or not. If I don't fit in, I don't even give it a try, because I'll know I'll suck.

Now, as one grow older, it's my turn to tell anyone else that has been flogging a dead horse all of the time, that they suck. And if it will cost my friendship, so be it. I'm fed up with this, and since it's not much problem to search for other bands/guys that really makes it click it's no big deal. It saves big time. And not wasting mine. If there's no one to tell them that they suck, or WHAT they're missing, how should they progress, then? They'll just keep on honing in their bad habits, becasue no one else told them they were rude from the start on.

You're only as good as all the others judge you. Period.
 
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