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I intentionally started a volume war

G

gregoire1

Oct 19, 2008
743
84
Nashville
#1
last night at rehearsal. I finally have a rig loud enuff to compete with my guitarist Crate tube half-stack (100watts). I started the night with my amp cranked but my volume on my bass low. That way I could secretly "ease" it up as the night progressed!
After an hour, he had a puzzeled look on his face and kept adjusting knobs. By the end of the night, he apologized for his sound and said something was wrong with his amp and that he would be getting new tubes before next rehearsal.

Its good to be the king!
 
#3
Score one for the BASS guys! (Now, just to be mature about this, did you ever let him off the hook? He could be spending a bunch of money on tubes that he doesn't need.)


P.S. In practice that makes for a funny story. Don't do it live, it will just make you look like a jerk.
 
#7
In one of my bands I've often done the opposite. That band had real trouble getting a good mix (often drowning out the vocals, the guitarist always complaining that he can't hear himself even when he's the louder than everyone else etc) and so when I get tired of it I'll just start playing softer and/or turning my volume down incrementally.

My singer and drummer notice immediately. The guitar player? Almost never. After the song the other two will look at me (either smiling or pissed off) and he'll be standing there wondering what's going on.

Drives me nuts.
 
#8
TheBigO said:
In one of my bands I've often done the opposite. That band had real trouble getting a good mix (often drowning out the vocals, the guitarist always complaining that he can't hear himself even when he's the louder than everyone else etc) and so when I get tired of it I'll just start playing softer and/or turning my volume down incrementally.

My singer and drummer notice immediately. The guitar player? Almost never. After the song the other two will look at me (either smiling or pissed off) and he'll be standing there wondering what's going on.

Drives me nuts.
Click to expand...

Great idea, hmmmm...
 
#9
my last band the guitarist always said he couldnt hear himself no matter how loud he was.. the drummer was more worried about hearing the guitarist than me and they both played way way too loud.. when i finally got a real rig and they started there volume wars crap i turned it up to 5 and hit an open e..

they both stood there gawking at me as i let it ring.. i muted it turned my amp back down and said "there is no need to be that loud" to which the drummer said "dude that made my chest hurt"
 
#10
Not to derail this thread, but my approach has always been to set up my rig the loudest I was ever going to play for a given gig/set and roll my volume back a bit so I could easily adjust dynamics from song to song depending on how loud the bass was supposed to be in the mix.

On the other hand, my guitar player plays at the same volume for every song. Well, that's not exactly true. When I turn down he stays at the same volume. But any time I turn up, he plays harder regardless of what the mix for that song should be.

Maybe I should just be earth shakingly loud all of next practice.

:rollno:
 
#12
gregoire1 said:
last night at rehearsal. I finally have a rig loud enuff to compete with my guitarist Crate tube half-stack (100watts). I started the night with my amp cranked but my volume on my bass low. That way I could secretly "ease" it up as the night progressed!
After an hour, he had a puzzeled look on his face and kept adjusting knobs. By the end of the night, he apologized for his sound and said something was wrong with his amp and that he would be getting new tubes before next rehearsal.

Its good to be the king!
Click to expand...


I read this post this morning and it made my day.

I've done TheBigO's trick too. I don't tell my bandmates that we are too loud (in rehearsal) as often as I turn myself down to the proper volume and watch them all sit there playing with a look on their face like somebody farted. Eventually, they work it out.

But crushing/smothering every once in a while is important too and it feels Gooooooooooooooooooooood

--Bomb :bassist:
 
#13
After I bought my current head and cabinets I had a nice opportunity to do that. The guitarist I was playing with had a Fender Dual Showman head and a 2x12 cabinet and he could get insanely loud - and liked doing it to the point where I couldn't hear myself anymore.

The first time I brought my new (at the time) set up to his house to practice, his son sat in on drums. As usual he got louder over time, so I turned up a little louder, then he did, and our first legitimate volume war started. It didn't take long for his son to stop playing and throw his sticks down. We got so loud he was smashing the heads and cymbals but we literally heard NO sound from the drums.

It was fun for a few seconds to realize that I was no longer going to be drowned out and it actually did solve the volume problem from then on. However, we also realized that was pretty stupid. We were in a small room with a wood floor, one wall was a large window, and one was stone fireplace - IOW very live! If we kept it up we could have really done some damage to our hearing. Luckily it only lasted a short time - and as I said the positive result was that it was a permanent solution to the volume problem.
 
#15
The guitarist did decide that nothing was wrong with his amp so he took his guitar to have the pickups checkd out. He is freaking out because we have a gig on Saturday.
I asked him, "are you sure its not something to do with my new rig affecting your sound?" (I'm starting to feel a little guilty) He assures me its his bridge pickup on his strat.


maybe it is???
 
#16
gregoire1 said:
The guitarist did decide that nothing was wrong with his amp so he took his guitar to have the pickups checkd out. He is freaking out because we have a gig on Saturday.
I asked him, "are you sure its not something to do with my new rig affecting your sound?" (I'm starting to feel a little guilty) He assures me its his bridge pickup on his strat.


maybe it is???
Click to expand...

wow. thats an ego.
 
#18
skulletwhip said:
why do guitarists ALWAYS say they cant hear themselves?
Click to expand...

It isn't all guitarists obviously, but really and truly this is a red flag for me. Any time any musician says this (and yes it almost always ends up being a guitarist) it means one of two things: inexperienced in playing in a band situation or selfish musically and sometimes both. Anyone who is only listening to themselves is going to be trouble.

Without fail they are also the people that always use their "bedroom tone" with no concept of how things sit in a full mix.
 
#19
i showed up for an audition where everyone was wearing air traffic controler type headgear so their ears wouldn't bleed. i played for about 30 seconds before i gave up & just stood there. i think they jammed for over 10 minutes before they stopped to tell me it was a sick jam.
 

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