Just a rant for a second.... drummer content following

[madmarvin]

Drummers. Just.

Anyway, I'm just looking for support or maybe to just whine like a baby, but I love my drummer. He's my brother in law, great dude great player. But for the two years we've played together he is constantly (at least once or twice a practice, and at gigs...) commenting on my tone and how I should do this or do that. Now to be fair in those two years I have switched things up a bit, but always on my terms. I've played bass for 25 years. I've been working on it since the day I got one, and recently I have finally entered my happy place. I just want to be left alone. For reference, I am playing through a Peavey VB-2 and into a Bergantino NXT212. EQ set mostly flat, premp gain down power tube gain up. Using a P bass with a jazz at the bottom. Nothing crazy. But I've also used 4-5 other basses and those have never gotten a comment.

Do other drummers do this? Does it make you mental? I am being too sensitive, or is this something that maybe the guy slapping stuff with sticks should not comment on? Anyway, felt good just to write it out. I just really want to be left alone in the pocket and focus on what's important.

Really it's just annoying and I was looking to see if this was an overall drummer thing or just this drummer thing, or maybe it's a me thing. Who knows.

 

[OregonMike]

Drummers. Just.

Anyway, I'm just looking for support or maybe to just whine like a baby, but I love my drummer. He's my brother in law, great dude great player. But for the two years we've played together he is constantly (at least once or twice a practice, and at gigs...) commenting on my tone and how I should do this or do that. Now to be fair in those two years I have switched things up a bit, but always on my terms. I've played bass for 25 years. I've been working on it since the day I got one, and recently I have finally entered my happy place. I just want to be left alone. For reference, I am playing through a Peavey VB-2 and into a Bergantino NXT212. EQ set mostly flat, premp gain down power tube gain up. Using a P bass with a jazz at the bottom. Nothing crazy. But I've also used 4-5 other basses and those have never gotten a comment.

Do other drummers do this? Does it make you mental? I am being too sensitive, or is this something that maybe the guy slapping stuff with sticks should not comment on? Anyway, felt good just to right it out. I just really want to be left alone in the pocket and focus on what's important.

Really it's just annoying and I was looking to see if this was an overall drummer thing or just this drummer thing, or maybe it's a me thing. Who knows.

Drums are my main gig, and have been playing them for most of my life (I'm 50). I never felt the need to check in on someone's tone. It's their business, unless it's so horrendous or a volume thing, so I don't really get it. I stay in my lane, unless it's a time issue or whatever. I got enough to pay attention to.

 

[OOD]

Maybe the drummer is out of line. But it could be that he’s hearing your Eq not sit right in specific rooms. Every room has a different Eq need. Then when that room fills up with people it will need something completely different. He’s also not able to Eq his drums as easily as you can your bass, maybe he is trying to get y’all complementing each other. Again, that will depend on the room.

Does he ever say why you should try it? He might not be able to hear you well.

 

[agedhorse]

Have you made any suggestions about his tone or technique recently?

 

[madmarvin]

Hearing is part of it, I think. I've made a ton of adjustments to get that right, but that was early on. We recently have had a better monitor situation and I told him to look into a specific drum monitor. Mostly I think it is about trying to "improve" the sound. I have no idea. It's just super annoying, and I wasn't sure if I was off base thinking so.

I'm just going to nod and ignore it from now on. I'll start listening when he changes his high hat lol.

 

[madmarvin]

Have you made any suggestions about his tone or technique recently?

No not really. Well I have when asked, but that's it.

 

[LBS-bass]

Nope, I've never had a drummer, or anyone else in any band, ever, say squat about my tone. And I don't really go around critiquing their choice of cymbals or heads, either. Now and then I might say something like, "you know, that ride is loud and distracting on the bell, could you try something a little quieter there?" But that's more a matter of cueing in a green drummer that he/she isn't listening well. For seasoned players I would never want to second guess their choices.

 

[OOD]

Hearing is part of it, I think. I've made a ton of adjustments to get that right, but that was early on. We recently have had a better monitor situation and I told him to look into a specific drum monitor. Mostly I think it is about trying to "improve" the sound. I have no idea. It's just super annoying, and I wasn't sure if I was off base thinking so.

I'm just going to nod and ignore it from now on. I'll start listening when he changes his high hat lol.

It does sound very annoying, regardless of his intentions. Sounds like you need a producer’s knob.

 

[QweziRider]

Do other drummers do this?

Only once.

 

[stettoman]

I've played for almost 50 years myself. Never had a "suggestion" made about my volume, tone or style in any of the several bands I've been a part of....until this last one: Both the lead guitarist and the drummer have repeatedly told me that "We are NOT going to be a bass heavy band"...

The band is a power trio. ZZ, Who, Trower, Aerosmith, Montrose, etc., etc., etc....NOT a bass-heavy band? How do they figure?

 

[Analogeezer]

As a friendly way of dealing with this I would suggest having someone get behind the kit (preferably an actual drummer) and have him stand out front and listen to the sound of the band.

I've never encountered this on the receiving end from anybody but when he is back there with the backline amps he really has no idea of what the bass sounds like.

I'm a ready critic of guitar players and drummers (and some keyboard players) but I also have 40 years of recording experience and I'm a master at PA setups and getting a good sound; the guys I have been in bands with usually recognize this straight away and tend to not argue with me.

Yes it makes me sound like an arrogant **** maybe but I know what I am talking about, have always got compliments from other musicians, club owners and people in the audience on how my bands have sounded.

Last band I was in the lead singer (who was a GREAT SINGER) used to call me "The Professor", he said he had never gotten that kind of sound (loud, clear, not piercing) in the monitors before.

I use a lot of "tricks" to get better live sound, compression on the vocals (to keep the singer from tearing people's heads off, heavy gating to keep the other vocal mics out of the mix until someone sings - you need loud singers for this technique to work). Another example; if a song uses long delays in parts, I used "ducked delays" so the delay only kicks in at the end of a vocal phrase.

Analogeezer

 

[madmarvin]

I really appreciate the responses, like I said it seemed like a little thing but was really just annoying me after years of hearing it. And he hasn't ever said that I sound "bad" just things like there's the weird humming and I think it's your cabinet, just disconnected stuff like that. Anytime something sounds off it's something with my bass rig. But like I said he always says it sounds great, but it's this weird kind of passive aggressive thing IDK man.... like you sound great BUTTTTT....some people just need to shag with poopie constantly and that seems to be his MO. I'm just going to ignore it and do my thing. Maybe it is because I was really working to find the right sound in the beginning.

"shag with poopie" lmao.

 

[mrcbass]

Does anyone else share his views? If so, may you need to listen. If not, tell him to drop it. Not his business.

I've never had any comments from anyone other than an occasional "great tone man" from an audience member bassist.

 

[madmarvin]

As a friendly way of dealing with this I would suggest having someone get behind the kit (preferably an actual drummer) and have him stand out front and listen to the sound of the band.

I'm a ready critic of guitar players and drummers (and some keyboard players) but I also have 40 years of recording experience and I'm a master at PA setups and getting a good sound; the guys I have been in bands with usually recognize this straight away and tend to not argue with me.


Analogeezer

I'm totally fine with discussion and critique on tone, even sometimes when I don't ask for it. Had some great conversations with sound guys. It's the constant chasing rabbits down holes that's annoying.

Next time it happens I'll deal with it head on, just say look I know what I am doing so butt out. I do recall a conversation where he was asking me to do something whacky and then looked at me and said what do you think? I said well... if that's what you want then go find another bass player. He reacted by saying woa man relax, even though I wasn't really heated about it. It's that whole passive aggressive thing that just is so draining....I can take critique with back up all day.

 

[Alivefor5]

Have you made any suggestions about his tone or technique recently?

Heh, first thing I thought too. Sounds like he needs to be schooled on his snare tone, the sticks he's using, and his high hat technique.

 

[LBS-bass]

I really appreciate the responses, like I said it seemed like a little thing but was really just annoying me after years of hearing it. And he hasn't ever said that I sound "bad" just things like there's the weird humming and I think it's your cabinet, just disconnected stuff like that. Anytime something sounds off it's something with my bass rig. But like I said he always says it sounds great, but it's this weird kind of passive aggressive thing IDK man.... like you sound great BUTTTTT....some people just need to shag with poopie constantly and that seems to be his MO. I'm just going to ignore it and do my thing. Maybe it is because I was really working to find the right sound in the beginning.

"shag with poopie" lmao.

OK, this is different than tone.

Something sounding "off" could be his way of saying he doesn't think you're locking in well with him. Have you asked him for specifics on this? If he can't describe what is "off" or is hedging, ask him point blank if it's a timing problem.

If not, I got nothing else.

 

[madmarvin]

OK, this is different than tone.

Something sounding "off" could be his way of saying he doesn't think you're locking in well with him. Have you asked him for specifics on this? If he can't describe what is "off" or is hedging, ask him point blank if it's a timing problem.

If not, I got nothing else.

At first it was the rattling on his snare, then it was a strange low hum coming through every thing. Snare rattle was the guitar amp, hum was open strings (not mine). We are locked well enough, it's just anything weird like that happens he looks first to my rig, and specifically the Bergantino cabinet. I think he honestly just hates for god knows what reason. Also annoying because that is literally the first new and expensive thing I ever bought, tried explaining that it's not the cabinet man which leads to us chasing rabbits around. Ultimately I just need to ignore it.

 

[Analogeezer]

I really appreciate the responses, like I said it seemed like a little thing but was really just annoying me after years of hearing it. And he hasn't ever said that I sound "bad" just things like there's the weird humming and I think it's your cabinet, just disconnected stuff like that. Anytime something sounds off it's something with my bass rig. But like I said he always says it sounds great, but it's this weird kind of passive aggressive thing IDK man.... like you sound great BUTTTTT....some people just need to shag with poopie constantly and that seems to be his MO. I'm just going to ignore it and do my thing. Maybe it is because I was really working to find the right sound in the beginning.

"shag with poopie" lmao.

The last band I was in the guitar player was the problem, well he never complained about anybody else but I was always on him about his volume and his effects.

For example, we played about 4 songs by U2 and if you know U2 "The Edge" depends on very specific delays to match the tempos of the songs.

This guy had PLENTY of money (had a Mesa amp, and some PRS guitars) but insisted on using a damn Boss stompbox delay. Like most Boss stompboxes tiny changes in the settings resulted in huge swings in the effect.

I told the guy to get a dedicated, programmable delay, TC and Eventide made some excellent stompboxes for this back then which did exactly that.

He constantly resisted this suggestion, and would sit there and twiddle with the knob on the Boss delay and wind up with a 150 millisecond delay when the song required around 400 milliseconds. Then he would turn the knob a bit and way overshoot the correct time.

His tone was rank, even with good gear and he had major issues with volume, sometimes too soft, then way too loud, when he switched channels to play lead you had no idea what was going to come out.

So the band breaks up (we got Yoko'd by the drummer's wife) but then the drummer rings me up, wants to put the band back together......without the guitar player. The singer says hey my brother in law is really good and wants to get out of this southern rock band he is playing in?

So we had that guy over and MAN what a difference. He used a programmable effects setup and his delays and effects were spot on. Great tone, seamless switching in volume between rhythm and lead settings (he had a good amp and good guitars).

It was like taking a vacation, I didn't have to tell the guy ANYTHING, he just had it nailed. I don't get off on telling people what to do so if they know what they are doing and it sounds great; well no need for me to intervene.

Sadly we did about four practices, it was sounding great, a month with this guy and we would have been gig ready. But Yoko showed up again and the drummer quit AGAIN.

The thing was the singer was fantastic and doubled on acoustic guitar (about 60% of the time), and electric guitar (about 20% of the time) - we had a great sound with the acoustic thing because it added to the thickness of the sound without the blaring sound of two guitar players.

The drummer was fantastic too and discovered he was a great singer too.....he did the high stuff like the Police songs. So I am also a singer and did lead on some of the songs; so we had tight three part harmonies to do stuff like Journey and the option of two other lead singers for certain tunes.

THEN it turned out the new guy was a great singer too, so we would have had a band with four good singers, one of whom was fantastic.....then Yoko showed up again

Analogeezer

 

[Mushroo]

Normal in my world.

A lot of the musicians I play with are actually pretty good bassists in their own right, and I welcome their input into my tone, technique, and note choice. I've actually had drummers (at rehearsal, not at gigs!) ask, "hey can I borrow your bass a minute and show you something?" and sometimes the alternate bass line they come up with, is in fact, better than what I was playing originally (if we're being honest). There is one drummer I worked with, whose standard operating procedure, when he "learns a song" is to learn every note played by every instrument (not just the drum part) and let me tell you: he was an absolute delight to play live with.

Maybe it's a Boston/Berklee thing, but I know hardly any musicians who only play one instrument, and who strictly "stay in their lane" of that one instrument.

But hey: If I didn't value their opinion, I wouldn't be in a band with them. And for what it's worth, it's a two way street: I can play just enough drums (and guitar, and keyboard, and vocals...) that I can give meaningful suggestions to the drummer, if I have an idea.

 

[LBS-bass]

At first it was the rattling on his snare, then it was a strange low hum coming through every thing. Snare rattle was the guitar amp, hum was open strings (not mine). We are locked well enough, it's just anything weird like that happens he looks first to my rig, and specifically the Bergantino cabinet. I think he honestly just hates for god knows what reason. Also annoying because that is literally the first new and expensive thing I ever bought, tried explaining that it's not the cabinet man which leads to us chasing rabbits around. Ultimately I just need to ignore it.

Well, bass frequencies are going to cause things in the room to rattle, that's just kind of how physics works. So if he wants to go around the room with duct tape and determine what's making noise and whether or not he can nail it down to his liking, I'd encourage him to have at it. You can play the bass while he listens to everything