Why Can't Electric Guitarists "Get" the Whole Volume Thing?

I don't think this is limited to just guitarists. Many musicians never take the time to learn their gear and their place in the mix.

When I encounter volume hogs I do a simple "mixing session". Everyone takes turns playing with just the drummer and the rest of the band tells the player to turn up or down to match the dynamic level of the drums. Everyone is always surprised how much quieter they really should be.

When the whole band comes in its a revelation.

 

Excellent idea!

 

I came up with it when I saw a mixing engineer friend was soloing the vocals and snare drum and made sure they matched. When he was done it really made the vocals sit well in the mix.

It's not entirely the same as I described but it game me the idea for live mixing sessions.

 

I'm super fortunate to play with a handful of wildly competent musicians who are also mature enough to not have to super saturate the room with volume.
My take is that musicians who have played professionally tend to understand this more than the guys who want the hobby band experience. One of the projects I'm involved right now plays so quietly that we can have a regular volume conversation while practicing. The level of dynamic control we're building for this project is awesome, a lesson I can hopefully instill in all of the musicians I play with.

 

Look, if one accepts the notion that knowing one's place in the mix and having suitable volume control over one's instrument & gear is a fundamental part of being a competent musician, then the answer to the OP's question is that many people who can play an instrument are simply not very good musicians.

Either someone screwed up by having admitted such a player into the band in the first place, or the offender himself has allowed his level of musicianship to backslide from where it once was. The ultimate solution remains as it always has been: Either "encourage" the deficient player to improve his skills...or find someone to replace him who already possesses those skills.

How many times have I perused the threads in this forum, to read comments such as: "He's a really good (guitarist, drummer, vocalist, etc.). It's just that he chronically (plays too loudly, loses his place in the music, rushes/drags the tempo, flubs intros & fills, plays/sings off-key, etc.)"

No.

If this person commits any of these basic, fundamental kinds of offenses, on anything other than a very occasional basis, then by definition he is most certainly not a good guitarist, drummer, vocalist - or what have you.

Perhaps the best question would be: "How did such a player get into the band in the first place? And what can be done to screen for such problems in future?"

MM

 

Many guitar players stand near their own amps which means that the bulk of their volume hits their legs while the rest of the band gets the full disbursement. I opened up one guys ears by having him stand in my position while I stood in his. He was overwhelmed at how loud his 18 boutique amp was, while he could barely hear my SVT.

I love guys that use the legs that angle them upwards. They tend to get it. Unfortunately you sometimes can't convince the "I need to let the tubes growl" guys that won't buy a load/hotplate. When I'm on guitar I use a 50w JCM800 and 38w Magnatone in tandem....never had a problem being too loud, or at least I never could hear anyone telling me to turn down.

 

This isn't just a guitarist thing, most of the musicians I play with have trouble with getting there volumes right. That being said, in most popular music the guitarist has to be able to pull of different rolls that require a completely different sound for one section of a song to another. Getting your solo volume to be the right amount louder than your rhythm sound is very difficult, and its not something that you can practice in your bedroom, it completely changes depending on how the song is arranged and what tones you are using.
Guitarists get a bad rep for not knowing how to set there volumes because it is much harder for them due to the role there instrument plays. If a band changes there sound a lot from song to song the guitarist has to pretty much be doing sound engineering at the same time as playing his parts, most often right when they have the most pressure to pull of a difficult passage.

 

-1 guitar isn't a special case. Any musician worth their salt should know how to manage their volume.

 

I think there are numerous causes to the loud guitarist issue, i used to be a loud guitarist myself.

-Amps are designed to be driven hard to "sound good."

Solutions: Buy a low wattage tube amp, preferably a combo. I don't think there is ever a need for a guitarist to have a stack..ever.

- Loud drummers, guitar turns up to compete.

Solution: Depends on the style of music, but i feel if i have to wear ear plugs just to listen to a drummer play acoustically, something is wrong with their technique. No instrument should be that loud. Not necessarily the guitarists fault in this case.

- People simply want to hear themselves more than others. Really a common selfish thing, players are much more interested in hearing what they are playing over what their bandmates are playing.

Solution: Check your ego at the door, and change your perspective a little.

-Guitarists use high gain pedals/overdrive. This often times makes the signal so hot that small changes in volume on the guitar can drastically increase the volume to ear piercing levels.

Solutions: Know your gear and simplify your pedal setup, or don't use pedals at all.

 

As a gui**** by trade, it took quite some time and $$ to be able to dynamically effect the volume levels across the performance so as to not drown out the band. What I've found helps is having a bad ass crazy expensive amp that provides those volume options via the factory foot switch. I use a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier Solo Lead, which has 1 clean and 2 distorted channels, as well as a "solo" button that has a second master volume knob. So in essence, I have 6 volume settings: Clean, Clean Solo, Vintage Drive, Vintage Drive Solo, Metal Drive and Metal Drive Solo. I have the solo knob about 15-20% higher than the standard master volume. Where this also comes in handy is when I want to have a shimmery clean accent in the middle of a driving rhythm, I'll set it to clean lead and back down the volume on my guitar itself to remove the shrill peakiness that can happen at that volume, especially if I'm using the wah pedal as an envelope filter.

Some people however cannot afford to purchase gear like that, so it gets a bit trickier. 2 distortion pedals and a compressor can get the job done, but it takes a bit of work to get it figured out, and one thing most guitar players I've met have in common is the utter lack of desire or drive to figure anything out regarding gear or sound. Drives me up a wall sometimes.

 

FWIW: Yeah, those kind of musicians are also totally dynamically clueless, and drive me nuts!!!

 

That only works if every song requires only those same 4 tones, and the rest of the band always plays at the same volume. May work for some bands but not a variety cover band or a bands I play in which the lead guitar has to play a wider variety of rolls. Saying that guitar only requires those 4 tones is like saying a bass only needs to have a deep clean sound and no fx.
When I play guitar I use a huge variety of settings that would all be lumped into the dirty lead category but they are all very different, sit different in a mix and require different methods for volume control.

As far as FX stacking, the more FX you use the harder it becomes to make sure you are sitting in the mix correctly. It takes a lot of effort and practice to get all that stuff mixed right, most FX change the frequencies that are produced and may sit in different mixes with different perceived volumes. The problem is not guitarists it is that people who stack lots of FX (usually guitarists) have a harder job than people who only have a few different tones to navigate. They should of coarse learn there gear and get good at mixing it but it is not an easy task.

 

I agree that a guitarist worth his salt should learn to control his volume. What I'm saying is that, in general, it is a much more difficult task for a guitarist because they generally have to change there role, sound and mix more than other musicians.

I'm not making excuses for guitarist who don't work at getting there sound to blend well, just pointing out that it is not an easy task, it has to be worked on and practiced. Hard.

We shouldn't bash guitarists specifically because they have a more difficult role to play as far as mixing their sound in with a band.

 

Ego

 

This is half the equation in my experience. And the other half (which is utterly stupid) is that most of them put their amps at their ANKLES so that it tears my head off across stage but they can't hear it. If most of them pointed their amps at their heads they would be less likely to be stupid.... uh.... inconsiderate about volume. (And don't hand me the BS about sound dispersion physics. No matter what the "data" says, I have stood right beside amps at my feet and couldn't hear them. And I have walked across the stage and the same amp (no louder) is about to split my skull.

 

Also, I keep hearing this nonsense about never ever needing a half stack, and about needing to turn the amp up to get a good tube tone. Anyone that says either of the above is ignorant of the technology . With that Mesa Triple Rec I talked about above, it has 150W of tube power, yet I can get a great tone out of it and still be able to hear conversations in the room, all the while running it through a 1960A cabinet that angles the top two speakers towards me with the bottom two firing across the room. It just takes some time getting to know your gear, which unfortunately is a rare trait among most guitarists. As for effect volumes, any decent guitar amp will have an effects loop. By using the effects loop, you can blend the effects with the dry signal in order to get a more uniform output volume across the sound spectrum. It isn't rocket science.