~FS
Most musicians and bands that dont have at least a years experience play too loud.
Many ameteurs try to play louder over everyone else. So what you have is noise.
For music to sound good it is just as important for a musician to know when to play as not to play.
A 3 piece band will be easier to mix than a 4 or 5 piece. You have less competiton for air space.
Mixing in a practice room will be very different than mixing for a bar or small club.
The vocals have to be on top and for them to be on top and crisp and clear everything else has to be low.
In a practice room maybe 2 out of 10. I never turn any of my equipment higher than 5 out of 10 even in a large outdoor venue. Thats 2 out of 10 for the guitars and bass and the drummer plays with rice sticks unless he is good and has finess and dynamics.
Out doors you route all the instruments to the pa and have the pa man adjust them from various spots in the venue.
A good drumer is very important to find in your search of a crisp sound.
A good drumer is not a beater he plays with finess and brings dynamics to the sound. The sound should have lows and highs and builds it most often shouldnt plod steady all the way through for that you can get a drum machine.
In the bands I have played in over the years whenever we have brought a new inexperienced drummer in playing out 2 nights a week on the weekends in clubs it usually takes a drummer about a year to get it together and play with finess and stop beating and causing a wall of noise.
An experienced drummer is someone who has been playing in clubs for 10 years not someone who has been playing drums at home for 30.
So everyone has to know how to play softly so they can know when to play loud.
If your main concern is practice rooms keep the volume down. It's hard to do and bands break up over it.
When your mixing sound in a bigger venue 100 person bar the band uses their amps on the stage as their personal monitor and the sound man takes the send in the pa out to the crowd and mixes the band together. If the musician is using his amp to hear plus has a mix of himself coming back in the monitor most likely that is too much sound, noise on stage and the singer will have to scream to hear himself.
So playing live on stage the sound level should be low. Many pros will not play with people that have the sound loud on stage if they have to yell and cant hear themselves and everyone else they move on.
If the band your working with wears ear plugs that is a bad sign. If you think about wearing ear plugs in a band that is a bad sign. Ear plugs are a sign of noise. Noise is not good.
The best sounding bands that I have played with do one of 2 things. 1 the drummer has electronic durms so he is not making a lot of noise on the stage.
Or 2 the drummer sits behind plexiglass and has his drums miked and has a monitor feed from the rest of the band.
This is for small clubs 100 people or less.
Larger clubs that regularly have music usually have a pa system and a sound man.
Everybody can play a guitar. Very few can play it for money and make it sound good. Usually the pros in a comunity hang together.
Many people are going to practice rooms to vent anger and frustration and get away from their ladies.
The way to find the pros is you offer to practice 1 time if there is a promise of a gig. If they dont have a gig that week or next week someone needs to go back to the woodshed and practice. And someone is wasting somebodies time.
I screen on the phone before I waste more time than a phone call. I also screen in the way I write an add offering my services. I always advertise for a working band.
I'm talking if you want to make money playing music. If you want to do originals thats another story. But I think I would still advertise for a working band because a working band can throw originals together 1,2,3.
What equipement? I have a Carvin 8 channel 1000 watt amp. The mixing board is in the amp. I can show up 1 hour before a show and have it up and running in 30 minutes.
Some people I work with have independent mixing boards and crown amplipiers that works too.
But I can throw mine up quicker and it sound just as good and I find it more compact and portable.
In fact I carry a Carvin and I carry a Yamah 1000 watt 2 dual 500 watt amps as a back up.
I have 4 Yamaha speakers, they are heavy duty and their heavy. I use Peavy pr12 for monitors I set 4 of them up for the band.
EVerybody in the bands I play with has their own mike, mike stand and cable. So when we show up everyone set their own stuff up and we are up and running in 30 minutes.
This works for the average bar in Tampa bay. Anything larger than 100 people has their own pa and sound man.
For new equipment if your buying the mikes and cables it could be 3 to 4,ooo.
I wouldnt recommend buying your way into a band by providing the pa unless you want to be a pa man.
The bands that I see that make money provide their own pa.
If you want to provide sound once a month for some guys dreaming to be rock stars you might get 200 to 300 a night here in Tampa. Thats not a good return on your 4,000.
And if you want to be a sound man. You might want to spen 6 to 8 thousand so you could handle any venue.
The sound men I know and have dealt with run practice studios, that way they meet many bands and have connections and they just take the equipment that they already have in the studio to the gig.
Good luck. If your a sound man your mantra will be TURN IT DOWN!
