ahpook Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 just spent a very productive 3 hours round at our guitarists house...having a quiet practise. the drummer was using a set of electronic drums, fed through the quitarists home studio monitors and the rest of us were pretty darn quiet...you could easily make yourself hear without really raising your voice. it was a real revelation...i for one felt less 'in a world of my own' and it felt much more like a jam than running through the set a few times. everyone seemed to be listening to each other a lot more, and the odd musical joke crept in here and there...dropping shadows licks into the middle of songs that are usually a wall of noise for instance. i'd heartily recommend it. certainly set us up fr the gig tomoz night in brum ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timloudon Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 This is god advice. It's always good to have a practice where you can talk, it's the most frustrating thing when you're trying to get a point across and you can't even hear yourself speak. I've also found that if I'm playing in a pretty heavy band, practicing a heavily distorted song with a clean tone (including the guitarist/s) makes the band so much tighter. However, if you can't get the other members to shut up, I usually find a taser works well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
queenofthedepths Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 [quote name='ahpook' post='205350' date='May 24 2008, 12:41 AM']the drummer was using a set of electronic drums, fed through the quitarists home studio monitors[/quote] When I play mine with the headphones on, my mum still complains about the noise (just from me hitting the pads)... and I'm not a heavy-hitting drummer... still, it'd be great to have a practise like that where we can hear ourselves properly, even if we're never gonna have a gig like that (I don't get why gigs need to be so loud, either...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingrayfan Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 OP +1 We've done this a couple of times when we couldn't get into a rehearsal place and it is really good for working out stuff. That said, you cant beat a good old full-volume job for hearing what the songs will gig like. I find I need the drums to cement the bassline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 We have quiet band practices with the full instrumentation in the rehearsal studio. If you can make the songs happen at lower volume then you sound better on the gig, you have better dynamics and you can really hear what needs working on, instead of hiding behind aural distortion, noise, reverb, acoustic build up and rattles, and so on. Now if only other bands could get the hang of this I suspect they could soundcheck in half a song rather then playing half their set whilst we twiddle our thumbs. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Tut Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 We always rehearse in my house with an electric kit and everything through headphones - it's cheap, and everything gets recorded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-gnomo Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 I regularly rehearse with a 10 piece latin band at the singer's house, we haven't had a complaint yet ! alexclaber is spot on, you learn a lot about control, dynamics, and relative volumes within the band, and doing this will certainly help the sound man. It also saves my ears ! Gig's do enough damage, I don't think rehearsals need to be doing the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalMan Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 We also have quiet r/h's generally at the sound guys house into a mini mixer & a couple of monitors to work on new stuff. The only problem with this can be finding the right key for our vocalist. What may work quiet, often doesn't when we get to a full r/h and requires a shuffle through keys to find one that works better. That said it is still a useful exercise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markytbass Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 What I would do for a quiet band practice. I use ear pluggs cos everyone (including me) is too loud. So we turn down, but then we can't hear anything but drums. So everything gets turned up again. I would buy the drummer some brushes and hide all his sticks but I'm planning on leaving anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Tut Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 If you buy your drummer brushes - he's only gonna paint the ceiling with them!! Sorry - old joke! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassninja Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 We always rehearse acoustically at a band member's upstairs flat with me running into an active PA cab at acoustic volume. Good for dynamics and subtlety, but its been useful to have the odd full PA rehearsal as well to get the mechanics of it right. We don't have a drummer in this band, so the relative levels are pretty consistent. No cracking snare or cymbals to deal with etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahpook Posted May 25, 2008 Author Share Posted May 25, 2008 [quote name='King Tut' post='205512' date='May 24 2008, 12:54 PM']We always rehearse in my house with an electric kit and everything through headphones - it's cheap, and everything gets recorded.[/quote] i think when we do it again i'll suggest a few extra cables and getting the hard drive whirring to record what we're doing. good plan ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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