Soundchecks - are they professional?

[SimonK]

1 hour ago, wateroftyne said:

...is their hearing shot, by any chance?

 

Slightly unrelated, but during a soundcheck the other week two of our band members were complaining about a high pitched ringing coming through the PA/monitors. The rest of us thought everything was fine so we weren't particularly motivated to find the supposed problem, but after a bit of confusion/accusations of having divas in the band we then realised the two complaining were both late teens/early twenties while the rest of us were 45+, and possibly some of our hearing wasn't what it once was!

 

Mind you it is quite hard to fix a problem that you can't actually hear - we just went through some of the higher frequencies until the youngsters stopped complaining!

[chris_b]

I play with a couple of bands whose guitarists are stone deaf. They can still play but it depends on the day whether they can play with other players.

[TimR]

14 hours ago, ASW said:

In my view the volume is set by the acoustic drum kit and the other instruments and vocals need to balance with that. How does the vocalist line check to "get the right volume" if they are unaware of how loud the drums sound in the venue?

 

Not in a pub. Trying to get everything as loud as a drummer who is trying to fill the pub will always lead to feedback and the rest of the band not being able to balance their sound and/or hear each other. 

 

Get the vocal mic level right first. That's just a case of ringing it out and finding the feedback point. 

[tauzero]

On 04/05/2025 at 09:57, Franticsmurf said:

If they come to see you regularly and know your sound, they would be a good choice to provide a check that nothing was badly out of balance. Not a replacement for a decent soundcheck but preferable to only finding out at the end that something was wrong. And all for the price of a couple of pints.

 

Mrs Zero and Mrs Drummer are glad to provide that service. Sadly, it mainly consists of saying that the bass is too loud. Still not sure if that comes under the definition of "unreasonable behaviour".

[Stub Mandrel]

9 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Mrs Zero and Mrs Drummer are glad to provide that service. Sadly, it mainly consists of saying that the bass is too loud. Still not sure if that comes under the definition of "unreasonable behaviour".

 

Saw a band on Saturday.  Bass was almost inaudible much of the time.

[Franticsmurf]

48 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Mrs Zero and Mrs Drummer are glad to provide that service. Sadly, it mainly consists of saying that the bass is too loud. Still not sure if that comes under the definition of "unreasonable behaviour".

No pints for the wrong answers. 😂

[Dan Earp]

In my band the singer gets the balance of drums/guitars/Bass/keys if I’m playing them for some numbers right, then he comes back into band to sing and then one of the guitarists will check singer against rest of band. Last gig I did that even though I was bass. 
it works and  recordings posted on facebook or sent by members of the audience show it’s not far out. 

[Bluewine]

On 05/05/2025 at 08:38, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Saw a band on Saturday.  Bass was almost inaudible much of the time.

 

I get the feeling I'm way down low in the house mix. To me that means our sound engineer doesn't think bass should be heard. I'm not going to argue with him about it. I get paid either way.

 

Daryl

Edited 20 hours ago by Bluewine

[asingardenof]

Option 2 for sure. My amp hardly ever needs updating significantly but our guitarist needs to adjust for each venue, sometimes several times during the set but at least the base volume is about right.