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Dealing with dodgy (acoustically!) rehearsal rooms


Pankot

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Hi All,

 

Last night's band rehearsal was a mixed bag. Overall vibe was good and instrumentally it was coming together - but we were in a different room from usual and this caused a couple of problems:

 

1) The room had terrible ventilation/ac - i.e. none! - and was bakingly hot (it had been a hot day outside all day.) I did take what I thought was plenty of water, and half of it was gone by the time we'd finished setup, :lol: Needless to say, dehydration set in. Memo to self - take more water than you think you need. But onto the main event:

 

2) The room was small and boxy. The drummer kept complaining that he couldn't hear the guitars and bass - but by the time they were cranked to his satisfaction, it became impossible to turn the PA up enough (without feeding back) to hear myself properly - and I'm not a soft singer! Consequently I ended up yelling at point-blank range into the mic, with predictably crappy results after the first few songs.

 

Listening back to the field recording, it's obvious that in the few places where the volume level dropped (because of a quieter bit in the song) everything was ok. Conversely, in the parts where I really couldn't hear myself I was all over the place.

 

My inclination (if this sort of thing happens again) would be to politely tell the drummer that in the circumstances he'll have to make do with not hearing the rest of the band so well - after all, he should know his way through the song without having to rely on cues - so that I can still talk the next day. ;)

 

Does that seem fair? Have you ever had a similar issue and are there any other tricks (settings on the PA?) that could have helped the situation?

 

Oh, and in before someone says IEMs :p

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The room may just be too small - but you can try some panels/drapes to absorb the sound a bit. This might prevent some feedback. We put the amps beside/behind the drummer pointing in at him. The heat sounds like a pain....

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