Band practice sound level

[FlogRock]

Originally posted by Starry Night protect your ears guys. i've been rehearsing in loud bands for years and finally two years ago i came home from rehearsal and the ringing in my ears never went away. yup, tinnitus - both ears. the possibility of mixing my next CD is basically shot; not to mention appreciating sound and music for the rest of my life. now if i go see a show that's even remotely loud my ears hurt - they have become super sensitive to moderate-high volume. I went out soon after and got myself a pair of custom molded ear plugs which are filtered to allow all frequencies but attenuates the sound. I should have got these 15 years ago. they're only $150 and well worth the investment - trust me. you can tell your bandmates to turn down all you want but the bottom line is that it's your ears and no one really gives a {censored} how sore your ears are.

+1

When band members are too loud, even after asking them to turn down, you got to find a solution. Set up differently, find a different practice room, get earplugs. Or even throw them out of the band, or leave the band. It's not worth it.

[Piñata Tsunami]

Original poster: You don't mention anything about it in your post--- do you use earplugs? If not, you've brought this on yourself, get a pair of decent earplugs ASAP.

 

Personally, I find that I need to crank up at rehearsals. We play pretty hard and heavy, and with our drummer banging as hard as he can and my bassist playing a 500w ampeg loud, I don't have much choice with my Cornford Hellcat 35w (2x12 cab) than to crank it up ALOT. Our sound balance works pretty nicely although it's loud, no one gets any ear damage since we're all using good earplugs, and I rarely have any trouble hearing stuff. Also, my tone is fantastic, which I attribute strongly to the sound level.

[woodsmandan]

Originally posted by gopher666 Original poster: You don't mention anything about it in your post--- do you use earplugs? If not, you've brought this on yourself, get a pair of decent earplugs ASAP. Personally, I find that I need to crank up at rehearsals. We play pretty hard and heavy, and with our drummer banging as hard as he can and my bassist playing a 500w ampeg loud, I don't have much choice with my Cornford Hellcat 35w (2x12 cab) than to crank it up ALOT. Our sound balance works pretty nicely although it's loud, no one gets any ear damage since we're all using good earplugs, and I rarely have any trouble hearing stuff. Also, my tone is fantastic, which I attribute strongly to the sound level.

 

 

Yes, I use earplugs most of the time, but I would prefer to be able to practice without them, as the tend to mud up what you ear (I dont have the good ones that dont filter out the highs yet, but I'm planning on getting it). But one of the problems is that at full blast, the room we are in dont sound good at all, all we hear is sound bouncing everywhere and mud up our necks...

 

As I mentionned, the times when I practice with my drummer and bassist alone, we are able to play at a very decent sound level, don't need earplugs and we hear all the subtle mistakes we can make so it is easy to improve on them.

 

I agree that it's nice and usefull to crank it up once in a while, to reherse on full throttle to hear how it all blends together and to let the drummer let it loose and bang away, but for the most part of rehersals, where we need to get our stuff together, a controlled volume would be 300% better.

[rhat]

My experience on this subject is that if you can sound good at practice at a nice low tolerable sound level ....turning it up at a gig is really no problem. If you want to be a tight band ,, practice at a very low volume. rat

[arf-boy]

Originally posted by Actionsquid I think if a band is too loud for an (unmiced) drum kit at practice, it's too loud period. I agree he should either use an attenuator or else just accept not sounding exactly how he wants too at practice and turn down. I don't understand why people use ridiculously overpowered amps. I don't really know what kind of venues people play there days where they'd need the amp itself to be be THAT loud.

 

 

Only one in 100 guitar players realizes the volume knob turns *both*ways. Sucks.

 

Why play loud enough to damage your hearing? Duh?

 

I put my acoustic through the PA or a 60-watt kayboard amp, my electrics through a 100-watt 2-12 combo and split the baritone through a bass amp and a little Freedom battery job. Bass runs through a 250-watt Peavey combo with the highs split to a different head and a 4-10. I never get complaints that I'm too loud and I can always her myself.

[arf-boy]

Originally posted by rhat My experience on this subject is that if you can sound good at practice at a nice low tolerable sound level ....turning it up at a gig is really no problem. If you want to be a tight band ,, practice at a very low volume. rat

 

 

Bingo! Works as long as you can find a quiet drummer.

[kayak]

Set up his cab so that it is at HIS EAR LEVEL and pointed DIRECTLY AT HIS HEAD! If he argues about setting it up that way, tell him that there is no room for debate, this is how it's going to be. Setup like that, he will probably start playing at a lower volume. If he doesn't, then it is seriously time to look for a replacement.

[rhat]

Originally posted by arf-boy Bingo! Works as long as you can find a quiet drummer.

 

 

 

If a drummer doesnt know how to back off and lighten up their touch to blend with a band ,, in my opinion they are not much of a drummer and you should be looking for a new one. rat

[Daeveed]

Excellent thread.

We practice with a 50W and 60W amps for both guitars.
During practices, we don't care too much for the tone, and lower our volume considerably.

Another thing we did, was to cover the walls with egg trays, in order to prevent the sound from bouncing all over the place. I highly recommend anybody to do this, in our first rehearsal after we installed the eggtrays, we had to further lower our volumes, and we noticed a lot of very small imperfections in our songs that we hadn't noticed before, because they were hidden by the constant bouncing of the sound on the walls.

Now we're working on getting as tight as possible in a practically "reverberationless" room, in order to sound truly tight anywhere.

[rhat]

The egg crate thing works ,, as does the foam. One thing we all need to remember is that when you do the low tech sound proofing on a basment practice space ,, you are creating more risk for fire ... typically a home basment only has one exit. Its a good idea as long as you realize you just upped the fire hazard factor. One of rock and rolls darkest hours was when great white had the fire in a club. While the choice to use pyro was a bad one ,,, the real problem was home brew soundproofing .... rat

[arf-boy]

Originally posted by Daeveed Excellent thread. ... Another thing we did, was to cover the walls with egg trays, in order to prevent the sound from bouncing all over the place. I highly recommend anybody to do this, in our first rehearsal after we installed the eggtrays, we had to further lower our volumes, and we noticed a lot of very small imperfections in our songs that we hadn't noticed before, because they were hidden by the constant bouncing of the sound on the walls. ...

 

 

I didn't go that far but all the amps in the practice room -- except bass -- are at waist level or higher, and angled slightly, so they point at the drummer-- and their sounds don't bounce right off a wall. The drummers who play here all seem to like it.