I suggested in-ear monitors to the one guitarist in my band whose volumes were ear-splitting. It worked out great. But she uses no amps on stage. Just a modeling unit.
I can't believe I've slept on IEMs for so long. I just scored a few pairs of really good quality and extremely affordable ones off that Chinese shopping site with the orange logo. Not only are they far better than they have any reason to be at the price but I can actually use them to produce with! I know that doesn't sound all that amazing but I've never found a pair of headphones, even expensive Sennheiser, AKG etc, that didn't give me a headache in under 10 minutes. It's amazing how full and accurate they sound and yet any harsh frequencies are obvious enough to fix, but don't grate or fatigue the ear at all, it's made a huge difference and allowed me to work into the night with confidence rather than making me feel like I have to lower the volume on my studio speakers to the extent I feel like I can't actually hear what I'm doing so I end up stopping and playing games or watching a movie instead.
It’s so easy for me too, I just connect my phone to the mixer and hop on stage with the band(I’m sound guy too). Then I can go to each member and sort out who wants what in the ears.
That said they need to turn up any monitor they may have, or warn the sound guy and come up with a signal.
On stage everyone should be set to the required level needed to perform (ie if feedback is needed, overdrive etc…) but other than that it shouldn’t be that loud. Soundman needs to step in.
This is a good suggestion and may I add - the ear pieces should be custom fitted by an audiologist/specialist. You need them to be in place snugly in your ears for sound quality and so they don't move around when you sing or smile.
So I’ve got many people advising for IEM. I’ll definitely look into it. I have a question though. if I get IEM for myself to hear my voice better, it means that I will hear myself more than what an external person hearing the whole band would. So I could end up hearing myself perfectly but the rest of the band and the audience does not. So it doesn’t really solve the whole problem ? We’d still end up with vocals being covered by the instruments.
Sorry if that’s a stupid questiob
What happens here depends upon the care with which you're running your front of house (FOH) sound. If you're running your own sound, whoever is in control of the mix should be able to step out front and adjust all the volumes to get the mix right. Ideally that person, if in the band, is using wireless so that they can do that.
If you have a sound man, that's their job.
There can be problems if someone in your band has an amp and insists on turning it up loud enough that it overpowers the house PA. In that case whoever is running the house sound should be telling that person to turn down. If that person is the one running sound, you're a bit screwed, and - at this point - I'd be thinking about perhaps looking for a better opportunity with more seasoned players who know better than to do this.
But with competent FOH sound reinforcement, this should be a non-issue.
Thank you.
The thing is the drummer and I share the same sound system. The two guitarists and the bass player have their own amps. So it’s difficult to have a global mix.
Also I have very little knowledge about amplifications, sound systems etc. I’ve always played acoustic guitar, and when I sing I’m not the one managing this.
I def have to learn more about all of this so I can be more assertive and propose solutions that make sense for us.
My vocal coach said: a voice can never compete with drums, amps etc. make them aware. Stop singing during the song and ask if they can hear you? And that you can’t hear yourself. Buy an in ear monitoring.
We had volume control issues in my band. Then we implemented the rule: if you can't hear every member, turn down. Totally counter-intuitive, but it worked! Sucked for a while as we couldn't get our volumes right, but eventually, we all figured out how to have a reasonable stage sound with this one weird trick. :)
Keep a spray bottle with water by the mic. If they start to noodle too much or turn up the amps, give them a spritz and then sternly say, “No! That’s a bad guitar player.” Only way they’ll learn.
I have done this to a guitar player in the studio. He was… not a brilliant guy, and started fooling with his amp in the *middle of a take* after I’d told him repeatedly, “leave the amp alone — I can mix you louder, make you louder in the headphones, whatever, but don’t touch the amp, okay?” So when he did, I took the cat sprayer (there was a studio cat), and did what had to be done.
This happens at all but the highest levels of professionalism. Some great, full-time, pro players I know are guilty. And it's not just the guitarist. It's more a battle of all of the players because "I can't hear myself."
So your drummer might get a little excited. So the bass player thinks he's too soft. Now the rhythm player turns up. The lead guitarist can't hear his solos anymore, so he joins in the guitar creep. This excites the drummer even more. This will go on and on in circles until it's stopped. And no, it's not a point of pride to destroy your drumheads in a single gig. Anyone can do that.
The most professional players will ask the player that's playing too loud to bring it down rather than join in the cacophony. As the bassist, I like my bass volume knob all the way up and adjust at the amp. I only mess with the volume as an absolute, last resort. It's usually far away and low enough that I probably don't want to even bother. The problem there is, it can cause me to subconsciously dig in harder, and aggravate my carpal tunnel syndrome.
Or you'll get the sound guy, understandably telling the band how he has to turn off the PA because the stage volume is already louder than the venue needs. And unprofessional musicians get angry at that.
I played a gig with Martha Reeves (of Martha and the Vandellas) and was warned before the gig that she doesn't like bass in the stage volume. This is Martha Reeves, so who am I to complain? Even with my tiny Polytone on 1, she said she could still hear it. No IEM setup at this gig, so I just watched my hand. Could not hear myself at all. Then she tells me at sound check that I sound and act like James Jamerson and reminded her of her own friend (she could hear the bass in the house, and loved that I played upright on the tunes that originally used it). I rode out the rest of the night on cloud nine.
I'd simply try to gently push into IEM use. There's affordable gear that can set you up pretty easily, and the players wouldn't have to push their amps too hard so they can "hear myself." They can simply turn up their own channel. The bassist wouldn't even need to bring their own amp. In rehearsal, there's no need to bring the volume up to stupid levels, anyway, so that shouldn't be happening.
My experience is that this volume level competition within a band starts with the drummer. Many drummers just do not know how to play at a subdued level, or simply won't do it because that's not 'their sound'. And many also refuse to use electronic drum kits. Plus drummers essentially just want to beat the crap out of their drums for a few hours as a form of therapy. If the drummer would play quieter, then the bassist could turn down, the gtrist could turn down, and the vocals could be heard.
I played a jazz jam years ago where I knew everyone in the jazz scene. This guy nobody knows came up to sit in. He didn't know any straight ahead jazz tunes, so we played The Chicken and Oye Como Va. That dude murdered the drums. I will never forget the way the pianist gestured to play quieter, and he did for about four measures. Just as the band was about to settle in the better groove, he changed his mind and started pounding again. I think he simply thought the pianist gestured to play quieter for a dynamic choice rather than to calm him down.
The jam was being held in the ballroom of a hotel. I remember the doors being open on the far side of this large ballroom, and hearing the slapback of the drums hitting the corridor and coming back in our faces. That was at least 10 years ago, and I'm glad I haven't had to play with that guy since. Any guests that hotel might have had must have been furious.
One practical issue is that guitar cabs are very directional in the mids/treble and usually placed fairly low to the floor, fairly close to the player. So once everyone starts playing, the guitarists can't hear their sound with any clarity and turn up. Meanwhile the sound is beaming out between their legs and deafening everyone else. A simple solution is to get them to use an amp stand, tilted to fire the speaker cone directly at their ears. They will suddenly find everything too trebly and loud, and if you can make them understand that what they're hearing is what the audience/you usually hear, they can often be persuaded to adjust appropriately!
This is how I learned, many years ago, that my tone was deafening to others. And I've used amp stands ever since. I've pushed other guitarists to do the same, kind of becoming a "stand evangelist"!
I saw Dwight Yoaken last year. We sat right in front of the lead guitarist's amp, which was at just about ear level for us. It was excruciating. We left early partly because of this. The other part was that the show wasn't very entertaining. We much preferred The Mavericks. They were the opening act.
100% this. In the amps, turn down the bass, treble, and gain. You’ll hear that guitar come right through the mix and won’t need near as much volume. The guitarist will hate this, but they need to learn to play with a tone that fits a mix instead of taking up the entire sonic spectrum. I say this as a hard rock and metal guitarist of 25 years.
The other major problem is cymbals and snare. On small-mid sized stages, they can be brutal, so your ears clamp down to protect themselves and you lose detail. Wearing small reduction earplugs like Earasers (-5db) will shave off that high end and still let the mids and bass through. If you do both, the guitar will still cut through, you will hear the vocals, and the cymbals will be much more muted.
These days my whole band is direct, no amps, with In-ear monitors. That’s a pretty pricey setup though.
It's a combination of bad mixing (i.e. guitarists who don't know that what sounds good solo sounds like shit with a group...cut the low end), bad players (i.e. guitarists who don't realize their job is to make the whole group sound better not just themselves), bad sound (i.e. monitors, PAs). I don't have a good solution. But it's something that I address before the first practice or jam with new players. We discuss our role in the group and our role in the overall sound. It makes it easier to say, "hey we can't hear the vocals, and when they sing we are there to support them, guitars seem a bit high could we bring it down or cut out some of the low end mud so that cool higher line stands out?". Set expectations.
I put full range concert earplugs over my iem and its magic. Guitar player has a small monitor for his modeler and its right beside him. Our rehearsals are great and our singing has improved a lot because we can actually hear ourselves at the front of the mix.
If you need to go louder, turn up your amplificaton through the PA, don't sing harder.
Start rehearsals by soundchecking your loudest, busiest song, to get the difficult balancing act right from the start.
Also, encourage them to move closer to their amplifiers or to point the amplifiers more towards them. The key is making sure they realise that they're fixing a monitoring issue, not a loudness issue.
Ideally, the only time anyone should turn up is if another band member asks them to.
How so? The point is that they usually turn up because they can't hear themselves. By moving closer to the amp, their own sound will be more audible to them. The only exception is if the amp is pointing at their shins or whatever, in which case my other advice applies.
Kind of as you said. Most amps come up to hip height at most, unless they're playing a full stack, which is rare. If you get the amp pointing up at them, they'll be much more volume conscious, even if they're further away. Guitar amps project very well.
The thing is the drummer controls both his sound and mine. He increases mine if I ask him too but that’s between songs. Whereas the guitar players can increase theirs during a song. Like they’ll increase it for a solo and then forget to decrease it back when it’s chorus time.
Also, our rehearsal are already very loud. I’d much prefer we all turn down and listen more than just me adding to the overall volume.
Moving the amp around is under appreciated for how effective it is in controlling both volume and tone. Point it at your face and it’s bright and loud. Put it at your feet and it’s bassy and quieter.
Of course what you hear is different from an audience, which is why I’m not a big fan of a combo amp on the floor. I’ll make it too bright so it sounds right to me, but if it’s higher up I’ll leave the tone controls alone.
It’s so quick and easy to spin an amp 30 degrees or put it on a chair. In-ears are amazing and can save your hearing, but setting up a rehearsal room or a stage the right way can make a great mix for everyone and is a useful skill to have.
I kind of figured this out. I was always asked to turn down, apparently everyone else heard me better than I heard myself. I'm a pretty tall guy, so I think my sound wasn't really audible when I was standing right in front of the amp. I figured if I move a bit further away, I could hear myself much better.
When the room has people in it, the way the sound interacts with the space changes, dampening the high frequencies. This may feel like a volume drop hence them turning up.
I always put my amp on a tilt stand or lean it against a wall so the sound is directly firing at me, and have it pointing sideways on to you, that way you’re getting the most out of the on stage amp as well as the monitors.
Older musician here. Decades of loud stage volume and rehearsal volume have left these ears fairly broken. Hearing damage is permanent. Please be careful, my friends.
Yes, thank you. So many comments saying « just put your PA louder » but I don’t agree with that. We will all just end up with hearing damage. Also if it’s too loud you don’t really listen to the overall quality of the music.
I used to chalk this up to selfishness and ego, but I really think it’s the early signs of hearing loss. As others have suggested, I recommend in ear monitoring
This is why we spend time finding unity volume. The volume we need to hear our instruments and for the singer to hear themselves.
I had my bassist turn down my volume on my amp one time. Once he walked back he realized he could not hear my guitar (I couldn't either) and set it back to where I had it.
I told him don't touch my amp settings. Apparently, not all bassists or guitarists use their instrument volume knobs. Some set their shit to max and fuck with the volume at the amp.
That's not how you're supposed to do that. Unity volume at amp and whatever else you're running into, then use guitar volume knobs for adjusting.
Has anyone else dealt with people maxing out instrument volume and using amp volume to control overall volume? It boggles my mind.
As a guitarist myself I was guilty of this.
It does depend on how the practice area is set up, but often the simple solution is for the guitar player to orient their amps to face them directly. Having them facing the “audience” while it’s blasting behind them is about the worst for everyone involved.
An amp stand that angles them upward or raises them to head level also helps and usually that makes them turn down the amps.
It’s easy for folks to chase each others volume until everything is too loud. I practice in a small space with a guitarist who has tinnitus and we all consciously play softer than we would like and check in after each song about the volume. It’s never “too quiet”. We also record rehearsals so it’s evident when the volume creeps up. Also being mindful of dynamics in songs really helps keep things in check.
You sound very considerate and professional, I just quit my band recently over tinnitus, had they been as considerate as you then perhaps I could have stayed! 🥹
Learning to play at a low level has really help to make our sound more “pro”. Harmonies are easier and dynamics have more impact overall. I’m a drummer and I quit another band recently b/c the guitarists could not keep the volume in check. To add, having guitarists/bassist have a volume pedal in their setup helps immensely since it’s not alway possible to get to a volume knob while playing. As a drummer, I also use quiet cymbals and play with lighter sticks in rehearsals.
It seems to be true of every guitarist.
Tell them to use their pedals to sound loud when they need to for solos, but that you need them to play at a reduced volume while you're singing.
Otherwise people will struggle to hear the words and the nuances you bring to the vocal delivery will be lost, not only because of the volume level but because you occupy the same sonic space in terms of frequency. The vocals and guitar should support each other, not compete against each other in that space.
Mark the max volume on the amp with a tape, if it's over, it should be clear to see. But like the other person said talking to them is the first step. Try working it out *before* the rehearsal, or on a seperate "date", not in the moment when it's already too loud/late again.
it's always a bit of a problem with my band. You can't exactly turn drums down and we play pretty heavy music so it's often hard to hear the vocals in the studio where we practice. I do guitar and vocals, and our lead singer is the bass player. We like turning up loud and it's basically not an option to be much quieter else our drummer can't hear us over the kit either when he's smashing the shit out of it, which is not optional, there's no other way to play drums in that style.
Our solution is to use a monitor in the studio which helps a lot. If you rehearse in any decent rehearsal studio then they will usually have some of those around that you can request to use. It's still not perfect, so we're thinking of getting in ear monitors, but those cost money. Generally we just accept that it's hard to hear vocals in the practice room when you're playing the kind of music we do. Some rooms it's better than others.
Our bassist also bought some better earplugs as for years he was using real cheapo ones that don't help with the sound at all. I've had moulded ones for like 15 years and they're great at filtering the sound so i can hear things more clearly anyway.
It sounds like your problem might be different though, and it sounds like you're probably a younger band than us... you just need to talk about it more. If you said it once and they still do it, just mention it every time. We always do a quick line check before we start playing to check our levels. Make a habit of doing that and tell them you need to hear yourself more. Maybe you can also turn yourself up more as well?
Gigs shouldn't be an issue, since the soundman is in charge of the levels, and you always have monitors, so you can just ask for more of your voice (or less guitars) in the monitor.
Thanks, maybe I'll suggest to our drummer sometime. Though we can't really change heads, we use the kits provided by the studio, and it would take too much of the practice time to be switching those every time. Cymbals might be an idea, but given how expensive cymbals are anyway I don't think he'll want to buy a whole other set just to be quieter! I think a better and maybe(?) cheaper option is just for us to get in ear monitors really
It's because many guitar players (I'm one of them) stand right over their amp with it at their feet and they are too dense to realise that what they hear is not what everybody else is hearing. If they just stood back or tilted the amp to face up at them, they would likely stop.
However, having said that, I am also a singer and the microphone is there to amplify your vocals and get your voice coming in over loud instruments. If you're struggling to hear yourself then good quality musicians earplugs or better monitor solutions will stop you shouting to hear yourself in your own head. You have responsibility to make sure you have the equipment to get the right results and protect yourself as much as they have responsibility to not drown everyone out.
What ultimately matters is the balance out front or through the PA. Your personal experiences of the sound where you stand on stage is not your product and everything should be in service of what the audience hears, with you all controlling for the variables that occur on stage when that is achieved.
This is one big reason amp stands were invented, and why some amps used to come with legs to tilt them back.
The problem is rehearsal space is usually so small that you have to stand on your amp unless it’s a 4x12. People need to learn to put their amps back in the back of the room and not right next to their pedals.
If you’re going to a board have everyone turn all the way up at sound check and mix that. lol. Then only the sound guy can make anyone louder. But let them turn up their monitor if they need it.
who wants to have a tamed drummer though? It depends on what style you play. I play in two metal bands and one drummer beats the shit out the kit and sounds great, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I'd rather he do that and me not hear my vocals that well, than he play unnaturally and get into a bad habit of playing too softly or overthinking. The other band, the drummer tickles the drums like he's scared to break them, and it's just boring and sounds crap, I'm basically done with that band for multiple reason but that is one of them, I just don't rate him as a drummer and it's partly for that reason. If there's no energy the music suffers.
I will tell the drummer to tone it down for sections that suit that better, but not as his default. We want him to play hard as the music demands it.
In my opinion you get the drummer playing naturally and then set your levels around that. If you can't hear vocals then you need to turn those up or use monitoring that helps you hear it. Guitars are different obviously since you can change the volume.
OP very likely is not in a metal band...and as a singer guitarist in a chill beach/party rock band I can tell you it's annoying as shit when the drummer doesn't know how to dial back his touch. So yes in most cases the drummer needs to know how to play with good feel and finesse rather than just fucking murdering the snare and cymbals.
I just did an live impromptu jam session with a mix of people I knew and a few new folks. The space was small and there were a bunch of us. I was blown away by the drummer. His touch was just right for the space but didn't feel restrained.
record yourselves, when they inevitably start clipping their mics from going too loud it will serve as a reminder to keep it down perhaps? you could also wear headphones and directly monitor your vocal channel at a higher volume than the band. some open back headphones would allow you to monitor your solo'd vocals while still being able to hear the band
also make sure they have the amps actually pointed at their ear holes and not just on the ground. it makes a world of difference
Some people want to simply feel the power of a blasting amp. They also might be standing too close, or pointing the amp in an unhelpful way. They might think their tube amp needs to be loud to activate the tone they want.
In ear monitors are the fix if you can't convince them to play quieter. It's a bigger problem on stage, so dealing with it now would be great ...being mindful what you agree on in practice may not stick once someone hits the stage and think they need to blast sound out (for no good reason).
when I played lead guitar, I did this a few times, the singer asked me to turn it down and that was that. what did help me was to get a better monitoring situation which was as simple as repositioning myself in relation to the amp. if everybody in the band wants it to succeed you shouldn't expect blowback from negotiating levels, ESPECIALLY if you have a soundboard guy (lol if those still exist) cause he was the guy best positioned to do the mix. I was never pro tho, so there's that.
Guitar and voice are the same frequency range, and as rehearsal goes on so does hearing fatigue. If you can get everyone to A. Set volume at intended maximum at the beginning of rehearsal, and B. Agree that instrument max should be about 6dB under vocals/solo volume, you should be good. Try to sound check a song where your voice is lower in your range to help set that volume so you’re not constantly straining to be at that level.
We need a bit more info to truly give advice. Are you using monitors when you practice or are just in a room with drums and amps and have vocals coming out of a PA? If it’s the latter then the clean channel of the amp should be loud enough to be heard with the drums and then his rhythm channel should be just as loud and the lead channel or pedal he uses for solos should be slightly louder than that. Everyone should wear some earplugs so your ears dont get tired. If the band is serious look into some IEM systems…I switched over 3 years ago and will never go back. There are some great cheaper options out there now
At rehearsal, suggest that everyone go in front of their amplifiers and listen to the entire band, and it will quickly become obvious who is too loud. Best lesson I ever learned was put yourself in the position of your audience while rehearsing to get an idea of what your band sounds like.
This is a problem that all singers face until the band reaches a level of professionalism that it goes away, usually. In ear monitors are a difficult transition but worth it
The reason why it happens is that the guitarist's ears start ringing and they can no longer hear themselves. So they turn up or change to a brighter tone that cuts more. Now everyone else's balance is thrown. If the bass player turns up, he has to go even louder. You're in a battle.
I would have invested in in ear monitors back when I was doing the venues where they'd have made sense. That might be the guitarist's solution, turn himself up in his monitors as the night goes in.
I was always the guitarist that would get drowned out by the band, and I ended up just keeping my guitar’s volume on 7 during sound check and adjusting as needed during the show, only really needing to crank to 10 for solos or for specific effects/tones that wouldn’t show at 7.
I’d get your guitarist used to understanding where his 7 and 10 are in sound check and go from there. Work over your loudest songs, work over your quietest songs, and let him hear the actual difference. Let him stand where the audience would be and hear one of you guys play the riffs through and legit ask his input.
I was also notorious for keeping like 2-3 setups and having a roadie manage those for me mid-show. I’d have a guitar in Drop D tuning, one for clean tones, and one for grimy stuff. I didn’t like audiences to hear me tuning, and if my guitar worked itself out of tune I’d just head nod the front man to let him know I was changing guitars. He’d see what guitar I grabbed, and we’d go into a different set of stuff until the tech had a chance to get Guitar A tuned up.
A lot of people will initially set up their rehearsal space like a show, with one PA/vocal speaker on either side, guitarist on either side next to them, and singer in the middle, and then wonder why the vocalist cant hear themselves and the guitarists keep turning up. Also some guitarists just put their amps on the floor and then keep turning up because they're blasting sound at their knees.
Take the time to set up your space (and at gigs) where everyone can hear. Have guitarists use stands/kickstands to angle their amps at their own heads (or at least get them off the ground a few feet), or use a angle top 4x12 if they have a stack, and don't point them at the singer. Use PA speakers as monitors pointed up at the singers from the floor.
If you use one of those newer giant stick style PAs, put the singer next to it and point guitar amps away from it.
Also try to avoid the ol': Guitar 1's amp on one side of the room and Guitar 2's amp on the other side... where Guitar1's amp is pointing straight at Guitar2's face and vice versa while the two guitarists stand inches away from their amp. They each keep turning up to hear themselves, hilarity ensues.
If you have a keyboard player, GIVE THEM THEIR OWN MONITOR... or if they use an amp position it where they can hear and aren't blasting at someone else.
Sometimes you play gigs where sound is not ideal, apply these same principals of pointing amps/speakers at the folks that want more of that sound, and away from folks that think those amps are too loud, and you'll do ok.
Have them put an earwig in if they can't hear their instrument, I know I only ever do it cause I'm the idiot who stands too close to the drums. goodbye hearing, hello hearing aids.
[Here](https://youtu.be/E_rfSX34ZR8?si=8Z7lqnEzk7V9iUbY) is a link to a short video on setting up an in-ear monitor system.
A Rolls personal monitor has a “mic thru” function that lets you hear your mic and give yourself a little extra while keeping them under control. If they use in-ears as well they can crank themselves as much as they want without affecting you.
Have you asked them why they turn it up?
If it’s about hearing, that might be a warming up issue, an EQ issue, or a feel/physiological response thing.
I assume that as a vocalist who clearly cares about preserving your voice, you have a warm-up routine. A lot of instrumentalists don’t do much to warm up. If your drummer especially isn’t warmed up, s/he might get louder as muscles loosen up, causing the others to have to rebalance.
I also agree with an earlier commenter that many guitarists would do well to dial in more midrange and even some highs so they sit well in the mix. And if your bassist uses fuzz/distortion, there could be some fighting over sonic territory. The thing that makes me say this second is that as a singer, if you’re already getting your pitch information from the guitars, that EQ might not be the issue.
Finally, there’s feel/physiology. As we play loud, things usually get a little dull sounding and we often try to make up for it with volume. And playing loud feels really good! Others have recommended in-ears. That works, but your band might also consider investing in some high quality ear plugs that don’t affect the frequency spectrum as badly as cheaper ear plugs do. It should be less expensive than an IEM system. So there’s some irony that they may already be so loud that it’s impacting their hearing during the set and they’re compensating in a deleterious manner.
I hope you find an amicable and healthy solution!
Keep turning the vocals up until they say that the vocals are too loud, then explain to them that the reason you turn it up is because they’re so loud. I have the same issue but with my bass player. I’m the guitarist/singer and I’m the one in this situation that should be turning up loud but he cranks the bass every practice and at gigs.
I ran sound for bar bands and at small local venues in Baltimore for around 5 years. Cramped stages, for the most part. Whenever possible, I tried to get the guitar amps to be positioned on the sides, facing in towards the stage. I also tried my best to give them all the best monitor mix I could, based on their requests. In-ear monitors are fantastic for everyone, as long as they're reliable. If you get paid to play, save your band money to buy them. Everyone will protect their hearing with those, too.
My advice might sound childish, but pull the volume knobs out and put them in lower a bit . Slowly Ofcourse they won’t notice. But over time, they won’t notice that they are slowly going softer cause they don’t wanna blow the amp. The other way is to Krazy glue it so they can’t. But just talk to the soundboard guy and tell them you need more volume on your voice, and wear in ear monitors yourself.
I think that many guitar players do this "I can immediately be amazing" once the guitar is in their hands, but it's not a reality. It takes a lot of warm up to key into more open timings and feelings, and guitarists who aren't as keyed in just hits things with less nuance. That means harder hits, which means louder amp output, and if you turn it down it sounds too muted for their ear. Versus someone that can let the strings ring with intricate timings, stops, holds, etc.. They don't need the amp to be super loud to feel as satisfied. The guitarists who practiced bass too, and I'm not even one of them, likely have that ability to just feel it out better and key in faster.
All of it tends to lean toward wanting the amp to be louder. A guitar is tiny, it doesn't take a strong hand, it just takes nuance. So you get some ham-fisted guitarists who have the same body connections over and over, and I think it plays into this wanting everything to hard/loud/fast. People lock into a rigid body state, instead of just having an open body state that happens to be holding a guitar. A nuanced guitarist somehow is more cutting than a loud ass shredder.
Plenty of people have good advice for rehearsals. Some of which I wish I knew before destroying my ears. (Former Guitarist & bassist & vocalist). You should basically be doing a soundcheck at rehearsals to find a good mix and then write down or mark the settings.
If you’re playing gigs with someone doing sound for you, band members absolutely should not be fucking around with volume on their amps after soundcheck (if applicable). Even if you didn’t do a soundcheck you don’t want someone at the board chasing the band. They will sometimes stop giving a shit, and you are gonna suffer from that.
Get them to point their cab at their head. Lean it against a wall or get a stand. This will help to manage the volume war as it's going into their ears rather than straight past their knees.
In my current band, my Princeton Reverb can easily get too loud. Our solution is to mic my amp and trust that the sound guy gets the volume right through the mains. So much better! I can hear myself just fine, I hear the band better, and my bandmates are happy.
If they're not professional enough to recognize the problem, they're not professional enough to continue with. The thing to do is, at rehearsal, a soon as they BEGIN to get too loud, find a place to sit down and when they ask why you're sitting down, tell them directly, you've asked them not to get too loud, they chose to get too loud and you're not going to risk damaging your voice any longer. This isn't a preference issue, it's a safety issue. Protect yourself. There are other bands, but you only have one voice.
When I was younger there was a really cool biker bar that I used to frequent. They had a stage built in their garden and would host little festivals.
Once there was some glam wannabe band playing and the guitarist was so far up his own ass that he didn't seem to care about anyone else. Little by little he turned his guitar up until by the 4th song it was all you could hear, and it was painful to listen to.
I used to do sound engineering, and spoke with the engineer behind the consol at the gig... he had already mutes the guitars, but his amp was overpowering by itself.
I went to the front of the stage to get his attention to ask him to turn down... he got so angry, started shouting at me, his attitude on stage changed to being clearly pissed off, and didn't turn it down.
Ruined the gig for the whole band and made himself look like a complete cock as the audience thinned out and people went back into the bar to spare their ears.
Sometimes, asking nicely works. Sometimes you have to explain that they are making the overall sound really bad and people don't want to listen to just the guitarist.
Sometimes they don't know they are doing it and they genuinely can't hear... as others have said; better monitoring solves this.
Other times they are just ego wankers who don't give a shit about making music, or the overall sound and just want to show off their skill and be the centre if attention.
I’m a guitarist. Part of it is that loud feels good. But another part of it can be that guitars often “disappear” in a mix when the mix is bad or the arrangement is bad. So the guitarist may be turning up in order to hear themselves, at the expense of everyone else, because they don’t know any better ways to hear themselves better.
If two guitars are playing in unison, or playing in unison with the bassist, it can be hard to hear yourself, because the sounds all blend together. If the guitar is using a high gain amp (eg 5150 or Rectifier) or a high gain fuzz, then the sound becomes very compressed, and it’s hard to hear yourself because the notes have almost zero transients (ie the initial “spike” and attack of the notes). If the guitars have too much bass, or if two guitar tones are nearly identical to one another, it can be hard to hear yourself. Some of this falls on the the mixing engineer (if there is one), but lots of it falls on the guitarist themselves or the band as a whole.
Guitar tones that sound good in your bedroom often don’t sound good at rehearsals or gigs, so the band really needs to work on getting a good mix as a group. Also, the mix changes in every room, so the setup that works at rehearsal may not work at every gig. So if your guitarist is convinced that Gain = 6, Bass = 6, Mid = 4, Treble = 5, Presence = 8 is the perfect tone for every situation, he’s probably going to have a bad time hearing himself in many rooms. And he’ll turn up the volume to compensate, ruining the mix for everyone else.
The other part is the arrangement of songs. Playing power chord riffs is fun. Playing big open chords or barre chords is fun. But they eat up a lot of sonic space in a mix and an arrangement. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started playing fewer notes in my chords, and mostly higher pitches. The guitar can often drop root notes and let the bassist play them. Or drop the 5ths out of a chord. Or play little licks, arpeggios, etc. Basically, if you write or arrange the guitar part to make room for the bassist or the other instruments, then suddenly the guitar becomes easier to hear, and you don’t need to turn up so loud. The band becomes easier to mix too.
No one on stage should be adjusting their stuff after sound check. Only whomever is running the booth can have a good sense of what the audience is hearing.If it were me, I'd would just explain this to your guitarist.
Use a decibel meter and have everyone play individually. Adjust sound levels until everyone is approximately equal in volume. Then mark amp pa levels and locations of speakers.
Get your own PA and crank that shit! Or be honest with them and tell them they need to turn down and your fed up. Is there anyone that can sound check for you guys? Maybe it's drowning you out on stage but sounds great further away? Get a monitor for yourself maybe? Good luck
Basically, humans always have a loudness bias. Something that is louder, sounds better. So the guitarist will tweak, and when it sounds louder/is louder, they’ll prefer that tone.
I am a guitarist myself, but also amateur recorder and mixer. You have to be careful about loudness bias in those two disciplines as well.
In my experience (non-professional), it begins and ends with the drummer, and drummers will give you every excuse in the book as to why they can't play any quieter, lol. drum shields are nice.
Also, angling the guitar amps towards the guitar player's ears will sort that end of it out.
There's no helping bass players, lol (me kidding bass players. no get mad.)
Not sure what genre you are in, but sometimes it is tough if you are in a progressive band to switch between cleans, overdrives, certain effects, etc while keeping the same volume.
When I was in a band, practicing at home everything felt like it was the same volume when I would switch over but once you crank up the volume to rehearse, and put your gear in a different room, it's completely different and requires some adjusting.
at some point just state, “wow, it’s getting louder in here. can we all turn down?”. you need to take the direct approach here.
you can do what i do: ask everyone to aim amps at their faces. if they REALLY want to hear themselves more than anything else in the room, that’s the best way. also, they will quickly turn volumes down if this happens.
unless you are rehearsing on a sound stage for a theater or hall, no one need to play louder than the drummer.
also, if your voice isn’t being heard, turn your shit up on them. aim it at their heads. see how long it takes them to ask to turn it down.
Make sure their amps are positioned so that they face them. Most of the time when they need more volume, it’s because they’re either behind their amp or “sitting” on it.
Since I convinced the band to rehearse on lower volume, they now the see benefits. Much clearer sound, better to balance EQ and hit the sound one seeks, easier to hear the details (especially important for songwriting or fine tuning specific parts, vocals sound better and won’t destroy your hearing within 1 year.
They can't hear themselves properly in the mix.
Getting some decent wireless in-ear monitors for each band member would be a good start. Decent kit should allow each musician to set their monitor mix to give them a bit of a boost over the main mix which then of course gives your audio mixing person (you do have one, don't you?) to concentrate on getting the mix bang on for the audience/recording/whatever.
I play guitar and sing, and I struggle with than in our small rehearsal space. You only get so much volume before feedback out of the PA, and our old bass player wouldn't stay in normal volume. My voice didn't compete, but the drummer and my guitar did. My voice lost the arms race. We practiced without him since he left, I can hear fine. Amp on 1/4 power mode, drummer playing normal, and me using normal mic.
MOST guitar players figure out early playing in bands that where the speaker points matters. Having the amp high (on a pool table or work bench) has let me keep it at reasonable volumes by being at torso level instead of ankle level at bars and practices. Amp stands and chairs work sometimes, but some amps lose bottom end like that and need a wedge and more distance or the aforementioned billiards table.
Some people are "MaH Toanz!" Crybabies and leave the amp on the floor, dimed, drowning out the band, often occupying the bass players lower mids, the singers highs, and being annoying.
There are audible differences pushing an amp and speaker, but there's no point if the band sounds like ass. Something many guitar players don't care about as they wank on endlessly with minor pentatonic or chromatic scales nobody asked for...
Another vote for in-ears. You control everyone’s volume in your personal mix. All you need is to shell out a few thousand bucks. Barring that, split to your own headphone mixer/wireless with noise-canceling earbuds so you can guarantee you hear yourself.
Attention whores come in all sexes. Also - it's very common for local bands which have shown themselves to be incapable of an idea for one new, or even one remade, song capable of making any music chart, anywhere, ever, to finally have the idea that "IF WE JUST PLAY LOUDER ..."
Lots of good comments
At least in rock bands, drummers usually need a certain volume and energy. What I think happens is volume is generally dictated by the drums, and drummers get louder as they get into the music
Yet another vote for in ear monitoring.
There’s an illusion where you think you’re at the right volume and blending but it’s actually louder, and you have to compensate for that illusion.
There’s also the illusion that you can’t hear yourself on a loud boomy stage so you keep turning up until sound is all one big square wave and there is no detail to make out anymore. Like a video screen where you keep turning up brightness until it becomes one big white blinding light
Ear problems are really for real, you see lots of people telling their stories but I bet there’s countless more hiding.
There’s a learning curve with in ear monitors but you get consistent and better results at a lesser volume that sounds like a greater volume because you can hear and make out detail
Talk with the rest of the band and get them to support you in asking him to turn down. If the whole band is telling him to turn down, then there's a better chance he'll do it.
Otherwise replace him. There's no point in carrying on like that you'll guys will never get anywhere. The only bands that survive for a long time are those that whose members work well together and do things for the benefit of the whole band not just themselves.
as a loud guitar player most of us stand pretty close to the front of our amps with the speakers aimed at our knees.. 6 feet away or even a couple feet away with the cab angled up 15-20º and I realize I am in fact turned up too loud. sound design is a real thing. I used to drag my bogner & 2x12 around all the time to jam so Iwould be "loud enough"... 22 watt deluxe reverb on a stand or tilted back has plenty of meat.
I get this all the time as a guitarist. I like to point the amp and stage monitors directly at myself and/or augment with in-ears. It helps. The thing is, is that not everyone is reasonable (eg, soundman). I use a modeler with separate FOH feeds, and there have been many, many occurrences of people accusing me of being too loud when, in fact, the stage amp was completely off. Make sure you have a legit gripe before unloading on someone.
At practice, just tell them to turn down. If you aren’t comfortable enough (or lack the people skills to do so without coming off as a jerk), your band has issues. Most of the time, I let the drummer tell people to turn up or down because drums are kinda the volume everyone else needs to match. If you’re not comfortable telling people to turn down, just hand it off to the drummer. They can be the rehearsal “sound check” person.
As for live shows, why are they touching anything mid set? If they can’t hear themselves, they need to tell the sound guy to turn them up in the mix on their monitors. Ideally, you want stage volume as low as possible without it affecting your sound. That’s going to produce the best audio for the audience every time.
Besides IEM behringer makes vocal monitor with an XLR in and out. Just plug your mic in and then out of the monitor and to the board so you have volume control over your own monitor. The sound guy doesn’t have to do anything.
guitar amps don't put out much bass (deliberately) and your ears get accustomed to any volume, so naturally just turning up louder incrementally solves both these
You’re in the same type of band as me! Anyway, try recording your practices (audio only is fine) and send it to everyone to hear. They’ll see what’s going on.
In the moment, if someone gets a lot louder, just say “hey, mind turning down a little?” If they get how bands work they won’t argue.
I’ve had this problem many times in rehearsals. If the drummer’s system is stereo try splitting drums through right channel and vocals through left. This allows the a cleaner sound for each instrument as such. It’s a physics speaker thing. The vocals will cut through as it’s not competing with the drums. Also you have a bit more individual control. Bit harder for live performance get a good pa and sound engineer.
This is how guitar players are, at least the vast majority. They are playing for their own egos and not for the song. The age of the guitar hero has taught them that it's all about them.
As a band leader, my way of dealing with this was basically fire everyone until I found someone who understood the assignment.
As a guitarist, maybe you can phrase it in such a way that you’re suggesting ideas for the arrangement of the song. Talk about dynamics and where you want the vocals to stand out and make it more of a conversation about how the music should actually sound. Then, if they keep doing it you just need to be frank but professional and just tell them what’s bothering you. I got yelled at as a young gigging musician once by a keyboardist at a gig and I’m still very conscious about my levels in certain settings. You don’t have to leave a mark, but be direct
OPTION #1
DON'T KILL YOUR VOICE, just stop singing if it gets too loud
OPTION #2
$70 in-ear monitors, and a Behringer MA400
it's a headphone monitor amp with a mic loop through
and aux in
OPTION #3
If you don't have your own PA but want more control/inputs than above
$70 in-ear monitors, a 6m/30ft headphone extension cable plugged into the headphone out of a little $100 Behringer mixer
Ch 1 your vocal mic, (split with a cheep DI)
Ch 2 send from the PA, (FOH Mix)
Ch 3 a mic in the middle of the stage (Room Sound)
ch 4 Your guitar/keys etc
This gives you more control
OPTION #4
12-16ch digital mixer \~ There are lots of posts about bands that have put together their own live / IEM monitoring rig
Vocal tissue cannot be replaced or repaired. You gotta protect it. Period. Do you wear IEMs? That may help you block him out so you don’t have to over sing. Then the rest is up to FOH.
Just mention it to them privately. They may be clueless to how it’s affecting you and your voice. Open, honest communication is typically the best course of action. Remain cool and if things get heated or they get defensive then you may need a band meeting. A good band is about working as a team for a common goal.
You don’t. Guitar players are simple creatures whose only goal in life is to play louder and spend all their time, money, and energy on tone… It’s against their very nature. It’s like asking birds not to migrate, or asking a dog to bark quietly. They simply can’t help it. It’s apart of their genetic make up.
We’d all love them to turn down, but it’s not going to happen.
Lord I love playing all by my lonesome. I have a couple old dear friends that "jam" once a week. I can't handle it. Yes they get louder as it goes along (which sucks), but dynamics are just an opportunity for more ME. I'm surprised as many gigging people have that problem and have to deal with it through monitors instead of just knowing to back off during the cool base line or during the vocals.
Tone. Some sounds you can really only get out of the amp when it's up loud. I've pondered getting an attenuator for my guitarist? We both play guitar, but his really needs to be able to break up and I play fairly clean.
Imagine if you had a knob that could be turned so you can hear yourself better in that situation instead of shouting - would you turn it instead of putting on a worse performance? Guitarists have this knob and they do turn it. This is a widespread phenomena called volume creep. As the show goes on, the energy gets higher and so does volume. The way to combat it is to
1.) make sure everyone is consistent with volume. This is, in my experience as a guitarist, a losing battle if the drummer is anything other than a high-caliber pro. One song after asking to turn down, everyone is back to business as usual.
2.) tell the guitarist to get more guitar in the monitor so they don’t have to turn themselves up to hear later in the show. This won’t work in most rehearsal spaces since they don’t typically monitor.
The last and least professional option
3) is to get a volume pedal for yourself so you can turn up as the rest of the band does.
someone has mentioned turning up the mids already, which is what they need to do. to be even more specific though, have your guitarist and bass players not touch their volume knobs, but use an equaliser to turn up a fairly narrow notch at around 1KHz. this is the fequency that will cut through the room and allow them to be heard without increasing the volume level.
In-ear monitors. I’ve also heard that some sound guys will move the guitarist amp, putting on a stand or leaning it at an angle so it points at the guitar players head and not their legs.
The only way I was able to fix it from a bassist perspective is I made both of our guitarists raise their amps up on a stable surface and point it directly at their own faces from nearly 3ft away, worked wonders cuz they don't want to go deaf (we all religiously wear ear pro too). The only reason they finally agreed to doing that is because both me the vocalist and the drummer all made an agreement that if they were too loud at a certain part in a track during rehearsal we had a signal for us to stop to run it back again from the top after we tell the guitarist to turn down. I also found out that the perfect volume to have the guitar amps to be (both playing at the same time) is the absolute loudest the drummers crash and snare hits are if they're even the tiniest bit louder than they're WAY too loud.
IEMs are great, but for a quick solution, ask the guitarist to put the Amp on a stand. The floor tends to eat up the bass end of the sound, and the stand will help with that.
1) If there’s acoustic drums, they set the volume because there is generally no controls on how loud the drummer needs to play to execute the song.
2) If there is a back line amp and the guitar keeps turning up, there is likely an EQ problem. Guitar should be able to sit in the mix just below the vocals EQ wise. Likely not enough mids and too much highs and lows.
3) Guitar solo volume is intended to replace the lead vocal space, so it should be just about as loud as the lead vocal. A solo is a “solo” and should be clearly sitting on top of the band. But after the solo, the guitar should blend back into the rhythm space.
Probably the guitarist is getting ear fatigue. This happens to me and my perception of the tone is that it is quiet, when really my ears are just done. They need to lay off the volume and maybe all of you can get some in ears or something.
Oh man, I get it. I had a bassist that was endlessly complaining about his rig never sending right. Every song he would get louder and louder until I (the drummer) couldn’t hear anything but my cymbals and the bass.
Omg are you me?
I have been asking my guitarist to stop turning up the volume during his solos for a looonggg time. I’ll even tell him during our gigs to turn it down and he gets annoyed lol. I’m like you don’t need to turn up bc all the other musicians pull back during your solos!!! It’s super frustrating.
I use my Bose L1 Pro 16 for my vox and Bose S1 Pro for my monitor.
I know the best answer is IEMs but I don’t have money for that atm. I guess I’ll have to keep telling him for now, or get a new guitarist lol.
It’s definitely a risk to the voice when you’ve got to start shouting because you can’t hear yourself in the monitors anymore. I’m a metal dude, screamed in bands for years and even with THAT kind of vocal style you have to watch it with stuff like that. Any time you’re stretching outside your comfortable zones with your voice you’re capable of putting it at risk.
Guitarist here, been usually the second guitarist in gigging bands for the last 50 years. First of all, I hear what you're saying, loud and clear - no pun intended. Secondly, as others have said or implied, this is a common problem; I'd say it occurs in 75% of the bands I've been in. I'm in the small minority of guitarists to whom the singer might say, "turn it up" because I'm trying to hold the line on volume creep. (Yes, sometimes the drummer is the main culprit.)
I agree with the suggestions for IEM, amp stands, etc. But the root of the problem is really cooperation, discipline, being sensitive to overall volume, listening to how you (the guitarist) might be affecting the singer, gauging how well you can hear the vocals and everything else in the band. This requires at least one conversation, and possibly more. Those convos can of course include practical suggestions. They also give the guitarists an opportunity to tell their perspective. But in most bands, the lead singer is king; the rest of us play supporting roles unless we're the lead instrument (I'm ignoring uncommon exceptions to these general rules). Ultimately you want everyone in the band to be aware of these dynamics enough so you never have to say anything, and they always self-correct.
Among other things, having the discipline to prevent volume creep, and gauging how your volume impacts others in the band should lead to a tighter, more dynamic sound, and possibly reduce the chance of club owners being frustrated because they have to tell you to turn it down.
I can tell you this; the longer you play, the more you’ll crank that amp.
Your guitar player should go get a hearing test. I would wager a paycheck they’ve got frequency and overall loss in at least one ear.
Protect your hearing or one day you’ll walk away from that cranked amp, and the next song you’ll compose will be “Silence No More.”
Do. Not. Get. Early. Onset. Tinnitus.
And you will. Earplugs and IEMs will save you a lot of avoidable grief.
I suggested in-ear monitors to the one guitarist in my band whose volumes were ear-splitting. It worked out great. But she uses no amps on stage. Just a modeling unit.
In ears are a game changer for sure. As soon as everyone has their own mix, and control over this mix, there ain’t any more problems!
I can't believe I've slept on IEMs for so long. I just scored a few pairs of really good quality and extremely affordable ones off that Chinese shopping site with the orange logo. Not only are they far better than they have any reason to be at the price but I can actually use them to produce with! I know that doesn't sound all that amazing but I've never found a pair of headphones, even expensive Sennheiser, AKG etc, that didn't give me a headache in under 10 minutes. It's amazing how full and accurate they sound and yet any harsh frequencies are obvious enough to fix, but don't grate or fatigue the ear at all, it's made a huge difference and allowed me to work into the night with confidence rather than making me feel like I have to lower the volume on my studio speakers to the extent I feel like I can't actually hear what I'm doing so I end up stopping and playing games or watching a movie instead.
It’s so easy for me too, I just connect my phone to the mixer and hop on stage with the band(I’m sound guy too). Then I can go to each member and sort out who wants what in the ears. That said they need to turn up any monitor they may have, or warn the sound guy and come up with a signal.
I was gonna say turn up you monitor. The sound guy can sort out the mix. …but in ears would be even better
He can’t fix much if the actual amp volume is too loud though
On stage everyone should be set to the required level needed to perform (ie if feedback is needed, overdrive etc…) but other than that it shouldn’t be that loud. Soundman needs to step in.
This is a good suggestion and may I add - the ear pieces should be custom fitted by an audiologist/specialist. You need them to be in place snugly in your ears for sound quality and so they don't move around when you sing or smile.
So I’ve got many people advising for IEM. I’ll definitely look into it. I have a question though. if I get IEM for myself to hear my voice better, it means that I will hear myself more than what an external person hearing the whole band would. So I could end up hearing myself perfectly but the rest of the band and the audience does not. So it doesn’t really solve the whole problem ? We’d still end up with vocals being covered by the instruments. Sorry if that’s a stupid questiob
What happens here depends upon the care with which you're running your front of house (FOH) sound. If you're running your own sound, whoever is in control of the mix should be able to step out front and adjust all the volumes to get the mix right. Ideally that person, if in the band, is using wireless so that they can do that. If you have a sound man, that's their job. There can be problems if someone in your band has an amp and insists on turning it up loud enough that it overpowers the house PA. In that case whoever is running the house sound should be telling that person to turn down. If that person is the one running sound, you're a bit screwed, and - at this point - I'd be thinking about perhaps looking for a better opportunity with more seasoned players who know better than to do this. But with competent FOH sound reinforcement, this should be a non-issue.
Thank you. The thing is the drummer and I share the same sound system. The two guitarists and the bass player have their own amps. So it’s difficult to have a global mix. Also I have very little knowledge about amplifications, sound systems etc. I’ve always played acoustic guitar, and when I sing I’m not the one managing this. I def have to learn more about all of this so I can be more assertive and propose solutions that make sense for us.
My vocal coach said: a voice can never compete with drums, amps etc. make them aware. Stop singing during the song and ask if they can hear you? And that you can’t hear yourself. Buy an in ear monitoring.
We had volume control issues in my band. Then we implemented the rule: if you can't hear every member, turn down. Totally counter-intuitive, but it worked! Sucked for a while as we couldn't get our volumes right, but eventually, we all figured out how to have a reasonable stage sound with this one weird trick. :)
lol. I am regularly deafened by singers and keyboards going through PAs that are unnecessarily cranked.
Keep a spray bottle with water by the mic. If they start to noodle too much or turn up the amps, give them a spritz and then sternly say, “No! That’s a bad guitar player.” Only way they’ll learn.
Now if OP could get the guitar players to stop shitting on the floor too, then he'd be set
Don't forget to also grab the back of their head and rub their face in their spit-riddled microphone.
Maybe roll up a newspaper to swat them with on occasion.
Classical conditioning FTW
I have done this to a guitar player in the studio. He was… not a brilliant guy, and started fooling with his amp in the *middle of a take* after I’d told him repeatedly, “leave the amp alone — I can mix you louder, make you louder in the headphones, whatever, but don’t touch the amp, okay?” So when he did, I took the cat sprayer (there was a studio cat), and did what had to be done.
Partner is sleeping in the other room, and you just made me cackle unnecessarily loud. Haha
No-no can works, too, if they have any hearing left.
Used to work with a producer who would get so pissed at the noodling he’d yell “It sounds like a damn Guitar Center in here…”
When I was coming up the only thing a sound person would put in the monitors was vocals. And if you couldn’t hear the vocals you were too loud.
This happens at all but the highest levels of professionalism. Some great, full-time, pro players I know are guilty. And it's not just the guitarist. It's more a battle of all of the players because "I can't hear myself." So your drummer might get a little excited. So the bass player thinks he's too soft. Now the rhythm player turns up. The lead guitarist can't hear his solos anymore, so he joins in the guitar creep. This excites the drummer even more. This will go on and on in circles until it's stopped. And no, it's not a point of pride to destroy your drumheads in a single gig. Anyone can do that. The most professional players will ask the player that's playing too loud to bring it down rather than join in the cacophony. As the bassist, I like my bass volume knob all the way up and adjust at the amp. I only mess with the volume as an absolute, last resort. It's usually far away and low enough that I probably don't want to even bother. The problem there is, it can cause me to subconsciously dig in harder, and aggravate my carpal tunnel syndrome. Or you'll get the sound guy, understandably telling the band how he has to turn off the PA because the stage volume is already louder than the venue needs. And unprofessional musicians get angry at that. I played a gig with Martha Reeves (of Martha and the Vandellas) and was warned before the gig that she doesn't like bass in the stage volume. This is Martha Reeves, so who am I to complain? Even with my tiny Polytone on 1, she said she could still hear it. No IEM setup at this gig, so I just watched my hand. Could not hear myself at all. Then she tells me at sound check that I sound and act like James Jamerson and reminded her of her own friend (she could hear the bass in the house, and loved that I played upright on the tunes that originally used it). I rode out the rest of the night on cloud nine. I'd simply try to gently push into IEM use. There's affordable gear that can set you up pretty easily, and the players wouldn't have to push their amps too hard so they can "hear myself." They can simply turn up their own channel. The bassist wouldn't even need to bring their own amp. In rehearsal, there's no need to bring the volume up to stupid levels, anyway, so that shouldn't be happening.
My experience is that this volume level competition within a band starts with the drummer. Many drummers just do not know how to play at a subdued level, or simply won't do it because that's not 'their sound'. And many also refuse to use electronic drum kits. Plus drummers essentially just want to beat the crap out of their drums for a few hours as a form of therapy. If the drummer would play quieter, then the bassist could turn down, the gtrist could turn down, and the vocals could be heard.
I played a jazz jam years ago where I knew everyone in the jazz scene. This guy nobody knows came up to sit in. He didn't know any straight ahead jazz tunes, so we played The Chicken and Oye Como Va. That dude murdered the drums. I will never forget the way the pianist gestured to play quieter, and he did for about four measures. Just as the band was about to settle in the better groove, he changed his mind and started pounding again. I think he simply thought the pianist gestured to play quieter for a dynamic choice rather than to calm him down. The jam was being held in the ballroom of a hotel. I remember the doors being open on the far side of this large ballroom, and hearing the slapback of the drums hitting the corridor and coming back in our faces. That was at least 10 years ago, and I'm glad I haven't had to play with that guy since. Any guests that hotel might have had must have been furious.
That's what I mean. I've had similar experiences. Take care.
Really super helpful!
Wow, I love Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, thanks for sharing that anecdote!
One practical issue is that guitar cabs are very directional in the mids/treble and usually placed fairly low to the floor, fairly close to the player. So once everyone starts playing, the guitarists can't hear their sound with any clarity and turn up. Meanwhile the sound is beaming out between their legs and deafening everyone else. A simple solution is to get them to use an amp stand, tilted to fire the speaker cone directly at their ears. They will suddenly find everything too trebly and loud, and if you can make them understand that what they're hearing is what the audience/you usually hear, they can often be persuaded to adjust appropriately!
This is how I learned, many years ago, that my tone was deafening to others. And I've used amp stands ever since. I've pushed other guitarists to do the same, kind of becoming a "stand evangelist"!
You have proven yourself among the elite of guitarists! At least as far as I'm concerned
I saw Dwight Yoaken last year. We sat right in front of the lead guitarist's amp, which was at just about ear level for us. It was excruciating. We left early partly because of this. The other part was that the show wasn't very entertaining. We much preferred The Mavericks. They were the opening act.
The Mavericks are awesome
That’s a great advice. They do have their amps on the ground. I’ll suggest it next time we rehearse
Suggest turning up the mids instead. Bedroom tone (very scooped mids with distortion) gets lost in the mix very easily. The answer is always volume.
100% this. In the amps, turn down the bass, treble, and gain. You’ll hear that guitar come right through the mix and won’t need near as much volume. The guitarist will hate this, but they need to learn to play with a tone that fits a mix instead of taking up the entire sonic spectrum. I say this as a hard rock and metal guitarist of 25 years. The other major problem is cymbals and snare. On small-mid sized stages, they can be brutal, so your ears clamp down to protect themselves and you lose detail. Wearing small reduction earplugs like Earasers (-5db) will shave off that high end and still let the mids and bass through. If you do both, the guitar will still cut through, you will hear the vocals, and the cymbals will be much more muted. These days my whole band is direct, no amps, with In-ear monitors. That’s a pretty pricey setup though.
It's a combination of bad mixing (i.e. guitarists who don't know that what sounds good solo sounds like shit with a group...cut the low end), bad players (i.e. guitarists who don't realize their job is to make the whole group sound better not just themselves), bad sound (i.e. monitors, PAs). I don't have a good solution. But it's something that I address before the first practice or jam with new players. We discuss our role in the group and our role in the overall sound. It makes it easier to say, "hey we can't hear the vocals, and when they sing we are there to support them, guitars seem a bit high could we bring it down or cut out some of the low end mud so that cool higher line stands out?". Set expectations.
I put full range concert earplugs over my iem and its magic. Guitar player has a small monitor for his modeler and its right beside him. Our rehearsals are great and our singing has improved a lot because we can actually hear ourselves at the front of the mix.
What do you mean by earplugs over your IEM
great answer.
If you need to go louder, turn up your amplificaton through the PA, don't sing harder. Start rehearsals by soundchecking your loudest, busiest song, to get the difficult balancing act right from the start. Also, encourage them to move closer to their amplifiers or to point the amplifiers more towards them. The key is making sure they realise that they're fixing a monitoring issue, not a loudness issue. Ideally, the only time anyone should turn up is if another band member asks them to.
Moving the guitarist closer to their amp is likely to make the problem worse.
How so? The point is that they usually turn up because they can't hear themselves. By moving closer to the amp, their own sound will be more audible to them. The only exception is if the amp is pointing at their shins or whatever, in which case my other advice applies.
i found raising my guitar amp to head-height solved a lot of the issues i had with hearing myself over the drummer’s snare and cymbals
Kind of as you said. Most amps come up to hip height at most, unless they're playing a full stack, which is rare. If you get the amp pointing up at them, they'll be much more volume conscious, even if they're further away. Guitar amps project very well.
The thing is the drummer controls both his sound and mine. He increases mine if I ask him too but that’s between songs. Whereas the guitar players can increase theirs during a song. Like they’ll increase it for a solo and then forget to decrease it back when it’s chorus time. Also, our rehearsal are already very loud. I’d much prefer we all turn down and listen more than just me adding to the overall volume.
“Hey, could you turn down a bit or point the amp at yourself?” I said this in rehearsal yesterday.
Moving the amp around is under appreciated for how effective it is in controlling both volume and tone. Point it at your face and it’s bright and loud. Put it at your feet and it’s bassy and quieter. Of course what you hear is different from an audience, which is why I’m not a big fan of a combo amp on the floor. I’ll make it too bright so it sounds right to me, but if it’s higher up I’ll leave the tone controls alone. It’s so quick and easy to spin an amp 30 degrees or put it on a chair. In-ears are amazing and can save your hearing, but setting up a rehearsal room or a stage the right way can make a great mix for everyone and is a useful skill to have.
I always tell bass players to stand across the practice room from their cab. The fundamental tones are far more perceivable with some distance.
Getting them to point their amps at each other is the fucking way! They’ll eventually de escalate.
I kind of figured this out. I was always asked to turn down, apparently everyone else heard me better than I heard myself. I'm a pretty tall guy, so I think my sound wasn't really audible when I was standing right in front of the amp. I figured if I move a bit further away, I could hear myself much better.
When the room has people in it, the way the sound interacts with the space changes, dampening the high frequencies. This may feel like a volume drop hence them turning up. I always put my amp on a tilt stand or lean it against a wall so the sound is directly firing at me, and have it pointing sideways on to you, that way you’re getting the most out of the on stage amp as well as the monitors.
This is a big culprit. The guitar amp should be close to and aimed at the guitarist.
Older musician here. Decades of loud stage volume and rehearsal volume have left these ears fairly broken. Hearing damage is permanent. Please be careful, my friends.
Yes, thank you. So many comments saying « just put your PA louder » but I don’t agree with that. We will all just end up with hearing damage. Also if it’s too loud you don’t really listen to the overall quality of the music.
I used to chalk this up to selfishness and ego, but I really think it’s the early signs of hearing loss. As others have suggested, I recommend in ear monitoring
This is why we spend time finding unity volume. The volume we need to hear our instruments and for the singer to hear themselves. I had my bassist turn down my volume on my amp one time. Once he walked back he realized he could not hear my guitar (I couldn't either) and set it back to where I had it. I told him don't touch my amp settings. Apparently, not all bassists or guitarists use their instrument volume knobs. Some set their shit to max and fuck with the volume at the amp. That's not how you're supposed to do that. Unity volume at amp and whatever else you're running into, then use guitar volume knobs for adjusting. Has anyone else dealt with people maxing out instrument volume and using amp volume to control overall volume? It boggles my mind.
As a guitarist myself I was guilty of this. It does depend on how the practice area is set up, but often the simple solution is for the guitar player to orient their amps to face them directly. Having them facing the “audience” while it’s blasting behind them is about the worst for everyone involved. An amp stand that angles them upward or raises them to head level also helps and usually that makes them turn down the amps.
It’s easy for folks to chase each others volume until everything is too loud. I practice in a small space with a guitarist who has tinnitus and we all consciously play softer than we would like and check in after each song about the volume. It’s never “too quiet”. We also record rehearsals so it’s evident when the volume creeps up. Also being mindful of dynamics in songs really helps keep things in check.
You sound very considerate and professional, I just quit my band recently over tinnitus, had they been as considerate as you then perhaps I could have stayed! 🥹
Learning to play at a low level has really help to make our sound more “pro”. Harmonies are easier and dynamics have more impact overall. I’m a drummer and I quit another band recently b/c the guitarists could not keep the volume in check. To add, having guitarists/bassist have a volume pedal in their setup helps immensely since it’s not alway possible to get to a volume knob while playing. As a drummer, I also use quiet cymbals and play with lighter sticks in rehearsals.
It seems to be true of every guitarist. Tell them to use their pedals to sound loud when they need to for solos, but that you need them to play at a reduced volume while you're singing. Otherwise people will struggle to hear the words and the nuances you bring to the vocal delivery will be lost, not only because of the volume level but because you occupy the same sonic space in terms of frequency. The vocals and guitar should support each other, not compete against each other in that space.
Mark the max volume on the amp with a tape, if it's over, it should be clear to see. But like the other person said talking to them is the first step. Try working it out *before* the rehearsal, or on a seperate "date", not in the moment when it's already too loud/late again.
Say you're concerned about your voice/hearing and get a decibel meter for practices.
it's always a bit of a problem with my band. You can't exactly turn drums down and we play pretty heavy music so it's often hard to hear the vocals in the studio where we practice. I do guitar and vocals, and our lead singer is the bass player. We like turning up loud and it's basically not an option to be much quieter else our drummer can't hear us over the kit either when he's smashing the shit out of it, which is not optional, there's no other way to play drums in that style. Our solution is to use a monitor in the studio which helps a lot. If you rehearse in any decent rehearsal studio then they will usually have some of those around that you can request to use. It's still not perfect, so we're thinking of getting in ear monitors, but those cost money. Generally we just accept that it's hard to hear vocals in the practice room when you're playing the kind of music we do. Some rooms it's better than others. Our bassist also bought some better earplugs as for years he was using real cheapo ones that don't help with the sound at all. I've had moulded ones for like 15 years and they're great at filtering the sound so i can hear things more clearly anyway. It sounds like your problem might be different though, and it sounds like you're probably a younger band than us... you just need to talk about it more. If you said it once and they still do it, just mention it every time. We always do a quick line check before we start playing to check our levels. Make a habit of doing that and tell them you need to hear yourself more. Maybe you can also turn yourself up more as well? Gigs shouldn't be an issue, since the soundman is in charge of the levels, and you always have monitors, so you can just ask for more of your voice (or less guitars) in the monitor.
Have you tried using silent stroke heads and zildjian L80 cymbals for practice? You can beat the DIRT out of those and they’re about 80 dB.
Thanks, maybe I'll suggest to our drummer sometime. Though we can't really change heads, we use the kits provided by the studio, and it would take too much of the practice time to be switching those every time. Cymbals might be an idea, but given how expensive cymbals are anyway I don't think he'll want to buy a whole other set just to be quieter! I think a better and maybe(?) cheaper option is just for us to get in ear monitors really
It's because many guitar players (I'm one of them) stand right over their amp with it at their feet and they are too dense to realise that what they hear is not what everybody else is hearing. If they just stood back or tilted the amp to face up at them, they would likely stop. However, having said that, I am also a singer and the microphone is there to amplify your vocals and get your voice coming in over loud instruments. If you're struggling to hear yourself then good quality musicians earplugs or better monitor solutions will stop you shouting to hear yourself in your own head. You have responsibility to make sure you have the equipment to get the right results and protect yourself as much as they have responsibility to not drown everyone out. What ultimately matters is the balance out front or through the PA. Your personal experiences of the sound where you stand on stage is not your product and everything should be in service of what the audience hears, with you all controlling for the variables that occur on stage when that is achieved.
This is one big reason amp stands were invented, and why some amps used to come with legs to tilt them back. The problem is rehearsal space is usually so small that you have to stand on your amp unless it’s a 4x12. People need to learn to put their amps back in the back of the room and not right next to their pedals.
Yup. You don’t have ears in the back of your knees.
Exactly what IEMs are for.
Intimidate them with physical violence
is there a drummer involved as well?
If you’re going to a board have everyone turn all the way up at sound check and mix that. lol. Then only the sound guy can make anyone louder. But let them turn up their monitor if they need it.
Put some sheet music in front of them.
Have a conversation. I need to be able to hear my vocals if you're getting ear fatigue and can't hear your guitar get some decent ear plugs.
People under estimate how much you can hear with proper musician earplugs. They're not the workman's foamies.
The answer to your question is ear fatigue and wanting to hear the self over the drums/bass. Solve this by taming your drummer and playing quieter.
who wants to have a tamed drummer though? It depends on what style you play. I play in two metal bands and one drummer beats the shit out the kit and sounds great, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I'd rather he do that and me not hear my vocals that well, than he play unnaturally and get into a bad habit of playing too softly or overthinking. The other band, the drummer tickles the drums like he's scared to break them, and it's just boring and sounds crap, I'm basically done with that band for multiple reason but that is one of them, I just don't rate him as a drummer and it's partly for that reason. If there's no energy the music suffers. I will tell the drummer to tone it down for sections that suit that better, but not as his default. We want him to play hard as the music demands it. In my opinion you get the drummer playing naturally and then set your levels around that. If you can't hear vocals then you need to turn those up or use monitoring that helps you hear it. Guitars are different obviously since you can change the volume.
OP very likely is not in a metal band...and as a singer guitarist in a chill beach/party rock band I can tell you it's annoying as shit when the drummer doesn't know how to dial back his touch. So yes in most cases the drummer needs to know how to play with good feel and finesse rather than just fucking murdering the snare and cymbals.
I just did an live impromptu jam session with a mix of people I knew and a few new folks. The space was small and there were a bunch of us. I was blown away by the drummer. His touch was just right for the space but didn't feel restrained.
That's the drummer we all need.
At the start of prac ask people not to increase volume, and to play with their bass/treble knobs if they can't hear themselves.
record yourselves, when they inevitably start clipping their mics from going too loud it will serve as a reminder to keep it down perhaps? you could also wear headphones and directly monitor your vocal channel at a higher volume than the band. some open back headphones would allow you to monitor your solo'd vocals while still being able to hear the band also make sure they have the amps actually pointed at their ear holes and not just on the ground. it makes a world of difference
We had this very same problem. We hired a sound guy to come do the levels in our practice space. My voice is so happy we did.
Some people want to simply feel the power of a blasting amp. They also might be standing too close, or pointing the amp in an unhelpful way. They might think their tube amp needs to be loud to activate the tone they want. In ear monitors are the fix if you can't convince them to play quieter. It's a bigger problem on stage, so dealing with it now would be great ...being mindful what you agree on in practice may not stick once someone hits the stage and think they need to blast sound out (for no good reason).
when I played lead guitar, I did this a few times, the singer asked me to turn it down and that was that. what did help me was to get a better monitoring situation which was as simple as repositioning myself in relation to the amp. if everybody in the band wants it to succeed you shouldn't expect blowback from negotiating levels, ESPECIALLY if you have a soundboard guy (lol if those still exist) cause he was the guy best positioned to do the mix. I was never pro tho, so there's that.
Guitar and voice are the same frequency range, and as rehearsal goes on so does hearing fatigue. If you can get everyone to A. Set volume at intended maximum at the beginning of rehearsal, and B. Agree that instrument max should be about 6dB under vocals/solo volume, you should be good. Try to sound check a song where your voice is lower in your range to help set that volume so you’re not constantly straining to be at that level.
We need a bit more info to truly give advice. Are you using monitors when you practice or are just in a room with drums and amps and have vocals coming out of a PA? If it’s the latter then the clean channel of the amp should be loud enough to be heard with the drums and then his rhythm channel should be just as loud and the lead channel or pedal he uses for solos should be slightly louder than that. Everyone should wear some earplugs so your ears dont get tired. If the band is serious look into some IEM systems…I switched over 3 years ago and will never go back. There are some great cheaper options out there now
At rehearsal, suggest that everyone go in front of their amplifiers and listen to the entire band, and it will quickly become obvious who is too loud. Best lesson I ever learned was put yourself in the position of your audience while rehearsing to get an idea of what your band sounds like.
This is a problem that all singers face until the band reaches a level of professionalism that it goes away, usually. In ear monitors are a difficult transition but worth it
The reason why it happens is that the guitarist's ears start ringing and they can no longer hear themselves. So they turn up or change to a brighter tone that cuts more. Now everyone else's balance is thrown. If the bass player turns up, he has to go even louder. You're in a battle. I would have invested in in ear monitors back when I was doing the venues where they'd have made sense. That might be the guitarist's solution, turn himself up in his monitors as the night goes in.
I was always the guitarist that would get drowned out by the band, and I ended up just keeping my guitar’s volume on 7 during sound check and adjusting as needed during the show, only really needing to crank to 10 for solos or for specific effects/tones that wouldn’t show at 7. I’d get your guitarist used to understanding where his 7 and 10 are in sound check and go from there. Work over your loudest songs, work over your quietest songs, and let him hear the actual difference. Let him stand where the audience would be and hear one of you guys play the riffs through and legit ask his input. I was also notorious for keeping like 2-3 setups and having a roadie manage those for me mid-show. I’d have a guitar in Drop D tuning, one for clean tones, and one for grimy stuff. I didn’t like audiences to hear me tuning, and if my guitar worked itself out of tune I’d just head nod the front man to let him know I was changing guitars. He’d see what guitar I grabbed, and we’d go into a different set of stuff until the tech had a chance to get Guitar A tuned up.
lol yup
Good luck And In ear monitors
A lot of people will initially set up their rehearsal space like a show, with one PA/vocal speaker on either side, guitarist on either side next to them, and singer in the middle, and then wonder why the vocalist cant hear themselves and the guitarists keep turning up. Also some guitarists just put their amps on the floor and then keep turning up because they're blasting sound at their knees. Take the time to set up your space (and at gigs) where everyone can hear. Have guitarists use stands/kickstands to angle their amps at their own heads (or at least get them off the ground a few feet), or use a angle top 4x12 if they have a stack, and don't point them at the singer. Use PA speakers as monitors pointed up at the singers from the floor. If you use one of those newer giant stick style PAs, put the singer next to it and point guitar amps away from it. Also try to avoid the ol': Guitar 1's amp on one side of the room and Guitar 2's amp on the other side... where Guitar1's amp is pointing straight at Guitar2's face and vice versa while the two guitarists stand inches away from their amp. They each keep turning up to hear themselves, hilarity ensues. If you have a keyboard player, GIVE THEM THEIR OWN MONITOR... or if they use an amp position it where they can hear and aren't blasting at someone else. Sometimes you play gigs where sound is not ideal, apply these same principals of pointing amps/speakers at the folks that want more of that sound, and away from folks that think those amps are too loud, and you'll do ok.
Make sure their amps are pointing at them
Have them put an earwig in if they can't hear their instrument, I know I only ever do it cause I'm the idiot who stands too close to the drums. goodbye hearing, hello hearing aids.
This is a perfect example of why in-ear monitors are so desirable.
[Here](https://youtu.be/E_rfSX34ZR8?si=8Z7lqnEzk7V9iUbY) is a link to a short video on setting up an in-ear monitor system. A Rolls personal monitor has a “mic thru” function that lets you hear your mic and give yourself a little extra while keeping them under control. If they use in-ears as well they can crank themselves as much as they want without affecting you.
Have you asked them why they turn it up? If it’s about hearing, that might be a warming up issue, an EQ issue, or a feel/physiological response thing. I assume that as a vocalist who clearly cares about preserving your voice, you have a warm-up routine. A lot of instrumentalists don’t do much to warm up. If your drummer especially isn’t warmed up, s/he might get louder as muscles loosen up, causing the others to have to rebalance. I also agree with an earlier commenter that many guitarists would do well to dial in more midrange and even some highs so they sit well in the mix. And if your bassist uses fuzz/distortion, there could be some fighting over sonic territory. The thing that makes me say this second is that as a singer, if you’re already getting your pitch information from the guitars, that EQ might not be the issue. Finally, there’s feel/physiology. As we play loud, things usually get a little dull sounding and we often try to make up for it with volume. And playing loud feels really good! Others have recommended in-ears. That works, but your band might also consider investing in some high quality ear plugs that don’t affect the frequency spectrum as badly as cheaper ear plugs do. It should be less expensive than an IEM system. So there’s some irony that they may already be so loud that it’s impacting their hearing during the set and they’re compensating in a deleterious manner. I hope you find an amicable and healthy solution!
Put a chart in front of them.
Have a volume pedal wired in to their amp without telling them. Hide the pedal and use it when you need it.
Keep turning the vocals up until they say that the vocals are too loud, then explain to them that the reason you turn it up is because they’re so loud. I have the same issue but with my bass player. I’m the guitarist/singer and I’m the one in this situation that should be turning up loud but he cranks the bass every practice and at gigs.
I ran sound for bar bands and at small local venues in Baltimore for around 5 years. Cramped stages, for the most part. Whenever possible, I tried to get the guitar amps to be positioned on the sides, facing in towards the stage. I also tried my best to give them all the best monitor mix I could, based on their requests. In-ear monitors are fantastic for everyone, as long as they're reliable. If you get paid to play, save your band money to buy them. Everyone will protect their hearing with those, too.
My advice might sound childish, but pull the volume knobs out and put them in lower a bit . Slowly Ofcourse they won’t notice. But over time, they won’t notice that they are slowly going softer cause they don’t wanna blow the amp. The other way is to Krazy glue it so they can’t. But just talk to the soundboard guy and tell them you need more volume on your voice, and wear in ear monitors yourself.
I think that many guitar players do this "I can immediately be amazing" once the guitar is in their hands, but it's not a reality. It takes a lot of warm up to key into more open timings and feelings, and guitarists who aren't as keyed in just hits things with less nuance. That means harder hits, which means louder amp output, and if you turn it down it sounds too muted for their ear. Versus someone that can let the strings ring with intricate timings, stops, holds, etc.. They don't need the amp to be super loud to feel as satisfied. The guitarists who practiced bass too, and I'm not even one of them, likely have that ability to just feel it out better and key in faster. All of it tends to lean toward wanting the amp to be louder. A guitar is tiny, it doesn't take a strong hand, it just takes nuance. So you get some ham-fisted guitarists who have the same body connections over and over, and I think it plays into this wanting everything to hard/loud/fast. People lock into a rigid body state, instead of just having an open body state that happens to be holding a guitar. A nuanced guitarist somehow is more cutting than a loud ass shredder.
Turn your mic up to 11!
Get a decimal meter that everyone can see. Agree on the max level you can ever pass.
Plenty of people have good advice for rehearsals. Some of which I wish I knew before destroying my ears. (Former Guitarist & bassist & vocalist). You should basically be doing a soundcheck at rehearsals to find a good mix and then write down or mark the settings. If you’re playing gigs with someone doing sound for you, band members absolutely should not be fucking around with volume on their amps after soundcheck (if applicable). Even if you didn’t do a soundcheck you don’t want someone at the board chasing the band. They will sometimes stop giving a shit, and you are gonna suffer from that.
Get them to point their cab at their head. Lean it against a wall or get a stand. This will help to manage the volume war as it's going into their ears rather than straight past their knees.
Guitar amps are directional and our ears are not at our ankles. Have them tilt the amps up.
They are standing too close to their speakers, the volume is hitting their shins. In ear monitors are the answer. Not as expensive these days luckily.
In my current band, my Princeton Reverb can easily get too loud. Our solution is to mic my amp and trust that the sound guy gets the volume right through the mains. So much better! I can hear myself just fine, I hear the band better, and my bandmates are happy.
If they're not professional enough to recognize the problem, they're not professional enough to continue with. The thing to do is, at rehearsal, a soon as they BEGIN to get too loud, find a place to sit down and when they ask why you're sitting down, tell them directly, you've asked them not to get too loud, they chose to get too loud and you're not going to risk damaging your voice any longer. This isn't a preference issue, it's a safety issue. Protect yourself. There are other bands, but you only have one voice.
Obviously bands just exist for guitarists
Fight fire w fire, get a passive volume control nob for your vocals and set it about halfway at the start of shows?
When I was younger there was a really cool biker bar that I used to frequent. They had a stage built in their garden and would host little festivals. Once there was some glam wannabe band playing and the guitarist was so far up his own ass that he didn't seem to care about anyone else. Little by little he turned his guitar up until by the 4th song it was all you could hear, and it was painful to listen to. I used to do sound engineering, and spoke with the engineer behind the consol at the gig... he had already mutes the guitars, but his amp was overpowering by itself. I went to the front of the stage to get his attention to ask him to turn down... he got so angry, started shouting at me, his attitude on stage changed to being clearly pissed off, and didn't turn it down. Ruined the gig for the whole band and made himself look like a complete cock as the audience thinned out and people went back into the bar to spare their ears. Sometimes, asking nicely works. Sometimes you have to explain that they are making the overall sound really bad and people don't want to listen to just the guitarist. Sometimes they don't know they are doing it and they genuinely can't hear... as others have said; better monitoring solves this. Other times they are just ego wankers who don't give a shit about making music, or the overall sound and just want to show off their skill and be the centre if attention.
I’m a guitarist. Part of it is that loud feels good. But another part of it can be that guitars often “disappear” in a mix when the mix is bad or the arrangement is bad. So the guitarist may be turning up in order to hear themselves, at the expense of everyone else, because they don’t know any better ways to hear themselves better. If two guitars are playing in unison, or playing in unison with the bassist, it can be hard to hear yourself, because the sounds all blend together. If the guitar is using a high gain amp (eg 5150 or Rectifier) or a high gain fuzz, then the sound becomes very compressed, and it’s hard to hear yourself because the notes have almost zero transients (ie the initial “spike” and attack of the notes). If the guitars have too much bass, or if two guitar tones are nearly identical to one another, it can be hard to hear yourself. Some of this falls on the the mixing engineer (if there is one), but lots of it falls on the guitarist themselves or the band as a whole. Guitar tones that sound good in your bedroom often don’t sound good at rehearsals or gigs, so the band really needs to work on getting a good mix as a group. Also, the mix changes in every room, so the setup that works at rehearsal may not work at every gig. So if your guitarist is convinced that Gain = 6, Bass = 6, Mid = 4, Treble = 5, Presence = 8 is the perfect tone for every situation, he’s probably going to have a bad time hearing himself in many rooms. And he’ll turn up the volume to compensate, ruining the mix for everyone else. The other part is the arrangement of songs. Playing power chord riffs is fun. Playing big open chords or barre chords is fun. But they eat up a lot of sonic space in a mix and an arrangement. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started playing fewer notes in my chords, and mostly higher pitches. The guitar can often drop root notes and let the bassist play them. Or drop the 5ths out of a chord. Or play little licks, arpeggios, etc. Basically, if you write or arrange the guitar part to make room for the bassist or the other instruments, then suddenly the guitar becomes easier to hear, and you don’t need to turn up so loud. The band becomes easier to mix too.
No one on stage should be adjusting their stuff after sound check. Only whomever is running the booth can have a good sense of what the audience is hearing.If it were me, I'd would just explain this to your guitarist.
Use a decibel meter and have everyone play individually. Adjust sound levels until everyone is approximately equal in volume. Then mark amp pa levels and locations of speakers.
Good luck is all I can say!
Get your own PA and crank that shit! Or be honest with them and tell them they need to turn down and your fed up. Is there anyone that can sound check for you guys? Maybe it's drowning you out on stage but sounds great further away? Get a monitor for yourself maybe? Good luck
Basically, humans always have a loudness bias. Something that is louder, sounds better. So the guitarist will tweak, and when it sounds louder/is louder, they’ll prefer that tone. I am a guitarist myself, but also amateur recorder and mixer. You have to be careful about loudness bias in those two disciplines as well.
In my experience (non-professional), it begins and ends with the drummer, and drummers will give you every excuse in the book as to why they can't play any quieter, lol. drum shields are nice. Also, angling the guitar amps towards the guitar player's ears will sort that end of it out. There's no helping bass players, lol (me kidding bass players. no get mad.)
Not sure what genre you are in, but sometimes it is tough if you are in a progressive band to switch between cleans, overdrives, certain effects, etc while keeping the same volume. When I was in a band, practicing at home everything felt like it was the same volume when I would switch over but once you crank up the volume to rehearse, and put your gear in a different room, it's completely different and requires some adjusting.
But, that’s where the toan comes from.
at some point just state, “wow, it’s getting louder in here. can we all turn down?”. you need to take the direct approach here. you can do what i do: ask everyone to aim amps at their faces. if they REALLY want to hear themselves more than anything else in the room, that’s the best way. also, they will quickly turn volumes down if this happens. unless you are rehearsing on a sound stage for a theater or hall, no one need to play louder than the drummer. also, if your voice isn’t being heard, turn your shit up on them. aim it at their heads. see how long it takes them to ask to turn it down.
It's usually the drummer's fault... They get excited, play louder, and rest of band tries to adjust.
Make sure their amps are positioned so that they face them. Most of the time when they need more volume, it’s because they’re either behind their amp or “sitting” on it.
Guilty as charged, I can’t explain it, it just happens
Since I convinced the band to rehearse on lower volume, they now the see benefits. Much clearer sound, better to balance EQ and hit the sound one seeks, easier to hear the details (especially important for songwriting or fine tuning specific parts, vocals sound better and won’t destroy your hearing within 1 year.
They can't hear themselves properly in the mix. Getting some decent wireless in-ear monitors for each band member would be a good start. Decent kit should allow each musician to set their monitor mix to give them a bit of a boost over the main mix which then of course gives your audio mixing person (you do have one, don't you?) to concentrate on getting the mix bang on for the audience/recording/whatever.
I play guitar and sing, and I struggle with than in our small rehearsal space. You only get so much volume before feedback out of the PA, and our old bass player wouldn't stay in normal volume. My voice didn't compete, but the drummer and my guitar did. My voice lost the arms race. We practiced without him since he left, I can hear fine. Amp on 1/4 power mode, drummer playing normal, and me using normal mic. MOST guitar players figure out early playing in bands that where the speaker points matters. Having the amp high (on a pool table or work bench) has let me keep it at reasonable volumes by being at torso level instead of ankle level at bars and practices. Amp stands and chairs work sometimes, but some amps lose bottom end like that and need a wedge and more distance or the aforementioned billiards table. Some people are "MaH Toanz!" Crybabies and leave the amp on the floor, dimed, drowning out the band, often occupying the bass players lower mids, the singers highs, and being annoying. There are audible differences pushing an amp and speaker, but there's no point if the band sounds like ass. Something many guitar players don't care about as they wank on endlessly with minor pentatonic or chromatic scales nobody asked for...
Another vote for in-ears. You control everyone’s volume in your personal mix. All you need is to shell out a few thousand bucks. Barring that, split to your own headphone mixer/wireless with noise-canceling earbuds so you can guarantee you hear yourself.
Buy a bigger PA.
Run his rig through a final volume pedal that only you have access to.
We simply cannot help ourselves. I understand it pisses off singers and sound guys but I’m not capable of reform Sorry?
Attention whores come in all sexes. Also - it's very common for local bands which have shown themselves to be incapable of an idea for one new, or even one remade, song capable of making any music chart, anywhere, ever, to finally have the idea that "IF WE JUST PLAY LOUDER ..."
Lots of good comments At least in rock bands, drummers usually need a certain volume and energy. What I think happens is volume is generally dictated by the drums, and drummers get louder as they get into the music
Most guitarists don't realize that you need more mid-range instead of volume.
Yet another vote for in ear monitoring. There’s an illusion where you think you’re at the right volume and blending but it’s actually louder, and you have to compensate for that illusion. There’s also the illusion that you can’t hear yourself on a loud boomy stage so you keep turning up until sound is all one big square wave and there is no detail to make out anymore. Like a video screen where you keep turning up brightness until it becomes one big white blinding light Ear problems are really for real, you see lots of people telling their stories but I bet there’s countless more hiding. There’s a learning curve with in ear monitors but you get consistent and better results at a lesser volume that sounds like a greater volume because you can hear and make out detail
Talk with the rest of the band and get them to support you in asking him to turn down. If the whole band is telling him to turn down, then there's a better chance he'll do it. Otherwise replace him. There's no point in carrying on like that you'll guys will never get anywhere. The only bands that survive for a long time are those that whose members work well together and do things for the benefit of the whole band not just themselves.
Make everyone else louder too. Rock bands are way too quiet these days.
You'll probably never get 'em to do it, but you could go "silent stage" with everyone using DI and IEM. Then the mixer board controls everything.
as a loud guitar player most of us stand pretty close to the front of our amps with the speakers aimed at our knees.. 6 feet away or even a couple feet away with the cab angled up 15-20º and I realize I am in fact turned up too loud. sound design is a real thing. I used to drag my bogner & 2x12 around all the time to jam so Iwould be "loud enough"... 22 watt deluxe reverb on a stand or tilted back has plenty of meat.
Because we deserve louder volume!....no explanation for you! lol
I get this all the time as a guitarist. I like to point the amp and stage monitors directly at myself and/or augment with in-ears. It helps. The thing is, is that not everyone is reasonable (eg, soundman). I use a modeler with separate FOH feeds, and there have been many, many occurrences of people accusing me of being too loud when, in fact, the stage amp was completely off. Make sure you have a legit gripe before unloading on someone.
because the drummer will usually start playing harder so guitars will creep up too.
At practice, just tell them to turn down. If you aren’t comfortable enough (or lack the people skills to do so without coming off as a jerk), your band has issues. Most of the time, I let the drummer tell people to turn up or down because drums are kinda the volume everyone else needs to match. If you’re not comfortable telling people to turn down, just hand it off to the drummer. They can be the rehearsal “sound check” person. As for live shows, why are they touching anything mid set? If they can’t hear themselves, they need to tell the sound guy to turn them up in the mix on their monitors. Ideally, you want stage volume as low as possible without it affecting your sound. That’s going to produce the best audio for the audience every time.
Besides IEM behringer makes vocal monitor with an XLR in and out. Just plug your mic in and then out of the monitor and to the board so you have volume control over your own monitor. The sound guy doesn’t have to do anything.
Inexperience and lack of musical maturity
guitar amps don't put out much bass (deliberately) and your ears get accustomed to any volume, so naturally just turning up louder incrementally solves both these
Either IEMS or as a band, yall need to agree about volume levels. Louder is always worse.
You’re in the same type of band as me! Anyway, try recording your practices (audio only is fine) and send it to everyone to hear. They’ll see what’s going on. In the moment, if someone gets a lot louder, just say “hey, mind turning down a little?” If they get how bands work they won’t argue.
Guitar players are playing by ear so they need to hear themselves clearly
I’ve had this problem many times in rehearsals. If the drummer’s system is stereo try splitting drums through right channel and vocals through left. This allows the a cleaner sound for each instrument as such. It’s a physics speaker thing. The vocals will cut through as it’s not competing with the drums. Also you have a bit more individual control. Bit harder for live performance get a good pa and sound engineer.
but these go to 11.. one louder..
There is nothing that can be done. Such behavior is rewarded at all levels of the industry. Just look at Matt Pike!
I never need to. At my residency I use headphones we before our Vegas show.
This is how guitar players are, at least the vast majority. They are playing for their own egos and not for the song. The age of the guitar hero has taught them that it's all about them. As a band leader, my way of dealing with this was basically fire everyone until I found someone who understood the assignment.
As a guitarist, maybe you can phrase it in such a way that you’re suggesting ideas for the arrangement of the song. Talk about dynamics and where you want the vocals to stand out and make it more of a conversation about how the music should actually sound. Then, if they keep doing it you just need to be frank but professional and just tell them what’s bothering you. I got yelled at as a young gigging musician once by a keyboardist at a gig and I’m still very conscious about my levels in certain settings. You don’t have to leave a mark, but be direct
OPTION #1 DON'T KILL YOUR VOICE, just stop singing if it gets too loud OPTION #2 $70 in-ear monitors, and a Behringer MA400 it's a headphone monitor amp with a mic loop through and aux in OPTION #3 If you don't have your own PA but want more control/inputs than above $70 in-ear monitors, a 6m/30ft headphone extension cable plugged into the headphone out of a little $100 Behringer mixer Ch 1 your vocal mic, (split with a cheep DI) Ch 2 send from the PA, (FOH Mix) Ch 3 a mic in the middle of the stage (Room Sound) ch 4 Your guitar/keys etc This gives you more control OPTION #4 12-16ch digital mixer \~ There are lots of posts about bands that have put together their own live / IEM monitoring rig
Vocal tissue cannot be replaced or repaired. You gotta protect it. Period. Do you wear IEMs? That may help you block him out so you don’t have to over sing. Then the rest is up to FOH.
Ego, they all came to listen to me play guitar not any other member of the band. Very irritating.
Just mention it to them privately. They may be clueless to how it’s affecting you and your voice. Open, honest communication is typically the best course of action. Remain cool and if things get heated or they get defensive then you may need a band meeting. A good band is about working as a team for a common goal.
Ego and/or lack of knowledge, over the function of having lower stage volume and the advantage that it gives to house sound.
You don’t. Guitar players are simple creatures whose only goal in life is to play louder and spend all their time, money, and energy on tone… It’s against their very nature. It’s like asking birds not to migrate, or asking a dog to bark quietly. They simply can’t help it. It’s apart of their genetic make up. We’d all love them to turn down, but it’s not going to happen.
Lord I love playing all by my lonesome. I have a couple old dear friends that "jam" once a week. I can't handle it. Yes they get louder as it goes along (which sucks), but dynamics are just an opportunity for more ME. I'm surprised as many gigging people have that problem and have to deal with it through monitors instead of just knowing to back off during the cool base line or during the vocals.
Tone. Some sounds you can really only get out of the amp when it's up loud. I've pondered getting an attenuator for my guitarist? We both play guitar, but his really needs to be able to break up and I play fairly clean.
Imagine if you had a knob that could be turned so you can hear yourself better in that situation instead of shouting - would you turn it instead of putting on a worse performance? Guitarists have this knob and they do turn it. This is a widespread phenomena called volume creep. As the show goes on, the energy gets higher and so does volume. The way to combat it is to 1.) make sure everyone is consistent with volume. This is, in my experience as a guitarist, a losing battle if the drummer is anything other than a high-caliber pro. One song after asking to turn down, everyone is back to business as usual. 2.) tell the guitarist to get more guitar in the monitor so they don’t have to turn themselves up to hear later in the show. This won’t work in most rehearsal spaces since they don’t typically monitor. The last and least professional option 3) is to get a volume pedal for yourself so you can turn up as the rest of the band does.
someone has mentioned turning up the mids already, which is what they need to do. to be even more specific though, have your guitarist and bass players not touch their volume knobs, but use an equaliser to turn up a fairly narrow notch at around 1KHz. this is the fequency that will cut through the room and allow them to be heard without increasing the volume level.
In-ear monitors. I’ve also heard that some sound guys will move the guitarist amp, putting on a stand or leaning it at an angle so it points at the guitar players head and not their legs.
Sounds like you are playing with amateurs.
The only way I was able to fix it from a bassist perspective is I made both of our guitarists raise their amps up on a stable surface and point it directly at their own faces from nearly 3ft away, worked wonders cuz they don't want to go deaf (we all religiously wear ear pro too). The only reason they finally agreed to doing that is because both me the vocalist and the drummer all made an agreement that if they were too loud at a certain part in a track during rehearsal we had a signal for us to stop to run it back again from the top after we tell the guitarist to turn down. I also found out that the perfect volume to have the guitar amps to be (both playing at the same time) is the absolute loudest the drummers crash and snare hits are if they're even the tiniest bit louder than they're WAY too loud.
“Dude, you’re too loud. Save it for the solo” Also make sure to invest in some ear protection if you haven’t already
IEMs are great, but for a quick solution, ask the guitarist to put the Amp on a stand. The floor tends to eat up the bass end of the sound, and the stand will help with that.
1) If there’s acoustic drums, they set the volume because there is generally no controls on how loud the drummer needs to play to execute the song. 2) If there is a back line amp and the guitar keeps turning up, there is likely an EQ problem. Guitar should be able to sit in the mix just below the vocals EQ wise. Likely not enough mids and too much highs and lows. 3) Guitar solo volume is intended to replace the lead vocal space, so it should be just about as loud as the lead vocal. A solo is a “solo” and should be clearly sitting on top of the band. But after the solo, the guitar should blend back into the rhythm space.
Probably the guitarist is getting ear fatigue. This happens to me and my perception of the tone is that it is quiet, when really my ears are just done. They need to lay off the volume and maybe all of you can get some in ears or something.
Oh man, I get it. I had a bassist that was endlessly complaining about his rig never sending right. Every song he would get louder and louder until I (the drummer) couldn’t hear anything but my cymbals and the bass.
Omg are you me? I have been asking my guitarist to stop turning up the volume during his solos for a looonggg time. I’ll even tell him during our gigs to turn it down and he gets annoyed lol. I’m like you don’t need to turn up bc all the other musicians pull back during your solos!!! It’s super frustrating. I use my Bose L1 Pro 16 for my vox and Bose S1 Pro for my monitor. I know the best answer is IEMs but I don’t have money for that atm. I guess I’ll have to keep telling him for now, or get a new guitarist lol.
IEM's, or an amp stand. Or at the very least, tilt the amp back against a wall
Measure spl with a meter and police that shit. You all shluldn’t be going deaf at practice
EQ
You aren't risking your voice, you are risking your hearing. I think you have to take that seriously, and start looking for a new gig.
It’s definitely a risk to the voice when you’ve got to start shouting because you can’t hear yourself in the monitors anymore. I’m a metal dude, screamed in bands for years and even with THAT kind of vocal style you have to watch it with stuff like that. Any time you’re stretching outside your comfortable zones with your voice you’re capable of putting it at risk.
Guitarist here, been usually the second guitarist in gigging bands for the last 50 years. First of all, I hear what you're saying, loud and clear - no pun intended. Secondly, as others have said or implied, this is a common problem; I'd say it occurs in 75% of the bands I've been in. I'm in the small minority of guitarists to whom the singer might say, "turn it up" because I'm trying to hold the line on volume creep. (Yes, sometimes the drummer is the main culprit.) I agree with the suggestions for IEM, amp stands, etc. But the root of the problem is really cooperation, discipline, being sensitive to overall volume, listening to how you (the guitarist) might be affecting the singer, gauging how well you can hear the vocals and everything else in the band. This requires at least one conversation, and possibly more. Those convos can of course include practical suggestions. They also give the guitarists an opportunity to tell their perspective. But in most bands, the lead singer is king; the rest of us play supporting roles unless we're the lead instrument (I'm ignoring uncommon exceptions to these general rules). Ultimately you want everyone in the band to be aware of these dynamics enough so you never have to say anything, and they always self-correct. Among other things, having the discipline to prevent volume creep, and gauging how your volume impacts others in the band should lead to a tighter, more dynamic sound, and possibly reduce the chance of club owners being frustrated because they have to tell you to turn it down.
You can't. They are belligerent. I'm a guitarist. I know.
You know you can just turn your vocals up right?
Encourage them to get an angled amp stand to point directly at their head.
I can tell you this; the longer you play, the more you’ll crank that amp. Your guitar player should go get a hearing test. I would wager a paycheck they’ve got frequency and overall loss in at least one ear. Protect your hearing or one day you’ll walk away from that cranked amp, and the next song you’ll compose will be “Silence No More.” Do. Not. Get. Early. Onset. Tinnitus. And you will. Earplugs and IEMs will save you a lot of avoidable grief.
You could use some tech to help – look into in-ear monitors so you can always hear yourself