Band practice setup question

E

Evz

Inspired
Hey guys,

Right now out 4-piece band practice at my basement, and we're running the following setup:

- a set of unmiced acoustic drums
- 1 axe FX 2 for two guitars (each taking an L/R track)
- a bass guitar running into an old spider amp (no bass amp)

The axe stereo outputs, a vocal mic, and a condenser over the drums, and a split of the bass guitar all run into my fire face UFX.

Out of the UFX, the axe and vocal outputs are routed to a PA (2x QSC K12's) and the drum mic and bass line are silently recorded.

So in today's practice I was not satisfied with the mix levels we were getting, now I understand the basement is not perfect, but I am looking at maybe doing the following options:

1) route the bass through the PA as well, and figure out a good mix on the go.
2) get some passive monitors for each member, and send them a personal submix, so everyone can hear what they want to hear...

3) I am option to options/ ideas from you guys?

I just want to get a good balanced sound so there is no volume war (right now it's hard to get a good mix, and I'm worried running the bass through the QSC will result in lost bottom end).

I find there's only limited spaces where the mix sounds well right now, so any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks!
 
Without knowing what you don't like about the sound, it's hard to make any helpful suggestions.
 
With the QSC's as the PA I wouldn't run the drums through it in that small of a space. Obviously face the PA towards the group using it as a monitoring system and balance the guitas and vocal to the drums. A small inexpensive bass amp would be a good add as to not tax the PA low end but if you had to running the bass through the PA is an option but without a sub it's not the best one.
 
Mic the kick drum and get a bass combo amp and run an aux from the desk to the amp with a bass guitar / kick mix. Compress the crap out of the bass and kick at the desk. You might need a re-amp box to get the best tone as the desk is line level out. But try it without first to save coin.

Mic the snare and get two overheads. Put the *reverb return only into the PA*. IOW not the direct mic signal as the snare and cymbals are the loudest part of the kit. This is for reverb and filling in the sound. You can high pass this at 500hz or higher to make sure the low end is not getting to the PA.

Finally, send the kick to an aux and high pass up around 1000hz or higher and feed some of that into the PA too. You are looking for beater click here only. You can EQ this aux to make the beater click really emphasized. Don't overload the PA with low end.
 
The setup is in a rectangular room, with the drums on one of the short side facing the opposite short side. The PA is set up on stands opposite the drum kit, and facing the drum kit. Bass/vocals, and guitar all stand between the PA and the drums. The drum mic does not pass sound to the PA, just used to record the session
 
Evz said:
The setup is in a rectangular room, with the drums on one of the short side facing the opposite short side. The PA is set up on stands opposite the drum kit, and facing the drum kit. Bass/vocals, and guitar all stand between the PA and the drums. The drum mic does not pass sound to the PA, just used to record the session
Click to expand...
It's going to be dicey trying to dial in you sound in that space to use when playing out. There's so much room influence in your basement, you've got drums and PA in corners...what you do there may not translate very well to a gig.
 
Rex said:
It's going to be dicey trying to dial in you sound in that space to use when playing out. There's so much room influence in your basement, you've got drums and PA in corners...what you do there may not translate very well to a gig.
Click to expand...

This is very true.

Even just a wedge mix dialed in, in a small space, will not usually work at the show. Unless the performance space is roughly the same.

My suggestion above was just for the practice, to get a little studio vibe going on the high end frequencies of the kit. Reverb on just the highs of a drum kit really fill in a small performance space like that in my experience.

And I've used bass combo amps and keyboard combo amps as makeshift subs a ton.
 
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so revisiting this thread, for the small jam space we have, would it be easier to simply separate all sound sources, ie:
Guitar through dedicated speaker/fr/cab
Bass through dedicated cab
Vocals through QSC's (on poles)
and drums without a mic (they cut through by themselves and we use them as a volume metric)?

Cause I feel like right now running 2 guitars through the axe panned L/R to stereo PA with vocals in the middle causes a weird volume war.
 
If you are having a volume war with guitars it's generally because they are fighting for the same frequencies. Long story short you need to have complimentary tones between the 2 guitars and also make sure you are not eating into the vocalists frequencies. You say you record everything well look at each track and see what they use for frequencies and then make adjustments from there.
 
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