The stoneage problem: drums too loud

[Hotplate]

Maybe it's just me but I really don't get the "I can't stand earplugs, therefore it's not a solution."

I think that sometimes has to do w/ the type of music you're playing.. for various metal genres, I can see it making sense. But for funk, r&b, blues, rock (what I play), I don't think it's as needed unless you're playing above a certain volume level or the band is not good enough to control dynamics. In other words.. it depends.

 

[RoshRoslin]

I think that sometimes has to do w/ the type of music you're playing.. for various metal genres, I can see it making sense. But for funk, r&b, blues, rock (what I play), I don't think it's as needed unless you're playing above a certain volume level or the band is not good enough to control dynamics. In other words.. it depends.

During high school I was a trumpet player and I always ended up marching next to the drumline during parades and performances. Came home with my ears ringing and couldn't get to sleep half the time. I went to guitar center and got earplugs so I could just be on the field during practices and performances without blowing out my ear drums. My marching band was about 350 people strong at the time.

I had a revelation during my guitar gigging years around 18-19. I was used to having earplugs in and dialing in my amp with them in and found that the high-end attenuation made me set my guitar amp (2204 JCM 800) brighter and more cutting than someone who didn't use earplugs. I dialed in my tone so that it would stay fat, but I could still hear myself during rehearsals.

One gig I left my earplugs at home accidentally and was forced to play the gig without them. I was doing soundcheck and listened to my tone and said to myself "wow, that would cut someone's head off". But, I already had scratches in the faceplate to get "my tone" so I decided to keep them there. I walked out into the venue on a wireless next to the soundboard and listened to my tone while the whole band ran through the chorus of one of our songs and found that the guitar while alone sounded so brash and bright, when the whole band played it sat sooooooo well in the mix. Right undeneath the cymbals, and above the bass and snare without smothering the vocals.

It was a huge eye opener for me. And honestly I can thank the years of earplug use leading up to that moment. So when guitarists talk about losing all the high end due to earplugs, they forget that they can compensate with the mid/treble/presence knob to "get that high end back" and then in the grand mix of your guitar with the rest of the band you wont run into that "Oh we couldn't hear your guitar" thing an audience member will tell you after the show.

 

[Stratoblaster]

I've used two baffles in a "V" in front of the drums, sized just high enough to block the toms, helped a lot to contain the drums in a small-ish room, provided the drummer can resist hammering the cymbals like the Hulk. Cheap and pretty effective....

 

[Krisz]

Another benefit (although it might not seem like it at times) is that you can REALLY hear EVERYTHING that is going on. It is surprising the amount of detail that gets washed out in a small practice room...

I agree whole-heartedly! For the past 8 years or so 90% of my rehearsals and shows have been with IEMs. It took a little while to get comfortable with it, but it tightens things up so much in the band's sound.

 

[d2dark]

get a Small mixer and headphone amp with Shure IEM ( the 215 work really fine and are only 100$ each)
I built a complet setup for my band under 1500$ CDN

my band jam in a 8x12 room with a live drum, everything is micked up and it also translate really well for live show
(we bring our monitor console and IEM live)

 

[Zwiebelchen]

During high school I was a trumpet player and I always ended up marching next to the drumline during parades and performances. Came home with my ears ringing and couldn't get to sleep half the time. I went to guitar center and got earplugs so I could just be on the field during practices and performances without blowing out my ear drums. My marching band was about 350 people strong at the time.

I had a revelation during my guitar gigging years around 18-19. I was used to having earplugs in and dialing in my amp with them in and found that the high-end attenuation made me set my guitar amp (2204 JCM 800) brighter and more cutting than someone who didn't use earplugs. I dialed in my tone so that it would stay fat, but I could still hear myself during rehearsals.

One gig I left my earplugs at home accidentally and was forced to play the gig without them. I was doing soundcheck and listened to my tone and said to myself "wow, that would cut someone's head off". But, I already had scratches in the faceplate to get "my tone" so I decided to keep them there. I walked out into the venue on a wireless next to the soundboard and listened to my tone while the whole band ran through the chorus of one of our songs and found that the guitar while alone sounded so brash and bright, when the whole band played it sat sooooooo well in the mix. Right undeneath the cymbals, and above the bass and snare without smothering the vocals.

It was a huge eye opener for me. And honestly I can thank the years of earplug use leading up to that moment. So when guitarists talk about losing all the high end due to earplugs, they forget that they can compensate with the mid/treble/presence knob to "get that high end back" and then in the grand mix of your guitar with the rest of the band you wont run into that "Oh we couldn't hear your guitar" thing an audience member will tell you after the show.

a.k.a: the reason why 95% of metal bands sound terrible.

Seriously, if you don't care about your audience, then turning up presence to a level that makes it pierce through earplugs might be a solution. However, I do care.

 

[RoshRoslin]

a.k.a: the reason why 95% of metal bands sound terrible.

Seriously, if you don't care about your audience, then turning up presence to a level that makes it pierce through earplugs might be a solution. However, I do care.

Well, most (terrible) metal bands also turn up their amps to obscene volumes and not let the soundman do their job and what you're hearing in the audience is only stage volume, not what's running through the house. They scoop their mids out to sound like James Hetfield. Also, sm 57s + V30s (speaker of choice for most terrible metal bands) exacerbate the "cutting the room in half" problem. Also, no earplug use. They probably lost everything above 12k in their hearing at that point. Hence the extra brightness to compensate for what they can't hear anymore.

If you read my earlier posts, I also advocate for being a team player and the best live sounding bands are the ones that can "mix" their sound on the stage without the need of a soundman.

Case in point, if you look and hear Pete Thorn's tones, tone matches and Axe FX patches (as well as recordings of his analog rigs). There's a certain level of brightness and "cutting" kind of tones. His rhythm tones use the bright switch a lot. This isn't some razor blade, Treble on 10, Bass on Zero, strat bridge pickup thing. It's just bright and brash enough to cut through a mix without ripping the front row a new one. That type of tone always works well in a mix.

 

[Foxhole]

Hmm; the problem is that I'm not a drummer, so there is no value for me in investing into anything that is only useful for the drummer per se. And our drummer is broke as fuck and I'm the only one with disposable income.

But I also thought about the headphones solution. I was thinking about getting one of those 4-channel headphone amps... they are cheap as fuck for what they do and offer a lot of extra routing options. And a good pair of cans can isolate sound pretty well. The problem is that this makes communication between band members a lot harder, unless they all have vocal mics.
Also, it makes leveling of presets a bit harder to do, as headphone levels do not translate well to live levels.

My band had the same problem (very small room with a hard hitting metal drummer) and the only way was to go with isolation headphones for everyone. Now we are all wearing "Beyerdynamic DT770 M" isolation headphones, which are super isolating, super comfortable to wear and feature a very handy built-in volume fader. We feed individual monitor mixes for each band member form our audio interface. Guitars (Axefx2), bass (Sansamp), vocals and drum mics are going directly to our audio interface (RME UFX) for recording and monitoring purposes. I even put a bit of the overhead drum mics back to the headphone feed, since isolation is so good with these headphones and for communication purposes with the other band members. This setup is easy to record and it translates well into live situations (with the change to in-ear monitors - since big headphones dont look that good on stage imo Fun fact: listening from outside of the rehearsal room you could think its just a drummer playing alone.

 

[Patzag]

This is what we use.

Good practice for the drummer and makes levels tolerable in our small practice space.
Plus a little self control.

 

[mongey]

I feel ya. I have always loved playing loud and have pretty much always played with loud drummers. lately I'm getting over it . I spend allot of money and time dialing in sounds I like , either with amps or my XL , and then have to wear plugs and cant hear it anyway .

I have A set of pro, molded plugs and even with those it still sounds muffeld and uninspiring .

I would happily play with a drummer with an electric kit everytime . these days even a low to mid range elec kit hooked up to a laptop running a drum plug in can sound great and have minimal latency

Its those damn cymbals that get ya

 

[lauke-lux]

It's a common problem for younger bands and metalheads. Here some ideas, a selection from what has been advanced hereabove.
1) tame the beast. In conjunction with some stagetape or damping cloths (rubber or teflon....check in any respectable music store) this will get you half of the job done.
2) or rather 1st. If your room is containing too much reflecting construction material : throw in some carpets on floor and walls. 30pct
3) plse read the "my amp is too big when...." thread. This is another 20 pct of the solution. Turn down all instruments amps until everyone can hear the singer sing without him/her having to spit their lungs out at every line of text.
4) Yes if all of this does not help enough go for the frequency corrected earplugs. works flawless and for 50 box you should be fixed on the web
5) if all of this wont help: stop going to the sports room as well as any musculation courses or stop making music. But normally 1-4 will fix your problem.

Sorry for taking this with a bit of hilarity but the problem is as old as there have been whores on earth and it really is a matter of goodwill and some teamwork

post mod: indeed check the frequency band of each player. kill any too much scooped guitar eq that will only make a soup of your band's low end spectrum. Lower instrument eq in the vocal spectrum of the singer or take care of turn down volume during singing parts. Probably the most difficult because it needs us to be alert for anything that happens beyond our own playing

 

[lauke-lux]

http://forum.fractalaudio.com/lounge/94939-you-know-your-amp-too-big-when.html

 

[Zwiebelchen]

http://forum.fractalaudio.com/lounge/94939-you-know-your-amp-too-big-when.html

I appreciate your effort. But the problem is not that we can't hear ourselves. The problem is that we don't want to go home with ringing ears from the cymbals.
And turning down all other instruments will do jack-shit to the cymbals.

Anyways, folks, we tried the headphone solution and it works great! My cans provide exactly the right amount of isolation to make the drums comfortable in volume. No ringing ears even after a 4 hour session. We just mic'ed the kick and added it slightly to the headphone mix, as cans removed some of the critical kick attack.

I just bought a 90$ 6-channel headphone amp that allows individual Aux Ins per headphones, so we can even add "more me" via Aux sends. Cool solution. And it actually forces us to play better, as headphones emphasize all the small fuckups. A bit unusual to hear the sound without room acoustics... but I think that's just a matter of getting used to it.