There are a lot of key elements that make a musician descent.  One of the ones I experience often is knowing when to adapt.  This mainly goes out to rock bands.  In practice sessions, your amps do need to be up a little to be heard in the mix, but lets talk about live performances a little bit.

Time and time again, musicians come into the bar and refuse to adapt because they know no better.

I’m here to tell you to trust your sound guy.

I know its a hard thing to do, but what makes a good sound guy is the ability to control a band.  Sound comes out of your amps, into the mics, and to the board.  Here’s the critical part: The board tells the PAs how much of the sound going into the mic to project.  The louder your amp is, the less sound is coming out of the speakers, and the less control the engineer has.  There is a little angled speaker in front of you called a monitor.  That monitor is controlled by the same channel controlling the main PA’s.  The louder you are the less we can put through those monitors, so the less you’re going to hear yourself and the other musicians.  That’s only your problem.  Our problem is that you’re making your band sound kinda crappy because you can’t be balanced evenly with the ensemble.

There are only a few things you need to do to adapt to this setting: First, before you pack your stack up for the gig, turn your master down 2 notches (unless you have an Orange, then see how big the venue is first, you may need another amp for this gig); Second, don’t be afraid to tell the sound guy what you want in the monitors and how much, that’s what we are there for; Last but not least, BALANCE YOUR PEDALS!!!.  Nothing is more damaging to your sound than a drastic volume change in the live setting.  Consistency is your goal.  The more control you give your sound guy, the more you’re gonna get what you want all the way around.

Good luck and keep it unified.

~C.A.Mooneyhan

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