Band advice

Linchpin

Linchpin

New member
Here's the deal, my bass player always sets himself too loud. He's always been this way. When we jam, I try to turn my self and the drums up, but he'll casualy slip his own volume up to compensate. Eventually it gets to the point where turning up my guitar any further (in turn turning up the bass) means the drums are nothing but background noise.

At first I thought it was just me. I like to hear a lot of myself when I play too, but the odd time he forgets to crank the volume up before a song, you can really hear the quality difference.

I don't know what to do. I've told him to turn down, he'll back off a little but it's only temporary. It's been like this ever since I can remember. I mean, the bass is supposed to sit in the pocket and fill in the lower fequencies right? I need to be able to hear the crunch of the guitar and feel the kick drum.

He's also my best friend so I don't want to sound like some sort of self-righteous dick by saying the drums have to be louder and my guitar has to be way louder. I'm hesitant to confront him because he's the type of guy that would take it the wrong way.

Can anyone help out? I can't be the only one that has been in this situation. Type of music is metal btw

Thanks
 
He's obviously got a comfort level where he needs to hear himself. Best way around that is to set him up so (a) he hears himself really well, and (b) he doesn't hear you guys as much.

Hard to do if he bounces all over the stage. but otherwise, you might work on pointing your speakers away from him, or putting some more git and drum in the PA (assuming you do full reinforcement) and/or monitors.

Good luck.
 
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