Following the discussion about volume... my gig last night had to be done without the keyboard player...
I found out on thusday so I had a few spare hours to check the set and after ditching final countdown and jump I figured I could cover pretty much all the other regular songs in the set if I merge his parts with mine where they matter.
Gig turned out great and the audienece didn't seem to notice
(it's a venue we do every couple of months).
But - the on stage sound was a million times better - I could how the bassist (for better and worse!) and I could hear myself! I had to tone down the leaping around and headbanging a little so that side was less fun but I really enjoyed playing guitar instead...
He's a mate and a great player so we would never lose hom from the band but his diary now doesn't matter as much when we're booking gigs...
Comments
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The keys were piercingly loud and almost at the same level of the
Vocalist. They were a good band and the crowd liked them, the mix was bad though.
I ended up going to another pub that had a Jazz Quartet on(Sax, Keys, Drums, Double Bass) No Guitarist and it was all instrumental but they were fantastic. I was told the artist was called Sarah Poulter(Sax) and bloody hell, could she play and the mix was spot on.
Can't find bugger all on t'internet about that name so am wondering if I heard
the name right.
It's fine - it's just a pub band and we're more about entertaining and having a laugh but it was a really nice change last night to enjoy hearing the guitar so clearly
Keyboardists also tend to default to padding their way through the chord changes rather than playing parts, so they dictate the sound and the harmony. The guitar equivalent is doing 6 note chord strums on everything. Good keyboardists in almost any genre don't do this but is often the default position of pub band ones. I guess quite often playing on stage how they would play at home - doing the singalong version of everything.
Of course I might just be speaking from bitter experience and its only the ones I've played with who do this...
When the Manics started using a keyboardist, it was fine for the newer songs that needed it but it made a farce of songs like Motown Junk that really don't need Bontempi Hammond all over them.
@Bellycaster - is this your sax lady - http://www.sarahbolter.co.uk/
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Nice find mate, that's her. I must have misheard the name "Sarah Bolter" for Poulter, like the Golfer. Just got in, so I'll look further into her website at a later time.
Did you know of her already or did you use cunning detective work to find who she was?
Herself and her musicians were fantastic. The Double Bass player made my jaw drop with a solo he did and the notes come out of her so fluently.
Cheers, KK
On the subject of keyboard players, I must've been lucky as I didn't experience any of this. Mind you, for a lot of the functions I played, we didn't have a bassist and the keyboard player took care of that as well as his regular duties. He just provided a lovely wall of sound that was very easy to play against and didn't occupy my frequencies. I had more of an issue with hi hats and cymbals robbing me of my clean, funk sounds!
Bloody Drummers :x