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Dealing with feedback with an uncompromising drummer


geoham

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In a pub the mix should be infinitely better with no drum mics and no IEM for the drummer but give him a monitor with the FOH mix and tell him to play to that. Let him work up a sweat pumping his kick and it will sap his enthusiasm for smashing the bejesus out of the rest.

 

He will want the monitor turned up and up. You can probably wind up with the PA off and just thr sub still running. Been there done that. Surprisingly not as rough as guts out front as you would think.

 

Other option. Put him out front so he can play to the PA. Again no IEM no mics. The punters will be all over him to cool his jets.

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1 hour ago, diskwave said:

A good drummer "plays" the drums the way you and I play our instruments, he does not "bash" the drums as loud as possible. How old is this guy fgs, sounds like a teen that hasn't a clue.

 

He's about as far away you can be from being a teen and still be a gigging drummer!

I feel I've portrayed him in a pretty bad light here. He does have dynamics in his playing, and isn't always smashing everything. But, when he goes for it, he's loud. Our set is full of upbeat crowd pleasers, so this is fairly often. In smaller venues, the close proximity of the mic to the speakers just makes it it difficult for vocals to keep up.

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Just casting my mind back to when I was but a sprog. I got into a very good six piece prog rock band (Punk sadly killed us) ...mutiple keys, Moogs, mellotone etc, guitars etc with an old school 5K EV/JBL PA and, played amongst the bigger places small pubs too, and always had a balanced sound. 

I think for a drummer in a small space it is quite an art but it can be done. MInd you I was always bitchin about having to be so quiet on stage too which is kind of annoying when youve got a 70's V4B rig behind you... haha

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On 29/10/2024 at 11:18, BassAdder60 said:

Been there, some vocal mikes are terrible for feedback especially with female singers who lack power 

 

There are a few around that seem to be better without being very expensive.

We had similar trouble to this in a previous band - our drummer wasn't obstructive and did try lots of different things, but he was big lad with long levers and could be thunderous at times. we used an SM58 for our (very good but non-powerful) female singer as that was about all we knew. It was really hard to get a non-feedback level. A different vocal mic is also a good shout.

 

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It really isn't about the equipment. I played a little cafe venue earlier this year. We sold the gig as "almost acoustic" which basically means the guitarist and bassist use acoustic instruments that plug in. I played my usual set up minus a couple of crashes, so 26" bass drum, bell brass snare, 24" ride, 22" crash, 16" hats. I'm a big guy and I use big sticks. I just played to the mix all night, which basically meant leathering the un-mic'd bass drum, and tippy-tapping everything else. I had a great time!

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Seeing as he plays appropriately in his other band it's an attitude issue rather than a technique one. He views your band as a throwaway gig where you can put up with him playing in a selfish manner or get someone else in. You're fighting a losing battle here really, a drum screen may look slightly ridiculous in a pub setting but it might be the only way to paper over the cracks and get FoH under control.

 

We have a similar (lesser) issue with a guitarist who has started to bring his amps to gigs and change his settings on a regular basis after a long period of us just using IEMS. I end up doing most of the PA side of things and it just causes issues where the consistently we had is replaced by problems which I don't always have time to fix and can't do much with anyway as he's taken control away from the desk.

 

I don't have any time for selfishness in working bands, same with poor song suggestions that are only put forward because one member wants to play them on stage even though they clear a busy dance floor at every gig. It's the same root cause every time - failed rock star syndrome.

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1 hour ago, cheddatom said:

It really isn't about the equipment. I played a little cafe venue earlier this year. We sold the gig as "almost acoustic" which basically means the guitarist and bassist use acoustic instruments that plug in. I played my usual set up minus a couple of crashes, so 26" bass drum, bell brass snare, 24" ride, 22" crash, 16" hats. I'm a big guy and I use big sticks. I just played to the mix all night, which basically meant leathering the un-mic'd bass drum, and tippy-tapping everything else. I had a great time!

Having said that I have found the SM58 beta has greater tolerance before feedback than the standard 58. If you’re pushing volumes to the limit then mic choice is important. 
I play drums as well as bass and I love it when we play smaller venues and I have to pay attention to dynamics and be inventive. Someone else mentioned that drums, and specifically cymbals, don’t sound the same unless you hit them hard… well this is all well and good if you’re say Benny Greb and the audience are there specifically to hear you, but otherwise you’re asking an audience to indulge the drummers whims which is not really the object of the exercise for most bands. I play everything from a large kit with shiny cymbals, small kit with dark cymbals (actually my favourite, which helps) to an ekit. Whatever gets the gig right. 

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3 hours ago, geoham said:

He's about as far away you can be from being a teen and still be a gigging drummer!

I feel I've portrayed him in a pretty bad light here. He does have dynamics in his playing, and isn't always smashing everything. But, when he goes for it, he's loud. Our set is full of upbeat crowd pleasers, so this is fairly often. In smaller venues, the close proximity of the mic to the speakers just makes it it difficult for vocals to keep up.

 

Yes, but you said he has threatened to quit before and that he'd rather not play than changing his volume... I have no doubt he's a great guy to hang out with and that he plays really well, but in a band you need to think about the band's sound first. 

 

However  you mentioned earlier that maybe he hasn't realised the full extent of how much his drums affect reaching a balanced sound in front, and the feedback issues with the vocal mic. I think this has to be the first thing, he has to understand that it's not a matter of someone preferring this or that, but that in small venues a loud drumkit can make the band mix unmanageable. Hopefully if he really understands that, he'll be able to compromise.

 

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3 hours ago, TimR said:

Have you tried reducing the Mic gain and increasing the main volume? 

I think the loop is mains to singer's mic, because the stage is cramped, so robbing Patsy to pay Pete is a wash.

 

They want to lower the overall volume so they can turn down the PA and keep the mic gain. The only way that works is with drummer playing ball.

 

Drummer must be either deaf or hasn't got the vocal in his IEM mix. Having him blazing away to his own IEM mix is the beginning of the problems.

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Just had a thought... do you record your gigs? I use a Zoom 4k stereo thing which I put out front (and hope someone doesn't steal it!) and it pretty much records the audio as the audience would be hearing it at that point. 

At the last gig I managed to put it on top of a light fitting (admittedly most of the audience weren't listening to the gig at that location) but it gave an excellent view of the band and we got the balance about right so we're actually using parts of it (the bits we didn't c@ck up) for a live recording. 

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1 hour ago, Boodang said:

Just had a thought... do you record your gigs? I use a Zoom 4k stereo thing which I put out front (and hope someone doesn't steal it!) and it pretty much records the audio as the audience would be hearing it at that point. 

At the last gig I managed to put it on top of a light fitting (admittedly most of the audience weren't listening to the gig at that location) but it gave an excellent view of the band and we got the balance about right so we're actually using parts of it (the bits we didn't c@ck up) for a live recording. 

This is a good idea. I’ve got a little Zoom H1 I can try and hide somewhere.

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8 hours ago, nige1968 said:

Four pages in and nobody said 'cajon' yet?

 

(For the drummers in the house, it's a fancy word for 'wooden participation box').

As a drummer I'm just going to say that as a substitute for drums, cajons suck @rse!! 

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