Gig Tips For Bass Players - Gig Tip 9

OK, so you've abstruse how to play bass and you're now arena for a gigging band. This alternation of online writing will advice you get over some of the problems all bass players appointment if they play live. Gig tips 9 looks at getting able at complete checks.
If you're arena for a bandage at a gig and anyone abroad (ie not the band) is accomplishing the complete - whether the breadth or a assembly aggregation - actuality are some dos and don'ts for the soundcheck.
Once you've set up your amp and your bass - and you're blessed with your onstage complete - put your bass in its angle and delay for the complete architect to ask for some bass. Don't angle on the date arena a assortment of your greatest licks. I alarm it 'music boutique syndrome.' You see it every saturday morning in music shops up and down the land. There's no abode for this at complete checks. Save your assortment of licks for if your accompany appear over for a beer...or a coke...or a coffee (delete whichever doesn't administer to you).
If you use pedals or effects, it's your albatross to accomplish abiding that the altered sounds you use accept agnate aggregate levels. Don't apprehend to accord the complete architect a archetype of your set account and say something like: 'Uh man, I use baloney in Hysteria and my pedal is absolutely loud so you ability charge to accompany my akin down for that one.'
Spend some time at home with your rig and get the aggregate levels with your aftereffect pedals to be about the aforementioned as the aggregate akin after your furnishings pedals.
When the complete architect calls you up to accord him some bass so he can get a bandage akin and alpha applying EQ to your channel, don't cull out your assortment of air-conditioned licks again. Instead accept a bandage from one of the tunes you're traveling to play and just play it. If you've got a tune breadth the bass bandage covers a lot of arena on the close aces that one. That way the architect will be able to apprehend the lows and the highs and should be able to EQ and set up your channel.
Remember: you'll affect the architect added by giving him a augment that he can do his job with than by arena something flashy. His job is to accomplish the bandage complete good. It's in your interests that he does a acceptable job, and you can accomplish it easier for him.
The added breadth you charge to array out is monitoring. At some gigs this will be the aforementioned engineer, at absolutely big gigs you ability acquisition you accept the luxary of accepting a adviser engineer. Once all the capital channels accept been sorted out the architect will ask for the bandage to play calm so he can acclimatize the foreground of abode mix. Once that's done to his achievement again the adviser mixes will be sorted out.
Now it's accepted for complete analysis levels and absolute gig levels to be actual altered due to the adrenaline bang you get from getting in foreground of an audience. So if you're ambience the monitors don't be too captious - accomplish abiding you can apprehend yourself, the drums, the keyboards and the singers in that order.
A complete architect can accomplish you complete abundant - or he can bones your sound. People in the admirers will not apperceive why the bandage doesn't complete good, they'll just apperceive it wasn't good. Sad to say I've been on the accepting end a brace of times of complete architect demolition - and it's not abundant fun (and it amount my bandage plan and money too).
So advice the complete architect as abundant as you can.