Do you want to play better as a band? FIRST PART
Keys and Tips to Play Better as a Band
Hello to all the community of @steemit in this opportunity I want to talk about something very important in the world of music, we all know that there comes a time when we feel frustrated as a musician, that the band does not sound like it should sound, or just we feel that we are not moving forward, I say this because of my own experiences, it is like a desert where we enter and we do not know what to do. Today I will tell you some tips that served as lessons for the evolution of our band.
There are several factors in which we have to be careful when giving a presentation as a band, because any mistake that there is, in any of the factors that I am going to mention next, could cause us disappointment and shame with the public, today I will mention 3 areas where you have to be vigilant and very cautious
1. Musical Instruments and all their Wiring Connections
This is a very essential factor, since the sound of our instruments travels by cable until reaching the mixing console and then amplified by the speakers until reaching our audience, every musical band has to be careful in this area, our cable It has to be perfectly functional and does not have to produce any kind of land or noise, only the sound of our instrument, there is a device called a box box, or as they say in my country, the direct box that is shown in the box. image
How does this work? I explain to them with my own knowledge, a direct box is a decibel reducer and we can say that it removes noise, why? good there are line instruments that their sound is extremely strong for the input of the console and this device serves to reduce in volume level, as we said it has a button to be activated if our cable is generating some noise. This is connected via a 1/4 plug cable that looks like the one shown in the image
As an input to our instrument, now as an output for our mixer, we need a xrl cable as seen in this image
All those, cable has to be operative and functional to send some inconvenience or headache later on.
2. A Good Mix in our Console
Mixing is another fundamental aspect when playing live, a bad mix can damage the presentation as well as a good mix can take all the performance of the band, we must be cautious in this area and always before start being satisfied with the mix, all the volumes of each instrument sound in the necessary expansion, now for this we would have to make another post to explain how to get a good mix, but here I leave this page that I found that I found very instructive Instructions for Mixing Well (translate it into English because it is in Spanish), but I will give you some advice regarding this, when I had little knowledge of this, I had a strategy that helped me a lot, I put a song that I knew was well mixed, then I listened at the drum level and tried to make the band's drum sound the same level, then listen I used the voice, and I tried to make it sound the same level with the rest of the instruments, because it's not very professional but what they're starting for will be useful, a piece of advice that I give you as I am the singer of the band I've had many experience with the voice, try to give good volume to the voice without generating any feedbaak and try to sing a little more passively this will give clarity to the voice, the notes of our song will sound better and will not affect the voice because there will be no need to force it
3. Good Audio Monitoring or Return
The monitors are the guide of any musician, I always say playing without monitors is like driving a car with your eyes covered, the monitors is essential when it comes to having a presentation, now for what you do not know What are monitors? It is a mixture of the main one that sounds in a return or better said in a horn to parts of the main speakers, as we said it is a mixture to which I can decide who to listen to for example, I am a pianist and I have my return to the front of me, I can decide that I want to listen as for example my piano sound, voice and other instruments but with low volume among others aspect, but that mix does not affect the main mix, the floor monitors are always place in front of the person to whom you will give an auditory reference as shown in the following image
But there is currently a kind of monitor like personal monitoring that consists of special headphones, with the ability to sound all the frequencies that we need to be able to listen to the audio perfectly, they are hearing aids with very small driver but powerful and clear sound, but as they are much better than conventional hearing aids, are more expensive than normal. These headphones are called *** In-Ear *** and are installed in a wireless system that allows receiving the audio sent by the mixing console to these devices
Inear
Wireless System for Inear
Now to finish I am going to comment something that we still do not have but soon we will have it is the ** P16 of Behringer **, it is a devices that allows the musician to control * the same * his own mix, to silence the one he wants but the only disadvantage is that it only works for consoles of this same brand but in any case I will show them
This connects to the Behringer console via an ultranet port and gives the musician the power to mix his own reference.
Conclusion
At the time of playing as a band we have to be very cautious in these areas so we can have a good presentation and we grow more and more.