OK, so you've learned how to play bass and you're now playing for a gigging band. This series of articles will help you get over some of the problems all bass players encounter when they play live. Gig tips 9 looks at being professional at sound checks.
If you're playing for a band at a gig and someone else (ie not the band) is doing the sound - whether the venue or a production company - here are some dos and don'ts for the soundcheck.
Once you've set up your amp and your bass - and you're happy with your onstage sound - put your bass in its stand and wait for the sound engineer to ask for some bass. Don't stand on the stage playing a medley of your greatest licks. I call it 'music shop syndrome.' You see it every saturday morning in music shops up and down the land. There's no place for this at sound checks. Save your medley of licks for when your friends come over for a beer...or a coke...or a coffee (delete whichever doesn't apply to you).
If you use pedals or effects, it's your responsibility to make sure that the different sounds you use have similar volume levels. Don't expect to give the sound engineer a copy of your set list and say something like: 'Uh man, I use distortion in Hysteria and my pedal is really loud so you might need to bring my level down for that one.'
Spend some time at home with your rig and get the volume levels with your effect pedals to be approximately the same as the volume level without your effects pedals.
When the sound engineer calls you up to give him some bass so he can get a line level and start applying EQ to your channel, don't pull out your medley of cool licks again. Instead choose a line from one of the tunes you're going to play and just play it. If you've got a tune where the bass line covers a lot of ground on the neck pick that one. That way the engineer will be able to hear the lows and the highs and should be able to EQ and set up your channel.
Remember: you'll impress the engineer more by giving him a feed that he can do his job with than by playing something flashy. His job is to make the band sound good. It's in your interests that he does a good job, and you can make it easier for him.
The other area you need to sort out is monitoring. At some gigs this will be the same engineer, at really big gigs you might find you have the luxary of having a monitor engineer. Once all the main channels have been sorted out the engineer will ask for the band to play together so he can adjust the front of house mix. Once that's done to his satisfaction then the monitor mixes will be sorted out.
Now it's common for sound check levels and actual gig levels to be very different due to the adrenaline kick you get from being in front of an audience. So when you're setting the monitors don't be too picky - make sure you can hear yourself, the drums, the keyboards and the singers in that order.
A sound engineer can make you sound great - or he can wreck your sound. People in the audience won't know why the band doesn't sound good, they'll just know it wasn't good. Sad to say I've been on the receiving end a couple of times of sound engineer sabotage - and it's not much fun (and it cost my band work and money too).
So help the sound engineer as much as you can.
If you want more bass related info, head over to my how to play bass website where you'll find video lessons, articles, reviews and much more. There's also a weekly ezine you can sign up for - in return for signing up you'll get a PDF file with 5 cool bass lines in - and each week's ezine features a bass line in music notation and bass tab. http://www.how-to-play-bass.com
This article originally appeared in my free weekly ezine.
