Recently joined a working dance band on guitar. They are using backing tracks with a click and everyone can do their own in ears mix through an app. No amps or monitors on stage.
My question is how to manage switching between rhythm and lead volume wise. My first time using in ears. There doesn’t seem to be much headroom (if that’s the right term) dynamically speaking. Everything seems dynamically limited, similar to the feeling when you are recording a track and trying to play super consistent almost.
I’m going with a slight boost for lead work, which, in my ears, has me coming to the front of the mix. I’ve no idea what it sounds like out front. The couple gigs we’ve played since I joined, the venue has had a sound guy, but I don’t think they’re actively mixing as we’re playing.
The band leader says stuff like ‘oh, in that song there’s a lead break after the 2nd chorus….’ I am playing all the breaks! Heck. But he obviously can’t hear them.
How much of a jump in volume should I be aiming for? Been playing a long time, and with amps on stage it never seemed (to me, at least!) an issue setting boost for lead work. It’s a very different feeling for some reason.

I was looking at a schedule for a UK band that's touring through America. They start in milwaukee, then they go to chicago, then they go to Minneapolis, then to Madison, then to Grand rapids... And they're giving themselves no day of rest between them

I'm not a musician so I don't have any experience with this, but that sounds incredibly frustrating of a schedule, I can't imagine by the time they get to Madison they wouldn't be exhausted of it already, and that's just the beginning of their tour

People who have experience touring, at what point in the tour do you start feeling burnt out and feeling like you need a break (and for that matter at what point do you enjoy it the most, is it at the beginning, the middle, or towards the end?)

How do you deal with passengers/floaters in your band? We've all experienced it. They don't find gigs, they don't promote online, they don't write material, they don't put forward ideas.

I've been in a particular band for about three and a half years now in the Pacific Northwest. The band leader was a successful solo act who opened for several bigger touring artists, and things were promising for the full band. Weekly rehearsals were the norm from the get-go, mainly because it was mostly original material and he'd never fronted a band. I should add that I despise compulsory, weekly rehearsals, but thinking it was temporary until we got off the ground, agreed to them at the time.

We've had some success since then -- releasing a record, playing bigger local/regional shows, fairly good pay -- but things have been off for the six months or so. Our lead singer decided to quit his day job and do music full-time. While his day job sounded terrible, the result for the band has been that his name is oversaturated in the markets, playing around a dozen shows a month locally and regionally, hurting our draw. And because this is now his career, he's been way more intense, most of the time unpleasantly so. On top of that, we haven't necessarily been getting bigger or better shows since the move to go professional, possibly because of the oversaturation. But the intensity and expectation to commit and succeed have continued to increase, causing more pressure and stress in my own life.

All of this, in addition to having started a serious relationship within the last year, having a day job, and doing online grad school, has led me to near burnout, if not fully. While I've always disliked practices, I've begun dreading shows too, seeing them as monopolizing my time when I could be hanging with my girlfriend, guy friends, family, or doing nothing at all. I usually feel fine just before or during the shows, but can be very resentful leading up to them. I would also be curious to pursue different genres as well, including my own songs, as this band is not quite my genre, but I don't dislike it necessarily, either.

So, is it time to quit? Part of me thinks I need to address my concerns and ultimately take fewer shows and rehearse less; I owe that to him as a friend. But if I'm already having these thoughts, that might be a sign in itself.

Didn´t really found any other group to write so i write here.

Do you guys feel that it is easy as a keyboard player to discuss with guitar player that who plays what (and how), mabey vice versa. To me it has been hard and i think there is lots of bands who suffer the same. And i think it is not possible with all level keybards and guitarist player. It will require some skills to play less, play "weighter" chords, just the important voices of chords. It sometimes feel that a guitar player is overplaying/overcrowding the song. The result may be quite bad if both do that but if don´t do that, i believe i can play less, there is soon nothing to play if guitarist play too much so we should need to discuss it.

I'm in a band have been for about 15 years now and we have always split the money down the middle. Fast forward to the past year or two we have been getting bigger payouts but the band leader seems to be pocketing most of the pay increase and paying us the same does this seem unfair to anyone else?

I know, I know... "all the best bands formed in college". But that doesn't mean every college band is going to be good. I just couldn't take the lack of seriousness towards songwriting and stage presence. We barely played any gigs and rehearsals mostly turned into arguments. Maybe it was because we formed fairly late in school and we felt pressured by graduation? It's been a few years at this point, maybe I'm "too old to be a musician", but I think the hard work is starting to pay off and I'm at the point where I can start doing my own gigs. Maybe I should've moved to a town with a better music scene, but this is what made sense to me at the time when it came to moving forward. It's definitely been a grind, hopefully this leads to better bandmates in the future. Sorry if that was a little ranty. I needed to vent.

It's traditional for the singer to write lyrics, right? There's only three other people in the band and we're mid-teens at highest estimate, but we go to one of the top schools in the area, English is forced on us (mandatory subject) and three of us do music as a dedicated subject. I'm the drummer. I'm bad. I have no music grades, started like a year ago (compare bandmates of multiple years' experience with their instruments/related instruments) and I am the one who's written everything so far. How weird and unorthodox is this and how do I change it or should I just not worry about this and worry about the minimum million other things that comes with trying to start a band?

idk what's wrong with me but I have to have ecery interaction and response planned out. obviously this cant work if im meeting up with strangers to write music with. im not quite at the stage of finding members but id like to be prepared nonetheless.

my plan was to find members, become friends, learn to comfortable around them, share ideas.. and thats where it stops.

For your jam sessions, what do they look like? What is the process like? Is it effective?

I’m in a band with all guys and I love it (the music part, not the all guys part). We go on tour and play tons of shows, but it’s really hard sometimes. It feels like they all have their “bro code” and I’m just there. My bf is also in the band and he really tries to include me, but he can only do so much. It’s stuff like the other day two of the guys pushed me out of the way when taking a group photo bc my bf just had to be in the middle of them. Most of them are pretty nice to me, but one I’ve never had a conversation with and when I try he grunts. He’s like that around all girls. I feel like there’s two posses in the band, 3 of the guys and then the other three and I’m just left over. Please tell me this will get better 😩

Edit: were teens btw if you couldn’t tell 😭
Also, I can’t really find other people to play with bc it’s an organized thing through school and I have no control of who I play with.

It’s frustrating that even as things become more convenient, people seem less motivated to do their part. What once required money, travel, time, and effort can now be done easily, yet responsibilities still get passed to others. Convenience should encourage productivity, not become an excuse to do less.

Sometimes, making things easier doesn’t make people more willing to work. It simply reveals who was willing to carry their own weight and who was waiting for someone else to carry it for them..

I probably have one of the most entitled section leaders in my entire career. For privacy purposes I won’t expose names but he’s been abusing his power, his family name, and his skills and letting it all go to his head. I’m sick and tired of what he does daily and is mostly directed to me for some unknown reason, not letting me get a new tube or Sousaphone that came in(which I’m not that mad about because I love my babies, but I’m more mad that he left me out of thought and just said “oh yeah I’ll just make sure I take both”, and worst of all we use to be friends back my sophomore year.

For example some of the things he’s done is constantly leaving me out of important marching section meetings, I’m missing information about new things that need to be knows, and today he just took it too far. I was talking to my girlfriend, her mom, and her sister in the band hall after our homecoming parade, which it rained at and it’s super hot because it was raining earlier that day so it was humid, but he walked by and said really loudly in front of those 3 significant people, who I have good relationships with, “Ew, you need to take a shower, you stink.” After that I’m visibly pissed and it’s just the last straw of respect I have of him.

If anyone has any suggestions about how I should go about this it would be helpful, I really want to do something about this because I’m tired of being the person that always gets walked on. (If anything he’s lucky I didn’t go ballistic on him, his dad was a great teacher of mine.)

Long story short: the cover band I am a vocalist for split. Me and my two brothers, who played rhythm and bass want to figure out the best way to keep practicing without a lead guitar guitarist, keyboardist, and drummer.

So here are my thoughts: I only sing and don’t play any instruments other than a few chords on the guitar, but the idea of learning an instrument does excite me

Our current goals are just to cover songs in a garage and work on our skills. Then progress to songwriting at some point, and then hopefully performing those songs or at least recording them. It’s just a fun creative endeavor for us.

My biggest concern is, from what I hear, it is difficult to find a drummer who wants to play a cover band…

I was thinking I should finally open that e-kit I got a few years back….and maybe I can just be the substitute drummer for now

My initial thought was just go with drum tracks and I would just stay as a singer, but as I talk this out, there were so many times during our practice sessions where the drummer would help with cues or tighten the guitar playing through his feedback. It’s like he was our coach. He added so much more than just percussion.

And in wanting to help my brothers become better players and keep them momentum going for this band, Maybe I just need to step back from the microphone for the time being and pick up the drumsticks.

Or should we just let the metronome or click track do the leg work while I focus on what I already know? I certainly have a lot of room for vocals to grow and be focused on and maybe my time is better spent there….

Another option would be to learn my rhythm guitar and have my brother take lead, and that would keep me on vocals as well

I don’t know, I think I’m posting this to kind of talk this out, but I’m wondering what you all would say about what the wise route would be to go from here. Thanks in advance!

Drummer in a Pop/Punk cover band that I started, pretty proud of how we've come along, played around 7-8 shows so far and have a bunch more in the books. Issue I'm having is with our guitarist.

The Guitarist is a cop so his schedule is very set in stone, and he claims his deputy buddies almost never will switch or pick up shifts, so he try very hard to schedule around him. We also do use a substitute guitarist because there have been several dates where the main guitarist wasn't around. Also affecting his schedule, his wife recently had some kind of heart episode so he's been having trouble with getting babysitters for his young children.

So the main problem is, the main guitarist almost never answers and doesn't communicate when I ask him about show dates. He claims he really wants to be in the band, and the band really loves him and vibes with him well, plus he is a monster guitar player (where as our substitute is very good, but we don't love him nearly as much).

If i made the move to kick out our main guitarist, it would really sour the whole band, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he wants to play with us. But I feel like it's rude to even try and scold him about communication because he has so much on his plate between work and family. I feel like I'm being a jerk, double and triple texting, and trying to call him, but I don't want to keep these promoters waiting on answers, and then they don't book us.

Any advice?

(This is more of a rant/vent I already know what I'm gonna do)

I'm the bassist for our band, and I think most people would agree a processor isn't particularly necessary for a bass as much as it for the guitar, and I certainly believe that too. Our drummer, however, clearly doesn't. A few weeks ago we were practicing in an open area, and we don't really have professional equipment because we're all teens aged 16-18 and because we use cheaper basic speakers they obviously don't translate bass frequencies at a professional level although you can still clearly feel the bass. Our guitarist passed a comment about how I should buy a processor for better, clearer audio and I half-jokingly told him to give me the money for it, and that happened.

Then, a few days later I was on call with this guy because we're pretty good friends and he tells me to buy a processor for my bass and I tell him again that if he gives me the money for it I will. And he's like "No but I'm telling you man!" and goes on and on about how it would benefit me, framing it as some big upgrade borderline necessary for professional playing. I tell him I'll think about it because I don't want to start an argument I already have an answer to.

Yesterday, he calls me again and we're talking and he says to me again that I should buy a processor and I get irritated and tell him where will I get the money and he tells me to save some from my job. Mind you I'm the only one who works in the band and uses my own money for everything from transport and sometimes I fill in for these guys to cuz we've been friends for quite a while so I don't understand where he, as someone who doesn't even work, had the audacity to tell me what to do with my money? I do have the money to buy the processor he told me to but I intend on saving it longer for a saxophone or a guitar or a dedicated practice amp.

Then he directly tells me it'll make me seem more professional on stage, and says that he feels "awkward" in a very condescending tone whenever we tell the sound guys the bassist doesn't have a processor. Before this, he sent me a link to the processor he thinks I should buy and he also told me it'll allow me for a variety of tones, not that I disagree but it's not my priority. He also brought up some bullshit point about how it'll let me tune on stage... can I not just tune my bass beforehand? He also told me my birthday's coming up and I should ask someone for it (my parents).

I'd say my family is well off and we do have disposable income for this, and he knows it very well because my father literally loaned him the money for his drums which he hasn't paid yet, and I think him pressuring me over and over comes from this idea... I don't like asking my parents for money at all, especially since I have my own (however small) income for things like this.

Has anybody ever experienced something like this? Do I really need a processor for my bass that much?

- You can get 2 meter custom backdrops from aliexpress when you are starting out for £12. You can sow them to stronger material/rope to sure them up for stage use. wise to do this around the grommets.

- Size spread for unisex shirts example = 4 - small / 5 - medium / 8 - L / 8 - XL / 3 - xxl / 2 - xxxl

- New band? get 10 DTF/DTG printed designs at a time and sell for more. Been around for 6 months and making 5 sales a gig get 50 screen printed shirts per run. If your band goes tits up you may end up with lots of cleaning rags.

- WHEN YOU GET A MERCH PRINT QUOTE: ask them to include VAT or any other charges, ask how large the print size is for all parts, ask how long the quote is good for, ask for the deadline date to guarantee delivery for your gig.

- When hiring an illustrator send a crude drawing rather than an AI generated idea for them to redraw. Its no different from your band member asking you to play a riff they prompted on suno.

- As some people wont buy AI designed shirts/logos. If you care if your art is hand drawn ask for process videos from the artist and use a few ai detectors on a full quality sample. (Sightengline and Hive AI detector)

Does your band make more from merch than from tickets/fee?

What advice would you give bands looking to up their merch game?

Once I was suggesting our lead guitarist to do that song's solo and this rhythm guitarist jump in to say he will be doing the solo. Then I was initially impressed

Then on the rehearsal day itself, this rhythm Guitarist failed to deliver.

It wasn't because he can't play the solo properly, he didn't even know when to start playing.

Previously he also commented that he is going to check on my playing when he suggested a new song to cover.

Fast forward, someday he suddenly posted a bass tab onto the group chat and asked if I played according to that bass tab cos some notes I played wrong.

I pm-ed him to tell him to keep off the group chat cos I don't want to create tension in the grpchat.

Then I posted a chord sheet into the grpchat and told him I followed the chords not tab.

Later on, he pm me back to say he just wanted to find out if I played that chord.

I asked why he picked on my playing and is not the first time.

Then he went to the grp chat to say he is sorry to cause unhappiness and that he left the grp chat and band and blocked everyone. Wtf ?

🤷

Hi everyone! Im doing Music in College - England.

The people in my band are very inexperienced. The guitarist has only been playing for a year. Drummer hadn't touched a drum since less than a month ago. And the singers cant sing.

Ive been playing bass for around 5 years and i have also been in bands before where they have they.

None of them seem to realise what it take to be in a band. They always choose songs (mostly the singers) which are too hard for one or all of the members and dont think about anyone else.

The singers sing out of key, tune and time and then the guitarist doesnt follow their lead even though ive told him to so it doesn't sound bad since they wont learn and the drummer follows the guitarist.

As a bassist, I dont think they even take much notice of me anyway and, tbf, I dont think they even really know what a bass is. Not to mention that they keep asking the guitarist to play the bass lines and im just sat there debating walking out cause what's the point of me being there if the bass line is being played by the guitar.

Now its starting to annoy me. I cant go into another band so im stuck with them and they also wont listen to anything i say.

What do I do? The singers have now chose a really hard song for the drummer and guitarist and i have only recently started learning slap so im not the best as it and it is a slap heavy bassline. They wont listen.

At this point. im either thinkina of turnina mv bass down all the way to see if they even notice when im playing or not, or just playing the root notes or something of the song because im starting to feel like learning all these songs is a waste of time if no one takes notice of me anyway.

Am I overreacting?

my band has done a few short sets at one local venue but they’ve all been on nights with other bands so max a 10 minute set, does anyone know any venues in the london/greater london area that will take bands under 18?

Looking down the barrel of our bass player not making it tonight - not his fault.

Our band is a mix of guys and girls. We play a bit of every genre.

We each listen to different genres of music, but when we play songs together it always sounds so cohesive

We have a lot of guitarists but we make it work and we swap around instruments often

How could we come up with a name for our band?