so it’s back to the loudness war inside your band :-)

ok, let’s assume you have decent equipment now. then there’s still the question about the band’s gear. if you sing through a small powered mixer and cheapish small speakers (i once encountered a band that sang through a small home stereo…) you can easily reach the limit of this gear and that means there’s simply nothing you can do – loudness-wise. so it becomes a matter of diplomacy. the only way here to get a good mix of all instruments (including the voice of course) is to get the others to turn down – not necessarily an easy enterprise. one way would be to just not care (you can hear yourself because of your earplugs, remember?) and wait until the others mention that the vocals are not loud enough. then point at the mixer to show them that you can’t do anything about it. now try to convince them to turn down their gear so the voice will be heard again. never, never, never give in and try to sing louder !!! you’re as loud as it gets. that’s what you have to believe yourself and that’s what the others need to believe as well. and one other thing: loudness is no criterion for a singer’s quality! good luck. by the way, i left bands because of this and if your bandmates are too stupid or stubborn to understand, maybe you should do the same – this is a fight, nobody can win because the loser in any possible case is the music aka the band aka all of you.

if the guys understand that you’re all sitting in the same boat – cool. but although they might agree to turn down their volume it still doesn’t have to work because – depending on the music – a certain loudness could be essential, at least for the drums. below this crucial volume-level the music does just not work. if that’s still too much for your gear, there might be no other way than investing in a better amp and speakers…

as a last resort you could focus your attention on the next part of this series…