by jorge » Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:58 am
I am usually the first one to push for playing softer and saving your hands, and I am glad to hear some of you have come to the same conclusion. Onile, you are right, it seems that younger conga players tend to like to play all out and the older master drummers I know mostly have learned to play softer, save their hands, and still project. Or maybe the ones who play too hard never get to become older master drummers?
Anyway, Onile, we are both on the same page with only one difference in our approaches. All of us seem to agree that microphones and your own submixer are the way to go. We all agree on mixing your own 2, 3, or 4 conga mics to one mono signal, which gives you control over the volume balance of all your congas, eg so the tumbadora is equally loud with the conga. Our difference of opinion seems to be whether to have your own PA speaker for that mono mixed congas track or whether to run that track to the main mixer. Either way, you will still have your own submixer main out fader to turn up the congas volume if necessary. The difference is that running the congas track to the main mixer, the engineer can turn you down again after you turn your volume up, and with your own speaker the engineer can't turn you down again. On the other hand, he or she can turn the rest of the band up higher and drown you out again. Seems to me that if you are on friendly terms with the engineer you should be able to work out a reasonable arrangement and keep the congas at the right level in the overall mix. What can get you into trouble is if you get too excited and play too loud for a while, the engineer then turns you down (or turns the rest of the band up). The engineer is likely to turn you down if you are too loud in the mix but may forget to turn you back up if you get too soft in the mix. So once you play too loud and get turned down, then you are often stuck having to play harder to be heard. If the engineer is good, or is at least responsive to signals from the band, just signalling to turn up the congas will get you turned up again. Often that is not the case. The downside of having your own speaker is that as you turn yourself up to be heard, the engineer or the musicians with their own volume controls turn themselves up, you do the same, and then it is all too loud and often not well mixed, ie, the loudness wars begin. Plus, unless the acoustics of the venue stage are really well designed, having amplified sound come from different areas of the stage plus the main house PA speakers can create a muddy sound, especially for percussion where millisecond delays can be heard.
The best solution I have found is to make recordings of all gigs and rehearsals, put them on CDs and give everyone a copy. When they hear how bad it sounds with everyone turned up too loud and all the stage wash, room reverberation, slap echoes, etc they are usually more open to reasonable discussions among all the band members and the engineer about controlling the stage volume, getting a balanced mix, and having each player heard clearly. This usually works best when all vocals and instruments are put through one PA system run by a competent sound reinforcement engineer who is located out in the audience area and can walk around the venue to listen while you are playing. As LightSeeker just said, you can't even tell from onstage if you are too loud or too soft. Also, the band will usually not want to completely drown out the congas, if they did why would they even pay you to play at all?
The trap drummer is often the main culprit and often they are just unconsciously insecure about their timing so they play louder. Skip Burney was preaching to us at a rumba today that some of the drummers were were playing too loud and we couldn't hear the singer. He told us a story about how Miles Davis dealt with a drummer that was playing too loud on a recording date. Miles picked up one of those big black heavy music stands and threw it at the drummer while he was playing. When the drummer jumped up to fight him, Miles told him "you don't love me motherf*cker, or you wouldn't play so loud that no one can hear me". I have faith that all of you can come up with a more civilized and less egotistical but equally effective approach to getting your trap drummer to play softer. Try making friends with the drummer, talk to him, play CDs for him, and play recordings of your gigs. I think communication and working together to get the best band sound is what will solve your problem and save your hands. Whether you have a sound engineer or the band does its own sound engineering, you will sound better if you work together than if you are fighting a loudness war among yourselves.
Alafia y paz.