Proud idiot has a q

[bitflipper]

I like your attitude, Bob. If you hadn't become a musician, you might have landed at NASA instead. 

It does scare me how many single components my band relies on, any one of which could kill the show if they failed. For example, moving to electronic drums made a huge difference in the overall sound of the band, allowing us to play at literally any volume and still sound good. But should that drum "brain" (manufacturers apparently think drummers are too dumb to understand "sampler") ever fail, the drums make no sound at all. (Well, technically it still makes tiny ticky-ticky sounds, but I imagine that'd be difficult to dance to.)

[Notes_Norton]

That's where spares come in. A spare drum 'brain' would be a worthy insurance policy. It's like a spare tire for your car.

Club owners remember if the band couldn't play, and they mourn the money they lost when they still had to pay all the employees. They talk to other club owners too.

One of the best referrals we got from an owner, was one who said that he could hire us and forget about us, knowing we would be there, do the job, and create no problems.

I've played with a 104 degree fever. In another band, the bass player checked himself out of the hospital to do the gig, and back in when it was done. When my father died, my mother checked my schedule before she decided what day to hold the funeral, because she knew I would take the gig.

The club owners, bartenders, wait staff, and others depend on the band to bring home a paycheck and pay the rent or mortgage. We take our responsibility seriously.

22 hours ago, bitflipper said:

moving to electronic drums made a huge difference in the overall sound of the band, allowing us to play at literally any volume and still sound good

So true. When we are doing dinner and other quiet sets, especially in small rooms, what I normally play on saxophone, can be played on my wind synth at a low volume with the same passion as my horn.

Bringing a spare wind MIDI controller and a spare sound module, set me back close to $3k, but in the 30+ years I've been gigging with it, it's an inconsequential amount of money. Plus, in all these years, I had a controller fail. We were playing outdoors, on a screen porch. The temperature dropped and it started raining. The controller went out of tune and was playing notes that weren't even close to what my fingers told it to do. I switched to the spare.

I sent it off to get fixed, and the repairman said it was working perfectly. He surmised that something might have gotten wet, and dried off in transit.

When I was a musician, on the road, only playing saxophone, I bought a used, student instrument as a spare, in case my pro horn broke. I schlepped all over the east and central USA, and never needed it. But it was reassuring to have it around.

But that's just me. I know guys who aren't as careful, and never had a problem.

 

Notes ♫

[craigb]

Now THAT'S some serious medication! dedication! ?

[mettelus]

2 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

They talk to other club owners too.

Need to look into putting NDAs in place... they are all the vogue now anyway. This could turn out to be a second source of income (although lawyers will take most of that from you).

[bitflipper]

11 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

When we are doing dinner and other quiet sets, especially in small rooms, what I normally play on saxophone, can be played on my wind synth at a low volume with the same passion as my horn.

When we had a sax player in the band, that was an ongoing problem. Everybody could turn down except him. At low-volume rehearsals he'd sometimes turn away from the rest of us, but even then he'd still be too loud.

I was all set to buy him a wind controller. I am not wealthy, but I can fit almost anything into my budget if it makes the band sound better. Unfortunately (or  maybe fortunately), he left the band after a big argument with our singer. Those two had never gotten along from the get-go.

I still miss having a sax in the band. Playing those parts on a synthesizer is embarrassingly weak. Plus we can't make those lame jokes anymore, e.g. while he was switching from alto to tenor we'd fill the silence by explaining he was bi-saxual. Actually, on reflection I don't think he found those jokes very funny after the first time.

[Notes_Norton]

11 hours ago, bitflipper said:

When we had a sax player in the band, that was an ongoing problem. Everybody could turn down except him. At low-volume rehearsals he'd sometimes turn away from the rest of us, but even then he'd still be too loud.

I can play very, very soft, but the tone is wrong for a lot of pop songs. That can be a problem with an acoustic sax. As the sax gets louder, the tone changes quite a bit, becoming less mellow, edgier (if that's a real word). Then, for certain songs, it's important to play the sax louder than it was designed to play at. Overblowing causes a nice, nasty sounding effect with a little added distortion.

I can get tonal changes with volume if I choose the right synth module. The best one I've tried is the Yamaha VL70m. It uses what it calls 'physical modeling' synthesis. The good folks at Yamaha put computer models of tone generators like reeds, strings, cup mouthpieces, etc., bodies like boxes, tubes, cones, etc., and dampers like bridges, bells, and so on.

As I play louder on the VL, the tone gets thinner and edgier but not quite to the point of being overblown. The VL is the only sound module I've found that actually feels like I'm playing an instrument, as opposed to playing synth patches.

The VL also gives me a variety of trumpet, trombone, harmonica, fiddle, guitar, and other instrument sounds. Since guitar is my 7th instrument, I can play wind controller guitar better than my 'real' guitar. So for difficult guitar solos, the wind synth comes out.

We've done a lot of yacht and country clubs where they want us to play for dinner, and then rock out for dancing when the desert comes out. For dinner, we set the PA up at about 65dba, so the diners can talk across the table. When done, we crank it up to whatever seems appropriate.

I like the dinner sets as much as I like the dance sets. During the dinner sets, I can play delicately and then passionately when the meal is over.

Playing at the appropriate volume for the gig and the audience you are facing today is very important. It's as critical as the music you are playing.

The way I figure it is this. Music is my profession, it puts food on the table, and it paid off the mortgage. Anything I need to buy, to allow me to do my job better than my competitors, is a good investment.

Wind synth, better speakers, better microphones, and anything else I need to buy and can justify the price on, is worth it. If it can bring in more money than it costs over the long run, I want it.

22 hours ago, craigb said:

Now THAT'S some serious medication! dedication! ?

More than that, it's survival.

After leaving the position of side-man in bigger bands and becoming a co-leader of a duo, I've learned a lot about how to stay booked. And I'm still learning.

For the majority of my life, I haven't had a Monday through Friday wake up to an alarm clock, and go to work job, making less than I think I deserve while someone who I don't even know gets rich as I live for the weekends. I'm sure I put more than 40 hours a week into it, but the only part that seems like work, is schlepping the PA set. The rest is music.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[craigb]

Well, it's hard to think sharp when you be flat, ya? ?