Cathbard

There was study done on goldfish where they got them drunk and then taught them to go through a maze. (yes, the 45 sec memory is a myth) Then they changed the water with fresh water and sobered them up - they forgot how to get through the maze. Then they added alcohol to the water again and they remembered.
Moral of the story - if you rehearse drunk/stoned - play drunk/stoned. If you rehearse sober/straight, play sober/straight.

And so endeth the lesson.

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Punk_Ninja

Just want to post to enforce the pedal tuner point. (not the argument between using the same tuner though. I'm not knowledgable enough on the ins and outs of tuners for that! )

My band all have pedal tuners (well, the two people that need them, me and the bassist) so we have no horror stories about not having a tuner, we can just tune straight up and be cool.
But. While I've seen some bands look unprofessional by having to wait on one member to tune up, there was one time which was inexcusable and can easily force anyone to go out and buy a tuner!
Actually this story is good for many points about playing live. I'll sum up at the end!

Me and my bassist went down with a band we're friends with to see them gig at some pokey little venue (this was after I temped with said band cos they'd fired their guitarist. They patched up and had him back at this gig).
The guitarists and bassist had to borrow amps though, which I knew wouldn't go to plan. But after the soundcheck everything seemed pretty cool. No problems with anything really, they sounded good, were in tune, were with amps and everyone could be heard.

Gets to gig time, the band that played before them left with one of the amps so one of the guitarists had to go through this horrible little solid state amp which had a really sterile tone.
After this the band spends about 15 minutes all trying to tune to eachother (2 guitars, bass and saxophone).
Once this was over I thought "Ah, all is good now."
But no, in between every song at least 3 minutes was spent trying to remain in tune, or with someone complaining they can't hear something or someone.
Which looked pretty bad, considering they didn't sound too bad from the crowd, there were some obvious imperfections but it was easy to shove aside. Though the unprofessional behaviour and messing about ruined them.

Also, at the end of this gig, the frontman threw his guitar down and yelled "****ing guitar, never stays in tune" real loud. Which looked...well...not good.

This was ruined even more byt the fact two members were professional musicians.

So the moral of this story is:

Ensure you're in tune. A pedal tuner is the easiest way to do this.
Bring your own backline. Some would say "If you're sure you can borrow amps it's fine", but personally I'd never take the risk (when I temped for the previously mentioned band I was the only person at one of the gigs we played who had all my own gear).
Make sure that you don't half-ass the soundcheck. It can mess you up when actually playing the show.

I have a few more horror stories but I thought this was a nice all-in-one.

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FrustratedRocka

I'll just leave this here.

The soundman is your god. You want to make sure he likes you.

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denied

I feel like you're not really grasping the way this works.

+/- 3 cents does not mean you will all be 3 cents sharp (therefor in tune relative to each other). It means the tuner can't get any more accurate than 3 cents in either direction.

So if we are both using a TU2, you might be 3 cents sharp and I could be 3 cents flat. So we are out of tune with each other by 6 cents.

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Bright Light

Forget the tuner thing. I'm obviously not making sense to anyone. Stick to what works for you, maybe someday someone here will sit down and what I'm saying will finally click.

As far as the piano example, if you re-read what I said you'll realize you regurgiated what I said. There was nothing there to disagree with me on about that. We both said the same thing about when introducing any equal temperament instrument that everyone must now be as close as possible to perfect pitch.

I'm not gonna de-rail this thread over this.

And remember, dont bring your bitches on tour.

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Juared

Bright Light, sorry, but that really doesn't make any sense to me. I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't make any sense. If someone had a tuner that was off +/- 2 cents and the other had a tuner that was off +/- 3 cents, they'd still be at most, 5 cents apart. If they both had the same tuner that was +/- 2 cents, they'd be at most 4 cents apart. Unless there's some dark forces at work, I honestly can't say your idea makes any sense.

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Bright Light

^well thats exactly why im promoting the use of the same tuner for every band member.
Based on what you said, we're saying the same thing.

Maybe I should re-check my own syntax?

My entire point is that 2 guitars + bass in a band is better off all using the same model of tuner. Whether thats a TU-2 or whatever else.

This will result in much more consisten tuning within the whole band than to have one guy using a TU-2 another a Kord DT-10 another some Fender tuner and yet another a Polytune(nice tuners btw).

I'm sorry I didn't mean to have any attitude about this at all or even make the tuner thing as wordy as I did, I just thought I was clear enough in my first post and was mostly surprised because it seemed like people were misreading my post.

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Punk_Ninja

Just to add a spanner in the works (don't take this to fuel this little debate as I think it's slowly coming off topic now. Maybe make a new thread to discuss the use of multiple tuners in a band in the bandleading section if you wish to continue I think. ), in my band I use a polytune and my bassist uses a TU-2.

And we sound perfectly in tune with eachother.
Like, that is to everyone, crowds, people hearing us and ourselves (my bassist hasn't got trained ears or anything but me and my drummer regularly transcribe music and stuff, so our ears are a bit more tuned than the average person).

I think the whole "use the same tuner" thing only really matters if you're using low quality tuners.

This is without knowing any of the stuff about tuners. But I'd just say, get two accurate tuners, they'll be accurate enough with no heartbreak!

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i_am_metalhead

I have to disagree with that. I can be completely trashed and can still play instruments accurately.

Most bands that you see live are either drunk/high/stoned/what have you.

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Punk_Ninja

I think that point really depends on the individual!

I myself couldn't perform at a good manner if I was drunk.
But some people just don't have their playing affected by booze.

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i_am_metalhead

That was my point. Ibanezwhatever was trying to say that no one should do anything before playing. Some people can handle it, some people can't.

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Cathbard

Indeed. I used to play with a singer that refused to go on stage if the drummer and I weren't at least a little stoned - especially me. I couldn't blame him either, even I could tell that I played better stoned. My theory was that it was the whole goldfish in the maze thing in operation, we were always stoned when we rehearsed.
Different strokes for different folks. I can't play when I'm drunk to save my life, give me a few cones and my fingers come alive.

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SimplyBen

Meh, if I wasn't a few beers in my playing's very stiff and I focus pretty much on just getting the job done. Throw alcohol in the mix and you have fun, then everyone else has fun. You gotta remember, as a tiny band playing in the no-name slots on the bill, it's goddamned hard to make an impression without something to lubricate that.

The issue arrises when you're the only one in your band drinking/not drinking. If your the only sober one, you're gunna notice the little imperfections that are gunna throw the gig for you, if your the only one drunk the rest of the band will notice that. My old singer used to drive everywhere so me & the drummer would have a couple of pints and get a bit loosey-goosey before we went on, and then he'd moan that "we were wasted and didn't know what we were doing." Not saying it's all or nothing just make sure the record is set if you want a drink/something special before you play.

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AdamDK

I only read the first couple of pages, so maybe this has been mentioned, but what I find useful is the 5-10 minutes before you go on ALWAYS keep tuning up. I remember in my old school band a like our second or third show I tuned up about ten minutes before we gone on and just left. Oh boy did our first song sound turd. My G string was way too flat and made chords and lead's sound awful. And then tuning it after the song was pretty embarrassing when there is a crowd waiting for the next song.

After that moment I pretty much kept tuning my guitar every minute five minutes before we gone on, so that it remained perfectly in tune. You might think that your guitar will be fine, but considering that the temperature in a live venue tends to be different than in your bedroom at home, you'll be surprised at how quickly your guitar will go out of tune if you don't keep tuning it before the show.

Rammen

I don't have a pedal board at the moment (I'm only using two pedals though), so I was planning on just taping my cables down to keep everything in place pretty well. My only question was that the cable I'm running to my guitar is one of the white telephone cord-style cables, and i wasn't sure if taping that down would work. Is it recommended?

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Adam124

Never piss off the soundman.

Here's an example.

A shitty band were playing at a local venue who were playing alongside my friends band. During their set they yelled - "Soundguy is shit, turn up the ****ing vocals!"

As you may have guessed this didn't go down well with the soundguy.

They were in the middle of playing killing in the name of.

Every 2 seconds you could here very quietly "**** you I won't" *MASSIVE feedback* " do what ya tell me"

This proceeded for the rest of the set. Needless to say, it was hilarious

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darkwolf291

Bumped because this is a useful thread and should be stickied

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Mark G

Go to hell if you do any of the following
A. show up late to a gig
B. show up without a tuner
C. not showing up at all.

bassists -_-

For any gigging musician: Keep it as simple as possible! Honestly, don't go for the amazing tones, go for simplicity that works. Nothing is worse than having no sound when you're supposed to go up, and you have to troubleshoot 20 things.

Guitars (+ backups), Amp, Cabinet, multi-effects, ground switcher. That's it for me. I don't want to waste time setting up, breaking down, or have things break on me without spare.

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gregs1020

this.

saw a guy setting up for a show in a small club this weekend with 4 marshall 4x12 cabs, one head (right, i thought the same thing ), 6 guitars not counting his acoustic, a theramin, almost countless pedals with no board etc. even my gal suspected he was overstocked. i did my best to keep silent about it.

at the very most i bring a guitar, head, cab, tuner pedal and OD to small gigs. sometimes 2 guitars but have yet to use the second one.

i do have a repair kit tool box stocked with extra cables, tubes, strings, screwdrivers, gaffers tape and pliers in case of emergency though. because i bring the kit, i've never had to open it. i believe the first time i leave it at home, i'll regret it. i only play in a small club or parties etc though, for fun.