BASS
DIVING IN HEAD FIRST | Gary Lunn
As I strive to be a positive kind of person, I
and she fit right in. Great addition to the team!
continue to gather information to share. Being
There
were
definitely
some
questionable
moments, but we made it through.
blessed to be busy at my phase of life, I never The technical side was another story; not take a single opportunity for granted. But too bad, but a challenge nonetheless. The If you encounter some of these problems in
sometimes they do occasionally offer up some supplemental tracks that we were using your band situations, you might suggest to
amazing situations to observe and assess. I needed a bit of level tweaking. In a loud room, your tech guy in the sound crew that he adjust
hope that my sharing these experiences helps even with in-ears, the sound level in the room the levels of key “sync’ing” elements so that
you along your path of encounters. can “swallow up” certain key aspects of our there is consistency with their levels from song
individual mix needs. We use a system that to song. This will help the unity in the band by
Recently I was asked to play at a conference gives spoken voice cues that are supposed taking pressure off of basic activities within the
in a nearby city with the worship team from my to match the section headings on our charts. music so that you can pay more attention to the
church. Like every other playing experience I That wasn’t always the case, unfortunately. creative side.
have had, this one was not without something Plus, when the room volume would get “loud” to observe as I participated. the click channel seemed to go down, and As a bassist, you can also do your part to help
the section cues happened to be on the click the situation. Keep in mind that consistency
The church had its own progressive style channel in our situation. There were times when and tamed dynamic fluctuations are the keys to
worship team, so we knew that we could pretty I would lose the click and the section cues a solid foundation in the room. One thing that
much do any style of song that the worship completely in the headphones! really helps the front-of-house engineer is to be
leader felt he needed to do. Typically, we would sure to always give him 98% of your loudest
make a set list but we rarely made it straight volume during sound check. One of the worst
through. That was okay, except for the times
when the pastor of the church would stand up
and walk onto the platform when he was ready
for the worship to come to a close, no matter
how well things were going. We never knew
when that was going to happen but we knew
that we needed to be flexible.
We always have to be pliable and maintain a
good attitude while putting forth our best effort,
even during unusual circumstances. I have
mentioned before that to me, bassists are the
“watchmen on the wall” of the band. This was
a prime example where my job was to look for
instruction from the “general,” go with the flow,
and do my part to contribute to supplying the
solid foundation for the band. That's my role.
One thing that
really helps the
front-of-house
engineer is to be
sure to always
things that can happen to an engineer is to
have two or three beats of painfully loud bass
notes because the bass player was holding his
level back for the first big melodic feature of
self-indulgence. LOL! You might be able to do
that once, but from that point on there probably
won’t be very much bass in the house mix!
If you have a problem with playing at a
consistent volume level, try experimenting with
different compressor/limiters. The Diamond
give him 98%
bass compressor is one of my favorites,
of your loudest
volume during
but MXR/Dunlop make a very nice pedal
compressor, as well as EBS (the Multi-Comp
is awesome). Stomp box compressors will give
you a punchier, more “pop-radio” sound and
feel. They will also make the house engineer
sound check.
happy, as well as your band mates.
The band was solid and communicated well.
Having a connection between the worship
Be richly blessed!
leader and the band leader really does help!
Also, we added a violinist for this gig. She knew The other caveat was that some songs didn’t
all the right things to do as she learned her way. use supplements tracks. Instead, we would
She listened well, never played too much, or play to a click generated from another source.
“stepped” on anyone. She was very sensitive This would introduce even more level concerns.
146
November 2019
Gary Lunn
Gary is a session player/producer/writer in Nashville.
Contact him either by Facebook or email at
garylunn@me.com for scheduling.
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