Silent rehearsal........is this possible

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troublehead

troublehead

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My band is running into noise issues at practice and my other guitarist has come up with a theory on silent rehearsal sessions. I know this is probably pretty simple to do, but I've never messed with any of this stuff so I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what we would need. The theory is that he and I plug into something like a Line 6 HD300, the bassist goes through his pedal board, the drummer uses electronic drums, and the singer goes into a mic. We then go into an active mixer board of some sort and then into a headphone pod with multiple outs. We all have on headphones and hear the entire mix. And all you hear outside the cans is the singer, the tap of electronic drums, and the "clack" of acoustical guitar strings.

Can anyone recommend the equipment to do something like this to keep us busy between rental space sessions ?

I apologize for any stupidity here, but up until this point we have just blasted it out in a small external room at my house.........but we can't do this anymore :thumbsdown:
 
If you do this, please post a video of your rehearsals. It's sure to be a laugh. I had a band once that used electronic drums and we just turned down amps and vocals to decent room levels to practice, like a hair over normal speaking volume. It worked well for us, but wasn't completely silent.
 
we all plug into a rolland 18 track.i use a pod,bass is like u said, electronic drums, and vcals into a digitech vocal pedal....and use an old 70s mutiheadphone thing
 
That might work! you will need electronic drums. I just got a set of Edrums en route. What I found was that they are rediculously expensive. In order to get into something that feels decent, sounds decent, you are going to be spending some heavy bucks. but if sound and feel isn't an issue, then alesis makes some ok stuff for cheap.
 
Audioholic":3vbxmifp said:
That might work! you will need electronic drums. I just got a set of Edrums en route. What I found was that they are rediculously expensive. In order to get into something that feels decent, sounds decent, you are going to be spending some heavy bucks. but if sound and feel isn't an issue, then alesis makes some ok stuff for cheap.
Click to expand...

We already have the electronic drums. I was more concerned about the mixer console and headphone hub. The "sound" is not necessarily an issue as long as its workable.
 
Practicing at low volumes (or with actual separation) is the best way to go.

It's hard to hear mistakes at 256dB.
 
My husband and I used to write and rehearse when the kids were sleeping by using an ekit, POD XT Live, headphone amp and mixer. It worked fine. The biggest problem for your drummer will be the fact that cheap e-kits are no fun to play and they can be hard on his hands, wrists and forearms (those rubber pads are not fun to play on). We can usually practice at full volume whenever we want (before 9:00pm) because our kids are old enough to play on their own without getting into too much trouble...
 
I've actually tried it,
axefx's direct for guitars, pod X3 direct for bass, roland electronic kit, all going into a digidesign rack interface and all plugged into headphones with the mix.
 
use the jamhub all the time, it's great.. i use it, my sons bands use it.. you can hear everything, everyone gets their own mix, ends up making the band better and tighter. have a set of vdrums, bass goes direct, use my axe-fx for guitar.

dave
 
I did it for a while with a band when we needed to practice in an apt. It actually worked well, we wrote a bunch of songs on a couch!
 
Definitely will work- we do it in the Studio when recording so why not rehearse this way?

I play guitar direct with tube preamp when writing, practicing, recording- and for really important stuff go onto the "Big" pro studio as well but the preproduction tracks can often be keepers.

People don't want to hear music most of the time-even if _________ lived next door I'd only want to hear it every few days.........
 
I did this with a band. Drummer ran his e-kit into a computer triggering Drumkit from Hell Superior samples (sounded damn good), one guitarist playing through a PODXT, the other through a V-AMP 2, and bass DI'd. Worked really well. Definitely was easier to spot the "errors" in playing, but it also was way different than playing in a full volume setting. I've found that most gigs I've played at usually the monitor setup is pretty poor (one mix for the whole band, and that usually has to go to the vocalist), and if the band gets to the point of needing to hear other members to play accurately, I think you'll get into trouble... I find I play the best when I can hear myself and the drums.
 
Here's what we do in my band, Brothers Grymn..

I have a roland TD-12 that I run stereo into my ProTools 9 setup. I also run the singer in there as well. I run my axe fx ultra thru a VHT 2-50-2 power amp at low settings and the bass is live too.. we also go dry out from the axe and bass amp into ProTools and at the end of the evening we bounce down everything to CD for everyone to take home and listen and brush up..

I never thought I would say this but.. practicing at low volumes where you can hear EVERYTHING is priceless and I can honeslty tell you we are a better band because of it...

Having said that. There's no substitute for a full blown rehearsal. When we have shows, we actually go to Guitar Center and rent their fully furbished rehearsal room. three hours for 38 bucks or something crazy like that... and to top it, you even get a CD of your session on the way out! all you so is bring your guitar, bass, and drumsticks! I played thru a peavey 6105, Egnater Tourmaster, and a badass Fender Twin last time...
hope this helps brother!
 
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