Playing a gig without mic'ing up

[Mongolianbbq]

Hey guys!

Tomorrow im playing a gig at a birthday party, we wont be able to mic up our gear, so that means no sound guy and no onstage monitors

We will bring all our gear + a small mixer and 2 speakers for vocals. Pretty much everything we use when we rehearse.

Any tips for playing this kinda gig?

 

[tedtan]

Your biggest challenge will be in hearing yourselves. You can move the guitar and bass (and keyboard, if present) amps around so that they can be heard by everyone, but vocals will be tricky. So you'll need to experiment with where you place the vocal/PA monitors so that everyone can hear them without getting feedback from any open vocal mics. All I can say there is to experiment (and tell the singer not to cup the mic).

 

[Mongolianbbq]

Yea, ur right. Fortunately we have a pretty simple set up with only one vocalist.
Hopefully people will be so hammered they don't care about good live sound..

 

[tedtan]

That always helps.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

I've played plenty of DIY/underground gigs with this same kind of situation. The best thing to do is have a buddy in the audience be your "test ears" and he can tell you what to turn up/down

But yes, your biggest problem will be hearing yourselves. I've never worried about it. As long as the audience hears everything it should be fine. If cues are a problem because of this, it would be a good idea to have eye contact with other members.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

I have a friend who plays small live gigs all the time. He has said before, "there's no volume control on the drummer", so they adjust their levels relative to the drummer. They do use a PA for vocals, though, I don't know how you're going to be able to do without that, vocalists and drummers live in two different relative volumes.

 

[TRENCHLORD]

IMO about 99% of the time the vocals are too damned loud relative to the instruments, so not hearing the vocals enough is a good thing to my ears.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

not hearing the vocals enough is a good thing to my ears.

What planet do you live on again?