To make a good presentation not only needs talent, the ensemble of a band is essential, for that you have to rehearse and rehearse. Since the pandemic has been more controlled in my country I have been participating in rehearsal and recording sessions using StageWave so I decided to write this article to tell you what options exist for silent rehearsals.
Long hours of rehearsal can annoy more than someone, and we are not only talking about the musicians themselves, but about the entire community that is around: family, neighbors, etc ... Today technology has advanced enough to have rehearsals without the need for your neighbors to call the police accusing noise.
Silence please!
Although there are rehearsal rooms where you can make all the noise you want without disturbing anyone, there are also bands like mine that feel more comfortable in the home of a bandmate or church, as these places are They share with more people, rehearsals with a high sound level can be annoying for them.
You also have to take into account the schedule of rehearsals, it is common to have responsibilities other than music, so we often rehearse at times when others are resting, either at night or on weekends, times where people usually have less patience with noise.
Advantages of silent rehearsals
Let's take a brief look at some advantages of having silent rehearsals:
- Do not disturb your surroundings: your family and neighbors might not even know that you are having a rehearsal with your band, especially if you use electronic drums.
- Avoid moving equipment: Since amplification equipment is not used, which are usually the largest and heaviest, you save space and energy when transporting them, just worry about your instrument and your headphones.
- Accurate reference: A friend told me one day that the bad thing about using headphones when playing is that you hear how bad you do it, it may seem bad but rehearsals are to improve our performance and having a good reference will allow us to pay more attention to those details than they make the difference in a correct execution.
- Personal Mix: Amplified rehearsals are often a volume war so the sound result may not be very pleasant. Depending on the equipment we are using we can make independent mixes for each member of the band which is much more pleasant to listen to and healthier for our ears.
What equipment to use?
You can use different equipment setups to have a good rehearsal.
Audio mixer and headphone amplifiers
You can take advantage of the auxiliary of your console to connect a headphone amplifier, depending on the amount of auxiliary that your console has you can make different mixes by connecting several headphone amplifiers although you can start using only one with several outputs such as the Behringer AMP-800. It is not a bad option to start with silent rehearsals.
Consider using a not very large console, with my band we use the Behringer XR18 console which is quite compact in size, which is useful considering that the space for rehearsals is usually small.
Specialized hardware for rehearsals
If you have a small band of around 4 members, gear like the Joyo Rock House or Roland HS5 may be all you need, as they have separate instrument inputs and headphone outputs.
Digital Mixer + StageWave
If you have a digital console with a built-in audio interface, StageWave is a good choice for your silent rehearsals as it allows each musician to control and listen to their personal monitoring mix directly from their phone and in stereo.
In addition, using StageWave and a digital console you have the advantage of being able to use the same computer to record the session with your favorite DAW, add a metronome or occupy sequences that will help you make up for the absence of a member of the band or even complement your band with different audio tracks.
If you have questions about how to use StageWave, check out THIS ARTICLE, where we explain how to get started with the system. We also leave you the article on how to use StageWave and sequences.