How to Run the Perfect Band Rehearsal: Tips for Tightening Your Sound

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

what's up guys they make easy and today we are in a small pond which is a recording / rehearsal studio because

that's right we are doing a video on how you can improve your band rehearsal now I've been looking forward to this video

for a long time so what I need you to do is sit back but more importantly and you just smash that like button and more

importantly subscribe because we are doing this every day and we've got some big videos coming up over the next

couple of weeks so many bands get stuck in a rut where they turn up do rehearsals go around in circles for a

certain amount of time until someone gets bored and then they leave and all of a sudden you're looking for a new

band member or even a new band and that goes round in circles and it feels like it's Groundhog Day and I personally

believe that the engine-room for every band starts in the rehearsal room so you're in rehearsals does this sound

familiar to you you turn up someone's a little bit late someone's brought some tinnies you just you bring your stuff in

you start setting up you're talking about Netflix and who's banged who and that is your rehearsal for the first

half an hour before you start playing a bunch of songs you pack up and you go away again the next week you turn up you

do the same thing all over again round in circles Groundhog Day it's just not good enough so today we are gonna look

at how to set up and execute the perfect band rehearsal now this is a video about rehearsing but whilst it is about

rehearsing we've set the guys up in a recording studio kind of way so effectively you should be able to hear

what we're doing this is about maximizing the time that you are spending in rehearsals so I've very

kindly been joined by mr. Chris Kelley on guitar and mr. Andy holic on drums so what we will be doing as I've picked

the track learn to fly by the Foo Fighters number one because I know that I'm gonna get a stick for whatever song

I pick and so I tried to pick something which was a non offensive as possible but I want to make this clear this is

not about this song that we are rehearsing I picked a song that we've never played before

because I want to go through the actual process of rehearsing and getting a band type so that's the song we're going to

play we're gonna see if we can get it tight and hopefully you can pick up some of these tips for your next rehearsal so

the best rehearsals start way before you actually get to the rehearsal room because I want to know

and I turn up to a rehearsal what is it that we are doing at that rehearsal what are we rehearsing for is it that

we're rehearsing a show or are we writing new songs or as in this case are we actually rehearsing songs to get them

as tight as we possibly can because each one has a different niche and a different way of doing things so for

example you might have a new a new guitarist or a new band member or you might have you might have got to the

point where you haven't played for a while you have some shows coming up in a while

but you need to get the songs as tight as possible that is the purpose of this specific rehearsal another thing I want

to talk about is etiquette I hate it my pet peeve is when I turn up to a rehearsal and someone is late it's

completely unacceptable the amount of hours that bands rehearse in a week is so minimal in fact there's

a hundred and sixty eight hours in a week and most bands are rehearsing between three and six hours in a week

that is 2% of your week so it is a tiny fraction you have not got time to be late next it's all about being prepared

I do not want to turn up to a rehearsal when people haven't learned the songs completely unacceptable wasting time

wasting energy wasting money and more importantly it's starting to kill your band if you go down that route so make

sure when you turn up you know everything that you're going to play and if needs be half notes this is a

rehearsal room it's not a gig it's completely fine for you to have some lyrics or some notes on the songs or

some charts in order for you to actually maximize this time that you are going through in the rehearsal room and lastly

before we actually get into the rehearsal I want to talk a little bit about gear you are going to a rehearsal

room many rehearsal rooms will actually have a backline of gear that you can plug into it might not be your gear it

might not be as good as your gear but we have to maximize the three hours or so that we are going to be there so

personally as a bass player bass lead amp get cracking I can be ready to roll in two minutes from a drums point of

view it's gonna be breakables get in set your stuff up and be ready within a couple of minutes now guitars I know a

lot of you take a lot of gear with pedals and amps and it's completely fine because a professional guitars can set

their stuff up so quickly again my pet peeve is when all the gear comes in and it's not working

because it hasn't been tested out beforehand so effectively the guitars on their knees trying to fiddle around with

cables patch cables and leaders and working something's gone wrong that is what we have to eliminate this is about

getting in and being ready within ten minutes of being in that room and an absolute no-no is if you're a guitarist

and you're taking individual pedals and creating some kind of pedal train whilst everyone's waiting for you know two of

my best tips when it comes to rehearsing number one don't meet at the rehearsal room usually people say rehearsal five

til nine we'll meet you there why not say rehearsal five till nine let's meet at four in the pub or four in the cafe

or four somewhere so you're all together and you can get that chat about Netflix and everything else that's happened that

week out of the way and then you can start to focus on your actual rehearsal and second tip most bands are rehearsing

betweens or two and three hours so you don't need a piss or a poo or something to eat we haven't got time to take

breaks so my second tip is if you are gonna have a piss or a poo or some food do it before you walk in that room

because that two hours is about working all right tips for a great setup again setting

yourself up to succeed now three-piece band as you can see not just because the room is small but we are as close

together as possible because eye contact is so key I'm looking to get as tight as possible so from a base point of view I

want to see everything as Andy's coming down in a symbol I want to get as tight as possible so that eventually it

becomes second nature when I am the other side of the stage so a setup I want everyone as close as possible for

as much communication as much contact as possible you can see all three of us have microphones I think it is

imperative for everyone to have a mic for several reasons but for me when you walk in you get given a mic you're

either gonna do some singing or potentially you might need it to keep that rehearsal going but for me

everybody should have a mic at all time and also you might be thinking or I don't really sing well maybe you do now

maybe you should start it's a rehearsal room this is the time where you are allowed to mess up you're allowed to do

things badly so have a go set up a mic start singing start contributing because he will make

a difference and you will get more confident and you never know you might actually become quite a decent singer

from it now when it comes to getting levels I suggest keeping the noise down as much

as possible sometimes I'll walk past rehearsal rooms and they are deafening from outside the room god knows what it

must be like inside the room but you are hampering your own rehearsal two reasons number one the singer is gonna be

struggling if the singer can't hear themselves sing they're gonna be straining and that isn't gonna help

anybody but on top of that if everything is louder than everything else in the old motley crue adage then what it means

is you are going to be covering up a world of mistakes but we need to hear those mistakes this is the place we're

allowed to make mistakes so I suggest keeping the levels down so you can hear everything now on that when it comes to

getting levels obviously everyone's gonna get in plug in and start to get level check but again this is a

rehearsal room so if you're not rehearsing for a show have a think about ways that you can actually bring those

levels down for example drummers you might want to use rods the key thing is you need to be able to hear everything

especially the vocals needs to be the loudest and you guys will know the amount of times where the vocals is just

buried in the mix and you can't hear any diction from the singer when it comes to new gear I don't mind bringing new gear

to rehearsal but I don't like is when everyone's crowding around it prodding it and seeing what it can do cuz it

wastes time so if you have a big gear that you are going to use bring it in setup use it for the rehearsal this is

your gear this is your experiment this is on you this isn't to start showing off what you can do as flee or as some

crazy guitar lick that sticks out there's never been done before and lastly distractions out of the way

no phones no booze and more importantly no other people unless they're in for a specific reason to do social media or

take pictures or record something other than that girlfriends boyfriends friends and less them for a reason

get out now in a minute we're going to crank up we're gonna get this bad boy tight but before we do I want to talk a

little bit about appointing an MD a music director someone who's gonna effectively be the chairman of that band

for those rehearsal now an MDS job is to make sure that you get everything that you need done in

that rehearsal to help with the actual musicality to actually stop things when they aren't working to speed things

along to get the most out of that rehearsal so effectively one of the things that you will need pen paper

everything should be documented and your arm because as an MD when an MD does this everybody stops it doesn't mean

come to a nice stopping place as and when you feel it it means this means stop because there's nothing more

frustrating than half the band carry on playing cause they're enjoying themselves okay first things first we're

going to run through see what we've got to work with now we don't play this track wake up we don't even play

together but some eights coming together seeing what we can get and then we'll work on it from there

so see what we got [Music] [Applause]

[Music] this good first things first pretty decent but I

think we can get it a lot tighter you might notice that obviously we've all got headphones in the reason for that is

because the amps outside because I don't the bleed because I want I want you guys to be able to hear the difference in

sound so I know you guys won't have headphones but it's the same thing with everything coming through front of house

so before you actually stop on comments and say it's the same thing we've just go through the speakers how are we gonna

get this tight number one we are going to use a click we're going to use a metronome and I know everyone's going I

don't care this is about getting something as tight as possible what we just did was we just played at what we

think is roughly the right tempo but that 2 3 4 beats per minute could make all of the difference one thing you

notice when you go and do very small gigs bands will push the tempos they'll speed up so they can get more energy and

excitement but when you go to see massive gigs they do exactly the opposite what they'll do then is those

slow tempos down and they'll start to pull the timing so slightly behind the beat because what that does is it makes

it sound absolutely massive so again depends what you're going for but in order to be able to do that we

need a measuring stick and that is the trusty old metronome ok so the next thing I do is we're gonna add that

metronome so we've got to click in here we think it's about one three six is what we've worked it out now you'll

notice that Andy is now playing with rods as opposed to sticks because there's absolutely no point in killing

ourselves trying to or death in ourselves when we can when we're trying to get this tight so this will take the

levels down we'll start to hear the mistakes we'll hear the click better and we should be able to get this tighter so

one more time but this time we're rods [Music] [Applause]

[Music] this one satoru

[Music] [Applause] what the click we've got to go with a

quick and these very good at playing with the click so the next thing we're going to do is we're going to break it

down so what I want to do next is just drums and click and I promise you when you're looking to get your band as tight

as possible everyone jumping in at the same time is not the right way to do it we start at the bottom and we build up

just like a jigsaw puzzle and the thing to start with is always going to be the drums so we've got drums drum sound

really really tight with a click but next we're going to add in the bass but before we do just pay attention to

the dynamics because the dynamics this is where we start getting tight how things get louder how things get quieter

as the higher opened how the higher closes when you record your own tracks again this doesn't matter whether it's a

cover or whether it's your own track every time something gets recorded it gets recorded like that for a reason so

you're paying attention getting that higher open to the right level getting it close to the right level making sure

that it sounds as tight as possible as the foundations to add in the next instrument which will be the bass now

obviously there's no vocals there's no guitar so this is where you need to have learnt the song in such a way that you

can't play it wrong effectively you're not learning it so you can play it right you're learning it so that you can't

play it wrong and if you take away the melodic content it's still fresh in your brain cool so we're going to add in the

bass now my job is to make sure that I don't start pushing the timing with Andy so timing is crucial it's not just

playing bang on the click in order to make it sound absolutely huge my job is to almost feel like it's starting to

pull the timing back so can we just do an example of you playing and me pushing and then me pulling so you can see the

difference in manipulating the time and how that feels we'll start off with me pushing so I'll

start off with just playing a little bit ahead so all of a sudden it will feel a little bit out of control a little bit

frantic but quite exciting and then I'll start to pull it back will it will makes two clearer bits of the video to make it

sound more powerful and relaxed [Music] take two along with you now is I'm going

to try and pull the timing back trying to make it sound a bit more powerful a bit more mature and he's going to stay

in time with the click I'm just gonna try and pull it back a little bit now we're fast tracking this but you can

this would be done over a space of an entire rehearsal the next thing we're going to do is build the next piece of

the melodic content into the jigsaw puzzle which in our case is going to be guitar but in your case there might be

guitar keyboards a second guitar then after that we start working on vocals and bebés and any other instruments

you've got in there so should we add in the guitar just outside

[Applause] [Music] now obviously it's a very small band but

if they were more members I'd start adding in so we go drums bass rhythm guitar extra guitar then after that

keyboards maybe then I start working on vocals percussion B V's anything at the top end which is kind of yes you

sprinkled on excitement to start getting it tight and once i've done that and i've got my jigsaw puzzle that's when i

can start working on pieces so for example lead vocals and b V's with just guitar so I can break that down and I'm

taking out the drums and the bass I'm taking it all the power and it's just going to be hi-hat guitar and two or

three part vocal harmonies everything is broken down again and again and I wouldn't just do and go yeah that sounds

good I would spend you know with drums I'd spend 10 to 15 minutes just working on it making it sit right with the

clique then after that 10 20 20 25 minutes on making sure that the bass fits in now the reason why people don't

do this is because it's boring because the guitarist doesn't want to sit on his own for an hour but this is how you do

professional rehearsals this is how you get a band tight you get drums then you build a base then

you build a guitar then you build them a lot of content and you build it into the into something which fits together from

a frequency and a feel point of view that feels fantastic now once we've actually got our frequencies and the

feel of the track to sit nicely the next thing I'd be looking at is bits that are gonna catch you out and I guarantee the

bits that are always gonna catch you out or always going to be from section to section groove is kind of repetition so

as you're going through a verse everyone's doing the same thing but then when you go from a verse to a chorus

that's the point where your drummer's gonna have a drum fill or you bass might have a bass fill everyone goes for it a

little bit more going into the chorus that's where your timing is gonna shift that's when the band starts to get a

little bit out of kilter and it doesn't quite sound the same so at this point what I would be doing is I would say

we're gonna go from verse into chorus and then I'm gonna loop it if if it's still not sounding good I might just

take a verse and loop a verse again and again do a couple of minutes so just going around a verse again and again and

again but in this instance I want to look at that the section that goes between going from a verse to a chorus

making sure Annie doesn't push the time in make sure I don't push the time in make sure it fits right

[Music] now as the track starts to progress the energy kicks in and it gets bigger and

bigger and bigger like most tracks now this is the classic time where things will start to become a bit loose or

you'll start to lose the click you'll start to push the beat so this is where looping is really

really important so sort of right at the end there's the make my way back I want to learn to fly and it keeps looping and

at that point everyone's going for it so you know you're giving it all of the frequencies on guitar bass Andy's doing

a lot of drum fills this is a point where it can start to feel exciting but start to get a bit too out of control

looping is what we're going to do so I want to do this maybe six seven times so we just keep looping that thing you can

really go for it add in some extra drum fills if you want really go for it so that we're not losing that click I want

to make sure it feels it feels tight the harder we go for it the more we're getting in there the more frequencies

we're getting in and I don't want it I want to keep the excitement but not lose the power

[Music] in all of this hard work into your rehearsals a key feature should be

documenting so for example classic paper and a pen making sure you're making notes of things that you're doing things

that are changing but the other thing I would do is I would record every single rehearsal because when you listen to

something back that's when you start to hear discrepancies in the sound the way things as timing wise are starting to

shift and there's no reason why you can have a voice not on your phone or even just set a phone or a camera to visually

record everything so you can see what everything looks like and how it's starting to sound the other thing as

well as why can't this be part of your social media strategy why can't you be doing great stuff in

the rehearsal studio why can't that be part of your strategy to give back to your audience who are interested making

something sound tight if you think about your favorite artists and your favorite bands wouldn't you love to see a behind

the scenes scenes glimpse of what they are doing what they sound like what songs they do how they interact in a

rehearsal studio why can't you actually add that into your strategy when you're thinking about what you should be

putting out content wise then it comes down to the last 15 to 20 minutes of your rehearsal before that little light

comes in saying five minutes and then get out so pack down now you've got the perfect opportunity to actually go

through with everyone the things that you have done so that when you do come back next week you haven't taken two

steps back to take one step forward because that is very frustrating the amount of times that I'm sure you've had

this you'll go to a rehearsal and the incremental stages of actually improving are so slow when this can be incredibly

fast if everyone comes back and starts from when they left off the week before so this is the md's job to make sure

that everyone knows what's happened in that rehearsal and to say go away and practice what we have done so that next

week when we come back we're starting off from that same place so that's my tips on how you can smash a rehearsal

don't forget this rule is set up to get something tight but you might be having a show you might have a studio day you

might be writing so every single rule that you do is going to have a purpose and that is the key to to set that out

at the beginning so that you know what your but thank you so much for watching if

you can do me a favor smash that like button and subscribe can I be a part of this community because we're doing this

all of the time big thanks to the guys for coming in and making some noise and just having fun

enjoy your next rehearsal I'll see you guys tomorrow