Donovan Banks

Last night I played a short acoustic set with the singer of Stereo in Flight, Bevan Lynch at Zack's in Windermere rd. It was a simple affair, hosted by Steve Fataar and was very laid back. It is a lovely, intimate environment to play, especially if you want to interact closely with your audience.

Before I get into our little set, I must mention that there was a duo that played before us. They go by the name(s) Matt and Mike, or was it Mike and Matt? Thats aside, they were very good. I enjoyed their set and was very surprised to see talent like this floating around. Great voice, great guitar playing, excellent songs and a very personable interaction with the audience. I am hoping to see them a lot more often.

Our set was planned to be only two songs. Bevan played his Yamaha steel string, I don't know the model number, I played my Aria Nylon String. We played well and executed the songs well enough, but in the video that our drummer, Brett Robertson kindly took I noticed something about my guitar, well, the guitars in general.
There was a major lack of bass presence in the out going sound. Which resulted in us sounding very thin and like half an ensemble. Sure, we were only half the band but plenty people play unplugged with no bass and get a good, balanced sound.

I can only guess what the problem was out of a number of possibilities.

1. My Battery is a little flat. Any adjustments I make to the preamp above or below zero suck so much power out of the already dead batter rendering the guitar a lot quieter. I think it's time to invest in rechargeable's. We'll see how that turns out...
2. My guitar isn't the greatest sounding instrument. I have played guitars with a much better bass response. One of them being Brett's Ibanez that I pinched borrowed, another being a Martin that  I played in store. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to start  looking at a higher end Nylon String. For now I think I'm going to try the stolen  borrowed Ibanez and see what comes of it.
3. We didn't do any sort of sound check. There was no EQ'ing done before we started. We merely tuned and played. It may have been a contributor to the lack of bass response as I don't recall any other performer's sounding very bassy either. 
4. There were only 2 small speakers for the PA. I'm sure my guitar doesn't get down to the frequencies that require bass bins but it could have also contributed with the other, above-mentioned points. 

Following my last blog about amp placement I feel it necessary to speak more about stage preparation. 

I used to always have my amp standing on the floor when I played. I battled to get my sound right for ages.
What was happening was that the majority of the sound was hanging out on the floor, and what was coming to my ears was only certain frequencies, mainly higher tones.
So I got an amp stand and now I aim the amp at me, much like a monitor.

I know a few people battle with this so I put together this video on putting together rhythm arrangements for the BR600. I know the concept is the same for the Micro BR so knock yourself out.




The Song sheet can be found here...

Zerothirtyone recently went into Andiamo studio to record ourselves a demo.

We asked Neil Snyman to do it for us as most of us had worked with him before and he is one of the best around. (Plus he's a mate and a genius)

Our aim was to spend as little time and money as possible but to get the best quality recording for our bucks. We chose to do it live, seeing as we had 5 songs to do it should have been quick, and it was. Some of the songs we did in one take, with vocals being done over afterwards.

I wasn't entirely happy with my guitar parts but they will do for a demo. I'm sure with an endless budget we could spend weeks in there doing take after take in small patches. Kudos to the band, what a tight bunch to have done so much in such a short time, especially with Gareth having to use an electric kit. It must be a drastic change moving from an acoustic kit to an electric kit in such a short time with no practice on it.

I'm looking forward to hearing the final mixed product and then we'll take over the world from there...


Brendan and William


Steff doing his ting


Me in my Corner


Annien "Onion"


Gareth Rocking it up

What an absolute jol. I could do that all day every day....

This weekend I played at the Awakening as part of Nelisa Kala's band. We've been working for a few weeks to put together this show (hence the quiet blog).

We have a good band with very talented musicians, Keith Naidoo on guitar, Lazarus Pillay on Keys and Ross Viljoen on Drums.

We had some issues that we could learn from this weekend.

Friday: We arrived to do a sound check to discover they had a 6 channel sound desk with 2 monitor sends, they had no monitors and their equipment was shocking. One would normally expect a theatre to have top level sound systems and be well equipped for anything. We took it for granted that the venue provided what they said they would. As a result we had to fix it by borrowing equipment and using a separate feed as monitors and to try boost the quality of the house sound.

Saturday: The gig went very well. Keith played outstanding solo's and people loved it. Nelisa did something amazing in that she forgot the words to one of her poems but she covered it so well and nobody was the wiser. Being a professional is not about never making mistakes, it's about being able to handle them. The crowd LOVED the way she did so that night. She was brilliant and it showed in the audience reaction.

Sunday: we had a substantially smaller crowd. We were comfortable with the venue and sound by now so we were set to have a smooth gig. Keith had issues with his pedal which was buzzing badly every time he tried to change effects. This, of course, happened mid song. There are a few learning points here that we can look at.

1. check your gear before you play. If there are any problems that can't be fixed, and if there is a chance it would happen in the set, remove it and make do. A clean guitar solo can be just as effective as an over driven one. It is also impressive at times to see just raw guitaring. While effects can add to the ambiance, as long as your guitar works you are able to play.
2. Nelisa had walked over to the opposite side of the stage to give Keith focus at his solo time. That's when his gear failed so he could do nothing. She could have turned her focus to either the keys or even the bass to fill in the solo gap. Take the focus off the problem and get the audience looking somewhere else so the problem can be sorted out on the side.
3. When a lead guitarists gear fails on him, there is obviously a big gap. Other guitarists in the band should be able to cover the empty space. Again, get the focus off the problem so it can be handled quickly. If not another guitarist, the keys, bass or even drums can sort it out. You should generate a good enough feel for each other so you know who will step in if something goes wrong.

These are all things you learn from experience. I hope you can learn from my experience so you avoid embarrassing situations in front of your fans or potential clients.

Keep an eye out for Nelisa Kala and the Awakening. We'll be doing the rounds soon enough and it is something definitely worth watching.

I was playing bass on a Fender Bassman 100 recently. It had a constant annoying hum, but when the lead was unplugged or muted it went away. I asked the owner if he knew what the problem was and he said it had been like that since he got it.

It was being used in a church. On the stage each instrument is connected straight into a DI box, the signal is then split. One to the desk, and one to the amp for monitoring.

what happens with some DI boxes is that the desk supplies phantom power. It sends 48V up the cable to the DI box. In this case the phantom power was passing through the DI box and being fed into the amp, thereby creating the hum.
when I flicked the ground switch, the power was no longer passing through the DI but was being used up instead so the humming went.


I had a Fender Bassman 50 previously and it too had an annoying hum. although I never used a DI box the ground switch on that amp too was in the wrong position. If you have a hum, check that first before you start replacing costly parts. It could save you some good time and money in the long run.

Hey,
I play in a cover band called Swell. In fact its more of a corporate band as we are not specific to any genre. I will get into the band more as this blog develops but for now you only need to know that we are developing as a band and we regard ourselves as professionals and hold our trade in high esteem.

We played at HighField House in Hillary, Durban on Friday night (22 May 2009) it was a quiet evening and we were ready to do our usual 3 sets. Bearing in mind this isn't exactly a music venue we had to improvise on our placement (read squeeze into a corner) but our sound was once again very good thanks to Niel Snyman.
Highfield house is a small conference/wedding centre with a lovely garden and a great atmosphere. They set up braais for everyone to cook on and it felt like a family gathering. There were children and dogs running around, it just felt like home. ( I also had what I rate as the BEST roasted potatoes ever!)

I had a few problems at this gig I want to mention so others can learn from it;

Steve Fataar was there. He's a very nice guy but as far as my playing goes I've always felt like a hack. In other words I can cut it when there are no muso's around but as soon as someone I consider to be a real guitarist is around I get more nervous and worry that I will be uncovered and pointed out as a novice. I'm not sure why this worries me, I think it is my lack of formal training but I must learn to get over it. He was very nice though and he gave me a piece of advice which I think is very valuable to any and every guitarist.
A sound engineer will mix your levels to how HE sees fit. So if you are playing with your guitar (especially an acoustic guitar) at max volume on your preamp that is as loud as it will go. So do a sound check with your volume slightly lower, that way when you play and you need to break into a solo, you can crank it up slightly so you can be heard.

Not all sound engineers will mix the same as well, if your engineer is a drummer for example, he will favour the drums in the mix, as a pianist will favour piano, a singer vocals and a guitarist the guitars. You need to know who you are working with. Thankfully Niel is very good and his mix comes out beautifully, but he isn't at the desk to turn me up when I need to solo so I need to make provisions for that in the future.

I had a technical problem which you also need to be aware of. I was playing a nylon string semi acoustic guitar. The pre-amp runs on a battery like most of these instruments. I did two things wrong here, I bought a cheap battery and never carried a spare. what happened was that the battery died mid song. The result was that I started out hearing myself clearly then halfway through the song I couldn't hear myself at all. Batteries are funny objects, when a battery is running low, the chemicals inside are still reacting and once it has generated enough voltage again it send out the current, once again draining all energy from it. This resulted in me having surges of volume in the song. The guitar would be soft one second and loud the next. It's not an easy thing to control.

The last issue I had is a bit of a gripe... I have a pick holder that is on the mic stand and I have a few picks stuck in there in case I drop one. During one of our breaks someone pinched 2 of my picks. Now I'm not sure what to think, did someone think I was that good and wanted a memento? Or is someone that cheap that they have to steal a pick from a mic stand when nobody is looking. I'll take the first option though, so thanks to whoever took them, I feel like a rock star...

Until next time, rock on and if you're in the Durban area pull in to Highfield House for next time we play.