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. 

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.