[rhinocaster]

A few years ago, my band began rehearsing without mics. We were always a loud band and we tended to rush along at a breakneck pace.

Once we started rehearsing without any vocal amplification, an amazing thing happened. We started playing more quietly and everyone started to key off of the vocals. The pacing of songs was better. The tone of everyones instruments got better. The singing got better and we became much more connected as a band.

Across the board, our musical maturity went WAY up.

All of this has translated to shows when the vocals were mic'd. We don't make the singer shout, and we have a much wider tonal palatte to choose from now that we don't have to hit the overdrive and blast to be heard over the band when soloing.

If you find yourself fighting and losing the battle of volume escalation in your band, you might give it a try.