band rehearsal volume question

[Guitar Dave T]

Originally Posted by Spooky

Read this thread with interest as this is a huge bone of contention with my band at the moment. Our singer has had problems recently with her hearing and tinnitus and partially blames the bass player as the ear most affected with pain etc was the one pointed at his amp during practice. As unsure as we are if he is/was to blame we have spoke to him and he insists that as he is a huge part of the rhythm section (were a 3 piece and singer) that he needs to be heard very up front in the mix and when we last played with a sound engineer was constantly moaning about being buried in the mix.
He always moans that I need to cut through more when I solo but I disagree and seriously think that he needs to take into account our singers problem and everything points to him being too loud.
I am trying to get everyone to turn down(hell i play with a cornford 6w in the low channel) and play to our drummers unmic'd volume as suggested here but it doesnt seem to sink in, without being an ass how can I tell him he needs to turn down?
Love playing and if I thought I could get another band I would think about leaving, its getting that bad.

There are two things about your post that seem confusing:

Electric bass frequencies are rarely the cause of hearing damage unless your bass player is running through a cranked 320 watt SVT on small stages. In my experience, the bass player rarely needs to turn down.

OTOH, unless you're drummer is a light-playing blues or jazzer, I wouldn't expect any 6 watt, single speaker combo to be able to cut through over him. This is fine if you mic every gig, but if you are working on balancing your backline stage mix, it would be hard to make that happen effectively.

Your best bet for determining this would be to place a recording mic, preferably a stereo condensor, about 20-30' out in the crowd and up over everyone's head. You listen to the recordings and you should know.