Dear Musicians,

One way in which gigs on cruise ships are different from gigs on land is that you’ll have to travel far with your gear. If you take lots of it, you will almost certainly be charged big bucks by the airlines and you’ll run the risk that they’ll damage it. Regardless of the charges and the risks involved, you’ll also have to carry your gear and set it up. Who wants to break hauling gear around? Cruise lines do ask you to play in various lounges around the ship, so moving your gear happens quite often.

So, it goes without saying that taking as little gear as possible will save trouble and cash.

It is important, however, to do so without sacrificing the quality of your sound. I have, in previous posts, talked about the fact that a lot of entertainers use outdated midi sounds that just aren’t professional sounding and thus will likely keep them from getting jobs.

Fortunately, there are many great products out there that allow you to do both, minimize your set-up and update your sound library to the very latest. Now, this is not an article in which I’m going to outline all the options you have, I’m not the right guy to do so, this is merely to get you to think about your gear and hopefully avoid problems before they arise.

I did do a bit of research though and came across some great solutions. If you’re a keyboard player, it would be great if you could use the keyboards that most cruise lines provide and leave yours at home. Naturally, you’d have to find a solution to take your sound library and your sequences with you though. I came across Sonic Cell by Roland that does the trick. It’s not only a sound module, but it also has the capability of playing back wave, aiff, mp3 and midi files, it’s an audio and midi interface, and it can be used to hook up directly to your computer for editing in your favorite DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

This way it helps on stage, but you can use it in your cabin with your laptop to create new songs as you go along. Naturally, this option costs some money which you may not have

A cheaper solution would be to put all of your sequences on an ipod. This is cheap and simple, but you don’t have the flexibility of the Sonic Cell. You couldn’t create or edit songs and thus be pretty much stuck with the repertoire you brought with you.

The Sonic Cell also works well for guitarists and thus it would be ideal for guitar/vocalists, piano/vocalists, duos, cover bands etc.

I would encourage anyone that knows gear better than I do, to post comments about other suggestions so we can pass this along. So pack light, it keeps money in your walled and your back will thank you, and keep your sound library fresh and up-to-date, not only will it help you get a job and keep it, but you’ll enjoy playing so much more.