My drummer, who played for Spyro Gyra for thirteen years, considers a loud lead-in a badge of honor.

Seriously though, I agree with the OP that sometimes the lead-in can be a different volume than what you might prefer, so for recorded tracks I often do a little editing in my audio editor. Sometimes I take the lead-in out entirely; only takes two seconds.

But, what to do for a live performance? Have you tried changing the part marker for the first bar to Green? The fills into a Green part marker are often softer than the fills into a Blue one.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.