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.


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