Band volume rant. We are our own worst enemy.

[turf3]

I do a lot of big band work and I have seen all too many times the "sound guy" come in and put a microphone in front of every single horn!

I want to say "Look here buster, this instrumentation was designed to fill the Roseland Ballroom with 2000 intoxicated dancers, with no PA except one mike for the singer and a little 10" PA speaker. Take all that stuff away and just let us play. No one in your VFW hall is going to have ANY trouble hearing us."

 

[13bass]

I wonder how many, if any, bands, or even single acoustic performers ever actually go walk around and TALK to the folks in the crowd during a break, ask them what they think, do they have requests, like the music they are playing, AND are we loud enough? Too loud? I've never seen that happen ever.

Most folks won't say anything otherwise, just leave if it's too loud or whatever, and maybe even make a note to not come out again if that band is playing. But they may speak up if asked, and say, well, yea, you are too loud, it's hard to actually talk and socialize, or worse, they say their friggin ears are hurting and bleeding.

Because if they don't like you, for whatever reason, they leave, or don't come back, and the manager owner sees this. Even ask the bartenders/wait staff, the manager on duty, etc. Get feed back DURING your gig and adjust, show them you are there to please THEM, not after, when they don't want you back and you don't know why.
You see it all the time in good restaurants, a manager/owner walking the table, asking how everything is.

 

[EdO.]

I wonder how many, if any, bands, or even single acoustic performers ever actually go walk around and TALK to the folks in the crowd during a break, ask them what they think, do they have requests, like the music they are playing, AND are we loud enough? Too loud? I've never seen that happen ever.

Most folks won't say anything otherwise, just leave if it's too loud or whatever, and maybe even make a note to not come out again if that band is playing. But they may speak up if asked, and say, well, yea, you are too loud, it's hard to actually talk and socialize, or worse, they say their friggin ears are hurting and bleeding.

Because if they don't like you, for whatever reason, they leave, or don't come back, and the manager owner sees this. Even ask the bartenders/wait staff, the manager on duty, etc. Get feed back DURING your gig and adjust, show them you are there to please THEM, not after, when they don't want you back and you don't know why.
You see it all the time in good restaurants, a manager/owner walking the table, asking how everything is.

I do actually do that a bit but this is a great reminder that I need to do it more. Great post.

 

[Skerrvydog]

Y'all ever see the Wood Brothers do their "Big Mic" songs during a set? they bring out a big ol large diaphragm mic and play around that. talk about managing stage - and crowd - volume! Otherwise one of the things that makes them such a great band is that all of their stuff is geared toward proper stage volume. Oliver might use a tiny little guitar amp on stage and that's all he needs, turn it up till it sounds like butter and still be able to sing over it without issue. And of course Jano is super tasteful with everything he plays. Doesnt even use traditional rack and floor toms, has a skin head on a ring that when close mic'd to FOH sounds HUGE. Smart.

 

[kevindahl]

Here's a little story. We were playing in smaller northern community in Northern Manitoba. Swan River if I remember correctly. This was in the late eighties and bands performed Monday to Friday. On Tuesday morning we get a call from our booking agent. If you ever got a call on a Tuesday morning it was probably not good, as in "you're fired" not good. So the agent informs us that the owner/bar manager of this fine establishment was not happy and that we were way too loud. In fact we weren't known as a loud band and we were top 40.

Most bands back then used huge PA systems ie Martin 2 or 3 bass bins per side, double mids per side , and some horns and adequate power. If you didn't have the PA and at least 60 par 64's you did not get the good gigs. Our sound man said it was our stage volume because there was nothing coming from the house. We thought this was ridiculous and came up with an idea to totally turn down to as low as we could.

Gaff tape was on the cymbals and everybody's amps were at a whisper. We were playing at such a low volume that we could talk to each other on stage at a normal volume and hear everything we were saying. It was actually quite funny. At the end of the set our sound man comes running up to the stage and we could tell he was mad. We hadn't informed him of our plan. Before he could tear us a new strip the manager came running over and was jumping up and down with glee saying how perfect the levels were. He ended up buying us beer all night! We slowly turned up over the week and by Friday were back at our normal stage volume.