Band volume rant. We are our own worst enemy.

[60bass]

A huge part of the problem is that for many years we've been buying the wrong equipment (not bass players, we're perfect).

But those of us who play drums are buying exotic heads and so-called Rock Crash or Heavy Ride cymbals, all of which have to be struck pretty hard to get a full and natural tone out of them. The Wrong Gear. A medium volume set can be put together, but you want the old style thinner shells, lighter coated heads, medium thin cymbals, etc.

It's the same for guitar players. It's a rare gig that you can't use a 35w to 50w amp and a 2x12 cabinet. Yet we have many fine companies making 3-channel 120w heads with multiple gain stages for the guitar market. Don't get me wrong, these amps are big fun, sound great and are well made...but it's like driving a drag racing car around to get the groceries. The Wrong Gear.

These days there is no longer an excuse in saying "I need to turn my amp up to get my sound." There are too many excellent ways to get that amp grind, or subtle overdrive. The audience doesn't give a damn about "my tone," and if I say otherwise, I'm wrong, clueless and being selfish. Don't get me wrong, I love my Marshall DSL - but it's a 50-watter, and runs into a good 2x12. We don't have to be so loud, we just need to get over buying The Wrong Gear.

One of the best guitarists I've ever played with uses a Deluxe Reverb and it's plenty loud enough for ANY gig. My rig is a tc RH450 and two RS112 cabs. To be honest it's almost too much bass rig to run with modern PA support. I've played bass since 1969 and have seen, played through and owned just about every big name bass rig out there. Ampeg, SUNN, Acoustic, Bi-amp rigs, you name it. Honestly those big dinosaurs move HUGE air but aren't needed with today's PA's.

IMO one of the many marks of a real seasoned musician is learning that volume ain't everything. IMO a true PRO can get his/her volume and style with any rig at any volume. Same with drummers. A drummer can have power along with finesse. Not easy but it can be done.

To the OP KEEP LOOKING. You'll eventually find the right people who agree with you about volume.

 

[zZippy]

I saw Steven Wilson in December at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, and he was so loud his sound was distorted. The Variety is a small venue

Once heard Invalid Link Removed at the old Yale in Vancouver (and check out Marcus Miller in that video!!). I was in my mid-20s, so perhaps better able to take the volume. It was a great concert – perhaps the best I've ever been to as it was a very small venue (maybe 200 people) and I was about 15 feet from the stage and Healey was a guitar god. But it would have been even better -15dB or so.

Another experience was a now-defunct Christian rock band called Halo who were sort of big in the late-80s and early-90s. Very synthy stuff, but that was the era. I saw their final concert in a small hall at Texas Women's University. I had to leave before the intermission, and when I did I found a bunch of my friends outside as well. We were maybe 19 at the time, and it was making our ears bleed.

I once heard someone say "if it's too loud you're too old."

I suppose I've always been too old, then, as I've always felt assaulted by cranked up concerts, even in my late-teens and twenties.

 

[Ric5]

So, here I sit, looking for a decent band. I don't really care at this point about the genre (rock, blues, modern country, 90's country, etc.). I only care about the quality of the players. If the music's right on, I'm happy enough. I just don't want to do an acoustic duo/trio.

So if I join a band, where are we going to play? Why the lack of places to play?
There have been many threads discussing the decling band scene, but something that I think has contributed a great deal to the demise of the club scene is:

VOLUME.

The last five bands I've played with were always way too loud. All bands had decent PA support, including subs. The same thing happens all the time....the stage volume is excrutiating, so nobody can hear the vocal monitors, and yet everybody is in the main PA cranked up.
All the bands I've heard around here at the few venues that still have R&R/Country/Metal bands have all been simply too loud, to the point where you can't hear anything except a wall of noise.
Even the worship bands I've heard are all too loud. I hear complaints from all the people running sound in churches, and I hear the same complaint over and over; the stage volume is too loud.
I talked to a club owner a few weeks ago who was having problems with acoustic acts bveing too loud.
He actually told me some acts bring a PA that's too big. He can't be at every show. The people that work for him are telling him they aren't having success in getting the people to turn down.

From the mid 60's to the mid 70's, we used a decent vocal-only PA. Stage volume sometimes got out of hand (OK, most of the time), but since there wasn't the kind of PA support most bands have these days,
it just wasn't as bad. If you could hear the vocals, we figured we were doing something right.

It's getting to the point where most places are too small to run everything through FOH, but bands still do.
It simply sounds like crap.

VOLUME. I realize it's not the only reason the scene is shrinking, but people do not want to have their hair and scarf being blown backwards like the old Memorex commercial, if you're old enough to remember that. Good visual.

Now I need to find a band with decent players who don't play too loud.
It ain't happening, I'm afraid. That's the frustrating part. I'm starting to tell myself it isn't worth it for many reasons:
1. Talent pool is thin
2. No places to play
3. Idiosyncracies of band members
4. Lousy communication
5. Members' failure to learn material
6. etc. x 20

Rant over. Thanks.

I refuse to play in bands that play too loud …

There is a guitar player here in Denver who hates me because I told him too many times he plays too loud

 

[StatesideRambler]

I’ve been playing since the mid-sixties. I’ve been to a LOT of concerts, clubs, shows, revues and jams in my life. I’ve played a LOT of gigs and jams. I love seeing live music. I’ve enjoyed or been forgiving of a lot of overly loud shows but some have driven me away. e.g. In the eighties Pat Travers, Toto and Tower of Power were so talented but I walked out of two of their concerts, never to return. If I’m a musician and I’m walking out on bands who have mad skills, do you think I’m going to stay the whole night at a local club where talent is far less evident than volume?

I live in a fairly small town (population of the whole county is less than 23,000) with a surprising number of venues and I know most of the venue owners. Several will no longer present live electric acts because so many bands fail/refuse to embrace the technology involved in turning their volume knobs CCW. Yes, there are exceptions.

MY sound, MY tone, I need to hear MYSELF.

Does hearing yourself really require that you impose excess volume on the audience and the servers? That is what you’re doing when you’re cranked so you can “hear yourself” and it can be a drag to the paying audience.

 

[Downunderwonder]

The Variety is a small venue - it can hold 1100 max

you must be a Texan.

 

[rtslinger]

Ahhh fire the drummer was my first thought ha ha ha
As long as your drummer knows how to lay back when needed he won't be the cause of volume wars.
My drummer who has been playing for a ton of years knows when to push it and when to lay back. volume wars hasn't ever been and issue

 

[tb4sbp]

I think this is one of the most common issues with bands. Usually smaller status bands that do not have someone running the sound (that is not part of the band!). Usually volume wars are caused because in the beginning we all learn from recordings and play louder than the recording to hear ourselves.

Then when we get into a band we want to hear ourselves on top of the music not as a part of the music. Monitors help big time whether floor or in ear the player can decide on how to break up the other instruments. I always liked to put myself above the other instruments/singers but that is just the way I do it.

Now if you are a seasoned musician and still cannot control your volume then it is an ego thing. A lot of the bands I have been in I was the most advanced/technical player (props for tooting my own horn!). Of course there are a lot of things needed to play in a band and for other facets different members were better. But I was always drowned out by someone jealous. Other members or the audience would ask me to turn up but the sound was controlled by the guitarist and wanted the spot light. (Rant over)

If you can, have a friend or someone stand back to listen and then take their advice. If you have a someone running sound then let them with only the goal of making the band sound as one.

 

[lbbc]

We've been successfully playing without a drummer for 5 years...but some venues don't consider you a band, and won't pay decently, without one. I'm auditioning a drummer tomorrow night who has a HUGE kit at home but only plays out on his electronic kit... because he says massive volume kills the song. If he's decent, we may become a 4 piece occasionally.

 

[bumperbass]

o.p., that ad was for maxell. memorex was the 'glass breaking' is it live or...? ad.

carry on.

lol. Yeah. Maxell, OLD-TIMER,

 

[FugaziBomb]

If I ran sound these days I think I would carry around a HPF pedal or two for the guitar players to clean up the mud

Yes! The last BL I worked with doing originals had a huge problem with that. He had a 1960a cabinet and was into dominating the whole mix. He had a graphic EQ in his track and didn't start tapering off low end until 80hz. He wouldn't listen to anyone about that being a major problem in live mixes, either. That inability to heed advice was a cancer, too. No one else in the band wanted to give any grooms because he never would. It was a mess.

 

[bumperbass]

I have a number of thoughts on this. First, I grew up in the 70s/80s, the arena rock era. I "like" volume when I see a band, I like volume when I play, and I have the hearing damage to prove it. Setting aside our experience as musicians, which tend to have us being more reasonable about volume, our ears/brains like it louder (within reason), there is (was?) a reason for "loudness" buttons on old school stereos, it was to make up for what the brain wasn't hearing if you were at low volume.

Having said that, again, I like volume, within reason. I'd hate to be playing so quietly I can hear my strings cleaning off the fretboard, and, assuming electric drums, heard a steady "tapping on cardboard boxes" sound coming off the pads of the drummer. That would be uninspiring to say the least.

Yeah, I get this, too.
We played a few gigs at a restaurant last year. The owner was completely unreasonable, asking us to turn down so much, we were hearing the strings on our solid body instruments. The drummer was playing so soft, there was no way to get a groove going.
The music was played so politely, we couldn't play. I told the guys we don't belong at this place.
I struggle with this, too. Back in the day there was enough volume to 'get into it'. I agree some types of music have to be a certain volume.
You can't play AC-DC without a LITTLE volume. May as well go acoustic.

 

[bumperbass]

Yes! The last BL I worked with doing originals had a huge problem with that. He had a 1960a cabinet and was into dominating the whole mix. He had a graphic EQ in his track and didn't start tapering off low end until 80hz. He wouldn't listen to anyone about that being a major problem in live mixes, either. That inability to heed advice was a cancer, too. No one else in the band wanted to give any grooms because he never would. It was a mess.

I agree. That's why we told our guitar player we liked his Strat more than we liked his Les Paul. Too much bass. All mud. Competed with what I was doing.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

So, here I sit, looking for a decent band. I don't really care at this point about the genre (rock, blues, modern country, 90's country, etc.). I only care about the quality of the players. If the music's right on, I'm happy enough. I just don't want to do an acoustic duo/trio.

So if I join a band, where are we going to play? Why the lack of places to play?
There have been many threads discussing the decling band scene, but something that I think has contributed a great deal to the demise of the club scene is:

VOLUME.

The last five bands I've played with were always way too loud. All bands had decent PA support, including subs. The same thing happens all the time....the stage volume is excrutiating, so nobody can hear the vocal monitors, and yet everybody is in the main PA cranked up.
All the bands I've heard around here at the few venues that still have R&R/Country/Metal bands have all been simply too loud, to the point where you can't hear anything except a wall of noise.
Even the worship bands I've heard are all too loud. I hear complaints from all the people running sound in churches, and I hear the same complaint over and over; the stage volume is too loud.
I talked to a club owner a few weeks ago who was having problems with acoustic acts bveing too loud.
He actually told me some acts bring a PA that's too big. He can't be at every show. The people that work for him are telling him they aren't having success in getting the people to turn down.

From the mid 60's to the mid 70's, we used a decent vocal-only PA. Stage volume sometimes got out of hand (OK, most of the time), but since there wasn't the kind of PA support most bands have these days,
it just wasn't as bad. If you could hear the vocals, we figured we were doing something right.

It's getting to the point where most places are too small to run everything through FOH, but bands still do.
It simply sounds like crap.

VOLUME. I realize it's not the only reason the scene is shrinking, but people do not want to have their hair and scarf being blown backwards like the old Memorex commercial, if you're old enough to remember that. Good visual.

Now I need to find a band with decent players who don't play too loud.
It ain't happening, I'm afraid. That's the frustrating part. I'm starting to tell myself it isn't worth it for many reasons:
1. Talent pool is thin
2. No places to play
3. Idiosyncracies of band members
4. Lousy communication
5. Members' failure to learn material
6. etc. x 20

Rant over. Thanks.

Never been a fan of amps with speakers pointed at my knees.

I like to see the knobs and I abhor bending down to tweak.

Our drummer uses a plexiglass shield. Keyboards uses a 2x12"at head level. Bass has it at chest level. Same with guitar.

Fair bit of hearing loss might have encouraged some of us to change

 

[Two-Spirit]

Beethoven wasn't born deaf, dun dun dun DUN. 150 db Beethovens 5th.

 

[SactoBass]

 

[lat]

This would get it done for most bands. The drum shield does two things.

1) It blocks some of the sound coming off the drums.

2) It reflects a lot of that sound back at the drummer. Usually this forces them to play a little softer because they are blowing their own ears out.

It's not their fault. Drums are naturally loud. A rock drummer with a very light touch sounds like crap to me.

But if you somewhat isolate the drums, the rest of us can take it down a notch.

We tried out a drum shield last gig, to see if it would help with stage volume. I was kind of expecting it to not have much effect, since it was not a huge shield (4 2'X5' panels), but it was a HUGE help and turned a stage that tends to be a boom box into an actual pleasure to play on.

 

[two fingers]

View attachment 3284118

One of my top 10 movies. But, I was a teen in the 80s too, so.....

 

[HolmeBass]

This would get it done for most bands. The drum shield does two things.

1) It blocks some of the sound coming off the drums.

2) It reflects a lot of that sound back at the drummer. Usually this forces them to play a little softer because they are blowing their own ears out.

It's not their fault. Drums are naturally loud. A rock drummer with a very light touch sounds like crap to me.

But if you somewhat isolate the drums, the rest of us can take it down a notch.

This is salient and insightful. My experience is that the volume issues start with the drummer. Acoustic drums played properly are loud. Brushes do nothing to make the kick or hi-hats quieter. Many drummers start out reasonable but get them excited and suddenly I can’t hear myself during a tom fill. A problem is finding a drummer who owns the plexiglass gobos and having the room to deploy them on some stages. And if you’re using them, then mic’ing the kit, checking it, and pulling it into the monitor mix. So a fair amount of time and effort and some money are needed. I do like some of the mini-kits I have worked with, using a cajon for a kick and the percussionist uses hot rods or brushes exclusively, but in a way it is no longer rock at that point. It’s a dilemma.

 

[SactoBass]

One of my top 10 movies. But, I was a teen in the 80s too, so.....

That movie rocked!

And what I like about that particular scene is, Huey Lewis is reproducing exactly what happened to *HIM* (in real life) early in his career when he and his band were auditioning for a gig. They told him that his band was just too darn loud.

 

[Pings Bass]

Hearing oneself in the mix is one of the hardest skills for amateurs to grasp. The best musicians are really good listeners, of course, and can hear all the parts simultaneously, including their own. (They teach this in music school. )

I played in an originals band in the 80s where the rhythm guitar player always needed his guitar at the top of the monitor mix. He just couldn't hear himself otherwise. We only had one stage mix, so it was horrible for everybody else. But if he wasn't on top of the mix, he'd start breaking strings. Then the drummer wanted more bass in the mix, and then the vocals had to go up a notch or two....

Individual mon mixes/IEMs can "solve" that problem for everybody else, but IMO it just masks the problem that the player has missed a critical part of his music education.