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Live shows too loud

mbart203

mbart203

Dec 29, 2009
128
136
CT.
#1
Hopefully this applies to this forum.

Maybe it's my ripe old age of 43 but I'm finding some live shows just sound like crap due to the fact that they're just running everything hot and it blends into one big blurb of noise that is not enjoyable.

I love heavy music but recently I went to a show where the sound was just wrong.
It was a small 200 person theater, probably not the best sounding room as it is but on top of it, only the first opener performer any real sound check (and their sound was the cleanest)
The other bands just seemed to push their back lines sooo much that it all was more of an assault on the ears. You couldn't make out the different instruments or vocals.
I'm surprised these bands would wanna have their live show sound like this.
 
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#4
I know it's my age. That, and the growing propensity of younger sound techs pushing the decibels higher and higher.

Yeah, I can't go to most live shows anymore. I love a good restaurant gig, or church gig, but anyplace with an audience composed mostly of young people is in danger of xploding into aural assault.
 
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#5
About 10 years ago at my old church, we had a Christian rock band setting up to play an event.
During setup, they had this constant hiss in their sound rig they brought.
The old timer sound guy at the church (who is brilliant as well as against anything resembling rock music) tells them not to run their power amps so hot.
They reluctantly turned them down and the show sounded great and their sound guy had more head room at the board.
 
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#7
IMG_1284.jpg
I've always used foam ear plugs for shows and band practices. The muffled sound always bothered me. I picked up these new plugs from GC. It's not muffled, the sound is clear and just at a reduced volume. Well worth the price.

I have screaming tinnitus, I won't step foot in a show without earplugs.

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#9
forgive me for possibly derailing the thread...
loudest, in a bad way, show i ever heard was the Who, 1971/72 brkly community theatre, which is about a 3000 seat facility. the bulk of the ( completely devastating ) performance was great, but they cranked the volume for the last 15 minutes or so - ear splitting, painfully loud ( townsend! ) so bad i wasn't sure i'd ever hear normally again - and i probably don't. ever since then, ear valves in shirt pocket at all shows. often they're not required, but i got 'em.
 
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#10
My biggest gripe these days is the overkill of subs. I've been to too many gigs in the last few years where the kick, and to a lesser extent the bass, is so overbearing that it ruins the mix and in some parts of the room can actually make you feel nauseous. One of these was with an acoustic guitar based folk band. So stupidly overkill it wasn't funny.
 
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#13
mbart203 said:
Hopefully this applies to this forum.

Maybe it's my ripe old age of 43 but I'm finding some live shows just sound like crap due to the fact that they're just running everything hot and it blends into one big blurb of noise that is not enjoyable.

I love heavy music but recently I went to a show where the sound was just wrong.
It was a small 200 person theater, probably not the best sounding room as it is but on top of it, only the first opener performer any real sound check (and their sound was the cleanest)
The other bands just seemed to push their back lines sooo much that it all was more of an assault on the ears. You couldn't make out the different instruments or vocals.
I'm surprised these bands would wanna have their live show sound like this.
Click to expand...
I saw Periphery on their last tour in a good-sized venue and, aside from not having a bassist (instead of replacing Nolly, they used backing tracks), they had the muddiest, nastiest, most nebulous and over-amplified noise ever. I was wearing hearing protection and it just sounded like one fuzzy blur. All the technical prowess and meticulous arrangements were lost.

It was awful. Don't know whether the blame is on the band, the venue or both.
 
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#15
There's an element of wanting to feel the music as well as hear it, and I'm in the camp of always wearing earplugs because tinnitus means I haven't heard silence in 20 years, and never will again.

That said, I caught a bunch of acts in the hangar stage at M'era Luna a couple of weeks back (yes, it's actually an aircraft hanger), and parked myself right beside the sound techs. They had three decibel meters clearly visible to one side, and worked hard to keep everything (just barely) under 100db. NFI whether it's a legal requirement in Germany or just part of the license for running that festival, but they suddenly got very busy when any of those things exceeded that limit. I'd have asked, but they were kinda busy.

OTOH, I checked out a promising-sounding bar a few months back - they'd just renovated, and wanted to recover/maintain their presence as _the_ live music venue in the city. All six of us could have heard the band just fine without any reinforcement, but the SPLs from the PA forced us outside and into another bar. Some gets it, some don't.
 
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#16
BAG said:
My biggest gripe these days is the overkill of subs. I've been to too many gigs in the last few years where the kick, and to a lesser extent the bass, is so overbearing that it ruins the mix and in some parts of the room can actually make you feel nauseous. One of these was with an acoustic guitar based folk band. So stupidly overkill it wasn't funny.
Click to expand...

I hear ya. I went to see a friend's originals band in what's supposed to be a hip bar in town. The sound guy (built in PA system) was running SIX subs - with two tops. In a small room. I counted. Couldn't make out a word my friend was singing. It was dreadful.

Another club I went to, it looked like the entire stage was built over a tier of subs. They did balance the vocals better on top, but the bass was pure mud, couldn't make out a single note.

And to the OP generally - yep, a lot of bands and venues just run things too loud. I remember a street fair in Kansas City (First Friday, for those who know the town), where a music shop was having a band inside their small storefront. It was so screaming loud everyone went out to the street. Literally driving people away.

To some extent it's rock and roll and it's not the same if it's quiet. You want to fill the room and let people feel it. But I don't recall ever hearing a live band recently whose problem was not being loud enough. It's tricky to get it just right.
 
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#17
You can cover up a lot of mistakes with volume.

I saw Elvis Costello back in June at the Tower Theater in Philly and the volume was ridiculously loud. You could feel the bass (not a bad thing) but it was so loud you couldn't distinguish the notes. The overall mix was terrible and would have been improved if they'd just turned it down a little.
 
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#18
I live outside a retirement community that brings in classic rock bands, the volume is always kept low for this type of crowd..and guess what! You can hear everything!!..and it great!!..I've gone to way to many shows (mostly metal) where the sound is just a big blurry mess. Main culprit being extremely loud kick drums and bass (the frequency, not the instrument)...as a bass player I can almost never really hear what the bass is doing at a metal show.
 
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