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Live shows too loud

#81
BAG said:
At a pub i used to manage we had a nationally well known band playing. They had a reputation for being pretty loud but the volume was just ridiculous. To give some perspective, I was a roadie for one of Australia's best known bands in the 80's who were known as one of the loudest acts in the country in their prime, but they rarely played in a medium sized room at anywhere near this volume. I had to refund at least a dozen people after the first few songs and probably half the audience went into another part of the pub to get away from the volume.

I never say anything to any sound guy unless I know them personally but this one time I had to break that rule. When I asked him if he could bring it down a bit he simply muted every channel except the vocals, kick and snare and shrugged as if to say "sorry, can't do a thing" ...... and the volume basically didn't change. It was just their stage sound that was so stupidly loud.
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I have fought this battle many times as a sound person. The venue manager/promoter/buyer comes over and asks if I can bring it down a bit and I do exactly the same thing you described above. :D

I've told this story before but I was mixing Buddy Guy in a theater in Orono, Maine many years ago and they had a strict 95dB cap at FOH position. Well, just before soundcheck Buddy came out on stage, his tech handed him his guitar and KERRANG!! the meter at FOH hit 105. The manager of the theater and several other people came running to tell me I had to turn it down. I told them that I didn't even have the PA turned on and that it was all coming from the stage. The manager very seriously told me that I had to go up and tell Buddy freaking Guy to turn his amp down. I laughed and told him that if he wanted Buddy to turn down then he could go tell him himself. I think they tried that and were basically told to pound sand. An hour later they came back with a letter permitting us to exceed the SPL limit. :D

That said, as a veteran of the audio business, I don't think shows are any louder now than they were 20 or 30 years ago in general. There were plenty of excruciatingly loud shows back then too and lots of terrible mixes. If anything, my (totally anecdotal) experience is that the percentage of good sounding shows is actually increasing. I've seen a bunch of heavy bands in clubs recently (Baroness, Clutch, Mutoid Man, etc.) and they've all sounded great. Loud but not excruciating. Nice clear mixes too.
 
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#82
It always amazes me when I see/hear bands and players who refuse to adjust their volumes to the situation. If you are an established band and people are coming and paying to specifically hear you..then you have all the right to do whatever you need to put on your show..on the other hand if you are playing a gig where you hired to entertain clients..say at a wedding..they are not there for you specifically..then you should do whatever you are asked. I've been in professional bands that understood this...Bride tells us she wants us to set up in a far away corner and play so soft we can barely be heard...our answer.."Sure..whatever you want"...I've also been in these situations with guitarists who "Can't get my sound dude unless my Marshall is cranked"..and those bands never worked.

Imagine hiring someone to paint the walls in your house and when you request a certain color they respond.."I can't do that..I can only paint certain colors and I have to do it my way"..you wouldn't hire that person. No difference in the eyes of a club owner or bride who is hiring a band to provide a service.
 
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#83
I think the loudest show I saw was a Devo concert at the old Aragon ballroom in Chicago. Had hearing issues for two days afterwards.

Since we don't use amplifiers, I love having control over volume at gigs. We play a lot of weddings and they want it loud but not too loud. Heck we sometimes do lounge gigs and it's easy to control
 
#84
BAG said:
At a pub i used to manage we had a nationally well known band playing. They had a reputation for being pretty loud but the volume was just ridiculous. To give some perspective, I was a roadie for one of Australia's best known bands in the 80's who were known as one of the loudest acts in the country in their prime, but they rarely played in a medium sized room at anywhere near this volume. I had to refund at least a dozen people after the first few songs and probably half the audience went into another part of the pub to get away from the volume.

I never say anything to any sound guy unless I know them personally but this one time I had to break that rule. When I asked him if he could bring it down a bit he simply muted every channel except the vocals, kick and snare and shrugged as if to say "sorry, can't do a thing" ...... and the volume basically didn't change. It was just their stage sound that was so stupidly loud.
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Been there... it's painful for me as people think it's my mix... below is how I mix when the bass guy just can't get low enough... I was pushing that system pretty hard. No clipping but not too far off.

IMG_3216.JPG
 
#86
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.
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Subs are a good thing as long as they reproduce the low end, not exaggerate it. There is no reason not to have properly configured subs even if they add nothing to the majority of an acoustic performance.
However I agree that the trend is to hype the bottom end and use subs as "sonic disrupters" rather than to maintain a flat response.
 
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#88
TomB said:
That's a pretty high setting for a kick. Is the gain way low?
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Not really. I was mixing by ear as that is where the kick needed to be to marry up with the SVT and 4x10. Guy had a light foot and a dry sounding kick - which helped as the SVT was bottom heavy.

These folks do a mix of traditional country, country -rock, outlaw country. They did it well. The kick wasn't busy and to my ear it had to be right up and present.

I still got the vocals up where they needed to be.

This was an odd ball gig. Second stage at the fair. Was supposed to be an acoustic trio but the full band scored a gig they could fill on the drive home, they were about 2 hours out... so I was there with a pair of k12's and no subs... I think I may have gotten the max available from 1 set of K12's...
 
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#89
4Mal said:
Not really. I was mixing by ear as that is where the kick needed to be to marry up with the SVT and 4x10. Guy had a bit of a light foot and a dry sounding kick - which helped as the SVT was bottom heavy.

These folks do a mix of traditional country, country -rock, outlaw country. They did it well. The drummer and bass player did a lot of oom-pah / polka beat so the kick wasn't busy and it had to be right up and present.

This was an odd ball gig. Second stage at the fair. Was supposed to be an acoustic trio but the full band scored a gig they could fill on the drive home, they were about 2 hours out... so I was there with a pair of k12's and no subs... you do what you can...
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Cool - I usually end up with kick sliders lower than vox. It's all about mics and gain staging, I guess. Well, enough derail of a volume thread :) Thx Mal.
 
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#91
popgadget said:
Subs are a good thing as long as they reproduce the low end, not exaggerate it. There is no reason not to have properly configured subs even if they add nothing to the majority of an acoustic performance.
However I agree that the trend is to hype the bottom end and use subs as "sonic disrupters" rather than to maintain a flat response.
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Not sure what you mean by "sonic disrupters" but there are plenty of acts/crowds/venues where people want to physically feel the kick and bass guitar, ranging from a nice little thump to "melt your face bass" and kick that would make you stomach roll. Not every situation though, but there are quite a few.

I'm gonna open my big mouth and say something I shouldn't here though. In the 10-12 years I didn't touch a bass guitar I did a lot of sound for a medium-sized sound company owned by a close friend. We always tried to give the clients what they wanted though. All the EDM crap wanted insane low end little hi-md, uber-compression and no dynamics. A consequence of the way music is mixed/recorded these days (not always well) I guess. On the opposite end of the spectrum just about every time we mixed an act whose members were over the age of about 55 or their crowd was they wanted to nothing to do with low end but were cool with as much ear-splitting hi-frequencies as you could give. I think it was a byproduct of growing up with sound reinforcement equipment that couldn't reproduce low frequencies well/loudly.
 
#94
4Mal said:
Not really. I was mixing by ear as that is where the kick needed to be to marry up with the SVT and 4x10. Guy had a light foot and a dry sounding kick - which helped as the SVT was bottom heavy.

These folks do a mix of traditional country, country -rock, outlaw country. They did it well. The kick wasn't busy and to my ear it had to be right up and present.

I still got the vocals up where they needed to be.

This was an odd ball gig. Second stage at the fair. Was supposed to be an acoustic trio but the full band scored a gig they could fill on the drive home, they were about 2 hours out... so I was there with a pair of k12's and no subs... I think I may have gotten the max available from 1 set of K12's...
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Shouldn't we always mix "by ear"?

Also fader position doesn't tell the whole story. I've worked with several good engineers who always started with faders at 0 and adjusted gain accordingly the made minimal adjustments to fader position. Main reason is that moving faders from one point to another doesn't produce a linear change in volume depending on the position you start from. There are other consequences of fader position when it comes to sends and pre/post settings but observation still stands.
 
#95
4Mal said:
I think I may have gotten the max available from 1 set of K12's..
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I drove my system as hard as I was game the other week. Two RCF300 (12's) top boxes and an EV powered 18 Sub. Around 400 people in the room and I had every channel, as well as the master, occasionally clipping. Sound was great and there was no breaking up of the sound, most likely due to the fact that the amps are 250w a side while the speakers are rated at 300W. If I was to do anything bigger i'd need a bit more power.
 

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