Generally the shows I go to, and play, the band's backline is a significant part of the volume. Mostly they're at smaller local venues.
High SPL isn't "bad" unless as a band you haven't figured out how to make your sounds go together at high SPL.
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Turn down your Ampeg! LOL
- Thread starter Stranger Danger
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High SPL isn't "bad" unless as a band you haven't figured out how to make your sounds go together at high SPL.
I realize that there are a significant portion of TB members who have probably never played in a band at high volume.
I think this is kinda sad.
There are things that can only be experienced under those conditions such as the way the instrument becomes "alive" and the nuances of tone and timbre from the way you physically play the instrument become so present. Then there is the physical sensations of the cabs pushing all that air against your back and the seismic vibrations of the stage starting at your feet and working their way through you.
You can't experience that any other way.
I've seen the reaction on audiences as well, both good and bad, thus the need for musicians to learn "loudness" as another aspect of live performance. It is a tool that needs to be used as conscientiously as any other element of the performance.
I think this is kinda sad.
There are things that can only be experienced under those conditions such as the way the instrument becomes "alive" and the nuances of tone and timbre from the way you physically play the instrument become so present. Then there is the physical sensations of the cabs pushing all that air against your back and the seismic vibrations of the stage starting at your feet and working their way through you.
You can't experience that any other way.
I've seen the reaction on audiences as well, both good and bad, thus the need for musicians to learn "loudness" as another aspect of live performance. It is a tool that needs to be used as conscientiously as any other element of the performance.
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I have experienced the pleasure of standing in front of my bass cab and making my pant legs flap in the wind by plucking my strings, with the rest of the band's thunder washing around me and over the audience, and I will say there is definitely something sublime about the experience. My current band is not really loud but some of my previous bands have been. For the squares who do not and will never enjoy that sensation, I feel bad for you, it's one of life's pleasures.
I have also had the pleasure of seeing The Who from the front row at the old Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia once back in the day, with Pete Townshend standing right in front of me and speakers making my brain rattle off the sides of my skull. It was loud to the point of near-pain but it was awesome. The Who had a reputation of being one of the loudest bands in history so I'd have been disappointed if they didn't show me why that day.
I don't recommend it all the time, of course, and it goes without saying that not protecting your hearing will cost you big eventually. But there are times when loud is exactly what the doctor ordered.
That said, I did see Slayer last year in a moderate venue (Filmore Silver Spring in Maryland) and while they gave the impression of being super loud, they were in fact not ear-crushingly painful loud. I'm not sure how they did it, the music was very clear for every instrument, the bass was massive, and they were plenty loud as befits a legendary thrash metal band, but not over the top stupid loud. It was pretty much the perfect sound job for a metal show. I guess it takes skill to do it right.
BTW, I'm glad I've reignited use of the word "square" earlier in this thread, it's time to bring that word back into common use.
I have also had the pleasure of seeing The Who from the front row at the old Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia once back in the day, with Pete Townshend standing right in front of me and speakers making my brain rattle off the sides of my skull. It was loud to the point of near-pain but it was awesome. The Who had a reputation of being one of the loudest bands in history so I'd have been disappointed if they didn't show me why that day.
I don't recommend it all the time, of course, and it goes without saying that not protecting your hearing will cost you big eventually. But there are times when loud is exactly what the doctor ordered.
That said, I did see Slayer last year in a moderate venue (Filmore Silver Spring in Maryland) and while they gave the impression of being super loud, they were in fact not ear-crushingly painful loud. I'm not sure how they did it, the music was very clear for every instrument, the bass was massive, and they were plenty loud as befits a legendary thrash metal band, but not over the top stupid loud. It was pretty much the perfect sound job for a metal show. I guess it takes skill to do it right.
BTW, I'm glad I've reignited use of the word "square" earlier in this thread, it's time to bring that word back into common use.
Slayer isn't doom metal. Not quite as loud. Within metal there are different volume expectations. Thrash is loud, doom is holy crap, oh my god, this is obscene yet magnificent loud.
I use the word "square" all the time, actually, and I'm not the only one. It's coming back in.
For example, Chrch is one of the loudest live bands I know of. And yet they also are one of the best sounding in terms of mix, because they pay attention to how their various sounds fit together for the band's sound.I.[/QUOTE]
Chrch! Good guys, you must be from the bay or the valley.
BUT holy cap is Chris' rig monstrous. That acoustic cab makes my booty jiggle
Chrch! Good guys, you must be from the bay or the valley.
BUT holy cap is Chris' rig monstrous. That acoustic cab makes my booty jiggle
From the bay here.
Chrch is like getting hit with a brick wall. A really good sounding brick wall.
My experience agrees with this and I wasn't deriding loud performance in and of itself. The club I saw Polvo/Pavement at, which is sadly now history, was one my band totally lucked into playing at once when we somehow got mentioned as guys to call as a fill-in. It was a long time ago, but as I remember we got a call while we were beginning a practice ("Hey, can you guys be at Mississippi Nights to fill in for _____ in, say, an hour?") We went flying up the basement stairs and started throwing our gear in the cars...and ended up getting to have band practice in one of the St. Louis clubs that hosted touring bands through a real PA. That day both of my amps (I played guitar in that band, through two small old tube amps) were down for repairs, and I was using two solid state 15W practice amps...my little Peavey and a borrowed Crate, fed from a couple pedals and stereo reverb unit. I was a little worried! Our bass player used a Peavey TNT combo. The main act turned out to be the Gigolo Aunts, who had a tube Traynor bass head, some big-ass bass cabinet, and a Matchless DC-30. They were laughing and pointing at my gear as we set up. The soundman seemed politely amused and said something like, "Welllll now, which of these bad boys would you prefer that I mike?"
My point is, we did not have a loud backline sound, but it was a well-balanced and surprisingly good-sounding, complimentary backline sound. And the sound coming back to us from the room and the monitors was faithful to that, and exhileratingly huge. It was like wielding mighty laser cannons of goodness upon the small crowd that showed up early enough to hear us by accident. We sounded like a LOUD BAND, and one that knew what we were doing. We did, in the sense that we played well together and balanced our volumes and parts to support the frontman's voice and amplified acoustic guitar. But we were small, local and had small, low-budget, low-powered equipment, geared toward very small shows.
This is one of the experiences that led me to believe that what's coming off the PA can be a hell of a lot bigger than what's heard on stage. Also that great PAs with knowedgeable, experienced soundmen running them are fantastic.
But I've been onstage when it went the other way, when bandmembers all had bigger amps and were struggling to be heard over a loud this or that and volume wars ensued, and nothing being turned up seemed to help. And the room sounded weird or the PA was mismanaged. Loud and bad.
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the problem with PAs is that they don't sound right to me. I'd much rather hear a band with little or no PA in a small/medium club than a band with "reasonable" stage volume and loud PA. i saw Sleep a year ago and it just sounded like someone playing a record through a really big stereo. on the other hand i saw Brant Bjork in a 100 person venue with a tiny PA and it was so real and intense. even though i wouldn't consider Brant's music to be heavy in the traditional sense, to me that show was much more heavy and sounder more live than Sleep was at the big venue with a monster PA.
You're right about the SVT/V9 thing - but it was his company and the SVT was started while he was still there - and he started them down that road.
Also, remember that people like Hull did gradually increase volume because they were trying to allow the amps to STAY CLEAN - so the V9 would totally be up his alley - Gibson had an enormously powerful amp with 8x10s endorsed by Les Paul (who famously never found a use for the fuzz he invented) because for a "nice clean tone" you need headroom. It's just when people turned up the svts and v9s till they roared that Hull got upset.
Re: Volume vs. Balance - this is true, you can be loud and well mixed - (of course you are hearing in the crowd - not necessarily what's on stage) - and there is no rule about THAT either way. You are also right that people will tend to put people into the "they're loud so they don't care" category, which isn't fair. But you will find that most experienced musicians come to have quieter and quitter stage volumes, because ears actually begin to "compress" just like a tube amp when they hit maximum volume and you hear less of the information - you get the same effect as when your ears pop on a particularly bad airplane flight and everything is kind of muffled and indistinct. You can argue that they're turning down 'cause they're old and can't handle the volume, but that's not fair - but you can also argue the same for the ones who stay loud - they've just gone deaf and can't hear without the extreme volume. Also, you can be LOUD without being LOUD - apparently Meshuga play through modelling preamps into headphone monitors - the volume only needs to be loud for the audience - they're the ones who are supposed to be enjoying the emersion - you need to be immersed only enough to play well and for your equipment to give the sound you need/want.
Reminds me of when I saw the Romantics in 1980. I knew the guy who supplied the PA for them to play this 2000 seat club, and he had great gear that sounded awesome when other bands used it in the same club. But the Romantics' onstage volume was so loud and they kept asking for the monitors to be cranked so they could hear themselves sing that it was nothing but feedback the entire show. About a month later, Johnny Winter played there, used the same PA, and the PA volume was head-ripping loud but no feedback whatsoever. And that was when I learned that having a record deal doesn't necessarily make a band professional.
Sorry but not true at all. Jess Oliver and Bill Hughes both have said that they never discussed the SVT project with Everett Hull and hid it from him when he was in charge because he would have nipped it in the bud. Only when Hull sold to Unimusic did the SVT project actually gain any traction, and Hull hung around for a little while in an advisory capacity but left when it was obvious that Unimusic wasn't interested in his outdated 1950's ideas. If Hull hadn't sold and been marginalized, there would have been no SVT.
You think so? I've been in bands that left my ears ringing for days after practice and gigs - my old guitarist's Marshall was so loud you could hear the HUM when took a pause from half way across a crowded room. My last gig I could feel my pants flapping (and I don't wear anything CLOSE to bell bottoms).
I personally really ENJOY the feeling/sensation/sound of extreme volume, but it, in and of itself does not make the music good (unlike Hull, I don't think it inherently makes the music bad).
Once you have adjusted your ears to tolerable volume levels (btw reasonable doesn't mean Champs set low enough to be clean) you do realize you can hear each other better and you PLAY better with better feel. Then you SLAM the audience with the FOH. They WANT to be pummeled and aren't doing it night after night, so they aren't likely to suffer long term consequences.
Again, just as too quiet means the amps can't "speak" - and that's true for good SS too, it's just at a different ratio to maximum possible volume - too loud means your ears can't properly "listen".
But more to the point of all this is, Hull is right, whatever your "ideal volume" is (and I'll leave it up to whomever it playing) there is an "ideal" and if one person gets too loud, then everyone else compensates and now the band is MUCH too loud because you have 4 or 5 (or however many) people who are ALL too loud. Furthermore, if you are "competing" for volume, you are NOT listening and achieving careful balance between instruments. If you are competing it means - YOU are too loud (not balanced) or someone ELSE is too loud and you are trying to keep up (not balanced).
Consider me corrected.
But would he have been against it because it was loud or because they were ROCK oriented?
As I mentioned (I think in the same post) lots of stuff was designed for clean headroom that us muscians just turned around and abused to make sounds they were never intended to make. That's why the late CBS Fenders are so poorly regarded, because they were re-designed by hi-fi guys who increased volume and headroom and added things like ultra linear transformers making them harder to distort because to engineers the idea of power is to be able to get CLEAN, not necessarily LOUD.
Yes. He hated both. And since the idea of the SVT was loud clean headroom, he would have deemed it unacceptable.
It's my understanding that Hull doted on jazz musicians that would visit the factory showroom, but would push rock musicians off on his underlings with the instruction to get the long-haired trash out of there as quickly as they could.
All true. Hull would pawn Jess off on them, who, despite sharing Hull's distate for rock and roll, understood that they were customers, too.
Indeed. Hull would have been aghast at the SVT. And certainly would never have allowed the V9, with its built-in distortion circuit.
