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When did live gigs get ear-pearcingly loud?
- Thread starter Colonel_Claypoo
- Start date
The loudest show I attended back in the Old Days was Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow in '77 or '78. I'm pretty sure I suffered permanent damage from that one. More recently (earlier this year) I saw Springsteen here in Austin, and it was WAY TOO FREAKIN' LOUD. There was so much distortion in my ears that I could not hear the mix, and I pretty quickly chewed up pieces of paper and shoved them into my ears because I had foolishly left my hearing protection at home. Who the hell thinks that sort of thing sounds good?
Sick, but funny.
I think everyone should immediately stop playing if anyone else in the band lets the volume creep up to that level where you hear more of a blurred ringing than the music. OR anytime anyone says to back it off.
AND not play another note until the volume is OK again.
That's just me.
PS - I went to my share of Ramones shows in very small rooms in their early days.
and was a frequent visitor at CBGB in the late 70's
This was my exact experience at a Kings X show here a few years ago. They had enough P.A. for a 5,000 seat venue in a banquet hall that could maybe hold 800, and it was turned way up. Just ridiculous. My ears rang for days. I've kind of been put off by that band ever since.
As a drummer I don't wear earplugs because it helps me keep my volume under control and I'm less likely to hurt myself physically or my band mates sonically. As a bass player I like to wear earplugs because I can turn down the bass and yet hear myself even more clearly.
Having dealt with too many bad sound people, I tend to prefer to do a self-mix and have nothing but vocals in the PA. My bands can usually dial it back to a point where we can hear the vocals well without feedback and volume isn't too much of a concern. That the guitarists tend to use combo amps with a single 12 helps immensely.
KO
Having dealt with too many bad sound people, I tend to prefer to do a self-mix and have nothing but vocals in the PA. My bands can usually dial it back to a point where we can hear the vocals well without feedback and volume isn't too much of a concern. That the guitarists tend to use combo amps with a single 12 helps immensely.
KO
my drummer is always wearing ear plugs.. sometimes i foget them for gigs.. its true, the drummer can get ear-piercing with cymbal banging and swelling, if hes wearing ear plugs.
Exactly. My touch on the cymbals is much more nuanced if I'm not wearing plugs. It might cause me long term damage, but I don't want to subject anyone to something I'm not facing myself.
KO
+1 - I firmly believe that if you have to ear ear plugs on stage you are playing too loud!!!. If you can't take the noise you are making then you shouldn't subject the audience to it either.
Certainly at the kind of gigs I do/did, if the band was too loud you would be told by the management, who would have been told by the customers and if you did nothing about it you wouldn't be asked back. Also in the UK there are laws about the sound levels you can ask people to work in and all you need is someone to call the local council and you'll end up with some "jobsworth" turning up with a dB meter. In fact I've played a few venues - usually community halls near residential areas - that had noise meters that cut the power to the stage if you got too loud!!. We used to run extension cables to sockets backstage for those, 'cos we generally didn't finish the first song - and we weren't that loud!!.
By the same token, if as an attendee you have to bring earplugs to a concert, the FOH mix is too damn loud. That's why I hardly ever go to "big-name" concerts anymore, and only go see local acts occasionally.
I'm not saying all concerts have to be mixed at the level of polite dinner conversation, but there's a happy medium someplace that very few bands and sound techs seem to acknowledge.
I'm not saying all concerts have to be mixed at the level of polite dinner conversation, but there's a happy medium someplace that very few bands and sound techs seem to acknowledge.
A problem with that approach is that guitar amps, especially, can be very "beamy", so the mix an audience member hears can be very dependent on where he or she is. A fully implemented PA system (correctly mixed, with reasonable stage volume from the band, of course) will distribute the sound much more evenly around the room.
I agree completely. When I've played and there's been someone behind the board that knows what they're doing it's been awesome.
<Least desirable---------------------------Most desirable>
Bad sound man - No sound man - Good sound man
Unfortunately, my experiences have lead me to usually pick no sound man rather than take the luck of the draw with an unknown sound man. More than half the time I've gotten a bad sound man.
I have on occasion paid a friend out of my own pocket even when the venue is providing a sound guy rather than take the chance. At least on one occasion, it was unfortunate because the house sound guy was really good and my friend was unnecessary.
Rock Music has always been played loud. i have lost a bit of my hearing over the past 30 years. luckily it is mostly in the spectrum that my wife talks in. LOL seriously protect your hearing once it is gone you will sorely miss it.
peace
Dave
peace
Dave
Yyyyep! You stole my thunder. After 23 years of playing, and so many more listening to music with head phones, I'm amazed that my hearing is as good as it is. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. I am good through 15000hz. At 16000, the tone is harder to hear, but I can still detect it. I can even hear up to 22000, but just barely.
This test should probably be a new thread. Yep. Gonna do it.
I just don't understand the point of bands being so loud on stage. I've always been a firm believer that a good volume on stage makes it much easier for the band to play tighter. If you can actually "hear" what the ALL of the other musicians are playing then it will be easier to play with them.
I think a lot of this comes from bands being lazy. They don't try to change their stage arrangement to best suit the band. As bass players it's not a real big deal for us to add a second cab on the far side of the stage to allow the other musicians to hear us, drums in the middle or in the monitor (if electronic). If guitar players would put their amps toward the center of the stage or behind the drums (omg this means that the crowd might not be able to see that I'm playing a $2000 Marshall full stack!!!) If the drums are too loud then maybe a drum shield!!!
Also the number of you kid guitar players that buy a half stack and have never played for a crowd bigger that 50 people. Then you have tone snobs that claim that their amps don't sound good at low volumes (no kiddin' it's 120W tube amp), I played with one of these for years.
And heaven forbid that any combination of these gets a band that good enough to hire one of their friends to run sound for them!! I once was playing a show where the headlining band had 2 full stacks and the bass player hauled in a 8x10 for an auditorium that held 500 people.. The PA was over sized for the venue (45,000 watts for the mains... ugh) but the sound guy got a good mix and then pushed the main slider up to the point where goats were passing out 3 counties away!!! This was supposed to be youth rally, and about 1/3 of the kids ended up leaving after about 4 songs holding their ears and screams (it's too loud). We were selling merch about 100 yards from the doors to the auditorium and you feel the kick drum in your chest at our table and we had to yell to talk to fans.
too loud = too dumb
I think a lot of this comes from bands being lazy. They don't try to change their stage arrangement to best suit the band. As bass players it's not a real big deal for us to add a second cab on the far side of the stage to allow the other musicians to hear us, drums in the middle or in the monitor (if electronic). If guitar players would put their amps toward the center of the stage or behind the drums (omg this means that the crowd might not be able to see that I'm playing a $2000 Marshall full stack!!!) If the drums are too loud then maybe a drum shield!!!
Also the number of you kid guitar players that buy a half stack and have never played for a crowd bigger that 50 people. Then you have tone snobs that claim that their amps don't sound good at low volumes (no kiddin' it's 120W tube amp), I played with one of these for years.
And heaven forbid that any combination of these gets a band that good enough to hire one of their friends to run sound for them!! I once was playing a show where the headlining band had 2 full stacks and the bass player hauled in a 8x10 for an auditorium that held 500 people.. The PA was over sized for the venue (45,000 watts for the mains... ugh) but the sound guy got a good mix and then pushed the main slider up to the point where goats were passing out 3 counties away!!! This was supposed to be youth rally, and about 1/3 of the kids ended up leaving after about 4 songs holding their ears and screams (it's too loud). We were selling merch about 100 yards from the doors to the auditorium and you feel the kick drum in your chest at our table and we had to yell to talk to fans.
too loud = too dumb
if anyone else says the Who I agree! but I believe from 1964-1975 bands just kept getting bigger places to play and needed big and big amps and PA to fill with sound I know that when I was rocking with 4 SVTs and 4 8*10 cabs it blew your hair! moving a ton of air back in the 80's and am I suffering today? H3ll yeah I am!
RTS
RTS
Heh heh, ain't that the truth. We've got three electric guitar players in our band and none of them has more than a 30-watt combo on stage and with our P.A. we can cover a 500 capacity room with no problem and volume to spare on stage.
Point taken, but I read that Pete blames most of his tinnitus on the exploding kick drum at the end of their set on the Smothers Brothers show back in the 60's.
The drummer sets the stage level, IMO. But seriously, "The bass too loud". How is that possible?
I read somewhere that Mr. Townsend blames his hearing loss primarily on the many long hours spent in a studio, with headphones on. Phones that were too loud in general, and then with the occasional engineering error creating feedback in the phones.
When it comes to hearing damage, time of exposure is significant. 8-12 hours in a studio with headphones just a bit too loud, is much worse than 90 minutes on stage at even higher volumes.
What has changed in recent years, with respect to loud shows, is that the technology available has enabled much more power to the FOH. Unfortunately, many mixers, instead of using the power responsibly, (clean, and undistorted, but still plenty loud), they go into the realm of distortion. Most of the shows I go to, the house could reduce the power to the mains by maybe 50%, and it would still measure very similar in SPL, just with significantly less distortion.
clean and loud is cool, think Peter Gabriel at the Forum, or King Crimson at the Gibson Amphitheater. Distortion is what hurts, like Weezer at the Palladium, ouch.
