Quote:
Originally Posted by edva  Yeah, earbuds are a problem, environmental noise is a problem, and, what really gets to me, live performance volume levels that actually do permanent damage to the ears of people who love music enough to attend shows or patronize clubs with live music.
The guys who mix too loud (most of them IMHO) are literally destroying our audience base, and lowering the bar for quality audio across all mediums, IMHO. |
Sometimes there's no-one to blame other than pure ignorance on behalf of venues and artists:
Two weekends ago I went to see a band I'd seen before (and have a copy of their album) play in a local venue on a "quiet" Sunday afternoon.
I get there and find the band was relegated to a corner in the front bar. No engineer, just one powered PA speaker (
behind the mic), the other on the floor for foldback. The band room (with stage and full PA) remained empty.
We were blasted with The Vocals of Ultimate Boominess and I measured
sustained music levels of 110dB(A) from the furthest corner of the room.
What bothers me more is that I was the only one complaining, knowing full well that if the band could have heard themselves they'd have been livid too, but they just weren't playing for the size of the room.
So, while our state government alone is set to spend
$363 million on upgrades to a single sports venue (the tennis centre), as well as a new
$38 mil ice skating rink, long-established music venues literally face closure due to ludicrous liquor licensing laws & costs (designed to combat violence from city nightclubs). Point being: sports people have minimum standards, while nothing of the sort (yet) exists for the otherwise still thriving music scene, nor is requested, let alone demanded, by artists.
Just 10% of the figures above would go a
long way to alleviating noise & acoustical issues in music venues, and education.
For any other locals, here's the rally (and the government – in an election year – has so far already taken notice, meeting today with music industry reps):
SLAM