bad live sound (Springsteen)

[Kaoz]

Can't comment on the specifics of your post, but as a sound guy, I know how frustrating it is to be at a show (as a paying fan) with terrible sound.

Sometimes I can pick out things that are out of the engineers control that are overtly effecting the sound, and can cut the guy/gal some slack.

Other times they're just terrible engineers and I spend the night wondering how they got the job.

Unfortunately it is becoming a bit of a trend that I've noticed over the past couple of years as the older engineers are retiring/dying. There seems to be a proliferation of untalented engineers the world over who study more than they mix, and get gigs based on a certificate from a college and who they know, rather than any real skills or experience.

Not sour grapes on my part, I have more than enough work, just something I've started to notice. And as a fan and supporter of live music, it annoys the hell out of me.

[frenzy]

I saw Bruce in Gothenburg, Sweden, this Friday.

Originally Posted by Janb

Sound was bad. First hour of the show you clould barely hear the instruments. Just vocals (badly compressed), no guitar in the mix. (with 4 guitarist on stage ..)

Kind of the same thing happened on this show, the sound cleared up after an hour.

Bruce is kind of a mumbler and it was very hard to hear what he was saying in between the songs the first hour, after that it was just hard hearing what he was saying.

Originally Posted by Janb

Due to a little wind (hey it's outside! ) the sound was constanly shifting from nothing to weird only high tones..

Yeah, it was shifting really bad sometimes and it was a beautiful evening with no wind at all. There must have been some soft gusts ten meters up in the air where the speakers were hanging. But still, I've never heard that much weird shifting before. By nature, line-arrays are sensitive to wind, but I've only heard treble shifting that large at local festivals with eight speakers in each array and about 15 m/s winds, close to storm size.

I really wonder what made the line-arrays shift so much at the Bruce concert.

Originally Posted by Janb

Drums sounded weak (was that a trigger sound on the snare? or the real thing? )

My guess is that it was triggered because on some of the rolls it sounded too consistent.

Originally Posted by Janb

Volume on the sax was constanly late (like half a beat into each solo)
no bass in the sound at all.

Yep!

Originally Posted by Janb

Last hour of the show was decent.. but with that equipment it shoud have been stellar.

I think the setup was way too small for the big arena we got in Gothenburg. It's football stadium and there were 66 000 spectators in the audience. There were just one delay rig on each side, halfway down the football field, in my opinion the should have been two delay rig, a third and two-thirds down the field. And the main rig was way too weak and thin sounding. The sound was no more than okay on soft songs with just Bruce and acoustic guitar, and when the whole band played the sound pretty much collapsed, no low-end support and gritty mid-range and shifting treble.

Originally Posted by Janb

Any comments from the live sound pro's here ?

Well, I try to stay out of live sound, don't like the sound levels or late night work, but I've mixed shows for a couple of thousand spectators and set up some mid-size system.
But attending large-size concerts, the Bruce concert was under-powered. I've attended the Roskilde Festival a lot of times and the live sound has always been pretty good, even at shows with 70 000 spectators.

I think it comes down to live sound has become rather advanced with laptops calculating the spread of the speaker arrays and such. Nothing wrong with that, but even if the calculations tells you that it should work, you need to listen to the result and evaluate the calculations.

Originally Posted by Janb

At least the Irish sing in tune, and clap to the beat.
And the Guinness was terrific as always.

The weather was great, babe in my arms and The Boss playing for FOUR hours. The concert was magic!!! :D

When they played the tribute song to Clarence it kind of got me, tears in my eyes...

Rest in peace brother Clarence...


Cheers
Fred

[Janb]

Thank you for the Gotenburg review. Glad i did not fly out for that one.. i originally had it as option on the scedule, but work didn't permit another week off.
And all that because i don't like the sound at the pinkpop festival, this tours Dutch venue (also too small setup)
Was looking into NJ, but will skip it till next tour, hoping they do get the sound right next time...

cheers
Jan.

[verve92]

I remember seeing him at the Stone Pony in NJ 20 years ago and the sound there was just OK. Small venue.
Seems outdoor venues have this issue.