The Loudness War at Concerts?

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by woomanmoomin

95 dB for an acoustic set? Talk about unplugged!

It was apretty cool show. Everything but vocals went direct, no amplifiers, and a half dozen Clair 12AM monitors.

Can't see the keyboardist, but lineup was fiddle, 2 guitars, keys, and four vox. Niiiiiiiice gig!

[LX3]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

It's not just the PA, but also the MONITOR rig that's largely to blame. Many times I'll turn the PA off during soundcheck, call the production manager & band manager with the reading of the stage volume with the PA off... to share with them what exactly the band wants/expects, and how ridiculous it is!

When I'm playing, I'm a firm believer in keeping the onstage sound as comfortable as possible. So if we soundcheck and the monitor guy pushes things so hard that I can't play drums loud enough to hear MYSELF...!!!... I complain and have occasionally been told that the monitors have to be that loud so that the musicians can hear themselves over the FOH!

Thanks a bunch.

Either the FOH has to be loud to drown out the monitors, or the monitors have to be loud to drown out the FOH... which is it? (And who's actually in charge here? Not content with deafening the audience, these guys want to deafen the performers too?)

These are probably the same people that only ever push faders UP when mixing: "Hmm, the snare's too quiet, hmm, the vocal's too quiet, hmm, the guitars could be more "up front"..."

Ear plugs. Always always always. Put them in every case, bag, pair of jeans, jacket pocket... Otherwise, the time you really need them, you can bet you won't have them on you.

[Jim vanBergen]

Ear plugs when you are the attendee...or near loud noises like subways, or screeching children. Don't mix with them, TURN IT DOWN instead!!!

[hakanai]

i mix monitors at a roughly 500 person theater. stage volume is regularly an issue and often the cause of excessive foh levels. in sound check i do everything i can to help control stage volume but more often than not any efforts towards reduction is quickly met with someone complaining "they've lost something" what i have found is that if you have the time and the performers are reasonable you can cut quite a bit from their mix whether it is in eq or in the level of things they only needed for rehearsal reasons. i get plenty of extreme cases however. i had one guy tell me to just let him feedback occasionally because he didn't want me to cut frequencies at all. so here's a guy playing accordian surrounded by wedges that are being driven to their max and he is asking if i have any more level. if i cut any 1/3rd octave more than 2db he notices and tells me to put it back. we also had an old school classic rock guitarist come in and during sound check the house foh guy measured his amp ALONE (no monitors, no PA) at foh (60ft away and half way into the crowd)
at 115db! he wouldn't let us use shields or change anything and everything else had to keep up on and off stage. during the show i'm sure we were in the high 120's
not to sound like everything is on the musicians we also get alot of touring engineers who seem to have lost their high end hearing because if the mix isn't too lound than it is usually too bright and it ends up feeling too loud anyway
sorry to rant but this is a regular conversation between the foh guy and me, we usually end it with "mix everything louder than everything else" because that's what it feels like people are always telling you.

[bishopthomas]

In the high 120's! That's more than just loud, it's a health hazard. You should have been shut down for OSHA reasons alone. If there is an instrument that is too loud and the player refuses to turn down then I mix around it. The channel stays muted and I mix the band at an appropriate volume.

Saturday night I was working with a band whose sax player used the Bose "Stick" system. I was amazed at how loud it was, louder than I needed to push the FOH mix, and the sax guy was standing in FRONT of it. The band knew he was too loud and because of the situation he was the one that looked bad, not me. It wasn't my mix that was loud, it was the sax player. Sorry that it's not well balanced, but I'm not pushing the levels because of some deaf musician.

Now, if the whole band is loud and I'm doing vocals only through the PA then I try to get them on top as much as possible. But even then there's only so much you can do. I plan on staying in this business for another 30-40 years, so if all else fails then I'd rather pass on a job than damage my ears.

[hakanai]

that night was definitely an exception as far as max volume. i actually went out at intermission and stood behind the bar and tried to inform people of the fact that we had cheap ear plugs and they would actually make the show sound better. it's tough though because on some nights the band has their own sound guys and all they are interested in is what the band wants, the crowd is second to them. it always seems backwards to me.

and even if you understood i think it's worth reiterating that it was 115db at 60ft just from the guitar amp! crazy people

[SixAndChange]

I got a question for you guys. When everything is toooo loud and you start really losing the vocals, what are some tricks you employ to bring'em back? Or another scenario, when the vocalist cant hear himself in the monitors because you feed back after adding a tiny bit of level. Assuming of course you have a graphic eq already set on the monitor.

[woomanmoomin]

Turn it down.

[bishopthomas]

There really aren't any "tricks" to defy physics. Some people use a massive amount of compression, but that has its own ill side effects. Wooman is right, just turn it down. If the band is louder than the vocals then either the band turns down or the vocals get burried. It's as simple as that. Bands that don't understand that concept will not have their vocals projected to the audience.

[roonsbane]

I have been to many, but I think the very loudest concert that I attended was Bowie in Boston about five years ago. The Earthling tour or possibly the following tour. Ok maybe it was about 8 year ago. I was wearing plugs about midway back from the stacks and still my ears rang for at least a day after words. That was probably 25 rows back from the poor folks in the front row. I just don't get it. That FOH dude should have been arrested. I think it's purely a testosterone thing. When I would take the plugs out for shortest of intervals. A minute hear and there. It did sound incredible! The headroom in that system was unbelievable! With a massive low end and I mean F^%n massive. A literal sonic assault. It was so extremely loud, with punch and ludicrous transient response. It imagine it is like driving a car that accelerates from 100 to 175 MPH in like three seconds. It's a power trip. Of course I could not really appreciate the sonics as a result of the required earplugs. I just have no idea how you could mix even a single tour at that volume and be half the engineer you started out being due to hearing loss. It's simply not possible.

Why should you have to wear plugs just so you don't suffer permanent hearing loss from one single concert. I do like a really loud passage if it's deserving occasionally though.

My 2 cents
Cameron

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by TREMORS

Except when he makes comments about he's playing a Gibson and not some
-direct quote- "jap" guitar and turning his show into some sort of GOP-fest. fuuck
Yeah, that's just Ted, I know.

I just wanted the guy to play Stranglehold, is that too much to ask?

Anyway, on a side note...
I saw Santana last fall and i was angled to the right side of the stage, and the snare would just POP at certain moments (like the end of a tune where everyone is playing together) and truly hurt my right ear..and some of Carlos' high notes, were just PIERCING.
I was maybe 20 feet from the stage and the speakers, and I didnt wear plugz.
Is it previous damage to my ear from listening to WAY too loud music as a teen?
The person I was with said they didnt feel any discomfort, and they are 25 years older than I am.
It was an outdoor venue, though...So, I understand trying to project to the lawn seats.
Should I get my hearing checked???
I dont have any ringing our loudness problems, only that specific case.


-D

You may have some issues. Check out http://www.hyperacusis.net/hyperacus...nt/default.asp, but do get your hearing checked on a regular basis. There is some research going on now that shows that megadoses of vitamins A, C, E and magnesium. There's more at http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22775

Safe hearing out there, folks!
Edwin

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by SixAndChange

I got a question for you guys. When everything is toooo loud and you start really losing the vocals, what are some tricks you employ to bring'em back?

If you're FOH, you talk to the monitor engineer, & ask them to keep it as low as they can. When a lead vocalist bitches to the monitor engineer they can't hear themselves loud enough, I jump in and say WAIT UNTIL THE PA IS ON!

Then I turn the PA back on, drop the drums back a touch, get separation on guitars/keys, plop the vox back in where it goes. I ask the band to have a member (or the lead singer) take his RF mic into the house and sing, listening to the PA.

90% of the time, VERY happy band. 10% of the time, I'm totally screwed.

Tricks for vox: double-bussing vocals, thickening with effects. Make sense?

Jim

[Alex Niedt]

I honestly have never understood why live music is mixed sooooo loud. I absolutely hate it. I would gladly go to more concerts if they were listenable on a regular basis.

[Zeppelin]

Being an live mixer is a really ungrateful job. This easter I mixed a country singer with a band at small clublike stage in a hotel. The band was really good and played at very reasonable volume and didn't need very much in the monitors. Needless to say with a hammond/leslie, a 8x10 ampeg, git amp and drumkit they were going to make some level in the low ceiling room. Soundcheck went fine and the band seemed very pleased. When the audience start coming they are a bit older than one should expect, the majority being 40-60. The band start playing and I think the balance and sound is great and get this confirmed by a producer/muscian friend coming by. A woman probably about 60 stops by says there is nothing, but bass and you can't hear the vocals, turns out she's sitting in another room adjacent to the stage, sofuuck
There's a rude man giving me thumbs down and saying the band is way too loud drowning the vocal. I'm meet a guy at my age which I went to school with asking me what I do for a live I answer that it's pretty much sound to which he replies, "you sure got that right." Trying to make the miserable old people that need something to complain about, I turn down overall volume a bit and vocals up. Still having the rude man complaining saying he can't hear the vocals which he have paid so f****n much to hear. Another one is complaing the overall sound level is to loud. Remember people are drunk and dancing and chatting making an awful noise/din, I have a full band playing onstage and it can't be too loud or still the vocal needs to way louder than the band. People are complaining to me like I'm some god of the physic laws. Afterwards the band were happy with the sound(but thought the audience were old), but people were complaining about the artist were too boring, about hotel security, the cab wtf?? One of the maids working in the hotel thought the vocals were too low, strangely she thought it was worst in the second set were I actually turned it up. The sad thing is I could actually her every word she sang and every instrument came through, I don't get it...people


Sorry for the long rant here's a short just opposite ofc at a hip-hop show:
Having soundcheck everybody in the band was happy. After a couple tunes someone in the first rows scream something to the artist to which he replies in the mike:"Do you think it's too quiet? Do you want the mixer to turn up the volume?" Of course I did and man it was pretty loud as I started out in my personal "loud-and-kicking-but-comfortable" level. But the audience was happy so, so was I.

I guess what I'm trying to say is quit live shows and go studio, then listeners have their own volume knob.

[SixAndChange]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

If you're FOH, you talk to the monitor engineer, & ask them to keep it as low as they can. When a lead vocalist bitches to the monitor engineer they can't hear themselves loud enough, I jump in and say WAIT UNTIL THE PA IS ON!

Then I turn the PA back on, drop the drums back a touch, get separation on guitars/keys, plop the vox back in where it goes. I ask the band to have a member (or the lead singer) take his RF mic into the house and sing, listening to the PA.

90% of the time, VERY happy band. 10% of the time, I'm totally screwed.

Tricks for vox: double-bussing vocals, thickening with effects. Make sense?

Jim

Sounds good. I was just checking to make sure there wasnt some MAGIC VOX FADER knob you can get customized into consoles haha.

Originally Posted by Zeppelin

Being an live mixer is a really ungrateful job. This easter I mixed a country singer with a band at small clublike stage in a hotel. The band was really good and played at very reasonable volume and didn't need very much in the monitors. Needless to say with a hammond/leslie, a 8x10 ampeg, git amp and drumkit they were going to make some level in the low ceiling room. Soundcheck went fine and the band seemed very pleased. When the audience start coming they are a bit older than one should expect, the majority being 40-60. The band start playing and I think the balance and sound is great and get this confirmed by a producer/muscian friend coming by. A woman probably about 60 stops by says there is nothing, but bass and you can't hear the vocals, turns out she's sitting in another room adjacent to the stage, sofuuck
There's a rude man giving me thumbs down and saying the band is way too loud drowning the vocal. I'm meet a guy at my age which I went to school with asking me what I do for a live I answer that it's pretty much sound to which he replies, "you sure got that right." Trying to make the miserable old people that need something to complain about, I turn down overall volume a bit and vocals up. Still having the rude man complaining saying he can't hear the vocals which he have paid so f****n much to hear. Another one is complaing the overall sound level is to loud. Remember people are drunk and dancing and chatting making an awful noise/din, I have a full band playing onstage and it can't be too loud or still the vocal needs to way louder than the band. People are complaining to me like I'm some god of the physic laws. Afterwards the band were happy with the sound(but thought the audience were old), but people were complaining about the artist were too boring, about hotel security, the cab wtf?? One of the maids working in the hotel thought the vocals were too low, strangely she thought it was worst in the second set were I actually turned it up. The sad thing is I could actually her every word she sang and every instrument came through, I don't get it...people


Sorry for the long rant here's a short just opposite ofc at a hip-hop show:
Having soundcheck everybody in the band was happy. After a couple tunes someone in the first rows scream something to the artist to which he replies in the mike:"Do you think it's too quiet? Do you want the mixer to turn up the volume?" Of course I did and man it was pretty loud as I started out in my personal "loud-and-kicking-but-comfortable" level. But the audience was happy so, so was I.

I guess what I'm trying to say is quit live shows and go studio, then listeners have their own volume knob.

I figure, not matter what industry you are in people will generally be ungrateful, think-I-can-do-it-better, whiny babies. So I dont see any reason to leave live sound, for a studio. Because then you start working with the REAL "I know more than you" musicians. At least doing FOH youre in the back of the room with 90dB of savagery between you.

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by SixAndChange

Sounds good. I was just checking to make sure there wasnt some MAGIC VOX FADER knob you can get customized into consoles haha.

Well if there was, would I tell you?

For one producer on a live broadcast of Stain'd, I could not get the vox forward enough during the rehearsal. So I multed the lead vox to two channels on my Neve VR, and put one channel on an LA2A and the other on an 1176. The producer didn't complain again, but I thought it was WAAAY over the top. I guess the producer wasn't a big fan of thick guitars getting in the way of the lead vox.

I have a client who tells me that no one can get vocals as "full" sounding as I do live. Well, I ADD bottom EQ to sounds like proximity efffect and a little extreme high to get the transients to pop on the channel and I make sure I have good, accurate mics where some other guys add a midrange presence peak and cut lows and highs. It just works for me, and the label reps always say the lead vox sound like they did on the record... of course, I often thicken vox with my Eventide and then add a little verb or delay to taste.

I never believe them, though.

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

Curiously I was discussing this same question with a couple of friends today.

Yesterday I went to see a live gig. It was a trio: piano, violin and doublebass, and vocals(the piano player).

When they started playing i couldnt bealive how loud it was, stupid loud, specially for a piano/violin/DB. It sounded like the engineer had a hard rock band at his front.

It sounded awfull, killing the band completly.

Can you imagine the piano player trying to play soft passages, and the violin, sounding hard harsh and loud as hell?! I kept thinking, if the guy simply shuts the PA down Im sure it will sound better.

2 days ago, another gig, the same thing. this time it was so so loud I couldnt stand to be in front of the stage.

Im a musician myself and I´ve played with big sets and at summer festivals, but there are limits.

I ended up hearing the whole concert from another room about 80 meters from the stage. It sounded much better there, I felt like a freak though.
But a lot of people didnt mind about the volume...i dont know, maybe they just want to feel their stomach vibrating or something like that, I really cant understand this.

I just think that if the space/PA system/overall sound quality isnt great, playing it loud as hell doesnt help a bit.

Also, just to end, the worst of the problems, along with this loudness war, is the incapability or lack of will of the engineer to understand and interpret the nature of the musician or band playing.

maybe Im just getting old!!! not really, yet, I think

[brucie]

Great topic.

This is really important issue for me, I love 'loud' music...but there is loud and there is the current trend amongst FOE's to deafen you. I am surprised at how willing people are to be subjected to these kinds of volumes. I guess most people aren't aware of the consequences.

As most of the previous points mention, there are a variety of different reasons this occurs....1)Loud is cool, 2)Stage volume is way way to loud etc

I would live to add that in some cases the venues aren't suitable for rock/metal/pop performances. I would cite the Royal Albert Hall as one, I have seen tons of classical music there (unamplified) and you can hear everything perfectly (from the ppp to the fff and the fff can be pretty damn loud!). I have also seen a few rock acts there and each time it has been terrible, beyond terrible. The reason I think is that the reverb times in these places is quite long, so the engineer tries to blast everything as loud as he can to try and get over the mush...which just means there is even more of a mush. Worst concert I saw there was Steve Vai, love the guy and his music (No flaming please), but his FOE should have been given the sack, loads people where I was just got up and left. Earl's court arena is another shed which has aweful reverb properties and the same thing happens.

The loudest band I have ever seen was Black Label Society, it got so bad 30 minutes in we left as we all seem to be on the threshold of pain (I was in pain). Not enjoyable at all.

The best without was Peter Gabriel, the sound was perfect, loud but without any ringing afterwards!!

Peace

Neil

[-Noodles-]

I got told by a punter the other week that "It's never too loud".

Obviously some UK venues need to catch up on the USA FOH engineers.

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by -Noodles-

I got told by a punter the other week that "It's never too loud".

What a moron. Please introduce me to that guy so I can rid the world of one more bleedin' idiot. stike stike Maybe he'll learn...when his tinnitus ruins everything.

[LX3]

Worst-sounding gig I've ever been to? Soul Wax at Southampton University a few years ago. One of my favourite bands on earth - if you don't own a copy of Much Against Everyone's Advice, order a copy somewhere NOW! - but ugh, what a terrible live mix. As someone said, the attitude seems to be, if it sounds awful, and you can't be bothered to do anything about it, just make deafening and awful.

Clearly a difficult low-ceiling room, but still... louder makes bad sound worse, not better. I'd have thought that was obvious.

Sorry if you're the guy that mixed this band... but I was so annoyed I was seriously considering climbing over the barrier, wrestling the FOH guy to the ground and mixing it myself.

Generally, I find you're far more likely to experience ear-meltingly loud (and bad) sound in small rooms (where it's easy to achieve stupid SPLs with garbage equipment) than big arenas. Although it's far from the best venue on earth, things can actually sound great at Earls Court... from the cheap seats upstairs at the very back! I was at several Prince gigs there in 1992 or so, and it was like hi-fi at the back, compared to how it sounded up front. Who'd have guessed?

[n8tron]

i've been to two "rock" concerts in the past couple months. 1 sounded great the other sounded awful. both were way to frickin loud. it would have been so much more injoyable if my ears weren't in physical pain! why do they do this??? why don't they just turn it down just a little bit! it wouldn't hurt anyone... quite the contrary in fact.

[nandoanalog]

Last week I got out of a rock concert for the same reason.... It was just way too loud... Got my ears ringing for two days. But the opening band was not that loud (except for the lead guitar), and it did sound so much better.
Why can`t those guys at the mixer notice that they are makin it too loud? Maybe they want to show us how loud their PA system is...?

[assaultonaudio]

Let me preface this by saying I work a small venue. Not a big stage, about 20ft x 15ft of a "pit" then some stairs and a bar area. 99.9% of the time I have a problem, it's because the drummer is smacking the hell out of his skins as if he's playing to 20 thousand people and not just 200. So, I end up mixing around the drums. Problem #2, drummer is too loud, no one else can hear themselves, guitars go up, vocalists cry, monitors get cranked, feedback ensues, and I lose a little bit more hair.

Another problem I have, and this just happened last friday, is when a band brings a nice polished cd full of tracks for their show. So the cd has drums, bass, synth, and background vox on it. So now I've got drums/bass/etc. on a Cd, a drummer, and vocalist, and a guitarist. First thing they tell me is that the cd tracks need to be louder than everything else. Ok, fine...and we need them to be really loud in the monintors because we rely on the tracks for feel. Ok, fine...so I put a fair bit of the cd in their monitors. "Hey, can you give us more?"...the PA isn't even running at this point. I'm just shocked at how loud they were already. So I bring it down, and ask how that was, and they tell me again "I really can't hear it." So I had the band come stand where I was, and I put the cd through the monitors again, pa still off, and they didn't seem to get it. Once the drums and guitar were on stage playing, it was going to be downright painful! They didn't care. More monitors. My monitors are now on the edge. No more headroom. "Oh yeah, can I get some vocals in the monitors?" Ok, fine...but you probably wont hear them over the threshold of pain breaking monitors you've got up there.

The show got underway finally after a grueling soundcheck of +3 db to the vox, -3db to the cd, "please turn up the cd", "please turn up the monitors", rinse, repeat. If I change the EQ on the monitors to try and bring out one or the other, they just told me "It's mastered, it doesn't need to be EQ'd, just turn it up". But, the show started none the less, and of course the drummer gets excited and plays louder, the guitarist is using sign language to ask for more cd, I'm shaking my head saying that it's just not possible with this system, and the vocalist just can't hear anything. Not to mention that because of the volume of the cd on stage, I've had to put very very very very very little in the house PA, and the mix ended up sounding great. Less to muddy up the PA and take away from the power I could get from the vocals. So it ends up being a good story...but it was a painful road to get there.


If I'm mixing too loud, I'm mixing around something. The room I mix in has a baaaaaaad high end problem. Guitars and cymbals are the worst culprates. I'm waiting on some construction to be done to insulate a few of the walls to cut down on the reflections, but when the place is empty, it's like mixing in a garage...well maybe no that bad....but I don't need no stinkin' reverb. So when people say it's too loud, I cut some 5K and a bit of 4K, and usually around 2K and 2.5K and *some* of the problem goes away. It's not an ideal solution, but hopefully that'll be fixed in the next few weeks.

[Jim vanBergen]

Hey Assault,

Sounds to me like you need some drum shields (like Clear Sonics) just to help a) reflect the volume back at the drummer, and b) to protect the other players around him, and 3) solve your "too much drums" problem. I'd also look into providing a closed-ear heapdhone + 18" subwoofer + drum throne with buttkicker. Then, write a one-paragraph missive on how mixes SUCK in this small venue based on people playing too loudly and the audience responding badly as a result. Make the manager, lead singer, guitarists and drummer read it by posting it in large print stage left, right, and in the dressing rooms (and replacing it every time it gets ripped down.)

Good luck!

JvB

[zakco]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

It is like the KICK DRUM is more important than Toby Keith's voice!

Well...I wouldn't disagree with that....hahaha