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[Stephen Kirby]

Agreed Bob.  Also, arrangement.  I remember reading an interview with John Fogarty in GP back in the '60s where he said "Arrangement can make even a mediocre band sound good".  That comment stuck with me.  Not everybody has to be hitting every note in the chord that's possible on their instrument.  Many keyboard players should have their left hand taped to their back.  And take the low E string off of the guitar.  That's where the bass and kick drum live.  Let them do their job.  Arrange the rest of the chord amongst the band, and with some sort of rhythmic interplay, and you don't need a bunch of Berklee shredders to impress.  Just some musicality and people working together.

[Luke Geis]

I ( many years ago ) used you be in a band that, in our infancy, was too loud. It only took a couple of times for a venue to say not again before we changed our ways. We simply turned off the PA and monitoring during rehearsals. We made a game out of it. How quiet can we all play and sing while still having the energy and feel we wanted/needed. Needless to say you can play and hear all you need without monitoring or a PA if you really want too. After that gigs like the Roxy were no problem to get.

I detest loud stage volume for two reasons:

1. Your right to play as loud as you want, ends when it hits my ears.

2. There is nowhere to go once you have painted yourself into a corner.

If I don't like it that loud, chances are good others won't as well. You want to appeal to the masses? Then play at a level that fits in the middle of your audience demographic. Once your too loud and refuse to " turn down for what ", then problems are all you can expect. The mix suffer's, the engineer suffer's and everyone's reputation suffer's.

[Brian Jojade]

I know a few folks who carry around half stack Marshalls but have very quiet stage volumes.  So you need to see what goes on before jumping in with lectures about stage volume.  When I'm playing guitar someplace and some guy comes up and immediately tells me to put the amp sideways right next to my ear (in a venue large enough for bother with a house PA and soundperson) before I've ever played a note, Houston, we have a problem.

Sadly, the folks with that kind of self control are few and far between.  It's best to address potential concerns as soon as possible.  Now, all of this is a 2 way street, and working out an acceptable compromise before everyone finishes setting up the stage is the ideal situation.  It's a lot more trouble to have a stage set, then try and get it changed to fix issues after the fact.  Proper positioning of gear on stage is much better than trying to adjust levels later that won't actually fix the problem.

[Steve M Smith]

If I don't like it that loud, chances are good others won't as well.

I don't mind loud if it is of a very good quality.  Often the two don't go together.
Generally though, I'm not a fan of loud as a listener, but especially as a guitar player.  I actually get told to turn up! 

If I can hear too much of myself, it puts me off my playing.  I never have any of me in the monitor.

I really don't understand how some guitarists can play coherently with the band when all they can hear is their amp.  If it's too loud fore the audience, it must be even louder (by ratio) for a player a few feet away from the amp.

In my muso world, there are first call folks who say that some gigs are worth it regardless of the pay

Indeed.  There are some gigs which I would have happily paid to do!

Steve.

[Joseph D. Macry]

I do recall ONE really good band that insisted on HIGH pa volumes. This was Buick McKane, which was Alejandro Escovedo's loud-guitar combo. I worked them in a couple of modest clubs in Austin.
They did not run the guitar amps unusually hot, but they wanted 108dB or louder at FOH. Monitors did not need more than usual. Alejandro (always a real pro) specifically discussed this is advance with the sound crew. For this style of music, the intentional high volume was a real part of the vibe. Simply impossible to ignore them or hold a conversation.

[Luke Geis]

I am usually told to tun up as well ( my guitar amp that is ). It is amazing how little it takes to hear yourself. Hence some of my quote's.

I usually go by standard that most concerts are played at about 105db on average. This is about as high as I ever like to go. I have been in a few rehearsal spaces that reached 111db......too loud. Here is a good link on sound related safety and practices: http://www.soundadvice.info/thewholestory/san10.htm#

Here is another link on another recent study: http://www.healthyhearing.com/content/articles/Hearing-loss/Protection/41606-Concerts-hearing-loss

[Scott Olewiler]

I wanted to follow up on this.  My Saturday gig was my problem band.

First off, my Friday night gig was a dream job, Jake Bartley band out of SC. Wow, what a great party band. I would have mixed them for free.

So the Saturday gig comes and they asked to do an afternoon setup at 2 pm. I get there and the lead singer is there along with the sound guy from the previous night's band who is just then tearing his stuff down. OK, looks like we have a delay, I can deal with it. Mean while, the bass player rolls in about 15 mins late, then the loud guitar player about 45 mins late which about the time I am bringing my gear in.

We get the basic system set up and still no drummer. So I work on lights awhile and then do a basic system check and get the bass roughed in. Still no drummer, but he's on the way. OK.  I'll roll with, it, at this point it is what it is.  I see the band leader making phone call after phone call, and I keep getting told he's on his way. 

So now it's 5 pm and the band leader says to pack it up, drummer will have to come in on his own and we'll have to do a quick check before show time. So I'm powering everything down and , wait, he just called and he just got off the exit, which puts him about 10 mins out.  So I say, OK let's just stay and get the sound check in.

So a drummer shows up, and it's not the band's drummer but it's the guy who apparently is going to take his place.  After much bullshitting between him and the band members as he sets up, we finally get down to a sound check. 

I manage to talk both the bass player and the guitar player into turning their amps down. Way down. In fact both are very cooperative, and the bass player doesn't touch his volume as far as I could tell the rest of the night. I even had him in the system.

Meanwhile during all this I'm hearing the drummer brag to the band members how he is one of the last of the heavy hitters left in town and he's showing off the tree trunks he calls sticks that he plays with. Great.

So I get the kick in the mix and just line levels on the rest of the kit because I have feeling I would not be needing them in the house, but who knows, and now we're finally off to checking the guitar with the rest of the band. Amp level is nice on stage, but now he's asking for some guitar in his wedge. OK. And he wants more and more and more and more. Now I'm 30 feet from the stage and his monitor is the loudest thing in the room so I have to go have the talk.

So I politely (I think) tell him that with his guitar that loud in the monitor there is no way I can put him into the house. I stand up on stage next to him and he plays a little and I kid you not, it was the loudest thing I have ever heard coming from one of my monitors. There is no way I could have stood the volume level coming out of that thing had I been on stage. It did sound fantastic though.  So he tells me, "look if you need to turn the monitor down, I'll just have to live with it. So I back it down about 6 db on the fader.

OK, let's run through a song. Now it's about 6:30. So they run through a tune and we have a mix I can live with. Patrons in the room even applauded. Louder than I'd like, but, it's not bad. The drummer actually doesn't hit any harder than anyone else I've worked with so I end up putting his toms through the house along with the kick. Snare and metal need no re-reinforcement. I think we've made progress. I can live with this all night.

So now we're at 5 hrs for just set up and sound check. I charged them a flat fee, so I'm going to live with it because, regardless of the situation, or how much I'm getting paid; I'm going to do the best job I can. I head home, hang out there for about 2 hrs and head back in to arrive at 9:30 for a 10 pm showtime.

So now I'm back in the club at 10 pm ready for show time. The original drummer shows up and now I find out, he's playing the first and 3rd set so he has to swap out some stuff. And he's left handed so, that means removing the hi hat completely and put in his remote operated one. Swell. 

OK. 10:20 and they start. First song is Cold Hard Bitch, and the guitar is screaming. I pull him completely out of the mains and he's still over the vocals, so I pump up the vocals, and then management who is in the back of the room near all the windows tracks my wife down and tell her to tell me to turn the vocals down. At this point we're still in the first song and I'm only about 1/2 way back and the speakers are a little above me, so I'm not noticing they're too loud, but figure, yep that makes sense , so I pull them down and wander to the back and the mix is OK. The vocals are not quite over top but I can understand all the words.

Over all though it's just too loud. So I approach the stage and tell the guitarist that he is no longer in the mains because his amp is too loud and he has got to turn it down.  He does and announces over the mic that he needs to turn it down because he's too loud and then says something like, my sound guy says it's too loud and I trust him.

So we manage to get a tolerable but still too loud mix with no guitar in the mains, and I even get him to turn down a little more between the first two sets. It's rock band in a club and it would not be the end of my world if my name got associated with this mix.

In fact, during the second set the original drummer is in the audience and not only tells me how great he thinks the mix is but after the show I can over hear him tell the other band members that I made the show tonight because the sound was so good. He was particularly impressed with how I used a gated 50 hz sine wave to make, what he described as a cardboard box sounding kick drum, sound low and tight.  And the crowd really seemed to love the band.

But there's more. The room is about 30 x 80, 30 being the stage width. I positioned myself about 2/3 of the way back on one side. I measure the band at 105 db C weighted slow. During portions of the show where just the guitar is playing, I'm still getting around  103 db, with no guitar in the mains at all. I walked up to the stage and put the meter past the FOH speaker and directly in front of his amp, about 8 ft away and I'm reading 113. The only thing saving our ears is that he had really good tone and in spite of him apparently being deaf, didn't turn the treble way up like most guys would have.

I had Earasers in most of the show and my ears are still ringing. Strange thing is, except for management correctly complaining the vocals were too loud early on no one except the wife and me seemed to mind the volume. To me it was insane loud but I felt I had gotten the guitar down as low as he was probably going to be and we had workable mix.

Then we're tearing down and the band, who have been pounding drinks all night; decides to leave all their gear in place and come back tomorrow. Well that's just great; considering they have now placed a ton of stuff over top of my cables.

And then the bouncers have to break up a fight between the guitarist and drummer in the back room, that started on the stage, and my wife, God bless her; is yelling at them while they're fighting  to watch our cables and to quit stepping on our xlr ends. I thought there was going to be brawl on stage with about 50% of my gear still in place, but it went into the back room and the bouncers followed. I didn't see any injuries so I guess it was all mouth. I didn't bother to ask either.

What I thought was going to be a  casual afternoon set up with a 5 hour break in the middle to take a nap or whatever, turned into a 13 hr day with short 2 hour break and then a stressful loud gig. This band could not afford what they'd have to pay me to re-live that again.

So, the final result is we will not be doing sound for these guys ever again. Now I just need to find a tactful way of telling them that without insulting them.

[Keith Broughton]

You gave it your best shot, now walk away.

[Ray Aberle]

"Hi guys, thanks for your call! Given my experience last time with how long everything took, this is what I need to charge for this show (last time's rate times two, for example.).

They'll probably drop you. OR you'll get paid something more reasonable based on all of the drama you're encountering. Maybe a damage deposit to protect against XLR cables getting walked on during the fight?

-Ray

[Steve Garris]

That was a good read Scott! I could tell early on where it was heading. You're making the right decision.

I love the "cardboard box" "low & tight" comment - LOL.

[ProSoundWeb Community]