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[Luke Geis]

My experience has been that if someone doesn't want to hear the event, it does not matter how loud ( or quiet  ) it is, it will still be too loud.

To the degree that I was doing sound at a venue and the venue management said I was too loud and breaking the rules. I agreed it was pretty loud, but what are the rules? They said 65db A at the property line. I asked them if the fence that the stage was 5' away from was that property line and they replied with a yes!!!!! I quickly informed them that it was an impossibility to meetthat demand and that so much as carrying even a conversation at the fence would break the rules. They said yes we understand, but that was teh agreement made by us and the property owner down the way. I couldn't help but tell them that they made a bad decision agreeing to that, as they would always loose.

[Ivan Beaver]

My experience has been that if someone doesn't want to hear the event, it does not matter how loud ( or quiet  ) it is, it will still be too loud.

I know of cases in which the "noise" from the event is at or below the ambient noise. But you can still hear it.  And people complain.

It is not the SPL they are complaining about-it is the actual music style.

No numbers or laws or guidelines will ever fix that.

[Simon Lewis]

I know of cases in which the "noise" from the event is at or below the ambient noise. But you can still hear it.  And people complain.

I worked in environmental noise here in the UK for a few years.... This is a typical problem and is why the standard of what constitutes a "noise nuisance" is usually defined by the environmental health officer's 'professional opinion' rather than a set level.

Where an event (e.g. festival etc.) is licenced, there will be defined limits, but these are set at the event boundary or at the nearest noise sensitive property.

[Dave Garoutte]

I did a property line sound study for an 'mall' where I was doing outdoor shows.
The town had called for some low number for the permit.
I had a level of around 80-95 dBA in the courtyard, and I found that the music was substantially quieter than the ambient noise at the property line, but you could still hear it.
The average noise level at the property line pretty much exceeded their requirement .
Buses, cars, wind noise and even the freeway over the hill were over their limit.
I have no idea what ended up happening.

[Chris Grimshaw]

Yeah-it's been a long day. 

I know what I meant to say-but it came out wrong.

Thanks for correcting me.

No worries, we all have them.
I found it quite interesting that the apparent LF SPL was so nonlinear with volume changes (ie, +3dB at 30Hz sounds like +10dB at 1kHz in some places, but crank it up and you need +10dB at LF to sound like +10dB at 1kHz) - hadn't realised that before.

Chris

[Aisle 6]

I know this probably will not help as most situations with residential are never easily solved as the complainant will simply continue to complain to local authorities until they get a better outcome than they originally hoped...ie. shut down.

However, I think that until there is some sort of agreement on the type of measurements that we use, we are never going to see much real compromise or even assistance from local authorities. We need to be educating all parties in the benefit of using Leq as the measurement standard. in either "A" or "C" or both. The real issue is the SPL over time as I think we all agree that louder for shorter is fine of quieter for longer. We need to display that we have acknowledge our duty of care to the patron and present a more accurate presentation of the data. Leq or LAeq is probably better.

[Simon Lewis]

Leq is the way to go..... here's the sort of thing we would have to work to (attached)...

[brian maddox]

I know of cases in which the "noise" from the event is at or below the ambient noise. But you can still hear it.  And people complain.

It is not the SPL they are complaining about-it is the actual music style.

No numbers or laws or guidelines will ever fix that.

You can check in over at the Church Sound Forum if you want to hear this discussed At Length. 

[Al Rettich]

d&b makes a program called NoiszCalc. It's scary how accurate it is. This will tell you what SPL is across the area. Take a look at that, then look at your local noise ordinances, and go from there.

I'd like to get some opinions on standard FOH DB restrictions. I'm going from a smaller Meyer PA where I didn't really need to enforce a DB/SPL limit to a new D&B rig that can easily outperform the Meyer rig. I'm in a downtown outdoor environment and we have brand new high-end residential towers just outside of the venue. 

I see a ton of artist riders, but not many venue tech packs as I've been off the road and at this same venue for 4 years now. It seems like I use to see 105Dba at FOH on the regular.

What does everyone recommend? 105, 100 A,C weighted?

[ProSoundWeb Community]