Tone rant of the day...

pipelineaudio said:
Just to get a temperature check here. In this age where we no longer put kids in cars without seatbelts, are people really OK with doing permanent, irreversible damage to the audience's hearing?
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pipelineaudio said:
There are still plenty of small capacity venues where you could do things the old way, and personally I have no problem with it except when it comes to permanent, irreversible hearing damage. I think as human beings we owe that to each other not to cause that sort of crippling damage
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pipelineaudio said:
We aren't really legally bound here yet, but holy hell, if you get on any of the big major industry pro podcasts like Signal to Noise, or watch the news from the big east coast rental places, governments are clamping down and venues are getting strict.

We still have small clubs in hawaii where bands can play and the SPL of their cabinet IS what the audience hears, and hopefully bunker shows, backyard and basement shows will never die anywhere in the world. But once you get up to sizes where people can truly be hurt for life, I think there's a different set of rules and if we don't do it ourselves, the government will like they do in europe, requiring LaEQ logging and all that
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Awfully dramatic—I prefer the gov’t stay away from my volume. And I hope the US stays away from anything the EU does.
 
tallcoolone said:
Awfully dramatic—I prefer the gov’t stay away from my volume. And I hope the US stays away from anything the EU does.
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Which part is dramatic? Are you taking issue with NIOSH or OSHA's claims about the levels and exposure time to cause permanent ear damage? Or is caring about other people's' health just not cool? Where's the dramatic part
 
pipelineaudio said:
Second video sounds like the modern style mix that most old guys would call thin and missing most of the guitars range. Sounds like it was mixed by someone used to drop C guitar styles. But then again who knows what problems there are at the spot in the room that phone was put at. This second video is exactly the sound I thought the people in here were complaining about. Tick of the kick, some vocals, The Bump(tm) and no guitar body or bass guitar fundamental frequencies.

All that said the band is kickass and I doubt the audience is complaining.
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Yeah, not a fan of that mix. Band is good though.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Which part is dramatic? Are you taking issue with NIOSH or OSHA's claims about the levels and exposure time to cause permanent ear damage? Or is caring about other people's' health just not cool? Where's the dramatic part
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i used to have other churches ask me to visit and train their media/sound teams and part of that included discussions regarding measuring and monitoring sound levels for safety per OSHA guidelines.
the intangibles inextricably tied to that were system design, setup, musician skill, technical engineering aptitude and artistic freedom to mix appropriate to the audience and space you are working in.
 
pipelineaudio said:
The artists and the audiences. Put every real bands' ticket sales together and see if they compare with taylor swift

Quiet stages just make more money for the venues if they serve a dual purpose (church, casinos, and bars). For the big venues that are really music specific, they aren't necessarily silent, but often have amp iso boxes or the stages are just large enough where the leakage isn't significant. Thanks to the inverse square law, if the drums are 20 feet away from the vocal mic, thats a HUGE and manageable difference in leakage than 10 feet away.

"quiet" is also relevant here. Quiet enough to not cause irreversible hearing damage from that show isn't THAT quiet, but its a lot quieter than many people, especially those deaf from playing at too high a stage volume, would believe. Quiet can easily result from the guitar player pointing his cabinet where he can hear it louder than the audience can (which is surprisingly rare at 500 and under cap venues, normally the amp is pointed at the audience and the guitarist's knees, necessitating a much louder volume than needed for monitoring). Having cymbals that the drummer can actually hear can bring shows down to sensible levels. Again, many drummers buy cymbals whos resonant peaks are higher than they can hear as they have suffered pretty severe hearing loss over the years. This results in bashing the cymbals until the part of them they CAN hear is audible to them, I've seen 126dB SPL A weighted Slow because of this at the audience position. No amount of mixing magic is going to make the band sound even remotely OK at that level as ear compression will be turning the entire performance into mud at that point.

Take a look at the new NIOSH standards for levels. If we call somewhere between that and OSHA safe, you can still have a pretty loud show, but leakage at any final SPL will still make your show sound like crap if the leakage is significant in proportion to the primary source


I could see how they could feel like they were forced to not hit drums as hard and result in less dynamic crest factor, but given the ear's own limits before compression, a lower peak SPL show has the potential for MORE dynamics than a louder one. That's physics that just can't be broken, at least until the SPL is so low that thermal noise and quantum mechanics sets a hard floor

I don't know any soundmen like this. Mostly I read forums like gearslutz or pro sound web or other industry newsletters where 90% of the dinosaurs don't know what IRs are or anything past 1989. They tend to be very good at making 1995 sounds and have a lot of tricks for dealing with loud amps onstage. At the less costly venues I see soundmen who are just learning, but everything is old gear so they mic everything. I could see what you are saying happening if theyre mostly dealing with DJs and EDM though, half of them don't even know there are mics out there for anything but vocals

You get more dynamics from separation, not less (unbreakable laws of physics), but aside from that yeah...Many of us go to a show because we already have the album and if we wanted to hear that, we'd listen at home. We don't care that 45 of the vocal track stack are missing and hearing 15 guitar parts we don't see the guitarist playing takes you out of the experience of seeing them live. Take that up with the bands.

This is really similar to the "volume wars" in mixing and recording albums. The bands themselves pushed this and in the press try and blame it on the record companies or whatever, but in this age of self releases, that pretty much died as a plausible excuse 20 years ago.


Wings Of Pegasus had a video showing an ancient Judas Priest show, where Halford was dealing with insane leakage and feedback and still somehow managed to hit the most impossible notes impeccably and did everything he could to minimize destroying the guitars with phasing coming through his vocal mic. Like the first few Black Sabbath albums, where the toms were clear as day, using only the available Keepex noise gates at the time (or I suspect some very scary, nerve wracking and trauma inducing un-undoable punch ins of silence or low pass filters) its amazing to hear what these guys could pull off at the time. But if you put a show or an album like that out today, you'd be tarred and feathered.

There are still plenty of small capacity venues where you could do things the old way, and personally I have no problem with it except when it comes to permanent, irreversible hearing damage. I think as human beings we owe that to each other not to cause that sort of crippling damage. I think the NIOSH levels are definitely safe for that and all it takes is a tiny concession from the band to accept being the loudest receiver of their own instruments and everything from the past is still the way it always was. All it takes is a little empathy, and perhaps a tiny bit of realistic modesty that the person who does it all day every day and never had a job may know a thing or two

It always cracks me up when an accountant or dentist tells a top soundman that singing with a condenser mic 4 feet in front of the drumset with a cymbal basher is the best way to go.

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Sorry but with all you said, it still doesn't answer the question of why live music generally sounded better before all the advancements in technology. That in a nutshell is the essence of my complaint. And until I hear that pendulum swing in favor of modern tech with my own ears, I'm kinda stuck for now. Understand, I'm not against tech at all. Not arguing against that but there needs to be balance. Hell when I first started gigging in Nashville decades ago I had the whole midi guitar rig and guys would go, what's that and why do you need all that lol. So yeah nothing against tech.

Btw/ as for bands pushing for this, I disagree as a blanket statement. Obviously many lived by the louder is better but during my 35 years of playing live, we were always at the mercy of the soundman. Work with him, if he's worth his salt he's gonna make you sound good and allow you to hear yourself as well. As I said above this is about convenience, the soundman wanting complete control and many artists having to downsize rigs for expenses.

Now the plus side to all this for soundman and what generally wins out in the end, is most of the audience don't know shit from shinola anyway. I mean how many times have we played shows and sucked and someone is praising you afterwards.

I will try and shut up now lol.
 
jabps said:
Sorry but with all you said, it still doesn't answer the question of why live music generally sounded better before all the advancements in technology. That in a nutshell is the essence of my complaint. And until I hear that pendulum swing in favor of modern tech with my own ears, I'm kinda stuck for now. Understand, I'm not against tech at all. Not arguing against that but there needs to be balance. Hell when I first started gigging in Nashville decades ago I had the whole midi guitar rig and guys would go, what's that and why do you need all that lol. So yeah nothing against tech.

Btw/ as for bands pushing for this, I disagree as a blanket statement. Obviously many lived by the louder is better but during my 35 years of playing live, we were always at the mercy of the soundman. Work with him, if he's worth his salt he's gonna make you sound good and allow you to hear yourself as well. As I said above this is about convenience, the soundman wanting complete control and many artists having to downsize rigs for expenses.

Now the plus side to all this for soundman and what generally wins out in the end, is most of the audience don't know shit from shinola anyway. I mean how many times have we played shows and sucked and someone is praising you afterwards.

I will try and shut up now lol.
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I don’t know what pro level stuff uses nowadays, majority of consumer pa gear is powered cabs with class D amps. 2000 watt boxes for $200.00 type stuff. Yes they are light to move around, but nothing remotely close to 2000 actual old school watts. Push them alittle and they sound bad.
Last show I went to was Symphony X in a small club. Soundman had the pa pushed way beyond it’s limits. Mix was distorted and sounded terrible. Dissappointing to say the least.
 
Greazygeo said:
I use very little bass and not much treble. Fitting in the mix instead of trying to “cut” thru. Also just loud enough I can hear myself so the guitar gets in the mix. Pointing the cabs away from the sound guys help too. Never a problem with sound guys. They always look forward to our band.
Sound guys can be frustrating for sure.
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I'm with you George. I haven't had many problems at all. I always keep a trusty e609 with me and I know exactly where to put it on my speaker to get the tone out front I want. In fact, I know my rig well enough that when sound guys ask me to play, it only takes them about 10 seconds to say, "Hey, that sounds great. You're good" while dialing in the mix.
 
jabps said:
Sorry but with all you said, it still doesn't answer the question of why live music generally sounded better before all the advancements in technology.
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Depends what you mean by "better"

The clarity and separation of today is miles beyond anything that could be achieved 30 years ago. That tends to be what people ask for.

The amount of clear sub bass is night and day different from then now as well. It didn't even exist 30 years ago at the highest economic levels back then, and today its demanded by many forms of music and available even at modest venues.

It wouldn't be hard at all to get 90's sounds with today's gear, its just that the soundman would be fired for it if it were a situation big enough for him to get paid, barring the types of places that still expect and get that sound
jabps said:
Btw/ as for bands pushing for this, I disagree as a blanket statement. Obviously many lived by the louder is better but during my 35 years of playing live, we were always at the mercy of the soundman. Work with him, if he's worth his salt he's gonna make you sound good and allow you to hear yourself as well. As I said above this is about convenience, the soundman wanting complete control and many artists having to downsize rigs for expenses.
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I don't know, there's nothing inconvenient about sticking a mic in front a cabinet, its just usually not going to sound very good compared to a studio full of mics. A soundman who doesn't want to make the band happy is nuts, he won't get much work after a little while, though he also has to comply with the venue, and that's where things get tricky. Last night I had to put a plexi shield in front of an amp once the bartender couldn't take orders and the audience started looking a little peeved, but the guitarist still heard all he wanted and the sound quality to the audience improved dramatically.
jabps said:
Now the plus side to all this for soundman and what generally wins out in the end, is most of the audience don't know shit from shinola anyway. I mean how many times have we played shows and sucked and someone is praising you afterwards.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You never know what an audience is going to like or not like, they're crazy, and drunk.
 
Greazygeo said:
I don’t know what pro level stuff uses nowadays, majority of consumer pa gear is powered cabs with class D amps. 2000 watt boxes for $200.00 type stuff. Yes they are light to move around, but nothing remotely close to 2000 actual old school watts. Push them alittle and they sound bad.
Last show I went to was Symphony X in a small club. Soundman had the pa pushed way beyond it’s limits. Mix was distorted and sounded terrible. Dissappointing to say the least.
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AKA "marketing watts"

In the recording side we used to have "marketing bits" and sadly those are making a comeback right now as well.

Even with class D, you CAN get much more powerful gear at the low end for much less money adjusted for inflation, but yeah "1200 watts" sticker on a PA speaker is going to have a very hard time putting out more SPL than 150 watts RMS measured by a competent lab.
 
I've tried to avoid sound men for thr most part.
Many of our gigs we didn't mic the guitar, we used stage volume, so not going thru the PA. That worked the best.
 
Another issue is these digital boards with all the wizards and shit. Next thing you know everyone thinks they're a sound guy.
 
SFW said:
... the video.
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Yeah he thinned you out quite a bit and has you too far forward (loud) imo. Sounds like he was carving out lows for nobody apparently.. the bass and kick are pretty low. Maybe he was trying to get you loud and bright for your fx to be audible but he kept the vocals too dry.

The balance just doesn't seem right from this listening position, making the guitar fatiguing which sucks. If he would have improved that I think it would have sat better regardless of tone issues.

In both videos I can hardly hear the bass (which is opposite of the extreme I usually deal with), but in the 2nd video the vocals come through really well so I don't mind 'the bump'. Could be better but I think that sounds pretty good.

This guy below is awesome for mixing, if they could follow a few of the eq moves he uses here on the bass to bring it up a little that would help. Maybe just adding some string noise.

 
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SFW said:
Per request... the video.
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Its hard to imagine that that show sounded anything like what that video is showing without the audience being pretty oddly behaving in response to it. Hopefully its just the phone in a weird place, but holy hell!

Here's looking at that show in SPAN
show.png


And here is one of my shows
regular mix.png


And a commercial modern album mix

commercial album mix.png


Something crazy going on with that show mix, or more likely the video recorder placement
 
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