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So on Friday night a mate and I went to a rock/metal club in Boksburg (which shall remain nameless) in order to check out some live tunes.

Bloody hell. I was pissed off from the get go. The sound pressure level on the floor was OFF. THE. SCALE. So much so that the bass seemed to feedback into the purcussion, horrible tone and a truly KAK listening experience. The percussion was FAR too much in the foreground, whereas the guitars were drowning in a sea of shit-sounding feedback and distortion. My ears are STILL going shhhhh from all that.

Everything was just so much white noise, a full-blast assault on your hearing. It was so bad that you couldn't make out any details of the music, you actually had to look at the musos' hands in order to try and pick little bits of sense out of all that rubbish.

WTF is wrong with you, sound guy? If I knew how to work the mixing rack, and yet effed it up proper, it would still have been an improvement. Is your hearing buggered from a lifetime of maxing everything out at +200dB?!? Or are you just bloody stupid?

We eventually went outside (and stayed there) as that cleaned the sound up a lot, and you could actually appreciate some of the efforts of the musos.

Here's a hint, moron. Everything doesn't need to be at the SAME level, everything needs to be at the RIGHT level. There's a difference. >☹ >☹ >☹

Why don't bands complain about this?


    Yup...I was there aswell...."Wall of noise" was my experience. You can check the guys soloing, but you can;t hear a thing. Funny thing is though, the bands kept praising the sound guy/girl for their efforts, but didn;t really worry about what it sounds like to the crowd...
      The floor was a bit of a barren wasteland, too, wasn't it? No prizes for guessing why, of course.
        Exactly....from what I could gather, only the girlfriends/wifes that were "really interested" ?...which is also a shame, the musos probably practice their a$$es off to give a lekker show and then this....
          Explorerlover wrote: Funny thing is though, the bands kept praising the sound guy/girl for their efforts, but didn;t really worry about what it sounds like to the crowd...
          Don't forget that, on stage, you can't hear what the audience is hearing. The on-stage sound might have been perfect and balanced, which is all the band would hear.
            This is the reason I usually take earplugs to gigs nowadays. Makes it all the more enjoyable (IF the band is any good, most rock bands aren't). For some reason the blues bands get a lot better sound. Maybe because they don't go for the 'Rock out with your Marshall out' type of lets crank everything vibe?
              Warren wrote: Don't forget that, on stage, you can't hear what the audience is hearing. The on-stage sound might have been perfect and balanced, which is all the band would hear.
              Surely some experience should tell you that what you get from the monitors is not what the audience is getting? But regardless, this particular sound guy needs to go back to his day job.
                Tonedef wrote:

                Surely some experience should tell you that what you get from the monitors is not what the audience is getting?
                That's what I said. ? In other words, they might have been praising captain sound guy because their stage sound was good. They might have had no idea that the audience sound was horrible.
                  Ya but experience should tell you to verify the floor's sound seeing as you know the sound you get ons stage is different. Not sure how easy/hard this would be though. Sad thing is that the sound guy can obviously not always be trusted to do a good job.

                  (That's what I was trying to say ?)

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                    • Post #10
                    Far too common, unfortunately. I haven't heard good, well-separated sound in many SA clubs. The exceptions with good in-house guys, in my experience, have been The Blues Room, Mercury Live, Burn and, surprisingly enough, Backline in Margate, before it went full-techno. (Some bands I've played for have had their own travelling sound engineer, which can help a lot.)
                      Yup, it sucks. Live metal is an unlistenable mess the majority of the time in my experience.

                      When I saw Avenged Sevenfold live (in Singapore), the local opening band was LOUD. Painfully loud. I thought 'this is going to hurt' cos obviously the main band would be LOUDER.

                      Guess what? A7X's own sound guy took over the desk and when they came on the volume was actually reasonable (much lower than the opening idiots), balanced and crystal clear.

                      So catch a wakeup SA venues.

                      Part of this may be because the bands themselves think you need a 100W stack on 10 or something. What idiocy, in a small club. (Oh yeah we have SUCH HUGE metal venues in this country..DUHHH) Get a POD or Axe-FX and go straight to the desk, leave your stupid testosterone and 40 kg amp at the door, and allow us all to hear the F*CKING MUSIC.

                      There's a quote from Scar Symmetry's guitarist Per Nilsson that since they started going POD X3 straight to desk they've had the best live sound. Look it up. Scar Symmetry - one of the best sounding metal bands on the planet.

                      I always enjoy watching Moment of Clarity because Neil (lead guitar) being NOT and idiot, goes Vox Tonelab straight to the desk. Guess what? Perfectly audible guitar solos! Unheard of in South Africa! >☹

                      Grrrr.

                        99% of the sound guys I have used this last year have sucked, mainly because most of them i expect saw that there was more money n sound than playing in a band...
                        So they roughly learn how to make a band sound decent.
                        I have had sound guys trying to
                        line out my guitar amps
                        hang an sm57 mic in front of an amp to mic it
                        etc etc

                        But in respect to loud, I really like the shows i play to be loud, I cant stand it when you have a band who plays all out and then you can talk over them..... At the same time if someone want to be a loud band, you gotta have good nice tone from amps, and drums, or else its a real mess

                        Did this band playing have decent gear, because while it was most likely a bad sound guy at this nameless club (Black Dahlia????) bands gea often makes the situation worse.... Its not hard to make your band sound good, at a show, it takes a little forward planning.... and decent gear. and communication with your sound guy (good or bad)

                        If it is Black Dahlia you talk of, then i remember gigging there years ago when i played in a very bad band, and i remember even further it was a horrible setup for sound....
                          BMU wrote: ) Get a POD or Axe-FX and go straight to the desk, leave your stupid testosterone and 40 kg amp at the door, and allow us all to hear the F*CKING MUSIC.




                          I dont and never have played metal, but for me playing pretty much any style a POD, or Axe FX is not an option... And for most bands gigging bands that i enjoy a POD or Axe FX is even less an option
                            MIKA the better one wrote: But in respect to loud, I really like the shows i play to be loud, I cant stand it when you have a band who plays all out and then you can talk over them..... At the same time if someone want to be a loud band, you gotta have good nice tone from amps, and drums, or else its a real mess

                            Did this band playing have decent gear, because while it was most likely a bad sound guy at this nameless club (Black Dahlia????) bands gea often makes the situation worse.... Its not hard to make your band sound good, at a show, it takes a little forward planning.... and decent gear. and communication with your sound guy (good or bad)

                            If it is Black Dahlia you talk of, then i remember gigging there years ago when i played in a very bad band, and i remember even further it was a horrible setup for sound....
                            The main issue was perhaps just the overall master volume, although it's impossible to tell (as a result) whether the individual inputs were properly mixed. It was horrible.

                            Simply by turning down the master knob a couple of notches would have made the world of difference. I just don't get how the sound guy couldn't figure that the sound was kak. He is at the back of the floor, and gets to hear everything the audience hears.

                            As for loudness, if you have everything crystal clear, the volume can be turned down but you still get a great impression of fill, if that makes sense.


                              MIKA the better one wrote: hang an sm57 mic in front of an amp to mic it
                              Just fmi what's wrong with an sm57...?
                                raithza wrote:
                                MIKA the better one wrote: hang an sm57 mic in front of an amp to mic it
                                Just fmi what's wrong with an sm57...?

                                Its not omni-directional. You need to point its diaphragm to the speaker. Hanging it doesn't work correctly.
                                  nothing I love them ...... just the angle he hung it at was pretty much useless
                                    Tonedef wrote:
                                    The main issue was perhaps just the overall master volume, although it's impossible to tell (as a result) whether the individual inputs were properly mixed. It was horrible.

                                    Simply by turning down the master knob a couple of notches would have made the world of difference. I just don't get how the sound guy couldn't figure that the sound was kak. He is at the back of the floor, and gets to hear everything the audience hears.

                                    As for loudness, if you have everything crystal clear, the volume can be turned down but you still get a great impression of fill, if that makes sense.
                                    Maybe getting a bit too old for young folks gig's ?
                                      Squonk wrote: Maybe getting a bit too old for young folks gig's ?
                                      Lol, my mate Steve and I were by far the oldest people there. It was sort of lekker, the whippersnappers gave us plenty of space.

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                                        • Post #20
                                        I cant stand it when you have a band who plays all out and then you can talk over them.....
                                        Generally people talk over music because they are bored, whether it's loud or not. Just saying.