One thing I've noticed a few times, especially when I recognized the same engineer doing different gigs, is that they very often don't wear any ear protection.
Some guys that I've recognized go as far back as 2005 and they still don't wear ear protection.
It makes sense that some guys have lost some hearing in the higher frequencies cause the high frequencies are often boosted way too much. I've literally spent HOURS at gigs with my fingers blocking my ears cause it's WAY too loud and then the highs get boosted for almost everything.
Every single time I forget my Noise-Bans at home, it ends up being one of those gigs where they really went all out to make the sound suck as much as possible.
Averatu wrote:
Demographically, if you're not a gospel/jazz/afro jazz act, your market share is next to nothing, you're not in the money.
This is kind of making me wonder.
There's another thread "Where are all the metal heads", and it reminds me in some way of many of my friends.
Many people I know rather go to Hatfield or avoid gigs because they don't find live bands in the area entertaining enough anymore because they can't hear any music. The astonishing thing is that this comes from people that are usually thought of as "not knowing anything about music". They don't play instruments and they don't even know how to hold an guitar or drumsticks, etc. I've heard so many bands tell me that it doesn't matter if it doesn't sound good, because half of the crowd doesn't know anything about music...
I think just normal music listeners are very capable of being able to tell if something sounds good or bad.
Is it some kind of snowball effect?
People don't want to go to gigs as much anymore because it's sound too bad.
The sound guy cares even less whether it sounds good or not, and so a couple more people would think twice next about actually coming to another gig.
So the market for artists become even smaller.
I've seen venues get only about 30-40 people at a show these days where they used to get literally HUNDREDS of people at the same kind of gig a couple of years ago. I believe the sound is to blame because a couple of years ago the sound was "good enough" at this specific venue but now it's beyond terrible.
This is the kind of downwards trend I'm talking about.
Everyone KNOWS there's a problem. How can bands, artists, fans, or anyone for that matter help find a solution. Start a trend improve things.
It's sorta like the loudness war. The negatives outweigh the positives but how can people help make things better.
