Is bad live sound affecting the industry? How to compensate for bad sound?

ruvann · 2011-11-15T13:54:47+00:00

I don't want this to come off as a "rant" or anything, it's not what I aim to do, I firstly just want to tell you about the problem I see and hear in SA, and then would love to get AS MUCH feedback and discussion about this topic, as possible. So please chime in and share your thoughts, insights, experience and suggestions. I don't want to make this genre specific. We're all here because we love music, and I think we all want to see the music industry in SA grow and we all probably faced this problem. So we went to Shivas Rock this Saturday and there were a couple of bands there. I don't spend time in the crowds these days, I usually stand back and just ... LISTEN... to the bands. I WANT to hear good bands, I WANT to discover good local music and support it, but this just seems a bit hopeless since the live sound these days is too bad to actually hear any music. For example, the first band that played on Saturday didn't have half stacks for the guitars, and had a small bass amp. Literally, and do DO mean LITERALLY, the only thing you could hear was cymbals. ??? Funny thing is that you couldn't hear vocals with the first band but you did hear vocals when the last band played.... ??? This make me wonder if the engineer actually hears the problem and just doesn't care or if he's gonna stick to the excuse that "he doesn't KNOW the bands 'sound' so he can't provide GOOD live sound" which I think is BS! The last band used half stacks and had a bigger bass amp and you still couldn't hear any guitar detail, you just heard the bass pump on the palm muted stuff. When we had a PA system for practice, a couple of years ago in one of my previous bands, I usually had to set up the PA, and we miced small 50W Laney guitar combo amps, direct output from the bass amp, and we were actually able to hear the guitars, bass and vocals ??? This is why I question the engineers. I had to do a sound for a gig once, and it was literally my first time EVER doing a live gig's sound, and it was the first time I've even seen that specific mixer. It was a Yamaha 01V digital mixer. Man was a scared of spoiling everyone's night! ? but you could actually hear everything. It really at least was good enough. You were able to HEAR the lyrics! I REFUSE to believe that we don't have talented musicians and I REFUSE to believe that musicians in South Africa can't write good music. I REFUSE to believe that this stigma surrounding live bands in SA, saying that all SA bands suck and is below international level, is true. One thing that I always say is that the musicians needs to be their own "sound engineers". They're also responsible in how good/bad their live sound is. But I've heard of engineers that believe a PA system isn't an FRFR system and "shapes the sound" sort of like a guitar cab. ??? (Even with flat EQs on the mixer) I'm just pretty sure that I'm not the only one that feels irritated with the fact that you can't discover music at live gigs because the sound sucks too much. I've went to too many gigs where the bass guitar is literally louder than the lead guitar, but the sound engineer just sits back and plays around on his cellphone. ??? WTF! That time I had to do live sound, I was literally CONSTANTLY busy with the sound and trying to make improvements, trying to anticipate changes in the music where the balance might be thrown of a little and then compensating for it, etc. That's why it say engineer's excuses are BS! Or at this one gig you weren't able hear any guitars or vocals, the overhead mics are turned up so the cymbals are louder than the snare and the engineer is actually outside having a smoke! I kid you not! Yes, the acoustics of the venue also has it's role but seriously, a person can at the very least get an "okay" sound and make the vocals be heard, etc. This entire problem looks like it's a big factor in what seems to me, to be the demise of live gig scene and I think it's also affecting the artist's true potential of building a fan base and creating some sort of following. One thing I would LOVE to try out is to use an electronic drum kit and trigger something like Superior Drummer and also have my guitar signal from my Axe-FX go direct to the PA and you take away the engineers job of having to balance a drum kit since it often seems to be a bit too difficult. I've heard some local gigs that have great sound and the engineer really did a good job, so please don't think that I'm saying something like ALL engineers are bad or anything like that. ? But I'm pretty sure we've all had those gigs where you felt so disappointed afterwards because the sound was so bad and the very obvious MAJOR problems were just left alone and nothing was done to improve it. I've seen so many engineers just stick a 57, on axis, dead center in front of the speaker, right against the cloth and that positions almost NEVER sounds good! A step that I've taken so far, is to make suggestions to bands I know, on ways to mic their guitar cabs and it has definitely helped them. What are your thoughts on sound of live shows in SA? Do you think it kinda hinders artist's potential of getting fans? What would you suggest to up and coming artists to improve their live sound as much as possible, in less than ideal conditions? What can we as an entire music community do to make a change, make progress and improve the "gigging conditions", to increase the chances of artists making a couple extra people in the crowd FEEL the need to support the music because they can actually HEAR the music? If bad sound results in just ONE lost fan, it's one fan too many!

ezietsman

I apologise. My argument only went as far as saying the mids isnt the cause of all bad sound and all feedback, like you just pointed out. I should have been more lucid in my writing. Im under no illusion that im an expert in sound but certain innaccuracies were meantioned by you, which i pointed out and you confirmed other causes of feedback and bad sound.

Averatu

Cool, I assumed you saw the 'discussion',(if somewhat one sided) I was having with ChadAB.

majestikc

It's good to see/hear other guys have a big issue with this as well, if you didn't know any better you'd swear all the bands were ok with the shit sound because it just keeps on happening, I went to a metal fest thing at Cool Runnings in Fourways a couple months back and the sound was really bad, mostly just bass, even when the vocalist announced the next song it was just huge booming bass and reverb on his spoken voice.

It's really not even about "knowing the desk" or the bands sound..................just turn the bass DOWN on every track, even the simplest mixing board has at least a Hi and Low eq knob.

Here's a basic run-down for decent live sound:

Everything except kick and bass gets the lows filtered
Pan some stuff (guitars left and right etc)
.......that's about it.

It also doesn't have to be SO LOUD, that's another huge problem there, everything feeding back and the desk and p.a speakers distorting.
If you can hear the drums raw nicely then the rest of the gear should just be about getting to the same level, small clubs aren't exactly Wembley Stadium.
If you get the vocals nice and loud enough and clear on the p.a then it's just a case of getting everything levelled against that while making sure nothing shit's all over the vocal level.

I think if you had to look at the mixing desk in most venues you would see the volume knob/fader at MAX, and the bass on MAX for every channel, everything panned dead centre.

I played in a band a few years ago, almost every weekend at Roxy's (say no more), and ONE time they had an external sound guy with his own really decent setup come in for some mini festival, that night was the first night in a whole year that the band got compliments and guys came up afterwards saying "wow, you actually have guitar solo's in the songs, I've never heard that before" etc etc etc.

Playing through Guitar Rig or whatever and using v-drums and running everything yourself is definitely the way to go, you want to know YOUR sound and have it set up the way you want, and then just hand the so called "sound guy" the main left & right so he can hook it up to the speakers (hopefully without adding 350db at 100hz).

AlanRatcliffe

majestikc wrote Pan some stuff (guitars left and right etc)

You should never pan live sound - 90% of people won't get an even mix when you do. So let the speakers share the load and use your L/R outs as two seperate zones, so you can keep the levels in one part of the room (tables, bar, etc.) lower than another (dancefloor/moshpit, et. al.).

But otherwise, yeah - highpass filters on everything but kick and bass and don't use the EQ for anything you don't have to. Simple.

majestikc

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
majestikc wrote Pan some stuff (guitars left and right etc)
You should never pan live sound - 90% of people won't get an even mix when you do.

True, but I mean more for dual heavy guitars playing the same riff (when it's solo time the lead can get turned to the centre etc, as well as a fader rise but I think that is beyond most live sound guys)......besides, an uneven mix is the least of the audience's problems, it's not like they're going to come up afterwards and complain that the huge-mess-wall-of-bass sound was a bit left side heavy.

Nicholas-L

Sometimes I wonder about some of the sound engineers out there ??? the one gig I played a few years back the guy walks up and asks so who's lead guitar? Myself and the other guitarist stood there and said both... the engineer looks at us and says sorry that wont work... so we decided to put the other guy on "lead" seeing as he played few more lead parts than what I did for that gig. In the end my sound was non existent to the audience.... I looked like a schmuck standing up there twiddling a guitar with relatively no sound to be heard... >☹ for me that gig was relatively ruined.

majestikc

I've been wanting to try out some live sound for a while now, so if anyone is interested and wants to take a chance (I can't guarantee it will be any better, but at least it can't be any worse) then let me know, will obviously do it for free and there would have to be house sound etc etc as I don't have my own (....yet)

ruvann

One thing that plainly just pisses me off is how sound engineers ALWAYS feel the need to just EQ everything to death, and then EQing in the wrong way.

Majority of sound guys always just boost the crap out of everything. To get something a bit brighter just crank the knob that says "High" instead of cutting some lows. Then it starts lacking punch, so boost some lows instead of not boosting the highs that much. Then it's a bit to scooped in the mids. Crank the mids.... Aahhhh magic! Then he feels so proud of himself....

Those exact same and actually better sounding results would come from boosting the volume and cutting some mids maybe.
WORST part is that they do this with everything in "SOLO".
There's no perspective or no sense as to how it sounds in RELATION to the other instruments and as a whole mix.
WTF
It's just this hyped frequency disaster.

So few people do "subractive EQing".

Then go to the sound guy and ask him if he has ever heard of the Fletcher-Munson curve.....
The amount of people that never heard of it is absolutely staggering.
When I first discovered that little piece of wisdom it changes my musical life forever. Haha

They boost the treble so much AND then they crank the volume... ???

Little while back I was at a gig where the guy's one speaker literally started smoking and the speaker blew out cause it just couldn't handle the load. It was WAY too loud anyway...

AlanRatcliffe

b1scu1t wrote One thing that plainly just pisses me off is how sound engineers ALWAYS feel the need to just EQ everything to death, and then EQing in the wrong way.

That, my friend, is the first sign of someone who has no idea how sound or his equipment works.

Little while back I was at a gig where the guy's one speaker literally started smoking and the speaker blew out cause it just couldn't handle the load.

To be fair, blowing drivers on occasion is an accepted part of pro sound. Having said that, most of the blown voice coils you see come in for repair happen because of underpowered amps, rather than overpowered. The amps are driven into clipping and the compression means that the speaker does not move enough to keep the voice coil cool and it overheats and burns out. Too much power usually damages the driver by making it overextrude - but you have to really push it to do that. I gigged for 10 years with a 3.2kW amp (Crown) on a 1kW speaker system (Celestion Saturns and a single dual-voice coil Cerwin Vega sub) and never lost a single driver.

Averatu

We went to a gig at the Bohemian. Its a flippen small venue. No matter where we stood, it was a morass of bass. My lovely lady went closer to the desk and had a peak, and started laughing. The desk had a 'boom' switch on it, and it was actually on! Thats a big FAIL in my book. So you have thundering bass and kick and toms killing everything else. Are there any 'sound guys' out there with ears that are'nt broken.

majestikc

I think it's a viscous cycle, to qualify for being a live sound guy in s.a, you have to have been born with turd in your ears, they then have to pass a test where if you CAN hear the gun being fired 2 meters away you fail, and then it's all downhill from there, after their first 2.5hrs of 180dBSPL (mostly inner ear hair destroying bass) there skillz and hearing decrease by half and so on and so on.......

You pay peanuts you get deaf monkeys. (though in most cases it's so bad, having to pay for it doesn't seem right to me, it's like being served a plate of dogshit [literary] in a restaurant and then being expected to pay for it).

We really need stricter standards or something, maybe the sound guys get paid AFTER they've done a good job......and not just for SHOWING UP.

Averatu

majestikc wrote I think it's a viscous cycle, to qualify for being a live sound guy in s.a, you have to have been born with turd in your ears, they then have to pass a test where if you CAN hear the gun being fired 2 meters away you fail, and then it's all downhill from there, after their first 2.5hrs of 180dBSPL (mostly inner ear hair destroying bass) there skillz and hearing decrease by half and so on and so on.......

You pay peanuts you get deaf monkeys. (though in most cases it's so bad, having to pay for it doesn't seem right to me, it's like being served a plate of dogshit [literary] in a restaurant and then being expected to pay for it).

We really need stricter standards or something, maybe the sound guys get paid AFTER they've done a good job......and not just for SHOWING UP.

In the previous band I played for, we had endless crud, which is especially bad as be had a drum machine. Relying on the guy that comes with the PA is not enough!! We found a good sound engineer, and then suddenly people go "is that what you sound like!". I experienced it at a gig once. A "big name" band was doing a low key warmup gig. The sound up to that point, done for the 3 other bands by the PA guy had been bad. Big name bend's engineer stepped up and wham, suddenly, everyone in the venue can hear whats going on and is paying attention.
We loose audience because they cant hear whats going on, and are thus indifferent, don't come back, don't pay entrance fee, don't buy CD or T-shirt etc.....

guidothepimmp

when i had a band back in he day, we had a mate who was our sound guy and he went everywhere with us and together with the venue sorted our sound.

He knew what we were meant to sound like and tweaked accordingly.

Depending on how much he consumed, the sound was sometimes good, and sometimes kak...

that tought us to rather play earlier sets than the late ones. Less booze time ysee >☹

Averatu

guidothepimmp wrote when i had a band back in he day, we had a mate who was our sound guy and he went everywhere with us and together with the venue sorted our sound.

He knew what we were meant to sound like and tweaked accordingly.

Depending on how much he consumed, the sound was sometimes good, and sometimes kak...

that tought us to rather play earlier sets than the late ones. Less booze time ysee >☹

An honest answer for once.
We have a no booze at gigs or rehearsals rule.

guidothepimmp

we played a show once together with 4 other outfits which was meant to be uber important, a guy from a big corporate was there to view because we were vying to play their corporate gigs. Our bassist and sound guy got so tanked while the 1st 2 bands played that by the time we got on the bassist didnt know his arsehole from his earhole.

Result, he played the bassline to the wrong song on 2 different tunes, and our sound guy duffed the sound.

3 months later, band split

Averatu

There was a band that regularly opened for us. It worked for us, (and not in some ways). They would get completely coked up, literally blow a grand in one go, right before they would run on stage, they would carry on like psychos on stage, and it sounded and looked like a mess. As a result we looked super slick after them. They did this time and time again.
It was rather a pity because their album was actually really good.

guidothepimmp

yeh typically after these screw ups, our very next gigs would be epic because there would be no boozing, but sloooowly with the comfort zone kicking in, so did the booze.

I guess what I was trying to get at was, in our case anyways, if the band managed to stay sober, and our sound guy stayed sober, we rocked. With booze, we sucked. And the punchline is...

Many times, Bad live sound is the bands own doing im afraid. Certainly was the case with us.

ruvann

Averatu wrote We loose audience because they cant hear whats going on, and are thus indifferent, don't come back, don't pay entrance fee, don't buy CD or T-shirt etc.....

THIS + 1,000,000

This single issue about bad sound is the reason why I almost never go to gigs anymore. I'm talking about once every two months maybe. It's just not enjoyable anymore, and I know I'm not the only one that feels like this. MOST of my friends feel the same. They rather go chill somewhere where there aren't bands playing because the sound is just too intolerable.
It's getting to the point where they don't even wanna take a chance anymore.

majestikc

The sad thing with this whole thread is that no one has had anything good to say, or has come to the defence of some of the local sound guys, which just shows how dire the situation actually is, it doesn't seem to be 50/50 with us few complainers having one too many bad live sound experiences.

I know for myself, and many of the people I know, the live sound issue is a big concern and it too is keeping me and friends away from even remotely giving a shit about going out and seeing live bands, most of the time IF the band is actually good it won't matter as you wouldn't be able to even tell.

Averatu

majestikc wrote The sad thing with this whole thread is that no one has had anything good to say, or has come to the defence of some of the local sound guys, which just shows how dire the situation actually is, it doesn't seem to be 50/50 with us few complainers having one too many bad live sound experiences.

I know for myself, and many of the people I know, the live sound issue is a big concern and it too is keeping me and friends away from even remotely giving a shit about going out and seeing live bands, most of the time IF the band is actually good it won't matter as you wouldn't be able to even tell.

x50

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