Sound in small-scale club gig.Is it just me?

Byron

Hi there all. I pose a question.

Now last night I was at a gig The Durban Beach Club where there were the two american hardcore acts Have Heart and Shipwreck AD, I was really disappointed about the sound system but I noticed its the same thing as every other gig at a small scale venue. I am wondering if tis just me or is the sound setup bad?

Things that I noticed were:

Guitar was ALWAYS TOO LOW. The bands had some really cool metal riffs in the songs and basically i had to struggle to hear them, there is just bass everywhere in the room. I tried moving to a different spot to hear the sound. The part where the guy played a solo I could barely hear it either(this same thing occurred at Burn nightclub, which has gigs just about every weekend as well),everyone had their shred fingers in the air and I thought "oh, is some-one playing a solo?" .

For me the drums always sound too loud as well as the vocals.

Is this all because its a small venue playing very loud music? It was a dissapointment with the evening's gig because it all sounds like a mush of bass and some guy screaming with some loud snares being hit in the background.

I want to find out about this.It kinda ruins the live experience for me. I have to add though, when Underoath played at gateway the sound setup was amazing but yeah, that was a big big outdoor stage setup with speakers everywhere. I don't know the first thing about live sound setup, but many a time I have heard what my ears don't think sounds good

Gearhead

About those drums: that's an easy one. Drums are loud and don't need mic'ing up unless the drummer has a lot of control and tone-without-hitting-hard. Not being mic'ed up the drums can't be controlled by the sound engineer.
About the bass I'm not so sure; loud bass is part of live performance. The acoustics of the room can make it mushy but it shouldn't have to be.
About solo's: I've heard lotsa top-of-the-line bands and not all solo's are amplified enough to be heard. On the other hand, I remember not being able to hear a whole evening of Richie Sambora solo's because he was too loud (plus the acoustics were very bad). Let's keep it at this: The sound engineer does not always pick up there's a solo about to be played and imho can not be held responsible for turning the lead guitarist up. Consequently, I think a lot of lead guitarists would do well to either have different volume settings on their channels/patches/whatever or get a volume pedal.

aubs1

HeyByron........small venues, Major sound problems.....I once went to a club in Pretoria to listen to a mate of mine and his band.......he came up to ask me what the sound was like (he was the vocalist), I said exactly what you experienced......tooo LOUD, could'nt hear the vocals, or the solos.......his response....."it starts with the drummer, he can't turn down, so everyone else were trying to match his volume......." conclusion........all you hear is VVVVVVHHHHHHOOOOOO ......from the bass.....

Gearhead wrote: About those drums: that's an easy one. Drums are loud and don't need mic'ing up unless the drummer has a lot of control and tone-without-hitting-hard. Not being mic'ed up the drums can't be controlled by the sound engineer.
About the bass I'm not so sure; loud bass is part of live performance. The acoustics of the room can make it mushy but it shouldn't have to be.

I hear what you say GH.......in this case, the drums were NOT miked.......the drummer probably did not realize how loud they were.......

I love loud music, but geez, I also wanna hear what's going on!!!!!.....I think small venues should stick to acoustic sets.....definitely not Hard rock or Metal.......and loud bands should play in appropriate venues.......but hey this is South Africa, so the bands can't be choosy about where they play, as long as they get a gig!!!!!!!!!

Gearhead

aubs1 wrote: the drummer probably did not realize how loud they were.......

(Gearhead swallows another drummer joke) :?

Byron

Thanks for the interesting replies everybody.

I forgot to mention that in that tiny venue I was at, the drums were in fact miked up and the band's stage space was literally the size of 4 pallets because.... IT WAS 4 PALLETS with a piece of material over it . And while they sound-checking I was listening to how much louder the drums were than the guitar so......the drum guy asked to have his volume turned up. Thats when I got all confused and decided to post a thread about this later on GFSA .

Gearhead wrote: About solo's: I've heard lotsa top-of-the-line bands and not all solo's are amplified enough to be heard. On the other hand, I remember not being able to hear a whole evening of Richie Sambora solo's because he was too loud (plus the acoustics were very bad). Let's keep it at this: The sound engineer does not always pick up there's a solo about to be played and imho can not be held responsible for turning the lead guitarist up. Consequently, I think a lot of lead guitarists would do well to either have different volume settings on their channels/patches/whatever or get a volume pedal.

Ahhhhhhh I see. About the rhythm playing being way too quiet though , can't the sound people fix it though? What If they just make the guitar much louder? Like how it says in Aubs1's post about matching volume. What if they don't match volume but it get it to sound good because of the factors of the small club etc?

Keira-WitherKay

but hey this is South Africa, so the bands can't be choosy about where they play, as long as they get a gig!!!!!!!!!

i've played professionally in many countries in europe /UK/ far east /gulf / africa and this is a common problem world wide....

i think it's more a case of money... yeah money . if the audience would be happy to shell out R200 a ticket for a local band .... then they could afford to hire in good sound and a descent sound engineer.... and in reality descent sound guys or girls are few and far between.... and live sound is an art ... so yeah you pay R30 to get in expect R30 worth of sound quality heheheheh and it's like this worldwide....

and yeah point 2 ..........rock bands have the illussion that louder is better .......... i seen some mega names live and they never play too loud.... but the 'smaller bands" somehow tend to turn it up more.... and lets be honest in venues where they should be so much softer and would still have a full punchy rock sound.........

a tip for live use...next time the bass is booming and the sound is mushy just take down the master volume by 20 % and you'll see how it fix's itself...........try it ......

i recently played at festival where by the end of the evening the sound guys were getting pissed and kept pushing the sound till it actually hurt ones ears........ not fun they ruined a fabulous set by the act that was top of the bill....

so yeah my 5c on the subject

peace and light
keira

Gearhead

Byron wrote: And while they sound-checking I was listening to how much louder the drums were than the guitar so......the drum guy asked to have his volume turned up.

It's getting harder not to make any drummer-derogative remarks ?
I think however that his band mates should have stopped this caveman behaviour. Mind you that in a lot of medium to large scale concerts the drums are behind perspex screens so the monitoring levels of the other band members can be less, and only not so in small clubs since drums and screens don't fit on 4 pallets.

Byron wrote: About the rhythm playing being way too quiet though , can't the sound people fix it though? What If they just make the guitar much louder?

Good question, maybe they could not hear anything any more since they always play with that drummer ?
More seriously: the general idea is that guitarists and bass player use their own amp as monitor and mic it up to go to front-of-house. The sound engineer can blend as much into the mix as is required to balance the lot. Keys tend to go directly into the desk and therefore the keyboard player gets a monitor, as does the singer; most desks will have at least two monitor channels.

aubs1

Keira WitherKay wrote: and yeah point 2 ..........rock bands have the illussion that louder is better .......... i seen some mega names live and they never play too loud.... but the 'smaller bands" somehow tend to turn it up more.... and lets be honest in venues where they should be so much softer and would still have a full punchy rock sound.........
peace and light
keira

The problem, IMHO, is that the local "small" bands don't have the "luxury" of having a sound engineer, let alone an experienced or good one, so the band has to do without, thereby creating a platform for disastrous sound!....the club I was talking about was really really small!!!!!!

The Mega bands however, Keira, firstly do not have to play in such small venues, and secondly, they do have good, experienced sound engineers! In fact one will find that even they (the band) understands what it takes to get good sound, as opposed to the smaller (local, or inexperienced) bands, who all wanna be heard INDIVIDUALLY.......especially when they see their "fans" or future groupies, thereby creating one helluva musch.........

Gearhead wrote: I think however that his band mates should have stopped this caveman behaviour.

I am with you on that .......here's the problem, the guys are sometimes so desperate to keep a member, especially if he's good, and they've spent hours and hours rehearsing and practising, that they will not dare "talk" him into "cooling it" ...... pity really..... ☹

Byron

Gearhead wrote: It's getting harder not to make any drummer-derogative remarks ?

hehehe sorry ?

Gearhead wrote: More seriously: the general idea is that guitarists and bass player use their own amp as monitor and mic it up to go to front-of-house. The sound engineer can blend as much into the mix as is required to balance the lot. Keys tend to go directly into the desk and therefore the keyboard player gets a monitor, as does the singer; most desks will have at least two monitor channels.

When they use the amp as a monitor what kind of volumes do they put them at because I stood right next to the amp basically and could barely hear anything? I'm like really confusing myself here because I don't know enough and because this was from a guy who plays in a band which has travelled around the world ( I presume its because they are used to having r250 show sound engineers?) but anyway I shall go and find out about acoustics and Mixes and PA systems and and and and and

You people are the fountain of musical knowledge.

TomCat

Small Venue + Loud Band = Complete Acoustical Disaster.

There are usually four problems with loud bands and small venues.

1. These venues are mostly brick and concrete with little or no absorbent treatment. Result is live drums end up resonating in the venue, making them probably twice as loud as they otherwise would be. The second problem is the reverberation generated by the drum kit as well. The result is everyone else is playing within the reverberant field generated by the drum kit.

2. Mic'ing up the rest of the instruments to put them over a PA is limited as the gain-before-feedback is usually limited as the PA is also generating reverberation in the same space and therefore returning into the microphones. The stage is probably also small so any microphone on stage also picks up the drumkit...especially the snare drum and this then also contributed to the nice little mess referred to now as the live gig..... ???

3. The high levels generated and made worse by the fact that nothing is sounding clear...each musician starts turning themselves up to "try and hear themselves"....further making things worse......etc....etc....etc......The result......a bad musical experience as described by everyone above.

4. These small venues resonate mostly at low frequencies. the bass reverberation could also be anything up the 3 seconds. This effect is what causes the bass guitar to sound so loud and causes all the other instruments to "disappear" in the noise.

Unfortunately most venue owners do not understand nor care about treating their venues acoustically to help solve or the problem or even provide some improvement. The poor sound guy is handed a bad egg from the start and is then blamed for the poor result.

Gearhead

? and he will remain a poor sound guy unless he comes up with solutions. If he does, he will become a rich sound guy and not work in bars any more, which leaves the bar as it was: without good sound ?

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote: ? and he will remain a poor sound guy unless he comes up with solutions. If he does, he will become a rich sound guy and not work in bars any more, which leaves the bar as it was: without good sound ?

There's only so many possible solutions the sound guy in Tom's example can come up with during the gig and sound check. Applying some kind of treatment to the walls is clearly not an option - unless he has a lot of time and money. So he has to do the best with what he can.

aubs1

TomCat wrote: Small Venue + Loud Band = Complete Acoustical Disaster.

3. The high levels generated and made worse by the fact that nothing is sounding clear...each musician starts turning themselves up to "try and hear themselves"....further making things worse......etc....etc....etc......The result......a bad musical experience as described by everyone above.

My point exactly.............

DonovanB

If there are half as many budding sound engineers as there are bands, one could have an arrangement to have them do the sound.

Usually the band is responsible for having the final say in their mix. Which never helps because you hear differently to what the audience hears. With Swell Band we are fortunate enough to have Neil Snyman around us who helps out. Neil is amazing and gets us to sound awesome in any venue.

Neil is a true professional and has done many good jobs in the recording, Radio, and TV fields. Not everyone has such good friends around, but it is worth it to make friends with someone who has enough interest to study (or at least look into) the field to ensure you have some fair idea of how you can and will sound anywhere.

I think I may know who did the sound at that gig you mentioned. I also know Burn's sound is notoriously bad, they have an extremely low roof which i know will have Tom cringing. I'm going to ask some questions...

Keira-WitherKay

Tom your recent post 10 /10 .........

yeah and there is no excuse for bands not to consider their sound....i mean if you in show biz and doing live shows...you need to consider everything not just playing guitar ..

ask yourself does the band have ...........

1.good repetoire...
2.some kind of performance
3an image and target market
4. a performance set list
5 some lighting
6. and good or even average sound.
7. i was in many bands in europe playing th small club scene who had a sound engineer as part of the band and he got paid same cut as the band....if you can have a second guitarist why not a sound engineer....

so yeah i see no excuse for bands..... your sound is part of your show.... and as Tom says small venues are not designed for loud bands.... so turn down ..NOT UP........

i'm not saying a band can solve all the sound problems but they can at least sound average if they actually focus on sound....

peace and light
keira

Bob-Dubery

I have no credentials as a sound engineer, but I've spent time hanging around bands and venues and it seemed to me there were two problems that contribute to the problems that you describe

1) The acoustic properties of the venue change a lot between sound check and performance. At the first the club is largely empty, for the second it has lots of people in it changing the acoustics by virtue of their presence. So things can sound great at the soundcheck and then suck a couple of hours later.

2) People play differently in a soundcheck than they do for an actual performance. They play more tentatively, with less energy and attack. Come the gig when the audience is there and the band is peforming and wants to connect with the audience and the whole energy is very different everybody starts playing harder. I think this is particularly the case with drums - not because drummers are any more intellectually challenged than the rest of the band, but because they don't have amps and FX boxes and their volume is controlled ENTIRELY by physical input.

Given that most bands playing in venues of this size can't afford to retain a good sound guy - and neither can the venue - these gigs are a sonic problem just waiting to happen.

Neps

It seems that everytime I log in, I have to go +1 -> TomCat.

kayDUB

TomCat wrote: Unfortunately most venue owners do not understand nor care about treating their venues acoustically to help solve or the problem or even provide some improvement. The poor sound guy is handed a bad egg from the start and is then blamed for the poor result.

What would be some practical things that can be done in the venue to improve the sound? Short of getting a professional in to do full accoustic treatment.

[deleted]

Okay, so i'm going slightly off topic, but only slightly. I've never had too much problem with sound. I used to mainly play in small veneus. My only real problem was when I had to play outdoors if the wind was blowing. It would be quite pointless. I'm starting to entertain the idea of playing with more people, but it brings to mind an experiance I had performing in a marimba band and it makes me nervous.

Basicaly the setup was in a big hall. I think the marimbas would have been loud enough on their own with the good acoustics of the hall, but the marimbas were amplified never the less. It was so hard to hear everyone else, because the amplifiers were louder than us. We couldn't even hear ourselves playing. I can't imagine people performing like that, but it seems to be common practice. To add to my distrust of sound engineers I also had someone do my "sound" for me when I played in a new venue. He pluged me into their setup, but it sounded yucky. I should have just used my own amplifier.

When you have to sync up with other people there can't be any room for error, but some places want to have things their way. At what point do you sacrifice a little bit of volume for a performance that will run smoothly?

AlanRatcliffe

Another +1 to Tom's post.

There is only so much treatment that can be done for a small room. You can treat the high end and mids easily enough (in fact, the "room filled with people" thing Bob mentions does that naturally), but the sheer size of effective treatment for bass often makes it impractical for a small venue. Some bass trapping in the corners helps, but I've found with a lot of the metal bands, they generate way too much volume for a small room - it reaches the point where the air is compressing from extreme SPLs, and then nothing will work.

The root of the problem is usually the band themselves. They know they are often going to be crammed into a small space (often a corner!), but they insist on large, loud equipment that is designed for big stages. Yes it's partly the acoustic drums, but the drummers have usually learned to play loud so that they can keep up with the 100W+ guitar amps and the 300W+ bass amp and have never learned to pull back.

Solution? Less backline, more PA. Use the smallest, lowest powered amp you can get away with for the smallest venue you can expect to play. If you play larger venues, let the engineer fill in the extra volume needed to suit the room. Drummer too loud for the smaller venue? Screens! If the stage is too small for screens, give the bugger blasticks/bundlesticks/hotrods for those occasions. No they are not the same, but I can guarantee you the band will still sound better at the end of the day.

Something I did as a drummer was to make myself rubber E-rings for practice and smaller venues. About two inches wide and 2mm or so thick. They halve the volume of snare and toms and still allow you to use sticks, play sidestick and feel the skins. They also tighten up the resonance of the drums. Sometimes just dropping one on the snare can make all the difference in a loud kit (I had a 6-1/2" Pearl Maple Free floating snare, which was seriously loud). Kick isn't often a problem as that's usually the first thing you have to mic up.