How do you like the volume on stage?

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 13 Apr 2010 2:23 am

I'm sure this will date me some and I'm not ready to return to the old days when we had a 50 watt Bogen for a PA system or the good old Shure Vocal Masters of the 60's but is there anybody here that thinks the volume has completely run amok or is it just me? The last two gigs I played I had to wear ear plugs! It's like playing in a box, no fun at all, can't hear anything and just can't wait to get out of there. I like there to be some volume on stage but not to the point it literally hurts my ears. After the first ear plug gig my ears hurt for three days and the first day I set my rig up to practice at home they still were rattling and that's no joke. The second gig was not nearly as bad but I had the drummers crash cymbal about six inches away from my right ear and the guitar player has his amp on a chair and he's got a mike in front of it so it's coming through the monitors. The bass player has a big Hartke rig on a chair ( a single 15" and 2 10" speakers, think that's enough?)and I've never understood that. You're always going to get more bass response with the cabinet sitting on the floor so I figure he doesn't know this or he can't hear because the guitar player is using the PA for his volume and of course it's his PA and he's got control of it. For about the first 15 years of playing I almost never seen a monitor on stage in a club and never did see anybody mike there amps. I'm talking lounge music, light rock, maybe some disco in the 70's, top 40 stuff everybody heard on the radio. Now I'm playing in mostly country bands and they have to have monitors, amps in chairs to hear and feel the need to mike it and it's just too friggin loud! I mean if you can play gigs for over a decade with a PA that may have 200 watts tops and no monitors and hear yourself just fine then why after 30 or 40 years do we need so much power on stage to hear? My contention is they are just fighting volume with volume and there's no way to win. If you can't hear, then somebody needs to turn it down, not turn it up! I've played in rock and roll bands outside on really big stages and it never hurt my ears like it has the last two gigs.

Ransom Beers · Post by **Ransom Beers** » 13 Apr 2010 2:50 am

Thats the difference in knowing how to use the equipment & not knowing,just because it belongs to the band leader doesn't mean he knows how to use it properly.I've run into the same thing where these guys mike the instruments & think it should be as loud onstage as it is in the main speakers pushing the sound to the audience.

Dave Grothusen · Post by **Dave Grothusen** » 13 Apr 2010 3:25 am

Played for years with a group that thought they had to have loud stage volume. I could never understand why they did not learn something when people kept complaining that we were too loud. The mains were finally turned down as far as they would go and we were still too loud. Those kind of guys think that loud is better.

Carson Leighton · Post by **Carson Leighton** » 13 Apr 2010 3:50 am

Frank,,your story sounds a lot like mine..I gave up playing with these kinds of groups a long time ago..I think it's worse to be sitting too, in some situations...By the way,,I still have my old Shure Vocal Master...

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 13 Apr 2010 3:58 am

It makes me wonder about how guys were using 50 or 80 watt tube amps and could be heard. Putting your amp in a chair just kills the steel player sitting down as it's right in his/her ear! I'd have one of the NV 112 amps but I'd never be able to use it around here for any of the gigs I play.

Roual Ranes · Post by **Roual Ranes** » 13 Apr 2010 4:08 am

I am very lucky to be in a situation where if it is too loud, I can just pack up and go home. I am not the only one around here that has done that.

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 13 Apr 2010 4:34 am

I just played a gig at a major club in a nearby city and the bass player, guitar player and front singer wore in-ears and had the floor monitors happening for the drummer and I who had no in-ears. I had to tell the sound man to turn down the monitors cause they were killing me and still the guitar player played extra loud through a beefed-up Super Reverb. If they're playing thru in-ears why can't they play quiet and give the soundman the max overhead to work with? Then again, we also had to contend an idiot D.J.just fresh out of public school.

Carson Leighton · Post by **Carson Leighton** » 13 Apr 2010 4:49 am

John,,did you ever try the in ear monitors..? I was wondering,,do they have a volume control..?

David Nugent · Post by **David Nugent** » 13 Apr 2010 5:09 am

I actually heard the band leader of a group I was subbing with tell a patron who was compaining about the volume, "If we're too loud, you're too old!". (Needless to say, that was my last time working with that group.)

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 13 Apr 2010 5:42 am

No, Carson, I've never tried them. The band I was with was only an occasional gig. They have volume controls on the remote pac on their belt.

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 13 Apr 2010 8:00 am

The in ear monitors are just the best I ever used but you don't find that very often when you're in a club situation at least not for me. These guys will put a monitor on a stand as close to their ears as they can get and then complain they can't hear. It's just so obvious to me that the simple solution is to turn it all down and find a balance. I wonder how many of these guys even think about balance? I quit using a tube amp altogether because I couldn't get enough volume to hear myself.

John Cadeau · Post by **John Cadeau** » 13 Apr 2010 8:49 am

I feel very lucky. I play in three different bands. We play at a volume where you can hear every instrument on stage in all these bands. We use monitors, but only for the vocals. I use a NV112, I have my master volume wide open, and pregain at between 4 and 5 and even doing a steel guitar instrumental, I never go full open on my volume peddle, and it's plenty loud enough. By the way John, I'm going to be in Calgary for a few days, first week of August. If you are playing let me know I'd like to see you again.
John Cadeau

Carson Leighton · Post by **Carson Leighton** » 13 Apr 2010 9:15 am

Frank,,If you can't hear what your doing with your NV112 cranked up,,then you better think twice about playing in those kind of groups...You will definetly end up with permanent hearing loss,,and if any of the rest wants to make jokes about it,,the jokes on them...guaranteed........Carson....

Brendan Mitchell · Post by **Brendan Mitchell** » 13 Apr 2010 11:45 am

Fighting volume with volume , you are so right .Like a dog chasing it's tail .I won't do that anymore . I am often asked to turn up we can't hear you , my response is to tell them to turn down ,I can't hear myself .I agree that we have gone overboard with amplification ,no need for all that power especially in smaller rooms .
It's still the old "mine's bigger than yours"!

David Beckner · Post by **David Beckner** » 13 Apr 2010 2:56 pm

I have played in several bands and currently front THE MIXED EMOTIONS BAND..My pet peeve has always been "If you are over riding every one else (especially the singer) then you are too loud..I'll pack my toys and move along.

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 13 Apr 2010 3:51 pm

Can remember in the 60's and 70's working with bands that would use a couple of the old custon tall speaker cabs for mains,seems they had either four tens or twelves. would angle them across the stage so we could hear the vocals. [monitors]

.Hell we thought monitors were a big ole Australian lizard.

.We could hear everything AND the crowd could to. Today some [not all] bands will haul enough gear into a VFW that you could play a staduim with. They think they HAVE to have two to four SP-1'S for mains,Four or five monitor cabs on stage,EVERY piece of the drum kit miked,EVERY amp on stage miked,or thay CAN'T play.Then they get pissed off

if they are told they are too loud. Go figure

YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

Jim Lindsey (Louisiana) · Post by **Jim Lindsey (Louisiana)** » 13 Apr 2010 4:21 pm

Reminds me of my days of carrying three amplifiers (two Session 400s for left & right and a Session 500 for center dry). Before I'd even hooked up my amps, people would shudder thinking they were going to be blown away with nuclear steel meltdown ... then by the end of the second or third song it was always the same story ... they'd be saying stuff like "How can you play with THREE amps and still be so quiet? Can you please turn up?"

I usually just told them (in a nice way) "If you can't hear my three amps over your single amplifier, perhaps that's a sign you might want to turn down a little."

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 13 Apr 2010 8:28 pm

I'm another old grouch who likes it quiet too.Unless you're on a really big stage in a really big room or else outside,putting instruments in the monitor is just asking for trouble.Way I see it,your amp IS your instrument monitor.If somebody can't hear it on a small-to-medium size stage,they're too loud.
And speaking of monitors,what's the deal with those 500 watt RMS wedges? They're on the floor and will lose a lot of volume in the 5-6 feet between the baffle and the performer's ear.Makes much more sense to use hot spots on stands or in-ear.

One of the worst shows I ever saw was the Desert Rose Band at the Grizzly Rose here in Denver.Tom Brumley was subbing for J.D. and I was sooo ready to get schooled in good steel playing(as opposed to MY steel playing!).The band was deafening out front and I saw the pained look on the players' faces,especially Tom,so I knew it was just as bad onstage.You could tell they were struggling to get thru the gig.Couldn't hear a note Tom played and I couldn't understand a word anyone sang.What a bust!

Andrew Roblin · Post by **Andrew Roblin** » 14 Apr 2010 2:57 am

Noise pollution is an epidemic anymore.

Anytime I go to a club or concert, I take earplugs.

My 20-year-old daughter does, too.

Take good care of your ears.

Ned McIntosh · Post by **Ned McIntosh** » 14 Apr 2010 3:46 am

Too much volume is, for me at least, a sign of lack of musical discipline, lack of respect for the singer and a total lack of respect for the song.

This is a sore point with me. I used to play steel at a sort of open-mic night but when I counted seven guitarists, plus the bass player, plus the keyboard player all on-stage at once, with a vocalist, I realised Conway Twitty's band wasn't that big! The two lead guitarists just played hell-for-leather at each other with no regard for the rest of the band, the music and the vocal.

So, after a few weeks of this I decided to leave the steel at home and just go for the coffee and company. It was just getting way too loud, with too many musicians on-stage and absolutely no discipline or feeling for the music or the vocalist. I wouldn't claim to be part of the solution, but at least I was no longer part of the problem!

The band I'm working with now is a bunch of "gnarly old dudes" and they don't play loud. Vocalists like working with us because we put the vocalist first. We're there to help the vocalist give life to the song and the music.

If you can't be heard with a NV112 at reasonable "throttle settings", then it's time for the rest of the band to wind it back, a lot, in my view.

Jim Hartley · Post by **Jim Hartley** » 14 Apr 2010 5:15 am

I know this may sound strange coming from a drummer, but stage volume has always been one of my pet peeves. Drummers often get the blame, and rightly so in many cases, but not always. I have turned down many jobs over the years because I just couldn't stand the noise. Now don't get me wrong, when it's time to punch, or play big, OK let's play big. The problem though when playing at constant high volume levels, there is no room to build for effect, you're already there or beyond. I have always thought of myself not only as the timekeeper on stage, but also the volume knob. It is very frustrating when it's time to drop the volume to a whisper, and nobody follows. I don't mean for this to sound like a rant, I have very few issues like this any more. Most everyone I work with understands dynamics, and that sure makes playing music fun.

OK, now I feel better.

See ya soon,
Jim

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 14 Apr 2010 5:39 am

Jim,I couldn't agree with you more..In my bands I insisted on the Bass and Drums controling the stage dynamics..

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 14 Apr 2010 6:16 am

David Beckner wrote:My pet peeve has always been "If you are over riding every one else (especially the singer) then you are too loud

My pet peeve is the reverse: singers who need to sound like God in the monitors, forcing everyone playing a mid-range instrument to turn up or be buried in the vocal roar.

Jim Lindsey (Louisiana) · Post by **Jim Lindsey (Louisiana)** » 14 Apr 2010 7:15 am

Jim Hartley wrote:I know this may sound strange coming from a drummer, but stage volume has always been one of my pet peeves. Drummers often get the blame, and rightly so in many cases, but not always. I have turned down many jobs over the years because I just couldn't stand the noise. Now don't get me wrong, when it's time to punch, or play big, OK let's play big. The problem though when playing at constant high volume levels, there is no room to build for effect, you're already there or beyond. I have always thought of myself not only as the timekeeper on stage, but also the volume knob. It is very frustrating when it's time to drop the volume to a whisper, and nobody follows. I don't mean for this to sound like a rant, I have very few issues like this any more. Most everyone I work with understands dynamics, and that sure makes playing music fun.

OK, now I feel better.

See ya soon,
Jim

Absolutely well said, Jim ... one of my favorite words in the musical dictionary - dynamics. And I certainly don't think it sounds strange to hear a drummer state so well what you just did.

Most of the bands I've worked with have had drummers who share your same take on volume and dynamics and working with them was always a great pleasure.

Oh, there have been those one or two cases when I've worked with a drummer who thought "dynamics" was a synonym for "dynamite" and would lay down explosive rim shots or tom work that sounded like the 1812 Overture climax ...

... but they were far and few between.

Most of the time whenever I've encountered really loud bands it was usually too loud because of a kind of domino effect ... one player (perhaps a guitar player or a self-indulged keyboard player with delusions of grandeur) who consistently played too loud, but instead of having him turn down the rest of the band started turning up to compete or match his volume. Then he'd turn up again, then the rest of the band would turn up again and so on.

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 14 Apr 2010 9:06 am

Its pretty hard to cater to everyones ego..But good musicians know how to feed off of each other..They soon learn the diference between a Job and a party..Blaming the singer or any other person on the same stage?.. That's not reason to paint two more numbers on the volume dial to get it up to twelve???.Sounds more like egos being stepped on than the rides or leads..Not the stuff people pay to go out to see or hear nightly..