TimR

[quote name='Horizontalste' timestamp='1445603566' post='2892750'] In the book he makes a connection with the 10000 hour theory & the relationship that has with age. Apparently at birth we are primed to learn (don't think we can argue with that) & Myelin production is at its greatest during our childhood, teens & into our early twenties. I can see how this is relevant & I'd imagine anyone who started playing later in life or anyone who's tried to learn a second language past 30 could probably relate. [/quote] I was going to mention the 10,000 hour theory. You have to learn from your mistakes, just repeating them is no good. Even not making any mistakes in the first place is no good either. So you have to apply yourself and stretch yourself. Being naturally good at something and simply repeating what you're naturally good at wont make you any better. Which I guess is self evident.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1445537053' post='2892287'] I find it baffling . Why would you want to play at such a volume, that you need hearing protection, which then makes it quieter anyway . [/quote] So that the audience can't talk. Keep up!

Simply buy an old Cortina estate, load the Fridge into the back, throw a tartan rug over it and park it out of sight round the corner. The Mrs will never know.

Here's a list of 300, enjoy. http://www.setlisthelper.com/blog/popular-cover-songs/

So the volume of the band has to be appropriate to the venue and the audience requirements. The band is providing a service, the landlord and audience are the customers. It's not about what I or you want, it's about what they want. If they want it loud then play loud, but don't complain or argue when the landlord or audience want it quieter. I've never been asked to turn up. Paul's comment about sound checking from the back of the room is spot on. Why do you want it loud at the back. Surely you want it loud where you want the audience to stand. Then the people who don't want it loud can stand further away but still be in the room. I had that argument for years with a drummer who said we were too quiet at the back of the room. Considering he was sitting behind his drums behind the band and behind the PA I'll still can't work that one out. And the drummer is the guy we're setting our volume to? Something is wrong. .

Some people really have a strange view of their importance. We're not there to force people to listen to us. If people don't want to listen to the music we're playing then I suggest it's not their fault.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1445440660' post='2891509'] I'm always left shaking my head in disbelief when I see bands micing up the drumkit for a small pub gig, yes people want to hear the music but they also want to be able to order drinks at the bar and have a shouted conversation as well. [/quote] Yep. If you want people dancing down the front with the band, turn down. If you want them lined up against the far wall, turn up.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1445439245' post='2891494'] Rock has never been about what is "appropriate". As I was told one night, if the venue isn't telling you to turn down you're not too loud. One of my favourite gigs was playing in a duo with an acoustic Ragtime guitarist, but I also loved playing with the Led Zep band. When I saw the barman at the back of the room taking all the bottles off the glass shelves I knew my rig was working as intended. [/quote] Well then that was appropriate for that venue.

Usual way to do outdoor PA like this is 100v line transformers. You could probably hire a decent setup for the day and have something that does the job properly quite cheaply.

Music should be at an 'appropriate' volume for the venue. That is NOT as loud as you can get before feedback.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1445352525' post='2890825'] Yeh I don't think you need intent E.G my dishwasher makes a very musical beat [/quote] Yes. So music isn't created it's perceived. Doesn't matter what the creator intended, it's what the audience thinks that matters.

I'd say it was the opposite of what we think and that our emotions have a massive bearing on it. Sounds you hear become imprinted on your brain when you are in certain moods and you associate those moods with those sounds. For example if your mother picked you up and cuddled you during a thunderstorm you associate thunderstorms as cuddly sounds. If your first experience was being caught out in a storm with loads of people panicking then the opposite happens. It explains better why you can't physically quantify why different people prefer different music. And why different cultures' music differs so much.

Free gig bag? For £12.5k I'd want a hardcase made from Norwegian Wood.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1445270046' post='2890109'] You don't even have to transpose... I for one would think of a piece in D flat minor as being somehow "softer" than the same piece in C sharp major. [/quote] That's a completely different scale not just different key.

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1445256387' post='2889946'] One would think it wouldn't change the mood indeed, but people with different types/grades of perfect pitch (I'm lumping all types together here to avoid another lengthy post) still report that each key has its own character or mood. I can't for the life of me remember whether they all agree on the different moods, nor whether they need physical instruments (typically orchestra instruments) for this rather than electronic instruments. [/quote] There must be something psycho-aural going on. Transposing tunes from a sharp key to a flat key definitely affects the sound. Even if its not backed up by the maths/physics. Although I'm not sure pianos are actually tuned by computers. Doesn't a man tune them to a reference tuning fork and his ear, listening for beats? Hence there's a fair bit of 'whether it sounds good' going on.

Ok. I've done the maths now and we're cleared up the typo/misread issue. The key is understanding that the frequencies are not just evenly spaced across the 440hz to 880hz range in 12 equal gaps, the 2^(x/12) ratio is key.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1445250671' post='2889873'] No it isn't! If you can't see why then you're not looking hard enough. As far as I'm concerned this particular conversation is at an end. [/quote] Yes. The earlier poster was right. You are condescending. "Not always 1.4983..." .

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1445249919' post='2889860'] With respect I think you may be quoting me out of context (and in the process have misinterpreted what I wrote). Quick summary: Pythagorean tuning gives a series of harmonically pure notes, but eventually falls foul of the Pythagorean comma. If you stick to the notes in the diatonic (major) scale the problem doesn't arise (unless you try to get too cute with the harmonies of course...). The problems start when you try to transpose or modulate to a different key (not a problem for early musicians - much less the Pythagoreans - as they didn't really do harmonies - much less modulation - in the way we think of them). Equal Temperament tuning sets up the notes so as to be harmonically precisely equidistant from each other (you may recall the narrator in the video talking about the 12th root of 2 - personally I'd have preferred that he expand on that idea to show how the Equal Temperament scale is constructed, but he didn't so you'll have to make do with my explanation! ). I went into some detail as to how this is done in the articles so if it's all the same to you I won't regurgitate it en masse here. However - and this is the important bit - in order to create a scale in this way one has to give up most of the harmonically pure ratios that would come from the Pythagorean tuning method. In harmonic terms it's a compromise, so that (to put the text you quote [i][b]into[/b][/i] context) the notes are a little way of their Pythagorean equivalents but are close enough so we can live with it. Here's a quick example: Take concert A at 440Hz (yes, I know not everybody uses 440Hz...). In Pythagorean tuning the fifth above (E) it is at 440 x 1.5 = [u]660Hz[/u] This is the harmonically pure perfect fifth. In Equal Temperament tuning E is the 7th note of the Chromatic scale starting at A and is therefore 2[sup](7/12)[/sup] x 440 = 1.4983 x 440 = [u]659.2551Hz[/u] (Results correct to 4 d.p.) As I said, slightly off the pure pitch but close enough for people to not notice. If you pick any pair of notes from the Equal Temperament system that are a perfect fifth apart, the higher not will [i][b]always[/b][/i] be 1.4983... x the pitch of the lower. That's how the system works. (Please don't quibble this point - the Maths is correct, o.k.?). The pitch relationship, not the actual pitch values, is the determining factor. Looked at another way, Pythagorean tuning gives you a whole load of harmonically pure but mutually incompatible scales: Equal Temperament gives you a single, homogeneous scale that goes to the limits of human hearing in both directions. The genius is that we can move around the scale pretty much anywhere we choose and be confident that the pitch relationships are always [i][b]exactly[/b][/i] the same. As such, transposition is a simple matter of choosing your new starting point and away you go: simples! The downside is that the notes are a tiny bit off-pitch in any given key in any given register. But we can live with it... [/quote] That's exactly what I said.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1445185195' post='2889395'] Transposing in Equal Temperament is a doddle - it's to do with... Actually, and at the risk of sounding a bit patronising, a lot of this stuff really will make more sense if people take the time to read my articles on the subject. Essential Tension linked it a while ago but here it is again: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/59011-ancient-greek-music/"]http://basschat.co.u...nt-greek-music/[/url] The video is very good by the way - it skirts over one or two issues a bit too easily for my liking, and the narrator's tone is a bit patronising, but apart from that it goes through it very nicely (and, annoyingly, is more interesting than reading through my articles as well... ) [/quote] It may well be a doddle but in your article that you link to you explain that you sacrifice pure tones and all notes become a compromise that is close enough for us to live with. What happens is that in some keys the perfect 3/2 ratio is closer than in other keys. The do sound slightly different. In a C major chord the ratio for the 5th is not as close as the ratio in an A major chord. It's subtle and we can hear it, it doesn't sound wrong, but it does sound different.

West Side is great. I had to explain the rhythm in 'I Feel Pretty' to the singers once. Ooof!

I'll confess to leaving the drum side one in while having the bass one out.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1445152319' post='2889060'] Those who have studied these things properly will cringe at this as is is very much a paraphrase rather than an academic treatise (it annoys the heck out of my nephew who studied music at Goldsmiths). But for the average muso you could do worse than the explanation of Pythagorean theory and tempering in scales in Howard Goodall's Big Bangs. A nicely simplified and populist explanation... http://youtu.be/41g2fSYZ4Sc Apologies to those who have looked at this properly... [/quote] I saw this a long time ago and take it as a perfect explanation why transposing from one key to another has to be carefully done. Maybe I like it over simplified.

Elacin ER20s. About £10 from Amazon. Just reduce the volume across all frequencies. They don't let 'more' high frequency through. It's just that foam one let less high frequency through so compared with them they sound natural.

Who reads the comments? You'd be better off reading the daily mail or the comments on the BBC News website. Either that or join a conversation with me in off topic.

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1445023023' post='2888304'] At the risk of opening up another avenue.... O played briefly with a function band whose drummer had a state of the art electric kit and he knew how to use it. Every song was as the record whether it was hand claps, 80s sounding bass drum and snare, the works. I hadn't appreciated how much production and dubbing had happened on drum tracks until that band. The sound was magical. [/quote] I'd probably have to hear it but to me the idea already sounds too clinical.