EBS_freak

Additionally - just cos you don’t hear clipping, doesn’t mean that you aren’t clipping. And that’s what folks mastering music to be as loud as it can be for on the radio rely on. But they have golden ears and a high level spec of equipment and a treated room that would expose any clipping as the waveforms are squared off.

That doesn’t capture what’s happening across the whole frequency range. Hence why you use pink noise. Plus, you also have to take into account the addition of waveforms (across the whole frequency spectrum) as other instruments are added into the mix. When you start adding in all the other instruments all those waveforms start adding. A peak with a peak and all of a sudden, you are peaking again. This is why it’s important that the gain staging between systems of spot on. If you are under unity on the desk, you should be able to assume you are under unity on the venue system. So if you hit -3dB for example, so does the venue system. That’s all great - and to be honest, some venues have got their systems set up perfectly like this… but that doesn’t matter when people start complaining that you aren’t loud enough. There’s only one way you can go to boost the perceived volume… and that’s into limiting compression.

There’s ways and means - and none of them cheap. I’ve played a few venues with isolated rooms as you speak of. Floating/suspended box within a room. All massive investments - but small fry compared to what some of these venues are making. For a while, I ran silent disco bands - which is all really good until the guests think it’s great to take the headsets home as a momento. Yes you can put all sorts of things in the contract to ensure you get paid - but funny - nobody likes to acknowledge that their guests have nicked stuff. For it to work, you need to have a room with one door where nobody gets in without taking a headset and nobody gets out without relinquishing a headset. In theory, it was great. In practice, not so much. Especially when you turn up to the venue and you can’t find a clean radio channel - so the whole thing goes to sh111t. The let thing is, nobody really digs on the restraints imposed by a limited… but experience tells me, either play along and accept it for what it is… or don’t take the gig (if you can afford not to take it). When your whole band is on IEM, the reality of playing a limited gig, is that nothing much changes. As a band leader, if you are on the end of complaints of the volume not being high enough - and accusations of the band sounding lifeless… I made the decision to not entertain them so much (hence me hiking the prices up for those type of gigs). I’d rather not want the agro or risk of the band being name being hit with negativity. A single bad gig that results in a string of negative Facebook reviews can kill a band in one sitting.

Pretty much. It’s locked in a box with a couple of XLR sockets to plug into. The only visual cue is… err… nothing. Just two XLR sockets. And that’s your lot.

The problem is, is that it encourages the band desk to be pushed above unity. And keep pushing… and keep pushing. So if for example, the receiving system is 6dB under unity, then the output faders on the sending desk would have to be at +6dB to reach unity - which clearly isn’t good practice, especially when you have your own processing on the outputs of your desk. Incorrect gain staging isn’t going to help anybody, especially if you haven’t got a visual cue on the venue systems as to whether you are clipping or not.

I with Doddy on this - there's a difference in playing busily and playing busily and grooving like a MF. Here's my exhibit A for busy but absolutely smashing a home run because you have your musicality and skills all suitably honed rather than playing around with pentatonic nonsense.

I was talking about the one in the first post... but yeah, I guess the one above my comment does! The other thing which always makes me laugh, is when people rabbit on about the sustain - and then put up a video of how plucking a note sustains for 2 minutes. Can I just ask... who has ever needed a bass that can produce a note that can last for such elongated periods? I guess the question is this... do we need sustain? As long as a bass sustains to get us through the pieces that we are playing... does sustain really matter as much as it's marketed as? What I also know is this... damaging a bass by adjusting a bridge is more down to the wrong tool being used. I would wager there is a bigger risk of damaging a bass with a huge spanner slipping off a nut. Oh and good luck finding any other hardware to match that bridge finish.

It's likely you are on a traffic light system if there is no house PA. As I say, it's doable. You don't have to worry about actual real world dB levels... just sent your default volume to feel uncomfortably quiet. You'll get a feel from the traffic light system about how loud you can play. Basically, your horns and drummer are in for a miserable time - and you may have to roll some low end off your bass. Yes, the lack of low end will be noticeable... but depending how your limiter mic and system is calibrated, it could be more sensitive to the lows (this is when the system is calibrated with a "C weighting" - and is done so because bass tends to be the troublesome frequency range that the neighbours get peed off with) Just tell the band to play super quiet as you sound check... and tell them that's how the gig needs to be. It's not fun - but that's the rules. And if you all understand that, you can actually look at the audience instead of the whole band just looking at the traffic lights all night.

Has nobody noticed that it looks aesthetically awful?

Ok. Unlike sound limiter systems that cut power after the music has exceeded the threshold (usually for 3-5 seconds), these in-house systems work with a brick wall limiter (think 20:1 compressor if you understand what that means) across the LR outputs that feed the amplifiers. How a band sets up for such a gig is usually pretty straightforward. So in this case, the wedding band are expected to turn up with a silent stage setup - this means modelling systems for the guitars and an electric kit. Keys and additional instruments should be direct or if that is not possible (eg for vocals, horns (ha! Don’t even bother)) miced up if required. (So yes to vocals, no to horns as they’ll be (too) loud enough already. All mixing is done by the band mixer, and then the L R is sent to the venue system. All monitoring needs to be done via IEM, which the band provisions. (So if this isn’t a normal method of monitoring, lots of bands will immediately be faced with a nightmare playing such a venue. Why? Because there’s the cost of the IEMs themselves - but also the need for the band to have a mixer that can provide enough IEM mixes for all the players) So once you get your mix sounding lovely, it then goes off to hell to be processed by the venue system. So let’s look at what is going into that system. All the instruments that are going in have a huge dynamic range. So as an example, when playing your bass, you may have a 12db difference between playing softly and digging in, or hearing the attack when playing with a plectrum. Now it’s not unusual to have a compressor on a bass, but what happens, is that it’ll be set at a much lower ratio and set to release quick quickly, so all it’s doing is squishing the extreme initial transients while retaining the overall sound of the bass. Again, on the vocals, you’ll have a softer compressor, smoothing out those transients. So in general compressors are generally good at “smoothing” the intruments so it’s more pleasant to the ear. But the key thing to remember is that the compression in these situations are low ratios with quick release times. (For those still not understanding compression and what I’m stating, here’s a rough guide. On a compressor you set a threshold at the point you want the compressor to act. The ratio states how much you want the compressor to reduce the signal. So for example, for 3:1, every 3db above the threshold, the compressor will only allow 1db through. 5:1, every 5db above the threshold it will only allow 1db through. The compressor will also have attack, hold and release. Attack is the time it takes for the compressor to act, hold is how long the compression is held for - and the release is how long it takes for the compression to stop acting upon the signal. So for example, for a a snare, or vocal plosives, a compressor will tame the transient associated with both those extreme initial input levels - but once that initial transient falls under the threshold, the compressor will naturally let go. The key thing is that the compressor should sound pretty natural and still allow all the instruments to breathe. In recorded music, say in the studio, you have the advantage that you have the programme material in advance (in that it's pre-recorded). You can run the signals through multiple compressors, automate faders and really spend your time controlling the output of each channel and the final LR for mastering. You can’t do that with live music. You haven’t got that level of control or a crystal ball (although if you know the music well enough, you can ride VCAs like they do in the west end to ride in those transients - but again, that’s not practical in this situation). So let’s talk about what is happening when it goes into the venue PA. When the venue has the venue PA installed by the suppliers, the system is fed with pink noise (which gives you a flat output at every frequency along the audio spectrum) - and this will be heard in the venue. What should happen is that the PA is tuned to the venue so there are no hot nodes/frequencies. Great. Next, the amps are set so the maximum output of the system with this pink noise is 96dB. Great. So every single frequency that is output is maxed out at 96dB. Now onto the bands desk - its a fair assumption that the bands output from the desk is not exceeding 0dB on the fader. Ideally that output should be skirting around -12 to -3dB. Now remember what I said about transients, well, it should come as no surprise that bands don’t play pink noise. Band music has transients that occur at different frequencies. Let’s talk briefly about traffic light sound limiters now. Imagine your band playing at 96db RMS (the average sound level shall we say), there will be times that it’s below 96 but also times that it’s above. The limiters usually have a traffic light system that will warn you that you are over 96 - so that snare hit may flicker the orange or red lights - but as long as it’s not for an extended period of time, you are good. So in short, you can have a band playing at a nominal level but still enjoy a level of dynamic range. OK back to our crippled venue with it's own installed PA. Remember that I said that maximum volume output is 96dB? Well, that your maximum spl that you transients can hit. So if you want your band with some level of dynamics, you really need to be playing at 88dB. To put that into context, that’s lower than that of a hairdryer. (And also take into account that a hairdryer output is more akin to pink noise (so naturally sounds louder) than the RMS of music). This is where the problem starts. So as far as the venue system goes, 88dB does not get a party started but does get you the maximum dynamics out of the system. What you then get is people complaining that the band isn’t loud enough. So what can you do? Well, you could push your LR fader. Immediately you hear the band get a bit louder… but what is happening in reality? Well, your transients start to get super squished by the brick wall limiter on the front end. This causes a number of things to happen, your dynamic range is reduced, so whilst the RMS is higher, the music becomes less exciting. It causes the transients to become clipped (more on this later), which can then be heard as audible distortion if pushed too far. Clipped transients actually tires your ears - meaning listeners ears will get more fatigued… so as the night goes on, the listeners ears perceive the mix to be getting worse. The result is that they usually ask you to turn up. So as you’ll probably see, turning up actually makes the problem worse. Right, let’s get back to these clipped transients. As I’ve alluded to, the front ends of these systems are protected by a brickwall limiter. The installers know that bands are going to keep pushing up the output to the point where clipping will happen. So either the instructions will tell you to not give any more beans from your desk if a clip light is being observed… however, it also doesn’t look good on the company if the system is both clipping on the input signal (hence introducing distortion) and clipping the transients - so it's also heard as audible distortion. So what do the installers do? Lower the gain so that the front end doesn’t clip as easy… net result, your real world desk dB is down the number of dB they’ve introduced as additional headroom on the front end of their system. So all in all, it’s a complete disaster for those expecting a decent sounding band. Meanwhile, any prerecorded music sounds great as it’s been stripped of any excessive transients, and has been mastered and limited in a super controlled environment. But of course the punters don’t understand that and want to know why the disco can be louder than the band. Oh and for those wondering where the measurements are taken? Well… 1m from a speaker is not unusual (when being calibrated) - and anywhere within the room when the venue get their own meter out. Anybody else figure out what the problem is with that?

Not necessary - the bride and groom won’t have been informed of the implications of the setup. They’ll just have been told that the venue has bands all the time and even have a top flight PA system for every band to plug in to. What they won’t mention is the lack of volume to create a party atmosphere or the fact that the music sounds dull due to all the dynamics being sucked out of it.

That’s the thing. I’ve got some stuff to add into this thread but need to do it when I’m at a proper keyboard. As I alluded to earlier - venues should have to call out the limitations they have in place… but won’t… until the contract has been signed. Utter b*stards know what they are doing.

Do you want a biscuit too?

This is for bands that don't run with any backline. So you'll just have the sound of an electric kit being bashed acoustically... and the singers...

You too eh? If you google all the systems there, we are talking some seriously good gear. And then it's all null and void because of that brick wall limiter.

None of that matters. They are in control of what happens in their venue and they determine that with the gear they have and are happy using and interpreting in whatever manner they like. If the mic for the limiter is dangling and installed incorrectly... is it actually going to be any use to you knowing this? Are they going to pay attention to anything you say about that? That's their measure, end of. Anything other comments are not going to get you onside. Think about it, you wouldn't thank anybody for commenting upon your technique when playing, or how you have set your PA. Bands are mostly an annoyance to venues as it's an element they have limited control over. Work WITH venues, not against them.

Been there - one particularly annoying venue where the buzz was intermittent. At the END of the gig, it turns our we were playing on the same mains ring as the fridges, so every time the compressors kicked in, so did the buzz.

Quick anecdote. Played a venue where the sound limit was so horrifically low, that a member of staff moving a hostess trolley that had a squeaky wheel tripped it. On stage, I swear you could hear the acoustic sound of the guitar over that what was coming out of the guitar amp. COMPLETE DISASTER - yet the bride and groom loved it. Just proves that most clients wouldn't know the difference between good or bad. (There is some logic behind this though - if the bride and groom have no benchmark of a wedding band, then maybe they are more accepting of low volume, energy-less performances)

The venue are just trying to safeguard their permission to make noise within certain limits. Can't blame them really, as they want to continue to trade... and they don't want a third party wrecking it for them. From my experience, this is how I'd handle the situation. Doddy is defo on the right path - venues see musicians as an annoyance that they are not in control of. Respond to the venue and state the following - 1. Respond to the venue, stating that you cannot afford to pre-visit every venue that you play but rest assured, as a professional outfit, you have experience of playing with sound limiters. 2. Acknowledge the fact that the venue are worried about sound levels and state that you of course will work with the venue to ensure that the appropriate sound levels are maintained. Suggest that a responsible member of a staff is present at the sound check to confirm that the band is playing to volumes that satisfy them, bringing a separate sound meter with them if required. 3. Also state that as the venue, they have a responsibility to provide a safe, continuous supply of power to the band, hence, you will not be signing any documentation. (Don't finish on this statement as it sound confrontational). As your part of the deal, you can state that all your equipment is PAT tested and you rely on it for your livelihood, therefore it should not be put at undue risk. 4. State that you will finish the set 15 minutes before curfew and then you will play pre recorded music to naturally bring the volume of the evening to a close. (So don't start playing things like I Predict a riot, Ruby ruby ruby, Brightside etc) 5. The band will respect any requests from the venues staff for you to alter the volume as required and you fully understand the meaning of striking that happy median of playing loud enough to generate the party atmosphere and respecting the neighbours). 6. Say you will be bringing an electric kit Speak to the wedding couple and say that the venue is in touch and set expectations. 1. Performance won't be an issue but will be constrained by sound meter and you have had experience of playing sound metered gigs before. 2. Also state that the venue have a responsibility to provide a safe, continuous supply of power to the band, hence, they should not be signing any documentation. 3. State that you are sick of venues selling themselves as band friendly and say that the venue is completely shady if they have not set expectations of volumes at the time of booking the venue. (This plants the seed and makes the client have those conversations with the venue about their disappointment in a "miss-sold" fact about the suitability for entertainment.) First off, write off the fact that this is going to be a high impact, high energy performance. It's not. When you sound check - 1. Source an electric kit (if you haven't got access to one already). Every wedding band should get access to them. 2. Make the volume ridiculously low. Uncomfortably low even. It will keep the venue happy and give them the confidence that you aren't going to give them any sound pollution problems. They'll forget the signing of any meaningless documents when they realise that you are reasonable people. 3. Stand your ground if people ask you to turn up and politely encourage people to speak to the venue if there is a problem (preferably the person that was present at sound check). 4. Get through the gig. It probably won't be fun. Additionally, look at the list of "approved" bands. If they are all Mumford and Sons-esque, consider going acoustic. You will need to confirm this with the client. I know, I know... but better to give something the beans acoustic-wise and can actually be quite fun as an alternative. You'll probably find out, this is all just procedure. In reality, once you remove the email chain, it's very rare that the venue will actually be that proactive in the follow up of anything. You'll probably find out the venue are completely different to how they can come across in emails. In all my years of playing wedding venues, there's only one that comes to memory where the tone of the email matched the guy at the venue. He was a complete pr1ck - I'll write about him in the nightmare thread at some point. Anyway... For example, PAT certificates and insurance - they just want to see a document. I have never had known anybody actually validate that the insurance document, or the PAT cert actually corresponds to the equipment that has turned up. All the venue are doing, is providing an audit that they have made reasonable steps to ensure that they have done the relevant Health and Safety steps to insure that there are no mishaps. Also, looking back at the thread, good to see that somebody else is using UPS. We get 30 mins of playing time off the grid. Most amusing when venues are trying to figure out how we've bypassed the system. Good luck - and don't forget to tell us your post gig story. If it is a disaster down to the sound limiter, get the wedding party to post a review on social media. Don't kill the venue - give them a fair review but write how disappointing it was that venue did not disclose the sound restrictions up front (if they didn't... some do but some couples don't understand the significance of it). <- Mega annoyance of mine. I find it incredible that venues aren't required to disclose such massive constraints upfront. As a side note, in my contracts, I specifically call out the safe power requirements and before I enter into an agreement with any client, I get the sound limiter status of the venue. I then explain the options to the client and whether the client wants to go forward with the band playing. In reality, I don't want sound limiter gigs, so tend to price myself out the market. The only ones that I'm not too bothered by taking, are the ones where I plug into sound systems where the venue provides the PA. This is becoming more and more common. I just turn up with the IEM setup and output to venue system.... which no doubt has a horrendous brick wall limiter on it and makes everything sound awful. But hey. What can you do? Good luck and hope this helps.

Fender?

This made me chuckle. A pub band that I used to play with occasionally knew that if I was available, I would play just for the fun of it. If I could fund the petrol money to get to the gig there and back, then all was good. One of the other bass players however, his going rate was twenty quid and five viagra. The guitarist in the band had them prescribed, so it would work out to be a way to get a cheap bassist for the gig. It became, obviously, a long standing joke - in that we'd talk about the gig fee in terms of number of viagra.

Maybe I should get on it. Will have to get all my accounts out to go through all the gigs, look up the venues to see what causes my mind to be jogged. I have to admit, out of everything, the locking of somebody to the van I thought was very elegant! As I say, I don't think I'm anything out of the ordinary - if you do enough gigs, this stuff will happen to you. I used to do a hell of a lot of wedding and party gigs, so I guess that's part of it.

Im sure there's a few people on there who have been caught out like I was... You can agree the set. You can agree the keys. What you can guarantee is that the keys player is playing everything in a different key and using the transpose function on the keyboard to try and get in the same key as the rest of the band... which of course, they totally failed to do. Even worse... it's the first dance. Fortunately MD's ear had detected it was a half step out and gave the signal... but of course, not everybody in the band could transpose on the fly. The horn players were fumin'. Sorry Sarah and James. 😕

As above. Work on your core. I had catastrophic back failure resulting in 5 surgeries. My saviour was swimming. Just front crawl and backstroke. Nothing else. If your core is not good enough to get your backside to the surface of the water, get yourself a pair of buoyancy shorts to help you until you can - it's certainly a lot easier than a pull buoy. (You may be self conscious wearing them - but believe me, nobody gives a hoot when you are swimming). I did pilates - but do go somewhere to do it... as it's easy to do it wrong and not get the benefit. It's deceptively difficult - simple moves but needs to be very slow and controlled. That's where the strength comes from. No strap is going to address the problem... it's just a sticking plaster that is delaying what could be in the post.

This just popped into my head after reading some of the latest updates. Myself and @stingrayPete1977were at a local blues jam at one of my local bars. It wasn't great - no, seriously, it was terrible. We only used to go to get a drink and catch up (and inappropriately slap our way through Mustang Sally if the opportunity arose (it was always the closing song of the evening)). It would seem that there really was only a "stock set list" that was limited to the following songs. Tore Down Stormy Monday Hey Joe I Shot The Sheriff *generic blues noise with no vocalist. Mustang Sally Seriously, that was about it. Didn't help that there was literally only 2 or 3 vocalists - and they had a repertoire of 1 or 2 from the above There were some notable folk (for all the wrong reasons). They included some of my faves - organiser (bass player) who brought all the gear, dubious organisational skills and very short temper. Lets call him Tony. - harmonica player (who was played over absolutely everything) - a guy that would turn everything into reggae - and usually got up to play Hey Joe, just after the previous jammers had played it - drummer guy who wasn't a great player was terrible. He owned a massive drum kit. Think stadium rack kit with probably over ten toms... double kick drum set up... Lets call him Jim. - a guy that came down with different pedals, amps etc each week... played a Strat, and whatever he played through, it sounded like "him". Lets call him Willy. - a lady singer - lets call her Fearne. (Fearne is clearly with Jim but not with Jim if you ask either of them). Anyway, myself and Pete are having a drink in the "viewing area"... and an argument breaks out on stage where Tony and Jim are absolutely screaming and shouting at each. I can't really remember why - but I have the feeling it was over Fearne. Not that there was any romantic link or anything like that, I just think Tony was protective of singers (and lack of them) at his jam. Maybe Pete will remember better than I can. Anyway, the next sequence of events still come up it our conversations now and again to this day... Argument escalates and the the c word starts making its debut. Jim starts pulling on Tony's ponytail and that was the final straw for Tony. Tony reaches down and picks up the bass drum above his head, scattering Jims drums everywhere... and then throws it offstage. On it's journey earthwards, it flies past Willy's guitar (which is on a guitar stand off to the side of the front of the stage), clipping just the top E string, snapping it instantaneously. Guitar remains motionless on the stand. Willy of course jumps up into action and gets involved and the whole thing just erupts into chaos. Of course, myself and Pete did what everybody else would do in such situations, continue drinking having a little chuckle between ourselves. And before you say anything... (I appreciate that it may seem far fetched) that missing of the guitar and just clipping the top E string... lord only knows what chances of that would be. One half a mm the other way and the whole guitar would have been part of the action. Local amateur jams. Brilliant.