Anyone here played Orange Street Music Club, Canterbury?

[Beedster]

Arrrrghhhhhhhhh

We've played there I guess 5 or 6 times, and each time I've been told by the soundguy that my bass is too loud (I'm normally told it's too low in the mix at other venues). This despite on occasion members of the audience saying all they can hear is guitar. Anyway, we played there last night and, aware of previous issues, I'm at gain 5 and master 3 on my Markbass Mini 12" combo with volume rolled off a bit on my Jazz - we're not talking loud here (as a band we play quite low anyway). Half way through the set up comes the soundguy and says "we've had complaints about the volume of the bass". My initial response was to tell him to FO given that, in all seriousness, I could barely hear myself, and as it turned out after the gig, neither could the band. So I hit the old placebo knob on the bass making sure the soundguy saw me do it which seemed to do the trick, but man, I was p***ed off.

Just wondering if anyone else has has similar problems there or elsewhere. My thoughts initially were that perhaps the whole band needs to come down a bit, but the problem is that we play pretty low anyway, and any lower and the sound of the audience, bar etc tend to distract from the music, especially for the folks at the back - there's a reason amplification was invented after all!

I guess the Orange Street building has a particularly bass-responsive acoustic whereby it's being transmitted too efficiently to the folks in adjoining buildings. Either way we've decided we're not going to play there again as things get pretty stupid when you're barely able to hear each other (TBH we'd probably go through the PA if the house monitors ever worked)

Rant over

C

Edited November 17, 2009 by Beedster

[JTUK]

I don't know it under that name...was it called anything else at anytime.?

It does indeed seem like it has sound issues... be that the sound-man himself or the venue, either way, if it spoils the gig, play elsewhere, as you say.

[Stingray5]

Might be an anti-bass sound man!