| rss2email.ru |
 Культура, Искусство, Арт - статьи и фото  |  Интернет-инструменты для малого бизнеса  |  Afrostore.ru - материалы для наращивания  |  Александр Хабаров: жесть вместо золота  |
 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Ask the indie professor: How loud is too loud?
Is it always a sound engineer's fault when a gig leaves you deafened? More likely the badly designed venue, 'stupid' microphones and over-enthusiastic guitarist are to blame
Why do so many sound engineers insist on setting such unnecessarily high levels at gigs?
Thanks,
Nat Harding, via gmailAccording to a recent study, it could be in a venue's best interest to have loud music. However, in this case I'm going to turn the question over to an expert in sound engineering. Here's what my friend had to say …
"There are some engineers who simply like it really loud – however, this is not usually why sound engineers crank up the volume. In truth, there is no real enjoyment in mixing loud – it becomes self-defeating. Your ears begin to close down, as does the audience. So most engineers will try quite hard to avoid it getting too loud. However they are usually at war with three other factors: the musicians, the equipment and the venue.
The primary job of most sound engineers is to help the audience hear the singer. However, in a small venue it can become difficult when other musicians are playing too loud. Guitarists and drummers are the prime culprits. Guitar amps compete in the same frequency range as the singer. This leads to the singer being turned up to be heard over the sound of the guitar. We are now on the slippery slope. The guitar and vocals are now loud, so what about the bass and drums? Let's turn them up a bit to redress the balance. Now the vocals are getting lost again, just tweak them up a bit – and so on. The result? A very loud gig.
This is compounded by microphones, which are inherently stupid. The vocal microphone doesn't know that it's just a vocal microphone. It spends its time pretty much picking up anything in front of it. This is obviously the singer but also the drums and guitar, which are then amplified along with the vocalist. The whole effect is that everything gets turned up a bit, and usually not the nice bit, but the "toppy edgy" sound of the guitar and cymbals, reducing the clarity of the vocals.
This is further compounded by the venue, the engineer's third enemy. The smaller the stage, the closer things are together and the greater the spill on to the microphones. Getting a clear sound from a small stage is virtually impossible in these situations. Unfortunately, in 25 years of mixing, the number of times the musicians have said "Hey, this is a small stage! Let's all turn down a bit and give the singer a chance!" can be counted on the fingers of one foot. Venues can also exacerbate clarity by being large and reverberant. A bad-sounding venue can force the engineer to turn things up in an attempt to achieve clarity, and to a certain extent this can work. Halls with low ceilings, glass or flat parallel walls don't make for pleasant venues. This is why old theatres were designed the way they were – and they make some of the most rewarding places to mix for a sound engineer. Converted warehouses, modern box clubs and dingy cellars with low ceilings do not.
So a difficult venue, a band that is just a bit too loud and an engineer who is perhaps a tad too enthusiastic can lead to a gig that, in the audience's perception, is too loud.
Is it always the sound engineer's fault? I would say, on the whole, probably not. He is just one of the reasons. There are many who are inexperienced and, given a difficult band, venue or sound system, turn up the volume to overcome problems that would be dealt with differently by a more experienced engineer. Still, at the end of the day, one man's loud is another man's background music so it's not just for me to say."
Question for our indie professor? Then post a comment below or email theindieprofessor@gmail.com
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Kanye West and Jay-Z – H.A.M.
Come on, did you really expect the combined egos of Kanye West and Jay-Z to create a modest, stripped-back affair?
Warning: Contains language you may find offensiveIt's been at least a month since we heard something new from one-man-music-factory Kanye West. Not content with making one of the best albums of 2010, he's now joined forces with BFF Jay-Z for Watch the Throne, a joint album that probably won't be short on swagger. H.A.M. (it stands for "hard as a motherfucker") is the first taster – an audacious, OTT banger where stuttering, echoey drums, icy synths and frantic raps give way to a faintly ridiculous coda in which a troupe of opera singers battle it out with a string section. You can just about hear a kitchen sink being strummed for good measure.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
