Live AE's. Low volumes tricks for a venue ?¿

[El_Gato]

I'm recently doing some live works for bands and a venue wants me to be their resident AE. They want gigs but at low volumes so I was wondering if any of you know any tricks to keep it punchy but without bothering neighbours too much.

I was thinking in compressing/limiting the master buss for more rms, distributing speakers around the corners and different areas of the venue so there would be no need to crank the stage speakers so much, some bass traps to attenuate the vibrations maybe.

It's already treated but the insulation is not 100% effective and they don't want to treat it again by now.

Is there anybody with some experience in this matters who can enlighten this new path for me?

Do you also have loudness limitations or you don't give a flying duck and just crank it up?

I think distributing the speakers by the venue would have a major impact in loudness reduction while everybody would be able to listen to the band without missing a single note, but that's just a theory.

 

[Steven Otto]

My nooby idea:
Have a 120Hz LPF compressor on the master chain taming the bass frequenties?

Since the bass frequenties are the frequenties with a lot of energy, those will be the frequenties which the neighboors will hear. If you tame the bass freq, then you can turn down the bass zone a bit and still have a solid low-end.
Does this make sense?

 

[angryoldsoundguy]

What do you mean by low volume and what kind of music is it?

 

[arv_foh]

how loud are we talking?? like the band will be playing and you'll still be able to talk to someone without shouting?

honestly venues that have loudness limits suck, and I wouldn't ever mix/play at one by choice. Shows are supposed to be LOUD

 

[Sloan]

if you have live drum kits, it can only be as low as that kit is. drum kits get loud as shit real easy.

 

[drew_drummer]

If the venue is expecting to be a success, they need to consider their low volume policy.

 

[angryoldsoundguy]

Maybe have the venue buy a vkit and a couple of PODs and tell the bands they have to use that?

 

[ttrentt]

Maybe have the venue buy a vkit and a couple of PODs and tell the bands they have to use that?

They do this at the local casino (Pala). It is rather cool, and then they pump the live band throught the gaming floor. Nobody has a real amp onstage, and they all have in-ears. This is for pop/classic rock bands though. I think it would lose its impact on a metal band.

 

[Trevoire520]

Only way to have a gig at low volume is to only get in quiet bands (acoustic acts basically)

As Sloan said you can only be as quiet as the drummer allows you to be. In rock bands that's not normally very quiet at all.

 

[pikachu69]

On stage sound from amps drums and monitors will dictate the overall volume from the FOH. Keep the band low on stage (good luck with that) and it will help a bit. Compression will not help make things quiter as it will just increase your noise floor. Adding speakers round the venue will introduce all sorts of time delay issues and funny reflections back to the mixing position unless you really know what you are doing.

Have an SPL meter with you and keep it round the 95 - 105DB at the console and no one should complain about volume.

Even with metal gigs, if you leave a gig and your ears are ringing then the sound enginner did not do a very good job. Even at extremely high SPL's, if the eq spectrum is balanced properly then the overall volume will not be percieved as being too loud or pearcing and your ears will still be in tact at the end of the night.
There is never any excuse a live sound engineer could use to justify making peoples ears ring after a gig. Thats just bad mixing IMHO. If you can do this then your loudness problems should fix themselves.

 

[kvoid]

I don't think a distributed speaker system will help you much. Sure you can tame most of the problems of such a setup with delay but it will give you a very diffused sound field. Great for cinema. Shit for Metal. Factor in the fact that you will be dealing with the fact that your PA will have to be at least louder than the stage...well...

The drums can always be sectioned off behind one of those plexiglass shields but they don't do much. Having a must use electronic kit policy will not go down well with the rockers/metalheads. That sounds like a jazz bar sorry.

 

[John_C]

How quiet is quiet?

 

[Charlie E.]

I suddenly had flashbacks of wedding gigs where I turn everything off except the vocals and the keys and I have a wedding planner screaming at me to turn it down...

 

[ahjteam]

Some pointers:

- Book bands that don't play loud music. Easiest win.
- Stage volume. Try to keep the volume on stage as quiet as possible, if something non-acoustic sounds too loud by itself, ask the musicians to turn them down. Cymbals, bass amps and guitar amps are the loudest things on stage.
- Cymbals. Balance everything to the loudness of the cymbals, and NEVER mic them unless they are expecting more than 300 people. You can mic the hihat tho.
- Mic choices. If you want the kick to be punchy but relatively quiet, use Shure beta91 or Sennheiser e901. For toms I prefer Sennheiser e904's or Beyer Opus 89 if you need to have a quieter set, SM57's and SM58's for rest of the stuff.
- Acoustic treatment. Put it a lot on the the stage and on the roof, and if possible, on the walls too. Just doing the ceiling of the stage helps a lot and you can do for it as little as a few hundred bucks
- Dynamics. Gates are more important than compressors to getting quieter sound, and they also make the mixes sound cleaner. Use them for kick, snare and toms. I prefer dbx, but even the Behringer/Samson ones will do. With compressors I prefer to use them on kick, snare, bass, lead vocals and groups, and some put it on the master bus too. 4 channels is bare minimum for "good" production. I would be more than happy with 4-6 dbx 166XL's (2 channel gate-comp-limiter) and a 4 channel gate.

There's some of it, I got to go now, hope it helps.

 

[El_Gato]

Good points, thanks.

My nooby idea:
Have a 120Hz LPF compressor on the master chain taming the bass frequenties?

Gotta try that. Cheers.

how loud are we talking?? like the band will be playing and you'll still be able to talk to someone without shouting?

honestly venues that have loudness limits suck, and I wouldn't ever mix/play at one by choice. Shows are supposed to be LOUD

Nah. It would be louder than the drumkit itself, that low would suck. Neighbours are two blocks away so there would be some loudness going on.

On stage sound from amps drums and monitors will dictate the overall volume from the FOH. Keep the band low on stage (good luck with that) and it will help a bit. Compression will not help make things quiter as it will just increase your noise floor. Adding speakers round the venue will introduce all sorts of time delay issues and funny reflections back to the mixing position unless you really know what you are doing.

Have an SPL meter with you and keep it round the 95 - 105DB at the console and no one should complain about volume.

Even with metal gigs, if you leave a gig and your ears are ringing then the sound enginner did not do a very good job. Even at extremely high SPL's, if the eq spectrum is balanced properly then the overall volume will not be percieved as being too loud or pearcing and your ears will still be in tact at the end of the night.
There is never any excuse a live sound engineer could use to justify making peoples ears ring after a gig. Thats just bad mixing IMHO. If you can do this then your loudness problems should fix themselves.

Good point, I was hoping there would be no delay perception in a 200-300 capacity venue but you're right about the reflections. Maybe not a good idea.

I don't think a distributed speaker system will help you much. Sure you can tame most of the problems of such a setup with delay but it will give you a very diffused sound field. Great for cinema. Shit for Metal. Factor in the fact that you will be dealing with the fact that your PA will have to be at least louder than the stage...well...

The drums can always be sectioned off behind one of those plexiglass shields but they don't do much. Having a must use electronic kit policy will not go down well with the rockers/metalheads. That sounds like a jazz bar sorry.

Plexiglass shields FTW Great idea!

Some pointers:

- Book bands that don't play loud music. Easiest win.
- Stage volume. Try to keep the volume on stage as quiet as possible, if something non-acoustic sounds too loud by itself, ask the musicians to turn them down. Cymbals, bass amps and guitar amps are the loudest things on stage.
- Cymbals. Balance everything to the loudness of the cymbals, and NEVER mic them unless they are expecting more than 300 people. You can mic the hihat tho.
- Mic choices. If you want the kick to be punchy but relatively quiet, use Shure beta91 or Sennheiser e901. For toms I prefer Sennheiser e904's or Beyer Opus 89 if you need to have a quieter set, SM57's and SM58's for rest of the stuff.
- Acoustic treatment. Put it a lot on the the stage and on the roof, and if possible, on the walls too. Just doing the ceiling of the stage helps a lot and you can do for it as little as a few hundred bucks
- Dynamics. Gates are more important than compressors to getting quieter sound, and they also make the mixes sound cleaner. Use them for kick, snare and toms. I prefer dbx, but even the Behringer/Samson ones will do. With compressors I prefer to use them on kick, snare, bass, lead vocals and groups, and some put it on the master bus too. 4 channels is bare minimum for "good" production. I would be more than happy with 4-6 dbx 166XL's (2 channel gate-comp-limiter) and a 4 channel gate.

There's some of it, I got to go now, hope it helps.

This is golden

It's is going to be the best sounding venue of all times in here

 

[PaulSOCW]

Have an SPL meter with you and keep it round the 95 - 105DB at the console and no one should complain about volume.

I used to use my pa at a venue that had a sound level restriction.
105db was the max level we were allowed to go according to whichever environmental department imposed the restriction due to the woman next door to the venue that had been complaining a lot about the apparent noise.

Was too easy to go over this level though.

If you want outside the noise of the leaves blowing in the wind was louder than the bands inside.

This venue put on a lot of punk bands and i think she basically didnt like punks hanging around near her house late at night.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

105db is the max level allowed in France in any venue, and it's loud... Where the hell do you have wind louder than 105db???

 

[if6was9]

Last few months in the venue I was the tech in( they closed about 2 months ago) they got really worried about volume. It sucks trying to mix quietly because the band dictates the overall loudness of the gig. if the drummer is hitting really hard and tearing into the cymbals then it will not be a quiet gig no matter what you do.

Couple of tips.

Set up the monitors in a sensible way, if you need to use crates to get them closer to the musicians then do it. They won't have to be as loud and the backline can come down in volume too since they can hear themselves better.

Ring out your monitors and use the graphic for the monitors wisely. You can roll off plenty of low end to clear their mix up and the stage will be cleaner sounding all over and you'll find you don't have to push then as hard. Less low end spill off the stage too.

As previously mentioned, gating your drums and comping your vocals will help reduce the level and make it punchier. Easy on the compression on the vocals, too much and you start getting TONS of cymbal in there too. I find the cymbals to be the biggest killer in a live show. They bleed into EVERYTHING and are so loud to begin with. Because of their frequency range they really get to your ears in a nasty way. They cloud up the guitars and vocal's critical area.

Watch out for the guitars midrange too, it's very easy to push the 1-3khz area to get some more clarity and bite in the guitars but you might well find more success cutting it a little to make room for vocals and finding room for the guitars in other ways with the snare, bass, toms and hopefully lack of overbearing cymbals!

Best of luck!

 

[pikachu69]

A little OT but I mixed a gig at the opera house where I live once that consitsted of a 'pop opera' trio and a piano. So 3 women singing modern opera basically.
During sound check I was checking SPL levels as I knew the audience would be mostly older people and I was amazed to find that 1 singer on her own with NO FOH running could easily reach 105db, just her acoustic voice! This is in a big opera house that could seat 800 people or more. Now you add 2 more singers doing the same thing then trying to mic up a grand piano to be heard over the singers which had to sing through mics as the show was being recorded so there was also a FOH mix that needed to rise over the acoustic voices!

Not a fun day lol. A live mix with 5 or 6 channels running was harder than any 20 - 30 channel live metal mix I have ever done.

Moral of the story: the musicians on stage are an AE's worst enemy.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Here is a thought...I have noticed at every show that I have ever gone to, the sound has so much energy in the subs and generally overpower everything else in the mix. It is funny or coincidental...that those are the frequencies that manage to travel through buildings. So many venues including national acts have these brick shithouses for low end generally having more subs (and power for said subs) than they do for the mains. Try to simply back off on the low end, IMO live shows over hype the lows (Fletcher-Munson effect) and due to those volumes you simply do not need as much bass compared to lower listening levels.

Also your best best is to simply not mic the cymbals, mic everything else up and make the FOH volume match the acoustic volume of the cymbals. This means that guitars and bass cannot be at full volume which many bassist and guitarist tend to do which they need to be shot for. The volume of the amps should be quiet enough so that you can still have a normal conversation with someone within 5 feet of the amp, still loud, but nothing ridiculous. The entire drum kit acoustically should be able to drown out the amps.