The dreaded decibel meter

[Downunderwonder]

6 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Do you want a biscuit too?

An answer to the question of how those fancy systems wind up sounding if you don't trip their limiter when putting whatever through them sound would be nice. How about the full skinny please?

 

A: e-drums, restrained backline not enough to be interfering in vocal mics, not covering whole venue but not giving a damn, Auntie can natter away to drums and vox and some bleed just fine, dancefloor @ something under 96dB thereabouts avoiding engaging the limiter.

 

B: full e-band backline IEM.

 

C: 1 mousepower backline monitors, e-drums and everything into the mixer.

 

D: live drums, IEM everyone.

[mrtcat]

19 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

And your venue name is still there in the second page.

There are literally dozens of venues with that name. I redacted the group name that would identify which one the info sheet refers to. 

[mrtcat]

17 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

An answer to the question of how those fancy systems wind up sounding if you don't trip their limiter when putting whatever through them sound would be nice. How about the full skinny please?

 

A: e-drums, restrained backline not enough to be interfering in vocal mics, not covering whole venue but not giving a damn, Auntie can natter away to drums and vox and some bleed just fine, dancefloor @ something under 96dB thereabouts avoiding engaging the limiter.

 

B: full e-band backline IEM.

 

😄 1 mousepower backline monitors, e-drums and everything into the mixer.

 

😧 live drums, IEM everyone.

Basically we run with absolutely no backline and fully electric drum kit. If you back everything off so that you're not engaging the limiters you can actually hear plectrums hitting strings, drumsticks hitting plastic cymbals and the vocals are way too loud for the mix because the natural volume of singing voices is louder than the overall output from the system.

Like EBS_FREAK says, the gear is quality but the way it's set up just chokes all the life out of it.

[Dan Dare]

22 hours ago, mrtcat said:

These are the ones that make me chuckle the most when we get them. Sounds like an incredible system on paper but in reality they sound worse than a pair of old Wharfedales. Designed to completely compress the sound with brick wall limiters that suck the life out of everything.

 

Exactly. I don't know why some of these venues bother to have live bands at all. They appear to want everything controlled and compressed to death, removing all the dynamics and life from the music. They may as well limit the music that is permitted to recorded/processed pap (which is what such systems are designed to reproduce). I'm not arguing that bands should have complete free reign to deafen everyone, but there seems little point in having real people playing real instruments in places like that.

[Grimalkin]

The sound of the prawn cocktail starter was louder than the band.

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, mrtcat said:

Basically we run with absolutely no backline and fully electric drum kit. If you back everything off so that you're not engaging the limiters you can actually hear plectrums hitting strings, drumsticks hitting plastic cymbals and the vocals are way too loud for the mix because the natural volume of singing voices is louder than the overall output from the system.

Like EBS_FREAK says, the gear is quality but the way it's set up just chokes all the life out of it.

They obviously let the noise police set the limiter far below what is intended when they spec the system.

 

At that point I would give up on the amplification altogether and have a 'campfire band' for those places. Whole world has gone mad.

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Exactly. I don't know why some of these venues bother to have live bands at all. They appear to want everything controlled and compressed to death, removing all the dynamics and life from the music. They may as well limit the music that is permitted to recorded/processed pap (which is what such systems are designed to reproduce). I'm not arguing that bands should have complete free reign to deafen everyone, but there seems little point in having real people playing real instruments in places like that.

Because any venue that has a "no live music" policy is cutting its sales potential in half. Having a system like this makes clients believe that they are a great place for a wedding with live music. On paper it looks great but the reality is that, by the time the client realises, they will have paid in full and it's too late to back out. That's why the info sheet is like a sales pitch.

[mrtcat]

36 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

They obviously let the noise police set the limiter far below what is intended when they spec the system.

The venue will have been sold the system by a sound company that specialises in selling over the top gear and then limiting it to meet the client's volume limit. They then make sure the venue thoroughly buys into the "if it sounds bad it's the band's fault" way of thinking.

[Maude]

We played a wedding with one of those terrible systems, funnily enough in a converted barn in what used to be the Yarg cheese dairy. The 'speaker' was a flat panel above the dance floor facing straight down. Designed to flood the dance floor with sound but with minimal seepage to the rest of the room. 

We weren't allowed monitors or backline. That band was all acoustic but always fully amped, guitar, mandolin, doublebass, cajon, vocals. We couldn't hear ourselves at all, and as a result felt we were pretty bad. Got some good feedback afterwards but who knows. 

Playing doublebass when you simply can't hear it (the background noise of people drowned out any useful acoustic sound from it) was horrible. The singer said the same and harmonising backing vocals when you can't hear the singer is near impossible, so you hold off doing them. 

As a result the whole performance was lacklustre and restrained as subconsciously you hold back as you can't hear yourself. 

The DJ said he has spent hours and hours at that venue EQing trying to get the best sound possible, but he said the best he can get is just make it as sterile sounding as possible, he likened it to sounding like the dashboard speakers of seventies a car and said he hates having to DJ there. 

But, and here's the thing, people enjoyed it. Average folks don't know good sound from bad and the ones that wanted to sing and dance did and the ones that wanted to sit and talk did, likewise with the ones propping up the bar. 

So the band and the DJ hated it, but were well compensated for their misery, the wedding party had a great time and venue made a fortune. 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Maude
Missing words, missing words.

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, Grimalkin said:

The sound of the prawn cocktail starter was louder than the band.

When you take your in ear monitors out mid song and can listen in to the conversations on the dancefloor.

[mrtcat]

2 minutes ago, Maude said:

We played a wedding with one of those terrible systems, funnily enough in a converted barn in what used to be the Yarg cheese dairy. The 'speaker' was a flat panel above the dance floor facing straight down. Designed to flood the dance floor with sound but with minimal seepage to the rest of the room. 

We weren't allowed monitors or backline. That band was all acoustic but always fully amped, guitar, mandolin, doublebass, cajon, vocals. We couldn't hear ourselves at all, and as a result felt we were pretty bad. Got some good feedback afterwards but who knows. 

Playing doublebass when you simply can't hear it (the background noise of people drowned out any useful acoustic sound from it) was horrible. The singer said the same and harmonising backing vocals when you can't hear the singer is near impossible, so you hold off doing them. 

As a result the whole performance was lacklustre and restrained as subconsciously you hold back as you can't hear yourself. 

The DJ said he has spent hours and hours at that venue EQing trying to get the best sound possible, but he said the best he can get is just make it as sterile sounding as possible, he liked it to sounding like the dashboard speakers of seventies car and said he hates having to DJ there. 

But, and here's the thing, people enjoyed it. Average folks don't know good sound from bad and the ones that wanted to sing and dance did and the ones that wanted to sit and talk did, likewise with the ones propping up the bar. 

So the band and the DJ hated it, but were well compensated for their misery, the wedding party had a great time and venue made a fortune. 

 

Yep, these "zone array" systems are getting more and more common. If you use in ear monitoring and electric drums then, as a musician, you can still enjoy it. You just have to forget that the pumping fat mix you are hearing is absolutely nothing like the flat, dull and thin sound that the punters are being subjected to. 

I just think that, if the bride and groom are daft enough to book a venue like that and then pay £2k for a band, that's their lookout. Work is work as far as I'm concerned and I won't worry about things I can't control. Luckily our agents are all over this and know all the worst venues. They explain the realities of the system to clients at the time of booking so it never comes back to cause us a problem.

[Maude]

5 minutes ago, mrtcat said:

Yep, these "zone array" systems are getting more and more common. If you use in ear monitoring and electric drums then, as a musician, you can still enjoy it. You just have to forget that the pumping fat mix you are hearing is absolutely nothing like the flat, dull and thin sound that the punters are being subjected to. 

I just think that, if the bride and groom are daft enough to book a venue like that and then pay £2k for a band, that's their lookout. Work is work as far as I'm concerned and I won't worry about things I can't control. Luckily our agents are all over this and know all the worst venues. They explain the realities of the system to clients at the time of booking so it never comes back to cause us a problem.

 

Yes, I'll admit it was partially our own fault as we aren't set up for in-ears. If we were we could have performed better.

We aren't a 'wedding band' but what we do does suit that type of event. 

We were asked as we'd been seen in a pub playing and it was the type of thing they wanted, rather than the usual function band. 

We were assured by the venue that monitoring wouldn't be necessary. Yeah I know. 🙄

 

[Downunderwonder]

So the 96dB limit they give bands is pure fable.

 

I will have to go back and see if OP's band is under the gun to plug into the house system.

[Maude]

1 minute ago, Downunderwonder said:

So the 96dB limit they give bands is pure fable.

 

I will have to go back and see if OP's band is under the gun to plug into the house system.

I'd guess every venues noise limiter is set to a different level, depending on their soundproofing, proximity of neighbours and how big an a$$hole the neighbours are. 

 

The email sent to me by the venue I mentioned stated that loud drumming would set off their limiter so bring damping. That band had a cajon with a electronic drum pad for some songs so not a problem, to a degree. 

[Downunderwonder]

On 02/02/2022 at 22:41, Downunderwonder said:

How long before the big day? It sounds like the WP has promised you the venue the night before with no authority and/or the venue has booked themselves another gig. Either way between them they are in breach of verbal contract and expect you to just bend over.

 

If you can do a stripped down vocal PA thing that's what I would do. Go take over an open mic some time if you have forgotten how.

More on this. Effectively your contract has been broken so unless they find a way to accommodate you someone owes you a cancellation fee. I am the last guy to start playing hardball but maybe that's what it is coming down to in this situation. Everyone getting pished at you seems inevitable so you might as well get the first shot in.

[Maude]

This some of the email, the venue name has been deleted, although it shouldn't matter. 

 

Music at ************ finishes at 11.30pm
• All amplified outputs must go through our system and this is a requirement to play at *********
• Due to the system and the size of the venue we find that bands do not need to use monitors. 
• The array system works well and is easy to use by the bands and DJs and all our bands and DJs that have 
worked with the system have had successful events
• We can achieve a good volume level focused on the dance floor and an excellent ambient level throughout 
the venue
• The Venue is a 15m x 10m room. The Band / DJ and dance floor area 5m x 7m area. The venue is small 
and intimate and the maximum numbers we have are 140 people. 
The array sound system
• We have a 5m x 5m panel in the ceiling of the event room. Within this panel are 300 directional speakers. 
Unlike standard speakers from which you get a cone pattern of sound, these directional speakers focus the 
sound as beams onto the dance floor. The effect of this is you get a focus of the sound on the dance floor, 
which is a 5m x 5m area, and then a noise level drop off of around 10db outside that area. This means for 
those wanting to dance get the loudest result and those wanting to chat and are not on the dance floor get 
a reduced ambient noise level. This noise level profile works really well for an event.
 
• The output from your mixing desk into our wall sockets should be line level only. We cannot plug speaker 
level signals into our system. 
• To plug into the system we have 2 XLR sockets in the wall of the venue. Bands / DJs plug their mixing 
desk, laptop etc. directly into the XLR sockets. The system has its own amp that powers the speakers.
 
• We have a DI box for the base guitar to replace a base guitar amp and to feed into your mixing desk, which 
would then plug into our system. We would ask you to use in ear monitoring if you have it and we have 
found that bands don’t need monitors with our system. 
• All amplified outputs from the Band / DJ must go through our system and this is our requirement to play at 
***********. This enables us to adhere to our license with regards to noise levels. 
• The band or DJ set up behind the dance floor area and therefore don’t have to hear the maximum sound 
level, this works well and enables the bands to play without the use of monitors. This reduces the 
equipment you need to bring to the event. There is very limited feedback with this set up.

We have our sound limiter and it is set at a reasonable level. Occasionally loud drumming might set it off. 
Please be prepared to bring any damping you may need to prevent this.

 

 

 

Although it's not enjoyable, if I was running an event site and had strict noise limits imposed on me, I make sure bands had to stick them. 

Saying it's not enjoyable isn't strictly true, there's always the traffic light game to play. 

Every limiter I've had to play within has had some sort of light warning system that you are approaching the limit. The fun is had by keeping the very last light lit but not tripping it. 😁

 

For clarity what is being asked for in the OP is over the top. 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Maude

[Downunderwonder]

10 minutes ago, Maude said:

I'd guess every venues noise limiter is set to a different level, depending on their soundproofing, proximity of neighbours and how big an a$$hole the neighbours are. 

 

The email sent to me by the venue I mentioned stated that loud drumming would set off their limiter so bring damping. That band had a cajon with a electronic drum pad for some songs so not a problem, to a degree. 

The magic number in that memo to bands is the same 96 as what the OP got told. Maybe just coincidence.

 

96dB on the dancefloor would be a pretty good party.

[scalpy]

45 minutes ago, mrtcat said:

Because any venue that has a "no live music" policy is cutting its sales potential in half. Having a system like this makes clients believe that they are a great place for a wedding with live music. On paper it looks great but the reality is that, by the time the client realises, they will have paid in full and it's too late to back out. That's why the info sheet is like a sales pitch.

Exactly this, I feel we’re being scapegoated for the venue’s shortcomings. Please don’t get me wrong about the dB meter, I understand how they might be necessary and how the venue needs to protect its business, but the way way they’ve gone about it is underhand.

 

As far as I’m aware, there is no house system, although that may all change. If there is I’d be quite happy as the ball is back in their court, if the acoustic players- a strong male vocalist, trumpet and sax+ drums  (no electronic kit as the drummer is 67, retiring from the band a few months after and is in no way going to use an electronic kit!) can tickle away quietly enough. 
 

What really grips my proverbial is the happy couple are coming back from Australia to have us at their wedding. There’s not much room for us getting it wrong.

[Maude]

3 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

The magic number in that memo to bands is the same 96 as what the OP got told. Maybe just coincidence.

 

96dB on the dancefloor would be a pretty good party.

I'm confused. Nothing I've posted has mentioned a 96db limit has it? 

[Maude]

8 minutes ago, scalpy said:

Exactly this, I feel we’re being scapegoated for the venue’s shortcomings. Please don’t get me wrong about the dB meter, I understand how they might be necessary and how the venue needs to protect its business, but the way way they’ve gone about it is underhand.

 

As far as I’m aware, there is no house system, although that may all change. If there is I’d be quite happy as the ball is back in their court, if the acoustic players- a strong male vocalist, trumpet and sax+ drums  (no electronic kit as the drummer is 67, retiring from the band a few months after and is in no way going to use an electronic kit!) can tickle away quietly enough. 
 

What really grips my proverbial is the happy couple are coming back from Australia to have us at their wedding. There’s not much room for us getting it wrong.

Yes it's easier if using their entire systems as, although probably terrible sounding, it's designed to work at their level. 

Using your own kit might need some on the fly adjustments to stay within limits, which doesn't make playing enjoyable when your mind is on sound adjustments. Then the knock on is underperforming. 

I'd say give yourself as much time before kick off to get your sound sorted, but usually at a wedding your don't get much time and can't make much noise. 

[scalpy]

8 minutes ago, Maude said:

Yes it's easier if using their entire systems as, although probably terrible sounding, it's designed to work at their level. 

Using your own kit might need some on the fly adjustments to stay within limits, which doesn't make playing enjoyable when your mind is on sound adjustments. Then the knock on is underperforming. 

I'd say give yourself as much time before kick off to get your sound sorted, but usually at a wedding your don't get much time and can't make much noise. 

Again, another reason to be annoyed. When the gig was booked we negotiated set up time the night before, a Monday, with the venue but have been told now that this won’t be happening. So we have to arrive at 5:30 and somehow set up discreetly in the main room whilst the event is running. I detest setting up in front of the clients. 

[Downunderwonder]

34 minutes ago, Maude said:

I'm confused. Nothing I've posted has mentioned a 96db limit has it? 

Not your one, the previous two for the high spec multi room tuned system.

[Downunderwonder]

13 minutes ago, scalpy said:

I detest setting up in front of the clients. 

That's no fun but don't let it detract from your chi! Nobody that isn't Derek the failed DJ will be paying you any attention.

[Downunderwonder]

At least it sounds like the venue has backed off from their pre event soundcheck demand?

[scalpy]

22 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

At least it sounds like the venue has backed off from their pre event soundcheck demand?

Nope, still to be negotiated. Thanks to everyone’s advice I’m going to try and go up during half term and meet the wedding planner, but there’s no way we can get everyone there, due to their other professions. This was entirely avoidable if the venue had been honest from the get go.