Quote:
Originally Posted by Dinny Blues
Anyone following along is absolutely right, yes I am a crotchety old ****er when it comes to stage volume. I'm not holier than the next mother****er, I just can't stand it when it is so loud you can't hear anything but a messy blare.
I have turned down many, many offers to play in bands full of good players because they simply play too loud.
I can not stand being in front of any audience anywhere that people are grimacing in pain and putting their hands over their ears. That is not why I did all that practicing.
It's a HUGE pet-peeve of mine.
I apologize for being such a bitch, but I will never apologize for being asked to turn it up.
It's actually a fun game/challenge that I've had in a few bands I've worked with. We start the very first song ridiculously quiet and stay at that level until someone asks us to turn it up. If we get a request, we ask which of us needs to turn up, or all of us, etc. The one who is asked to turn it up wins, we all tie, etc. Just a game we kept amongst ourselves, didn't announce it or anything.
We usually got hired back everywhere we played.
Dinny
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I think that there is an "art" to finding the right stage volume for the venue you are playing. Good bands find that, and good sound men can make those bands sound even better! A buddy of mine is an audio engineer for NASA and one hell of a musician. When I was in a band with him, we always sounded great on stage and FOH...because he knew how to get my volume (on guitar), his volume (on bass), the drummer, and our singer all well balanced on stage so that the sound man could really make us shine.