Tag Archives: SPL

How To Figure Out Who Sings On Stage

The minimum requirement isn’t being able to stay on pitch, nor is it having a nice voice.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

It’s amazing how you can use microphones to shoot yourself in the foot. Metaphorically, I mean.

Each open mic on a stage increases the “loop gain” in monitor world and FOH (Front Of House). More loop gain means more system instability. More mics means more backline bleed cluttering up the mix – even if only in subtle ways. More mics means more volume wars on deck, as everybody struggles to hear themselves over everybody else.

More mics means live shows that don’t sound as good as they could, and yet, bands have this tendency to want vocal mics handed out to individual members like cheap candy.

Mostly, I blame this on recording. Not that recording is inherently bad – it just has unintended consequences, like everything else.

It’s A Different World In There

See, it’s easier than ever to record. You can turn any half-decent computer into a highly functional console and tape machine for about the cost of a basic combo-amp. As a result, folks are able to make acceptable (or even excellent) quality, multichannel, overdubbed recordings much earlier in the band’s life cycle than ever before.

This means that “studio magic,” even when it isn’t recognized as such, can be experienced before a musical ensemble has really gotten their live presentation to gel.

The problem here is that the studio has a much larger amount of “usable positive gain” available, especially when parts are overdubbed. So what happens is that Joe, the bassist/ guitarist/ drummer/ xylophonist/ euphonium player/ whatever, is tapped to sing a vocal harmony – because, you know, “we were listening back to the tracks one day, and he started singing a little, and it was just SICK dude…”

And it probably was pretty cool, because Joe has a pleasant voice, and a good sense of pitch. So, Joe gets handed a pair of headphones, and put in front of a mic. He sings just a bit louder than he can talk, which is fine, because that’s loud enough to mostly drown the quiet background noise in the recording area. He’s 10 – 20 dB less powerful than the lead singer, but hey, all you have to do is twist the gain up on the mic pre, and you’re golden.

No problem.

In the studio.

When overdubbing in the studio, feedback isn’t much of an issue. When overdubbing in the studio, the only thing that can bleed into that vocal track is the whir of a computer fan, or leakage from the headphones.

So, Joe lays down that vocal track, and it makes the song sound huge. Or haunting. Or just cooler than it was an hour ago.

And now, of course, the band TOTALLY has to have Joe sing that part for the live show they booked for Saturday night. Oh boy…

We’re Gonna Need One More Mic. And A Miracle.

The band is now unwittingly charging towards a problem with that live gig. The world of live audio has a lot of similarities to the world of studio audio, particularly in the area of terminology. However, live sound has a TON of inherent compromises that aren’t present when you’re overdubbing a “throw it in” vocal track.

On stage, Joe’s mic is part of a partially-closed loop that involves both the monitor speakers and the FOH speakers. (This is what I mean when I talk about “loop gain.”) As more total gain is applied, the likelihood of feedback goes up. For Joe, this is especially problematic, because he’s 10 – 20 dB quieter than the lead singer. Fixing a 10 dB difference in a live environment can be anywhere from challenging to impractical. Fixing a 20 dB imbalance can be anything from “just doable if everything cooperates” to “im-freaking-possible.”

…and total loop-gain goes way up when everybody wants to hear Joe in the monitors, loudly, “because that harmony just makes it sound so FULL, dude.”

Then, there are the feedback issues to contend with in FOH, plus the whole problem that a massive amount of the backline is coming through Joe’s high-gain vocal channel. All the backline bleed makes the show unnecessarily loud, and washes out the lead vocal, so the total gain on the lead vocal goes up, which makes the show even louder.

Folks, when a vocal mic picks up the snare drum and the output HAMMERS the PA’s limiter, you’ve got a problem.

Joe should not be singing live. Trying to make that vocal harmony happen is making a mess of the show as a whole.

So, how do you figure out who gets a vocal mic?

+20 dB, RMS

That heading, right there, is pretty much the answer. As a rule of thumb, you should consider the minimal qualification for someone to have a vocal mic to be this: Compared to all other sources in the room, the vocalist should be able to produce an average of 20 dB more sound pressure at the mic capsule.

Yes, this can be a tall order. Yes, there are situations where the rule doesn’t fully apply.

But, generally speaking, if you want a trouble-free live vocal, the singer has to be able to create lots of separation between them and everything else. Some of this is raw power, and some of it is being good at using the tools. For instance, if someone just can’t abide the concept of being in contact with the grill of a vocal mic, then they either need to sing with the force of a tornado or be denied a microphone. (Proximity buys you more relative sound pressure at the capsule – for “free.” You’d be amazed at how many people refuse to take the deal, though.)

So, how do you figure out if someone is in the ballpark?

  1. Set aside some time at your next full-band rehearsal.
  2. Find yourself an audio device of some kind – hardware, software, whatever – that has clear and unambiguous metering between two points that are 20 dB away from each other. For example, a cheap little mixer may be pretty clear about where -20 dB is, and where 0 dB is, but be unclear about how far above 0 dB the clipping point lies. In that case, you’ll want to use -20 dB and 0 dB as your reference points.
  3. This audio device doesn’t necessarily have to be disconnected from any stage monitors or other vocal amplification that you use, but you should be able to control the volume of those loudspeakers without having an effect on the meters. If this is not the case, disconnect the loudspeakers.
  4. Have the band play like they mean it. If you back things down in the rehearsal space, but then “get on the gas” for the show, this isn’t going to work. (There’s probably a whole other article right there, actually.)
  5. While the band is playing, set the gain on the vocal mic so that the average level is at your -20 dB point. You may have to “eyeball” this a bit if the meter ballistics (response time) are set to read peaks and not average levels.
  6. Now, have the prospective vocalist do their thing. If possible, have them do some different songs with varying feels.
  7. If the vocalist is consistently able to drive the meter to an average level that’s 20 dB higher than the “bleed,” then they’re probably a good candidate for singing at an actual show. Again, note that I’m talking about an average level. A momentary peak at +20 dB isn’t going to do the job when there’s an audience in the room and “things get real.”
  8. If the singer can’t “bring it to the table,” then you have to consider your options. If their vocal parts aren’t really core to the songs, then you should probably just go without their contribution during shows. If the parts are crucial, then the band needs to find a way to lose enough volume to make the 20 dB difference happen.

You may find yourself wanting to bend this rule, and I’ll certainly admit that you can. Bending the rule by 3 dB probably isn’t a huge deal. Being 6 dB off is almost certainly manageable by an experienced tech, although some extra compromises might be involved. Nine decibels or more of “fudge factor” is probably more than you want to try to work around, however.

It’s not that pitch and tone don’t matter, because they do. However, just being able to sing the right note in a cool way isn’t enough to earn an open vocal channel. A vocal that sounds beautiful, but isn’t loud enough, doesn’t create a beautiful experience as a whole. Really great bands are about making the whole experience as amazing as possible, so make sure a vocalist’s volume is there before adding a bunch of mics to your live show.


Impedance Is Life

The concept of impedance is everywhere in audio – even outside the electrical circuits involved.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

One of the best things about working in live-audio is that, every so often, you have a mind-blowing experience.

Sometimes, it’s a band that plays the perfect gig.

Sometimes, it’s a piece of gear that rearranges your workflow in a supremely nifty way.

Sometimes, it’s discovering something about the fundamentals of the craft – an experience where you see a “primal pattern” emerge.

Just recently, I had that experience with impedance. (Also with tuned circuits, but that was by extension.) As a formally trained audio tech, I’ve been through the requisite material about what impedance is, and why it’s important – especially for power amplifiers and loudspeakers. What I failed to see – for FREAKIN’ years – is how impedance is a primal pattern in the entire experience of live audio. That is to say, the concept of impedance (and its effect on the performance of a “loop”) has universal applicability in terms of modeling and describing the behavior of live-sound gear in “real life.”

The spark for recognizing this came from my recent post on active DI boxes. A few days afterward, something suddenly clicked in a way that it hadn’t before.

Basically, impedance is everywhere. Here are a few examples.

Acoustical Impedance Bridging

Electrical voltage is analogous to the force behind the movement of a fluid or gas. This is why there are so many electrical engineering examples that use a garden hose as a metaphor. If you increase the impedance of the hose output, the system pressure goes up, flow goes down, and you can squirt a jet of water over to that tree in the center of the lawn. By putting your finger over the hose end, you create a bridging impedance between the hose and the outside environment.

This is why we have horn-loaded loudspeakers. Although greater amplifier output has allowed us to use more direct-radiating cone drivers, pro-audio still overwhelmingly uses high-frequency transducers that are mated to horns. One major reason for this is for purposes of controlling directivity. However, I would personally argue that the main reason for using a horn is for managing acoustical impedance.

When compared to a big, heavy, LF component like a woofer, a high-frequency driver has a rather high acoustical output impedance. It just can’t move enough air to create the kind of total, in-room pressures that a big driver can manage. An HF driver without a horn is like a tiny, low-pressure pipe that empties into a giant storm-drain. Sure, there’s no opposition to the flow of air pressure, but that tiny pipe can’t fill what it’s emptying into. Fire a high-frequency transducer freely into the air of a comparatively huge room, and it’s just not as effective as it might be. The room has too low of an input impedance – you need to bridge it.

That’s what the horn is for.

Mate the HF driver to a proper horn, and what you get is a situation where the horn partially opposes the pressure flow from the driver. The acoustical impedance that the HF driver “sees” is effectively raised, which means we get much better pressure transfer to the room – just like electrical impedance bridging gives us better voltage transfer between devices. “Loudness” is SPL, or Sound Pressure Level. We do need an adequate amount of “flow,” but our main concern is pressure transfer to the room.

In this way, the horn is like our finger over the end of the hose. Our flow of sound is restricted to a smaller radiation area (directivity), but within our radiation area we get a lot more pressure (loudness). We trade the ability to hit the entire room with a little bit of HF pressure for the ability to hit a small portion of the room with much more pressure.

Damped Motion

Another place where impedance is very important is with any resonant system. Resonant systems are damped by impedance; higher impedances prevent the system from “ringing” freely.

Resonance damping is an important factor when working with drivers mated to ported boxes. As the driver moves, the air mass inside the box partially impedes the motion of the driver. The pressurized air resists the driver’s inward travel. Add a port to the box, and you essentially add an acoustical inductor to the equation. At high frequencies, the driver continues to see a high impedance to inward motion. However, frequencies lower than the port’s resonance present very little acoustical impedance. Low impedance means a lack of damping, and this is can be a very…expensive thing. An undamped loudspeaker can have so much physical motion that it goes right past its design limits and tears itself apart.

So, when you buy a ported loudspeaker from a manufacturer, it’s important to heed the warnings about applying a high-pass filter at a certain frequency. Driving the system with material that’s lower than what the system is designed for can wreck the driver(s) in a hurry – all because the acoustical impedance is too low.

Feedback

The material above is information that I had some familiarity with. I hadn’t really bothered to dig into the impedance aspect of it all, but I was familiar with the terminology and that impedance was somehow involved.

Here’s where the lightbulb really came on, though.

What happened was that I applied an analogy to a live-sound reinforcement system that I never had before: I suddenly realized that a live-sound rig can be modeled as a giant LCR circuit.

An LCR circuit is an electrical device where current flows through an inductor, a capacitor, and a load. The inductor impedes high-frequency signals, while the capacitor impedes low frequency signals. This being the case, the circuit resonates or “rings” across a certain frequency range. This ringing is damped by the impedance of the load.

Resonance.

Ringing.

Like feedback.

Whoa.

This is where it hit me.

A live audio system is a (partially) closed loop. The sound from a microphone is amplified through loudspeakers, and some of that sound returns to the microphone and is amplified through the loop again. If the system gain is increased, that amplification increases. With enough amplification the most resonant frequency areas will begin to “ring” out of control. Feedback. Reduce the gain, and the feedback stops. That means that the system gain is the “load,” and that raising the gain means…

…it means…

Lowering the system’s sonic impedance.

Dude!

This may be a little hard to picture, so I drew a diagram:

See what I mean? The live-sound life is just one big LRC circuit, and the live-audio human’s job is to manage the impedance of the circuit. We may do it broadly (with “all-pass” gain changes), or selectively by applying EQ – which is just a smaller LRC circuit that we add to the big one.

I’ve heard it said that “everything is EQ.” I can now go a step further and say that everything is impedance.

Everything.

A primal pattern is revealed.

Not only that, there’s a fractal pattern involved. It has self-similarity at all scales. The microphone is a resonant system, attached to equipment that includes resonant sub-systems, which form overall circuits that are resonant systems, which form a giant acoustically-resonant system.

Cool, huh?


The Appreciation And Care Of Strong Singers

Strong singers are great to work with. You just have to remember to use the right strategies.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

I used to do a lot more work with exceptionally strong vocalists. In the period from 2005 – 2010, I was the operator of an all-ages music venue. In Salt Lake, if you were all-ages and all-genre, you did a lot (A LOT) of heavy music. Death/ Black/ Doom/ Whatever Metal. Hardcore. Screamo.

Pretty much every night, you would encounter vocalists who could produce levels that were surprising, staggering, or even frightening.

Nowdays, I mostly encounter vocalists with average to slightly-above-average power. As such, I have my mic-pres set up to afford about 9 – 15 dB of headroom to the singers I have around most often.

Every once in a while, though, I get a big surprise. When that happens, I have to adjust my tactics accordingly.

A Surprise From The Daylates

Picture the scene.

An Americana band called The Daylates has brought their show to Fats Grill. They’re a quartet of highly personable dudes who can REALLY play.

Plus, the lead guitarist’s actual, honest-to-goodness name is John McCool.

Seriously, when someone rolls up to a venue with “McCool” stenciled on their roadcases, things are about to get extremely real.

Anyway.

At this last show, we didn’t do a full-on check. We got tones for all the instruments, spread some things around in monitor world, and confirmed that the mics were audible – but we didn’t actually do a song. What I ended up with was a “ballpark” rock-band mix where the vocals had a very healthy amount of gain applied on stage and in the house.

And then, the actual show started.

Brian, the vocalist, got on the mic and promptly blew the band away. The backline was completely swamped by the lyrics…as in, the band was almost a whisper in comparison. He drove the console’s input stage into audible clipping. The low-mids and lows from monitor world were outrunning the “clarity zone” in FOH by a wide margin. I was hammering the “sane level enforcement” limiter on the console’s main output.

In a word: Dang.

Obviously, I was going to have to make some changes.

Using The Tools

Being able to really sing in a rock-band context is a mix of both talent and practice. In essence, it’s all about good “tool use.” The first tool is your own body. The second tool is the microphone.

Really strong vocal inputs come from two things.

The first thing is that the singer can actually “bring it to the table.” Actually being able to vocalize with serious output, great tone, and correct pitch is a major skill. Also a minor one. And Mixolydian too, not to mention all the other scales and modes out there. THAT’S A LITTLE MUSIC JOKE, FOLKS. Please, try the veal.

Anyway.

The second secret to a super-strong singer is that they get up-close and personal with the microphone when they’re singing at or below their average level. That is to say, a vocalist should be right up on the mic most of the time. If they’re going to get really loud in proportion to the rest of the show, then backing off a bit is “good form.” The “proportion” bit is very important. For a good number of metal vocalists, their average level and maximum level are basically the same – so they should be right on the mic at all times. For other folks, the range is wider.

…but why be right up on the mic?

Ironically, separation.

A singer’s proximity to the microphone element is (effectively) a “force multiplier” for their vocal strength. As many audio techs have said in a variety of ways, “the loudest noise at the capsule wins.” For a given sound pressure source, the apparent sound pressure level increases as distance decreases. So, if a singer wants to be clearly distinguished from all the sources behind them (drums, amps, etc), their chances go up significantly if they are – literally – right up in the mic’s grille. It’s essentially a classic signal-to-noise ratio issue, and proximity to the mic tilts the ratio in favor of the “signal,” that is, the vocalist.

Now, if you’re like Brian of The Daylates, what you’ve got is tremendous natural power coupled with a willingness to be as close as physically possible to the microphone element. This results in an excellent signal-to-noise situation, in addition to a very “hot” signal from the microphone, and some combination issues between monitor world and FOH.

In such a situation, the audio tech needs to be mindful of, and adjust for, a couple of major factors.

Gain and EQ

Mics can have “hot” output from receiving a lot of input, having a high-output element, or both. An important thing to note is that mic output which is proportionally hotter due to a high-SPL signal is a good thing. It lets you maintain your final system output level for that signal, while running at a lower gain. This increases system stability.

(This does NOT apply for mics which simply have high-output elements. The sensitivity of the element is a kind of fixed gain, so reducing the downstream gain just gets you back to the same overall gain as you would have had for a different mic. This being the case, there’s no stability benefit.)

With a vocalist like Brian, you do need to reduce your preamp gain to keep the signal out of clipping. That’s exactly what I did.

What did NOT happen, however, was a preamp gain reduction significant enough to restore the usual balance that I have between FOH and monitor world. Everybody on deck seemed to be happy with the lead vocal blend as it “settled in,” so there was no need for additional changes. What this meant from the FOH perspective was that the vocal started out a bit muddy.

Why?

Beyond just the simple fact of the monitors being louder, their tonal balance was different. This is a side-effect of having the vocalist very close to the microphone element. Single-element directional mics work by creating conditions necessary for audio traveling to the rear of the element to be significantly more delayed than it would be otherwise. As a result, the audio arriving at the rear of the mic is out of phase with the audio arriving at the front. This effect is different at different frequencies. For a given delay time, low frequencies will generate a smaller pressure difference than higher frequencies, because they have less “cycle time” available. This being so, the element has to be increasingly damped at higher frequencies to get an overall response that’s actually pleasing.

When the singer gets right up on the mic, the overall sound pressure at the capsule increases. However, the high frequencies are more damped than the low frequencies. This means that the effectiveness of increasing proximity to the element is greater for low frequencies than high frequencies. This is what causes “proximity effect” – the boost in tonal richness when a singer is close to the microphone.

Now, then…

In a small-venue situation, the monitoring on deck interacts – greatly – with the sound from FOH. Part of the tech’s job in a small room is to get a nice balance between the “monitor wash” and the PA that’s meant to cover the audience. In a reasonably decent room, the monitor wash is mostly midrange and below. The high frequencies get soaked up to some degree. As such, the contribution from the FOH PA will need to have less midrange and low-frequency content…unless FOH is completely overpowering monitor world.

In a small room, completely washing out the monitor spill with FOH is usually – to use formal terminology – way too !@#ing loud.

So, what I ended up with was a much louder than normal monitor contribution, and (because of proximity effect) that contribution had a lot of low-mids and bottom end. Like I said, the vocals were a bit muddy “out of the gate.”

The fix was to aggressively high-pass the vocals in FOH, while applying some mild taming to the low-mids and bottom end in the monitors. You don’t want to get crazy with changing the monitor mixes, because you can’t necessarily be sure that what sounds great at FOH is actually tonally pleasing to the players on deck. At FOH, however, you can get as nutty as you like, because you probably have a pretty good idea of what the audience is hearing. High passing the vocals (or cutting away the general area where monitor world and FOH are combining) lets you use your FOH power for what really matters – the high-mid and high frequencies which govern vocal intelligibility.

With the FOH audio trimmed to work well with the monitor wash, the mix cleared up nicely.

The bottom line is that a powerful singer who is willing to get close to their mic is a joy to work with. You just have to be ready to do your part.


Buy A Little Amp

Large, powerful amplifiers were necessary in the early days of rock and roll. Not anymore.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Nothing screams “Rock Band” like lots of gear. I myself will readily admit it: I LOVE the look of big, “ugly,” powerful, solidly-built amps and speaker cabs. You get all of that into a room, and by gum, everyone knows that you mean business.

Having people think that you mean business is a really good feeling. Heck, it’s an addictive feeling.

But it’s just a feeling.

What counts a lot more than looking like you mean business is to actually mean business, and then prove it beyond all doubt with your actual music. Proving you mean business in the small-venue context doesn’t require a lot of gear. It simply requires that you have enough gear.

Sure, you do want a bit of “cushion” or headroom, but a whole ton of it isn’t necessary. In fact, it can even be detrimental. We’ll get into that in a bit – but first, let’s talk about where the “big gear” thing came from.

The Days Before PA (As We Know It)

Way back when, in the days when men were real men, women were real women, and cars cost about as much as five tanks of gas today, you could count on one general rule for live-sound reinforcement:

You either made enough noise acoustically, or you had a dedicated amp.

The exception to this (but not by much) was the vocalists. Each vocalist might not have had their own PA, but the typical reality was that the PA only had a handful of inputs – and the PA only did vocals. The idea that you would put all the instruments through one sound rig was a foreign concept.

As a result, if you were doing a big show, you needed big amps. The drums might carry pretty well, but if you were going to get that guitar solo all the way to the back row, you needed serious firepower. Even as PA technology grew by leaps and bounds, the notion that guitarists and bass players would make all their own noise stayed entrenched. Hey – they already had the gear, right? Why fix what isn’t busted?

At this same time, the founding fathers of amplified guitar and bass were creating the tones and textures that would define those instruments for decades. They were getting those sounds through gear that had to be big, heavy, and loud to do its job. Especially for the guitar players, who loved (and still do love, for good reason) the thick, satisfying roar of power tubes being driven hard, the acoustical output was in-freaking-sane.

They got away with that volume because it was expected, and also because they were playing to huge crowds. Most of the audience wasn’t in the first few rows, and so the noise wasn’t as deafening.

Now, fast forward to 2013.

The iconic gear that defined the sound of rock and roll instruments is still very much in fashion. Sure, there have been various improvements in materials, construction, cost management, and design, but all of these creatures of the amplifier kingdom are fundamentally the same animals as their counterparts from 1969. They’re big, they’re heavy, and their most rockin’ sounds require stadium volume (or a power soak, if you don’t want stadium volume).

The problem is that stadium volume from amplifiers is no longer required, or even desirable – especially not in small rooms.

The 100 Watt Amp Problem

Let’s talk about some of what’s going on when an all-tube, 100 watt, gorgeous sounding amp is really doing its thing. Let’s make some conservative assumptions to start:

  • The 100 watt rating is the continuous power generated by the amp at a full-tilt, maximum overdrive, supersaturated roar.
  • The cab is a 4×12, wired so that each loudspeaker gets 25 watts.
  • Each loudspeaker has an average sensitivity of 95 dB SPL at 1 watt, measured at 1 meter.

The tone is killer. So is the volume.

Each cone is producing about 109 dB SPL, continuous. The summation of those four cones is 115 dB SPL, continuous, at 1 meter. The average audience member is probably sitting about 22 feet (6.7 meters) away. The venue isn’t totally dead, acoustically, so the average SPL decay is 5 dB per doubling of distance, as opposed to 6. This works out to 13.7 dB of volume decay for the average audience member.

So, for the most part, the audience is hearing about 101 dB SPL, continuous, of just the one guitar. Add another guitar of similar volume, and the continuous level is 104 dB SPL. The bass player fits in with a 99 dB SPL contribution, which takes our total to 105 dB SPL. The drummer is a spirited lad, able to make 100 dB SPL himself. Now we’re at 106 dB SPL. The vocals probably have to be at a minimum continuous level of 102 dB in order to be distinguishable, so that takes us to a grand total of…

Just under 108 dB SPL, continuous, for the average audience member, and that’s not including monitor wash.

For most people, that’s pretty dang loud. In a bar, that kind of level is hard to deal with when placing or taking orders (assuming that the bar is in the “average level” zone – which IS the case in a good number of rooms).

There’s no denying that the tone of the guitar is spectacular, but that spectacular tone is causing an audience discomfort problem, and potentially an economic problem for the venue.

This is bad for you.

Also bad for you is that, to get really good separation, the singer (who’s about 12 feet from the cab) has to be able to produce about 125 dB SPL at their mic capsule. This means that you need a singer with lots of power, stamina, and great pitch control at full volume…or less pitch control, but more raw power in reserve.

On top of that, for the vocalist to feel like they’re really hearing themselves in the monitors, the wedges will need to be making about 115 dB SPL continuous at the singer’s ears. If the singer is really powerful, and the wedges are good, then this should be achievable. If the singer isn’t really powerful, or is having an off day, or if the wedges are a little cheap, getting that kind of level may be a battle. Now, you’ve potentially got gain-before-feedback issues.

The Upshot

That arena-ready amp rig sure does sound good, but:

  • It probably costs a fair amount of money to acquire.
  • It takes up a lot of room.
  • It’s heavy.
  • It has to get really loud before it sounds right.
  • It forces everybody else to keep up.
  • It makes monitors harder to manage.
  • It can drive audience members away.
  • The venue can lose money.
  • It reduces the FOH audio tech’s options for the rest of the band (because the tech’s first priority can be forced towards just keeping up with you).

Bummer.

There’s a fix.

Buy a little amp.

There are plenty of all-tube combos out there that top out at 10 watts. That’s really all that you need. Get those tubes really hot to get the tone you want, and you’ll probably have about 105 – 110 dB SPL at 1 meter.

And you’ll be able to do it with a piece of gear that’s easy to carry.

And you’ll be able to do it with a piece of gear that you can fit anywhere.

And you’ll be able to do it without making your vocalist work themselves to death.

And you’ll be able to do it without forcing everybody else to keep up with you, whether in terms of volume or equipment purposes.

And you’ll be able to do it without flattening the audience.

And you’ll be able to do it while the bar still makes money.

And you’ll be able to do it while allowing the audio tech to make meaningful choices to get you the best sound possible.

And, because PA technology has come a very long way, that one amp will still work for you when you’re playing stadiums. The crew will just stick a mic in front of it, and turn that 10 watt amp into a 10,000+ watt amp with great coverage and smooth frequency response across the entire audience.

I can certainly understand that you might want a big rig because of the way it looks, or because there’s something very specific about the sound that can’t be perfectly replicated by other means. I do get that.

But big amps just aren’t necessary anymore, and they can be more trouble than they’re worth.


Only So Much Addition

A PA system can only do so much – the band’s overall volume has to be right, and their proportionality has to be right, too.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

My last article was primarily written to technicians. However, the issue of “only being able to get so much, in comparison to full-tilt boogie” has big implications for musicians playing live. Small venue, big venue, whatever venue, there’s an important reality that has to be faced:

There’s only so much that a PA system or monitor rig can add to the sound of an instrument or vocal.

Now, this certainly holds true in the aesthetic sense. There’s a practical limit to the amount of sweetening that can be applied to any particular sonic event. A drumkit (for example) that sounds truly horrific can’t really be “fixed in the mix,” especially if the tech doesn’t have hours to spend on making it sound like a different, much better drumkit. What really needs to happen is for that set of drums to sound decent, or even amazing, without any outside help. At that point, the PA’s job is to make those drums loud enough for the audience (if the drums aren’t already), and maybe add some “boom” and reverb – if appropriate.

There’s another sense of “what the sound system can add”, though, that’s much easier to quantify. This is the relatively simple reality of how much SPL (Sound Pressure Level) an audio rig can deliver for a given input from a given acoustical source. This “amount of level deliverable” is often less – even a LOT less – than what the rig can do on the spec sheet. (This can often be surprising, especially to musicians and techs who are still working on gaining practical experience with live performance.) The other side of the coin is how much overall level the PA should be adding to the show to have the result sound decent, and be at a comfortable for the audience.

How Much Should The PA Contribute?

When trying to get a handle on how much the FOH (Front Of House) PA should add to the show, there are a number of things to consider:

  • How loud is the band, all by itself?
  • What do you really want the PA to be doing? (Carrying the room? Just putting a bit more “thump” in the drums? Vocals only?)
  • How much level will the audience and venue operators be happy with?

It can actually be helpful to work backwards through these points.

In small venues, the amount of tolerable level usually isn’t very high. Although some “pure music” rooms might work with 115+ dBC SPL continuous (decibels Sound Pressure Level, “slow” average), most places that cater to 200 patrons or less will probably see 110 dBC continuous as very, very loud. The problem is that, with a band and monitor rig that are REALLY cookin’, 110 dBC is very easy to achieve – and the PA isn’t even turned on yet!

In general, I recommend an upper limit of 105 dBC continuous for everything when working in a small venue. Band, monitor bleed, and FOH. Even that might be too much for some places, but it’s a start.

Once you’ve established how loud the whole show ought to be, you can begin figuring out what the PA’s contribution should entail. The handy rule of thumb here is that, for a given maximum volume, greater PA contribution requires you to keep a tighter rein on the stage volume.

To help illustrate this point (and others), I’ve prepared some audio samples in OGG format. I’ve used a live recording of a drum kit from Fats Grill, along with a reverb processor, to roughly simulate three conditions:

Of course, this is an imperfect representation. Although most PA loudspeakers are designed to be somewhat directional, they still excite the reverberant field – they often don’t “dry out” the sound quite as much as these samples do.

Still, these clips give you an idea of what happens as more PA is applied. The overall level goes up, the PA sound starts to overcome the stage volume, and the transients get more defined. Putting more direct sound, with clean transient response into the audience is usually a good thing – but notice how much volume the PA had to add before the drumkit really “cleaned up.”

On a discussion forum, I believe that Mark from audiopile.net made a simple, profound, and very true statement with important implications: “Audio engineers don’t feel like they have control until they are 10 dB louder than everything else in the room.” With this guideline in mind, the issue crosses into the first point:

If you want the PA to really define how your band is heard by the audience, then the band’s stage volume should be about 10 dB below the PA. If the maximum volume for a small venue is about 105 dBC SPL continuous, this means that the band and monitor rig need to stay in the close vicinity of 94.5 dBC SPL continuous.

I’m not gonna lie – squishing a rock band into a box smaller than 95 – 100 dBC SPL is tricky. It can be done, but not everybody is willing to take on the challenge and make the decisions involved.

This is why, most of the time, small venue sound involves careful compromises. The PA is often used only to “fill spaces.” That is, the guitar amps might carry the room with only occasional reinforcement for solos, while the midrange and high-end from the drums is stage volume with a bit of “kick” from the subs. The vocals will be getting pretty much constant attention from the FOH rig, of course. In the end, the contribution from the FOH PA is minimal…or at least kept under tight control.

Proportionality Can Kick Your Butt

Beyond the issue of raw volume, though, is the conundrum of how much an audio reproduction system (be it an FOH PA or a monitor rig) can add to a given acoustical event on stage. This is where “sounding like a band without the PA” becomes really critical.

Here’s why.

For most audio rigs that are even half-decent, gain-before-feedback is at least as critical, if not more, than total output power. That is, a loudspeaker might be physically capable of creating earth-shattering SPL, but the squeals and howls of feedback will prevent you from actually getting there. Either the overall differentiation between the stage volume and the PA volume is too great, or the differentiation between on-stage sources is too great.

This is a little abstract, so here’s an object example.

Every so often, I’ll run into a group that has a proportionality problem. They’re not too loud for the room by any means – they might be an acoustic duo, for instance. The issue is that one person is vigorously strumming a big-body guitar, using a pick. Another person is playing a different guitar, with a much smaller body.

…and they’re playing fingerstyle.

Delicately.

Hoo, boy.

Depending on the players, that big guitar might already be a LOT louder than the small guitar – and then, the player of the big guitar decides that they want a pretty healthy amount of monitor level. No problem for the big guitar, especially if the instrument is free of resonance problems and includes a decent pickup. The small guitar? Well – it doesn’t have a pickup installed, so we had to mic it. We were only able to get “so” close, and the player’s not making a whole lot of level anyway.

The chances are that feedback issues will prevent even the most competent monitor operator from making that fingerstyle guitar compete with the big boy.

It’s not the absolute volume that’s the problem. It’s the proportionality. The massive level differential between the two instruments just can’t be dealt with in a live situation. In the studio, where feedback is basically non-existent, it’s another story. Here, though, getting through the set will be a struggle.

As a generality, I would propose the following guidelines for the feasibility of what a small-venue audio system can add to an onstage source’s volume – especially when talking about monitors on deck:

  • +3 dB – Usually trivial.
  • +6 dB – Usually very simple, if not entirely trivial. Depends on the situation.
  • +10 dB – Average, may be challenging for sources that are resonant, or when using certain microphones.
  • +20 dB – Difficult to impossible, can be done in certain cases with instruments that have well-isolated pickups and physical feedback reduction. May be possible with certain microphones in certain orientations relative to the monitors, or with common microphones and in-ear monitors. With line-inputs, noise may also be a problem.
  • +30 dB – Generally impossible unless the source is completely feedback isolated. Noise from line inputs will probably be a big issue.

The way to get around these issues is to fix them before you arrive at the venue. If somebody is getting positively drowned during rehearsals, it’s simply not a safe assumption that a PA system (even a professionally operated one) will fix the issue. If everybody is clearly audible in rehearsal, on the other hand, then your proportionalities are either right on the money or “plenty close enough.”

This may sound a bit preachy, but I want to assure you that there are big benefits to “sounding like a band” before a PA system is added to the equation. If you’ve done the hard work of being balanced without outside help, then you have a much better shot at sounding killer with PA and monitor rigs that are only minimally adequate – or operated by a minimally competent audio human. Even better, when you get to work with great gear and great techs, they’ll be able to put their maximum effort towards presenting a flat-out amazing sonic experience for your fans. They’ll be able to do this because they won’t have to make the compromises necessary to fix big imbalances amongst instruments, or between the instruments and the vocals.

Bottom line? Being at the right volume, both in terms of absolute levels and relative balance, is a huge part of creating a brilliant stage show.


Two Speed Limits

The amount of level that an audio rig can deliver is often less than the theoretical maximum.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

I don’t think that very many people have trouble understanding the concept of “not enough PA.” For most folks, it just stands to reason that an FOH (Front Of House) or monitor system has a finite amount of level available.

Notice that I said, “most folks.” There are some people out there who do seem to believe that all PA systems are capable of infinite loudness. These people frighten me. They also wreck lots of gear when they’re allowed to drive an audio rig. Audio humans of this particular tribe are genetically related to the tribe of audio humans who must use every ounce of available system power, regardless of whether it’s a good idea or not. “It just doesn’t sound right until I see the clip lights, you know?” *Sigh.*

Anyway.

The idea that audio gear has finite performance limits is pretty intuitive, especially when we’re talking about equipment involved in output transduction (converting electricity to sound pressure waves). What’s not so intuitive is that a system’s maximum practical output is almost always lower than its true maximum.

The True Maximum

The absolute, full-tilt boogie, no-holds-barred maximum SPL that an audio system can produce is most heavily determined by the following:

  • How many drivers you’ve got. This is often simplified into “how many boxes didja bring?” because, most of the time, audio humans deploy drivers that have been conveniently bolted into different kinds of enclosures.
  • How much power you can put into the drivers you have. This can be made more tricky if you don’t actually have enough mains power to drive the amps at full-throttle.
  • The space that the drivers are firing into. Enclosed, highly reflective spaces are “loud” because acoustical energy is reflected back into the room, combining with the “direct” output from the audio system. Outdoors, or in highly absorptive rooms, a much greater proportion of acoustical energy is captured or radiated away from the listeners, never to add to the direct sound.

When you put this all together, you can get yourself some numbers regarding the maximum SPL (sound pressure level) achievable, assuming that no other factor stands in the way. Like I said, though, other factors usually DO stand in the way. One factor is essentially social – that is, how much auditory input people will accept before they perceive the sensation to be unpleasant. This is an important concept, but it’s not really within the scope of this article. However, other major, technically-based limiting factors do apply.

Distortion

A loudspeaker system might be capable of producing x-amount of SPL, but that doesn’t mean that it can do so in a pleasing fashion. It’s entirely possible that you’ll encounter unacceptably high distortion before you hit the absolute maximum level that a system can produce.

Even though I think most techs unconsciously account for this phenomenon when estimating or empirically determining the maximum output available from a rig, I also think it’s important to mention.

A, *ahem*, “dirty” secret that isn’t necessarily intuitive to folks outside of pro audio is that amplifiers are quite capable of producing more than their “rated” power. Rated power is a number that corresponds to what the amplifier can do, based on a certain amount of distortion that the manufacturer finds “acceptable.” Better manufacturers are less tolerant of distortion. One reputable manufacturer is willing to claim that a certain amplifier can put about 397 watts into two, 8 Ohm loads at less than 0.02% distortion. (You have to do a bit of math, because the actual rated power is 500 watts, and the distortion number is given at 1 dB BELOW rated power, for some reason.)

Distortion that low is pretty hard to hear. According to the calculator at Sengpiel Audio, 0.02% THD is about 73 dB down from the original signal. I rigged up a test with two tones (1 kHz and 2 kHz) in my DAW, and I couldn’t hear the 2 kHz tone (at all) against the 1 kHz signal when the 2k channel was pulled down 73 dB.

Anyway, here’s the deal.

That same amplifier will display greater continuous output if greater distortion is allowed. That 397 watts is a continuous rating, based on an RMS (Root Mean Square) voltage – a bit more than 56 volts. To get that RMS voltage, you need a peak voltage of just a bit less than 79.7 volts. Into an 8 Ohm load, 79.7 volts produces an instantaneous power of almost 800 watts. Take note of that “instantaneous,” though. That 800 watts isn’t applied to the loudspeaker for very long, and so, when everything gets averaged out, the loudspeaker only experiences about 400 watts. (It’s actually more complicated than this, especially with actual music, but this will do for an illustration.)

As you push an amplifier harder and harder, its peak voltage output will remain the same, but the RMS voltage will increase. This is because the amplifier spends more and more time producing output voltages that are closer and closer to the peak voltage.

This power isn’t “free” though. The more you push the amp, the more distortion you get. Some manufacturers will allow for much higher distortion at “rated” power, so as to be able to publish a bigger number on the spec sheet.

Bottom line?

The absolute maximum SPL that you can achieve with a rig under a given set of acoustical conditions may actually require that the system be driven into audible, unpleasant distortion. This distortion isn’t just limited to the amplifiers, either. You could be driving any part of the signal chain too hard, even the loudspeaker drivers themselves. The effective “speed limit” on the rig may be brought down (and brought down a lot) by just how far the system can go before it sounds like a pile of garbage.

Of course, for some folks, this (frighteningly) doesn’t matter very much, leading to the classic pro-audio line of “Well, it sounds like !@#$, but it’s REALLY !@#$%^& loud!”

Gain Before Feedback

Then again, you might never even get to the point of audible distortion. GBF (gain before feedback) issues can lower your effective speed limit even more. The underlying reason for this isn’t necessarily obvious: A given amount of gain only guarantees a repeatable output level if the input signal’s overall level remains unchanged. If the input signal’s overall level changes significantly, any fixed gain is correlated to, but not absolutely matched with a particular system output situation.

In other words, you may have a huge amount of gain applied to something, but if the input signal is very small, the final output can still be very quiet. Now, add in the fact that live audio is almost always a “partially closed loop,” and *WOOOOOOOOoooooossssssquuuuuuEEEEEAALLLL!*

Feedback.

“Feedback” is when the output of a system returns to an input of the system. This can be used for some very cool things, but it can also cause serious problems. In the partially-closed-loop situation of live audio, some fraction of the output of the rig finds its way into a microphone or instrument pickup, and is then re-added to the system output. The parts of the signal that are in phase sum constructively, causing the system output to rise, which means that more signal finds its way back into the system, which means that the system output rises still further at those frequencies, which –

*SQQQQUUUEEEEEEEeeeaaaaaaaoooooooooOOO!*

You get the point.

GBF is just a shorthand for “how much can we turn this thing up before it starts to ring.” With some sources, it simply isn’t possible to stay out of feedback while simultaneously applying sufficient gain to drive a rig at full-tilt. There just isn’t enough input.

Where you see this “in the wild” is with the quiet singer (or the singer who’s moderately loud but wants to stand 5 feet from the mic), and also with the quiet player of the [acoustic instrument that you can’t get a good mic placement on]. The same gain structure with a louder source would drive the system all the way to the limiters, while also clipping the console’s input circuitry. However, for these folks, you’re barely making 90 dBC. Maybe not even that.

And yes, you’ve gotten out the EQ and notched the major problem areas. The issue is that any more EQ will either completely wreck the sound of the source, or just reduce the overall gain by the same amount you tried to add.

When you arrive at this kind of situation, you’re at the effective speed limit. You can’t get any more output, because you can’t add any more gain. Turning things up will just result in feedback, terrible sound, or no net gain at all.

As with a lot of things in life, just having the basic capacity to do something doesn’t mean it can actually be achieved. The circumstances have to be right.


Use Your Power Wisely

If you’re a small-venue audio tech, you have to be careful to spend your power budget on what really matters.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

If you work at a venue like Fats Grill, you’re used to the idea of (very) finite limits. You’ve only got so many mains circuits available to power PA, lighting, and backline. You’ve only got a few light fixtures hung, so you have to make the most of ’em.

And you’ve only got about 1 kW that you can put across the FOH PA continuously, if you’re REALLY “going for it.” (Or more accurately, if the band is really going for it and you have to keep up.)

In short, you’ve got a small “amp power bank account,” and you’ve got to figure out how to spend it wisely. The problem for a lot of techs is that there’s a tendency to get starry-eyed (or is that starry-eared?) about making PA systems do things that are impressive in the short-term only. You know what I mean:

  • The kick drum that sounds like an artillery piece.
  • The toms that seem like they’re a minimum of 5 feet in diameter.
  • The snare drum that distills everything good and right about arena rock into a sonic bolt that is released with every stick hit.
  • The bass guitar that could convince a Norse deity that Ragnarok had started without them.
  • The guitar amp that not only rules the world, but ALL worlds.

I think you get the picture.

All of these things are, indeed, cool. They’re very satisfying to hear. They’re very satisfying to create. They can also chew up a ton of your available system output.

“Available” Is Often Less Than Maximum

The “available” qualifier is an important one, because it reflects an important bit of reality: Just because a PA system can deliver a certain amount of power, it does not necessarily follow that you can actually use all that power.

The thing about small-venue PA systems is that they’re not necessarily “small” for the space they’re meant to cover. They’re often quite capable of producing levels that venue patrons will want to escape from. Producing that kind of SPL (Sound Pressure Level) unnecessarily is generally a bad move. With that in mind, you should usually assume that you actually have much less power to spend than the PA can deliver.

As a case in point, I have two brickwall limiters on the console outputs that feed the main, full range loudspeakers at Fats. There’s a “final” limiter, which kicks in just before the full range amplifier illuminates its clip lights, and in front of that limiter is my “sanity” limiter. I use the “sanity” limiter to keep my mix in the smallest possible “level box” that I think is appropriate. I often start the “sanity limiter” at a level that’s 10 dB below the limiter that prevents clipping, and if I raise it more than 3 dB then we’re having a rather louder than average night.

There are other technical factors to consider as well. You may not have full power available because of issues with GBF (Gain Before Feedback). You may have to run a little cool because the band brought a lot of power hungry equipment for lighting, and driving hard could trip a breaker. The audience may have an incredibly low threshold for “loud.”

In the end, “full power” just doesn’t equate with “available power.”

Spend Your Power On Essentials

The problem with chewing up your available output on things that sound cool in the short term is that you end up with a mix that does a poor job of accommodating the basics – basics that actually make or break the long term experience.

What do I mean?

Well, consider that most bands (not all of them, but most) tend to play, you know, songs. That is, music that incorporates lyrics. Ask yourself, what is it that makes the song an actual, recognizable song.

Yup. It’s the vocals.

Think about it. If there were no band playing at all, how would you identify the melody and narrative theme of the musical piece in question?

It’s. The. Vocals.

If you spend your available power on nothing else, spend it on getting the vocals clearly audible.

Next down the line are the instruments that, at any given moment, provide the strongest part of the musical piece’s structure. So, if the vocals are going, you should make sure that the instruments which drive the chord progression are audible. If the vocals aren’t going, and an instrument has stepped in to provide the melody (GUITAR SOLO!), then that’s what gets the nod.

Oh, and if the lead instrument is loud enough without extra help from the PA, then you don’t have to spend any power on it.

From there, your next candidates for a slice of the power budget are the remaining tonal instruments, often the bass. I should note here that there are times when the bass becomes more core to the song than other instruments – you have to know the context you’re working in, and pay attention to what’s going on.

Drums are last.

I don’t have anything against drums – I love drums that sound giant – but if I have to prioritize, drums are last in line (for most songs with a traditional structure).

Now, different strategies are appropriate at different times. For instance, when Stonefed is playing a show and it’s time for Ed’s drum solo, of course I spend my available power on making the drums “big.” The reason is because they’re now the most important musical element. Also, for most bands, I do start out by trying to sweeten the drums and other backline a little bit…it’s just that I’m prepared to yank those faders down if that’s what’s necessary to get the vocals where I think they need to be.

It’s Not Just Overall Levels, Either

I want to close up by mentioning that frequency ranges are also important to consider. This dovetails with the whole “huge drums and bass” thing that I mentioned at the top of this article. Low frequency material is fun and exciting. It can encourage people to dance. It’s a good thing to have.

However, trying to pile up a bunch of deep bass can require spending a lot of your available output power, or can chew up headroom in other parts of your signal chain. You can even fall into the trap of consuming output capacity with signals that your loudspeakers can’t really reproduce.

With drums, you may find that going for a lot of really deep “boom” is counterproductive when compared to getting a nice, complimentary “thud” that sits about half an octave higher. With bass guitars, I’ve often been in situations where an earth-moving rumble wasn’t what I needed. Instead, my power budget was best spent on the octave or two that lived just below the guitars. Heck, in some cases I’ve filtered everything below 1 kHz (really), and just used the PA to give the bass a bit of slap when everything else was in place.

Spend your power on what you actually need, folks. Everything else is optional.

The Heck Do You Mean By “Small?”

When I say “small,” what I mean is “seating capacity for 200 or fewer,” amongst other things.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

I’m a fan of defining words clearly, no doubt about it. When it comes to subjective terms being used in technical contexts, my blood pressure can rise in a hurry. “Loud” means different things to different people. “Great monitor mix” means different things to different people.

I mean, even something as not-subjective-sounding as, “50% less lead guitar in this wedge” means different things to different people. Somebody might actually want the guitar down by 3 dB, which is actually half power. Somebody might think that 50% less is -6 dB. Some folks think it’s -9 dB. Geeze.

Subjectivity – it’s not as easy as it looks. Anyway…where was I?

If you’re U2, or Metallica, or Pink Floyd, or [insert ginormously popular act here], “small venue” could probably mean anything less than 20,000 seats. For other bands, filling a 1000 seat auditorium would be a huge show. The biggest. In the history of ever.

For the purposes of this site, my definition of “small venue” looks like this:

  • 200 patrons or fewer can be seated.
  • The square footage of the stage plus the audience area is 3500 square feet or smaller.
  • Backline producing x dB SPL (Sound Pressure Level) at the downstage edge – the place where the stage meets the rest of the venue – is perceived by someone sitting in the farthest seat as producing a minimum of x-12 dB SPL. This is assuming that the venue is otherwise empty and unobstructed.

(That last condition is pretty darn easy to accomplish in a 100′ long venue with a stage that’s 25′ deep. The distance from the downstage edge to the back wall is 75′. The farthest away that anyone can sit is only four times as far away from the backline as the downstage edge. The level decay at a fourfold increase in distance is 12 dB SPL, and that’s assuming that there are no acoustic reflections in the venue at all. It’s theoretically possible to build an indoor venue where the SPL contribution from acoustical reflections is negligible, but it would be really, really expensive.)

I should mention that each point is not necessarily dependent on any other point. You could build a venue where the longest dimension was only 30′, and then add a soundproof wall between the performers and the audience. The wall would break the x-12 dB SPL condition for the farthest seat, but the capacity and square footage points would hold up just fine.

Of course, I do have some subjective definitions of a small venue:

  • Anywhere that loading in an 8×10 bass cab causes someone (especially the audio tech) to think/ mutter/ say “Geeze,” or “Why?”
  • Anywhere that micing backline is optional for FOH (Front Of House) sound.
  • Anywhere that the settings on an amp from a previous gig or practice cause someone (especially the audio tech) to think/ mutter/ say/ exclaim “Geeze,” “Wow,” “Gosh,” “Whoa,” “Holy !@#$,” or  “That’s only on [number less than 5]?!”
  • Anywhere that somebody’s prized tone causes intestinal discomfort, bleeding, psychological problems, etc. (Also, sometimes where somebody’s prized tone is caused BY psychological problems, but that’s another issue).
  • Anywhere when a drummer is playing at a volume that seems easy and comfortable to him/ her/ it, and yet the SNARE HIT -ompletely drowns ou – TOM ROLL -verything els- KICK KICK KICK TOM ROLL KICK KICK CRASH CRASH CRASH SNARE HIT -hinks he’s John Bonha- SNARE FLAM SNARE FLAM KICK KICK CRASH -oo loud with earplugs.
  • Anywhere that the PA can be run at a continuous level that’s no more than 1/8 of its maximum continuous power, and still be considered “loud” by half the audience or more.

There’s the implication here that musicians and audio techs can make almost any venue too small, but that’s probably a topic for another time.