Obligatory Motorhead comment. I saw them in the late 2000s in a 400 seat venue (old theater). You know the sound when you severely overload a mic and the signal turns to a garbled, distorted mess? That’s exactly what it sounded like. I could barely tell which song they were playing. The SPL overloaded my eardrums and distorted the sound beyond recognition. I couldn’t hear for three days and that’s the only time in 30+ years I was worried my hearing would never come back. Btw earplugs or fingers in my ears didn’t help, the sound energy was going right through my skull.. From a science standpoint though, it’s pretty incredible.
If you plug your and the sound is still crazy loud, it could be the low end that was annihilating the rest of the frequency band and probably picked up by every single microphone and was again going out of the PA. (I could be wrong) this is why a high pass/low cut filter is so damn important. Also back in the days metal bands are setting their amps on the stage way to loud and cause a lot of bleed. Again I could be wrong
92-95 A is almost always what my ears tell me is enough. I often mix to where I feel happy then look over to the measuring device, 99% of the time I am spot on. That hasn’t changed in 35 years of live audio. Some venues have reflections which help push that energy and you wind up closer to 98db and it feels right, but that’s rare for me; genres don’t matter, a good mix at 95a is as loud as you ever need to go. One interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed recently; many shows even in smaller rooms are not using amps on stage, using playback instead of drums and similar. So overall the local techs are often dealing with stage volumes they aren’t fighting anymore. It just an observation but younger techs are often mixing a tad too quiet for maximum audience excitement. A good problem to have I guess, but I often feel tempted to walk over and ask them to just push the volume a tiny bit, maybe so it hits that aforementioned 95dbA level. I never do though, since there were many a night in my early club years when people would come to me and ask to turn it down when it really was the BAND that was the issue.
One thing that i was recognising in Soundsystems on Festivals for harderstyles Techno like „Dominator“ (in the netherlands) or „Syndicate“ (in germany): they have really BIG Sound Systems which are really Loud - But the Sound technicians Made always the Same mistakes during the Festival -> the System was configurated without peoples in Front of that and so the subwoofers was given a quite well Sound on a defined Level -> during the Festival the crowd in Front of the subs was growing an „consumed“ the Bass From the subs - so the Sound on the FoH Place wasn‘t still quite well -> so the FoH technicians increased the Overall Level for the whole Sound System to increase the Bass From the subwoofers … and finally the whole Sound System is WAY TOO LOUD for the crowd … … and One of the Bad decisions in Festivals like These is: Not to have an FoH technician or to run a whole FoH setup cause „its only DJ music so we can run the Sound System automatically with a fixated setup -> Thats a better Choice cause its cheaper!“ 🤨😒😞
Last week I had a guest engineer and he got over 120db 😅 burning the sub. So painful gig, I’ve been trying to understand if some people are death already if they mix as loud or what especially if they have been on tour for a few days…
Mixes fall apart at anything over 102-103dbA. Plus you need about 117dbC of weighting to feel “balanced” when your A is that high. 98-100dbA and 112-114dbC is the sweet spot for a lot of genres imo.
I end up doing a lot of dance competitions and I usually aim for 80 LAeq60 at FOH because I don't want hearing damage after a 12 hour day of loud music.
I can relate to this because we’re I work as an usher a performing arts center in Lehman college Bronx it’s so loud. sometimes it’s so loud that I can’t enjoy the show and have to step outside so my ears can hear better a little bit ringing so fue moments it starts to get much stabilize. This has happened I’m glad i watched this video because even though the house is controlled upstairs not so much. So this video was very cool to see
I'm really glad it was helpful to you. Protecting your hearing is just so importan. Hopefully with some understanding you can talk to the engineer and find out just how loud it is, and keep yourself (and everyone else) safe.
Good info. You might be surprised how few videos there are about properly using a calibrator. (eg before and after, inserting the microphone without damaging the fragile capsule, orientation apparently matters for some calibrators, getting the correct seal, that microphones are often not quite the same size as the calibrator adaptor, how then to seal, how much seal is enough?)
Thanks for this video. I find that anything over 100dB hurts my ears. And there is the 6dB volume loss at each the distance is doubled. I try to estimate the distance from the to FOH to the stage to figure the volume drop. It is a guess, an effort was made and taken into consideration when viewing my handheld sound meter. I use C weighted scale to capture the bass frequencies. You’re doing a great service with your videos.
Thank you for the kind words. I totally agree that 100dB is painful. You can always measure using open sound meter or smaart to find the level distance from front to back
Thanks hahaha 😅 yeah there were a bunch of artifacts on the first export and I spent so long fixing them that I didn't even notice that. I make no claim of being a good video editor.
@@OffshoreAudio I just found it pretty funny, I dable in editing myself and it’s not easy so I’m not surprised to see you slip up once or twice but like I said love the videos mate.
I always mix as quiet as posible, but the biggest factor of how loud the night is going to be is the size of the room. If i have a drummer in a small venue, the drums alone without mics is already at 96dba. Still need to pull in the rest of the band. At bigger halls, 95 is usually a nice sweetspot for me.
I was going to say something similar. In most smaller places I’ve mixed in NYC the drums alone are pushing 95-100 db acoustically without the PA. That’s why rock and metal shows are louder (I’m referencing his remark in the video). Without plexiglass there’s no way the show won’t just get louder from there. Quiet shows are nice to work but more rare.
i think you're doing the averaging example incorrectly. Averaging is usually applied in the power domain, not in dB domain (that's what "rms" usually indicates, sometimes incorrectly). That means 100db for 5 minutes + 90db for 5min averages out to 97.4db, not at all to 95. (to calculate: 10*log10((10**(90/10)*5min + 10**(100/10)*5min)/10min))
From the acoustics I know it seems there are a few calculation errors in the video. Nonetheless, it's great that we have it up for discussion. I'll leave it to the proper experts to clarify, if they're around.
I tour with a rock band that has pretty loud stage volume. We play a lot of smaller clubs and my mixes are usually around 98-100dbA? With the loudest moment being around 101-102. Is this too loud or is it reasonable if the drums stage volume is already quite loud?
Personally I prefer not to make shows sound so ear-piercingly loud that even the backmost row of audience feels uncomfortable or disturbed. Too much SPL not only damages our hearing but also has a significant negative impact on musical appreciation. When music becomes too loud, it sounds like everything is crushed into a flat noisy chaotic thin piece of paper and the listener cannot distinguish one musical element from another. Extreme loudness also activates the subconscious"fear of danger" reaction and ruins the show-watching experience. My choice is to set the overall volume to the point at which the last row can hear the show clearly, and then make it a little bit louder to provide some feeling of presence, but stop before the front rows start to complain about excess loudness. For energetic contents like rock band/DJ shows or street dancing, I'll consider turning up the subs a little bit for more rhythmic experience rather than making the main speakers deafening loud as hell
200 is mili Pascals which is the pressure equivalent to 140dB, so you multiply the mics sensitivity in v/mP by 200mP to get the maximum voltage the mic will generate in volts.
Thanks! Yeah the sensitivity for a mic is given in Mv per pascal so it's about getting that number to a voltage at 140db . Multiplying the number by 200 is just a rough way of getting the output in mV at 140db, suggested in that webinar. They go into more detail in the webinar. I'm unlikely to explain it better than Rational Acoustics so I'd advise just watching if you really want to know the why.
Is there any way at all to control a loud stage? I do primarily metal and the drummer on it's own at the stage will be at 100dB+. I think that's why metal shows get so loud, everything competes against the cymbals.
The drummer won't like it but just play quieter. It's a bit of a psychological game of finding the way to make them play at a reasonable volume. In my experience most pros can turn down. Unfortunately with amateur basement shows it's not so easy. You could try explaing to them that you can't bring any of the other instruments up to meet the drums and let the rest of the band convince them. Anecdotaly, one of the loudest shows I did this year was about 100dBA throughout the night and it was actually the guitarist who was that loud (though at the behest of the band leader). Took quite a lot of convincing to get them down from 102 to 100. But yeah, it's hard.
@@OffshoreAudioI did a small show with 9 rock bands, in a small venue in Elgin last month, and the cymbals on the drums were louder than all the amplified music going through FOH. I don’t usually go home with my hearing completely fatigued, but I did that night. I told the bands the quality of their mix depended heavily on how much they pulled back from making too much noise. Not one single drummer listened to me.
Yep, have had plenty of that. The venue owner once had a chat (shout) during the show, to ask if I could turn the guitars down a bit. I showed her my iPad remote for the mixer, where there was NO level on the guitars at all! I did get them to turn down as I said I could give them a better sound out front through the PA, if their stage sound was lower.
Our rock band switched from amps and cabs to pedal amps DI to the PA, onstage control of sound AND FOH balance improved dramatically. Hard psychological decision but fully worth it.
Drum Shield, Absorption / Treatment, IEMs, Amps lower volume / offstage / or amp sims, darker cymbals, drummer played at 80% and not bashing cymbal to much / keeping vocal mics away from cymbals to reduce bleed.
I mean, the best positions are where you can put them, to be honest, it's going to be really hard to position a microphone in the audience during a show, so you have 2 realistic options, FOH at the mixer, or in the back/sides. BUT, at the back/sides you are not going to get a decent enough reading to be accounted. FOH would be the most realiable, but take into acount where FOH is, if it's in the back back row, then you will get a lower reading, if it's very close to the PA, then it will be louder. In a ideal scenario, you would be around +-6 db from front to back, thats the target that most SE are going for. In a bar/club/small venue, where you will have 2 point sources with a couple of subs, usually you may need to push the PA.
@@TheDynamiteRO thankyou, I’m a volunteer sound tech so your answer helps a lot. I work in a small venue so i think it should be good then at FOH or maybe I can mount one slightly forward. 😊
I'd recommend at FOH but mount it above head height. If you mount it lower then all the people will absord some of the energy leading to a lower reading.
Well, well, well... let's begin to say that a concert of classical music live, without any kind of amplification may often be over 120 db, but it does not hurt. The problem remains in the brain of the "sound ingis" : unfortunatly, most of them have no ears. First of all, the sound has to be CLEAR. And the rule of confortable music is not mixing the low frequences. The bass and the drums must be reproduced in seperated cabinets.... Try it once, you'll never change...
In most AC signals rms is the standard (E.g. 120 VAC is a room mean square measurement). Mic sensitivity is typically measured in mV/Pa [millivolts_rms/Pascals].
A weighted essentially disreagards a lot of bass frequencies to mimic how humans perceive sound. That's why the number is lower than C, becuase in A we're not counting the bass.
C weighted includes all frequencies and measures them as equal. A weighted creates a curve that focuses more on the human range of hearing. A is used to create a legal framework for what is safe for workers or audience members. There are rules of thumb but this legal limit is always determined by local governments and can vary quite a bit. The reason you measure C weighted in some instances is because sub frequencies travel farther and they resonate and travel THROUGH things like walls and doors, so can impact or disturb locations other than the room you are in. In this instance C weighted is less about human hearing health and more about how sound impacts others. I recently did a show at North Sea Jazz festival, a location with multiple indoor spaces connecting via corridors. They were certainly concerned with A Weighted limits (determined by Dutch law), but in that instance I easily stayed well below the A limits but kept going over the C Weighted ones. These limits were set by the festival as an operational concern and were below the legal limits, because they didn’t want other stages to be impacted. Problem with this is that you change the low end in a mix and the mix often is negatively impacted, or turn the whole mix down and then it’s too quiet for a typical concert. It was an hour of very stressful mixing for me, riding that line so I could be loud enough but not ruin the mix.
Measurement in this way is misleading I can create two identical measurements of lets say 95dB average but one you can not with stand for half an hour but the other you can listen to the entire day without any problems at all so how is that possible? Quite easy Listen to a rock concert with the dynamics squashed to almost nothing with compressors all the way up What is actually happening today wich leaves a maximum dynamic range of somewhere between 8-10dB Or listen to a jazz ensemble with saxofone trombone you name it wich have peak values exceeding 120dB!!! But have a dynamic range wicht lies somewhere between 20-24dB And thats the real problem wich causes the hearing problems today The loudnes in the songs In the 80's i went to quitte a number of artists Fleetwood mac melissa etheridge heart deep purple you name them They all exceeded the levels wich are used today but my hearing has not suffer from it Why? Dynamics guys
Obligatory Motorhead comment. I saw them in the late 2000s in a 400 seat venue (old theater). You know the sound when you severely overload a mic and the signal turns to a garbled, distorted mess? That’s exactly what it sounded like. I could barely tell which song they were playing. The SPL overloaded my eardrums and distorted the sound beyond recognition. I couldn’t hear for three days and that’s the only time in 30+ years I was worried my hearing would never come back. Btw earplugs or fingers in my ears didn’t help, the sound energy was going right through my skull.. From a science standpoint though, it’s pretty incredible.
If you had known in advance, would you still have gone to the concert?
If you plug your and the sound is still crazy loud, it could be the low end that was annihilating the rest of the frequency band and probably picked up by every single microphone and was again going out of the PA. (I could be wrong) this is why a high pass/low cut filter is so damn important. Also back in the days metal bands are setting their amps on the stage way to loud and cause a lot of bleed. Again I could be wrong
I saw MH open for Dio and then Iron Maiden. All good until IM. I lasted about six songs but ended up leaving early.
92-95 A is almost always what my ears tell me is enough. I often mix to where I feel happy then look over to the measuring device, 99% of the time I am spot on. That hasn’t changed in 35 years of live audio. Some venues have reflections which help push that energy and you wind up closer to 98db and it feels right, but that’s rare for me; genres don’t matter, a good mix at 95a is as loud as you ever need to go.
One interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed recently; many shows even in smaller rooms are not using amps on stage, using playback instead of drums and similar. So overall the local techs are often dealing with stage volumes they aren’t fighting anymore. It just an observation but younger techs are often mixing a tad too quiet for maximum audience excitement. A good problem to have I guess, but I often feel tempted to walk over and ask them to just push the volume a tiny bit, maybe so it hits that aforementioned 95dbA level. I never do though, since there were many a night in my early club years when people would come to me and ask to turn it down when it really was the BAND that was the issue.
In the club I did over the weekend I measured the crowd at 98 dB(A) SPL, with nothing else going on. Earplugs went in, had to mix over that 😔
The way you are explaining is gold! Thank you and keep up with good stuff. :)
I Love your content man
Thanks for another great video! Fantastic job
One thing that i was recognising in Soundsystems on Festivals for harderstyles Techno like „Dominator“ (in the netherlands) or „Syndicate“ (in germany): they have really BIG Sound Systems which are really Loud - But the Sound technicians Made always the Same mistakes during the Festival -> the System was configurated without peoples in Front of that and so the subwoofers was given a quite well Sound on a defined Level -> during the Festival the crowd in Front of the subs was growing an „consumed“ the Bass From the subs - so the Sound on the FoH Place wasn‘t still quite well -> so the FoH technicians increased the Overall Level for the whole Sound System to increase the Bass From the subwoofers … and finally the whole Sound System is WAY TOO LOUD for the crowd … … and One of the Bad decisions in Festivals like These is: Not to have an FoH technician or to run a whole FoH setup cause „its only DJ music so we can run the Sound System automatically with a fixated setup -> Thats a better Choice cause its cheaper!“ 🤨😒😞
Last week I had a guest engineer and he got over 120db 😅 burning the sub. So painful gig, I’ve been trying to understand if some people are death already if they mix as loud or what especially if they have been on tour for a few days…
Great explanation
Mixes fall apart at anything over 102-103dbA. Plus you need about 117dbC of weighting to feel “balanced” when your A is that high. 98-100dbA and 112-114dbC is the sweet spot for a lot of genres imo.
I end up doing a lot of dance competitions and I usually aim for 80 LAeq60 at FOH because I don't want hearing damage after a 12 hour day of loud music.
Sounds like a plan. I've done some dance competitions before and it's long adn loud. I salute you.
I can relate to this because we’re I work as an usher a performing arts center in Lehman college Bronx it’s so loud. sometimes it’s so loud that I can’t enjoy the show and have to step outside so my ears can hear better a little bit ringing so fue moments it starts to get much stabilize. This has happened I’m glad i watched this video because even though the house is controlled upstairs not so much. So this video was very cool to see
Please get musicians earplugs, so that you attenuate the volume but don't lose clarity. Save your hearing.
I'm really glad it was helpful to you. Protecting your hearing is just so importan. Hopefully with some understanding you can talk to the engineer and find out just how loud it is, and keep yourself (and everyone else) safe.
Good info. You might be surprised how few videos there are about properly using a calibrator. (eg before and after, inserting the microphone without damaging the fragile capsule, orientation apparently matters for some calibrators, getting the correct seal, that microphones are often not quite the same size as the calibrator adaptor, how then to seal, how much seal is enough?)
Thanks for this video. I find that anything over 100dB hurts my ears. And there is the 6dB volume loss at each the distance is doubled. I try to estimate the distance from the to FOH to the stage to figure the volume drop. It is a guess, an effort was made and taken into consideration when viewing my handheld sound meter. I use C weighted scale to capture the bass frequencies. You’re doing a great service with your videos.
Thank you for the kind words. I totally agree that 100dB is painful. You can always measure using open sound meter or smaart to find the level distance from front to back
Very intresting and useful! I love all the videos of yours i see. just a little thing might wanna make sure you use the right overlay haha 6:11
Thanks hahaha 😅 yeah there were a bunch of artifacts on the first export and I spent so long fixing them that I didn't even notice that. I make no claim of being a good video editor.
@@OffshoreAudio I just found it pretty funny, I dable in editing myself and it’s not easy so I’m not surprised to see you slip up once or twice but like I said love the videos mate.
I always mix as quiet as posible, but the biggest factor of how loud the night is going to be is the size of the room. If i have a drummer in a small venue, the drums alone without mics is already at 96dba. Still need to pull in the rest of the band. At bigger halls, 95 is usually a nice sweetspot for me.
I was going to say something similar. In most smaller places I’ve mixed in NYC the drums alone are pushing 95-100 db acoustically without the PA. That’s why rock and metal shows are louder (I’m referencing his remark in the video). Without plexiglass there’s no way the show won’t just get louder from there. Quiet shows are nice to work but more rare.
i think you're doing the averaging example incorrectly. Averaging is usually applied in the power domain, not in dB domain (that's what "rms" usually indicates, sometimes incorrectly). That means 100db for 5 minutes + 90db for 5min averages out to 97.4db, not at all to 95. (to calculate: 10*log10((10**(90/10)*5min + 10**(100/10)*5min)/10min))
From the acoustics I know it seems there are a few calculation errors in the video. Nonetheless, it's great that we have it up for discussion. I'll leave it to the proper experts to clarify, if they're around.
I tour with a rock band that has pretty loud stage volume. We play a lot of smaller clubs and my mixes are usually around 98-100dbA? With the loudest moment being around 101-102. Is this too loud or is it reasonable if the drums stage volume is already quite loud?
I call it mixing to.
( Room Temperature )
I normally mixed about 86 to 95
Personally I prefer not to make shows sound so ear-piercingly loud that even the backmost row of audience feels uncomfortable or disturbed. Too much SPL not only damages our hearing but also has a significant negative impact on musical appreciation. When music becomes too loud, it sounds like everything is crushed into a flat noisy chaotic thin piece of paper and the listener cannot distinguish one musical element from another. Extreme loudness also activates the subconscious"fear of danger" reaction and ruins the show-watching experience.
My choice is to set the overall volume to the point at which the last row can hear the show clearly, and then make it a little bit louder to provide some feeling of presence, but stop before the front rows start to complain about excess loudness. For energetic contents like rock band/DJ shows or street dancing, I'll consider turning up the subs a little bit for more rhythmic experience rather than making the main speakers deafening loud as hell
Would the M32 being used as an interface connected to a MacBook and sonarworks mic on an unused channel work for readings? 🧐🤔
80dB always felt loud enough to me. Around 90dB and I start to get uncomfortable. I suppose it depends a little on the genre as well.
I use the same mic as in your video and a evo 4 as my sound card the evo 4 says +16dBu is this ok?
Great video, but why times 200? Maybe explained in the webinar?
200 is mili Pascals which is the pressure equivalent to 140dB, so you multiply the mics sensitivity in v/mP by 200mP to get the maximum voltage the mic will generate in volts.
Thanks! Yeah the sensitivity for a mic is given in Mv per pascal so it's about getting that number to a voltage at 140db . Multiplying the number by 200 is just a rough way of getting the output in mV at 140db, suggested in that webinar. They go into more detail in the webinar. I'm unlikely to explain it better than Rational Acoustics so I'd advise just watching if you really want to know the why.
is it too loud step back from the speakers!. too soft? step in front the speakers
Is there any way at all to control a loud stage? I do primarily metal and the drummer on it's own at the stage will be at 100dB+. I think that's why metal shows get so loud, everything competes against the cymbals.
The drummer won't like it but just play quieter. It's a bit of a psychological game of finding the way to make them play at a reasonable volume. In my experience most pros can turn down. Unfortunately with amateur basement shows it's not so easy. You could try explaing to them that you can't bring any of the other instruments up to meet the drums and let the rest of the band convince them. Anecdotaly, one of the loudest shows I did this year was about 100dBA throughout the night and it was actually the guitarist who was that loud (though at the behest of the band leader). Took quite a lot of convincing to get them down from 102 to 100. But yeah, it's hard.
@@OffshoreAudioI did a small show with 9 rock bands, in a small venue in Elgin last month, and the cymbals on the drums were louder than all the amplified music going through FOH. I don’t usually go home with my hearing completely fatigued, but I did that night. I told the bands the quality of their mix depended heavily on how much they pulled back from making too much noise. Not one single drummer listened to me.
Yep, have had plenty of that. The venue owner once had a chat (shout) during the show, to ask if I could turn the guitars down a bit. I showed her my iPad remote for the mixer, where there was NO level on the guitars at all! I did get them to turn down as I said I could give them a better sound out front through the PA, if their stage sound was lower.
Our rock band switched from amps and cabs to pedal amps DI to the PA, onstage control of sound AND FOH balance improved dramatically. Hard psychological decision but fully worth it.
Drum Shield, Absorption / Treatment, IEMs, Amps lower volume / offstage / or amp sims, darker cymbals, drummer played at 80% and not bashing cymbal to much / keeping vocal mics away from cymbals to reduce bleed.
The solution is toadd more speakers throughout the room.That way you can have the same volume throughout the space
Where are the best positions to place the measurement microphone during a concert?
I mean, the best positions are where you can put them, to be honest, it's going to be really hard to position a microphone in the audience during a show, so you have 2 realistic options, FOH at the mixer, or in the back/sides. BUT, at the back/sides you are not going to get a decent enough reading to be accounted. FOH would be the most realiable, but take into acount where FOH is, if it's in the back back row, then you will get a lower reading, if it's very close to the PA, then it will be louder. In a ideal scenario, you would be around +-6 db from front to back, thats the target that most SE are going for. In a bar/club/small venue, where you will have 2 point sources with a couple of subs, usually you may need to push the PA.
@@TheDynamiteRO thankyou, I’m a volunteer sound tech so your answer helps a lot. I work in a small venue so i think it should be good then at FOH or maybe I can mount one slightly forward. 😊
I'd recommend at FOH but mount it above head height. If you mount it lower then all the people will absord some of the energy leading to a lower reading.
Well, well, well... let's begin to say that a concert of classical music live, without any kind of amplification may often be over 120 db, but it does not hurt. The problem remains in the brain of the "sound ingis" : unfortunatly, most of them have no ears. First of all, the sound has to be CLEAR. And the rule of confortable music is not mixing the low frequences. The bass and the drums must be reproduced in seperated cabinets....
Try it once, you'll never change...
hang on, is the microphone sensitivity in volts rms or just volts? u can't simply compare these units, 1.23vrms is 3.47v peak to peak for example.
In most AC signals rms is the standard (E.g. 120 VAC is a room mean square measurement). Mic sensitivity is typically measured in mV/Pa [millivolts_rms/Pascals].
What is the difference between A and C weighting, in layman's terms?
A-weighted is basically how loudness is perceived by humans, C-weighted is more or less raw SPL. It has to do with distribution of frequencies
A weighted essentially disreagards a lot of bass frequencies to mimic how humans perceive sound. That's why the number is lower than C, becuase in A we're not counting the bass.
C weighted includes all frequencies and measures them as equal. A weighted creates a curve that focuses more on the human range of hearing. A is used to create a legal framework for what is safe for workers or audience members. There are rules of thumb but this legal limit is always determined by local governments and can vary quite a bit.
The reason you measure C weighted in some instances is because sub frequencies travel farther and they resonate and travel THROUGH things like walls and doors, so can impact or disturb locations other than the room you are in. In this instance C weighted is less about human hearing health and more about how sound impacts others. I recently did a show at North Sea Jazz festival, a location with multiple indoor spaces connecting via corridors. They were certainly concerned with A Weighted limits (determined by Dutch law), but in that instance I easily stayed well below the A limits but kept going over the C Weighted ones. These limits were set by the festival as an operational concern and were below the legal limits, because they didn’t want other stages to be impacted. Problem with this is that you change the low end in a mix and the mix often is negatively impacted, or turn the whole mix down and then it’s too quiet for a typical concert.
It was an hour of very stressful mixing for me, riding that line so I could be loud enough but not ruin the mix.
Awesome, thank all!
Motörhead finds the question funny. You measure shiws for the record if being the loudest 😂
Measurement in this way is misleading
I can create two identical measurements of lets say 95dB average but one you can not with stand for half an hour but the other you can listen to the entire day without any problems at all so how is that possible?
Quite easy
Listen to a rock concert with the dynamics squashed to almost nothing with compressors all the way up
What is actually happening today wich leaves a maximum dynamic range of somewhere between 8-10dB
Or listen to a jazz ensemble with saxofone trombone you name it wich have peak values exceeding 120dB!!! But have a dynamic range wicht lies somewhere between 20-24dB
And thats the real problem wich causes the hearing problems today
The loudnes in the songs
In the 80's i went to quitte a number of artists Fleetwood mac melissa etheridge heart deep purple you name them
They all exceeded the levels wich are used today but my hearing has not suffer from it
Why? Dynamics guys
Re: mic levels, RMS is not peak
Ur video is loud🤨