Difference between revisions of "Cataloging the Problems"
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Revision as of 00:45, 16 October 2008
One of them was excessive sound levels, something that veterans of this community know I'm passionate about.
We felt that the single greatest contribution our industry had brought to live music were loudspeakers that were ever more powerful, and that sound levels on stage and in the audience were uncomfortably, even dangerously loud.
We said that if a friendly alien appeared on earth, and found out music was one of our most valued activities, that it was largely experienced through the ears, but that we had busily spent the past 50 years developing loudspeakers that could literally break the ears, or short of that make music monstrously difficult to hear because it was so loud, they'd probably get back in their spaceship and leave, concluding we could not be understood.
This is an advertisement years ago when we were starting out that really floored us. It was in a magazine for worship leaders.
"How to hear yourself when everything is already too loud."
Answer:
Be louder.
Wow.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
One of the other things we knew about was a rapidly growing category of products: earplugs for musicians.
Take music. Crank it so that it's dangerously loud and where you can't hear well because you're ears are distorting...
And THEN sell musicians and audience members earplugs.
This was just an exasperating situation.
Ken. You can stop now. The fact of all this is making me really depressed. It's so bad. It's like if you're a musician, you'll have to wear a hazmat suit to the gig. And people are still doing this, 5 years after the L1's introduction. Audiences use earphones too. I'm sure this has contributed to convincing people to not come out and hear live music. Who wants to be hammered into numbness and tinitis?
Bonnie and I went to hear Jackson Browne at the Orpheum in Boston recently. We were 6 rows from "the stack" and I thought "uh oh". But the show was pleasant and lovely. I went to thank the house guy. Turns out he mixed a bunch of JB's records and said it was his goal in life to treat the audiences to non-toxic sound. So there is hope out there. The stage was another thing, totally cluttered with sound and instrument gear. I'm hoping the musicians were having a non-toxic experience too.