Klarinet Archive - Posting 000406.txt from 1995/06

From: Ed Pearlstein <e_p@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Deaf Sound Technicians
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 22:25:17 -0400

: On Sun, 18 Jun 1995, Gordon Goodwin wrote:

: One of my pet peeves is going to a live concert and having the sound
: levels so high that you can't hear the sound of the instruments, but only
: the loudspeakers. It's like listening to a recording of the group with
: the stereo system turned up much too loud.

I suspect that this is the influence of rock music, particularly if the
technician is young. I go to the Bix Beiderbecke jazz festival in Davenport
every year, and I remember how several years ago the young fellow at the
controls would always adjust the level to be uniformly high. When the band
played a quiet passage (for musical effect), the guy would rush to turn up
the gain. Apparently he didn't understand traditional jazz at all, and
thought it was just a variation of rock. I wrote a letter to the people in
charge of the festival, and since then the volume has been at a much more
reasonable level, even with the same person at the controls.