Klarinet Archive - Posting 000252.txt from 2005/03

From: rob <roomberg@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] excessive amplification mistakes
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 02:02:27 -0500

There is a reason to amplify a drum set with individual microphones.

One pop on a drum will get to the other side of a hall in much longer
time than
the instruments that are plugged into the PA system.

Its an art form to balance out the individual types of sounds and how
they bounce around a big hall.
Like any art form, you have your good artists and then you have picassos.
So bring your ear plugs. Picassos sound as bad as they look.
They guy paid to fill the hall with sound is not going to get any
recognition for a job well done.
BUT
He'll never get that gig again if people complained that they could not
hear the show.

I've been to dozens of rock concerts in my youth and many were too loud
but many more
were absolute disasters with the people in the cheap seats not hearing
any music worth
the price of the seat.
I saw YES at a football stadium, JFK in philadelphia... where the 50
yard line seats sounded headphone perfect.
I saw the Rolling Stones at the same stadium and the sound was so quiet
that you strained
to hear the show.
I saw Peter Frampton at that stadium and it was even worse. So I was
kinda glad when they tore
down that football stadium and built the FU center. First Union
bank built that.
I saw THE WHO at the FU center and the sound was great.
It was a bit different though..... the audiance was 40 to 60 years old
and bald and bearded....pot bellied too.
You could not light a cigerette in the FU center, much less a joint.
Not quite the concerts of past decades.

kurtheisig@-----.net wrote:

>I attended Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco in a small theatre. The entire pit orchestra was miced in this "closet". The sound was tinny. There was a hiss and presence that really destroyed the performance. It was too loud and wrecked the sense of theatre. My ears were ringing, and it was a really disagreeable way to spend an afternoon.
>
>Kurt
>
>
>In my current gig (a local production of a Broadway musical) I am playing
>oboe, seated next to the trombone, who is in front of the drumset. As we opened
>the dress rehearsal, the drummer kicked it up, shall we say, a couple of
>notches, to the point where I involuntarily jumped out of my seat.
>
>"But it says "fff"," he said, unapologetically.
>
>This, in a teeny-weeny theatre, where the pit band has been put in the wings
>instead of the pit, so as not to drown out the vocalists.
>
>Susan
>
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