General Music Chat

I posted a while back about not being able to hear the vocals which is my #1 pet peeve when listening to live bands. Sort of along those lines is another complaint: bands that play every song at the exact same volume, NO DYNAMICS. Most of the bands that do this are too loud. Spaces sometimes mean as much as noise. I like to build some tunes up and then suddenly drop it down to almost nothing. There's no better way to get the audience's attention than getting REAL QUIET. Try it in a song or two at a gig and note what happens. You'll be glad you did.

I posted a while back about not being able to hear the vocals which is my #1 pet peeve when listening to live bands. Sort of along those lines is another complaint: bands that play every song at the exact same volume, NO DYNAMICS. Most of the bands that do this are too loud. Spaces sometimes mean as much as noise. I like to build some tunes up and then suddenly drop it down to almost nothing. There's no better way to get the audience's attention than getting REAL QUIET. Try it in a song or two at a gig and note what happens. You'll be glad you did.

Interesting that you would bring this up... I just witnessed a sound level disaster last week... To be fair, The bands were pretty novice, and weren't given any time to set up proper...So they just got up and started pounding out noise...(Ear-splitting i might add). When they died down , I am pretty sure the audience was relieved.

But I am thinking that a good musician, would understand the audience fatigue (hearing) recognize the potential loss of interest by the audience...and adapt his/her act accordingly... It sounds like you have arrived to that level of awareness...

In advertising they call it "white space" where there is room to consider the content being communicated.


Yes, nothing say "amateur" louder. Dynamics are the difference between music and noise.



Your complaints are usually ones that need to be raised, Bob, so you keep it up, bro.



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We ( Ray ) intentionally sets our set list to work said dynamics.
He has our music list divided into four or five categories ( I don't remember for sure I let him deal with the set list I have enough on my plate )

We always finish heavy though, usually two or three of our " heavy set " tunes. Depending on how long and how many total sets we are doing.

Most of the musicians I talk with during or after our shows are impressed with the variety in our music while retaining that signature NKF feel.

Bob Im with you on this one, we go up and down all night long choking off songs and then blasting the important part.

I would imagine if you saw us you would consider us on the loud side, but our bassist and I make it a point to walk the room with our wireless's and make sure that number one our singer is heard loud and clear.

Good Post

I know the acoustics of the venue have a lot to do with what you're talking about. There are bars that have live venue stages that look real on first approach, but look for sound baffles in the corners. Without those in control, drums and then the bass guitar will overdrive the sound , forcing a lead to want to peak- followed by an insufficient vocal.

Your pet peeves Bob is what separates
the good bands from bad.

Or bad recording studios from good.

I saw a vid of four heavy metal bands (and they are noisy fellows) playing together on stage. (Am I Evil - big four concert).

I assumed it would be a disaster - Megadeth playing with Metallica? How many guitar players and bass men can a stage tolerate? Chaos for sure.

I was astounded to see that they played together pretty darn well - playing sparse and clean and not filling every gap and every second with noise. The all pushed a groove and each had their little say but nobody trashed it.

Wether or not you like Metal this is a very nice example of why and how real musicians play.

Talbot

I will put it on my Vid To Buy list if that's the title.? I am Evil? Right now, that title seems to be telling me it is not speaking of one's self being Evil, as an outsider may get on first impression. Never hearing or seeing this video, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's meaning I Am Evil!

Crunch

'Am I evil' isn't actually that philosphical. It's more a story on the level of Poke Salad Annie. Originally by DiamondHead. The Big Four (of thrash metal) use it on some vids I've seen as their sort of encore, all the guys come out number.

It's kind of punchy and moves right along.

Talbot