Afternoon everyone,
My band's first proper gig is coming up this Saturday and we decided to take a 'battle of the bands' slot primarily to get experience gigging.
We've been forwarded the gig details (soundcheck times, equipment etc) and it states that the decibel limit for the venue is 90db.They cannot exceed this.
We're quite a loud band who often implement the 'quiet verse - loud chorus' style of songwriting and I'm a bit concerned as in my head I imagine 90db to be pretty quiet for a gig. I've looked at examples and some state a food blender is 90db! Fire alarms are supposed to be 100db.
It's also made me worry a bit about the use of my overdrive pedal which I use in most songs.
As I am clueless when it come to decibel levels can anyone enlighten me, perhaps even reassure me?
Thanks
Comments
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I will suggest that quiet rehearsal as well.
Great advice given thanks mate.
https://soundcloud.com/underwingband
90dB???
that's dumb, http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html
according to this you can do 8 hours a day, everyday at that level with no harm done
Most classical instruments can get past 100dB
https://soundcloud.com/underwingband
https://soundcloud.com/underwingband
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Man sound limiters are a nightmare - I've come across a few in my time including our first gig in our current band for a mates 40th Birthday party in front of 100 close friends - no pressure.
As soon as we walked in some great hippo of a woman came thundering across with a clipboard bellowing that if we played too loud all the power would go off and they would charge us for calling an electrician to reset the circuits.
OK we thought, we can live with this, its not a big venue, so we asked the hippo what the limnit was - she just barked not too loud. She said that the orange light on the ceiling would flash if we were getting too loud and would stay on before cutting everything off. We stared at this fecking light which was already on - as the caterers were clanking around underneath it. Not a good start to the gig.
To cut a long story short we spent the soundcheck staring at this stupid thing on the ceiling and it was on all the time. Played really softly in the first set which sounded cack for a rock band so in the first break we decided, as many bands do, to dig out the old extension lead and bypass the active circuit and let rip. Who was the one person giving it large on the dancefloor - the hippo with the clipboard who couldn't work out how we were managing to sound so good and not trip the meter!!
Mind you we did this at a later wedding gig and our moron bassplayer managed to unplug some bit of catering equipment which didn't go down too well.
And while I'm on it - music stands look stupid!!!
BUT the limit was indeed 90dB.
And it was pretty damn quiet. Your drummer will be tippity-tapping, and your bassist can have the night off.
The first encounter had the drummer tapping cymbals as he set then on the stand, the power went off! Long extensions have been the order of the day ever since, kitchens and behind the bar are usually the exempt sockets.
Poor quality mics (with erratic frequency response) are a part of the problem, but poor implementation is also often at fault.
A bit more low tech is a sock or a condom over the microphone