Who controls the gig volume in bars/pubs?

[memorex]

If I ever play in a live band again, it will be an acoustic band with only two or three players, and no amps or live drums. Volume will not be an issue.

 

[brookdalebill]

If the venue has a sound man, he’s the guy in control.
The bass player/harmony singer controls the PA in my main band, otherwise.
Smaller venues generally don’t interfere with the bass player’s decisions.
We do aim to please, not repel.

 

[David Barnett]

Where we play there is always a sound engineer.
At a recent gig I used my decibel phone app. It was a steady 90 dB every time I checked.

At the venue where I used to work, it was 90dB before I turned on the PA system.

Bars are often awful acoustic spaces. No bar owner will spend any money on noise abatement, or even furnish the room with any soft things. It's probably in a converted storefront or warehouse, with concrete floors, concrete or brick walls, and a metal ceiling. "Industrial Chic" decor isn't stylish, it's just cheap. The only absorptive surfaces in the room are the customers. It's a sonic minefield.

 

[Mike Eskimo]

Hopefully the musicians are more or less grown-ups living in Realville. They actually understand that they're not playing at Bonnaroo.

If they were all grown-ups living in RealVille, I wouldn’t still occasionally hear long drawn out guitar, solos by some guy who I don’t know/you don’t know/nobody knows and who could even be way better than most of us but still - no one wants to hear him play a long drawn out guitar solo with the face and the head back and he’s lost in it and - hey , can we get our tab ?

 

[David Barnett]

There’s no reason for music to be overly loud.

There may be no excuse, but there's plenty of reasons.

 

[northernguitar]

the drummer


it's always the drummer

Drummer’s snare.

 

[Telenator]

Well that, and kids 26-36 don’t frequent bars nearly as much as we used to and bar owners (not music halls/music venues) are way more inclined to have a dj/someone with a laptop then they are a loud band that doesn’t know current tunes/tunes from the last 15 years.

Just because something used to exist , doesn’t mean it still needs to exist .

I have found that DJs are often LOUDER than many of the bands that play the remaining clubs.
There are still several types of venues, bars, clubs for live performance. But I often find the groups playing these are way too loud for their own good. As I said, I'm only citing one of the many reasons...

 

[39martind18]

In my instance, it's the audience, since the vast majority of them are my age or older (72). I play almost exclusively in senior living centers these days, and most of my audience members do not want to be blasted by overly loud music volumes. Another issue is some of them use hearing aids and have them turned waaay up- to the point some have audible feedback. THOSE folks almost always complain about the volume, usually right in the middle of a song, it seems. Since I take great pains to set the volume at friendly levels, it's a real mood killer for that to happen. I've gone to the trouble to explain if the volume is too high, I can't adjust during the song, but will be happy to do so after the song is over. The other problem is that, as a solo act, sometimes it's hard to figger out whether it's vocals, guitar or backing tracks. If it's not guitar, the adjustment is problematic because one cannot just bring down the mains volume, because doing that unbalances the mix.

 

[Frisco 57]

I was helping my kid who was involved in a high school "battle of the band" at an old theater in my hometown. We were setting up equipment on stage when an old gentleman named Lee came out of the projection room at the back of the theater for a band meeting with the various band kids.

Lee sez, I got a VU meter and a big red switch in my little room here and if any you guys get over 100db I'm gonna throw the big switch that supplies power to the stage. So kids, don't get too loud!

I not sure if Lee had either of those two devices in the projection room but his point was made and the kid's bands all behaved themselves.

 

[dougstrum]

The bartender/servers control the volume as they need to hear the patrons orders.

 

[bowman]

I rarely hear bar band music these days, and when I do, it’s just 2 or 3 people with no drummer. But back in the day when I was in a roadhouse every weekend, all you could hear was the bass and drums anyway. Those house sound guys couldn’t hear any high frequencies anymore - too much loud music for too many years.

 

[loopfinding]

most bars i've played have a back room for the band with maybe a mini bar in there, and a full bar area that is separate from the live room. you usually have a sound guy and a chunk of the door money gets thrown towards them, unfortunately sometimes all of it.

there are some that don't have that (and no sound guy/band takes care of it themselves), but when they have bands it's made explicit that it's a show. the band isn't there as background music. sometimes if it's not particularly loud music (like jazz), people will give you dirty looks for making too much noise.

i think there is less and less "happens to be a band there" and tbh i say good riddance. it's annoying as a bar patron when you're there to hang, and it's annoying when you go to see a band when other people are hanging and talking over it. i really have no idea who this in-between appeals to.

 

[Marc Morfei]

The bartender/servers control the volume as they need to hear the patrons orders.

This is exactly what we have been told in more than one place.

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

Everything that needs to be said on this thread has been. I dont like to play loud. But I dont like to play at sound guy levels either. I like an organic stage mix and and that is really dependant on the drummer and whatever happens happens. So the war is on.

Many gigs start kinda low, and throughout the evening many "adjustments" happen.

Just want some vocals in the wedge and Im good.

 

[SPUDCASTER]

If you've ever played in the Nevada circuit or any casinos.

The Pit Boss.

The only exception in Nevada would be the cabaret rooms.

 

[davidge1]

That got me wondering what the appeal of that kind of volume is in places like those.

It's very simple: bars don't want you talking, they want you drinking. The more you talk, the less you drink. Even bars with no live music deliberately have the jukebox too loud to talk over for that reason.

 

[davidge1]

Also, there's a difference between a corner bar with a local cover band and a rock club that also servers drinks. At a rock club, people are there for the music and expect it to be loud. Rock music is supposed to be loud.

 

[brown2bob]

Listened to a few groups at Disney World during the break. Did a quick SPL check and it was peaking at 87dB across all venues and stages. Part of their secret is they’re using line array type speakers with ample sound absorbing material in the area. The line arrays project sound more evenly over distance and might be worth the investment for bars and clubs to help avoid things getting too loud.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Not me. If it’s up to me nobody’s having a conversation about work until we’re done.

Right on! It's not up to me, either. And I'm keeping it that way.

But I think the question is: Who does decide the volume?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

And sometimes less is more

More or less.