[Somewhat OT] Did people loose a grip of what normal listening levels are?

[Rod S]

I think we've topics on this in the past, but more specific on concerts and shows.  But the problem seems to be broad, at least here in Brazil.

 

I frequently go to places where music is too loud.
- My daughter, and more recently my wife, take dance lessons with the same teacher.  I frequently take my daughter, and twice I asked the teacher to keep the music at a more comfortable level, which worked.  More recently my wife starts taking lessons with the same teacher, same place, and my wife also complains but decides to wear ear plugs as most of the class think the level is OK.  The teacher (Late 20s), talking to my wife after class, en passant, complains that she can never get the volume level on electronic devices high enough while wearing headphones...   
- Outdoor events at my kid's school
- Weddings - last 3 I could not stay on the dance floor. 
- Investment symposium last week.  They had music playing before the presentation started.  I stood outside waiting for the presentation to start. 
- Theaters in general - not unbearable, but getting in the threshold. 

- Music in restaurants. 

 

The funny thing as I talk to people, a lot of older people (40+) agree that it's too loud, but shrug it off as "that's just the way it is"

 

Maybe part of it is my own grumpiness, but I think there's a generalized problem that nobody want to talk about.  I watched my father's overall health and well-being decline because of hearing loss.  I want to delay this as much as possible.   

 

I started keeping disposable earplugs in my car, bag, and whenever I travel. 

 

Your thoughts? 

[Markay]

Interesting, I saw Nile Rodgers and Chic the other week doing a set list of stuff Nile co wrote and produced. Monster bass player, moved my chest with the bass, but pristine sound. Zero tinnitus the next day.  But in Aus we have max allowable dB levels. In no way do these spoil the live experience.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

17 minutes ago, Rod S said:

I watched my father's overall health and well-being decline because of hearing loss.  I want to delay this as much as possible.   

 

Interestingly, my dad somehow managed to keep his hearing extremely well his whole life, unlike so many older people who don't.  When he eventually had health issues (cardiac issues mostly) he hated being in the hospital because the staff tended to shout at him like they did to most of the other old folks who were nearly deaf.

 

My mother though had the usual old person's belief that "everyone else is mumbling".  She eventually got hearing aids and then decided she didn't like them so she almost never wore them.

[Stokely]

I think music is on the average way lower than it used to be.  For bands at least.

If anything I hear the opposite being lamented:  "Bands can't rock with this wimpy low volume shit going on" and so on.   

Then again I don't go out much to see bands (other than playing in one) and my last "big" show was Tool in 2010 or so....I always at least stuffed tp in my ears at shows if not earplugs.   All I know is that probably 90% of our gigs, and those of friends, have some kind of volume restriction.  A few have "no amps on stage" rules.

Back when I lived in Nashville in the late 80s/early 90s bands would come into some of those clubs and play at literally ear-splitting levels.

 

As far as people listening (not bands) I think the big change is earbuds.   You don't see the boomboxes blasting away (though you still have the cars doing it) but everyone has earbuds in all the time.  Probably not great for hearing.

 

My big regret is not shows so much, but all the damn practices stuffed into small-ish spaces with an Animal drummer and everyone using an amp.  Thinking back, it was just stupidity.  You can learn songs as a band at low volume and in my experience learn more quickly.   Fire things up if you must at the end, but lately (if we practice at all) we just save that for the gig.  I think we all have "high pressure" as well as chill gigs, we do new songs at the chill ones.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

My experience (also in the US, mostly the northeast) tends to jive with @Stokely, though it varies from venue to venue. Here's the biggest difference I think, from even 25 years ago: we have MUCH more low end in music and (consequently) playback systems than we did in decades past. Technological changes and stylistic developments go hand in hand; hip-hop surely had something to do with the rise of modern Big Low End as did the wider dynamic range of digital, because a pop or rock record that would have had very little information below, say, 60 hz in the 80s can now be BUMPIN', and PAs and sound systems have caught up.

 

This is just me spitballing; I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons for having these experiences and the "more low end" theory doesn't always apply, but the thought occurred to me.

[Docbop]

What one person thinks is loud many more think is normal so you're never going to please everyone. If it's too loud for you you need to move away from the sound source, but don't dictate to everyone else if they are enjoying things.     All people are different and we all experience hearing loss as we get older to different degrees.   You have to do what's right for you.   Growing up playing in bands and working in audio I like things at what I think is a "comfortablely loud" level, but I have been in about three situation where I thought the level was way too loud.  Everyone around me seems to me enjoying it so I just moved to the back of the room or one case just left, but I didn't try to say "turn it down for me".   

[David R]

@Rod S you’re in São Paulo, right? More than North America (and things are loud here too), I find venues in Brazil particularly loud.

 

Like many, I never leave home without my earplugs. The theory of two generations of people growing up with earbuds has definitely desensitized people to their volume exposure.

[obxa]

2 hours ago, David R said:

Like many, I never leave home without my earplugs. The theory of two generations of people growing up with earbuds has definitely desensitized people to their volume exposure.

Same. On my keychain. In my gigbag all suitcases, in my car....... 

 

 I've also become the grumpy old male Karen.

Wife and I went to an English drama movie (ok  forced,  just trying to be a good hubby...)  At a multi-plex.  Probably 20 people at most in the small theater- and most  looked way older than us.   The coming attractions were at defcon level.   So bad I took my phone out and measured  90- 98 db on my app.  Walked out and  found the manager. Showed him (had no idea what he was looking at.)  Explained  a jet engine is around 150 and 90 was like sticking your head next to a motorcycle exhaust..   Asked if he'd subject his Nana to that. Apologized and got it turned down.

 

When I worked at Disney they had OSHA guys walking around the rooms/stages checking sound levels and air quality almost daily. That was more for employee health than the patrons.  Never affected us in the band, but I know they were brutal with sound guys. 

[kpl1228]

Going through this now. Hearing tests etc etc etc. 

I think I'm still paying for standing next to the bass bins at a Van Halen show in 1981 without any hearing protection. The Pain! (But sweet pain nonetheless.)And decades of playing with ride cymbal-happy drummers right next to me.

Also have heard about unfortunate accidents involving earbuds (popping, etc) that have caused hearing damage. Guess it's all a work in progress for all of us.

[Stokely]

Mine didn't pop but during one show they....wobbled.  And warbled.  I heard and felt distortion, the pitch of everything around me changed while a damn asshat was hitting his crash cymbal as hard as he could four times in a row. 

That was my last gig where IEMs were not my first option.  It was that, or quit playing live.  That was frightening.   I've only very rarely had ringing ears in the 8 years or so of gigging since then, and those were gigs where IEMs were not an option.

I still will use a wedge if I can get far away enough from the drummer and he's not whacking his drums like a teenage garage band player.

[The Real MC]

A lot of loud music complaints can be blamed on the playback system.  A lot of them are fatiguing on the ears, sound honky, or are just plain awful.  Blame can also be placed on the construction of the room.  Mirrors on the walls of dance studios and anything with hard reflective surfaces can wreck music playback.  I remember a gig in a room with stone floors and walls, it was impossible to sound good in that room.

 

The closest I came to ringing ears with live music was after a Van Halen concert on their 1980 Women and Children First tour.  That was LOUD.  Not a fan of that.

 

Bob Katz said it best: it's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud.  There's some truth to that.  I heard a Dire Straits concert that was loud yet very well mixed without straining the ears.  I've done some mixes of recorded live shows in my studio and the usual comment is they sound loud even at low volume.  That's an art that's hard to learn.

[K K]

[Melving]

IMO concerts are far too loud these days.  When we go as a family we bring earplugs or over the ears for all.   Both my daughter and I experimented by taking them off for a few seconds, and promptly put them back on again to avoid pain...  I've also asked an audio guy when the highest decibel level was that he had ever mixed at, and he told me he couldn't tell me because it was a felony.  I've known young people here in the US with hearing loss from concerts...

 

I am also somewhat distressed that there is no professional level audio gear with decibel limits (ie headphones).  The only ones with this privilege are my kids...

[cphollis]

FWIW, I run a band, we use a sound tech.  We make it a point to never to get too loud, as it would turn off our 55+ audience.

[elif]

She and I waliked out of the last two shows we attended.  Tedeschi/Trucks Band after the 1st song, and Here Come The Mummies in the middle of the it.  Yes, it was too loud, but because it was too loud, the volume overplayed the acoustics of the venue.  It was all boom and rumble, no clarity.  Earplugs to attend a show? No.  It just seems wrong.

[elif]

15 hours ago, Melving said:

I am also somewhat distressed that there is no professional level audio gear with decibel limits (ie headphones).  The only ones with this privilege are my kids...

Do you mean audio gear that  will limit the dB level for the listener or that have a sound rejection dB rating (like aviation headsets)?

[El Lobo]

1 minute ago, elif said:

She and I waliked out of the last two shows we attended.  Tedeschi/Trucks Band after the 1st song ...

Walking out on Tedeschi/Trucks after 1st song is hard core. But if it's too loud, it's too loud. Any professional band, major name or local heroes, needs to deal with this and figure it out. I hate it when name acts have bad sound/too loud. It means they don't know what they're doing.  

[Docbop]

16 hours ago, Melving said:

I am also somewhat distressed that there is no professional level audio gear with decibel limits (ie headphones).  The only ones with this privilege are my kids...

 

The room itself is a big part of the factors in how loud something is, even where it is placed in the space.    I was mixing for Jesse Ed Davis at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium a great place for concerts I had worked before.   As usual we took a direct of the bass since he just had a regular bass amp he used in clubs.  Sound check went fine, but show time the bass was blasting and we kept trying to get the level down.   We finally dropped the bass out of the FOH and the sound from the stage was filling the room and then some.    Amazing one bass amp filling a 3000 seat concert hall, but still too loud.   So I was roadie/sound man and would of taken me too long to run back to the stage to tell the bass player to turn down.   So we plugged a mic directly into the mixer and set it to only come thru the monitors I yelled at the bass player to turn his amp down.   First it scared the crap out of him, then pissed him off because he thought it was going out to the FOH.   But he turned down and rest of the set went fine.    Somehow his amp was in a sweet spot coupling with the stage and was filling the house.   There is no one size fits all answer to doing sound.  

 

Also those sound meter can be pretty BS some tiny mic checking one little point in a room.  It's like doing sound you need to walk the room to get an idea was things sound like overall.    

[ksoper]

On 11/9/2023 at 3:06 PM, obxa said:

 

... At a multi-plex.  Probably 20 people at most in the small theater- and most  looked way older than us.   The coming attractions were at defcon level.   So bad I took my phone out and measured  90- 98 db on my app.  Walked out and  found the manager. Showed him (had no idea what he was looking at.)  Explained  a jet engine is around 150 and 90 was like sticking your head next to a motorcycle exhaust..   

 

The last movie we saw in the theater was Barbie. During the trailers they needlessly cranked up the subs so every motion--footsteps, arm waving, anything really, was accompanied by a stupidly loud thump or roar. My wife was very uncomfortable. I was able to turn my hearing aids down to a reasonable level. We decided that if the feature was as loud we'd walk. But the sub all but disappeared when the movie began. It was still loud but not painful.

 

I don't have any idea why they'd crank the trailers other than an alert to those in the bathroom to squeezed it off and get to their seats. 

[Melving]

2 hours ago, elif said:

Do you mean audio gear that  will limit the dB level for the listener or that have a sound rejection dB rating (like aviation headsets)?

The simplest would be headphones that won't play a damaging volume.  We've got multi thousand dollar headphones on the market but the only ones that limit volume are for my kids at $20.  I guess earpods will also give that information if you look hard enough...

[bill5]

  

On 11/9/2023 at 8:54 AM, Rod S said:

Maybe part of it is my own grumpiness

Or not. Maybe you're simply a normal person who rightfully expects people to play music at reasonable levels and maybe most if not all of it is people who grew up getting away with playing music at stupid loud levels and so when they are at or become involved in businesses like theaters, DJs for weddings (or whatever), etc etc, they think it's OK, even desirable to blast away. These are often also people who have no problem doing it in their homes/yards/cars, again without any regard for anyone else.  I want (need) to move, but I haven't as it's my greatest fear...to move near someone like that...and where I'm at it's pretty good that way.