[Dixielandjazz] Hey, Sounds Good To Me

[Marek Boym]

Couldn't agree more!  Sound is only good when: 1) There are good
slundpeople, or, 2) The band leader is assertive enough and refuses to
play overamplified!
Cheers,
Marek

On 08/09/2007, billsharp <sharp-b at clearwire.net> wrote:
> One experience that still prickles my skin to think about occurred
> during  a Sacramento Jazz Festival appearance of Pearl Django, a string
> group that, when they play in smaller venues, use their own
> amplification and know how to balance their sound perfectly.  They use
> just slight enough amplification to gently lift the sound into the
> room.
>
> The "prickling" occurred when they played under a huge tent at Cal
> Expo.  They themselves had the volume adjusted perfectly onstage to
> fill up half of the tent, sounding as "acoustic' as possible.   But
> then the sound guy came aboard.  As he began turning up the volume our
> group moved from the front row to about the 10th, then to the 20th,
> then finally to standing outside the tent in the back, where it was
> still too loud. Not just  loud, but way too loud.
>
> I said to myself, "This is ridiculous", I'm going to , in as nice a way
> as possible, ask him to reconsider his volume levels.   When I did so,
> his response was, "I like it."
>
>  There you go--as far as the attitude of many sound men goes - - -as
> long as it suits them, the hell with rest of the world.  This seems to
> be the apparent rule for those "kings" of the sound boards.  Serfs back
> off!  Apparently they suffer from "little knob syndrome", and "my amp
> makes a bigger sound than yours."
>
> One problem also comes, I think, from having such young people mixing
> sound who haven't heard OKOm , then that the very first thing they do
> is the pump up the drums and bass.  Especially the bass.
>
> Also there's a lot of men running the action at the soundboard.
> Perhaps it's just a genetic thing - - - --Remember - -men never take or
> ask for directions once they're "behind the wheel".  (tongue-in-cheek
> for that last remark)
>
> When Festivals can't hire enough truly qualified personnel to run each
> individual sound board, then I've always thought that they should
> perhaps have a coulple of "Sound Sheriffs" ( and deputies) who patrol
> the streets of Loredo, sticking their heads into various venues and
> having the over-riding authority to immediately make adjustments to any
> poorly balanced sound system.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>