Re: Getting the PA levels right

All that, plus, there are awful goddam few people that can actually recognize good sound and make a PA sound that way. Most "sound guys" are actually nothing more than "equipment owners."

I wish I knew why that is. My guess is it's related to how many people now define a stereo system: Two cheap plastic speakers and a subwoofer hooked up to a computer, playing hideously mangled mp3 files. If that's what you're accustomed to, how can your taste in sound mix be trusted?

Coupla reasons, I think. One is a herd mentality -- I don't think it's mere coincidence that virtually all live mixes sound the same. They hear each other mixing to a certain sound, so they all mix to that certain sound, and worse, they all feel justified in doing so -- just because everyone else is doing it that way. The other reason is that they have no musical sense themselves. They don't have a clue. Just get the bass drum sounding like a huge, characterless "whump" and everything else is gravy. Guitars should always overwhelm everything else, vocals should sound like they're straining at all times, even as they clip and distort. Make everything loud as hell, and you're golden! Best is if they can make it sound just like their car-audio systems.

They've got racks and racks and racks of gear, just because. And because they've got all that gear, they have to use it. They don't know why they have to use it, they don't know what it does, but if everyone else has one and is using it, then they have to have one and use it, too. It has blinking lights!

The current darling seems to be the dbx DriveRack PA. Everyone's got one, apparently because it allows you to make your PA as loud as hell. No one seems to notice that if you EQ your PA using one, you will invariably get a shrieking, shrill high-midrange that will shatter your teeth -- they'd never think to use their own ears to confirm that something's wrong -- they used the thing according to the manual, so it's got to sound good!
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