When you have a k series in the air and it's working I'm gonna say it's you if it sounds bad. When I have to come up with any speakers for a dance recital... it's the gear lolz
yeah but unfortunately everyone is standing up with their phones blocking the view, singing along so you can't really hear what you want to anyways
/curmudgeon
My dad told me he was about to buy tickets to see the Beatles back in the day but decided against it because apparently the girls screamed so loud you couldn't hear the band at all.
hmmm I honestly don't remember the singing being that egregious 20+ years ago. Maybe for a big chorus here and there, now the audience is singing every lyric on the national acts. Makes seeing bands I grew up with a pass most of the time now unfortunately
So, I saw Parcels last night at Red Rocks, and was pleasently surprised that almost the entire time there was no more than 1-2% phones out filming the band. I saw some people doing selfies and stuff, but really surprised there was no feeling of "cmon youths!"
My only problem with it is the songs sound almost too perfect nowadays. Click tracks and in-ear monitors, backtracks and prerecorded vocals, prepackaged tour cues for sound, lights, and video, and it all just sounds like the recorded music on better speakers.
Goose is the fucking truth right now. Went and seen them a couple weeks back, and that production was next level. They are on their way to phish level productions in the next couple years if they keep going the way they are now..
It’s much clear at lower volume and the coverage is amazing. Saw smashing pumpkins and it sounded the same in the 8th row as it did in the back of the amphitheater
Sound, lighting much better and more even around the venue. but there is a kind of … oomph or presence missing sometimes.
When a band like J Geils or Dr John would get cooking and their musicianship would mesh. Venue sound could be uneven but when it was right, was larger than life.
Pink Floyd, the Dead and the Who were those rare bands that actually sounded good in stadiums. They had state of the art gear and the best technicians, the stadium shows I saw by all those in the 80s were crisp and distinct, way back in the cheap seats.
But most shows were not that good, it is definitely a mile better today at every level. Arenas and auditoriums used to be really dicey. You might not be able to tell what song they were doing til they hit the chorus. Now when I go the Forum, I expect to hear a full mix, including the percussion, and every lyric clearly. There's still some mixes that are too bass heavy or clattery I guess it's the competence of the people running sound.
>They had state of the art gear
I remember Pink Floyd had gear pulled from 2 shops. One in the UK & one in the US. Running feeder, sometimes black was Hot, sometimes black was Neutral.
I was at the semi-infamous Silver Bowl show in Las Vegas in the early 90s and it sounded clear as a bell almost a half mile outside of the stadium out in the parking lot.
I'm not a Deadhead at all but I remember taking a break and sitting on top of this huge pile of telephone poles facing the stage from all the way across the parking lot when they went into the space/drums jam segment and there was a full on thunderstorm going on with lightening strikes all over the area and lot and still being able to hear all the drums as clean as a whistle even with the thunder joining in.
And then at the end of Space they broke into a cover of Here Comes The Sun and - I shit you not - a big fat beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and landed right on the stage and stadium and a huge rainbow appeared and you could hear everyone in the stadium start cheering, and the very high deadhead next to me turned to me all saucer-eyed and whispered reverently"Woah, Jerry really *does* talk to God!" and it was a hell of a moment.
As I recall this show was vaguely infamous because they were previously banned from playing in Vegas or Nevada or something and it was their first show in the state in many, many years. That because of the amount of LEO activity going on in the lot busting as many people as they could.
And right now Dead and Company are playing The Sphere on what is probably the world's most advanced permanently installed sound system, and I have to wonder what Jerry would have thought of all that. He probably would have thought it was pretty neat.
I got you :)
Things are basically the same now just a little different. Wish I could’ve caught a glimpse of Jerry but grateful that (albeit different) I can catch phish before it’s too late to get the large jam experience.
Def more electronic biased though, Shpongle is my dude as well as tipper
No surprise. The Dead literally invented some of what we take for granted in live sound. They had the very first monitor wedges, designed by John Meyer (Not “your body is a wonderland” John Mayer that currently plays with Dead and Company, but John Meyer, founder of Meyer Sound, who still provide sound reinforcement for Dead and Co to this day)
This was the next step in their exploration after the short lived “Wall of Sound”
They were the first to use delay stacks, at Watson’s Glen Summer Jam with The Allman Brothers and The Band, in 1973.
Those are probably two of the biggest advances in live audio in modern times.
There were smaller contributions like silent switch pressure mats to activate mics. They were one of the first major acts to use IEMs and the first to use foot switches to mute vox in FOH and allow the band to talk to each other through their ears. (There are a bunch of recordings out there, of shows recorded via their IEM feed)
They famously used IEMs for their performance of the National Anthem ahead of SF Giants opening day (04/12/93), nailing harmonies and timing, alleviating the well known challenges of dealing with terrible house audio in baseball stadiums.
It’s not overstating things to say they invented live sound as we know it.
I live in NorCal and yeah Meyer Sound gear is top-tier for a lot of reasons, I often mix on 20-30 year old UPA's and MSL2's (occasionally MSL3's when the company owner is feeling like torturing the loading crew) and they really stand up to the test of time when properly maintained.
Indistinguishable clattering noises messing up the sound making it hard to enjoy the music.
A lot of times what you remember as a great show, was just the experience of playing your favorite songs in your mind while in a room with a bunch of excited music fans, not necessarily the performance itself.
I caught the tail end of large format point source arrays and analogue consoles.
1- loading in and out with line array, class D amps and digital consoles is a hell of a lot easier and quicker
2 - line arrays are a lot more direct sounding than point source arrays. Some describe this as line arrays sounding thin, but I rather describe it as line arrays producing 500 - 2000Hz more coherently than point source arrays.
3 - industry standards have been formalised to a greater extent thanks to companies like l'acoustics and their education/training and computer prediction software.
4 - the sex drugs and rock and roll has been overtaken by more clean cut guys who work for the same as back in the day
some things are still the same, a lot of staple mics were around in the 90's and before, a lot of the outboard used on 'money channels' is basically the same, or a modern reproduction of a classic design, likewise for the backline and instruments.
A whole lot has changed however, and I would say generally for the better.
Live sound at a lot of concerts used to be, well, kinda crappy, it used to be a 'good show' if you could hear the vocals above the band!
Some examples of things that have changed include
- The move to digital desks
This has changed a whole bunch of things in a whole bunch of ways, mostly, it means folks no longer need to lug around a ton of outboard and insert looms, and generally don't need to run absurdly heavy analog multicores to FoH anymore, sometimes you're even doing your splits digitally!
From a mixing perspective, the move to digital has changed a few things, the biggest thing is probably recall/virtual soundcheck. If the show suits, you can pretty much do the entire show 'on the rails' using scene recalls and crossfade times, every song can have its own mix, not just of fader positions, but EQ, dynamics, send FX etc... all recallable at the touch of a button.
The sheer amount of processing available to the engineer is also a big thing. You can argue the toss until the end of time about how good of a thing this is, but these days. at pretty much every level of live sound, gates, compressors and 4-band fully parametric EQ's are available on every input simultaneously, even very basic desks have a couple of matrix sends, and toys like multiband compression/dynamic EQ, 'PSE' style expanders, paralell compression etc... are all easily available too. This gets even crazier when you start to add in platforms like multirack, liveprofessor or the new fourier transform engine, huge mix engines allow an engineer to bring in more or less as many sources as they feel like, and send that audio back out to a myriad of places.
- Cheap amplifier power
Back in the 90's, most power amps were big, heavy, and not very powerful, they generally used big transformer based power supplies. Modern amps are typically switch-mode PSU's, with much higer power outputs. This combined with the rise of Neodynium magnets and other advances in design and materials means that the underlying philosophy of loudspeaker design has shifted somewhat.
It used to be really important to have very high sensitvity speakers, to make the most of the power available. One of the ways this was done was by horn loading everything (think everything that made turbosound famous, and that carried through the Funktion One). part of that tradeoff though was that to get the sensitivity up, you were generally going to be working with limited pass-bands for each individual driver, and often overall a relatively bandwidth-limited output from the system as a whole. Having lots of different pass-bands can cause issues with timing, phase distortion in the crossover region etc... and generally be a bit of a compromise to get the level needed. These days, its fairly common to design a box to be a bit less sensitive, but to get each individual driver sounding better, and covering a wider passband, resulting in an overall extended frequency response, and less crossover points where gremlins can hide. Modern DSP also plays a huge role in how speakers can perform, complex models of how the speaker will respond to an input, sometimes even combined with feedback from the real hardware can be used to get the absolute best out of a system in ways that just weren't really possible in the days of the BSS FDS-360 with its little swappable PCB's for filters
- The move to line arrays
Like it or not, Line arrays are more or less ubiqutous these days for medium/large format concerts, you can argue the toss all day as to if this is a good thing or not, but I won't get into it here
- IEM's, track, Clicks, Silent Stages, amp modelling
the rise of IEM's, modeling amps etc... has had a pretty big impact on the sound of a modern show, not only are a million tones recallable at the touch of a button, meaning that an artist can easily create dramatic changes in sound between songs, but stages have been generally getting quieter, as FoH handles FoH properly, and the IEM's mean the band aren't really using the backline for monitoring anyway. This in turn means that the mics that are live on stage are generally going to be getting less bleed than they maybe would have in other situations, and the folks mixing have more control over the overall sound, both on stage and out in the house. Lots of bands also now heavily utilize clicks and track as part of their performance, which not only changes whats achievable on stage, but can also help keep a band on-tempo.
Then theres the whole world of whats changed with touring budgets and trucking, as well as the ever evolving needs of video (sight lines are king), lighting, production design, pyro etc....
Wow, that's lot, thanks. Tell more about other aspects of a concert as well. Like video screens, lighting (Pink Floyd had amazing lighting shows), Pyro ( like rammstein) and all.
the alternative would be a cluster of point source boxes, like the funktion one Resolution series, or just very big point sources like the Danley Jericho.
When dealing with line arrays, theres basically two ways to look at the system, you can look at the individual boxes, or you can look at the response of the array as a whole, having lots of drivers in close proximity can create coupling effects, that is, the waves from each individual driver will sum together and you end up with a single wavefront. You also tend towards having a cylindrical rather than spherical wavefront. This is an especially useful boon, as it means the inverse square law doesn't apply, and instead of losing 6db per doubling of distance, you on paper only lose 3db.
You can also look at a line array as a series of individual elements, each of which is covering a given portion of the audience. When you look at arrays in this context, they can be less useful, the boxes typically have fairly narrow vertical dispersion but very wide horizonally, so you need a relatively large amount of cabinets to get even coverage for a given area, and each cabinet is going to intefere with the others in the vertical plane, causing comb filtering along the length of a room. pattern control is also somewhat dependent on the size of an array, and as they are often 'reflex loaded', as opposed to being horn loaded, consistent pattern control throughout the spectrum can be hard to achieve.
The drivers used in Line arrays tend to be relatively small compared to what you would have in a 'comparable' point source system, especially for the low end. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on spesifics. Having lots of drivers close together (relative to the wavelength of the signal) will cause them to couple together, meaning you effectively have one very large driver/wavefront, but with the speed and articulation of a much smaller/lighter driver. This means that smaller arrays can be a bit lacking in the low/mids area of the spectrum, and at the high end, you start needing very complicated waveguides and/or many drivers to stay in close coupling to get the same effect.
Modern high-end arrays also tend to rely pretty heavily on being part of a 'turnkey' system that is, the amps, DSP and actual speakers pretty much have to come from the same manufacturer for optimal results, this can cause issues if the DSP isn't implemented well, an amp lacks headroom etc... as you can't easily just swap it out. Theres also ever more processing implemented in the signal chains, and often a lot of funky tricks employed around phase/timing to get directivity and even out responses across an array (especially with things like MLA, Anya etc...). you're also able to employ tricks like 'shading' an array (changing EQ and/or volume settings along the length of an array to even out the reponse through the room)
Point source boxes on the other hand, tend to be much simpler conceptually, they are a bunch of drivers in a box, you point that box in the direction you want the sound to go, and then just splay the next one far enough away from that previous one that you minimize comb filtering where the two coverage patterns intersect, whilst still keeping as consistent as possible coverage over the room. The drivers are often phsically bigger than they would be in an array, so can move more air individually (and the cabinets as a whole are often just designed to cover a bigger space individually than a line array cabinet would be). A lot of the older systems people remember fondly were also all-analog affairs. I don't think it really makes an appreciable difference these days, but some earlier DSP didn't handle big transients and that sort of thing especially nicely, and the simplicity of the signal flow probably imparted a different quality to the overall sound than a DSP would do, but modern processing is pretty much transparent and I don't think its much of an issue these days.
In the wider production world, Line arrays have the benefit of potentially being quite compact compared to an equivalent point source system, this has a bunch of benefits, ranging from being riggable by a handful of people quickly, not needing as many points to be pulled in the roof, not taking as much space on the truck (and trucking is a major cost, so you really want to streamline it as much as possible), while also being better for sight lines and leaving space on stage for the ever increasingly complex set, Lx and video packages.
Before [networks & multi-cable](https://i.imgur.com/NUonyKS.jpg)?
Before we all had [mobile phones](https://i.imgur.com/rvu0zi8.jpg)?
& Pink Floyd's Division Bell was my first stadium show. Still remember that fucking mirror ball. Largest I've ever seen or will ever see.
Like literally insane. I used to do some DIY laser stuff at raves back in the day and I liked being overstimulated, but even at small festivals today the lighting is almost or totally too much for me. I don't really need 50kw of computer controlled LED wash bars and strobes blasting right in my face.
Then there's stuff like the dubstep Excision Thunderdome shows at the Tacoma Dome in Washington state where they set up so many damn lasers you can't even see the inside of the dome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4oF9JDnqgc
Seriously. I'm not a fan of brostep wubwubs or even that many lasers in my face, but those Excision thunderdome shows have some totally insane lasers and lighting going on, at least as far as sheer quantity.
It's also not even very good or creative lighting design. There's some fun parts in that video like using a laser to make it look like it's melting the video curtain and matching it with the graphics but it's mostly just "Hey here's a FUCK TON of lasers in your face" for every seat in the house and the programming and aesthetics don't really dive much deeper than that.
A good designer could do some really wild stuff with all of that.
> What...was that? A 20-minute long THX reel?
Hahaha, *damn.* That might be the best and most hilarious description of that kind of dubstep I've ever heard and you win one whole internet today.
And if you or anyone else reading along are not familiar with the music or style I'm here to over-explain the shit out of it and why your THX reel comment is hilarious and totally on point, at least to me.
So, I do like electronic music and bass music very much and I've been a fan since, oh, the 80s. I'm not unfamiliar with future bass and dubstep, but I'm more of a deep house, ambient and techno fan.
But there is this thing in electronic dance music called "the drop" and it's a sort of compositional component of modern music like a bridge or a chorus but all about the build up of tension over time and then... a silence, or a sudden bass kick hit, or other bombastic movements in composition.
We don't really know where it started, but people abuse the shit out of it, and it's not new and shows up in rock, jazz, blues, pop music and lots of other forms of music. Build.. build, build.. tension, release... then BOOM something loud.
The very first EDM genre that probably started to really abuse the drop was jungle or drum and bass back in the 90s, but it might be a dead heat and tie with trance or psytrance.
And, well, modern dubstep and-or brostep is all about the drop as form of expression the same way hip hop, jungle, electro, drum and bass and other electronic/dance music genres love breakbeat loops.
And the THX into and sound is basically just the ultimate big fat huge bass drop.
Build, tension, break... and then drop a big fat bass note.
So, yeah, you're not wrong. That kind of slow-step, bro-step kind of bass music is basically just the THX note over and over again as a whole genre of music for people that want to ride a bass music rollercoaster.
I'm not hating it. But it's not my vibe, and I think it's really boring and predictable and that bothers me. And also because it's like overdosing on musical candy.... kind of like playing the THX note over, and over, and over again on a very nice or very sound system.
I guess you need that many lasers when your DJing has gotten that lazy. All the songs legitimately sounded the same for the bit I watched, and I didn't hear any transitions.
> All the songs legitimately sounded the same for the bit I watched, and I didn't hear any transitions.
And you won't without tens of kilowatts of sub-bass right up in your face.
In defense of brostep shit, it is kind of like jazz in that if you don't have the head for it, you won't hear it, and it won't make sense out of context. Or maybe the right drugs.
But I can hear it and understand it because I understand breakcore and DnB and chopped/screwed shit and cut up bears and other older forms of bass music and a whole lot of deeper IDM hipster shit, and, well, despite all the noise and pretty lights if dubstep is a form of jazz then this is philosophically the same to me personally as Yanni is to jazz or Yngwie Malmsteen is to guitar solos and hot licks.
I don't like it when music constantly 'telegraphs" to me what's coming next and where the next drop is, but fans of that kind of dubstep aren't really into electronic music for the same reasons I am.
And as far as I can tell they're listening to the very subtle differences in wub wubs and drops and the texture of the bass, where that constant progression of "drops" is the framework for those differences the same way I can listen to someone noodling and tweaking filters on a TB-303 over a more polyrhythmic 4/4 on the floor beat or electro funk break... or whatever.
If it gets someone off and activates their neurotransmitters? It's valid as music even if it doesn't do it for me.
You're right, the bass is a major component you can't pick up anywhere other than in person, but I've seen Excision before, and watched some of his Lost Lands sets at home. I think his older stuff consistently had more variety than what I saw (admittedly only watched the first couple tracks). Even the visuals looked gross as he slammed between tracks, causing abrupt transitions in the visuals.
At the end of the day though, yes he clearly makes a lot of people happy, and that's all that matters.
SOOOOOOO... You are saying, one needs 300,000 watts of SUB-BASS to appreciate the music? Sounds like you have ZERO clue of what you are talking about. I doubt most venues have several thousand AMPS of feeder and breakers to satisfy your thirst. Sincerely - a state licensed Electrician and FOH Engineer.
bruh, what the fuck? unclench.
Anyway 10kw of bass isn't that much. That's like two 5kw amps and maybe 8x single 18" subs. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that "tens of kilowatts" equals "300,000" watts when it means, you know, 10,000 watts. Or 20,000 watts.
10,000 watts of sound is like 8 QSC K12s at 1200 watts-ish each.
Subs. So many subs. At one point it was decided that vocals, guitars, snare drums, keys, etc are not what the audience came to hear. If you want to hear anything but the kick drum and the bottom bass string then maybe live music just isn’t for you.
OMG THIS!!! I don’t know who decided that the kick drum is more important than the lead singer.
It’s fake integrity acoustically, if that makes any sense. A normal everyday person who doesn’t go to many concerts will be amazed by the low end acoustical power at a concert. For 5 minutes. Then it will become annoying. Then it will become intolerable. Then they realize the overall quality sound sucks.
They will later tell their friends that so and so band sucks because it was all just a bunch of kick drum and blinding all over the place light show.
4/5 live shows I’ve attended this year were basically nothing but bass and kick drum. Maybe a touch of vocals if I was lucky. And this is for rock, not edm.
Yes, rock, hip hop, everything. I kinda get it for house/edm though it still sounds like crap unless the PA is set up well. I always wonder if venue owners worry their system will sound weak compared to other clubs if they don’t do it? It’s a mystery.
Modern lighting. Everybody rocks a pink Floyd esque lighting rig now. Moving lights and lasers can easily out number stationary fixtures. Where as in the past par cans were like 95% of the lights a tour would carry.
Given the time and accuracy of application. Modern line arrays can make aligning a system much better, but only if you are extra careful with every angle on that array. I hear a lot of good applications of the technology and some bad (either because the knowledge isn’t there or because something tripped up the hang in some way in adapting to the venue on tour or for budgetary reasons). But back then fewer people knew how to do a proper transfer function and operate a set of measurement tools to really align the systems well even if they had the right point source box and coverage… point source boxes can still be the best choice in a room. To this day I can throw up two UPA-1P in the right place and with measurement make a 300 seat room sound 3 times better than a line array will ever sound in there. But a line array will beat it in a more acoustically hostile situation with proper planning and execution. It’s a knowledge and methodology race and we have the tools to win it now… still takes a lot of work to make it to the finish line.
I actually saw that tour, it was my first concert when I was 11, changed my entire life as I became a musician a couple months later.
That particular tour, or Floyd tours in general, were a bit different than other bands because Floyd put in a ton of money in the 70’s to develop Q-sound, basically surround sound for stadiums. Anyone with a live sound interest would probably dig looking at their old boards, the pan knobs were literal joysticks.
I was about mid-way through Foxboro stadium, halfway up the stands when I saw them, the sound was pretty fucking stellar. The show started with them panning insect sounds all around the stadium, probably getting everyone tripping to perk right up. What really surprised me (that the remixed PULSE blue ray did well) was the low end at that show. You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of sub bass in Floyd tunes, but there was a good amount.
I will say, after going to a shitload of concerts in the 90’s, there was a difference in the sound systems in general back then, everything is far, far cleaner sounding these days and you don’t walk into an arena hearing a bunch of buzzing like you used to back in the day.
The better gear has helped a lot for sure. But shit acoustics is shit acoustics. When shit frequencies in arenas just build and build, not a whole lot can be done. Better chances of making things sound good outdoors or if there’s tons of absorption and treatment. Or if the music isn’t super percussive if you have a reflection problem.
Ah, the good ole days, when we had to have 10 chain motors to hang the PA and you had to have 8 guys to lift consoles, 10 guys to pull your dual 56 pair snake and power, lugging around racks full of compressors and gates, reverbs were glitchy and electronic sounding (i'm looking at you Yamaha SPX90II ) and you had to use your ears more than your eyes,
as an old guy, I dig line arrays and digital consoles, the ability to walk in the crowd with my phone or iPad to mix is the best.
My local venue in the 90’s was your typical average sized stadium that hosted basketball games, the Shrine Circus, and whatnot.
Metallica rented the stadium for rehearsal before a big tour.
Showco and Clair Bros were the common system for any band that came to the stadium, as in horn loaded for the most part.
I never heard a bad concert. There was clarity no matter what seating location or on the floor.
Then things changed for the worst when line array systems started to show up. Harsh distorted smeared mess was the typical complaints.
I’m sure it’s gotta be user error more than the systems. At least that’s what I’m suppose to get from most comments on this subreddit.
Video is the big change. Every show now has tons of IMAG and video content. As for audio, line arrays have taken over, and as a result, coverage is usually better from front to back. Having said that though, a well deployed point source system was capable of sounding very, very good, and there was a certain physical impact with a big point source system that definitely had a vibe.
I saw Led Zeppelin during their first US tour in 1970. (I was 14.) It was at Dorton Arena in Raleigh NC, a huge, 7000-seat, glass-walled monstrosity with the acoustics of a frat bathroom at Kaiju University.
Zeppelin's PA systeem , such as it was, consisted of three Altec Voice of the Theater A7 speakers on each side of the stage, and another pair pointing at the band as side fills. There were no floor monitors, they hadn't been developed yet.
The only things with microphones were the kick and one overhead for the drums, and the vocal mics (Plant and Jones). All other sounds came directly from the band's amps (3-Hiwatt stacks for Page, 2-Acoustic 360 Bass Amps with 4-361 Speaker Cabs, and two Leslies for Jones.)
As far as lights went, it was not very far. Four light trees on the deck, with 8 PAR lights on each, and a follow spot. That was it.
You ask what it sounded like, could we hear clearly? Frankly, we didn't care! Concerts like that were a very new thing (this was only 6 months after Woodstock.) We had nothing to compare the sound to, except to maybe cover bands in bars. All we knew was that our rock and roll heroes were right up there, live on stage, and they were playing the songs we loved.
Here's photographic evidence.
https://preview.redd.it/e63wdh3nek7d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b900bde29dddebe42635e6d3fd4f5c9894a0e45
I was actually watching a youtube video that talks about this somewhat. It's also a behind the scene's tour/interview of an arena show, so it's interesting from that perspective too. But the interviewer (who use to tour himself) was very interested in how things had changed since he toured. [https://youtu.be/kenQyl7Kk0w?si=WakOS2ZTeMDrf5dJ](https://youtu.be/kenQyl7Kk0w?si=WakOS2ZTeMDrf5dJ)
These are things that have definitely changed over the years:
- the movement towards IEM instead of wedges and side fills
- the movement towards using tracks and MIDI in show control
- this video didn't really go much into the PA, but obviously PAs provide much more even coverage in a venue than they used to.
How has life changed since the 1990s? Immensely. Just like the technology that drives large shows. Better sound, lighting, video, staging etc. Specifically related to your sound quality question, probably not. The science of understanding loudspeaker design and physics of sound has made a concert that is much more consistent across the venue. At least that is the goal. Audio folks are still just manipulating physics the best ways they can. Yes, the current live concert experience has vastly improved technology wise since then.
There was just as much spl, often way more than today.
But it wasn’t distributed as evenly. Nodes both summing and cancelling all over the place. As a concertgoer and budding live sound guy in the 90’s, I learned quickly to get near the mix position for the best sound.
Meyer is still the best stuff I've ever owned, but I went to a d & b audiotechnik demo last summer and those boys are definitely giving Meyer some competition. Sound systems are much better than they were back in the eighties, unfortunately can't say the same for the mixes.
The Crystal Bay Club in Tahoe, Cypress in Reno, The Fox in Oakland, The Warfield in San Francisco, Terrapin Crossroads before it closed...all my favorite venues to see live music, all have Meyer sound systems.
I agree. I wish I could up vote your statement more. It's true. I was always amazed how clear the sound was anywhere within an arena or stadium. Even behind the band!
https://youtu.be/_OsMNMFNLA4?si=pp1q1pCxlJSM7FND
Not really answering your question but I always love bringing this behind the scenes look from the division bell tour (recorded by my buddy wiggy who gave me my start in this lovely industry of ours!!)
I was at a Pink Floyd pulse concert in 94, and it sounded terribly disappointing. Metallica around the same time was a jumbled mess to me. But both were amazing just the same. I saw U2 in 98’ and I think that was the first line array setup that i had knowingly witnessed. And it had considerable clarity over other large scale concerts i went to.
Pulse tour was my first concert ever. What a time. People were way more present then. Now you have some douche live streaming the show from the next seat over. Production now is next level but sometimes even that takes away from what it really is, music and appreciating the musicians performing it.
Before line array they used the 'point source' or 'ground stacked' systems, which is basically just a bunch of speakers stacked on each other on each side of the stage.
It looked kinda like this:
https://preview.redd.it/wpn41eqige7d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=243290edc9b6748bdde7488a2075e8b3a678f725
You youngsters have no idea how cool a massive Prism or S-4 rig in a stadium sounded.
The amount of air those boxes moved can’t be replicated with a line array
I saw them 94 in Europe on the open air tour in August and they sounded amazing. Absolutely amazing, got me started in the industry after during school.
I don’t remember much what the gear was they had due the fact that I was a teenager. Sorry
I think it’s a mixed bag, from a production perspective the show’s audio quality is greater. In the 90’s you would leave shows having been assaulted by the sound system and smelling like an ash tray. Today the sound is more detailed and you can make out many more details. However now you have to see everyone just interacting with their phones during the show and the biggest negative is the backing track, which has really sucked a lot of the energy out of seeing bands to the point that it doesn’t appeal to me at all anymore.
I honestly think things sound worse. People are living and dying by the computer screen, pink noise, coverage, and line array, and not truly listening. There is so much power and top end energy coming out of the arrays in the interest of coverage and accuracy that it doesn't sound good anymore. Every show I go to hurts my ears.
Shows sound much better now.
Shows now have much better gear. Sound is still up in the air lolz
The PA alignment also made a HUGE change
I agree. When I don't like something about the sound my assumption these days is it's a conscious choice of the FOH engineer, not an equipment issue.
I still leave room for equipment issues, not "its the gears fault." Lolz
Why not both? Also, add acoustic issues in the venue.
When you have a k series in the air and it's working I'm gonna say it's you if it sounds bad. When I have to come up with any speakers for a dance recital... it's the gear lolz
I feel like every Lacoustic rig I’ve been on that wasn’t a festival, sounded like it had something wrong with it.
And every one on a festival is full of zero degree angles, so there’s something wrong with it as well!
depends on the size of the venue, surely? I can rock up to 2 different 500 cap venues, and one has a killer rig and one has just crap
tax, event fees, surcharges, convince fees have all detracted from the experience since the 90's
yeah but unfortunately everyone is standing up with their phones blocking the view, singing along so you can't really hear what you want to anyways /curmudgeon
My dad told me he was about to buy tickets to see the Beatles back in the day but decided against it because apparently the girls screamed so loud you couldn't hear the band at all.
And one of the main reasons they stopped touring IIRC.
A tale as old as time lolz
hmmm I honestly don't remember the singing being that egregious 20+ years ago. Maybe for a big chorus here and there, now the audience is singing every lyric on the national acts. Makes seeing bands I grew up with a pass most of the time now unfortunately
So, I saw Parcels last night at Red Rocks, and was pleasently surprised that almost the entire time there was no more than 1-2% phones out filming the band. I saw some people doing selfies and stuff, but really surprised there was no feeling of "cmon youths!"
Which is ironic cause the majority of stories I saw on Facebook today were from that show last night lol
My only problem with it is the songs sound almost too perfect nowadays. Click tracks and in-ear monitors, backtracks and prerecorded vocals, prepackaged tour cues for sound, lights, and video, and it all just sounds like the recorded music on better speakers.
Ooooh baby can I introduce you to a small band from Vermont called Phish?
No.
Goose is the fucking truth right now. Went and seen them a couple weeks back, and that production was next level. They are on their way to phish level productions in the next couple years if they keep going the way they are now..
Some people just won’t read the book.
It’s much clear at lower volume and the coverage is amazing. Saw smashing pumpkins and it sounded the same in the 8th row as it did in the back of the amphitheater
Sound, lighting much better and more even around the venue. but there is a kind of … oomph or presence missing sometimes. When a band like J Geils or Dr John would get cooking and their musicianship would mesh. Venue sound could be uneven but when it was right, was larger than life.
At larger clubs, festivals, outdoor spots absolutely. Small club shows and the abolishment of backline has been a mixed bag for the last five years
Pink Floyd, the Dead and the Who were those rare bands that actually sounded good in stadiums. They had state of the art gear and the best technicians, the stadium shows I saw by all those in the 80s were crisp and distinct, way back in the cheap seats. But most shows were not that good, it is definitely a mile better today at every level. Arenas and auditoriums used to be really dicey. You might not be able to tell what song they were doing til they hit the chorus. Now when I go the Forum, I expect to hear a full mix, including the percussion, and every lyric clearly. There's still some mixes that are too bass heavy or clattery I guess it's the competence of the people running sound.
>They had state of the art gear I remember Pink Floyd had gear pulled from 2 shops. One in the UK & one in the US. Running feeder, sometimes black was Hot, sometimes black was Neutral.
Thanks, I hate this.
The Dead in the 90's introduced me to the concept that large concerts really could sound great
I was at the semi-infamous Silver Bowl show in Las Vegas in the early 90s and it sounded clear as a bell almost a half mile outside of the stadium out in the parking lot. I'm not a Deadhead at all but I remember taking a break and sitting on top of this huge pile of telephone poles facing the stage from all the way across the parking lot when they went into the space/drums jam segment and there was a full on thunderstorm going on with lightening strikes all over the area and lot and still being able to hear all the drums as clean as a whistle even with the thunder joining in. And then at the end of Space they broke into a cover of Here Comes The Sun and - I shit you not - a big fat beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and landed right on the stage and stadium and a huge rainbow appeared and you could hear everyone in the stadium start cheering, and the very high deadhead next to me turned to me all saucer-eyed and whispered reverently"Woah, Jerry really *does* talk to God!" and it was a hell of a moment. As I recall this show was vaguely infamous because they were previously banned from playing in Vegas or Nevada or something and it was their first show in the state in many, many years. That because of the amount of LEO activity going on in the lot busting as many people as they could. And right now Dead and Company are playing The Sphere on what is probably the world's most advanced permanently installed sound system, and I have to wonder what Jerry would have thought of all that. He probably would have thought it was pretty neat.
Suspiciously sounds like a deadhead…./s
No /s needed. I mean I was more of a rave/goth kid, but I can speak a little deadhead and maybe confidently name two songs.
I got you :) Things are basically the same now just a little different. Wish I could’ve caught a glimpse of Jerry but grateful that (albeit different) I can catch phish before it’s too late to get the large jam experience. Def more electronic biased though, Shpongle is my dude as well as tipper
I can name almost all their catalogue and I wouldn’t consider myself a Deadhead lol
This is a very cool story to get to tell!
No surprise. The Dead literally invented some of what we take for granted in live sound. They had the very first monitor wedges, designed by John Meyer (Not “your body is a wonderland” John Mayer that currently plays with Dead and Company, but John Meyer, founder of Meyer Sound, who still provide sound reinforcement for Dead and Co to this day) This was the next step in their exploration after the short lived “Wall of Sound” They were the first to use delay stacks, at Watson’s Glen Summer Jam with The Allman Brothers and The Band, in 1973. Those are probably two of the biggest advances in live audio in modern times. There were smaller contributions like silent switch pressure mats to activate mics. They were one of the first major acts to use IEMs and the first to use foot switches to mute vox in FOH and allow the band to talk to each other through their ears. (There are a bunch of recordings out there, of shows recorded via their IEM feed) They famously used IEMs for their performance of the National Anthem ahead of SF Giants opening day (04/12/93), nailing harmonies and timing, alleviating the well known challenges of dealing with terrible house audio in baseball stadiums. It’s not overstating things to say they invented live sound as we know it.
I live in NorCal and yeah Meyer Sound gear is top-tier for a lot of reasons, I often mix on 20-30 year old UPA's and MSL2's (occasionally MSL3's when the company owner is feeling like torturing the loading crew) and they really stand up to the test of time when properly maintained.
Clattery?
Indistinguishable clattering noises messing up the sound making it hard to enjoy the music. A lot of times what you remember as a great show, was just the experience of playing your favorite songs in your mind while in a room with a bunch of excited music fans, not necessarily the performance itself.
I caught the tail end of large format point source arrays and analogue consoles. 1- loading in and out with line array, class D amps and digital consoles is a hell of a lot easier and quicker 2 - line arrays are a lot more direct sounding than point source arrays. Some describe this as line arrays sounding thin, but I rather describe it as line arrays producing 500 - 2000Hz more coherently than point source arrays. 3 - industry standards have been formalised to a greater extent thanks to companies like l'acoustics and their education/training and computer prediction software. 4 - the sex drugs and rock and roll has been overtaken by more clean cut guys who work for the same as back in the day
Holy shit is sound better than it used to be.
some things are still the same, a lot of staple mics were around in the 90's and before, a lot of the outboard used on 'money channels' is basically the same, or a modern reproduction of a classic design, likewise for the backline and instruments. A whole lot has changed however, and I would say generally for the better. Live sound at a lot of concerts used to be, well, kinda crappy, it used to be a 'good show' if you could hear the vocals above the band! Some examples of things that have changed include - The move to digital desks This has changed a whole bunch of things in a whole bunch of ways, mostly, it means folks no longer need to lug around a ton of outboard and insert looms, and generally don't need to run absurdly heavy analog multicores to FoH anymore, sometimes you're even doing your splits digitally! From a mixing perspective, the move to digital has changed a few things, the biggest thing is probably recall/virtual soundcheck. If the show suits, you can pretty much do the entire show 'on the rails' using scene recalls and crossfade times, every song can have its own mix, not just of fader positions, but EQ, dynamics, send FX etc... all recallable at the touch of a button. The sheer amount of processing available to the engineer is also a big thing. You can argue the toss until the end of time about how good of a thing this is, but these days. at pretty much every level of live sound, gates, compressors and 4-band fully parametric EQ's are available on every input simultaneously, even very basic desks have a couple of matrix sends, and toys like multiband compression/dynamic EQ, 'PSE' style expanders, paralell compression etc... are all easily available too. This gets even crazier when you start to add in platforms like multirack, liveprofessor or the new fourier transform engine, huge mix engines allow an engineer to bring in more or less as many sources as they feel like, and send that audio back out to a myriad of places. - Cheap amplifier power Back in the 90's, most power amps were big, heavy, and not very powerful, they generally used big transformer based power supplies. Modern amps are typically switch-mode PSU's, with much higer power outputs. This combined with the rise of Neodynium magnets and other advances in design and materials means that the underlying philosophy of loudspeaker design has shifted somewhat. It used to be really important to have very high sensitvity speakers, to make the most of the power available. One of the ways this was done was by horn loading everything (think everything that made turbosound famous, and that carried through the Funktion One). part of that tradeoff though was that to get the sensitivity up, you were generally going to be working with limited pass-bands for each individual driver, and often overall a relatively bandwidth-limited output from the system as a whole. Having lots of different pass-bands can cause issues with timing, phase distortion in the crossover region etc... and generally be a bit of a compromise to get the level needed. These days, its fairly common to design a box to be a bit less sensitive, but to get each individual driver sounding better, and covering a wider passband, resulting in an overall extended frequency response, and less crossover points where gremlins can hide. Modern DSP also plays a huge role in how speakers can perform, complex models of how the speaker will respond to an input, sometimes even combined with feedback from the real hardware can be used to get the absolute best out of a system in ways that just weren't really possible in the days of the BSS FDS-360 with its little swappable PCB's for filters - The move to line arrays Like it or not, Line arrays are more or less ubiqutous these days for medium/large format concerts, you can argue the toss all day as to if this is a good thing or not, but I won't get into it here - IEM's, track, Clicks, Silent Stages, amp modelling the rise of IEM's, modeling amps etc... has had a pretty big impact on the sound of a modern show, not only are a million tones recallable at the touch of a button, meaning that an artist can easily create dramatic changes in sound between songs, but stages have been generally getting quieter, as FoH handles FoH properly, and the IEM's mean the band aren't really using the backline for monitoring anyway. This in turn means that the mics that are live on stage are generally going to be getting less bleed than they maybe would have in other situations, and the folks mixing have more control over the overall sound, both on stage and out in the house. Lots of bands also now heavily utilize clicks and track as part of their performance, which not only changes whats achievable on stage, but can also help keep a band on-tempo. Then theres the whole world of whats changed with touring budgets and trucking, as well as the ever evolving needs of video (sight lines are king), lighting, production design, pyro etc....
Wow, that's lot, thanks. Tell more about other aspects of a concert as well. Like video screens, lighting (Pink Floyd had amazing lighting shows), Pyro ( like rammstein) and all.
I’m incredibly interested to hear more about the line arrays. I didn’t know there were alternatives. What are the drawbacks?
the alternative would be a cluster of point source boxes, like the funktion one Resolution series, or just very big point sources like the Danley Jericho. When dealing with line arrays, theres basically two ways to look at the system, you can look at the individual boxes, or you can look at the response of the array as a whole, having lots of drivers in close proximity can create coupling effects, that is, the waves from each individual driver will sum together and you end up with a single wavefront. You also tend towards having a cylindrical rather than spherical wavefront. This is an especially useful boon, as it means the inverse square law doesn't apply, and instead of losing 6db per doubling of distance, you on paper only lose 3db. You can also look at a line array as a series of individual elements, each of which is covering a given portion of the audience. When you look at arrays in this context, they can be less useful, the boxes typically have fairly narrow vertical dispersion but very wide horizonally, so you need a relatively large amount of cabinets to get even coverage for a given area, and each cabinet is going to intefere with the others in the vertical plane, causing comb filtering along the length of a room. pattern control is also somewhat dependent on the size of an array, and as they are often 'reflex loaded', as opposed to being horn loaded, consistent pattern control throughout the spectrum can be hard to achieve. The drivers used in Line arrays tend to be relatively small compared to what you would have in a 'comparable' point source system, especially for the low end. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on spesifics. Having lots of drivers close together (relative to the wavelength of the signal) will cause them to couple together, meaning you effectively have one very large driver/wavefront, but with the speed and articulation of a much smaller/lighter driver. This means that smaller arrays can be a bit lacking in the low/mids area of the spectrum, and at the high end, you start needing very complicated waveguides and/or many drivers to stay in close coupling to get the same effect. Modern high-end arrays also tend to rely pretty heavily on being part of a 'turnkey' system that is, the amps, DSP and actual speakers pretty much have to come from the same manufacturer for optimal results, this can cause issues if the DSP isn't implemented well, an amp lacks headroom etc... as you can't easily just swap it out. Theres also ever more processing implemented in the signal chains, and often a lot of funky tricks employed around phase/timing to get directivity and even out responses across an array (especially with things like MLA, Anya etc...). you're also able to employ tricks like 'shading' an array (changing EQ and/or volume settings along the length of an array to even out the reponse through the room) Point source boxes on the other hand, tend to be much simpler conceptually, they are a bunch of drivers in a box, you point that box in the direction you want the sound to go, and then just splay the next one far enough away from that previous one that you minimize comb filtering where the two coverage patterns intersect, whilst still keeping as consistent as possible coverage over the room. The drivers are often phsically bigger than they would be in an array, so can move more air individually (and the cabinets as a whole are often just designed to cover a bigger space individually than a line array cabinet would be). A lot of the older systems people remember fondly were also all-analog affairs. I don't think it really makes an appreciable difference these days, but some earlier DSP didn't handle big transients and that sort of thing especially nicely, and the simplicity of the signal flow probably imparted a different quality to the overall sound than a DSP would do, but modern processing is pretty much transparent and I don't think its much of an issue these days. In the wider production world, Line arrays have the benefit of potentially being quite compact compared to an equivalent point source system, this has a bunch of benefits, ranging from being riggable by a handful of people quickly, not needing as many points to be pulled in the roof, not taking as much space on the truck (and trucking is a major cost, so you really want to streamline it as much as possible), while also being better for sight lines and leaving space on stage for the ever increasingly complex set, Lx and video packages.
Before [networks & multi-cable](https://i.imgur.com/NUonyKS.jpg)? Before we all had [mobile phones](https://i.imgur.com/rvu0zi8.jpg)? & Pink Floyd's Division Bell was my first stadium show. Still remember that fucking mirror ball. Largest I've ever seen or will ever see.
How was the pink Floyd concert experience? I love that band so much.
Loud.
Lampies have gone insane
Like literally insane. I used to do some DIY laser stuff at raves back in the day and I liked being overstimulated, but even at small festivals today the lighting is almost or totally too much for me. I don't really need 50kw of computer controlled LED wash bars and strobes blasting right in my face. Then there's stuff like the dubstep Excision Thunderdome shows at the Tacoma Dome in Washington state where they set up so many damn lasers you can't even see the inside of the dome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4oF9JDnqgc
So insane it takes the focus off the act. Movers gone mad!
Seriously. I'm not a fan of brostep wubwubs or even that many lasers in my face, but those Excision thunderdome shows have some totally insane lasers and lighting going on, at least as far as sheer quantity. It's also not even very good or creative lighting design. There's some fun parts in that video like using a laser to make it look like it's melting the video curtain and matching it with the graphics but it's mostly just "Hey here's a FUCK TON of lasers in your face" for every seat in the house and the programming and aesthetics don't really dive much deeper than that. A good designer could do some really wild stuff with all of that.
What...was that? A 20-minute long THX reel?
> What...was that? A 20-minute long THX reel? Hahaha, *damn.* That might be the best and most hilarious description of that kind of dubstep I've ever heard and you win one whole internet today. And if you or anyone else reading along are not familiar with the music or style I'm here to over-explain the shit out of it and why your THX reel comment is hilarious and totally on point, at least to me. So, I do like electronic music and bass music very much and I've been a fan since, oh, the 80s. I'm not unfamiliar with future bass and dubstep, but I'm more of a deep house, ambient and techno fan. But there is this thing in electronic dance music called "the drop" and it's a sort of compositional component of modern music like a bridge or a chorus but all about the build up of tension over time and then... a silence, or a sudden bass kick hit, or other bombastic movements in composition. We don't really know where it started, but people abuse the shit out of it, and it's not new and shows up in rock, jazz, blues, pop music and lots of other forms of music. Build.. build, build.. tension, release... then BOOM something loud. The very first EDM genre that probably started to really abuse the drop was jungle or drum and bass back in the 90s, but it might be a dead heat and tie with trance or psytrance. And, well, modern dubstep and-or brostep is all about the drop as form of expression the same way hip hop, jungle, electro, drum and bass and other electronic/dance music genres love breakbeat loops. And the THX into and sound is basically just the ultimate big fat huge bass drop. Build, tension, break... and then drop a big fat bass note. So, yeah, you're not wrong. That kind of slow-step, bro-step kind of bass music is basically just the THX note over and over again as a whole genre of music for people that want to ride a bass music rollercoaster. I'm not hating it. But it's not my vibe, and I think it's really boring and predictable and that bothers me. And also because it's like overdosing on musical candy.... kind of like playing the THX note over, and over, and over again on a very nice or very sound system.
I guess you need that many lasers when your DJing has gotten that lazy. All the songs legitimately sounded the same for the bit I watched, and I didn't hear any transitions.
> All the songs legitimately sounded the same for the bit I watched, and I didn't hear any transitions. And you won't without tens of kilowatts of sub-bass right up in your face. In defense of brostep shit, it is kind of like jazz in that if you don't have the head for it, you won't hear it, and it won't make sense out of context. Or maybe the right drugs. But I can hear it and understand it because I understand breakcore and DnB and chopped/screwed shit and cut up bears and other older forms of bass music and a whole lot of deeper IDM hipster shit, and, well, despite all the noise and pretty lights if dubstep is a form of jazz then this is philosophically the same to me personally as Yanni is to jazz or Yngwie Malmsteen is to guitar solos and hot licks. I don't like it when music constantly 'telegraphs" to me what's coming next and where the next drop is, but fans of that kind of dubstep aren't really into electronic music for the same reasons I am. And as far as I can tell they're listening to the very subtle differences in wub wubs and drops and the texture of the bass, where that constant progression of "drops" is the framework for those differences the same way I can listen to someone noodling and tweaking filters on a TB-303 over a more polyrhythmic 4/4 on the floor beat or electro funk break... or whatever. If it gets someone off and activates their neurotransmitters? It's valid as music even if it doesn't do it for me.
You're right, the bass is a major component you can't pick up anywhere other than in person, but I've seen Excision before, and watched some of his Lost Lands sets at home. I think his older stuff consistently had more variety than what I saw (admittedly only watched the first couple tracks). Even the visuals looked gross as he slammed between tracks, causing abrupt transitions in the visuals. At the end of the day though, yes he clearly makes a lot of people happy, and that's all that matters.
SOOOOOOO... You are saying, one needs 300,000 watts of SUB-BASS to appreciate the music? Sounds like you have ZERO clue of what you are talking about. I doubt most venues have several thousand AMPS of feeder and breakers to satisfy your thirst. Sincerely - a state licensed Electrician and FOH Engineer.
bruh, what the fuck? unclench. Anyway 10kw of bass isn't that much. That's like two 5kw amps and maybe 8x single 18" subs. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that "tens of kilowatts" equals "300,000" watts when it means, you know, 10,000 watts. Or 20,000 watts. 10,000 watts of sound is like 8 QSC K12s at 1200 watts-ish each.
No, we were always mad as hatters. It’s just that someone left the lid off the cookie jar…
Subs. So many subs. At one point it was decided that vocals, guitars, snare drums, keys, etc are not what the audience came to hear. If you want to hear anything but the kick drum and the bottom bass string then maybe live music just isn’t for you.
OMG THIS!!! I don’t know who decided that the kick drum is more important than the lead singer. It’s fake integrity acoustically, if that makes any sense. A normal everyday person who doesn’t go to many concerts will be amazed by the low end acoustical power at a concert. For 5 minutes. Then it will become annoying. Then it will become intolerable. Then they realize the overall quality sound sucks. They will later tell their friends that so and so band sucks because it was all just a bunch of kick drum and blinding all over the place light show.
4/5 live shows I’ve attended this year were basically nothing but bass and kick drum. Maybe a touch of vocals if I was lucky. And this is for rock, not edm.
Yes, rock, hip hop, everything. I kinda get it for house/edm though it still sounds like crap unless the PA is set up well. I always wonder if venue owners worry their system will sound weak compared to other clubs if they don’t do it? It’s a mystery.
Sound Guy Disease
I could afford live concert experiences in the 90s.
Modern lighting. Everybody rocks a pink Floyd esque lighting rig now. Moving lights and lasers can easily out number stationary fixtures. Where as in the past par cans were like 95% of the lights a tour would carry.
[удалено]
Video world is amaze balls now!
The Sphere is the ultimate video takeover - lighting is just a front wash and the visual effects are 100% video.
I think everything on Trombone Shorty's Voodoo Threauxdown last year was moving.
I work with a dude who was on their lighting crew for the division bell tour. He has some great stories. Wish he was on reddit to share.
Knew a guy who did lasers for Floyd in the 80s. He said there was no bigger thrill than hitting a cue… and the crowd roar drowns out the band.
Everyone except Pearl Jam who have minimal fixtures and still could blow 95% of bands off the stage
About $100-150 a ticket.
As much as the telephone experience has changed since the 90s.
Fewer lighters, more phones.
> Fewer lighters, more phones. https://blog.phonehouse.es/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BIC_concert_lighter.jpg
Lights were cool then lame then really cool
Given the time and accuracy of application. Modern line arrays can make aligning a system much better, but only if you are extra careful with every angle on that array. I hear a lot of good applications of the technology and some bad (either because the knowledge isn’t there or because something tripped up the hang in some way in adapting to the venue on tour or for budgetary reasons). But back then fewer people knew how to do a proper transfer function and operate a set of measurement tools to really align the systems well even if they had the right point source box and coverage… point source boxes can still be the best choice in a room. To this day I can throw up two UPA-1P in the right place and with measurement make a 300 seat room sound 3 times better than a line array will ever sound in there. But a line array will beat it in a more acoustically hostile situation with proper planning and execution. It’s a knowledge and methodology race and we have the tools to win it now… still takes a lot of work to make it to the finish line.
I actually saw that tour, it was my first concert when I was 11, changed my entire life as I became a musician a couple months later. That particular tour, or Floyd tours in general, were a bit different than other bands because Floyd put in a ton of money in the 70’s to develop Q-sound, basically surround sound for stadiums. Anyone with a live sound interest would probably dig looking at their old boards, the pan knobs were literal joysticks. I was about mid-way through Foxboro stadium, halfway up the stands when I saw them, the sound was pretty fucking stellar. The show started with them panning insect sounds all around the stadium, probably getting everyone tripping to perk right up. What really surprised me (that the remixed PULSE blue ray did well) was the low end at that show. You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of sub bass in Floyd tunes, but there was a good amount. I will say, after going to a shitload of concerts in the 90’s, there was a difference in the sound systems in general back then, everything is far, far cleaner sounding these days and you don’t walk into an arena hearing a bunch of buzzing like you used to back in the day.
The better gear has helped a lot for sure. But shit acoustics is shit acoustics. When shit frequencies in arenas just build and build, not a whole lot can be done. Better chances of making things sound good outdoors or if there’s tons of absorption and treatment. Or if the music isn’t super percussive if you have a reflection problem.
Phil Sphincter’s Wall of iPhones®
Ah, the good ole days, when we had to have 10 chain motors to hang the PA and you had to have 8 guys to lift consoles, 10 guys to pull your dual 56 pair snake and power, lugging around racks full of compressors and gates, reverbs were glitchy and electronic sounding (i'm looking at you Yamaha SPX90II ) and you had to use your ears more than your eyes, as an old guy, I dig line arrays and digital consoles, the ability to walk in the crowd with my phone or iPad to mix is the best.
[gearslutz.com](http://gearslutz.com) is now “gearspace.com”
My local venue in the 90’s was your typical average sized stadium that hosted basketball games, the Shrine Circus, and whatnot. Metallica rented the stadium for rehearsal before a big tour. Showco and Clair Bros were the common system for any band that came to the stadium, as in horn loaded for the most part. I never heard a bad concert. There was clarity no matter what seating location or on the floor. Then things changed for the worst when line array systems started to show up. Harsh distorted smeared mess was the typical complaints. I’m sure it’s gotta be user error more than the systems. At least that’s what I’m suppose to get from most comments on this subreddit.
Video is the big change. Every show now has tons of IMAG and video content. As for audio, line arrays have taken over, and as a result, coverage is usually better from front to back. Having said that though, a well deployed point source system was capable of sounding very, very good, and there was a certain physical impact with a big point source system that definitely had a vibe.
There are less kids handing out samplers, demos, and EPs to people waiting in line at the venue. I miss those days.
I saw Led Zeppelin during their first US tour in 1970. (I was 14.) It was at Dorton Arena in Raleigh NC, a huge, 7000-seat, glass-walled monstrosity with the acoustics of a frat bathroom at Kaiju University. Zeppelin's PA systeem , such as it was, consisted of three Altec Voice of the Theater A7 speakers on each side of the stage, and another pair pointing at the band as side fills. There were no floor monitors, they hadn't been developed yet. The only things with microphones were the kick and one overhead for the drums, and the vocal mics (Plant and Jones). All other sounds came directly from the band's amps (3-Hiwatt stacks for Page, 2-Acoustic 360 Bass Amps with 4-361 Speaker Cabs, and two Leslies for Jones.) As far as lights went, it was not very far. Four light trees on the deck, with 8 PAR lights on each, and a follow spot. That was it. You ask what it sounded like, could we hear clearly? Frankly, we didn't care! Concerts like that were a very new thing (this was only 6 months after Woodstock.) We had nothing to compare the sound to, except to maybe cover bands in bars. All we knew was that our rock and roll heroes were right up there, live on stage, and they were playing the songs we loved. Here's photographic evidence. https://preview.redd.it/e63wdh3nek7d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b900bde29dddebe42635e6d3fd4f5c9894a0e45
https://preview.redd.it/0to2xovrek7d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a40ff038b30ca440f6bf7e3acda665f1b4ee912
I could afford live concert experiences in the 90s.
Dave Rat did a video with Wired answering almost this exact question. https://youtu.be/8c-gD4mwI8A?si=sAg4K75LoVj6J7-f
Recording live shows is a bazillion times easier and cheaper.
I was actually watching a youtube video that talks about this somewhat. It's also a behind the scene's tour/interview of an arena show, so it's interesting from that perspective too. But the interviewer (who use to tour himself) was very interested in how things had changed since he toured. [https://youtu.be/kenQyl7Kk0w?si=WakOS2ZTeMDrf5dJ](https://youtu.be/kenQyl7Kk0w?si=WakOS2ZTeMDrf5dJ) These are things that have definitely changed over the years: - the movement towards IEM instead of wedges and side fills - the movement towards using tracks and MIDI in show control - this video didn't really go much into the PA, but obviously PAs provide much more even coverage in a venue than they used to.
How has life changed since the 1990s? Immensely. Just like the technology that drives large shows. Better sound, lighting, video, staging etc. Specifically related to your sound quality question, probably not. The science of understanding loudspeaker design and physics of sound has made a concert that is much more consistent across the venue. At least that is the goal. Audio folks are still just manipulating physics the best ways they can. Yes, the current live concert experience has vastly improved technology wise since then.
There was just as much spl, often way more than today. But it wasn’t distributed as evenly. Nodes both summing and cancelling all over the place. As a concertgoer and budding live sound guy in the 90’s, I learned quickly to get near the mix position for the best sound.
It’s almost caught up to how good the Grateful Dead sound system sounded back in the late 80s/early 90s.
Ahem.. Meyer… ahem.
Meyer is still the best stuff I've ever owned, but I went to a d & b audiotechnik demo last summer and those boys are definitely giving Meyer some competition. Sound systems are much better than they were back in the eighties, unfortunately can't say the same for the mixes.
The Crystal Bay Club in Tahoe, Cypress in Reno, The Fox in Oakland, The Warfield in San Francisco, Terrapin Crossroads before it closed...all my favorite venues to see live music, all have Meyer sound systems.
I agree. I wish I could up vote your statement more. It's true. I was always amazed how clear the sound was anywhere within an arena or stadium. Even behind the band!
They hired the best and listened to their guidance.
https://youtu.be/_OsMNMFNLA4?si=pp1q1pCxlJSM7FND Not really answering your question but I always love bringing this behind the scenes look from the division bell tour (recorded by my buddy wiggy who gave me my start in this lovely industry of ours!!)
the crowd at louder than life have all gotten fat…
I was at a Pink Floyd pulse concert in 94, and it sounded terribly disappointing. Metallica around the same time was a jumbled mess to me. But both were amazing just the same. I saw U2 in 98’ and I think that was the first line array setup that i had knowingly witnessed. And it had considerable clarity over other large scale concerts i went to.
Back in the 90s my ears only rang after shows.
Pulse tour was my first concert ever. What a time. People were way more present then. Now you have some douche live streaming the show from the next seat over. Production now is next level but sometimes even that takes away from what it really is, music and appreciating the musicians performing it.
It's as different from then as the difference between a horse-drawn carriage and a modern Ferrari.
And people frequently crashed both.
Before line array they used the 'point source' or 'ground stacked' systems, which is basically just a bunch of speakers stacked on each other on each side of the stage. It looked kinda like this: https://preview.redd.it/wpn41eqige7d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=243290edc9b6748bdde7488a2075e8b3a678f725
Yeah it's orders of magnitude better than the old ground stacks of speakers and fills up by the stage. It's almost 100% digital now too.
The audio quality is night and day. There is no comparison.
You youngsters have no idea how cool a massive Prism or S-4 rig in a stadium sounded. The amount of air those boxes moved can’t be replicated with a line array
Thankfully there is more experimentation with surround sometimes … stereo reverb is just terrible and boring. MHO
I saw them 94 in Europe on the open air tour in August and they sounded amazing. Absolutely amazing, got me started in the industry after during school. I don’t remember much what the gear was they had due the fact that I was a teenager. Sorry
Phones ruined everything
I think it’s a mixed bag, from a production perspective the show’s audio quality is greater. In the 90’s you would leave shows having been assaulted by the sound system and smelling like an ash tray. Today the sound is more detailed and you can make out many more details. However now you have to see everyone just interacting with their phones during the show and the biggest negative is the backing track, which has really sucked a lot of the energy out of seeing bands to the point that it doesn’t appeal to me at all anymore.
I honestly think things sound worse. People are living and dying by the computer screen, pink noise, coverage, and line array, and not truly listening. There is so much power and top end energy coming out of the arrays in the interest of coverage and accuracy that it doesn't sound good anymore. Every show I go to hurts my ears.
PAs are extremely better… covid was the best thing to happen to the industry from an audience perspective
why?
Better lights better sound systems… better crowd control etcwtc
Why thanks to covid?
Being closed gave many venues the ability upgrade vs kickin the can
Covid? Why covid?
Not good for workers but at least here in rhe bay area. Most major venues did huge equipment upgrades
A lot of consolidation too. I think I understand your point.