Silent Stages Are The Best Thing To Happen To Live Music/Are The Worst Thing To Happen To Live Music??

Silent Stages Are The Best Thing To Happen To Live Music/Are The Worst Thing To Happen To Live Music

  • Best Thing To Happen To Live Music

  • Worst Thing To Happen To Live Music

  • What Is This "Live Music" Thing You Speak Of??


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Am I wrong in assuming that in-ear monitoring was initially developed for TV Production,
so that on air TV personalities could hear the producers in their ears, and was then later
applied to the live music industry??
 
Just saw DT on Sat 3/5 in Wallingford CT. Stage looked pretty empty. Nice video wall backdrop all night.
JP had his 2 1x12's pointing at him, but nothing in back. Looked like JohnM had had Bass Pedals or
footswitch on floor, that's it. Small drum kit for Mangini also. JP went up on the platform where his cabs
normally reside to use a lone Wah pedal several times. Looks like an easy setup for roadies...

But man, JP's guitar was slamming all night. So loud and clear, often too loud, and overpowered bass
and keys. Drums were mixed low, but everything came up as night progressed. Great show.
I just watched a few clips of this tour last night, and I'm SO glad I didn't decide to go see them last night in DC; LaBrie was horrible. His pitch is all over the place.
But I heard several times where JP got feedback, so he must have those 1x12's dialed in.

Wow. Makes you wonder how much of the silent stage phenomenon is about streamlining
the load in and load out, i.e., having to take/pay a smaller crew, having fewer trucks on the
road, etc.?
For DT at least, I don't think it's much different. JP still uses amps. They're just off-stage in iso.
 
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Also, why was live music thriving far more before the "silent stage" trends, and is now
an epic struggle----especially at the local level? Are there other factors at play?

I mean, if the argument is that it is better for the performer, the venue, and the audience
shouldn't we be seeing a growth in live music, rather than the ongoing descent that has
plagued live music for the past couple of decades??
 
Also, why was live music thriving far more before the "silent stage" trends, and is now
an epic struggle----especially at the local level? Are there other factors at play?

I mean, if the argument is that it is better for the performer, the venue, and the audience
shouldn't we be seeing a growth in live music, rather than the ongoing descent that has
plagued live music for the past couple of decades??
Correlation does not imply causation. I'm sure there are other factors in play.
One of my own is how fantastic live concert home theater DVD's sound.
 
My band has been 100% direct except for vocals (for hopefully obvious reasons) for about 6 years.

I have a love/hate relationship with this setup. Many others have touched on the reasons it is good:
  • Every band member has their own mix and in our case control over that mix via iphone/ipad
  • Consistent mix, always
  • Hearing protection
  • Stereo!
But I really don't care much for the way guitar sounds when injected directly in my ear holes... I've got nice, 6-driver 64Audio V6s custom molds... I find it tolerable but not really enjoyable.
 
Great article! As a primarily P&W player, I try to leave one ear out for this very reason.
Just an FYI that this can be really bad for your ear with the IEM in it.

The signal level you need to use to get a 1-ear setup to be comparable volume to both ears in is huge, especially if you're competing with amps, etc with the other ear.

It's strongly recommended to not do this.
 
Just an FYI that this can be really bad for your ear with the IEM in it.

The signal level you need to use to get a 1-ear setup to be comparable volume to both ears in is huge, especially if you're competing with amps, etc with the other ear.

It's strongly recommended to not do this.
Understood, I usually have both ears in during the first rehearsal to get the correct level, and then take one ear out without changing the level for the walkthrough and the service. Our stages are super quiet, as amps go in a back room in an iso box, the drummer is caged, and we don't use wedges. For my situation it works, but I'm glad you pointed it out in case anyone was unaware of the dangers.
 
With the Axe-FX I have a decent volume coming off my 412 on stage but mostly monitors. It's awesome when you are enveloped with the tone and the guitar is alive. We play in-ears when rehearsing and it sounds great but no substitute for onstage interaction of guitar and amp. I take extra pains to keep the volume down.
 
My band has been 100% direct except for vocals (for hopefully obvious reasons) for about 6 years.

I have a love/hate relationship with this setup. Many others have touched on the reasons it is good:
  • Every band member has their own mix and in our case control over that mix via iphone/ipad
  • Consistent mix, always
  • Hearing protection
  • Stereo!
But I really don't care much for the way guitar sounds when injected directly in my ear holes... I've got nice, 6-driver 64Audio V6s custom molds... I find it tolerable but not really enjoyable.

I appreciate your honesty. :)
 
This is the kind of extremely non-silent stage that I pray never grows old or fades away.

Warning: not for everyone.





In spite of recent trends and the notion that the direction is unavoidable, there
are active and ongoing rebellions. :)
 
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Some bands I see with silent stages if you're standing up in front of the band it sucks because you don't fucking hear shit if you're back in the crowd way in the back and you got a full PA system then then it sounds OK And for me myself II need something on stage to have that pick up speaker reaction you don't have to be ungodly loud but what you can hear it and feel it I mean we all have a distinguish are we going to see a live band are we going to listen to the DJ
 
I saw Sammy Hagar last night. The sound was amazing through the 1st 1/2 of the show, then the guitar got too damn loud. 2 songs later everything was. I wish their deaf asses were on IEMs😎. I still highly recommend it if they come near you.
 
Our bassist had an issue with his cabinet mid-way through the 1st set Sunday and immediately I could tell the loss of low-end energy on stage. The DI was still working fine so FOH there was no issue, but the low-end thump was missing for us onstage.
 
I play in a cover band doing clubs in our area from 100 to roughly 500 seats. We are silent stage (all fractals), IEMs and even an electronic kit. We've had plenty of sound guys give us side eye during load in, but by the time sound check is over they are raving about tones from our kit and fractals and how easy we are to mix. We also have the obvious musicians walk up and stare at the stage looking around for our gear (we have our racks behind scrims) and checking things out. We always get compliments from the bar and the crowd on how clean we sound.

We have in the past used front fills to help with the crowd up front getting enough coverage, and we have also used a small frfr up front pointed at us like a monitor to get some interaction between the guitars and fractals, but it is pretty quiet when we use it. It still sounds like a real band and the crowd is still dancing, so I'm happy with it as are the other folks in the band. We've got to open jams and played with live amps and drums and it just bums me out every time, too loud, too hard to hear everyone.

I know some people think in ears isolate you, but they don't have to, when done right they allow you to hear everything you need how you need to hear it, and using them has drastically improved our playing as a unit and our singing.
 
I just watched a rig run-down, and something I've noticed about a lot of the venues is the walls & ceilings. Many of these places are old theaters, with lots of metal "embossed" panels everywhere. They cannot be good for the sound.
Think about it: What does everyone recommend doing when it comes to treating your own rooms? These venues seem to me to be the opposite- very reflective.

Perhaps this has to do with the fact that many of these places are old, and possibly needed that type of reflective material back when the sound reached the audience by only acoustic means...?
I'm just thinking out loud here, but as I said earlier, most places I've played or seen shows at simply have too much reflective material. A buddy of mine has a proper home theater, and it sounds absolutely phenomenal! And, at very loud volumes. But the room is treated. And very dead.

Maybe the "silent stage" is, in a way, a band-aid (no pun intended) approach, and if you were playing in a 3000 seat venue, with properly treated walls that absorb the sound waves instead of reflecting them, then cranked Marshall stacks would still be the preference. Or at least, having back-line amps that are still miked, so the FOH can retain control.

Next time you're in one of these theater-type venues I'm talking about, take a look at the wall/ceiling treatment. I know of many of these places that still have all those old metal panels I'm referring to.
Historic, and very aesthetically-pleasing, especially for the era in which it was built, but maybe not great for the manner in which modern live music is presented.
 
Just had to leave this hear. Yeah, I am not Slash, but I think my aspirations are more in keeping
with what Slash is aiming for than at the local dive where the cover band is making as little "noise"
as possible. :)

 
...I think my aspirations are more in keeping with what Slash is aiming for than at the local dive where the cover band is making as little "noise" as possible.
We got told to pack it up once after only playing 3 songs at a restaurant in their upstairs lounge, because they still had dinner guests downstairs that were complaining they could hear the bass & drums coming through the ceiling. Yeah, that's gonna happen... Maybe ya shouldn't have scheduled a BAND to start at 9PM, if you were still serving dinner! I got on the mic and the drummer was like, "No! Don't say anything. They won't have us back." I was like, "They ain't never having us back!" :rolleyes:
 
I'd argue that live music is now safe, too clinical, too precise, and silent on the stage (which has traditionally been
the epicenter of the sonic earthquake, and not a vacuum).

Live music is now lacking all of the things that Frank Sinatra hated "Rock-N-Roll" for being.

“My only deep sorrow is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear — Naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ’n’ roll. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd — in plain fact, dirty — lyrics, and as I said before, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth … this rancid-smelling aphorodisiac I deplore.”

~~~~Frank Sinatra
 
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