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Why does rock concert sound suck?

I have been to two rock concert in the past year : Brit Floyd in Bridgeport CT and Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden, NYC (last Monday)

For Brit Floyd I was about 40 feet form the stage and treble end was an ear-splitting distorted sound - the soprano solo on Dark Side of the Moon sounded like a chain saw running at 5x speed.

For Eric Clapton I was sitting at floor level about 20 rows behind the mixing desk - i.e., the opposite end from the stage. In this case the high top end was not so distorted, but the voices were still very harsh - seemingly a massive response peak at ~1500hz. Imagine AM radio with the treble turned up 20db.

I knew a lot of the words form the songs ahead of time of course, and just about recognized them, but otherwise the lyrics were unintelligible. The only exceptions were when he sang a quieter song - e.g., “Tears in Heaven” . Clapton moved back from the mic rather than place his mouth right next to it. Then the sound was quite listenable .

Of course managing the acoustics in such a big venue is no doubt a challenge — but does it have to be this bad?

oliver_reid

Showing 1 response by jonwatches1

jonwatches1
125 posts
 

Big concert venues are fundamentally lousy for most contemporary music - the echos and delay just smear all the sound. Perhaps the excess volume is to try and drown out that problem?  

Small clubs much easier because the audience itself deadens the room & makes sound much clearer - but volume remains a choice & sometimes bands & mixers make bad choices even in venues suited for the music 

Before amplification, music was composed in harmony with its venue (think chamber music vs. organ, or choral)…it seems hard to overcome those fundamentals - so, see the music one loves and try not to worry too much about the inevitable issues (earplugs really help at rock concerts, btw - brings down the volume & makes music much clearer)

I think MSG sound not bad (relatively) because it’s actually pretty small (so audience has proportionately more sound absorption) and has a lot of tiers - deader space than many large venues

 

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