Been to plenty of rock concerts in my years. I no longer attend many of them, as they're way overpriced these days (for my budget), and yeah, IMO, with all of the latest fancy sound gear that's out these days, I'll chime in also saying that I think 95% of the time the sound is not to my liking. Summerfest in Milwaukee WI comes to mind. Plenty of outdoor stages where you can walk from one to the other. Almost all of the time the subs are overly emphasized, and the rest of the mix is muddy. I've thought this numerous times when being there. I happened to see Nick Lowe in the past few years at another location, and my friend and I both thought the sound was horrible, so much so, we didn't even stick around for the whole show. I happened to be at a State Fair this summer and heard a stage where a 12 piece big band was playing along with dancers and singers (lots of wireless mics for the singers dancing around). There was probably a crowd of 1,000 that was there for this performance. The sound was absolutely perfect and amazing. Spectral balance and loudness level was just right (IMO). Sometimes, for my taste, some get it right, although these days, I'm most times much happier simply enjoying my system at home.
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?
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- 82 posts total