How Loud Should We Play?

By Bobby Owsinski

Ah, the age old question. How loud is too loud for the room? When you're playing a gig and the audience complains about the volume, they might mean the PA speaker volume, guitar volume, the stage sound or a combination of these things. Then again, the problem can lie elsewhere and can not only be easily fixed, but make you sound a lot better in the process.

Usually the audience will complain about the volume if two things happen - the volume is the same level throughout the song and from song to song, and if there's a particular frequency that's so piercing that it feels like an ice pick through the brain. Here's how to play at a level that feels comfortable and still isn't overpowering for the audience.

Dynamics - Not only will playing dynamically make the band sound tighter, but it will control the perceived volume level for the audience as well. If the band plays as loud as it can only at the peaks of songs while it plays at controlled levels in other sections, the audience will almost never complain about the volume. It's the loud same-level din that never stops that usually gets complaints. A band that plays dynamically (soft in the verse and louder in the chorus, for instance) will simply be called"powerful" even when playing as loud as they can, as long as they don't play as loud as they can throughout the entire song.

Play Big Instead of Loud - No matter how small the room, you should play it like it's Madison Square Garden. This means that you're trying to reach the people sitting in the farthest seats from the stage. All motions have to be exaggerated so that guy at the back can see you. Every note has to be clean and precise so it doesn't turn into sonic mud. Every note has to have a meaning, with nothing played that's not supposed to be played. Loud parts get louder while soft parts get quieter. This is a very hard thing to learn, but if you master it, the band will never sound loud regardless of the size of the amps or sound systems. It'll just sound "big."

Even Frequency Balance - Sometimes being perceived as "too loud" means that only one small band of frequencies is the culprit. This is usually from a guitar amp, which can be turned away from the audience if that's the sound that the guitar player really has to have. The other possibility is that's it's coming from the PA system and there's no reason that has to happen, regardless of the brand or size of the system. There's plenty of technology available in even the least sophisticated sound system these days so this problem shouldn't occur. If it does, it usually means that your sound man has lost some portion of his hearing and is trying to compensate by raising those particular frequencies, or he's just a bad or inexperienced. Any way you cut it, he's not going to win you many fans and you have to fix the problems if you want to keep your audience and get another gig.

Complaints about band volume are easier to control than you think. If you follow the above advice, you'll never be called "too loud" again.

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A long-time veteran of the music industry, Bobby Owsinski has produced and composed for records, motion pictures and television shows along the way. Currently a principle in the DVD production house Surround Associates and content creator 2B Media, Bobby has also penned hundreds of articles for many popular industry trade publications and has authored several books that are now staples in recording programs in colleges around the world including "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook", "The Recording Engineer's Handbook", "The Audio Mastering Handbook", "The Drum Recording Handbook", and "How To Make Your Band Sound Great".   A frequent moderator, panelist and program producer of a variety of industry conferences, Bobby has served as the longtime producer of the annual Surround Music Awards, and is one of the executive producers for the "Guitar Universe" and "Desert Island Music" television programs. Visit Bobby's Blog at http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://bobbyowsinski.com