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Are you loud or soft? Or do you mix it up?

I like to play softly, but an electric guitar doesn't start really sounding good until it's pushing that amp. Sometimes in the studio, I'll mic an amp that's cranking, but I'll sit in another room with the headphones set really low.

Does anyone use dynamics anymore?

Mike

When by myself at the piano or playing guitar, I find I'm using the so called 100 levels of volume,,,(of course not all the time, and not all of the 100), but very soft to full blown expression, and in between, which can be a huge area to play within. HOWEVER:

With the band, I seem to be at ONE LEVEL: TOO LOUD! It must be from my early years of loud rowdy bar playing in raw power cover bands. Played mostly hard rock and I mean hard! Not a polished cover band for sure. Just loaded 'em up and fired away till the last song through five sets! Tough to break that habit, even though it's been 30 years since I was in a band, till this one! i get reminded, and I am doing better. I rearranged our practice room, (right in this little one I typing from), so that the amps and PA are facing at us, and one my keys go through, right at me, about 6 feet away. (And that's almost against the other wall!) Yeah,,,that small of a room. So now, we focus on trying to play low, so we hear everything clearly, and can talk some while playing, to communicate. (Even have the cymbols taped up, and T shirts over the snare). That's all helping me to play with the band with more expression. More holes that way. Using a clicker through the PA too, so we don't rush songs. (Another topic).
But I find the real piano I usually play alone, makes it easier to have more expression than the keyboard with the band. Nothing like a real piano! So, only my wife and once in a while a friend or family member gets to hear how I think I play at my best,,,on my old upright. It's all about feeling, on that baby.

John

When I was asked to join Horse Feather's(the Tampa Bay Chapter official band that backs song writers)Dan Copeland(band master mind and music director)constantly preached dynamics.They are a great tool and now I can't play with out them.
A song without dynamics is like sex without passion.There is no point.

Jerry

Dymanics play a very important role in choral music...and they are certainly more noticsable in acoustic music!

It's not always possible to be heard in a noisy club if you are not loud....So I think it depends what type of music you are playing, the amplification in use, and where it is being played.

Emily

John, playing with a band is always a challenge, dynamically. Especially at a rehearsal. You end up playing music on instruments that are designed to handle volume levels apropos of public performances, in someone's garage, basement, or rec room. You end up putting t shirts on the snare drums.

Jerry, yes, indeed, dynamics are very passionate. From the gentle to the aggressive...oooh, I'd better calm down.

Emily. Acoustic music can be very dynamic, the downs are more real, the ups are more unexpected.

One thing I find, these days is the compression of music. I don't mean the use of "compressors" as in the recording industry, I mean the compression of the dynamic range. We play the 1812 Overture on five inch speakers in our bedrooms. The cannonade is not like one touched off in Tchiakowski's day. When mastering, I find the "acceptable" range, from the softest "useful" sound to the loudest possible on the cd is quite small. The whole range is compressed.

Keep 'em coming, folks.

Mike

Mike,

You're so right about the compression thing. When you hear live music it is even more obvious that we're hearing such "small" versions --dynamically, that is-- of the original piece.
I couldn't agreee more!

Emily

How about hearing? Ever worry about that? It doesn't take a long exposure to high dbs for permanent hearing loss. I carry plugs in my gig bag and am careful when in loud environments. How about you folks, worry about getting too loud?

Huh? Did you say something?

Good topic, Mike, and something I grumble about a lot. We are blessed with a drummer who understands and uses dynamics, and who also understands playing softly. We didn't use "terrorist compression" on our CD - in part because of Buddy's playing. In fact, our CD carries a "WARNING" label.... which reads: "Warning!! This CD contains FULL DYNAMIC RANGE and explicit audio clarity." There's an explanation inside.

The outcome of this is that the CD sounds like a live band. Our keyboard player does work occasionally with a local sound company. He plays our CD sometimes in between bands in festival settings. On more than one occasion, people have asked him "who's the band and they're not on the main stage - where are they?"

"Ear fatigue" is another issue. You get tired of hearing the overcompressed stuff. Without a rich, full dynamic range, the soundscape is flat and 2 dimensional.

Personally, I think MP3s are a plot to get the public to accept lower quality in recorded music -- HA! They are convenient, but I hate the idea that they take the place of a CD. The fidelity just isn't there. And when you take a song (of which the dynamic range has been compressed) and squish it into an MP3, yikes!

I came across a great article on this subject a while back. I'll see if it's still online; if so, I'll post the link.

Earplugs? absolutely.

Brenda

Every time I use a drummer I regret it. It totally throws my dynamics into CHAOS. ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr

I know I have had some hearing loss that comes from years of playing electric instruments. I do not play the electric guitar much anymore, and I am not a fan of playing too loudly any longer. I have mostly been playing acoustic guitar only for the past few years now. If I were to play regularly with loud volume I would definitely use ear plugs. My wife is constantly getting on me about not hearing things very well, and I don't mean just her.

Hi Mike,
To late for me I'm afraid. My eardrums are as shredded as shredded wheat. To many nights in front of a marshall stack. It effects my being able to mix my recordings also. They even buzz when I talk. But what use are dynamic recordings when radio stations compress the heck out of the songs anyway. Is there any difference between now and what spectre was doing with his wall of sound? I don't know. I try to record as close to -1 as I can. I still end up squashing my vocal tracks in order to compete with the guitars.
To compress or not to compress,
That is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of recording engineers,
or to take arms against a sea of compressors.

I think I'll stop there before I wax prosetic.
Rick

Rick,

Compression can really help or it can squeeze the life out of things. I've done some recording where I didn't use any compression on purpose. Interesting stuff, but it doesn't sound like music on the radio. Now, to me, that can be a good thing, but to clients it's bad. Most people (myself included) will say they want something different, then when they get something different they'll go back and monkey with it until, eventually, it's not different.

Funny old world.

Mike

Mike, My hearing is so bad that I'm really not sure how loud I play. I do try to change volume to permit a bit of dynamic expression to eak into my performance. Sometimes when I'm out and listening to a band play so loudly that I even need to wear ear plugs I wonder what the other members of the audience are hearing. It really must be deafening. Frank V.

Softkrome,

Sound levels can cause hearing damage. Here's some info on the subject:

http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/hearingloss.cfm

I carry two types of ear plugs in my gig bag. I've used earplugs when playing live for years. I also listen on headphones in the studio at a rather low volume level. So far, thank God, my hearing's pretty good, haven't had it tested in a while, but I can hear soft sounds both high and low...what's that? Does my beard smell? Oh, do I hear well? Yeah, Ok.

Mike

I've been looking for the article I mentioned above, but no luck. (Computer upgrade nuked a lot of my bookmarks and that was one.) I did find a few references to it, but the links all led to a dead page, so I'm guessing it's not online anymore.

The author, an audio engineer, did some comparisons on wave forms from several Rush albums. I remember that THE AUTHOR WROTE A COUPLE OF PARAGRAPHS IN ALL CAPS, MAKING THE POINT THAT THIS WAS SIMILAR TO THE BRAIN RECEIVING LOUDLOUDLOUD MESSAGES ON A CONSISTENT BASIS AND THAT AFTER A WHILE THINGS WEREN'T BEING PROCESSED ANYMORE AND THAT INDEED, EVEN AFTER A FEW LINES OR SO THE PARAGRAPHS WOULDN'T BE READ ALL THE WAY....

...which they weren't. The caps stuff went on longer, but you get the idea. If anyone has the article, I'd love to read it again - please post or email me. WHAT, ME SHOUT? WHY??

Here's an observation derived from doing a solo act at a lot of different coffee house type venues: On VOLUME; When playing loudly, strumming with abandon and singing full blast, the ambient noise levels of the venue increase. The audience will talk loudly and laugh loudly, and the steamers will run non-stop. Conversely, on DYNAMICS; when finger-picking lightly and crooning airily, noise levels seem to drop dramatically and the staff will wait to fire up the esspresso machine. This was an example of what Brenda emphasized.
Is it me or is there some confusion between 'mixing' and 'mastering'?
I used to belong to a musicians club where anyone could show up and play. The biggest offenders, as far as volume went, were piano players. They would always put their amps on the floor behind them and their VOLUME would blow right past them. What they heard was what reflected off the far wall. The solution was to aim their amp right at their head. This also works for loud guitar players too.

I used to try and record into any kind of structure with little tape recorders.
Don't know how it would come through the computer for me.

Crapenstained acoustic grungs.
I wanted to make a new genre.

I miss the atmosphere of a band playing in a basement with 50 friends at the party.
But that's all I miss about those days.

Matt

I meant to say Crapenstained Acoustic Grunge.
But Crapenstained Acoustic Grungs sounds better.

Matt