Two main possibilities here..
A)Bar/pub owners are cheap, if it doesn't generate money they won't spend any on it. That means the PA(if there is one) is likely to be something they found at the curb on garbage day or some ancient half working mess that was donated.
B) When it comes to bands/performers, many don't think twice about dropping $2500 on a guitar but for some reason can't bring themselves to spend more than $250 on a PA system.
Yes there are exceptions but they are much less common and if you do stumble across a performer that gets it you may see the same level of overkill in the PA as they have in their personal instruments.
A)Bar/pub owners are cheap, if it doesn't generate money they won't spend any on it. That means the PA(if there is one) is likely to be something they found at the curb on garbage day or some ancient half working mess that was donated.
B) When it comes to bands/performers, many don't think twice about dropping $2500 on a guitar but for some reason can't bring themselves to spend more than $250 on a PA system.
Yes there are exceptions but they are much less common and if you do stumble across a performer that gets it you may see the same level of overkill in the PA as they have in their personal instruments.
You're forgetting the 3rd possibility.
C) The mix is being operated onstage BEHIND the speakers.
I can drop a $60,000 Meyer or L'Acoustics rig into the place but if the person running it can't hear what the audience does then the whole thing is a wild guess on the part of that operator. Especially if that person is also a performer and has to focus on playing too.
There is no "set-and-forget" to a live band mix, so using "last-nights-settings" or what the drummers girlfriend thought "sounded ok" during an empty house afternoon soundcheck just won't hold.
Add in screaming stage wedges and/or booze and you no longer wonder why many places just ditched the bands altogether and went with a DJ! (not that they can't screw up the sound either, but 2 line inputs vs a whole band puts the odds of getting it satisfactory much easier)
C) The mix is being operated onstage BEHIND the speakers.
I can drop a $60,000 Meyer or L'Acoustics rig into the place but if the person running it can't hear what the audience does then the whole thing is a wild guess on the part of that operator. Especially if that person is also a performer and has to focus on playing too.
There is no "set-and-forget" to a live band mix, so using "last-nights-settings" or what the drummers girlfriend thought "sounded ok" during an empty house afternoon soundcheck just won't hold.
Add in screaming stage wedges and/or booze and you no longer wonder why many places just ditched the bands altogether and went with a DJ! (not that they can't screw up the sound either, but 2 line inputs vs a whole band puts the odds of getting it satisfactory much easier)
There isn't much to explain...... in most music, 14db is the generally accepted difference between RMS and peak levels. LIVE music may be greater. This means that your 100 watt PA system with 90db sensitive speakers will play at ~ 98 db SPL @ 1 meter before clipping, and that's not NEARLY enough to get over the drummer. And speaking of which, any band who is playing in a club/bar situation and is PA-micing the drums is out of their *******' mind, deaf, or both. Drums by themselves are PLENTY loud for any small venue.
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Well actually, some of the best sounding mixes I have heard recently were from bands that controlled their own mix on stage. In these cases they had digital mixers and they had it all dialed right in... and these guys were tight players, it was clear they were serious about their product.
Everything contributes to the results obtained of course, if the band isn't well prepared, if they have very little experience, if they are playing an unfamiliar room that is a lot bigger or more reverbant than what they are used to, and of course if they don't have enough rig for the gig then all bets are off.
I was in a smaller club a while back, the sound from the rig was centered on 120hz, was probably the only way to make it work at the higher levels without resonating the mortar out of the 100 year old walls, with no volume/space, or bass trap materials around. It sounded good that way, was a gradual roll off anyways.
The hall of fame drummer was very good also, and he was holding back a good bit to blend in better.
I had a good experience one time watching Stevie Ray Vaughan play, was in a stadium where nobody had thought to sit up behind the stage. You could hear the stage monitors, were much better than the wall-o-watts that was bouncing off the opposite end of the building.
Some of the descriptions from this thread remind me of the bar scene in the movie “The Blues Brothers”! I’ve got an amp that probably came from a bar, all the gates are trashed on the outputs from having been over-driven repeatedly.
The hall of fame drummer was very good also, and he was holding back a good bit to blend in better.
I had a good experience one time watching Stevie Ray Vaughan play, was in a stadium where nobody had thought to sit up behind the stage. You could hear the stage monitors, were much better than the wall-o-watts that was bouncing off the opposite end of the building.
Some of the descriptions from this thread remind me of the bar scene in the movie “The Blues Brothers”! I’ve got an amp that probably came from a bar, all the gates are trashed on the outputs from having been over-driven repeatedly.
You have headroom and peak-to-average ratio mixed up.
Headroom (particularly when it comes to power amps, mixing desks, processing and speakers) is how much you've got left in the tank. If the loud bits get to -3dB on the amps, you have 3dB of headroom there. If your mixing desk output goes to +22dBU (pretty common) and the singer got close to the mic and screamed, lighting up the +10dBU light, you've got 12dB of headroom there.
If the singer's screaming clipped the mic preamp, you've got no headroom there.
Peak to average ratios are what you've described.
I mic drums pretty much every time, and I've worked with Artists You've Heard Of. My reasoning for micing the drums goes like this:
1 - It's better to have something mic'd and not need to push the fader, than to need to push the fader and not have the mic in place.
2 - Sometimes you need to push the fader. Lets say the band is doing a number where the drummer does lots of big dramatic fills around the toms. I'd want that to come through clearly, and toms don't always do that.
3 - Sometimes the band wants a particular bit of the drum kit in their monitors. You need mics for that. Bassists tend to like kick and snare to keep the groove solid.
4 - Sometimes I'm doing a multi-track recording.
5 - Sometimes you need the mics to feed a reverb. Even if the mic itself isn't going through the PA, having a concert hall reverb for the snare and toms can be useful.
6 - Not all drummers play loud. Sometimes you do have to actually reinforce them.
FWIW, my PA speakers are around 102dB@1w, and I feed them with an amp that'll do around 3KW/ch.
Most PA speakers are at least 95dB@1w, and will often have at least few hundred watts of amplification.
Chris
I understand the need to mike drums for recording, but that should go to a split for a separate feed to the multitrack (and if there is to be a mix, then to a separate mixer and operator concentrating on recording mix).
I would never want to be in a small club (which is what this whole thread is about) with 3 kW per channel. Head bashing music aside (in which case, who cares about sound quality because your ears will be distorting the sound in its translation to nerve impulses), why would anyone want to have SPLs at jet plane levels? If 3 kW are needed to drive the speakers to reasonable levels in a club, I respectfully suggest that incorrect speakers have been selected.
Average value = 0.637 × maximum or peak value, Vpk
RMS value = 0.707 × maximum or peak value, Vpk
In practice, there's little difference between average and rms(~1 db)
You can only judge available headroom by a good peak-reading meter, and NOT your usual average/rms-reading PA system meter.
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I think having 3 KW per channel with 102 db sensitive speakers is wonderful---you've got oodles of headroom, which is what is lacking in most club PAs. Hopefully you're only using a very small portion of that available power. If the rest of your signal chain also has that kind of headroom, you're doing well and WAY ahead of most small-venue systems I've heard.
Problem is, you are completely forgetting about power compression by the speaker. You pump that 1 KW peak into the speaker, and I will guarantee that at that point the drivers will not be putting out any more SPL than they would at 500 W or perhaps even less. The speakers will be compressing the sound; the end result is that you've paid a bunch of money for an amp that will not respond to those ear-shattering peaks.
Perhaps to be clear: there are two things I'm railing against: (i) the insanely high SPLs (average, peak, whatever) that are in clubs much less large concert venues, such that I try to wear earplugs if I have no choice but to attend (YMMV); and (ii) the waste of money in purchasing amplifiers whose peak output power will not be translated into any significant - or indeed any - increase in speaker driver level (this is, IMO objectively irrational).
so the only way to improve cheap bar PA's is convince system owners to spend the money to have a system with adequate headroom and speakers that don't exhibit power compression.
not likely to happen!
this all makes the case for DJ's pumping music that's got a crest factor of 14db on average (thanks to compression) it's all good until he picks up the mic to make an announcement (then where back to the same problem)
someone should start a crowdfunding initiative to educate and improve "cheap bar PA's"
not likely to happen!
this all makes the case for DJ's pumping music that's got a crest factor of 14db on average (thanks to compression) it's all good until he picks up the mic to make an announcement (then where back to the same problem)
someone should start a crowdfunding initiative to educate and improve "cheap bar PA's"
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Yes, education seems only logical way to me too. No point doing free engineering or gear lending, but educating bands and bar owners (for free) could yield some results. Maybe some subtle enlightening suggestions while sipping pint. Maybe offer help to acquire required gear if they get excited but know nothing.
You can guarantee bad sound if you push the PA to its limits.
You get the best sound if the PA is run well within its comfort levels. That means it must be capable of more than you ask of it, you don't have to push it to ear-splitting levels.
Watts are cheap these days, amps should never be asked or forced to put out peak power.
Headroom costs a bit of money but it is well worth it.
Power compression is the result of long-term thermal build-up. Peak signals are, by definition, short duration, so the thermal build-up is basically zero.
I see your point, but the speakers I'm using are fully capable of utilising the power I'm feeding them. The midrange drivers are Faital Pro 10FH520, and I use two per side. Then there's the subwoofers...
If I played pink noise at full power for a few hours, power compression would certainly creep in.
When I want to make sure the dynamics of the band get reproduced properly, having the power there means the system never distorts or struggles. Most of the time I don't use that much power. It's better to have and not need, than to push the fader and hear the woofers go "crunch".
Chris
PS - the amps I use have a readout that tells me exactly how much headroom I've got left there, which is rather useful.
most cheap bar PA's are the ubiquitous 6 to 8 (sometimes 12 channel) mixer amps from the likes of Peavey, Behringer or Mackie and all with limited EQ most are three band fixed( no mid sweeps,some are two band) so already a compromise i'd love to see a small footprint mixer amp with the same features as a Yamaha PM 1000 now that would be something.
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