It is no secret that prolonged exposure to loud sound is highly damaging to our hearing. Listening to loud music is one of the common factors leading to degraded hearing ability and tinnitus, and is deeply unhealthy.
At the same time, such level of noise negatively impacts the quality of sound perception, which degrades the musical side of the musical performance.
In what seems to be the echoes of the so-called “loudness war”, bands still stick to the idea that “the louder you blast it - the better”. But it’s not true. There are many other ways to energize the crowd without causing them sound damage, and I’d love to see more of those, instead of them trying to be the loudest ever.
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Could not agree more. I love the idea of live music but in practice it’s a miserable experience unless you’ve already suffered significant hearing loss.
Maybe someday people will stop putting up with this and I’ll be able to enjoy it but this idea seems a long way away.
I’d sooooo much love to go to concerts more once they are quieter!
This would make it so so much of a better experience
I’m a music producer and there is/was a “Loudness War” and several people say loud won. To clarify: for your tracks to qualify when uploading them to Spotify I believe they have to be a minimum of -10 LUFS. I’m not going to pretend that I know what a LUFS is fully, but I have software to tell me where my LUFS is at. If you don’t hit at least -10 LUFS they will fake it for you, with usually terrible results.
So now all producers are mixing to -10 LUFS and higher (-8 or -9), all for the sake of possibly getting radio play in the future, although not all music sounds good when mixed so damn loudly. I know this is tangentially related but
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is interesting! I’ve heard Spotify normalizes loudness, but didn’t know they go to terrible ranges just to sound louder.
I’m taking live sound classes at my community college right now and we talked about this yesterday. The biggest issue with a large venue packed with people is the noise floor is very high. For instance if the crowd is 90db, then you’ve only got 10-20db of headroom to work with. 90db is already enough to cause hearing damage after 8 hours, and it gets exponentially worse with just a few db more, by 100 you can only safely be in that for 2 hours and that is generally the ideal loudness for that kind of venue. Of course since the engineers probably have hearing loss, they tend to raise it even higher to 110 which is loud enough to still cause damage over time even with regular earbuds unfortunately. So unless you can have a quiet crowd there is nothing you can do about needing ear protection, I recommend hanging by the engineer booth because they tend to be just far enough away to comfortably hear everything around 90db because they generally can’t use earbuds while actively mixing.
Nice insight, thanks!
Went to a local rock concert once. Had to go into the middle of the crowd to fetch a friend and alert him of something that had happened. The music was unbearably loud for me. Noticed that virtually everyone was wearing ear plugs.
Found it absurd. Why not lower the volume instead and have people forego the plugs? Less noise pollution in the local area too. After the concert was over I asked some participants about it. Everyone claimed they liked the loudness or that it was necessary somehow. My impression: they liked to keep up with the appearances of being hardcore, it being for tough folks. But they didn’t want the actual hearing damage.
Found it absurd. Why not lower the volume instead and have people forego the plugs?
Some people like to be able to feel the music. I have been at music concerts with deaf people who were enjoying the shit out of it.
Exactly. I’m there to lose myself in the crowd and to feel the music. Being right up near the amps makes me feel alive. Every bass drum beat feels like it’s kicking you in the chest, every time the pyros go off you feel the heat on your face, mosh pits open up spontaneously around you, it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had. If I just want to listen to the band I’ll stay home and put an album on, save myself a hundred bucks.
Yeah this desire for extremes is what drives people into very absurd situations overall
Protect your hearing.
I did not and today, at the age of 54, I cannot hear above 13khz when I used to be able to hear above 20khz. Part of that is age, but most of it is from not using hearing protection at concerts and other activities where I should have been using it.
Any constant noise above 80db will damage your hearing. 80db is a LOT quieter than you think it is.
I absolutely do wear earplugs when going there. People find it weird, but we’ll see who’s gonna hear my laughter in a few years.
I volunteer at a non-profit concert venue.
The reason I fell in love with it in the first place was that you could go to a rock concert there, stand right in front of the stage, and talk to the person next to you.
Now I know why: They enforce a hard 100dB limit, and the entire room is covered in sound-dampening foam.Wow! That’s great to know :)
What is the goal of the nonprofit, if I may ask? Just mass entertaining, or something more complex?
Providing a non-commercial space for cultural events to people of limited means.
Also, providing a stage for new artists that aren’t already well-established.
A rock concert with 3 bands and a DJ will cost 5-7€ at the door, a beer costs 1,50€. But there’s also art exhibits, poetry slams, sharing flea markets (take what you need, give what you can), movie nights and fire shows.
This is only possible because 15 members spend a lot of time maintaining it, and during an evening, up to 20 volunteers work the bar and the door, all without payment.Honestly, I’ve never seen a place like this anywhere else, that’s why I decided to join and invest a lot of my free time there.
There’s an outdoor area, too:
Nice!
Sounds like a nice social space overall :)
I literally take earplugs with me wherever i go. They’re in all my vehicles and all my bags.
Foam earplugs are cheap—there’s no reason not to.
Fair enough!
WHAT???
(as said by a 40 year old who spent his teens and 20s next to a giant 30 foot tall speaker every week at a concert club. And I mean RIGHT next to it. During crowded concerts I was literally smooshed against it. )
Ouch!
I understand the point and have definitely thought similar BUT, I like being able to feel the low end which can’t happen at low volume.
You mean all the bass vibrating through the body?
Yes, especially the kick drum
Then wear hearing protection. It won’t block the rumbling in your bones.
I wear the acoustic earplugs to concerts now, or at festivals stay far from the speakers. But I’m not sure. Maybe yes if the acoustics allowed for the sound to be more evenly distributed over the crowd.
Those earplugs made for concerts are great, they literally turn down the volume but the music sounds good not muted.
Interesting - I don’t seem to have many specialized earplugs in here
On the alternate I’ve been to concerts where you just couldn’t hear the band playing unless you pressed into everyone at the front. Was a terrible experience and felt like I wasted my money. I’m a big fan of putting in ear plugs, eating an edible and then riding out the vibrations. I agree there must be a good middle ground but I would rather it too loud with ear pro than too quiet.
Same issue I mentioned in my comment! There’s a constant battle happening between the audio engineers and the noise floor of the the venue. It surprisingly doesn’t take too much more db to be heard above the crowd, like in a perfect world, if the crowd is sitting at 90db then 95db would be ideal. But unfortunately a crowd’s loudness ebs and flows and that can easily get drowned out so most just default to 100db and embrace the inevitable tinnitus. I recommend everyone invest in Earasers or something of that quality so y’all can appreciate music safely without losing all of the dynamics.
I see! At some point powerful vibes can be gone as well - which is something I do not normally consider since I’m not necessarily into hardcore metal or something.
It’s the same at movie theaters. I wear earbuds not plugged in to a source just to reduce the sound level at a movie lately.
Also true. Seriously, we need quieter theaters as well. There’s no need to bombard our ears!
Last concert I brought ear plugs for the first time and still heard the music perfectly fine. They were made for this exact purpose to be fair, but I’m never going without again. There seems to be a history of deafness in my family so might as well protect what’s left of my hearing while I can. I felt a little self-conscious, but at least I wasn’t the only one, so maybe the idea is becoming less controversial?
But still, I disagree with you (so going to up vote lol). I think I prefer they stay loud but we just encourage people to wear ear plugs. That way, when I sit as far back as I did this last time, it still feels like I’m right there in the middle of it.
I don’t fully grasp why would one advocate for loud music AND earplugs. Wouldn’t it make sense to just turn volume down? :D
So if I’m sitting in a farther seat I can hear it well but if I’m in a closer seat I can wear ear plugs. But maybe that’s my own unpopular opinion lol.
I was under the impression that sound systems at venues are built in a way that improves the reach for people sitting away by introducing louder speakers on the upper part of the installation, ones that don’t blast the front row but direct sound into back rows.
But that might not be a feature everywhere, and from that point I get it :)
Maybe it does make sense to make it loud in the front and just don’t blast it far, though I wonder if sound quality will turn from bad to shit if we do so.
MAWP
Quiet concerts will probably be a thing if a big artist fronts it. Could be a cool concept
Can’t wait!
We’re way beyond that. Overly loud bands are so 1980s. Overly loud rock bands are why I became a Blues fan.
However these days I’m more concerned about sporting events. In the last year I’ve been to multiple hockey games where the volume is painful and my watch frequently records over 100bB. The new Islanders arena was absolute worst, with every announcement or music over 90 dB and peaking at 115dB. Do you know what would energize me more than covering my ears in pain? Being able to hear the crowd, participate in cheers or chants
