I’m old enough to be unimpressed with music played very loud. And when I say loud, I’m talking about ear damaging loud. I admit to attending the occasional rock concerts in my past or turned the volume knob a little too far on my playback system when intensely listening to Peter Gabriel’s “SO” record or the Beatles remixed in 5.1 surround for the Cirque du Soleil “Love” production on DVD-Audio. But I think things have reached new heights recently (no pun intended) in concert venues and recording studios.<\/p>\n
There’s a major artist working my studio these days. She and her producer are camped out for about a month of writing, playing, and recording her new album. It’s great news for me…it’s not everyday that I have a Grammy winning contemporary R&B celebrity working at AIX. I met the artist yesterday and found her to be very pleasant, friendly, and open. <\/p>\n
The producer is a multi-instrumentalist with a long list of credits including Stevie Wonder and Justin Bieber (never did I ever imagine that I would be typing his name in these posts!). He and his engineer came by on Saturday to get started. I gave them a quick introduction to the studio. It’s a little different from the usual analog room because I have a control surface, digital patch bay, analog outboard gear, and an analog patch bay as well. Once you understand the digital routing happening in the computer, things are much easier.<\/p>\n
These guys have spent lots hours in studios. They were particularly interested in the monitoring system. I don’t have a $18,000 pair of ATC 100 pumping speakers…I count on my B&W 801 Matrix IIIs for the listening to music AND the THX certified JBL theatrical 5.1 system when we’re working on a film mix. There is a TMH “Profunder” subwoofer handling the LFE output that can be attached to the B&Ws or the THX system. When they started listening to the sound of the room and the speakers, they cranked up the volume way past where I’ve ever ventured. My reference level stays around 85 dB, which is very healthy. It’s not overwhelming because my material is so dynamic.<\/p>\n
But I got to stand there and hear the room in overdrive when they pushed the output to 95 even 105 dB! That’s crazy loud! And the content that they were playing was heavily mastered…meaning it was all-loud all the time. Can you say listening fatigue or ear damage? I’m ok with them listening as they prefer but I can’t imagine trying to make production decisions when you’re being hammered by the basic track. They decided that the sound of the JBLs is preferable…I think just because the drivers are bigger.<\/p>\n
And to top it off, I had to route the stereo output of their Pro Tools setup through a couple of inputs on my console so that I could take advantage of the subwoofer\u2026it just wasn’t right unless it could shake up your stomach.<\/p>\n
I mentioned this to one of the new tenants in the adjacent studio and he told me that he wears hearing protection during the sessions that he works over at Interscope Records. He told me that the playback level averages over a 100 dB! And the music consuming public is supposed to believe that this level is the artist’s intent? Imagine a whole apartment complex playing back their favorite music with SPLs nearing 100 dB…the earth would move…literally.<\/p>\n
I guess I just an old guy that wants to keep my hearing for as long as possible. Honestly, the level of the sound in the room astounded me. Maybe that’s what it takes to make great records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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