Turn it up!
When we started this business, one thing we wanted to be sure of was that we never played the music too loud. If you’ve seen some of the shows around, well, they take a cue from a Dean Koonz description of a band in a singles bar; “They made up in volume what they lacked in talent.”
True, when music is played louder it is very involving, but there is a limit to that as well. The term is listener fatigue. You have experienced this yourself. When was the last time you got in the car and when you started it you were met with a very loud radio/CD/tape? Now, if your teenager was the last one to use the car, this does not apply. But if you where, and you respond by turning it down, ask yourself, what changed? That was a great volume when you parked?
That is an example of ear fatigue. As you drive, your ears get more and more tired, between road noises and your sound system they work harder and harder and grow even more tired. So, what do we do? We turn up the sound. Then they grow more tired and we turn it up more… you get the idea.
When we are playing for dances, we do three things that help us to keep an even level of sound. First off, in the first few minutes we rely on our ears and a sound meter to establish a good sound level. One of us, usually Tim, walks out into the middle of the seating area and listens. Can he hear conversation around him? Are people shouting over the music? Can he hear the music and is it loud enough to draw people in to the dance floor? Yet, not too loud. Next, he’ll consult a sound meter. It measures the sound in Decibels (Db).
Sound level (dB) Typical Environment
140
130 aircraft takeoff
120 loud discotheque
110 thunder, noisy factory
100 pneumatic drill
90 truck, heavy lorry
80 noisy office
70 vacuum cleaner
60 normal conversation
50 average office
40 quiet suburban home
30 quiet countryside
20 whisper
10 sound proof room
Typically, we run our show about 90 Db in the middle of the seating area. We play a bit louder if folks are asking for it, but that’s rare. It’s a bit louder that you would hear sitting in your office.
Then, during the dance, we consult that same meter occasionally but mostly focus on two other meters for our volume. One is a power output meter, which measures the output of the amplifier. Like our Amp and speaker system, this is in stereo allowing us to monitor the function of the system to assure all is well.
And finally, we track our volume with our tape recorder. We record all of our shows, sometimes as reference for us to listen to and refine our show, other times we them them away to the folks who hired us. We watch the meters on the recorder and make sure they are ‘hitting’ the same spot.
We feel it is important to be consistent in our volume, and work to make sure it happens.
It is this attention to detail that we feel sets us apart from other DJ’s who show up, set up and start playing.
We are Radio Record Hop, a dance show DJ 21 years in the making. You can visit us at www.radiorecordhop.com
When we started this business, one thing we wanted to be sure of was that we never played the music too loud. If you’ve seen some of the shows around, well, they take a cue from a Dean Koonz description of a band in a singles bar; “They made up in volume what they lacked in talent.”
True, when music is played louder it is very involving, but there is a limit to that as well. The term is listener fatigue. You have experienced this yourself. When was the last time you got in the car and when you started it you were met with a very loud radio/CD/tape? Now, if your teenager was the last one to use the car, this does not apply. But if you where, and you respond by turning it down, ask yourself, what changed? That was a great volume when you parked?
That is an example of ear fatigue. As you drive, your ears get more and more tired, between road noises and your sound system they work harder and harder and grow even more tired. So, what do we do? We turn up the sound. Then they grow more tired and we turn it up more… you get the idea.
When we are playing for dances, we do three things that help us to keep an even level of sound. First off, in the first few minutes we rely on our ears and a sound meter to establish a good sound level. One of us, usually Tim, walks out into the middle of the seating area and listens. Can he hear conversation around him? Are people shouting over the music? Can he hear the music and is it loud enough to draw people in to the dance floor? Yet, not too loud. Next, he’ll consult a sound meter. It measures the sound in Decibels (Db).
Sound level (dB) Typical Environment
140
130 aircraft takeoff
120 loud discotheque
110 thunder, noisy factory
100 pneumatic drill
90 truck, heavy lorry
80 noisy office
70 vacuum cleaner
60 normal conversation
50 average office
40 quiet suburban home
30 quiet countryside
20 whisper
10 sound proof room
Typically, we run our show about 90 Db in the middle of the seating area. We play a bit louder if folks are asking for it, but that’s rare. It’s a bit louder that you would hear sitting in your office.
Then, during the dance, we consult that same meter occasionally but mostly focus on two other meters for our volume. One is a power output meter, which measures the output of the amplifier. Like our Amp and speaker system, this is in stereo allowing us to monitor the function of the system to assure all is well.
And finally, we track our volume with our tape recorder. We record all of our shows, sometimes as reference for us to listen to and refine our show, other times we them them away to the folks who hired us. We watch the meters on the recorder and make sure they are ‘hitting’ the same spot.
We feel it is important to be consistent in our volume, and work to make sure it happens.
It is this attention to detail that we feel sets us apart from other DJ’s who show up, set up and start playing.
We are Radio Record Hop, a dance show DJ 21 years in the making. You can visit us at www.radiorecordhop.com
posted by Radio Record Hop at 8:58 AM
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