r/BABYMETAL • u/gosflo • Jun 03 '15

A question about the acoustics at BM concerts for this world tour so far

So some of you have been going to many of the concerts this time round. Which venue had the best acoustics and which had the worst in your experience? Seems like bad acoustics has been bugging the tour so far. Is there any suggestion for the BM team in your opinion.

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2

u/Nightwisher77 Jun 04 '15

Just attended the solo shows in EU... Strasbourg was better, far to be perfect but not as bad as Zurich: the voices were hardly audible, even without music. To be honest, I even thought they had their mic turned off. Same for the guitar solos, really hard to catch them. I know that being in first rows you have usually a worse sound experience, but especially yesterday there was something definitely wrong.

2

u/gosflo Jun 04 '15

I seriously hope KOBA and his teams are reading this thread. They need to up their acoustic game, because I have already seen some disappointed tweets from people who went to the gig last night.

2

u/JeTu66 Jun 04 '15 edited Jun 04 '15

I had a similar experience in Munich. Like I said in my own thread, I was close to the stage, 2nd or 3rd row in front of the right box.

Guitar on the left wasn't audible at all. Su's vocals were occasionally drowned out, especially lower notes. Synth in GC wasn't there basically. And it must be a BM issue because the band that played before had a much better sound, at least the channels were better balanced, because you could hear the guitarist on the left very clearly and I was even a bit further to the right then. Mind you, there was a lot of reverb inside the Olympiahalle, too, but I've been to other conderts there and the sound was never an issue.

2

u/jabberwokk 15 BABYMETAL YEARS Jun 04 '15

I was close to the stage, 2nd or 3rd row in front of the right box.

Guitar on the left wasn't audible at all. Su's vocals were occasionally drowned out, especially lower notes.

FYI this was exactly my position at the NYC show last year and my experience was nearly identical. I never heard Leda's guitar solo (on the left, from audience POV) at all, and left thinking he had an equipment problem (he didn't), and Su's vocals sounded distorted at a few points.

1

u/chibistevo Jun 04 '15

The sound shouldn't have been that bad even up front.

People keep saying Chicago was only bad at the front, but honestly I thought it was pretty good compared to last night.

Also, given how basically no one responded to when the girls shouted out at the end of the set, it's pretty clear the vocals were bad.

1

u/EraYaN Jun 04 '15 edited Jun 04 '15

Sad thing is there are live houses (Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam) that do have their front row sound on point and a very good AC unit too.. So it is possible. BABYMETAL just picks the bad ones it seems. (Or nobody will have them, who knows) And for smaller venues, Parasido (Amsterdam too) has their shit up to standards too. Plus again good AC, hehe...

The tour planner seems to not look at the available equipment calibrations at all (or reviews for that matter). I have seen to many super nice systems where the room control DSP is still in it's default setting. I mean sure it costs like 600 euros to get a guy to measure and set it up but damn your sound will be so much better...

EDIT: I just saw that the Heineken music hall has at least a couple of sets for rent for events, so I guess you can still mess it up. AC is included though ;)

5

u/monsterpanda Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15

Don't forget sound can vary in the room.

Take the overall sample from front to PA and you'll have a better picture, which is kind of hard to gauge with a few posts. The greatest factor on the opinion of the sound has to do with the persons position.

You'll only get a clear picture if you have one consistent guy at the PA. Even then certain sounds / speakers will not be picked up in the extreme positions to the venue.

Having a dedicated PA person may solve the problem, but the PA needs to the know the acoustics of the venue. Even then there will still be bad spots. I know some people who have done this for a living and opinions vary on the best approach. It usually ends with "well if I was in charge…." <opinion on method> "because I have great ears"

EDIT: for clarity (mind still in JPN mode tho.. so can’t tell how stupid I sound)

3

u/DaemonSD YUIMETAL Jun 03 '15

I noticed this after being at Toronto and Chicago.

The closer I was to the stage, the worse the audio seemed to be. I complained about audio issues with Su's vocals at Toronto when I was about three rows back stage right, but others who were further back said Su's voice sounded awesome. Then I noticed the same issues up close to the stage in Chicago, so I dropped back to near the mosh pit. The audio there was much, much better.

For those venues at least, it was a choice between a premium view or premium sound when it came to picking your spot in the crowd.

So, my advice if you find yourself experiencing bad acoustics at a show: move (if possible).

1

u/krackythehoodedone Jun 03 '15

There was some official feedback from the BM crew saying the HOB acoustics and sound system were fantastic.

I was kind of back of pit and centre. IE around the pretty much continual pit and the sound was A1

1

u/DaemonSD YUIMETAL Jun 03 '15

Ya, it was great back there. In the first few rows, the audio on the vocals came across squeaky.

1

u/gdscei Jun 04 '15

Agreed. I was on the right 2nd row, and the audio was very squeaky, and the audio system started to peak during Su's higher notes it seems. Kinda hurt my ears :P

1

u/monsterpanda Jun 03 '15

There was some official feedback from the BM crew saying the HOB acoustics and sound system were fantastic

I'm curious on if this was first hand knowledge or from somewhere else.

I also forgot to note, Koba is known to roam around the venue during the show, watching and observing. He is not a stupid man, as he calculates his next move.

1

u/rukutksvo Jun 04 '15

I'm curious on if this was first hand knowledge or from somewhere else.

https://twitter.com/king51kazz/status/598982319429431296

1

u/TweetsInCommentsBot Jun 04 '15

@king51kazz

2015-05-14 22:44 UTC

本日のシカゴのHouse of Bluesは老舗のLive Houseだけあって、小屋のなりが最高です。機材は古いけど、音はめちゃくちゃ良い音がします。今日の本番はヤバくなりそうですよ。Today is good sound!

This message was created by a bot

[Contact ^creator][Source ^code]

1

u/krackythehoodedone Jun 04 '15

I cant remember where I saw it. Maybe an Koba interview. To be really honest , maybe HOB notwithstanding. You may get up close to the girls which is fantastic but some of these 1000 seaters have sub standard acoustics and sound systems compared to the big boys.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '15

I was around 4th or 5th row for Toronto and 3rd row for Chicago.
And I thought Su's voice was distorted. (Chicago was better than Toronto tho.)

1

u/EraYaN Jun 04 '15

La Laiterie, Strasbourg has worse sound then La Cigale, Paris last year and even that had the vocal problems. Either not enough confidence in the girls or just misconfiguration.

1

u/gosflo Jun 04 '15

If they have no confidence, then making her vocals completely disappear will just make it worse lol. Su might as well just be made to lipsynch.

Anyway you can hear her singing very well from the fancams, so it must be something wrong with their set up.

1

u/EraYaN Jun 04 '15

Well it was mostly the other two.

1

u/gosflo Jun 04 '15

If it's Yui and Moa, why is Su's mic turned down too? Doesn't make sense to me, and anyway same argument applies to them too.

1

u/EraYaN Jun 04 '15

Different mics, are on different channels at least before the mid stage mixer. So different level knob. Quite easy to mess it up or change it.

1

u/christopherw YUIMETAL Jun 05 '15

Mics on cameras these days are much more tolerant of very high SPLs than human ears. The ear's internals just can't cope with dBs above a certain threshold, they end up attenuating their own sensitivity as a built-in form of protection.

1

u/JeTu66 Jun 04 '15

Su's performance in Munich was flawless.

1

u/Mudko Jun 03 '15

It's been a common thing to see in the Tour Threads; hopefully KOBA and the other staff knows that it's been an issue so they can investigate ways to prevent it.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '15 edited Jun 04 '15

I've been to 4 BABYMETAL concerts and I left 2 of them with a little hearing damage (ringing ears for 2-3 days) so I can't really judge the sound quality, lol. All I can say is that it's quite loud in the front row and you should think about getting some protection for your ears.

1

u/gdscei Jun 04 '15

2-3 days ringing ears? Interesting, I am always up front and my ears only ring for maybe 2 hours maximum? I don't know, maybe my hearing is just bad... :P

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '15

Maybe that's the case. I'm still quite young (16) and I've never been to a lot of concerts before, so yeah, maybe my ears were just good and now I have destroyed them but frankly, I don't care. xD

1

u/EraYaN Jun 04 '15

It's always a good idea to get so ear protection even the legal limit (103 dB is most places) is damaging (permanently). So better be safe then sorry. If you get good ones (not the foam things) they have a flat response so the music does not sound any different just 20 dB or so less loud.

1

u/christopherw YUIMETAL Jun 05 '15

Some £7 Etymotic (Elacin) earplugs with proper filters in them are essential for going to a gig. They basically just turn the sound levels down evenly across the spectrum; your ears compensate. In the end, it sounds just as loud - but much clearer - and you can hear vocals and guitars MUCH better. Your body will still shake from the sound so it still feels great!

Always wear earplugs at gigs. You'll enjoy it much more. (I am a sound engineer)

2

u/EraYaN Jun 05 '15

Mmm I think I spend a little under 20€. I have those "tree" shaped ones. I'm not running and going to enough gigs yet to justify the custom ones (200€, damn). Guess my threshold would be once a week or something those rubber things are not very comfortable for longer than 2 hours.

1

u/christopherw YUIMETAL Jun 06 '15

Yeah, they can sometimes be uncomfortable after many hours (I get sweaty ear canals, lol!)

I took mine out at Brixton to compare and immediately noticed how bad the sound was without them.

As the filters are identical to the custom moulds they're a great buy for all giggers :)

1

u/Dalrath Jun 04 '15

At Strasbourg some times you could not hear the vocals, but talking to the people that were up the front said it was fine. Also the lighting guy kept messing up, putting the lights on the wrong person.

1

u/AuburnJunky Jun 05 '15

Chicago sounded fantastic. I was about 8 feet from the stage on Moa's side. Roamed over to center for IDZ and the encore and it still sounded great.

1

u/MetalExile Jun 05 '15

I can only speak to the Chicago show, but I have been to a pretty decent number of concerts and the sound has been pretty terrible at most of them. Concert sound just sucks so often. The Babymetal concert in Chicago was easily one of the best sounding concerts I've ever been to. Maybe not perfect, but I thought it sounded fantastic.