[
Date Prev][
Date Next] [
Thread Prev][
Thread Next]
[
Date Index][
Thread Index][
Author Index]
Re: OT: Rise of Amplifier Volume in Popular Live Music Performance in the early 70's (was ECM guitarists)
Mahavishnu was the loudest concert I ever stayed for. Glenn Branca was
even louder, but not worth the ear damage (sorry, Glenn).
I always point my amp directly at me. amp positioning is one of the
coolest ways of ensuring that band members mix themselves properly,
imo.
For me, tho, I enjoy playing high-volume-type tones at low volumes. I
always have to turn up in order to drown out, er.. i mean play with,
the drummer :-)
On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:19 AM, Rick Walker<looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
> Bill Walker wrote:
> "Of course Billy Cobham and
> Lenny White had a lot to do with ratcheting up the volume. "
>
> True Bill.................I was with you at those exciting and mind
>bending
> concerts
> (we were the ONLY ones at Winterland who were standing up with our mouths
> agape
> at the sound of a 3rd bill group, Mahavishnu, playing "Inner Mounting
> Flame" two weeks before
> they even release it on Columbia records......................what a life
> changing experience that was).....
>
> ........but, honestly, I have a different take on the whole ratcheting
>up of
> the volume controversy.
>
> I don't think it was Cobham and Lenny White (despite their immense power
>and
> volume) who were responsible for ratcheting up the volume in the
>earliest
> days
> of fusion.
>
> Hendrix, the Who and Blue Cheer had ramped up the volume with their
>guitar
> amps
> in the 60's but they were using 50 and 100 watt amplifiers at the time.
> I remember hearing the Jefferson Airplane debut 'Surrealistic Pillow"
> two weeks before they released that record at Frost Ampitheater at
>Stanford
> with a large collection of Fender Twin Reverbs and a smallish P.A. system
> for the vocals and drums and it was deafeningly loud.
>
> Remember that the Beatles played Shea Stadium in New York with a
> Bogen P.A. system that amplified the vocals and NOT the guitars or the
> drums.
> Go check out the film footage from this era. The screaming teenage
>girls
> so drowned
> out the music that it made the Beatles give up performing live for good.
> Ringo Starr started a whole new school of studio drumming by playing
>fills
> at weird
> times when the screaming would subside a little bit, allowing him to
> actually even
> hear his own drum set.
>
> By the early 70's, however, people were using Fender Dual Showmans and
> Marshall stacks and the wattage went through the roof.
>
> Then equipment changed and the volume of modern popular music went
> through the roof in the early 70's.
>
> Any acoustic trapset drummer will tell you that when you compete
> with a Marshall Stack, that a guitar is VASTLY louder than an acoustic
> un-miced drumset.
>
> I've rehearsed with loud bands where I played a huge Vistalite Ludwig kit
> with double 22" inch kicks large sized toms where I was completely
>drowned
> out by the guitarist. I'd get blisters trying to compete with the
>volume.
>
> I remember having a huge argument with the first guitarist in Tao
>Chemical
> where I insisted that
> he put his guitar on the side of the stage pointed directly at his ears
> (where I , the drummer
> had to sit for years before taking the brunt of his loud trebly sound) so
> that he would turn his volume
> down.
>
> I got huge blisters on my hands from playing as hard as I could to
>compete
> and I had no nuance whatsoever in my playing. It made me stronger
>competing
> but certainly not subtler.
>
> *******
>
> Nowaday, the average kid can spend $300 on a guitar amplifier on sale
> that can blow the hell out of the loudest acoustic drummers. Add to this
> the
> incredible reduction in dollar (euro/pound/yen) per watt that has
>occurred
> in modern sound reinforcement
> and the prevalence of huge subwoofers powered by literally thousands of
> Watts
> at large venues and it's the technology that ramped up the volume
> NOT the drummer.
>
> LOL, okay, that's my drummerly rant about volume for the quarter.
> I'll be back with more obnoxious soap boxing about volume in three
> months.......................LOL
>
> Rick
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
--
Warren
http://www.ubetoo.com/Artist.taf?_ArtistId=6679
http://www.warrensirota.com