Tag Archives: PA system

Decibel

Decibel: (n) a unit used to express the intensity of a sound wave

Crossing all generations, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, kingdoms, all religious affiliations, pizza topping preferences, and conjoining into common ground is the international and universal pickiness about sound.

As a musician I’ve dealt with it all my life.

Let me start with three immutable facts.

  1. Music should be heard and not seen.
  2. As volume increases, so does passion.
  3. No composition was ever put together for the sole purpose of remaining in the background.

Even if it was written for a movie scene, the composer dreams that someone will single it out for an Oscar nod.

Yet after years and decades of traveling and performing, I will tell you—there is no setting on a PA system that is low enough to satisfy the tender ears of everyone in the room. Matter of fact, I finally had to forbid sponsors and audience members sensitive to decibels to be anywhere near my sound check—otherwise, all the amateur auditory engineers would be in my ear, telling me how my music was too much for their ears.

Yes, it pissed me off.

If I were a bigger man, it might be better, but also, it means I might have to buy a new wardrobe.

Simply, I like to hear my singing full-throated and my band, full throttle.

Amp

dictionary with letter A

Amp: (v) short for amplification. To amplify sound electrically.

“It’s all about the equipment.”

That’s what they told me.

My response was always the same. “Actually, it’s all about the money to buy the equipment.”

I was in my early twenties and had a music group which required a sound system. Lacking funds, I attempted to tap into my ingenuity, which honestly had not yet found root, let alone gained blossom.

So using my limited understanding of electronics, I acquired a beat-up guitar amp, went out and purchased speakers at Radio Shack, which I fastened in to some homemade wooden boxes I had constructed myself, but found at the end of the process that I didn’t have enough money left to cover the boxes with cloth to protect the speakers.

To say it looked homemade would be a statement of generosity.

But I hauled it in from place to place, careful not to puncture the cones of the speakers. The guitar amp was so ill-suited to power the system that feedback and buzz became part of the ambience–which I pretended did not exist.

One night after a show, a dear gentleman walked up to me and said, “You need a PA system.”

He was so kind that I decided not to be defensive and merely nodded my head in agreement. Three weeks earlier he had purchased a Shure Vocalmaster unit, complete with two column speakers, which he decided not to use because his dream of becoming a great rock star had fizzled very quickly.

In his mercy and goodness he donated this system to me.

My God, I was so overwhelmed. The Shure Vocalmaster was the top of the line of the day. Of course, compared to the systems available today, it was clunky, sounded muddy and lacked the power to cover any more than a 150-seat auditorium.

But I used that system in one way or another for the next twelve years.

Matter of fact, I wept when it finally gave up the ghost and became a part of my career history.

Amps are nice. They make what we have to offer louder.

That only leaves one responsibility to us–to make sure what is being amplified is worth hearing.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix