The Byre

Please bear the following in mind - I have in front of me the time to damage graphs for various volumes of music and complex sounds. There are two effects - loss of sensitivity (level at which a person is able to first hear a sound) and loss of acuity (level at which a sound is first understood - e.g. speech intelligibility). loss of sensitivity At 88dBA and after 100 mins, a sound has to be 4dB louder before it can be heard. For 106dBA a sound has to be 40dBA louder before a person can hear it. 10dB is a doubling of volume, so after 100 mins of exposure to 106dBA of noise a sound has to be a massive 16 times louder before it can be heard. Immediately after 4 to 5 hours, a person is clinically deaf and it can take several days for the hearing to recover. These figures were collected at Surrey University by Howard and Angus and under Prof Francis Rumsey using recorded music. loss of acuity This is a more subtle affect, but more severe. A crucial part of our ability to hear and analyse sounds is our ability to separate out sounds into distinct frequency bands called critical bands - (which is also why Fourier analysis works). These bands are very narrow due to an active mechanism of positive feedback in the cochlea. This enhancement system is easily damaged and is far far more sensitive to excessive noise than the main transduction system. It is this mechanism that is more readily damaged by dissonant sounds (such as machinery or distorted music through a poor sound system) that by consonant sounds such as clean and pure harmonies in a tuned piano. When this mechanism is overloaded, we may still be able to hear at a certain sensitivity, but our ability to understand speech or perceive musical harmonies is permanently damaged. There is absolutely nothing mysterious or unknown about these phenomena and the damage caused by loud music and other loud noises has been researched at depth in universities and other institutions all over the World. Damage to the cochlea feedback system by distorted or dissonant sounds is perfectly understood. This all sounds as if I am one of those po-faced killjoys who want everybody to sit in silence whilst some pocket Hitler from Health and Safety sits next to him with an SPL meter in his hand, just in case he farts too loudly. But quite the opposite is true - in fact I managed to head-butt the fireplace yesterday by accident whilst listening and watching to Rammstein's new concert DVD (much to the amusement of the film music people who are recording here at the moment). I wish all this were not true and I could crank up the volume on Rammstein, Grandaddy and Government Mule and all the other noises that I like to some totally silly level. But I can't, so I don't. Even I have to turn it down - though I wish I did not have to . . . and even the dog likes Rammstein - well he would, he's a German Shepherd!

I completely agree with every word you say. Of course a young band who are gigging at weekends are not going to be able to stump up something like 1,000 for a monitoring system. In this case it is the venue who has to comply with the law and the venue who will get sued if there is hearing damage - so it is up to the venue to either ensure that every musician wears those hearing protectors that atenuate the overal sound level properly (and indeed are under a legal obligation to do so) or to provide a proper in-the-ear system. As in-the-ear is cheaper and easier to use than wedges, I am somewhat baffled by the resistence to its use by many - who are largely completely uninformed. Also I must point out that an employer is fully liable for any employee who is not wearing ear defenders.

Quite the opposite - the science of acoustics and psychoacoustics is very well studied indeed. The problems arise when people do not understand the science. The distortion-damage connection is a very typical example here of this happening. Acoustics is one of the more difficult branches of physics, but possibly the most interesting. What you refer to is the field of 'Integrated Noise Dosage' As far as I am aware the WHO refers to a level of 90dB(spl) over eight hours, 93dBA for four hours, 96 for two and 99 for one hour. These are SPL A-weighted values. Tinnitus usually occures at around 4kHz as this is the resonant frequency of the ear canal and is therefore the F to which we are most sensitive and therefore the F at which the cochlea are most easily damaged.

Hohner Pianet T. These things are just fantastic and easy to restore and tune. They are completely without any active electronics, so they all work all the time. They sound more like a Rhodes than a Rhodes if they are used with a guitar amp or the Pod. If the tines break, you can make new ones out of hacksaw blades. If the pads loose their stikyness, then you put fanbelt fat on them. This is a must-have instrument for evey band! Price? Well, we found ours in a skip. I spent one day restoring it (tuning, remagntising the tines, adding fan-belt fat to the pads)!

This is one of the two subjects in music that I feel strongly about (the other being schools like SAE and Full-Sail taking young people's money and destroying their future). Of all the senses you may loose or damage, your hearing may be the one that will effect you the most. Blind people lead full lives, use telephones, computers and are fully able to work just like everybody else. The same goes for every other disability - except deafness. My father went deaf and I could no longer talk to him. He could not use a telephone or even watch television. He could not hear the doorbell or talk to people in shops. He went deaf because as a young man he was exposed to loud noise - explosions during the War. When you go deaf, you are completely alone. Because this is such an important subject, I shall deal with some of the more foolish statements made that serve only to misinform and obfuscate. Who uses IEM? The only people I can think of who still do not use it are Iggy Pop and Till from Rammstein. Every other fully professional rock musician that I have ever seen uses IEM. If you want disability insurance, then you will have to use it. Every contract requires the artist to 'take reasonable measures to protect his or her health.' That means either keeping the volumes on stage right down, or using in-the-ear monitoring. The same goes for venue and event liability insurance. It may not state "Thou shalt use in-the-ear monitoring!" in the contract, but a claim made as a result of hearing loss when they were not used will be turned down. Who provides it? EVERY major PA company has a range of IEM sets as it is on the technical rider of just about every larger band out there. Is it difficult to set up? It is far, far, far easier to use than wedges. The only people who tell you it is difficult are people who have never used it. If you are mixing in digital (DiGiCo etc) then the very act of switching on the system sets up the monitoring in the way you had it for the last gig. For a touring band, then is a God-send, because IEM systems do not have to be altered to suite the venue. If you are a fixed venue, then you will have a set of presets according to the make-up of the act (four guitars and a drummer, three guitars, keys and drums etc.). If the signal path is all analogue, then you set up a series of stem mixes to feed the stage just as you do now, only they go to the transmitters. Is this only relevant, if you are a big rock star? Hell, no. A full set of transmitter and belt pack with additional phones and batteries can cost as little as 200. That comes to 800 for a four-piece band. Try getting a set of wedges and amplifiers for that kind of money. Do I need a monitor engineer? No, of course not. The best and easiest way to go is to have every musician use a small mixer that feeds just his or her monitor. This is fed by a series of stem mixes and possibly a split from his or her amp or mic. This is what we use in the studio and it works a treat and is the ideal solution for a small pub band, regardless of whether they use IEM or not. Yes the big boys all have their own monitoring crew, but then they always did - IEM has just made life easier for the monitor engineer, that's all! Do I need an aux-send and a separate transmitter for every musician on stage? Of course not! You just need as many transmitters as you have monitor mixes now. In other words, if the horn section all use one set of wedges right now with one mix on it, then you will need one transmitter. Of course every musician needs a receiver, but these are fairly cheap. Do I need moulded plugs? The soft ear-pieces cost pennies and come in all sizes and there really is no need for any special moulded plugs to be used, but if you feel the need, you can DIY them using plasticine to make a plaster mould and then form the plug out of silicon. All this talk about musicians having to use other peoples plugs is just silly. What about the law? Health and safety regulations state that you have to be within certain volume limits that vary according to the length of time of the exposure. By handing over total control of the on-stage volumes to the musicians and at the same time protecting them from any on-stage noise, you are complying with the law. Exposing them to 120dB (distorted or otherwise - the law is not fussy) even at their request, is to not comply with the law. So very soon, every promoter, venue and PA company will have no choice in the matter. Am I liable for any damage to hearing as a promoter or venue? If one of your employees is putting 120dBA on stage right now and the musician cannot control that volume, then yes you are - 100%. That means that if a venue is using wedges and a musician can prove that in part or in total, some hearing damage occurred whilst playing that venue, then you are leaving yourself wide-open to litigation. If feedback occurs, then this has already been used in an English court as an instance of negligence. IEM systems puts the volume control 100% in the hands of the musician. Do I need additional limiters and feedback killers? No, the ones you are using now for the monitor mixes will do exactly the same job and in the same way, for your IEM system. What about availability of frequencies? The IE4 D-Band system has 1,440 available channels. Even the very cheapest IEM systems are switchable between 16 frequencies. What about distortion and hearing damage? As I stated above, the law does not care whether noise comes from a church organ or a chain saw, but your ears do. The more distortion, the greater the likelihood of damage. However, a loud noise is still a loud noise and constant exposure to 120dBA, even if it is a pure sine wave, will cause some damage. Are IEM systems more or less likely to distort? The cheapest are more likely to distort because good headphone amps cost money. My suggestion would be to buy a cheap system and feed a separate 12V headphone amp from the same battery pack as the receiver. This does add slightly to the overall weight, but it is not much. This is what we do in the studio for the drummer. All other musicians just use the headphone output from the mini-mixers that we provide on a chunky music stand, but the drummer gets an additional small 12V amp so that I am 100% sure that he gets as completely clean signal when he cranks the volume to 11. Do I have to buy my own system? If I were a gigging musician and not working tours where that sort of thing (along with all the other bells and whistles) are provided, then I would definitely buy one of the better budget systems and add an amp and additional batteries and a spare set of phones and plugs etc., so that, no matter what happens, I know my hearing is protected. I would possibly add a mini-mixer to that, so that I have total control of my monitor mixes and can hear myself clearly as well. That would bring the total cost of protecting my hearing AND GETTING A PERFECT MIX EVERY TIME up to 250. If a venue or touring engineer pulls a long face, then I would just insist. I would definitely tell him or her that it is the proper and professional thing to do and by not using IEM, he is showing himself to be less than professional.

I am amazed! Wireless in-the-ear monitoring can cost as little as 150 and still there are people out there destroying their ears with screeming monitors that are driven to distortion. Then they say, ooh-err, I've damaged my hearing! Now what do I do? We have had in-the-ear monitoring for well over ten yeras now (prob. more like 20!) so there is no excuse. You have seen EVERY major act use them. Even Ozzy was told by his insurance that he had to use them. No matter how wild and crazy the act, they ALL use in-the-ear monitoring and so should you. Or are you telling me that your hearing is not worth 150? In-the-ear monitoring - 1. Is CHEAPER than a stage full of wedges. 2. Does away with feedback on stage. 3. Gets rid of phase problems on stage and therefore cleans up the sound. 4. Protects your ears. 5. Lets YOU set the level with a volume control right there on your belt-pack. Yes, bits of cheap foam is better than nothing, but only just. Get a proper set of fitted in-the-ear monitors and stop playing fast and loose with your health. I bet you don't belt fcuk out of your willy with a hammer, so why do that to your ears? Here are a few pages from the Thomann site, so that you can compare prices and features. Search Results - Page 1 - U.K. International Cyberstore

If you contact us, we'd be happy to oblige with a free sample! (And yes, it includes postage.)

I doubt it somehow! I have to admitt that I know nothing about Logic, but the only format that is guaranteed to be compatible to all DAWs is WAV. Older Logics and CuBase do not read broadcast WAV (i.e. time-stamped) so as the man said above, get them to provide you with the whole project as a series of WAV files that start and finish at the same time. If the sound files are not all starting and finnishing at the same time, just ask them to mark in and mark out the whole song at one time and click on the 'fill-silence' option. ALWAYS get a studio to hand over your project as a series of WAV files on a DVD-R. Here are some guide lines that I have taken from our website, on the subject of importing and exporting audio files: 1. All files as broadcast WAV or WAV files. These are the only formats that are universal to ALL hard-disk recorders. 2. DVD-R only. 3. ISO 9660 only (i.e. NOT 9660 + Joliet or 9660 : 1999) with ISO character set Standard and file name length at Level 1. Apples and PC burn software often defaults to 9660+ Joliet, which makes the file incompatible with most dedicated hard-disk recorders, so watch out for this one! 4. Burn speed x 4 max. 5. Each song in its own folder 6. Each track with a very short (never more than eight characters) title. So the kick drum can be K, the toms can be T1 T2 T3 and so on, snare top and bottom can be ST and SB, bass can just be B or BG and lead guitar is then just LG. There is never any need to write the title of the song onto each track title. Some transfer software programmes and some older DAWs just dump all letters after the eighth character, so going beyond eight characters can result in information getting lost. It is important that these titles are uniform, so the bass drum should have the same title or prefix for all songs.

It sounds as if you need an agent.

The are several pages of information and a page on exactly what happens in a recording session at www.the-byre.com

I have recorded people who smoke and people who do not smoke and in my experience (of some 38 years of recording vocals) is that there are only two differences that I have noticed: 1. Smokers are more likely to sing flat. 2. Smokers who sing a great deal often get cancer of the throat in later years.

Your first stop should be with the studio to sort this out. If the project is not delivered as a series of individual WAV files for each intrument, then they should see to it that it is. Something like this is probably just a misunderstanding of some sort. I cannot believe that any studio would intentionally supply you with all the multitrack files in this way. They either misunderstood your instructions or some simple mistake was made. Normally all projects are supplied to a customer as either WAV files of equal length or as so-called broadcast WAV files that carry a time stamp that every DAW will recognise and slot every recording automatically into the right place at the right time. It should be a one-button opperation, i.e. the import command should be all that the DAW opperator has to do. I also very much doubt that any studio would use Fostex hardware. If they cannot sort it out, call me as there is a very simple work around that I can talk you through.

Amazment I am completely amazed by this thread. For any studio, even a small demo room, to give you your files in this manner is complete incompetence at an extraordinary level. (I have to assume that what you have posted here is true.) Just for the record, I have cut and pasted our guide-lines for exporting wav files from our website (this is from the mix service page, but the principals are the same):- _______________________________________________________________________ When sending files to any studio (not just ours) here are the basic ground rules so that your project can be read by any of the usual DAWs: All files as broadcast WAV or WAV files. These are the only formats that are universal to ALL hard-disk recorders. DVD-R only. ISO 9660 only (i.e. NOT 9660 + Joliet or 9660 : 1999) with ISO character set Standard and file name length at Level 1. Apples and PC burn software often defaults to 9660+ Joliet, which makes the file incompatible with most dedicated hard-disk recorders, so watch out for this one! Burn speed x 4 max. Each song in its own folder Each track with a very short (never more than eight characters) title. So the kick drum can be K, the toms can be T1 T2 T3 and so on, snare top and bottom can be ST and SB, bass can just be B or BG and lead guitar is then just LG. There is never any need to write the title of the song onto each track title. Some transfer software programmes and some older DAWs just dump all letters after the eighth character, so going beyond eight characters can result in information getting lost. It is important that these titles are uniform, so the bass drum should have the same title or prefix for all songs. Check your export by opening a new project on your DAW and re-importing theWAV files. If they come up the way you want them to, then you have exported them correctly. ____________________________________________________________________- I hope this helps someone somewhere. You certainly have a legal right to receive your files in a manner that can be read by a PC or Mac. If you have any technical problems, call me (tel no on website at www.the-byre.com ). Sorry, but I am probably too far away from you to be of any practical assistance!

The SM57 and its brother the SM58 are the most popular mics on Planet Earth. The 57 is great for guitar cabs, a Neumann would not be great - anything but, in fact. The 57 is not so good for drums (Sennheiser 421s or Audix D series are better) but it still is a great all-round mic at a low price. The 58 is the best low-priced vocal mic out there, far better than the Beta and (IMO) second only to the Neumann KMS series for stage vocals. But back to the subject, try line out AND mic'ing it up (as mentioned above) and placing one signal all the way to the left and the other all the way to the right for a really BIG guitar sound. Eh, experiment!

It is not a tall order at all, but the majority of singer-songwriters looking for a career are totally unrealistic about the amount of effort, work, talent and dedication required. Most are completely convinced that they do not need singing lessons, music lessons and the like. Not for them the confines of using a metronome and playing scales. Dance lessons? Body building and fitness programme? The truth is that most would-be stars shrink in horror when they see what is required to become a successful stage and recording act. Britney Spears, Avril Lavine and Shania Twain may appear to be 'The Girl Next door' but they are all good musicians who have done more or less nothing else since they were eight or even earlier. This may sound somewhat negative and actually, the path to fame and fortune is not as hard or as hit-and-miss as most people would imagine. It does mean genuine commitment, just as any other profession. Just as nobody became a medical specialist, a lawyer or a construction engineer in their spare time, so the hopeful rock-star will never be able to become a rock-star on weekends. But I wish you the best of luck and remember to keep gigging. My advice for success in music? Don't give it a go, give it everything you've got!

Yes, I am generalising and yes, there are always exceptions to any 'rule' if indeed it is a rule. But this is a forum, not a book manuscript. What I was trying (and failing?) to say is that any lable, management, agency etc., is looking for is someone who is going to stay the course and not duck and run as soon as things start to get tough.

I meant by that, they will not touch you if you are a lawyer or have some other career that pays a good salery and has a well-defined career path. Obviously musicians need to eat, but if you are a dentist and cound be earning 60k, sleeping in the back of an unheated van on piles of unsold CDs in the South of Germany in mid-winter may not appeal to you. If you can tick all the boxes, getting signed is fairly easy. It is then that the hard part starts. Some lables are very supportive and provide hotels and tour dates and get you good instruments and orgaise your lives in general (all against advances on your forgivable debt of course!) and some do very little. Usually the majors are supportive and the small companies are less so. But that is not always the case, particularly if you are singed to a two- or three-deep lable (a lable that belongs to a lable that belongs to a lable). Most bands on getting signed, expect to be on Top of the Pops within weeks, months at the latest. In reality, it could be years before any real career starts to take off. Until then you end up supporting the lable's headliners until you can pull a couple of thousand bums onto seats on your own name. I can think of musicians who have spent decades working the second rung circuit before getting tours as headliners. Government Mule is one of my favorite bands right now and these guys have been around for God knows how long under different formations until they got to do their own tours. Ganddaddy is another. Both fantastic bands and well worth watching live BTW. These guys are well into middle age and are only now slowly making names for themselves. The Darkness did not come from nowhere suddenly - they had been slogging around Europe for twelve years before they were an 'overnight success.' There is also the Merillion and Arctic Monkeys question. In other words, is there in today's market, any point in having a lable pushing you when these guys did it without any lable support? Put it another way, if you can create a hype and a following, why bother with lables? The lables are interested in bands and other acts that can fill halls. But if you can fill halls, you have the means and finances to be your own lable. Conversely, if you cannot fill halls, no lable can help you. I think, on reflection, that if I were a young artist today and I had the chance, I would sign with a lable if it is a good lable that provides support and gives me at least a two-CD deal with touring and a set release date, both for the CDs and from the contract. It is, after all, a great way to learn the business and get started. But I would body-swerve these vanity publishing deals from Messers Dooee, Cheatem & Howe . . .

It's the other way about! They all studied music first. I should have added to my list, the industry is also looking for total commitment. If an artist even smells like having an alternative career, they will stay away from him / her / them as they were infected with something nasty.

Sorry Kielan, but you are not even close. It is one of the myths of the music business that you do not need talent. OK, some acts are more talented than others, but they all have oodles of talent. My favorite example is the Beasty Boys. Massive talent. They can do anything from hip-hop, cool jazz, through to Schubert.

Hold it kids! I've seen bands come and I've seen bands go over the past four decades or so - and one thing is certain. Each and every band that has reached a certain level will get looked at and apraised by the major lables. They are looking for 1. A following. 2. Talent. (i.e. the band is made of musicians who play at a professional standard). 3. GOOD TUNES. 4. Stage craft. 5. Photogenic looks. If you have ever played a major club or event, yoiu will have been looked at. They will ask themselves if the band on stage can tick those five boxes. Maybe you are so good that they might want you even if you do not have good tunes or if the drummer can't keep the beat. Tunes can be bought and you can throw out the poor drummer and get a good one.

Like the man said above, you have probably not grounded (earthed) the bridge. Get the old multi-meter out (no multi-meter? Shame on you!) and test that you have contact between ALL metal parts of the guitar AND that they are connected to the cable shield wire. If you cannot beg, steal or borrow a multi-meter, get any piece of cable and connect them all up one by one, until the buzzing goes away. Now you know which bit needs to be earthed / grounded and all you have to do is lift the plate (or whatever it happens to be) and put in a nice piece of cable that is not visable from the outside. This problem occures because either the player is using stereo cable or because someone has 'improved' the guitar with new pick-ups or something else and has not connected all the parts back together again.

. . . and don't use balanced (i.e. stereo) cable as a guitar lead.