When thinking about earplugs for concerts, it's a good idea to get the kind that are specifically for music. The industrial kind often takes out mids and lows while keeping a higher sounds, so it makes what you hear weird. Usually musician's earplugs cut out everything as evenly as possible.

Bars are really loud places to begin with. All the people shouting, talking and having a good time is loud. If you want music to cover that, it has to be louder.

When musicians were just starting to get electrified, the only way to get that warm overdriven or a good distortion was to turn your amp or your speakers to 10. Even a really small amp(50 watts) produces a big sound turned all the way up. Now we have distortion boxes for that stuff, but people expect that loud sound, and often musicians still get that sound the old fashion way, by simply cranking it up all the way.

Lastly, musicians themselves are horrible. They often want to hear themselves, so they crank up their sound until they are heard over everyone else.

Quote: Original post by Codeka

Quote: Original post by phantom
However, in my experiance of pubs the music often isn't that loud, more like a back ground noise you have to strain to really hear, because one of the primary reasons for beign in a pub is to talk while drinking.

I think that's a U.K. thing. We don't really have pubs like you guys do (which is a shame, in my opinion, since I like the atmostphere in a "traditional" U.K. pub).

That's not to say the quiet pub doesn't exist at all in Australia, but it's not the normal state of affairs at least.

Get out of Sydney, man. Melbourne has a whole flock of quiet pubs. It's one of those culture differences they always talk about between Sydney and Melbourne.


And has anyone else seen Mogwai in concert? Loud as f:)k, but incredible fidelity in the sound.

Quote: Original post by _goat
Get out of Sydney, man. Melbourne has a whole flock of quiet pubs. It's one of those culture differences they always talk about between Sydney and Melbourne

I did that move recently, and was pleasantly surprised by the culture difference down here. Glad to see poker machines haven't killed the live music scene down here either (and haven't forced their way into every single damned venue that serves alcohol).

There's still plenty of tiny venues with BIG volume, but even these tend to have outdoor seating where you can escape the noise ;)

Quote: Original post by _goat
Get out of Sydney, man. Melbourne has a whole flock of quiet pubs. It's one of those culture differences they always talk about between Sydney and Melbourne.

This is quite possible. I've only been to Melbourne briefly, and never got a chance to stop by any pubs...

Try some jazz or acoustic clubs. Seriously. The musicians I've seen are so much better.

Quote: Original post by Binomine
Even a really small amp(50 watts) produces a big sound turned all the way up.

A 50 watt guitar (tube) amp is "really small"? Yikes. A Vox AC30 can handle any situation; at smaller venues, it's more than loud enough (even an AC15 is pretty damn loud). At larger venues, it needs to be miked anyway. Unless you're AC/DC running everything through a massive array of cabinets, the 100+ Watt amps are truly ridiculous.

Quote: Try some jazz or acoustic clubs. Seriously. The musicians I've seen are so much better.

Best show I've seen recently was on

>this tour. They were playing at a rock venue (at least in Berlin), though.

I've heard a rumour that pubs and night clubs turn up their volume gradually during the evening, in order to make people order more drinks. If the volume is higher, people have to talk louder/yell more, and that makes their throats soar, which makes them order more beverages.

I'm a bit sceptic, but a friend of mine who has worked at a night club confirmed this. Still not sure though.. sounds more like someone has been playing around with statistics and correlations. :)

Well, whatever the reason, when the volume goes up, I leave. I enjoy going to a local bar after work to chat with friends/colleagues. I have no idea why the music is turned up to such a degree that I can't even converse with the person sitting next to me.

My opinion is that if they don't play music that I like, I don't want to focus on it and thus don't want it loud.

If I like the music, I only want to focus on it for some ten minutes or so, and then backoff again to quiter locations in that club so I can have conversations (or not; I can really enjoy no talk at all) about things and other stuff with friends and more unknown entities.

there is a rule about bars that if they're not completely full, and the music is not loud, people will leave because they feel alone. if the music is loud enough, they won't notice that they're alone and stay, till the bar is filled.

but there are different forms of 'loud', and obviously there's a too-loud.

what we use at the bar of a friend is an automatic volume adjust so we can have the music sound rather loud, but not be that loud. similar to the way radio compresses music for that.

this allows for a quite 'full' background environment, so that people never feel left alone.

at our clubs, music is comparable not-loud, as we're regulated to be below 100db or so (don't remember right now). when we go out of switzerland f.e. to germany, we're always impressed in how ****ing loud it is out there :)

but i prefer myself high quality sound systems, that aren't that loud, in clubs. much more immersive.

i'm myself a dj and music producer, and i'm one of those guys who don't use amazingly loud monitors in clubs. i care about my ears (not with plugs, but that's really not that needed around here).