Do you play loud?

[Tone2TheBone]

Finger's Bassman thread got me to thinking about this.

(I'm just going to cut and paste an email I sent someone about this.)

"From what I read at the Fret (and most other guitar forums) it seems to me that most players nowadays don't play all that loud anymore. Everyone is always talking about getting the best possible tone at the lowest possible volumes and everyone seems to want to go out and buy small amps with low wattage output or buy amp attenuators. I can understand why don't get me wrong. But back when I was a kid growing up it was customary to play your amp loud. I mean you HAD to ya know? Friends come over to your house…BLAMMMM BWONNNG BLUUUUUU…it was loud. When you finally got into a band you better believe you were going to have to play loud. I think the reason is today that most of the people that post on internet forums are bedroom players. That's my guess. What do you think?

As for me when I'm home with the kids around I play loud. My amps are always about half way on master volume and to ME that is being conservative. In my younger days **** I used to freakin' crank that ****. Shock your friends and scare them to death volume! I love to fill the HOUSE with guitar tone. It's not so much a blaring loud amp but I go for filling up air space with guitar…so in order to fill up that space I turn it up. I have a BIG sound at home and when I play at my neighbor's house when we jam. I guess most bedroom players don't do that anymore. Maybe most of them have babies or they live in apartments. My neighbor plays loud too. Maybe it's just that we live in the country where your neighbors are far enough away?"

Late at night I do play softly or through the POD headphones. But any other time it's pretty loud. At least louder than what I think most people play at.

So do you play loud anymore or not?

 

[Robert]

I play loud when I'm home by myself. Both my amps can sound pretty good at low volumes too, but the Hellhound especially, it loves to be cranked - like a good old tube amp should...

 

[Spudman]

I there really any other way? ude:

I still jam with guys that don't have the best control or dynamics so it forces me to be loud, obnoxiously so. Otherwise, I can play loud cleanly meaning it doesn't sound cluttered or jumbled. I can find my spot in between what others are playing and use dynamics.

That said my general preference is just to play loud enough for the amph to work well. To breathe so to speak. That can be loud, but I also have control and (hopefully) some ability as to how to use the volume with taste. Is it loud? Ya it is compared to bedroom volumes but it isn't loud for every song or every part of a song so it doesn't fatigue as badly as old school balls-to-the-walls loud used to.

Playing a little quieter also helps to allow me to get the guitar into the P.A. mix.

 

[warren0728]

you know what they say...."if you can't play good...play loud"

i play REALLY loud!! ude:

ww

 

[t_ross33]

I tend to keep it moderate at home, whether jamming or practicing. Our gigs tend to get louder as the evening progresses and we generally ramp up from country to rock ude:

Volume does have an impact on dynamics. I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately after watching some Reverend Billy F. Gibbons live clips on YouTube. He doesn't play with a real heavy hand, yet his guitar tone is so freakin' SWEET! You can feel it, even through crappy laptop speakers!

I've heard that tone is all in the hands, but I think there is a sweet spot where pick attack, guitar output and amp drive all meets to produce those heavenly tones we're all chasing.

Playing loud tends to get the blood pumpin' too and makes for a more energetic experience, live or at home. But I still catch heck cuz the Missus can't hear the TV upstairs, so I keep it "neighborhood friendly" as much as possible

Trev

 

[pes_laul]

well my parents dont really like me playing loud though my step dads cool he'll come in and just start turning up the volume but when the parents leave i crank itude:

 

[pie_man_25]

yeah, like pes laul, my father doesn't minbd about loud when nobody else is home, but my mother, oh LORD, if she can hear me outside my room with my door closed, there's HELL to pay, but when I'm the only one home, I say:

**** my parents, **** the neighbours **** the possibilities of ear cancer **** you I'm ****ing pisssed fukkity **** **** ****!!!!!!!!

and pound the ground with my warwick fullstack untill the cops come over.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

you know what they say...."if you can't play good...play loud"

i play REALLY loud!! ude:

ww

I keep it down at home at night, but when I can, I follow the above advice. I am working so that I can play tastefully and cleanly loud someday like Obi Wan Spud above.

 

[Robert]

Hey Pieman, your signature is ridiculously long! (vertically speaking). The signature is longer than most of your posts...

 

[Jimi75]

At home I play just normal level so I won't disturb the neighbours.
At the rehearsal we play "ridiculous loudness"!

With the Blues band it is so loud that I feel every note I play.
With the Metal Band it is bone shaking.

BUT - I use professional customized ear plugs to protect my hearing.

:R

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

I play as loudly as I can get away with, which means not too loud as I live in a townhouse, but we have a decent basement so it is louder than bedroom volume.

Unless my wife wants it quiet, then I use my tonelab with headphones.

I had a dream a few nights ago that I had a vintage car (like the 30-40's)
from back in the days when they had built-in amphs. The amph was where the radiator should be. I realized that this was so you could take a lovely country drive & then pull over & play balls-to-the-trees (knees-to-the-trees?).

I gotta get me that car.

 

[warren0728]

hmmm....that could be just the mod i'm looking for for my '54 ford! :AOK:

ww

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

hmmm....that could be just the mod i'm looking for for my '54 ford! :AOK:

ww

Put a '54 Fender amph in there & have someone drive it while you stand on the roof & ... tear the roof off'a that suckah!

 

[Spudman]

BUT - I use professional customized ear plugs to protect my hearing.

:R

What exactly do you use? I've never been happy with off the shelf ear plugs, but I'd be willing to make the investment if I knew what to get.

 

[Jimi75]

What exactly do you use? I've never been happy with off the shelf ear plugs, but I'd be willing to make the investment if I knew what to get.

I went to a professional audio shop here in Germany. They made an otoplastic of my ears. I guess the term otoplastic should be the same in English. Otoplastic is an imprint of your ear which is made with a pasty liquid.

Then I could chose between two forms of which I chose the Concha form, whcih is a form that is especially made for singers. As you move your jaw while singing normal protection opens up alittle bit with every movement. The Concha stays flexible and moves with the up and down movement of the jaw.

I have no loss of high or low frequencies with this protection and my hearing is still perfect. I go to the doctor's once a year to check if everything is okay.

The custom-fit hearing protection cost me around 180€ whcih is approx. 250 USD, but it was worth the money and I feel better than my band colleagues who still do not use any ear protection.

 

[Tone2TheBone]

I went to a professional audio shop here in Germany. They made an otoplastic of my ears. I guess the term otoplastic should be the same in English. Otoplastic is an imprint of your ear which is made with a pasty liquid.

Then I could chose between two forms of which I chose the Concha form, whcih is a form that is especially made for singers. As you move your jaw while singing normal protection opens up alittle bit with every movement. The Concha stays flexible and moves with the up and down movement of the jaw.

I have no loss of high or low frequencies with this protection and my hearing is still perfect. I go to the doctor's once a year to check if everything is okay.

The custom-fit hearing protection cost me around 180€ whcih is approx. 250 USD, but it was worth the money and I feel better than my band colleagues who still do not use any ear protection.

Maybe I should look into something like that. I know my hearing has diminished over the years. It's just fun as hell playing big though. :AOK:

 

[Bloozcat]

Well, I like to play loud when no one else is around, because some of my amps just need to be cranked to get the tone I like. And this is probably at the heart of the issue.

Like most, I started with small amps when I was younger. But I always wanted big and loud. It's what rock n' roll was, LOUD! My guitar heroes might have played through smaller amps in the studio, but when I saw them in concert, they were all playing in front of a wall of sound. Add to that the fact that I was not as well informed about amps then as I am now, and that only compounded the problem. After a short while, it became clear that I couldn't play really loud if I didn't want to get kicked out of every bar or club I played in. So, the way I compensated was by using pedals through my overly powerful amps -all sorts of pedals - to chase down that elusive tone I was looking for without the ear splitting volume. That was ok for a while, but it wasn't the ultimate solution.

Finally, things came full circle, back to smaller tube amps. It may have been just the maturing as a musician that led me there. The quality of the music and the tone became the main goals instead of them being a secondary by-product of volume. I still like to use certain pedals, but now they're used as nice enhancements to the tone goal, and not as a panacea to compensate for a greater problem.

I guess to sum it up, it's about orchestrating the music now, rather than bludgeoning it into submission through high volume.

 

[stingx]

So do you play loud anymore or not?

Yes...and proud! :AOK:

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Yes...and proud! :AOK:

Alright man that's what I wanna hear! (as he leans forward trying to listen to what was said) :R

 

[Algonquin]

This is something I've never thought of to tell the truth.

I like cranking the stereo in the car when a song I like comes on, I remember cranking up the home stereo for Billy Talent II 'Devil in a Midnight Mass' last summer to a really unacceptable level by most neighbors standards, but haven't thought about the guitar.

Now don't laugh here, but I looked at what I had the amp set at yesterday to what I considered pretty loud, and it was at '1' :thwap:

The saying 'If it's too loud, you're too old' came to mind.

Now where did I put my Bifocals?

 

[Katastrophe]

As a younger man, in band practice, we set our amps loud enough to stun large animals and melt any birds that happened to fly by. I have some hearing loss on the left side to show for it.

These days, with Baby Kat in the house, I have to keep it fairly quiet, unless I travel somewhere else. When I get the chance to play out, it's as loud as I can get away with. It is rock n' roll, after all.

When I get the house to myself, I've been digging turning the amph up to 2 or 3 on the clean channel and letting all the natural reverb from the hardwood floors color the sound. It's awesome!

 

[Spudman]

Now don't laugh here, but I looked at what I had the amp set at yesterday to what I considered pretty loud, and it was at '1' :thwap:

The saying 'If it's too loud, you're too old' came to mind.

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: Oh, what did you expect? lol

 

[Algonquin]

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: Oh, what did you expect? lol

Well... I guess getting old is better than the alternative!

 

[helliott]

I'm going to sound like a very old fart now, but this needs to be said. I have considerable hearing loss in both ears, thanks to a lack of care in younger years. Half stacks, full stacks, 60-watt boutique babies cranked up to 7, pretty much the whole thing, way back to a busted up Fender Tremolux at 10 and mic'd to the ninth degree, through the monitors, too.
I love it loud, to this day. And I can't honestly say I have many regrets. But, I'd still counsel younger players to look ahead as well as back. Wear those plugs, even if it makes you feel like you're missing something, as it does me, now.
Just my old fart's view, for what it's worth.

 

[oldguy]

Just loud enough to "thump yer chest" real good, if my ears ring, as in tinnitus pre..... it's too loud. On the rare occasion I'm still playing out live these days, I run it through the PA, and monitor myself to get a good level.
I try to match the amp to the size of the venue. I don't need more than the EpiValveJr in my living room, and I don't need more than 40w through the PA for most gigs.

 

[Plank_Spanker]

I generally don't play very loud. At practice and gigs, I play loud enough for a comfortable drive and feel from the amps, but it's not roaring. When the wife is out of the house, I'll unbridle the Germino and let it rip for a while - just because it sounds so freakin' good and it's fun to get that sweet feedback going at will.

I use my Germino to dispel the "need a hundred watt amp" myth. It's 40 watts, but at full roar it's ripping the hair off of your head. I've let a few kids play through it to experience it personally.

 

[jasongins]

I actually can't stand it loud, at least in my house. In fact, most of my playing now is done with my Line 6 Toneport GX and headphones at a moderate level. If I get to the level of performing live, I imagine I will need some ear protection.

 

[Big_Rob]

But of course!!! And I catch hell for it ude:

 

[Brian Krashpad]

Hell yeah I play loud.

Not deafening, that just sounds like ***.

But loud?

Feck yeah.

 

[t_ross33]

Feck yeah.

Oh man, KP you must be another long lost brother! :rotflmao:

I've been using the above F# in emails to my bandmates for the last year or so to get past the email censors :bootyshake: 2 cool!



Trev