The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67943   Message #1145430
Posted By: GUEST,idb@ihug.co.nz
24-Mar-04 - 10:24 PM
Thread Name: Review: Steeleye Span and Ralph McTell
Subject: RE: Review: Steeleye Span and Ralph McTell
On the negative side the sound mix was a shocker. Overloaded on the bass and drums, too little on the lead guitar and probably a tad too much on the fiddle. The instruments needed to be balanced up and the volume reduced then the vocal mics all needed to come up, especially Rick Kemps. Then and only then should the master have been brought up to the earsplitting folk rock level that we all knew and loved in the 70's.

Something that young sound techs probably don't appreciate is that as we age our ability to hear the voice frequencies 2-4kHz deteriorates so any overloading on the bassy side tends to mask the upper frequencies. At the risk of offending some of the audience the average age would have been in excess of ummmmmm - 40? so perhaps the sound mix should also have been biased towards the higher frequencies.

Positives were a good set in terms of choice of songs and tunes, Peter Knight is still a great fiddler, Thomas the Rhymer was a blast and Gaudete more than made up for The Wren which crashed and burned!

Oh and not forgetting it was a folkies party that took over the Bruce Mason center - good to see so many friends.

Ian