Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Healthy, Safe & Engaging: Sound Loudness & Level Basics For Churches
ProSoundWeb: For many churches, live music plays a pivotal role in the modern worship experience. This can often lead to contention between musicians, leadership, and members of the congregation about “how loud is too loud.” Some might want the mix to be louder, some might think it’s too loud, and others might feel it’s fine the way it is. This highlights the subjective nature of loudness perception – and if someone feels uncomfortable, who are we to tell them they’re wrong?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This was a really fascinating article that helped clear up some terminology that gets thrown around with sound and hearing protection. I talk about this on day 1 of my scenery stagecraft when it comes to hearing protection. Sometimes the more harmful sounds don't actually physically hurt your ears the way the radial arm saw or other equipment might. The short 'puff' of air from a pneumatic stapler can cause a significant amount of damage over time, without really causing physical harm in the moment. On the flip side, I like the approach of sound over a certain amount of time, or the "Equivalent Continuous Sound Level". Another thing that this article notes is that not all frequencies are created equally, and that different bands need to be treated with different levels of care. This is, again, why we talk about how noise reducing headphones are not a substitute for rated hearing protection, since they don't block out the more harmful higher frequencies. I think this is great for anyone to understand, not just audio folks!
Post a Comment