Entertainment For Lively Minds
Lemmy and the mixing stick - fact or fiction?
Posted by Mousey on 31 March 2010 - 10:41am.
Mention of Lemmy saying "just make everything louder than everything else" over on another post reminded me of a story told to me by a sound engineer friend - which may be common knowledge, I don't know, I'm not exactly a Motorhead fan. So forgive me if you've heard it.
Apparently the sound mixer at M'head gigs has a long stick which lies across the desk horizontally at the bottom of the faders. At the appropriate point in the show Lemmy growls in to the mic "time for the mixing stick" and the engineer simply pushes every single fader up to 11.
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Ive seen em a couple of times
and -stick or no -yes, it happens.
To cheek flapping effect.
It must have happened when I saw them...
and it was time for Ace of Spades. The single loudest noise I have ever heard in my life.
Given that the individual track faders control
relative, and not absolute, gain then the FOH sound guy would be better off just lifting the master volume faders to 11 and leaving the mix as is.
Mind you, at that sort of volume, the fine details of the mix do become somewhat irrelevant :-)
There must be a million Motorhead stories...
... but one I know to be true is that when they played the closing night at the West Runton Pavilion (1983?), in tribute to the venue that would host Motorhead when no-one else would, patrons of the pub 200 yards away couldn't hear themselves speak for the noise...
The All-Day Heavy Metal Brain Damage Party
in 1979-80(?) at Stafford Bingley Hall was headlined by Ver 'Head.
Bingley Hall was a huge cattle market not unlike an aircraft hanger with big sliding double doors at the front. These were left open and during Motorhead's set I walked through them and away across the grass outside. Even then I could still feel the sound pressure on my chest.
I reckon it remains the loudest sound I've ever heard - truly awe inspring :-)
further to my thread on hearing aids
surely lemmy et al must be stone deaf
Any musician with any sense uses decent ear protection on stage
Imagine my delight...
.... as a callow youth when I was able to secure FRONT ROW seats to see Motorhead at the Edinburgh Playhouse.
Then imagine my dismay when I realised said seat was so far to the side of the stage it was directly in front of the PA stacks. I was partially deaf in my left ear for days afterwards
Motorhead, Brixton, 1998
Undeniably the loudest 2 hours of my life.
I was about halfway back so assume I was in the area of 'optimum' sound quality if not volume.
Within about 15 minutes my ears felt as though they'd been stuffed with cotton wool such was the effect of the soundwaves battering them.
After about 45 minutes I began to realise I could hear the small sounds behind the immense but now muffled volume, if you see what I mean. For instance I could hear Lemmy's pick grating against the windings of his bass strings. I could hear drum pedal squeaks etc.
All of which I found fascinating.
Woke up the following day, a Saturday, and endured ringing in my ears until the Monday.
Loved it. Wouldn't go and see them again in a million years.
I chickened out of going to se them in about 1984.
Pompey Guildhall. In the days when the PA stacks were just that - bas bins at the bottom, big pile of horns on top, tweeters on them, great big rope over the top to hold all in place.
Gary said he's still never seen stacks like it. And people were putting their heads in the bass-bins.
The crowd's cry at the end of each song? "Turn it up!"
He still thinks Quo were louder. And I know Them Crooked Vultures were the loudest thing I've ever experienced.
My mate Chris...
...once fell asleep with his head in one of the bass bins at a Motorhead show. Lemmy mentioned it during an interview on the radiogram once. He's now, um, a sound engineer. Chris, not Lemmy.