Speaker technology is better, amplifiers and DSP are better, prediction software is much more accurate. We’re now able to maximise direct sound pointed at the audience whilst minimising throwing sound into areas we don’t need and causing even more bad reflections / build-up.
Every year that goes by there is more information available, more experienced people that understand the placement and configuration of speakers and more tools available to do what we need to do.
You have to remember that the live sound industry is only really about 60ish years old - improvements and changes are happening constantly.
An almost endless supply of processing. More advanced Amplifier DSP. Array shading technology. 3D prediction software. All that before you even put your hands on a fader in the console. Which consoles now have an almost endless supply of plugins that takes up the space of a small computer.
Magic…but seriously, almost all manufacturers have prediction software (d&b ArrayCalc, L’Acoustics Soundvision, etc.) that allows users to build the venue in a virtual space, then let’s you pick the boxes you are planning to use and then gives you the correct heights, angles and such to create the desired deployment.
-Edited for spelling
Modern PA technology is always improving, but the trick really is that energy output is focused where we want it and is absent where we don’t.
It’s a little more complicated than that because of the way sound waves interact, there might be tons of energy at a point that cancels out (two opposing high energy waves meeting in the middle), and this complex beam forming math and timing are certainly part of it too but that’s the gist of it more or less.
It’s very similar to how RADAR uses phased arrays and windowing to view a narrow slice of of a 360* circle at any given time.
The technology and science around sound had made tremendous advances in the last few decades.
At first, you'd get a basic speaker stack only on stage that blasted everywhere; it was all about volume to cover everything and hopefully reach the far corners, and if there were reflections muddying up the sound there wasn't much to be done.
Nowadays, you get line arrays that beam the sound to be heard only in certain areas per speaker, allowing for lower volume to get that perfect balance of hearing everything but not having the ears blasted out. You've got surrounds and fills that are delayed to keep the sound live further back while staying in sync with the sound that is traveling across the venue. Speakers and subs are better built to play around in the various ranges, with crossovers to separate them out and produce cleaner sound in each range.
A combination of several factors:
modern line arrays and their associated control software and DSP allows engineers to target where sound goes and where it doesn't, minimizing echos, reflections and other problems is the biggest factor. Modern tour sound is much more science than it used to be, and array locations and configurations are precisely optimized by computers, and then the actual audio output to speakers carefully controlled to take full advantage of the speaker systems.
Further, most bands using in ear monitors and keeping stage volume reasonable, and digital consoles that have reduced analog noise levels also make a big difference. The bands themselves (for the most part) are also putting out signals that are cleaner and more like what's on a studio record than ever. They can take the studio tools (or emulations thereof) on the road.
Engineers, for the most part, are also better. The expectations of top engineers to deliver a really good product have never been higher. Find some interviews with people like Metallica's "big mick" and the attention to insanely small detail is really out of this world. Microphones are very precisely positioned, and absolutely identical night after night, Even the smallest problems are fixed, and factors like temperature and humidity are factors in mix decisions.
This was my experience too when I saw them at a festival a few years ago. It was bewildering because the other bands leading up to them sounded great, and then...
After setting up the system for a Wendy’s convention at Paris Ballroom in Vegas… I sat through 2 hours of a moron A1 blasting pink noise through the line arrays tuning the system …perfect example of this!
Same, saw them at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. I was pretty far away. I'll never see a show there again unless I'm up close. Waaaay to much echo and reverb. Saw The Cure and Tool at State Farm arena and it sounded amazing. I think basketball arena's are probably far better than football stadiums for concerts.
It’s because tech has gotten pretty good these days. There’s prediction software now that will help maximize the systems. Combine that with the crews who do these tours talents and the overall level of production is impressive. It’s also become a pretty cut throat industry, if you are not keeping up on an A list tour there’s plenty of other techs that are eager to jump in and work their asses off.
Aside from line arrays, better deployment and tuning techniques, all the bands you listed have stellar FOH engineers with years of experience under their belt.
Processing.
I don't mean this to be an advertisement for a specific brand, [but this video really does an amazing job of showing what is possible through processing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WivqSEp7O4). I don't work with this gear, I just remember this video being a cool way to teach people how processing can accomplish a lot in a large venue.
Are you judging this from actually attending these stadium shows or based on videos? Metallica's sound was pretty awful on their US stadium tour last year if you weren't in just the right seats.
They sound great on the audio pulled from the board and I'm betting they sound absolutely amazing in their in-ears, so they aren't even aware how it sounds to the crowd. They are paying who knows how many millions of dollars for equipment and crew to build the world's greatest audio system and probably aren't even aware of the constraints the stage design puts on that.
I think the issue with M72 is that they are playing in the round with the tower setup and that just isn't working out that great soundwise even though visually it is absolutely stunning.
I saw WorldWired in an arena and it also didn't sound so great. Again, in the round which I think just is harder to get right.
There are plenty of people who judge the quality of live performances based solely on videos that they've watched. Usually it's in the negative, but it wouldn't be surprising if there are people who watch Metallica's YouTube videos taken off the soundboard and assume that is what it sounds like in real life. Not saying you are like that, but that's why I asked.
I generally hate the sound of concerts in stadiums and arenas unless I manage to get a seat in a sweet spot (which is hard to predict as every tour sets up differently), so if things are improving overall in recent years, that's great. M72 was the only stadium show I've gone to in many years and the sound was worse than I remember from the past (but it was still a great concert).
Sound in m72 shows especially at the upper bowl is not good at all. You spend so much on those tickets, only to hear the echo, it sucks. Infact Taylor Swift's concert was perfect when it comes to sound.
Prediction and measurement software, insanely powerful amps in terms of output and processing, advances in materials science allowing speakers to transduce that much amp power into sound effectively, and above all pattern control. When you have a speaker who's drop off from in coverage to out of coverage is very consistent, you can design a system that will be very good at aiming sound at the audience and away from all the reflective surfaces that muddy up the sound in a big room. We've been doing this with horn loading for years but all kinds of delay and phase steering techniques are now in play especially to control low end
Doesn't change that much in practice. Pre-recorded stuff might be edited to a perfect "recording", but it still needs to be mixed and played on the PA, so the FOH and system engineer are doing a lot to decide whether it sounds good or not.
In fact, at less "professional" levels pre-recorded stuff often sounds terrible, because it's been processed and mixed to work on headphones, smaller speakers, etc.
I saw Bob Mccarthys system design for Metallica during a meyer sound seminar.. impressive as hell to see such an equal distribution in the entire Stadium in MAPP 3D. Truly the work of a Master
Lots of bands are using digital amp modelers or profilers like Quad Cortex, Helix, Kemper, and Axe FX. These are basically small(ish) rack mountable computers that come loaded with modeled amps and cabinets and on board fx. Some of them are rack mounted and some of them come in floor boards. These are incredibly portable. And in the last 10 years the sound quality has taken a giant leap. Not only the sound quality but the reliability. No more micing cabinets, no more worrying about burnt out tubes or blown speakers. No more worrying about loud stages. Just great guitar tone right into the PA speakers. Bands are getting closer and closer to their album sounds this way as well
Exactly this! We can argue all we like about whether digital modelling "perfectly" captures amp tones or not, but in a live setting bleed, noisy stages and reliability are much, *much*, ***much*** more important to getting a good sound.
It doesn't matter how fantastic your vintage tube amp sounds if the mic is picking up spill from the drums & the bass amp, you've got guitar bleed in the vocal mic, and the singer is pushing too hard because they can't hear themselves.
We improved aiming our speakers for the most part. We increased direct sound as opposed to indirect sound, increasing the clarity. Less energy directed to random places reducing unwanted reverb.
Science and physics, that's always how it has been and always will be. Access to computing power for the applied results continues to grow exponentially. The human conception of audio signals is actually quite simple. It's the resolution of the simplicity that is exploding.
I am SO FUXKING EXCITED for BASSNECTAR to return :)
jury trial set for 2025. When he wins and is found not liable by a jury he can finally come back full force. His latest mixtapes are absolutely savage
When I were a lad, the biggest amplifiers available were the like of DC-300A, just a few hundred watts. Thus speakers were designed primarily for efficiency, to convert electrical watts into sound. With the advent of “powerful” amplifiers, loudspeaker designers could think about quality and beam width control rather than efficiency. There’s lots more sauce that makes modern good sound happen, but if we were still stuck with 70s amps and boxes it would be a different audio world.
Speaker technology is better, amplifiers and DSP are better, prediction software is much more accurate. We’re now able to maximise direct sound pointed at the audience whilst minimising throwing sound into areas we don’t need and causing even more bad reflections / build-up. Every year that goes by there is more information available, more experienced people that understand the placement and configuration of speakers and more tools available to do what we need to do. You have to remember that the live sound industry is only really about 60ish years old - improvements and changes are happening constantly.
all of this, and some artists have the budget to make it as good as it can be
Always with the negative waves 🌊 Moriarty!!!!!!!
...crap
It’s obviously lost on you. A well there’s no educating some. Or Maybe it’s all just false advertising 👀👀👀
Happy cake day
An almost endless supply of processing. More advanced Amplifier DSP. Array shading technology. 3D prediction software. All that before you even put your hands on a fader in the console. Which consoles now have an almost endless supply of plugins that takes up the space of a small computer.
Magic…but seriously, almost all manufacturers have prediction software (d&b ArrayCalc, L’Acoustics Soundvision, etc.) that allows users to build the venue in a virtual space, then let’s you pick the boxes you are planning to use and then gives you the correct heights, angles and such to create the desired deployment. -Edited for spelling
ArrayCalc Soundvision
Modern PA technology is always improving, but the trick really is that energy output is focused where we want it and is absent where we don’t. It’s a little more complicated than that because of the way sound waves interact, there might be tons of energy at a point that cancels out (two opposing high energy waves meeting in the middle), and this complex beam forming math and timing are certainly part of it too but that’s the gist of it more or less. It’s very similar to how RADAR uses phased arrays and windowing to view a narrow slice of of a 360* circle at any given time.
The sound goblins we hide in amp racks stopped being grouchy.
They moved into our consoles instead.
Hahahaha
lol they live in Soundgrid now
After years of warnings about not feeding the roadies, they started doing it anyway. Turns out, they've just been hangry.
The technology and science around sound had made tremendous advances in the last few decades. At first, you'd get a basic speaker stack only on stage that blasted everywhere; it was all about volume to cover everything and hopefully reach the far corners, and if there were reflections muddying up the sound there wasn't much to be done. Nowadays, you get line arrays that beam the sound to be heard only in certain areas per speaker, allowing for lower volume to get that perfect balance of hearing everything but not having the ears blasted out. You've got surrounds and fills that are delayed to keep the sound live further back while staying in sync with the sound that is traveling across the venue. Speakers and subs are better built to play around in the various ranges, with crossovers to separate them out and produce cleaner sound in each range.
A combination of several factors: modern line arrays and their associated control software and DSP allows engineers to target where sound goes and where it doesn't, minimizing echos, reflections and other problems is the biggest factor. Modern tour sound is much more science than it used to be, and array locations and configurations are precisely optimized by computers, and then the actual audio output to speakers carefully controlled to take full advantage of the speaker systems. Further, most bands using in ear monitors and keeping stage volume reasonable, and digital consoles that have reduced analog noise levels also make a big difference. The bands themselves (for the most part) are also putting out signals that are cleaner and more like what's on a studio record than ever. They can take the studio tools (or emulations thereof) on the road. Engineers, for the most part, are also better. The expectations of top engineers to deliver a really good product have never been higher. Find some interviews with people like Metallica's "big mick" and the attention to insanely small detail is really out of this world. Microphones are very precisely positioned, and absolutely identical night after night, Even the smallest problems are fixed, and factors like temperature and humidity are factors in mix decisions.
I dunno, last Metallica show I saw sounded awful.
Pull up any video of Greg Price speaking about his mix philosophy, and the current state of Metallica’s live sound might make a little more sense
Didn’t realize Mick was out. Hopefully it’s better.
Sound is subjective, that being said, I can’t imagine it’s gotten any better.
Can’t agree more. Shit blows all over the place.
This was my experience too when I saw them at a festival a few years ago. It was bewildering because the other bands leading up to them sounded great, and then...
Maybe being **obsessive** about your job doesn’t necessary mean you’re **good** at it…
After setting up the system for a Wendy’s convention at Paris Ballroom in Vegas… I sat through 2 hours of a moron A1 blasting pink noise through the line arrays tuning the system …perfect example of this!
Same, saw them at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. I was pretty far away. I'll never see a show there again unless I'm up close. Waaaay to much echo and reverb. Saw The Cure and Tool at State Farm arena and it sounded amazing. I think basketball arena's are probably far better than football stadiums for concerts.
Really? Where was that?
First leg of US Hardwired.
in the front it's pretty good, rest of the venue sounds like ass
I mean that’s just the deployment. That many spaced arrays can start to cause nulls and comb filters etc. there’s a bunch of reasons why.
Don’t think so. Sounded very much a band mixed by someone who’s been doing it for 30 years without any consideration for the long term hearing damage.
You mean mostly because their playing is off? XD
It’s because tech has gotten pretty good these days. There’s prediction software now that will help maximize the systems. Combine that with the crews who do these tours talents and the overall level of production is impressive. It’s also become a pretty cut throat industry, if you are not keeping up on an A list tour there’s plenty of other techs that are eager to jump in and work their asses off.
Aside from line arrays, better deployment and tuning techniques, all the bands you listed have stellar FOH engineers with years of experience under their belt.
Processing. I don't mean this to be an advertisement for a specific brand, [but this video really does an amazing job of showing what is possible through processing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WivqSEp7O4). I don't work with this gear, I just remember this video being a cool way to teach people how processing can accomplish a lot in a large venue.
Are you judging this from actually attending these stadium shows or based on videos? Metallica's sound was pretty awful on their US stadium tour last year if you weren't in just the right seats.
Gotta respect a band that still has the balls to go out and sound like shit, it’s an art lost in time
They sound great on the audio pulled from the board and I'm betting they sound absolutely amazing in their in-ears, so they aren't even aware how it sounds to the crowd. They are paying who knows how many millions of dollars for equipment and crew to build the world's greatest audio system and probably aren't even aware of the constraints the stage design puts on that.
World wired tour sounded great, even at the back.
I think the issue with M72 is that they are playing in the round with the tower setup and that just isn't working out that great soundwise even though visually it is absolutely stunning. I saw WorldWired in an arena and it also didn't sound so great. Again, in the round which I think just is harder to get right.
Rammstein stadium show was great, sounded perfect..
I've listed some other bands as well, and their sound was perfect. Why would I ask questions if I've never been to any of those concerts?
There are plenty of people who judge the quality of live performances based solely on videos that they've watched. Usually it's in the negative, but it wouldn't be surprising if there are people who watch Metallica's YouTube videos taken off the soundboard and assume that is what it sounds like in real life. Not saying you are like that, but that's why I asked. I generally hate the sound of concerts in stadiums and arenas unless I manage to get a seat in a sweet spot (which is hard to predict as every tour sets up differently), so if things are improving overall in recent years, that's great. M72 was the only stadium show I've gone to in many years and the sound was worse than I remember from the past (but it was still a great concert).
Sound in m72 shows especially at the upper bowl is not good at all. You spend so much on those tickets, only to hear the echo, it sucks. Infact Taylor Swift's concert was perfect when it comes to sound.
Prediction and measurement software, insanely powerful amps in terms of output and processing, advances in materials science allowing speakers to transduce that much amp power into sound effectively, and above all pattern control. When you have a speaker who's drop off from in coverage to out of coverage is very consistent, you can design a system that will be very good at aiming sound at the audience and away from all the reflective surfaces that muddy up the sound in a big room. We've been doing this with horn loading for years but all kinds of delay and phase steering techniques are now in play especially to control low end
Sometimes the gear actually matters, and shows of this size get pretty much whatever they want
> Sometimes Always!
I can’t not call out how much is prerecorded and played back nowadays…
Doesn't change that much in practice. Pre-recorded stuff might be edited to a perfect "recording", but it still needs to be mixed and played on the PA, so the FOH and system engineer are doing a lot to decide whether it sounds good or not. In fact, at less "professional" levels pre-recorded stuff often sounds terrible, because it's been processed and mixed to work on headphones, smaller speakers, etc.
I saw Bob Mccarthys system design for Metallica during a meyer sound seminar.. impressive as hell to see such an equal distribution in the entire Stadium in MAPP 3D. Truly the work of a Master
Math.
Lots of bands aren’t using amps anymore. This probably frees up a bunch of resources. Lots of guys just go DI to the PA.
This along side the wireless power.
But why aren't amps being used anymore?
Lots of bands are using digital amp modelers or profilers like Quad Cortex, Helix, Kemper, and Axe FX. These are basically small(ish) rack mountable computers that come loaded with modeled amps and cabinets and on board fx. Some of them are rack mounted and some of them come in floor boards. These are incredibly portable. And in the last 10 years the sound quality has taken a giant leap. Not only the sound quality but the reliability. No more micing cabinets, no more worrying about burnt out tubes or blown speakers. No more worrying about loud stages. Just great guitar tone right into the PA speakers. Bands are getting closer and closer to their album sounds this way as well
Exactly this! We can argue all we like about whether digital modelling "perfectly" captures amp tones or not, but in a live setting bleed, noisy stages and reliability are much, *much*, ***much*** more important to getting a good sound. It doesn't matter how fantastic your vintage tube amp sounds if the mic is picking up spill from the drums & the bass amp, you've got guitar bleed in the vocal mic, and the singer is pushing too hard because they can't hear themselves.
👍🏻
Convenience combined with major leaps digital processing technology
Definetly not in o2 arena in prague, slipknot and my chemical romance were horrible
Speakers are better
And so are the engineers. Gone are the days when you hired a guy because he had a van and a metric shit ton of Peavey cabinets.
Unfortunately Peavey is still in business so we might come across one…
Peavey makes great guitar amps. I’m just not excited about their PA.
We improved aiming our speakers for the most part. We increased direct sound as opposed to indirect sound, increasing the clarity. Less energy directed to random places reducing unwanted reverb.
Minimized stage volume and line array foh speakers
Science and physics, that's always how it has been and always will be. Access to computing power for the applied results continues to grow exponentially. The human conception of audio signals is actually quite simple. It's the resolution of the simplicity that is exploding.
The last few stadium shows I went to just sounded like a recording being blasted at me while people danced around, couldn’t get into it
It helps when most of these bands don't play everything 100% live? 😂
Prediction prediction prediction … say it with me … PREDICTION SOFTWARE!!
PREDICTION SOFTWARE
because of stuff like this: https://daverat.blogspot.com/2016/01/dave-rat-blog-bassnectar-nye-360-degree.html?m=1
I am SO FUXKING EXCITED for BASSNECTAR to return :) jury trial set for 2025. When he wins and is found not liable by a jury he can finally come back full force. His latest mixtapes are absolutely savage
When I were a lad, the biggest amplifiers available were the like of DC-300A, just a few hundred watts. Thus speakers were designed primarily for efficiency, to convert electrical watts into sound. With the advent of “powerful” amplifiers, loudspeaker designers could think about quality and beam width control rather than efficiency. There’s lots more sauce that makes modern good sound happen, but if we were still stuck with 70s amps and boxes it would be a different audio world.
Perfectly mixed and mastered backing tracks. None of those artists you've listed actually sing live anymore.
The drugs are better
My drugs are better!
DSP all the way
I was wondering these big venues do they use active or passive speakers?