Venues with Sound limiters

[RobbieD 0]

I think we need to make more use of this section to warn each other of problem venues.

 

Something that we all hate is sound limiters, so I though it would be useful to list these as we find them.

 

I normally try to avoid venues with these, but in the past couple of years I have come across the following:

Burnham Village Hall, near Slough:

A very nice large hall with a stage. The limiter operates an orange ball on the far wall opposite the stage. I found that the level was set very high, and even running at quite high levels for a wedding, I hardly managed to get the orange ball to light at all. Therefore this limiter was no problem.

 

Floyd's Bar, Charlton Athletic FC, South East London:

Decorated in a 1980’s sports bar style, with a dedicated raised dancefloor surrounded by railings. The problem is that the management make you set up in the corner near the main entrance facing tables of seated guests and around 20 feet from the dancefloor. This is because these are the sockets controlled by the limiter. The bargraph display of the limiter is also behind you, making it hard to keep an eye on. It is set at such a level the people on the dancefloor over the other side find it hard to hear the music above the background noise of people talking. I had a night of continuous complains about not being able to hear the music on the dancefloor, and even tripped the limiter once! One to avoid.

 

The Ivy House pub, Peckham, South East London:

Hidden in the back streets of Peckham, the back rooms are surprisingly large, and have a 1990’s light rig installed (ie pin spots, scanners and some old twisters) as well as a couple of large (18” + horn?) speakers flown either side of the stage. This has the bar graph type limiter on the wall opposite the stage. When I asked the manager, he told me it was only for live bands, and I found that I could run at a high level (18th birthday) before getting the top lights to light.

 

OK, lets hear of other venues with sound limiters.

 

[paula 0]

Maxilla Hall, Maxilla Walk. W10

Worst place on earth, the caretaker won't let you in early to set up so your setting up as the party goers arrive and the place stinks like a toilet......some sort of darts hall.........and as for the sound limiter

 

(still to traumatised to talk about it)

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/thumbdown.gif

[robbiedj 0]

The Chestnut Tree, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton E10

 

Upstairs function room quite nice, but access better via fire escape, which leads directly to car park, than through bars.

 

Tripped sound limiter once, which also tripped fuse box and cut off most of pub supply. http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/oops.gif

 

Looked at bottom corner of stage and noticed switch marked "limiter" so turned it off. http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/whistling.gif

 

Problem solved. (Nobody noticed I had done it!)

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/071.gif

[pareshj 0]

Burnham Beeches Hotel

Slough

 

they have a very sensitive one so I'm worried about my next gig there, if anyone has any ideas for soundproofing putty or similar, please let me know

 

Thanks

[DJ Marky Marc 0]

gaffa tape over the mic slows the buggers down...

 

or a can of that expanding foam stuff you get to fill gaps in brick work..... http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/whistling.gif

[cj_65 0]

Don't seem to get many of them up here in Glasgow - thank goodness.

Must be a lot of residents complaining down South??? Plus a lot of

the venues up here were built around 1800 so thick walls

and high ceilings - some great old dance halls.

 

8)

[YourBigEvent 0]

Bancourt Hotel, Torquay

[ollygeorge 0]

Sound limiters here are usally connected to a mains plug which cuts out if tripped,

 

Solution, plug in behind the bar!!!!!

 

Jobs a good un http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/thumbup.gif

[Kingy 0]

OR, if you know its there, politely turn down the gig!

[YourBigEvent 0]

Or, take a smaller set up and blame it on the limiter that you can only push 200w

[RobbieD 0]

QUOTE (Kingy @ Mar 24 2005, 10:28 PM)

OR, if you know its there, politely turn down the gig!

That's my approach too Kingy - much less hassle than running long extension leads, and sneakily trying to plug in elsewhere (that's if the venue management will let you) or taping up (and risk damaging) the mic.

 

That's why I started this thread, so that we are better informed about these venues, and can each decide how to handle them in advance, rather than finding out once a booking has been accepted.

 

Any other venues?

[hellbound 0]

I always set it so the orange lights are showing and then I know I can't go higher than that.

 

The two annoying things about the ones I have done is either, I try and trip them at the end of the night only to find they aren't working.

 

or

someone in the crowd trips it in the middle of the night!

 

[pareshj 0]

I reported the sound limiter in Burnham Beeches in Slough last week and after performing last week, I can tell you that the limiter wasn;t so bad after all. It doesn't actually swtich anything off. It just informs reception that they need to go and have a chat with the DJ and remind them.

 

The limiter has a big graphic on it and I find that the volume was very accpetable - nobody wants to hear very loud music and the limiter lets you know what is allowed. All in all it was a great gig and venue - so much so (the venue asked for us back). I just sent a "Thank you" email to the venue and managers about how great they were in helping the DJ and not being too restrictive in areas (music after 12/confetti cannon/dance floor layout etc) whereas many oithger venues I've been to don't respect the DJ like they do.

 

I give credit where it is due and the Burnham Beeches hotel certainly gets my thumbs up.

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/thumbup.gif

[speedy 0]

The white horse hotel in hertingfordbury (or something like that) near hertford. Orange light on the ceiling and the censor is conveniently placed almost above your head http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/533.gif

 

I turned the volume up to try and see what it's limits were and although the light stayed on constantly it never tripped the power.

[Gary 0]

Noise limiters certainly seem to be a popular topic here on DJU.

 

Here are the other threads that I could find - plenty of worthwhile advice on each one really - everything from "plug into the kitchens power sockets using a long extension lead", right through to sticking a balloon, or chewing gum over the microphone...

 

Try here

 

and here,

 

oh, and here...

 

..and last but not least.

[DJ SPARKO 0]

Leigh Labour Club. whever the limiter has been removed of smashed up yet?

dingy little place whereby the staff wont let you into the fuction room (3 FLOORS HIGH AARRGG) untill you cart your gear outside the door then they will let you in due to 'security reasons'!! really really p*ssed off!

 

any way the sound limiter was quite high untill 10.00pm the manager reduced it to a pathetic output 'due to regulations'

 

leigh labour club kiss my cute http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/363.gif

[Dale King 0]

Telford and Wrekin Council love Sound Limiters.

 

I was offered a residency at the Shropshire Golf and Country Club just after Christmas, which I did 5 gigs at before leaving because of the riddiculous setting on the damned thing. Final straw was when I played Come On Eileen, I knew what to expect so during the heavy stamping bit I completely dropped my volume, and the customers stamping and singing cut the power.

 

Also very badly set at the Valley Hotel Ironbridge, and West Bromwich Moat House Hotel. (although not returned to these venues for several years, so they may have changed).

 

[RobbieD 0]

I came across another this weekend:

 

The Porter Tun room at The Brewery, London EC1

 

Just along the road from the Barbican, The Brewery is a very nice venue. The Porter Tun room is a massive room (will take up to 800 people) with a high timber roof (I was told the widest span in London with no pillars) and large stage. I also noticed multiple Bose 802's installed high around the walls, above the beams.

 

However, they have a sound limiter. One of the types with the large bar graph display (in this case two displays - one each side of the room).

 

The level was set reasonably high. - More than loud enough for a wedding function without any chance of tripping. However this was a corporate event, with the majority of guests in their 20's expecting night club levels, which the limiter just wouldn't let me get to. So I had to ignore the many requests and signals from people on the dance floor to turn the music up, but at least avoided tripping the limiter.

 

(I forgot my sound level meter, but I would guess that I was running at around 95dB-100dB with the occasional red light flash.)

[partychris 0]

ok sound limiters are a pain in the butt...

I have always found its not me and my music http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/wasntme-sign.gif

its the crowd singing !! especially if your playing grease or hey baby !!

 

So i suppose the answer to this is dont play that type of music ( i wish !)

or go round and gaffer tape all the singers ! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/stupid.gif

[Eskie 0]

QUOTE (RobbieD @ Jun 1 2005, 10:00 PM)

I came across another this weekend: The Porter Tun room at The Brewery, London EC1 Just along the road from the Barbican,

That's just reminded me; there is also a limiter at The Barbican in the City. The last time I worked there (a few months ago) it was set extremely low. The guests clapping the B&G for the 1st dance set the thing off http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/mad.gif that was when I knew it was gonna be a long night!

 

This thread is an extremely good resource but not as useful as it might be; because you'd need to either memorise every venue or read through this every every few months. It would be a lot more use if it were put into some sort of database or even onto an excel spreadsheet. It would need to be split into different geographical areas, cos most DJs will operate within a certain radius, i.e. within 150 miles or so of their home.

 

The most obvious splits would be:

Scotland

North-East

North-West

Midlands

South-East

South-West

Wales

Eire & N Ireland

 

Does anyone know a way that we'd each individually be able to add data to such a database, and have the database automatically sort the data alphabetically. I'd guess that the most obvious filter for the above geographical split would be based on counties, as postcodes would be far too much work to setup in the first place.

 

If we did have a comprehensive database such as this, I for one would go through records of previous bookings and enter details of venues that have had limiters, if others did the same after a while we'd get a reasonably comprehensive list, i.e. it wouldn't need thousands of DJs in order to get a very useable resource.

 

Anyone have any ideas on the best way to implement something like this http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/533.gif

Obviously, we'd also need a site to host the database on. I'm guessing any SQL experts would know the answers to setting up such a database?

 

I've recently found out that two bookings which I'd taken a while ago both have limiters at the venues. One is set at 95db and the other is set at 85db!!! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif

[RobbieD 0]

QUOTE (Eskie @ Jun 2 2005, 11:50 AM)

This thread is an extremely good resource but not as useful as it might be; because you'd need to either memorise every venue or read through this every  every few months. It would be a lot more use if it were put into some sort of database or even onto an excel spreadsheet. It would need to be split into different geographical areas, cos most DJs will operate within a certain radius, i.e. within 150 miles or so of their home. The most obvious splits would be: Scotland North-East North-West Midlands South-East South-West Wales Eire & N Ireland

Well this thread is all we have at the moment. If we keep listing here, then one day we can use this thread to start a database of some kind.

 

QUOTE (Eskie @ Jun 2 2005, 11:50 AM)

I've recently found out that two bookings which I'd taken a while ago both have limiters at the venues. One is set at 95db and the other is set at 85db!!!  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif

Can you name these venues here Eskie?

[pareshj 0]

I agree, Venues always get the final say and as wedding DJ entertainment, we're at the bottom of the barrel in terms of allowances. I wanted to add some kind of honest DJ review to my website for every venue I did but I think it's better to have it here instead so heres one to add:

 

Location: South-East

Venue: Tithe Barn, High Street, Hurley, Nr Maidenhead, Berks, SL6 5LX

Web

Comments:

They have a limiter that will turn off the main power for about 5 seconds. This will turn off in situations where there is too much bass, Microphone levels are too high or if the audience gets too excited and screams or shouts.

Management:

Were nice to deal with and very flexible in working with them. I'll dealt with the wedding coordinator Lydia Larkin and Ritesh for the evening arrangements.

PreReq's:

before playing at the event, they will expect to see:

Up to date PAT document and PLI Cert and they will most likely ask you to sign a sound limiter disclaimer as well. There is a magistrate who lives around the corner that would get really upset and set the dogs upon them if the music is loud past 12am

Cut off time: 12am - absolute latest before they get really upset is 12:15am

 

 

 

 

 

[jackcu 0]

Brennan's Bar

St John Street

Perth, Scotland

 

[clivehenryjones 0]

Village Hotel,

Coryton,

Cardiff.

 

I agree that the DJ might have done all he can to limit the volume level under the cutoff threshold and then find that the audience chants and singalongs sets the whole lot off (literally).

 

Reset switch is in a cupboard behind where the DJ sets up.

 

Helpful staff who appreciate that it's sometimes out of the DJ's hands when limiter is tripped.

 

Clive.

[Eskie 0]

QUOTE (RobbieD @ Jun 21 2005, 06:02 PM)

QUOTE (Eskie @ Jun 2 2005, 11:50 AM) I've recently found out that two bookings which I'd taken a while ago both have limiters at the venues. One is set at 95db and the other is set at 85db!!!  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif  http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif Can you name these venues here Eskie? The two venues are: The Blazing Donkey in Sandwich, Kent and Oaks Farm in Croydon and funnily enough I do these two gigs on consecutive sundays in september!