Not surprisingly, the above engineers agree on many issues and solutions when it comes to controlling volume, while expressing frustration at being handcuffed at times. And the issue of volume at the FOH position boils down to one simple philosophy, explained by Sergeant, who mixed Jurassic 5 during this summer’s Lollapalooza tour. “I guess engineers tend to mix on the loud side, but I tend to not want to mix too loud because obviously these are my ears,” he says, “and I want to keep them for as long as I can, lest I be out of a job.”

Hugh Johnson agrees and adds, “Personally, I’m not against sound ordinances or dB levels imposed on bands and mixers. I think that a lot of the people mix too loud and a lot of the controls that they are starting to impose are good for the audience and the engineers and the personnel working the shows. It’s pretty well documented that loud volume of anything, whether it is music or machinery, over an extended period of time causes hearing damage. My own take on this is that I plan on doing this for a while and the longer I keep my hearing intact the longer I can continue to do a good job.”

The Noise Police—clerks who either sit by the FOH position or backstage with a dB meter to monitor sound levels—started showing up at outdoor venues for the twin purposes of protecting crowd and crew’s hearing as well as guarding against neighborhood noise pollution. Jeff Hooper, sitting at the FOH position at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., looks over his shoulder at the person monitoring Costello’s show. “The gigs have been there longer than the houses,” he says. “Now that the houses are there, the residents don’t want to hear the music.”

Hooper, who was limited to 94.8 dB at this outdoor venue, is a tad frustrated. “Some of this music needs to be louder,” he firmly explains. “Tonight we might not play louder than 86 on some songs, but some of the songs need to be pumped up because they are from 1977, 1978. That really annoys me.”

Fines for going over the maximum dB level have ranged from a slap on the wrist to half an artist’s guarantee. Upon arriving at Wembley Stadium in London for a Freddie Mercury tribute show, Big Mick was greeted with an official letter from the local parliament. “That’s the only time I’ve felt completely and utterly threatened,” he admits. “When I opened the letter, it had the City of London stamp on it and it was signed by Harvey Goldsmith and the local parliament, saying that I would be fined £10,000 if I went over 98 dB. It had the crest on it and was signed by the Lord Mayor and God knows who else. I thought it was a bit serious, so I did toe the line at that show. In all fairness, the P.A. wouldn’t have done a lot more. It was perfectly okay.”

“Generally the penalty for going over the sound limit is vague,” Hugh Johnson reports. “Sometimes I’m sure it’s just disfavor to having you booked there again, sometimes it’s literally a city fine or a fine based on a noise ordinance.”

Obviously, stage volume seems to be the key to P.A. volume. For Johnson, the challenge is a band that relies on wedge monitors on stage rather than professional earphone monitors. At times, the stage volume hovers around 90 dB, but can reach 93 dB. “It’s always better when the audience comes in, because the audience soaks up a lot of the stage volume,” he explains. “So, it’s possible for me to take a 90 or a 92 dB stage volume and add three dB to that myself and get a blend going so that it sounds like the P.A. is doing the work instead of the stage. But in those venues where there is a strict noise ordinance, I find myself looking at my job much more as a sound reinforcement kind of guy and I have to use the stage volume as a part of my mix.”

There have been times when Johnson has had to talk to Vince Gill and the band about lowering their stage volume. “Vince is a picker and he likes to play his guitar amp loud on a few songs a night,” he says. “He comes to play and have a good time, so I don’t expect him to greatly change. He will adjust his stage volume up and down to some degree, the whole band will, the drummer will play lighter sticks. Everyone, when I’m really under the gun, will cooperate. At the same time, I don’t want to squelch his good time. It’s up to the individual mixer and his relationship with the artist to come up with a method of dealing with that. You have to learn how to approach your artist with the mentality that I’m here to help this situation out, not to make it worse.”

While stage and audience noise are sure to effect overall levels, some mixers believe the issue is concentration and perceived volume. There is a way, some say, to get more punch out of a system. While mixing Jurassic 5, Sergeant mixed between 100 and 105 dB A-weighted and around 110 to 115 C-weighted. The key, he says, is to avoid the highs and mids. “I like weighted sound, where you’ve got a really weighted bottom end so you feel the sensation of bass,” he explains. “That gives you the sensation of being engulfed in sound, rather than having guitars and vocals ripping your head off and giving you bad hearing problems.”

Big Mick, who pushed around 106 dB A-weighted during Metallica’s stadium Summer Sanitarium tour, says getting that weighted sound is the way to avoid extreme perceived volume and that all depends on what frequencies are getting pushed. As an example, he points to the Harwell system he used to use, which became brash at around 2K and 2.5K. “It gave you the impression of being very loud,” he explains. “I always feel that the high mid frequencies give you an impression of coarse volume. If you have a little too much of those in the overall mix, then of course it sounds really aggressive. So you get the impression of it being a lot louder than what it really is. For myself, I steer clear of all those frequencies as much as I possibly can. Obviously they have to be in there to give you intelligibility, but only in a sparing amount.”

Metallica’s twin guitar attack makes cutting those high and mid frequencies a challenge, but Big Mick counters with higher volumes on the bottom end. “If I’m doing 106 A-weighted, I’d like to be at least 116 C weighted,” he explains. Anything less, he adds, “then you obviously don’t have a lot of low end in your mix and you’re tending to go more toward the transistor radio kind of sound. So, I definitely look for the considerable difference between A- and C-weighted. That’s been Metallica’s plot, really, to have a good low end so you have a good punch and steering clear of all the high mid frequencies.”

The key, it seems, is to take some time to get to know a system and work within the confines that the venue, as well as the audience, will give you. Johnson explains that audience demographics play a role in how loud he’ll go. “If there are older people in the audience, I just don’t mix as loud,” he says. “If it’s an outdoor show, a festival type situation with a younger audience, I mix a little louder. I do try to pay attention every day to the demographics as people are coming in. So, within a variance of probably five to six dB, I’ll gauge my overall level of the show based on demographics.”

Then there’s the simple and final fact that the mixer is the final member of the band, and making the band sound good is paramount. “That’s been my philosophy ever since I started doing sound,” Sergeant says. “I try to interact with the band as much as possible and with some bands I do a lot of stuff out front, run a lot of effects and MIDI controllers and run some of the backing tapes. Even if I’m not doing that, I’m trying to have their music processed in a way that they want it heard, really.”