the concept (3 Viewers)

[the snitch]

godddammm!
looking forward to teenage fan club in the ambassador for an age now. have seen them about 8 times over the last 11 years. always a pleasure. especially to watch ickle gerry love, bless. anyway, what's the story with the ambassador? firstly i arrive at 9.30 and the chaps on the door go all shirty on me. they're not sure about letting me in yadda yadda. then they insist on checking my bag 'for explosives' the chap chortles. so he shines his torch into the deep, filled with snotty hankies, unwound tapes, spare jocks and all that jazz. i'm happy for him. then they want me to shell out extra bucks to put my coat and bag in the cloakroom. i get in and the sound is muddier than the banks of the tolka. no matter where i move - beside the sound desk, up front, down back...then i get sandwiched between three drunken ninnies who want us all to know they know the words, and in front of me shuffles the tallest man in the world. the ninnies keep screeching 'fear of flying' even though the set list is on the sound desk for all to see. and the crowd seems hell bent on buying over priced beer at the bar to spill all over me. but the fanclub are on stage administering musical prozac. the sun fills the ambassador. little fluffy yabbits hop about and yellow birdies tweet tweet tweet. teddy bears sit having a picnic and sleepy town wakes up. and for a moment gerry love smiles at me.

 

[madouva]

...

what did they play?
what did they play?

 

[Pantone247]

the sound was really bad. Drums sounded so distant and boomy.

9 times out of 10 the sound in the ambassador is crap, especially if you stand under the balcony.... i.e. most of the ground floor.

MCD are taking the piss to let this go unchecked for so long.

The Fannies rocked but.

 

[mark]

been to one gig there where the sound was good (qotsa). the sound at the stephen malkmus gig was the worst, truly appaling. they have never properly got it together in that place in terms of sound. anthrax better bring there own pa.

 

[Hector Grey]

it's not the pa, tho. it's the shape of the gaf, buh.

here. the fannies are awful buh. how come they're so popular with you student cunts?

 

[Psychotic no 2]

Hmmm, the sound for Mercury Rev was fucking amazing and The Breeders sounded just lovely too. ??? They better have this sorted for the Muses.

 

[Goodbye]

still trying to get the stupid grin offa my face...

best sound ever at the ambassetc...
front and center... grand (actually the only place to stand where you were away from people shouting at each other "SO HOWS HERSELF?""GRAND YEAH""HAVENT HEARD THIS SONG IN YEARS""YEAH ITS ONE OF MY FAVORITES" so why dont you shut the fuck up an listen to it then
former student pricks)


Boa Morte were absolutly amazing, pity so few people noticed

 

[Burgerbarbaby]

Originally posted by Hector Grey
it's not the pa, tho. it's the shape of the gaf, buh.

here. the fannies are awful buh. how come they're so popular with you student cunts?

I'm not so sure.....As far as I know, shape of an auditorium is only really important when the music is not amplified. The position, type and number of speakers is far more important when you're talking about really loud music.

The Ambassador is awful. I have been to about 6 gigs there and out of them only Godspeed managed to get a good sound. But does it really matter to the owners whether they improve the sound or not? Booking agents will get at best a photo of the place and maybe a location map, and go BINGO! we've found our venue for the NME tour....

I was talking to one of the guys that works in there, and he was saying that it will take several years to refine the sound to the point where it is competing on a sound quality level with the Olympia. It seems to be a slow process, involving lots of trial and error, and planty of pseudo-science. Also, the Ambassador has sound level restrictions which can't help matters. Because of the Gate Theatre behind it, they have to have a limiter which restricts the sound to levels which would be tolerable for an audience on the other side of the wall there.

 

[the pope]

the sound at godspeed and the breeders was fine. i was however i was very close to the front on both occasions..

 

[Hector Grey]

mcd own the place so they've no probs with booking bands there and not really giving a fuck how it sounds once the money is in.

people still go tho, so what are theygonna do?

the place is a kip. if they put some seats in, maybe.

 

[the snitch]

playlist

in no particular order they did amongst others: The Concept; Ain't That Enough; Everything Flows; Star Sign; Mellow Doubt; I Need Direction; About You; What You Do To Me; Neil Jung; Sparky's Dream; Hang On; Feel my Soul; Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From; Don't Look Back; I Don't Want Control Of You; Verisimilitude; and I think Tears but I could be messin'


oh and again on the sound, the limiters you are talking of resulted in a huge amount of audience noise last night. i could here the sound techs talking about some wooden horse one of them had as a kid for the most part. not to mention as someone already pointed out lots of 'ahh this is me favourite' remarks
i'd STRONGLY disagree with the idea that the sound was good for QOTSA it was scandalous and made you wonder what they could have done if they were in the olympia. mcd just want money. they don't waste time worrying about such trifles as sound or what not. the sound in the SFX is a damn sight better than the ambassador and its just a black box.

anthrax will bring the noise but through the ambassadors pa it will be no louder than a fart

 

[minka]

i've found that the only way to hear anything properly in the ambassador is to be right up the front, kind of near the middle. as kirstie said earlier, if you're under the balcony thing you might as well be outside listening to the band through a wall, and the sound is kind of hinky off to the side as well.

plus i've always come out of the place with sore legs, possibly due to the rake of the overpriced-beer-encrusted floor.

bitch, grumble.

 

[Knacker]

I like it for the Ferrero Roché....

 

[Anthony]

The sound is crap in the sfx as well buh. I suppose it depends on the person doing sound. I mean, how come shellac sounded amazing in TBMC when yesterday they could barely stop one mic from feeding back. One mic!

 

[Anthony]

Fair play to them n'all but the corpo and joa *will* sound shite on Friday in the ambassador.

 

[dudley]

get bent

 

[Anthony]

you know it's true.

Although when the arse played with Low in whelans that time i've never heard them sound as good, before of since so maybe Low's sound egineer is very clever and will be able to "tame" the Amdastard.

 

[madouva]

The Fannies

Hector?

Teenage Fanclub are lovely. Leave them alone.

 

[Pantone247]

Originally posted by minka
as kirstie said earlier, if you're under the balcony thing you might as well be outside listening to the band through a wall, and the sound is kind of hinky off to the side as well.


this is the main problem, the bloody balcony, walk five foot from under it and the sound improves hugely, its a big bass trap under it.


plus i've always come out of the place with sore legs, possibly due to the rake of the overpriced-beer-encrusted floor.

my legs are wrecked today... interesting...

I can't understand what Snitch was told about taking years to perfect, sound and acoustics are an excact science I can't buy that its trial and error.

MCD not willing to spend the money on it, I know that there is not point giving out about it, but bloody hell they're in the business of putting on gigs, you think they'd get the sound sorted.

Oh and I was in The Gate the other week (la-de-da!) and you could hear the noise from the Ambassador quiet clearly. It didn't ruin the play, but it was very noticable.

 

[Burgerbarbaby]

Pantone

Pantone,

The book I read seemed to be pretty exhaustive on the subject of predicting acoustics, the guy seemed to have done a lot of successful projects himself. He concluded that for any shape - outside of a simple shoebox shape - the maths just isn't there to work out all the factors involved, and accurate prediction of how a shape will behave acoustically is haphazard at best.
The book is mostly pretty fascinating, is's called Acoustics by Leo L. Beranek