Off-Esplanade Sound Limits?

[sputnik]

http://www.burningman.com/themecamps/resource_guide.html#sound

It's not totally obvious, but it's 90dB at 20 feet outside of the camp. Read the whole thing as well as this:

http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/faq_what_is.html#Participation

[The Chinese]

Wow, it used to be 400 watts - seems like they've knocked it down a bit.

I have also, um, seen, uh, yeah, camps take guerilla action against a camp that was violating a modicum of decency... I mean, yeah, we're at BRC and we know it's fracking loud, and not saying it's the "right" thing to do... ... but you got someone running a dance floor in the middle of the city saying "I'm running 10000 watts and nobody's gonna tell me to turn it down" rather belligerantly - even AFTER the ranger sound team shows up, and they act all contrite and as soon as they're gone, back to 11...

Yep. Seen it happen.

Problem is, I've ALSO seen camps run lesser wattage and, using a bit of acoustic engineering, get righteously loud. Believe it or not, I don't have a problem with them (of course, they're usually done right so the sound goes *into*, not *out of* the camp)... so it can be done. Sadly, some (not all, but some) run hi output because they're too lazy to do it right.

My 2¢...

Wattage is nebulous. some speakers can generate 125dB with 300 watts, others will not be loud at all. And 2500w is only twice as loud as 300, so I take the SPL readings much more seriously.

[duffdog]

Yeah...

This thread makes me laugh. The way that the sound "rangers" work is as follows: If you are friends with a ranger, you get to cry to him whenever someone with a better sound system wants to listen to it, regardless of what "level" it is at. It could be almost off, but if you like electronic music instead of bluegrass music, anything you do is automatically too loud.

Note that I have never seen a ranger produce a sound level meter, let alone know how to calibrate it... (what does this A wieghting switch do again?")

I empathize with sound guys who set up multi-million dollar sound systems and bring them to the desert so that thousands of people can be entertained by artists they WANTED to see and PAY for, only to have one random guy screw up the entire thing because he doesn't like the type of music being played.

[Teo del Fuego]

...multi-million dollar sound systems and bring them to the desert so that thousands of people can be entertained by artists they WANTED to see and PAY for...

do you empathize any with the 25-person camp who worked their little asses off all year to create a fully interactive theme camp gifting booze, performances, and chill music and who get blown off the sonic landscape by pricks with entitlement issues?

[Isotopia]

I empathize with sound guys who set up multi-million dollar sound systems and bring them to the desert so that thousands of people can be entertained by artists they WANTED to see and PAY for, only to have one random guy screw up the entire thing because he doesn't like the type of music being played.

Tell that to the 20+ participants who come into the Ranger HQ at a time with bleeding ears and who after a week of negotiating get told to 'fuck off' each time they ask the camp to cut the music down at 4am.

Really, fuck how much they spend on their sound systems. If you dig deep enough you find that aside from coming to the playa for the week to play their music for the crowds their ulterior motive is (more often than not) to make a name for themselves during the other 51 weeks of the year so that they can cash in on the ravers they've snagged on the playa.

Here in the TSates we call it 'branding.'

Branding by any other term is still commerce albeit it not quite so overt as selling tee shirts.

That's why the whole 'no commerce' spiel has become such a silly fucking joke on some levels.

[Eric]

...multi-million dollar sound systems and bring them to the desert so that thousands of people can be entertained by artists they WANTED to see and PAY for...

do you empathize any with the 25-person camp who worked their little asses off all year to create a fully interactive theme camp gifting booze, performances, and chill music and who get blown off the sonic landscape by pricks with entitlement issues?

I also don't think this discussion is about the camps with the "multi-million dollar sound systems"- the vast majority of those are on the 10 & 2 spokes.

It's more about the camps back in the neighborhoods who think their sound system is more important than the camps around them. The OP was making sure he wasn't going to disrupt the camps around him- you know, that whole "community" thing.

besides, there are also "thousands of people" who could care less about the big sound camps. Don't assume that what you enjoy about Burning Man is the same as me or someone else. We're all getting different things from the event.

[dragonfly Jafe]

some people even come to do things other than listen to electronic music...

[gaminwench]

...some people come and avoid electronic music...
(well, not altogether possible....)(which is rather the point)...

[duffdog]

I empathize with sound guys who set up multi-million dollar sound systems and bring them to the desert so that thousands of people can be entertained by artists they WANTED to see and PAY for, only to have one random guy screw up the entire thing because he doesn't like the type of music being played.

Tell that to the 20+ participants who come into the Ranger HQ at a time with bleeding ears and who after a week of negotiating get told to 'fuck off' each time they ask the camp to cut the music down at 4am.

Really, fuck how much they spend on their sound systems. If you dig deep enough you find that aside from coming to the playa for the week to play their music for the crowds their ulterior motive is (more often than not) to make a name for themselves during the other 51 weeks of the year so that they can cash in on the ravers they've snagged on the playa.

Here in the TSates we call it 'branding.'

Branding by any other term is still commerce albeit it not quite so overt as selling tee shirts.

That's why the whole 'no commerce' spiel has become such a silly fucking joke on some levels.

So wait, you had 20 whole people complain?!? Thats just crazy, I mean, how insane is this world that someone must handle 20 complaints out of 60,000 people.

[Eric]

note to self- bring wire cutters in case I'm camped near "duffdog". I just love entitled people, they have such a great sense of community.....

[theCryptofishist]

Ah. Each actual complaint must equal 20 or more people who just decided to suck it up.

And 60,000? When did duffdog perfect time travel?

[dragonfly Jafe]

(don't forget the 10,000 Cops and Narcs)

[Boijoy]

I guess if 20 people complained about ONE camp, that would be alot.

[Eric]

Tell that to the 20+ participants who come into the Ranger HQ at a time

I read that as "the 20+ people at a time who come into the Ranger HQ..."

ie- not 20 random people having complaints during the week, but a clump of 20 people who've tried to negotiate with a camp coming in all at once.

A large group coming in to say some entitled camp won't work with them---- personally, I think calling the Rangers in was the nice thing to do.

[Isotopia]

Exactly what happened a few years back.

In the course of an hour people from a section of the city converged at Ranger HQ from different areas of the same neighborhood to complain first about the intensity of the music which by then could be heard at Ranger HQ. Second complaint was the unwillingness of the camp in question to even consider lowing the volume by a fraction. (BTW, I thought it commendable that the people complaining made the attempt to 'ranger' the situation themselves.)

When the camp in question decided to play 'fuck off Ranger' the situation ended up being resolved inside of... two minutes.

There were no further complaints.

[Ugly Dougly]

Did their oonz wind up in Ferntucky?