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Britt measures decibel levels Photo by Bob Pennell A noise level meter owned by the Britt Festivals measures decibels Friday at the Britt Pavilion. Britt officials have begun a yearlong process of monitoring sound levels under an agreement with Jackson County and the city of Jacksonville. Begins yearlong study on concert noise BY BILL VARBLE The sounds of country music star Wynonna and her band performing "Girls With Guitars" travels halfway up the Britt hillside to the mixing booth. Sound engineer George Relles, using sophisticated equipment, pegs the country rocker at nearly 90 decibels, mostly, with peaks in the low 90s -- plenty audible, but not rock-concert loud. Carol Knapp gets similar if not identical readings with an inexpensive hand-held meter. Relles, of Eugene-based George Relles Sound Reinforcement; Knapp, a Jacksonville resident; Britt manager Ron McUne; Britt production head Mike Sturgill and others are hearing what 90 decibels sounds like on a sunny morning. Complaints about concert noise from residents of this small, historic town led last year to a petition to the Jacksonville City Council to act on noise limits as well as trash and other concerns. Britt began as a small classical event in the 1960s and now sells 60,000 tickets a year to classical, blues, folk, country and jazz concerts. A mediation team came up with a dozen suggestions, including monitoring sound levels for a year. Which is why Relles, who does the sound for many Britt shows, Knapp and the others are out here with a $6,000 meter Relles owns and a glitzy new $18,000 monitoring system that can measure sound a thousand times a second. Britt, the city of Jacksonville and Jackson County bought the system together. Designed for the Hollywood Bowl, it includes a monitor backstage as well as at the sound board. With the season opener, jazz star Chick Corea, a day away, instruments backstage must be calibrated. After some discussion of pink noise -- a wide-band sound spread equally among all octaves -- it's decided to use Wynonna as the standard. As the day goes on, Britt staffers and others, using the same two minutes of the same song, will check noise levels at homes near the Britt grounds looking for the noisiest one. They'll correlate those readings with a new microphone at the corner of the Britt grounds to better monitor just what bands are doing. Knapp follows the proceedings closely. She says noise levels vary widely with the concerts. "Most of the summer it's a tolerable irritation," she says. "When you add those three or four extra-loud shows, then it becomes intolerable." McUne says Britt wants to be sensitive to noise concerns. But he says most of the artists Britt books say they're used to limits of 95-98 decibels. He says audiences are accustomed to that level. The 90-decibel standard went in after Queen Ida and several other loud shows in the 1980s. Peaks over 90 were OK, but performers starting to average, say, 92 or 94 would be told to hold it down. Relles says applause at Britt has been measured at 103 decibels. McUne says complaints vary with the type of music. "We never get complaints about country and western," he says. "We get them about jazz." Soft rocker Kenny Loggins played a notoriously loud show a couple years ago. The folk/rock Indigo Girls were loud at a sound check but turned down. Bob Dylan's people have told Britt that Dylan won't consider playing with such a limit. Jazz star Stanley Clarke, who performed in August, threatened to pack up and leave half an hour before his show. "Stanley just basically told us to get lost," Relles says. "He said, `If you wanted Kenny G., you should have hired Kenny G."' Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA