There is a piece of wedding-planning advice you are unlikely to encounter on Pinterest: ask the venue about the sound limiter. If your immediate response is “the what?”, you're not alone. A limiter is a device some venues use to monitor or restrict sound levels, usually because of neighbours, licensing conditions or previous complaints. I'm encountering them at roughly three weddings in ten at the moment, and most are completely manageable. Some, however, can have a surprisingly large effect on the party. The important thing isn't whether a venue has one. It's what the thing actually does.
This is where the apparently helpful phrase “we're limited to 95dB” becomes less helpful than it sounds. Ninety-five decibels measured where? On the dancefloor? Beside the speakers? At a sensor mounted halfway up a wall? Is it measuring short peaks or an average over time? Does it care equally about everything, or is low-frequency bass the main concern? Two venues can both tell you they have a 95dB limit and present completely different situations to the DJ. A number gives the impression of tremendous scientific precision while quietly leaving out nearly everything I'd actually like to know.
The more awkward type of limiter is the one that cuts the power when its threshold is exceeded. Music isn't a steady laboratory tone; it jumps around constantly. Choruses arrive, basslines build, people cheer, a hundred guests suddenly start singing and somebody near the front discovers an unexpectedly piercing ability to whistle through their fingers. You can have the system running happily at the same level for ages and then, at exactly the point the room comes alive, the limiter goes red and everything stops. Not fades out. Stops. Silence. Everyone turns to look at the DJ because, understandably, I am standing behind the thing that has just stopped making music. Unfortunately power to the microphone has vanished too, so I can't even explain that the building has briefly decided everyone is enjoying themselves too loudly. Ten seconds later the power returns, although ten seconds of complete silence on a packed dancefloor has a curious ability to feel like a significant portion of your adult life. Recapturing the moment at a lower volume is essentially impossible.
There are perfectly sensible reasons venues use them. Bass travels extremely easily through walls, across fields and towards neighbours who may be considerably less enthusiastic about your wedding than you are. A venue needs to protect its licence and its relationship with the people living nearby, and I don't blame them for that. What I dislike is DJing by traffic light: spending the evening watching a little green-amber-red display and wondering whether the next kick drum or crowd cheer will turn the room off. If I know a venue has a hard limiter, I'll adapt the system accordingly — often using one subwoofer rather than two, for example — and work within the room rather than fighting it. This isn't simply about making everything quieter. It's the same principle as any other technical decision: good equipment is useful, but knowing what to do with it matters more.
And importantly, some limiters are no trouble at all. They may be there because the venue's licence requires monitoring, but they don't necessarily cut power the moment a particular number appears. So if you love a venue and discover it has a limiter, don't immediately cross it off the list. Just ask some better questions: Where is the level measured? Is the quoted figure a peak or an average? Does the system actually cut the power? What happens when it does? And have DJs had problems with it before? You don't need a qualification in acoustical engineering. You just need to know whether the limiter sits quietly in the background or has a habit of turning off Freed From Desire halfway through the chorus. I'd much rather find that out before your wedding than discover the answer together at 10.47pm.
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