"How was Prince?" I keep getting asked. Well, I saw a lot of bands the last few days and several that I really like. The two bands playing here though that held the most hype were Roger and Prince. As I lay in my after show hotel bed rolling over in my mind the few nights past, a contrast dawns on me clearly. Prince with a magnificent show, skills immaculate add in Sheila E, Morris Day and a show that was refined and rehearsed to every detail of talent and impact perfection. Roger's presentation was built on decades of concepts and ideals and talent as well, bold statements, perfect alignments of technology and vision. What is it about Prince's show that has my defenses up and Roger's show that I feel trusting? It was the the words still resonating that were forced into my own and everyone else's ears, that define it best, "What's My Name?, Say My Name!" and watching the crowd respond quasi-unified act as commanded and I realize that Prince's show is all about the perpetuation of the 'ME' that is the 'him' that we are occasionally allowed to call Prince. In what I am sure is was an unintended yet amazingly perfect 'ying and yang' contrast, Roger Waters' show carried message after message focused on the benefit of the 'WE' that is 'us' as a human group and individuals sharing the planet that surrounds us as "Don't be led to Slaughter" floats away on an inflatable pig.

**** Sound Nerd Speak *****

Enough of that and lets take a look at the main stage. 15 deep V-Dosc with triple dV's under, 6 V's over 6 dV's on the side hangs and a thundering 40 Rat Subs across front. 8 of which are loaded and processed separately as they are Rat Super Subs and quite a bit more powerful than the standard Rat subs. As things develop down that front, I will share more in time.

Each day FOH changes a bit and consoles come and go with the various bands, here we have a pairs of Digi Design Profiles, Midas Heriti 3000's, Yamaha PM5D's and one Lee.

Out in the field there were eight surround sound clusters loaded with 6 to 8 V-Dosc.

Two left, two right two mid field pointing toward the stage and two rear field pointing toward the stage. Plus the midfield clusters had Kudo on the back side as delays and the stage left clusters had ARC's acting as VIP fills. All in all, there was a whole lot of everything everywhere which would account for why we needed eight semi trucks to haul the sound gear out here, yikes!

While we are sound nerding out a bit, check out the new EAW MicroWedge 12's rocking the Outdoor Theater Stage

And loading into the Sahara Tent.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

But more important than the gear, cause anyone with a wad o cash can mish some mash together and end up with a pile o boxes, how about let's start meeting the crew!

**** Mini Ratchella Crew Special Part 1 ****

Grandpa rocks the old school Rat shirt working the Sahara tent.

Hoover bunnies the FOH duties on the vintage Rat rig in the Gobi tent.

How cool is it when time loops back on itself and the past becomes the present from a differing point of view. When I was 16 I was listening to music as loud as the headphone/stereo combo would get, lost in a state of timeless bliss trying to pick out all four guitars on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young live album, 4 Way Street. I was 15 years old when I bought the just released Pink Floyd "Animals" record and are there actually a pig sounds in the recording or is it just the swine references that make it seem like they are there?

Anyway, fast forward 30 years and here I sit surrounded by hundreds of surround-sound speakers sprawled out in a giant field. The reality did not hit me until the show and I heard my memories in real time. Me and my friends that built, run and operate this evolving entity called Rat Sound are providing audio for Roger Waters! Who would have knew! Ha, that rules! And not only that, since the moment the show ended and I got done pinching myself, I have been drilling to find memories of a show that was more impressive and amazing.

If if that was not enough, check this out. You know the big pig that is all over the news that got away? The $10K award for finding it pig?

Well, check out piggy's front right paw:.....

I am back before gone and what better way to keep friends around than to give them free stuff! So, if you are interested and send a letter with a "Self addressed stamped envelope" inside to:

Rat Sound - Stickers
321 Bernoulli Circle
Oxnard, CA 93030
USA

We will drop in 3 Rat stickers and post it back to ya!

So who woulda knew that diving into blogging about roadies would be so read? So read that somehow the Spike TV show "ManSwers" found me and sent a crew out to interview me on some roadie-ish stuff. Don't know when it will be on or whether I will end up on the digital parallel to the cutting room floor, but I must admit that it was really fun and I had a blast. Especially the part where I felt very manly while getting my face powdered

The ManSwers crew was super cool and I realized that in a way, they are a special breed of TV roadies that travel in a small herd of 4 in a minivan. And what do roadies love? Yep, you got it, SWAG!!! So to test whether they were truly roadies, I offered swag which they seemed to be quite happy with.

Rock on Sacha and crew!

**** Not Sound but just the same, Nerd Speak ****

What else,,,,, Oh, a special treat for our bloggery friends that use the somewhat awkward combination of Blackberry phone and Macintosh computer. There is now and finally a way to tether your computer to your phone. For those unfamiliar, tethering is where you connect your phone to your laptop via cable or Bluetooth and utilize your cell phone's internet connection to access the internet on your laptop. This is super cool, though a bit slow, as you can surf the web for free from anywhere you have cell service. (assuming you have the unlimited data plan on your cell phone that is). Anyway, tethering with a PC laptop into a Blackberry or similar phone is pretty common and fairly simple. Tethering with a Mac is a bit more illusive as Apple likes to block those kinds of things. But finally the puzzle has been unraveled and Mac users can now enjoy that wonderful internet connectivity freedom that I have come to depend on.

http://www.blackberrycool.com/2007/07/19/005156/

**** End Not Sound but just the same, Nerd Speak ****

Into a fleeting gap in the onslaught of projects streaming by, I wedged in enough time to capture a snapshot of roadie adventure past. Rewinding back to Ireland we find our roadie friends fearlessly braving frigid rain at the base of the majestic Slane Castle. Yes, the Peppers made a DVD and too did the Foo. Puzzling at it is, I realized that in their haste and exuberance of filming the sliver of time occupied by the evening of "rock", both somehow have overlooked what occurred behind the scenes during the bulk of the day preceding. Alas, all is not lost for by sheer luck and a clear sense of the impending obvious, I had spent that August day wandering the roadie encampment with a tiny video camera documenting those roadie creatures frolicking in their natural habitat.

Without further ado, here are three 5 minute shorts of:

Roadies in the Midst - Slane Castle Unplugged

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

And finally, a parting shot for the day, on a whim I decided that I need some tunes in my office so I headed back into shop world, grabbed a few bits and set myself up a little sound system to enjoy while I work and make phone calls.

Two double 18 cable and two EAW MicroWedge's, a couple thousand watts of power and an MP3 player and I am ready to rock!

See you all soon and would love to hear how ya like the Slane video. I have several more old video tapes from tours past that I can put up if people are into the Rat Roadie Films.

Dave Rat

I tour well. Perhaps naturally nomadic or maybe just that I have spent much of my adult life traveling between hotel rooms. Either was, landing myself down in one place for more than a few months is an incredibly challenging process. First there was the hazy shock of solid ground, the realities of washing my own clothes and figuring out the proper food purchase to consumption ratio. The glory of a full fridge followed by the dread of tossing away piles of rotted food only to be followed by scouring the kitchen for something edible. Then sets in the dreaded weight of repetitive patterns. Drive to work, wash car, clean house, being at various places at certain times. All the while fighting the sensation of collapsing freedoms. I tell myself it will be ok once I get used to, I tell myself that tour looks so shiny from a stationary standpoint and try and keep the downsides in focus so I do not slip away into "grass is greener on the other side" envy.

As I navigate the doldrums and desirable aspects of the non roadie lifestyle, the bright spots of my days pull me like magnets past the trenches. One of those magnets is surfing so I would like to introduce you to a few friends that form the core crew. Meet Randy, John, Mac and Ray with whom I spend the crack of dawn surveying the waves before diving into the icy waters. I would like to thank John for the loaner of the rattle snake skin hat for the photo op.

And No Wave Dave who's ability to focus right in on what I call "poking the bear" is a constant source of smiles.

And Gene whom I hold I hold personally responsible for getting me hooked on surfing and spending my mornings hanging out with this motley crew.

Gene and Dave are not part of what they term the "goofy hat wearers." Clearly, I have no issue with it. Speaking of snakes, snaking is a term used to refer to the act of taking off on a wave in front of someone which you can see occurring to Gene in the photo below. You may also notice Gene entering "the bear pose," a clear indication that he is less than pleased with the maneuver.

And to better enjoy the adventure in wave, hey, why not make something a bit different and fun? Hmmmm, how about a custom Surfboard? Well, upon searching through my computer I seemed to have an abundance of a certain logo so.....

I sent out the graphics to Ray and had some silk printed and the Blinky (William Dennis) at Ventura Surf Shop made it up for me. Thank You, the board rocks!

Moving on to another source of smiles, here is a picture of a speaker I made with my mom on Christmas day. Together we worked in my garage just hanging out and though I am not a celebrator of corporate holidays, this was one the best Christmases ever. It is a 6 feet long polished aluminum tube with progressively dense filler and an open back. The tweeter is a bundle of 6 microphone capsules. The sound is amazingly clear and open.

Oh, and I have another way cool aluminum tube speaker coming. Just thinking about that zone and rhythm of building creations in the garage makes me happy.

First in line of the source of "making home being worth while though is being soccer coach for AYSO U12 girls team and going to softball games to watch shorty #1 and #2 rock out on their sports skills.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

MicroWedge 12 is out and about and in bloggery modern networking tradition, I even persuaded EAW to embrace an "Official MicroWedge Myspace Page."

http://www.myspace.com/microwedge

How many wedge's have their very own myspace site? Ha ha! Al in good fun and I made a little slide show as well.

Also the official EAW MicroWedge site is up as well.

http://www.eaw.com/products/microwedge

So I head out to EAW about once a month for all kinds of secret designing and such. The all new EAW MicroWedge 15 that is smaller and sexier than the old one, an EAW MicroWedge 8 and Shhhhh.... rumor has it, if I was to spread rumors, that a speaker box like you have never seen of the ultra cool EAW MicroSub 15 could very well be in the pipeline. I so wish I could share the MicroSub 15 prototype pics as it is a design I have been working on for a long long time and finally unraveled the answer to what I believe to be is the most useful and versatile stage sub ever. And it looks cool too!

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Ok, I will try and pick up my bloggery pace a bit from once a month but no guarantees other than I will be back.

Rock On!

Dave Rat

Well, it has been a bloggery while since my last post and not for forgetting, as I truly have been intending. Being in the sound company business is not for the faint hearted and winter time is the toughest of all when you depend on touring bands as your primary income.

Way back in 1980 I started Rat Sound with my friend Brian when we both worked at Hughes Aircraft. Prior to that I was recording bands and though we did not adopt the pet name Rat for a few more years, 1980 is really when it began. I had started at Hughes in Radar Systems Group testing components for jet planes like the F/A 18, F15 and F14 fighters. Got bored and worked it out so I was loaned to Space and Communications Group doing a similar but less monotonous gig for Telstar and Telsat satellites. Still bored I applied for a transfer and was picked up by the engineering department of Electo-Optical Group working on TOW Missile systems. Youngest guy in the department and the only one without a college degree, it was actually pretty darn fun, for while. Military government paperwork sucks! Meanwhile, nights and weekends I did rock shows, punk rock shows mainly with big band and 60 piece orchestras scattered amongst the sundays.

Every cent I had went to PA gear, I had no savings. Mid Reagan era military expansion filled my non-gig weekends with overtime at my day job. In November of 1980 a giant fork appeared in the road ahead. My vacation and sick leave time had been consumed by friday load-ins, rumors and memo's regarding various departments enacting mandatory overtime were abound and I was making as much money doing rock shows in two days as 5 days of my 7am to 3:30pm "real job" landed.

Career, medical benefits, retirement plan and some semblance of parental respect versus late nights, loading trucks, loud music and freedom. December 12th I gave 30 days notice. January 12th I was free. February 12th I was broke, hungry and selling off sound gear to buy food and gas. That was when I learned, the first time and then proceeded to learn every year there after. With a few exceptions, winter means starvation for furry little critters and touring sound companies. It is never a surprise, at least not anymore, but that does not change the fact that it is a challenge.

Now a days, it is different than it used to be. Now the threat of not eating is long gone while what remains is the necessary time, care and focus to navigate the ship through the low tide. So in short or in long, that is what has grabbed my focus and what I have been up to.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

MicroWedge update. First the official stuff. The new EAW MicroWedge 12's are done and the first delivery will be at Rat any day now (read "tomorrow"). Processor settings are done and super cool! There are three settings and they will be coded as colors.

White - The Flat Setting. I don't have the final spec yet but it was plus or minus a couple db throughout it's frequency range. This is a industry standard starting point so engineers can tailor the EQ to suit a wide variety of applications.

Gray - A 1 db per octave slope rolling off as frequency increases. A warmer setting that sounds more natural and requires less EQ to dial in.

Blue - We took several industry standard microphones, plotter their real world response and created a curve that counteracts the inherent peaks. It was surprising how similar the Neumann, Sennheiser, Shure and Audix responses were. The Blue setting is tailored to get very loud, not feedback and sound amazing with no external EQ and reproduces both music and live mics extremely well. True plug and play usability.

Now for the rumors. If I was to say, I would say that a new sleeker, smaller, louder MicroWedge 15 and more is hot the tails of the 12", though the Micro 12 was developed to go lower and get louder than the best 15" monitors out there already. I would also say that cool new tilt legs (The MicroLeg) are being developed and they allow the MicroWedge's to be utilized at various angles. Say bye bye audio blocks, say hello to optimum wedge angles!

Oh, and I wish I could show you the latest MicroSub prototype but that would ruin all the fun and anticipation. I will say that if it makes it through the maze to market, it is useful in ways unlike anything else out there and is something that the few monitor engineers I've shown it to already have all said they could use them right now.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Speaking of useful, I was at the NAMM show and stumbled across a few items that I can not imagine how I have managed to live my life without. First we have what appears to be the ultimate PA speaker.

Not sure if it is a 5 way or a 7 way stack but wow, that is a high concentration of Piezo speakers.

Next in line, I find myself wondering "am I the last know?" and "how come everyone does not have one?" when I spotted this beauty:

That's right, a 7 string bass! Clearly marking the end of the 4 string era.

But wait, what do we have here? Is it? Yes! A guitarasurus!

So handy yet so eloquent. And if one is to rock a guitarasurus, one had better get an adequate guitar rig. Hence I present:

The ultimate rockers dream and sound guy's nightmare. "Yes, of course they are all plugged in, why else would I have brought what I need?"

And so it was and off till next time.

Dave Rat

**** Special News Bulletin ****

As you may have or not noticed, I have all but vanished from the bloggery world and a few other's as well. Though fret not as because I am lost no more than I ever usually am, which is most of the time. Anyway, I have just returned from a full week of audio nerdery bliss, hanging out with the talented humans at EAW. Oooooh, speaker heaven! The days are numbered and soon comes the all new EAW MicroWedge and more as well. New designs, new prototypes being considered. This was the most comprehensive interaction with them so far. I am being welcomed into the inner workings of a machine of mind boggling complexity. Each department has an amazing talent, each also is cared for and run by unique and interesting humans with a true passion for what they create. Maybe I can even do a "Meet the MicroWedge Design Team" bloggery post.

So, on my way to EAW I made a 5 day stop in Brooklyn.to hang out with Bart, Niki and Robin and build the super secret prototypes of a potential new MicroWedge product. Cross your fingers!

**** Wood Working Super Tip ****

If you want the best of the very best wood working tools money can buy, check out http://www.festool.com/

The concept of precision fences where you move the saw rather than try and move the whole sheet of wood. Dust collection that allows you to router edges with nearly no dust. Plunge circular saws that follow the precision fence and cut the same line at any angle, oh, and check out the Domino Joiner! Thank you Bart for the cool prototypes and lessons in using those cool tools.

**** End Bulletin and Tip ****

Equilibrium

The state of balance. Beautiful flowers attract insects to devour them. Hard working wealth attained is magnetic to those that seeking an easy grab to the top. A plethora of bunnies becomes a feeding ground for coyote's. Extended pure pleasure breeds weakness while prolonged unrelenting stress creates blind viciousness. To stop and look at the other side. 10 bricks of building and 5 bricks to to prevent the flooding. Seatbelts and insurance policies not for the "just in case" but more accurately for the inevitable. Only in question is the magnitude of the counter-growth event. It will rain, the car will be dented, someone or thing will consider us to feed upon. There is no "if," only a what and when and whether it is significant, irrelevant or somewhere in between. Equilibrium is a given, it will occur. I am only faced with the choice of whether to accept or deny it and the option of whether to dedicate reasonable resource toward preparedness. Yet to over-prepare is to invite stagnation and to under-prepare is to live in a gamble. If only I could keep remembering to step back and see things clearly. If only that was not one of the eternal challenges.

This natural preemptive attempt at equilibrium is what creates the desire for societies to create things like fire departments and police forces. Speaking of police, I have learned long ago that it is much better to join them than try and beat them as they tend to be very vigilant in their endeavors. Unfortunately for me, though I try very hard to never do anything wrong, my experience has been that I tend to be a police magnet. So working toward the "just in case" meet my new best friend:

Regrettably, he was on duty and could not join me for my next adventure into confetti land:

Aargh! Another life fact, eternal constant of the ages that is undeniable is that cell phones have a very short and unpredictable life span. My cell phone came down with a life threatening illness, yet again and off to the emergency room we headed. Prognosis: "I am sorry to inform me but you must operate immediately." "The bad news is that my cell phone needed USB Jack transplant, the good news is that suitable donor has recently passed away."

Talk about soldering some tiny things, this was a rough one! I had to take pictures and then zoom in just to see if I did it right.

*** Simple Sound Nerd Speak ****

In pro live audio, gain structure refers to the alignment of the the various electronic audio levels as they pass through the equipment on their way from microphone to loudspeaker.

If you run any gain stage too high, you will get into distortion. Too low and excessive noise becomes an issue. So there is an optimum range where you operate at fairly high levels with out overloading the circuits. Finding an optimum gain level for the gear combination you are operating requires a bit of knowledge of the gear, the dynamics of the signals your dealing with as well as some hands on experience to master.

When a good gain structure is set up, all the knobs tend to be in "comfortable positions," Faders are neither crunched to the top nor wallowing near the bottom of their travel limits, the signal meters would read clear signal without pegging and there should not be a need for "make up gain" as the signal levels are well balanced throughout the system.

Finally, a well structured gain exhibits minimal hiss, buzz and noise and no undesirable overload distortion.

**** End Simple Sound Nerd Speak ****

Dave Rat

Oh boy, I feel like finally collected my bags and made it home for real. When flying high peering out the window hurtling through space in a metal tube, it is not till the ground approaches that the true realization of breathtaking speeds traveled comes to bear. When land does arrive under foot, the body stops but the mind keeps going, spirals and jet lag concoct a delirious mixture fading side effects so ingrained that full awareness only occurs in hindsight from a perspective untainted by the jet laggery. Ahhhh, yes acclimation. Reality really does move slower at home or is it faster as I can not comprehend how I fit nearly a blog a day into my life full of rock shows on tour where I struggle to fit a one in every two weeks at home. Oh well!

So, in no particular order let's head to Florida where

Hours fill up faster than new ones can appear and I scribble little hieroglyphic notes of future events I wish to remember in places I hope not to forget. This is either the best time of my life or just another meandering plugging away in some pipe dream direction. I guess both are true and unlike the thrill of exhilarating adventures, at least the' right now' I live in wont have the hangover that follows overload fun excursions.

Challenge is the foundation of motivation. The knife that divides the complacent from the relentless. My sour reactions of being caught off guard catalyze into that desire smile of harnessing the energy to overcome the annoying. To try and stop time is to become lifeless. Growth or deterioration take your pick. Stagnation is celebration turned rancid. On some levels I could not be happier as my dreams unfold and my stumbles remind me that I am as disoriented, lost and confused as I have always been. It is amazing how chaos is just one phone ring away from from bliss. Yet in the slightly bigger picture, everything remains amazing. I hop out of bed for a while each day and try to remember to eat before my vision blurs and I wander about my night thought balancing life between shoring up the sand-castle walls against relentless waves and adding drip towers to the delicate city within. Speaking of shoring up walls, occasionally a rethink is in order and an open mind realizes that a new direction is better so back down away the walls need to go. Say bye bye wall!

And since we are at the beach building castles, let's have a Halloween party! Meet my niece Jessy, don't be scared, she is not a real lion:

And a few more of the various family and friend critters. Food attracts critters.

**** Sound Joke of the Day ****

Kevin Glendening sent me this:

What do you call a dog barking at the bottom of a swimming pool?

A Sub woofer.

Ha ha!!! If you found that funny, please instantly elevate yourself to super sound nerd status.

**** End Sound Joke of the Day ****

Easily the most sobering aspect of being home is the reality that behind the veil of the shiny lights, rock shows and music that makes us smile in our headphones. The music business is a ruthless cut throat industry peppered with wolves in sheep's clothing, poisonous ego's and finger pointing incompetence teetering on back room money deals and good 'ol boys patting each other on the back. Put another way, no real shocker here as the music business is just like churches, corporations, governments and just about any other organized human endeavor. Oh those silly humans, what do ya do about it? Cry? Ha ha! No way! Going to muscle it up, hang tight with the ones I trust and build up those sand castle walls with a smile fully knowing that it is just a matter of time before they are washed away someday, anyway.

Clearing my thoughts for more enjoyable train of though, let's go visit Gwen! A success story with a smile and 'way back when' I remember the day she pulls a cassette copy of the new and first No Doubt album out of her purse with an ear to ear smile. "We got signed and here is rough mixes of our album!" The excitement and a get to hear a quick listen. I just love how you never know what will happen next.

And next up.... Story and recommended reading of the day is do a Google search for "Steve Jobs Commencement Speech Harvard."

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Do you Have the Time?

Ok, here is something that seems to perplex or be a bit of confusion with some of us sound nerds. There seems to be a bit of confusion floating around regarding whether sound signals travel faster in in snake cables or fiber optic cables and where the true and relevant sources of time lag lay in an audio system.

The sound signals travel at differing speeds depending on whether it is in the form of electricity, in the form of sound waves in air or passing through various commonly used bits of audio gear. To make things simple, I will just approximate a bit.

In 1.2 milliseconds of time:

#1 In air, sound will travel about 16 inches.

#2 Under water sound travel near 5 times faster and would cruise about 70 inches.

#3 In 1.2 milliseconds sound will just barely make it from the input XLR to the output XLR of a Yamaha PM5D digital console and you can make it a bit more than half way through a Digico D5 because it takes 2 milliseconds for a signal to escape a D5 once you put it in.

#3 Perhaps surprisingly though, your audio signal will travel about 650,000 feet (124 miles) down a regular copper mic cable or snake because in copper electric signals travel about 2/3's the speed of light.

#4 Even faster, your audio will travel about a million feet (186 miles) down fiber optic cable but it can take over 630 micro seconds which is over 1/2 of the 1.2 milliseconds to convert from analog to digital for light at each end so you would not quite make it out of a fiber cable even an inch long but if you already started with a digital signal, figure the conversion to only takes about 10 microseconds from electric digital to light.

#5 You could probably put every piece of analog gear you have ever owned or own in series and run a hundred miles of mic cable and still have some extra time left over because most analog gear has almost on time lag..

So, where is time lost and how important is it? Mainly after it leaves the speakers is the big issue and secondly, before it hits the mic. From there it flies through analog gear so fast that it can be considered instantaneous for most purposes. It gets a bit more confusing with digital gear because the sound signal makes little 'pit stops' whenever it encounters a a 'digital to analog' or 'analog to digital' conversion. Also, unlike analog gear, once the signal is inside a piece of digital gear, the signal can slide behind in time further as you add processing to the signal, unless the manufacturer has implemented compensating delays that lock the delay time at the max processing time.

What does this mean, well, for the most part, the time delays we are talking about are so short that they can be discarded as irrelevant but... if you electrically are recombining signals, it is critical that they are not shifted in time unless you desire a phase shifter effect.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

OK, enough for now and soon some more.

Dave Rat