So I just realized that I skipped a blog of the last show of the tour and I had a few lonely pictures. Looks like Josh is going to be joining us on and off for more dates as well.

And Chad wearing my favorite jumpsuit for the grand finale

As each and every adventure eventually does, one thing is always for sure, it is bye bye time

Alone. Some people fear it, some savor it and whether you find it relaxing bliss or filled with anxiety, the fact remains that it is just a matter of perception and perhaps decision. And some alone's are better that others as I guess it really just depends on what is on your mind at the time.

Tomorrow I move my body home in airplanes so I can move my stuff in boxes so I can move the life I lived before I left to a new home. While the concept of moving excites me while the process fills me with dread. But I don't mind the dread because I am clear in the decision, so it just comes down to hacking away in the desired direction.

Dave Rat

Some times life can be a blur and while sliding back and forth in bits of time as we take a look out the window of a jet landing in San Antonio through the eye of an open shutter camera, proof of that blurry life concept is confirmed.

Texas is a proud state that is not only large but there are also a lot of cows and steers. I have a theory that it is the generational teachings of ranching which involves the corralling of fairly dim witted animals by scaring them a little bit with dogs and cowboys with hats on horses and then putting some food in a fenced area that is equally effective for turning four legged critters into dinner as it is for corralling votes from the idiot American public that makes up a high percentage of our country. Hence, the only logical reason we could possibly have babbling corrupt lying dumb ass running our country.

Anyway, Texas is proud and big and was home of Davey Crocket and Jim Bowie (the knife) and past famous wars. Hey, the Alamo!

Remember the Alamo!

Hmmm, actually I don't have any recollection of it. But I do remember Texas police setting up drug inspection checkpoints and randomly searching vehicles for degenerates carrying "The Pot" as they crossed over the boarder (from Louisiana to Texas) into the lovely overheated terrain of of oil, ego, greed and red necks. Fortunately, I was not a partaker in "The Pot" but my heart and compassion goes out to those unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of twisted mind with a gun or a badge. That was back in '86 though when I had an immature illusion that Americans actually had some sort of privacy rights, you know, that whole freedom silliness that is supposed to make us proud Americans. Since then and well over a million miles traveled about and around this ball we live called Earth, I have found my way to seeing things a bit more clearly, perhaps. Texas pride, American Pride, Shit kicker pride. Perhaps we are truly only as great as we are willing to be humble.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, every city, state and country has it's fair share of assholes and I don't really mind them too much as we need them around to keep the friendly humans from getting lazy. Oh, and the Mexican food here is all good, as are many of the people I know here and speaking of Mexican food the 24 hour place to eat here is called Mi Tierra

And this big friendly guy has rooster. Continuing the wander I yesterday head down to the sexily named AT&T Center where Peppers will play in a few days

to visit another Rat Sound tour called Taste of Chaos

Eight bands, rotating stage and six Rat crew on the road with another V-Dosc rig. It is desire and duty to visit fellow Rats whenever the opportunity permits. Greg, Steve, Tony, Taka, Baby Food and crew chief Tommy LBC are out there running the sound and boy that tour moves fast and hard. Five in a row shows, covering ground so fast it makes peppers tour look like it's barely moving. Basically it is the closest thing to a roadie boot camp you can find on larger yearly full production scale, possibly second only the grand daddy of gruel, The Warped Tour. It is a love hate thing and the people that tour and enjoy the travels of Taste and Warped are a special breed indeed and it where we find out what the crews are really made of with it being a starting point for many a successful sound career, oh and quite a few crash and burns as well.

This tour bus with trailer setup is not uncommon on higher density tours. It is pretty cool for bands that travel relatively light to be self contained, often with band, crew and all the backline gear as a single traveling unit.

For a show like this with 5 minute set changes, dual digital consoles is pretty much the way to go. All the bands' sound engineers store their settings and at the press of a button are ready to rock. Yes, digi boards are not my favorite but neither is the sound of an MP3 player, the issue is, sometimes it is just too inconvenient to carry a live band in my pocket. This tour is running a pair of Yamaha PM5D's both out front and on stage.

The rotating stage has an "A" side and "B" side and the is a console pair for each. While one band plays, the next is setting up behind and spinny spinny poof, there is the next band when the time comes to rock. Speaking of rock, here is a shot of 30 Seconds to Mars

Followed by The Used

Cool to watch and cool to see my fellow soundies in cities afar. Finally, look at that! How cute, the Texans have put cowboy hats on the bathroom signs, awwww

Ok, I will see y'all tomorrow and hey, how about we head right back over to the AT&T Center for a change, wheeee!

Dave Rat

OK, I fly tomorrow and will get back on the sound and travel thing and in the mean time, since I am trapped in a ponder, I may as well share it.

**** Ponderings ****

Jack of all trades versus master of one. Whether to be the specialist or the multipurpose man.

It seems I constantly find myself cycling between round and around I go like a tennis ball caught in the spokes. Left to my own devices without outside influence, curiosity so easily draws me into hyper focus on projects that I drill into to the point of satisfaction or frustration, where I set it aside till a time when returning will bring further results. A way I have learned to tear myself away to maintain a grasp on my surrounding life, like trying to keep a multitude of spinning tops in motion. All too many times I have lifted my eyes from an immersion in the timeless sensation of being meditationally lost in a project, only to find my body starving, bills unpaid and loved ones pondering where I have wandered off to. Self imposed moderation. I force me to stop and look around, take a break, breath, remember to breath. The hangover is so much more bearable when fresh water is mixed in at regular intervals. Dilution, maintaining a perspective, holding onto a thread to find my way back and to remember not to get lost. Lost, as if anyone can actually truly mentally return to a spot they were once before now. As if going back was an option rather than an illusion. My efforts made to hold onto my bearings, pay attention and refine the surrounding skill-sets that allows me to adapt to the world around me in a more versatile way. Yet I wonder. I wonder when my value truly is. For that matter any of us. If there were two villages, one full of multipurpose villagers, each able to do nearly every task pretty darn well but not great and another village full of specialists where each person was a master at a particular craft and not so good at everything else, which village would I prefer to live? Which village would I more likely belong? It seems the small villages could start as multipurpose and as they grew, the specialists would increase. Do I allow me to be a specialist or strive to be versatilist? It seems society rewards the highest praise upon the specialists yet the specialists are also the least stable in a wide variety of situations. It of reminds me of biologists speaking of highly evolved specialized species and how they are so easily threatened with extinction. So, I just now do a Google search on "highly evolved specialized species extinction" and look what I find.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0147%28194303%2F04%2977%3A769%3C133%3ASAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6&size=LARGE#abstract

Somehow though they seem to come up with humans specialized to the point of extincting themselves which very well may be the case but there is another layer. The creations by the hyper-specialized thinkers, defy time. Permeating all modern cultures are revered items and creations filling museums that are the result of absurdly time sponging efforts in various mind boggling directions. The unimaginable survival of what should be extinct. Incomprehensible creations, when each of our day today lives absorb our existences and yet somehow a some human finds time a spare decade to create monstrosity without forgetting to stay alive in the mean time. Decision decisions, hmmm.

http://sodarace.net/index.jsp

http://www.strandbeest.com/

**** End Ponderings ****

Ok, back to recuperating,

Dave Rat

Well, yesterday on the day off I went on a mini adventure

with Lampi Scott as we so often do.

Here we are in what is currently the most powerful nation in the worlds' capitol

and all kinds of important and not so important and wasteful and meaningful and puzzling and world changing and greedy and altruistic and corrupt things happen here and a bunch of humans that run around this place have the power to shape the world in which we live in ways we cannot begin to imagine until upon us. Sometimes the shape of which they choose involves dragging the country into the quagmire of battling an ancient christian/muslim religious war in Babylon that was sucker shoved down the throats of the American public by using terror and fear by deceivingly cross linking it to the unrelated 911 event while all the while the entire calamity is embraced eagerly by money hungry corporations awaiting their share of war profiteering guaranteed by the "good ol' boy" alliances with those assholes in charge.

Oh well, for each wave that crashes upon the shore, it is just a matter of time before it recedes. Speaking of assholes in charge, at least the asshole that the US has currently propped up in the White House is just a little itty bitty toy joke putz of an asshole as far as assholes go. Assholes come in all flavors and sizes and today the adventure for Scott and I involves immersing ourselves in the sheer and utter horror that a real deal asshole can create

It is beyond surreal to try and comprehend the true magnitude of the perversion of fear and hatred taken to the most extreme levels.

Humans captured, robbed, stripped, shaved and gassed by the thousands in an extermination process so cruel and inhumane that I would choose the luxurious life of a swine in a slaughterhouse over the fate forced on to the Jews, gypsies, blacks and gays by the Nazi's in Germany.

One of the most interesting things to me was the reality that an average normal and regular person when immersed in an environment that is saturated with hatred can so easily become a part of unimaginable realities as if it is business as usual. The human trait that allows things like the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment to be applied on a grand scale and for a country to embrace a culture of social cleansing so easily, resulting in such a horrid outcome, should be a good indicator that much care should be taken when aligning with ideals that involve taking a stance against a group of people. Nationalistic pride fueling nightmares. So when I read the paper in the morning and see flashes of the simmering stew of hatred as it brews against the illegal aliens or hear outspoken religious bigots gay bashing or taking stances against dissimilar peoples I feel a stab of revulsion. What I like is the thought of balance and I would like that balance to exist in the form that the preachers of hatred be blessed with being the exact recipients of the hatred they preach.

--- Show Day ---

**** Highlight of the Day ****

Certain people have unforgettable inspirational and memorable impacts on the lives around them. My highlight today was to get to hang with some that I do not see that often but it does not dilute the magic they spread.

If you don't recognize them, that's OK, what they are called is no where near as important.

**** End Highlight of the Day ****

Gratuitous goofy Dave Rat photo

and last but far from least, zee rock band

The big sigh from,

Dave Rat

The blog posts and days and shows have been all out of whack lately, I may have even lost a day or two in the confusion. I guess my attempt to catch up and blogoperate in a real time mode combined with switching to morning posting and recovering from pretty colored drinks has thrown a wrench at my illusions of clarity. Rather than attempt to fix the past, I will just add in an 'adaptor' post to line me up with the future.

To start with, lets pick up a few straggling lonely photos from the last day off, first, when I was getting all artsy fartsy with the reflection photo, I took a few others as well and the odd colors came from messing with the 'white balance' on the camera. Here is an un retouched photo where I used the pool water as the 'white' to set the cameras white balance

And the same settings with a pic of my arm

and the same arm after saturated color and a crop and rotation done in Macromedia Fireworks

and on the opposite side of the artsy fence, how about a raw production shot of the Cincinnati gig that looks almost like every other arena we do with a bit on an oversized scoreboard

When work needs to be done, it is common for roadies to take on various tasks of importance. With the arrival of our newly embraced Tiki theme, also has arrived a variety of essential delegated duties. My duty of course is blowing the palm tree up each day,

How about another meandering ponder?

**** Meandering and Boring Ponder Rant ****

Harley Davidson vs Apple Computers.

Both are corporations so I understand that ultimately they have profit motives as a purpose of existence and I am confident that the humans creating both companies were inspired by a dream of creating something unique and amazing. There are various reasons why either one may be arguably "better" business-wise than the other or whatever, but I don't care about all that. What is on my mind is the dynamics of the underlying sub currents on which these companies have chosen to base the way they sell their particular products. They both are recognizable "Made in America" brands that are culturally and passionately embraced by segments of the world population. Both brands are unique products that stand at the top of the quality heap in their particular sector. With Harley we have the 'shiny cool tough guy durable motorcycle' and with Apple, the 'peoples easy to use and attractive i-products.' Both make 'sexy' machines, both are status symbols in their realm. All of that, is all good and I enjoy the craftsmanship and quality angles that both companies incorporate but alas, there is a fundamental difference in the way these two entities financially retain the customers that embrace their products. The 'Harley Way' is to create a unique and desirable product that welcomes customization, alteration and invites the customer to embrace a plethora of aftermarket manufacturers that compete with accessories that Harley makes, should they chose to do so. A true open market, free will philosophy that empowers the buyer with unlimited freedom and possibilities limited only by the imagination of whomever wishes to contribute. The 'Apple Way' is to sell you a product that has been optimized to work seamlessly with other Apple products but also has bee cobbled in someway in order to minimize compatibility with non-Apple manufacturers. They have spent extra engineering hours designing ways to create these booby trap like incompatibilities and then pass the added costs on to the consumers. Once you buy in to the Apple Way, they do all in their power to hi-jack as much of your spending money as possible. In my eyes, Apple's business strategy represents an angle that strives to limit choices while Harley reinforces offering freedom of choice. Harley's success depends on offering quality products and accessories that are superior or more desirable than the multitude of welcomed competitors. Apple perpetuates by initially making a desirable product and then designing in incompatibilities and/or denying information that would allow competitors to make compatible accessories, whenever possible.

In my opinion the practice of designed in incompatibilities is just like SIM card locking where companies inject software that makes cell handsets unable to operate on competitive networks. Also the inkjet printer scam where they sell you a printer for $75 and the ink costs $50 for a replacement cartridge that is booby-trapped with a micro chip to block people from refilling it. Annoying, almost like giant versions of petty drug dealers giving away a samples to keep you coming back. Oh wait, did I say petty? Actually I meant international corporate conglomerate drug companies that give doctors free samples and keep huge masses of people dependant on various pharmaceuticals whenever possible. Predatory business baiting and corralling their human critters just as us humans do to sheep for their wool or cows for their milk. The company who can secure the most dependant humans wins. I accept that the predatory nature is an aspect of life and every snake needs to feed, mosquito and tigers do as well and I actually enjoy the dynamics and complexity of all of the interconnecting pieces that make up the balance of life and also I avoid unprotected exposure to hungry tigers, snakes and mosquito's whenever possible. Except perhaps if I am going fishing, hiking or many other adventures, in which case I make concessions, of course.

So all this rant was sparked when I read about Apple's new iPhone. Flashes of their incompatibility injections ran through my mind and reading further there was an interesting side angle. Turns out that there is some dispute over who owns the "iPhone" name and Cisco systems, a networking company focused on connecting computers together has an iPhone as well. It also turns out that Cisco Systems and Apple were in discussions over the iPhone name when Apple just vanished and released the product. Finally and my favorite part is that from what I have read it appears that Cisco's primary demand is that Apple make the iPhone interoperable with Cisco products, something that is very much against the grain of the "Apple Way" and that made me smile.

**** End Meandering and Boring Ponder Rant ****

Ok, shut up and do sound,

Dave Rat

Good Morning Sunshine's! For the last two days I have been deeply involved in doing whole bunch of not much at all. Decided to turn the TV on got bombarded with puzzling stories of people losing kids and finding them again, the racially polarizing quagmire of Lacrosse players and strippers and our bumblefuck of a president stumbling though his job much the same way he does with his words. I did enjoy the unexpected news that oil consumption by the industrialized world has dropped a smidge and is the first decrease in 20 years. High prices being the most likely cause. The bad news is that now the price will drop again and the natural human trait of self serving recklessness will most likely once again take over the decision process of the bulk masses and oil demand will rise again. Though all is not for naught as the price spike has triggered an irreversible trend of awareness and for the first time, low emission vehicle are hip and cool rather than tree hugger extremist. I want an electric car that is super quite, smooth and does not make a poison gas that will kill me if I leave my car running while parked in the garage.

**** Ponderings ****

While I am on the subject of tree hugging extremists, I am not one but I do try to be a human that makes an effort to minimize negative ecological impact. One of my quirky projects that I have been following for many years is that I do not purchase anything that utilizes non-rechargeable batteries. I make very few exceptions with smoke detectors and things that keep time and require a battery once every several years. I hate throw away batteries, poisonous chemical cylinders that sometimes last just a few days in the item intended combined with no organized global or national strategy whatsoever to recycle or minimize use. For the few legacy items I own that do take regular batteries, I use rechargeable's and there are a few things that I just have to make the concession. I had an interesting realization as well and that was that most things that I really use and depend on like my cell phone, laptop and camera, all come with rechargeable's and stuff that utilizes throw away batteries is usually the junk that ends up in the trash not long after the first 5 packs of batteries anyway. With toys and stuff for the kids it is a bit tougher but I explained it to them and they get it and they see the parallel between the items that are short lived and dependence on throw away batteries.

**** End Ponderings ****

Wandering around the hotel I heard voices. Not an unusual thing to hear except these were coming from inside the elevator shaft. Being the investigative and curious person I am I followed them pressing buttons to various floors until,way at the top, look what I found

There were humans putting metal wire ropes inside the elevator shaft. Plus the elevator was hanging from a big hook. Yikes! I ride them 'vators but it is a lot lees comforting seeing the guts. I just hope they put all them wires in the right spots. I actually was once in an elevator that 'fell' once. Luckily it was only a 6 foot drop before it slammed into the ground and stopped but it scared the shit out me as I was truly expecting it to go upwards slowly rather than downwards super fast. It was quite a while ago and we had loaded what I now believe to be "too much sound equipment" into it. Pressed the button, doors close and blam, this big spring comes down though the roof my body aches from smashing into a speaker box. I climbed on top of the elevator roof, opened the doors and we actually unloaded all the gear through the elevator roof. I do not recall if the elevator started working or if we just carried everything up the stairs after that.

Indian food with Scott, a trip to the pool

Some wanderings earlier

It is still a bit rough and need some clarifying but here is a draft

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Line Arrays - Fad or Future

I get asked a lot of sound questions. Some are aimed at unraveling an understanding of a particular function, feature or concept while others are directed toward distilling my opinion on certain pieces of gear, methods or industry trends. The difference between the two query types is that there are relatively 'correct' answers to the former and the answers to the latter are just opinions that tend to be un provable. The answer to the question I was recently asked "Are line arrays truly better and here to stay or just the latest fad?" lays somewhere in between the two. Just in case you have been sleeping for a decade or are not a sound industry human, line arrays have taken the pro-touring industry over by storm. Nearly every manufacturer offers several line array choices and of the two manufacturers that I know of that do not offer them in their product line, both have been forced to take defensive vocal positions justifying why they do not. So, what is it about line arrays anyway that has positioned them to so completely dominate our industry? Stepping back and taking look, I see that there are several aspects that are quite clear and a one in particular that is not so apparent but the most important of all.

The method or design implemented by the various modern large scale sound systems can be subdivided into two primary approaches. First and quite common are systems that I will call cellular or zonal in the way they cover the audience. Zonal coverage refers to forming a cluster of directional speakers and dividing the audience area into many smaller zones or cells and then dedicating a speaker to providing sound for each particular cell. Each speaker box then can be EQ' ed and volume adjusted to provide proper sound for the humans in it's coverage pattern. With this type of system setup, the overlaps between the box to box coverage patterns is crucial and of much concern. The goal and challenge of the system designer and tech setting up the system is to achieve seamless sonic transitions between the cells, which is no easy task. Another challenge with a cellular coverage sound systems is attempting to adequately cover areas at extended distances.

The second concept of coverage I will refer to as summed or combined. Summed coverage is the attempt to get multiple speakers to add together and act as a single larger speaker. The coverage pattern of this giant speaker would then be adjusted to cover the room by varying the angles between the boxes much the same way as the cellular approach. The big challenge with the summed approach is getting perfect cooperation between the various speakers, typically by getting them the speakers close enough together in order to minimize them acting as separate sources. Sub woofer arrays are almost always implemented in a summed array.

The key difference between the two methods is that cellular approach is based on minimizing the overlap between the coverage patterns and the summed approach relies on overlapping so well that they act as single large source. Well designed versions of both approaches try to avoid having a listener hear two acoustically separate sources that are in close proximity to each other that are also not equidistant from the listener. Why, you ask? Well, mainly because non-equidistant sound sources tend to sound bad and creates comb-filtering that reduces output levels and screws up the frequency response.

Sound, like everything else in life, is never black and white and exists only in varying levels of gray and the reality is that all real world concert sound systems exhibit varying degrees of both approaches. High frequencies are naturally beamy and lean toward zonal coverage and the low frequencies inherently tend toward combined coverage. The techniques that sound system designers implement to push the various sound systems toward zonal or or summed coverage patterns is quite interesting and ultimately a key factor in the clarity and sonic consistency of the system created. Just for good measure, I will give a few examples of common systems and my perception of the design approach behind their creation. Nexo's Alpha system, ElectroVoice's X-Array and Turbosound's Flashlight and Aspect systems are all excellent examples of zonal systems. Much effort was put into those designs in order to achieve distinct and consistent vertical and horizontal coverage projected from each individual box. The building block for these zonal systems is usually a relatively few speakers in each box that are mounted on some sort of horn to assist with pattern control. The boxes are then aimed to optimizes covering the acoustic space while minimizing sonic overlaps.

The summed-output system approach, until recently was considerably less wide spread with the Clair Bros S-4 system, the Rat Trap 5 and to some degree perhaps the Showco Prism systems being recognizable examples* . These systems tended to rely on boxes with quite a few speakers in each box that are in relatively close proximity to each other allowing them to unify their outputs and allow multiple boxes to begin to act as a single giant speaker. These systems inherently by design have overlapping coverage from multiple drivers even within each individual box. An issue with these systems is created by the physical spaces between the speakers themselves that cause the components to act like multiple sources creating box to box overlaps and comb filtering and inconsistencies in coverage patterns.

Then in the mid 90's along comes the V-Dosc line array, a fully summed-output approach sound system that for the first time on a major scale, incorporated the high frequency component in the summing. Line arrays are not new, the old Shure Vocal master with a stack of 10" speakers inside is a old example. Take a close look at a Clair S-4 and you can see that the 18"s and 10"s form vertical line arrays when stacked and check out the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound which had vertical line arrays for nearly every instrument.

So getting back to the original question of "Are line arrays truly better and here to stay or just the latest fad?" Let's take a look at couple of things that make line arrays an interesting and useful implementation of the summed approach. Though I have heard it described different ways and even read various manufactures' press releases arguing about 'who describes it correctly,' for all practical purposes they are all saying that a well designed line array system offers improved volume level consistency vs distance when compared to a zonal type coverage system. Now whether you prefer to envision it in the 'cylindrical waveform' description offered by the folks at L'Acoustics or you just think of it of "as you get farther away the sound naturally gets quieter but since there are a higher quantity of equidistant speakers pointed at you so the volume drop with distance is somewhat counteracted." The fact that a line array system can be set up to project sound over short or long distances merely by altering the angles between the boxes is quite useful.

Another feature that the slender line array systems offer is their narrow profile is quite easily intermingled with the exceedingly growing stage sets. People want to see what people want to see and it tends not to be the sound system, except for a few of us, and having the ability to slide a large scale system into the small gap between a few video walls or set pieces is a strong asset. Plus, the relatively simple two dimensional rigging that only deals with vertical adjustments not only allows for a high degree of predictability, it also is fairly easy to get motor points for hanging in most venues. The fact that line arrays are simple, practical and predictable gives them a real world implementation advantage over systems the require multiple precisely spaced motor points to provide proper venue coverage.

But you know what, even with all those useful and apparent assets, none of them truly give line arrays a hands down advantage. Zonal systems can deal with volume consistency over distance by implementing long throw boxes and utilizing volume shading to compensate and project louder sound to the far away areas. Compact high volume zonal systems can be incorporated into well thought out set designs and even be flown behind new modern video walls that allow sound to pass through. Well designed rigging systems that allow zonal PA's to be flown and rotated and adjusted are and perhaps someday even by remote control, either in existence or not far off. Finally, sonic prediction software is not unique to line arrays and the realty is that the playing field is fairly even from a technical standpoint, except for one thing and it has nothing to do with the sound system or it the cleverness of its designer.

That thing is us. We are humans and like many critters that run around this planet here we have ears and also like many critters, our ears are on the sides of head. The physical and biological placement of our hearing devices allows us an extremely astute and accurate ability to discern the precise horizontal positioning of sound sources and the approximate vertical positioning of sound sources. Does it not make sense that a two legged walker of a human would require an increased sensitivity in auditory perception in the horizontal plane where most of the food to hunt for and predators hunting us would exist? Even our necks are designed with a limited vertical range of motion and a much wider horizontal rotation and at any given moment we are turing our heads or bodies sweeping the horizontal auditory plane. We enjoy things in stereo, we place the stereo speakers spaced apart horizontally to maximize the effect, have you ever seen heard or wondered why stereo speakers are not placed vertically? In some apartments and houses it would sure make sense logistically. Have you ever tried to stack a line array on it's side? It is quite interesting as it typically does not sound very good. For those of you pondering in your mind about L'Acoustics ARC's, Kudo's and other manufacturers horizontally arrayable products, take a close look and you will find that there are strict angles between boxes when horizontally arrayed that minimizes overlaps in HF coverage and they are set to merge the coverage patterns. Hey, wait a minute, isn't that a zonal system? Exactly, and for many applications zonal systems are optimum but when you need to focus a tremendous amount of sonic energy in a particular direction, there are distinct advantages to forming a giant and controllable unified sound source vs a cluster of tiny separate and directional sound sources.

So here is the deal as I see it. With current loud speaker technology it is necessary to utilize multiple speakers in order to cover a large venues, as no one makes a single loud speaker that is loud enough, sounds great and is versatile enough to cover 10's of thousands of people in a wide range of venues. These multiple speakers need to be arranged in some sort of configuration vertically, horizontally, both or maybe someday one behind the other. Currently, we can get speakers to sum together quite well but not perfectly. Our ears are very sensitive to those imperfections in the horizontal domain and our ears are considerably less sensitive to those same imperfections in the vertical domain. Therefore, the true design advantage that line array's posses is that they take advantage of the human deficiencies in vertical hearing by keeping the currently unavoidable imperfections in the plane where we are least likely to perceive them and provide little or no component to component imperfections where our hearing is most sensitive. In other words, it is all about offering the human listening ear a single source in the horizontal domain which a line array does by design and a horizontally splayed zonal system struggles to achieve. Combine that with the fact that they hang nicely like a string of beads and I will venture to say that line arrays may just be a bit more than the latest fad and more likely a structural building block to the sonic future of large scale sound systems.

* The actual components and configuration of Showco's Prism system is kept 'secret,' so it is my opinion based on mixing on the system and it's sonic characteristics that lead me to believe that it is based on a summed-output type design.

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

The done being nerdy for a bit,

Dave Rat

Hey, it's Christmas Day! For many people on the this planet, today is a special day and for many it is not. I find the holidays to be an interesting conflict. I love the happiness that people share and I dislike that people utilize the festivities to propagate their belief systems on to others. My dad was raised as an Orthodox Jew. My mother was raised as a Southern Baptist, two quite extreme and opposing viewpoints. Growing up I was faced with some interesting realities. My parents were two people with conflicting belief systems yet I love and trust them both. Trees with bad apples and big boats with an earth load of critters and seas spreading apart and babies that just come. As time went on I noticed that it was so strange that there seemed to be so many arguments in the world around me based on things that I have never seen nor had any logical indication that I would ever see happen. In fact, a lot of these things seemed a heck of a lot less plausible that the things I saw in movies that people readily would laugh at me if I showed any sign of believing to be true. How come an ocean can spread apart and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang can't really fly? Airplanes do it! Something is fishy. So today I will share a bit of what I think goes on.

**** Dave Rat History of Religion ****

A long long time ago a bunch of humans are all running around and some Abraham guy is cruising around in the desert and he sleeps with this one chick and she ends up being super grandma to this Jesus guy. Eventually a bunch of humans start rocking out and saying this Jesus dude is the best rapper in the world and so damn good that he is part of the rock show of God. Meanwhile there are a bunch of humans that call themselves Jews that are big into the solo God thing and are not buying in to a new dude joining in. The Christians are all about, "Hey, come on Jew people, check him out, he the one" Jews say "Cool guy but, hey, "hello!, he aint the magic man, and we aint rap fans anyhoo, the God guy is a solo artist." This is where it gets interesting. It turns out that this Abraham guy was a bit of a player with some super sperm and he had gone out and partied with this other chick and she got knocked up and her super grand kid is none other than this Mohammed guy that shows up like centuries later. Turns out that he is also a rapper and builds up a huge fan base that call themselves Muslims. All the Christians are like "Hello, just another rapper but not the OG that we rock to." The Muslims are all like "Y'all are crazy, Mohammed is the Man and he supercedes your outdated old school Jesus' beats and rhymes." Meanwhile the Jews are like "What in the heck are are y'all talking about? They is just dude's and neither of them rock with God." So they all beat the crap out of the Jews and then started kicking each other's asses ever since.

**** End Dave Rat History of Religion ****

It seemed I had somehow been born into an unsolvable situation and refusal to take sides with one against the other, I did much pondering. What if they are both right? Does one have to be wrong? Can multiple conflicting perceptions be simultaneously correct? Is there truly anything that is right or wrong? Hmmmm, here is snippet of the confusion that roams my mind from what I've distilled from the ponderings

The people that are the most wrong, get the most angry. What better way to be right than to fight?

Almost all religions believe the same basic life guiding bits and they just argue about the details. I try and live my life by finding the threads common to all religions and skipping the arguments. Arguments are boring anyway.

Religions are like living entities. Like all other forms of life there is an inherent desire to perpetuate and reproduce and populate. Though most religions may be warm and fuzzy on the outside, they still make a lot of poop and will bite you if you mess with them.

Religious pre schools are often cheap or free as it is a good way to increase membership by recruiting small minds.

All books are words, not truths, nothing ever is truly true in the purest sense of the word, there are just things that less or more people agree with. For something to be truly and perfectly true, everyone would universally agree on it. Try and find something that everyone on the planet agrees on. And that brings to mind...

Never under estimate the ability of human beings to believe the most incredibly absurd and zany things, even if everything in life and survival points to the contrary.

Faith is what humans call 'believing the unbelievable,' sometimes it works out and amazing things happen and it can bring people together for celebrations of common happiness and sometimes in the words of Borat "Not so so much" and faith brings wars and death and hatred and a bunch of human critters spend their lives killing each other rather than eating food and making cool things and hanging out with their little people.

When groups of human minds all focus in harmony in a particular direction, it is an incredible, powerful and real sensation. It is such a powerful, real and amazing feeling that humans have decided to sell and market in many forms. Religions sell it in the form of prayer, rock shows sell it in the form of concerts, motivational speakers sell it in the form of inspirational gatherings and sporting events, well we know how exciting they can be by how well they attract humans en masse. Whether you chose to pay for it or join an orginzation like a religion that gathers to share the sensation, it is important to know that the sensation is natural and free and can be created without cost or strings attached.

Finally, no one really knows the answers or what will happen next, be very very suspicious of anyone that claims to know.

So here we are in the season where nearly every religion on the planet is plugging their holiday into the winter solstice and branding the dinner and family gatherings we share with the strings of their own perpetuation. And to me, it is all good and a beautiful, magic and wonderful thing to see all of us humans clustering and drawn together by love and wrapped in celebrations of life. Strings or not I wish Happy Holidays to all, regardless the your belief system that you have chosen to guide your life. To us and all our friends and everyone else whom with we share this planet. Here is a holiday cheers to warm people. To people that do their best to navigate through life in a positive way and even though we screw some things up. Here is to people that care but do not care so much that it ruins their happiness. Here is to people that strive to succeed but do not fall into the predatory weakness of stepping on others to do so. Happy Holidays! And in the words of The Barfly "Drinks for All My Friends!" Whatever drink that it is that you chose to be drinking.

The hoping I am 'not so much' boring,

Dave Rat

Day 200 - Dec 9 - Copenhagen Show

Home of the amazing and magical Christiania a magical paradise being consumed by the greedy and afraid.

**** Super Ponder 2000 ****

When I was young my mom told me that if I ever did drugs I would immediately go crazy and die. I was deathly afraid of drugs. So afraid that when my best friend and I discovered his older sisters smoking pot, I headed up a mission to rescue them from insane deaths by finding their stash and flushing it down the toilet. I discovered that this was not the best plan as I had no idea that they were so skilled at torturing young boys. I also discovered that though they were adept at our misery, they also seemed far from crazy and rather than dying they seemed to be getting attractively healthier than ever. I was faced with a quandary. My mom who loves me and cares about me had adamantly provided information that seemed to be clearly amiss. This was not the first time as I distinctly remember being nine years old at sleep-away camp and when the subject of sex came up, I naively defended, much to everyone's amusement, that my parents did not have sex and some babies just "come," as my mom had precisely explained to me. The unanimous mockery indicated that perhaps some more investigation was needed to gain facts to prove their wrongness. Depressingly though, the more information I gathered, the more I began to realize that it was highly improbable that I was correct and I had been supplied inaccurate information. I clearly realized beyond a doubt that my mom had supplied me false information and I was resentful she had put me in a position of ridicule. This whole smoking pot and instant death thing seemed to fall in the small category.

So when that same best friend handed me some pot to smoke that he had taken from his sisters stash and the quandary rolled through my mind, the doubt created by dishonesty was strong enough for me to discard my mon's credibility. I did not die and though I am a bit crazy I am convinced it was inherited rather than induced. I am neither pro nor anti drugs. I personally have chosen not partake in consuming mind altering substances other than alcohol on occasion and coffee whenever possible. I avoid even aspirin. Had I been informed that drugs, like many things in life, have pit falls and ramifications mixed in with whatever pleasure may be derived, I would have had better set of tools to navigate my choices. Like a skier's knees or a sound engineer's ears, a smoker's lungs, a drinker's liver or sky diver's landing, each life choice has potential ramifications with varying degrees of certainty attached. There were now holes in the fabric layer of the things I had believed to be real and that was the catalyst that started my mission to unravel my mind. I used drugs to try understand the world around me and the most important thing I learned was that I never needed drugs to understand. While I have no regrets and savor my memories and the perspectives realized, I had chosen a precarious path, one of many, but only one I saw at the time. Like reformatting a computer hard-drive, though they did not exist back then, I wanted and start fresh and to be free from the tainted viral concepts that others had injected into my understanding. I eventually adopted the mind strategy that "for any concept to be a component into the structure that forms my beliefs, it must be completely harmonious with the world around me as I personally see and experience, everything else will be relegated to the various levels of doubts and likelihoods that sit off to the side."

**** End Super Ponder 2000 ****

And this morning I share my first smile of the day

Wandering about this beautiful city and who would have guessed I would find a California Highway patrol car

Today was the smallest non promo gig of the tour and here is a good shot of the FOH pirate ship in the open venue sea

It was refreshing to have a small power filled room full of amazing fans and happiness abounds and here is a picture with Chad, Truck driver roadie Neil and I

Tomorrow I have a special adventure planned!

The forever pondering

Dave Rat