Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Paris

**** Ponderings ****

Day Breathing, eating and sleeping are choices deeply intertwined with the survival of an individual

**** End Ponderings ****

**** A Toast to Us Friends ****

A pause for a moment with a smile and I want to thank all of my bloggery friends from the depths of my heart for bringing me that that smile to my day, everyday. Who would have ever knew that a wandering soundie could be embraced so warmly by so many amazing and unique friends that span the globe. The whole thing is as absurd as it it is heartwarming. Even the thought that a person can have job purpose of controlling sound is an oddity unto itself and it exceeds any dreams I could have imagined my future to be. To be able to share this sensation of motion and feel \ so many interesting and amazing people are joining in, is beyond words I can express. I looked at the web site statistics today and they say that over 5000 unique visitors are viewing the blog daily, mind bending, mysterious multitudes. Yet I have come to know through comments and emails perhaps 100 and I read every one. I apologize for being slow to respond and at times I feel I have I have bitten off more than I can chew. I do plan on catching up on answering question perhaps not for a bit though as just trying to catch up on posts alone is a challenge in itself. So here is to all of you and to us and to never knowing what will happen next and to the curious and to opening each new day like birthday present.

**** End Toast to Us Friends ****

Last night I ovenighted with the band and 9:30 am sees me at the venue a full 36 hours before the show, this is not a normal day.

**** Issue of the Day ****

Everything. Things are amiss. We have been cycling through various stage setups and nothing is stable. Something is not right. The sound on stage is all over the place. Daniel is in spirally hell and no matter what he does he is helpless to get it under stable control. My job is to find and fix the issue. There are several potential culprits I found:

1) The PA is behind the band. Typically this is a bad thing but not the end of the world. IT makes my job tough as everything I do is heard by them and can screw them up so I have to mix with care, but we have done it before and not had an issue.

2) The video screens in front of the PA are new. Though they let most of the sound through and do effect the sound, I can compensate for it. More relevant is that there is "splash from the video rags that reflects onto stage kind of like shooting a hose through a screen door.

3) There is a curved roof over the band. Curved surfaces act as sound reflectors and like a curve mirror, reflect the sound to a center point. That point is AK's mic.

4) that stage is resonant. If you jump on the stage it makes a boomy sound, though the issue is mainly described as a high frequency wash that makes it hard to hear each other, it is possible that low end is overloading the in ear units.

So here I sit with Manny the Aussie rigger doing all we can to address the issues and what we did is 5 things. First we had 4 feet removed from the front of the stage which pushed the band back relative to the PA. Next we moved the video screens out from in from of the PA. Third we draped theatrical black cloth on the inside of the curved roof to reduce reflections. Then locating more stage tops, we double layered the stage to increase the sturdiness of the stage. Finally we crossed our fingers because there was nothing else to done, if this does not work, I am at a loss. It must. And tomorrow we hope for a day that is:

**** hopefully End Issue of the Day ****

And off to find an adventurous night out as a group of bloggery friends who have self proclaimed themselves "The Ratketeers" are in town. Cheers and beers and many bottles of wine deep, a most memorable adventure indeed.

Dave Rat

Though at times life is stressful, so many things are sweet.

And of all the things we commonly eat, how strange is it that we avoid consuming anything that has anything to do with insects except honey. Our only insect created food.