Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Bus ride to Des Moines, ice storm outside and doing a bit of bus bunk computing.

Back and running and all just seems to pick up where it left off. Currently the biggest challenge with these tour stops and starts, lays in the band's laps. Production wise, the trucks are loaded and still how we left them on the last gig, business as usual for us. Whereas the band guys take playing every show the best they can to heart and are caught balancing well needed breaks with hitting the ground full speed. It kind of reminds me of athletes in a way but rather than training for an event, they need to stay constantly in shape. To much push and they burn out, not enough and they become unsatisfied with the shows. The constant self pressure to strive, is an impressive trait and those that have it, often end up in amazing places and lives, like our our musical Peppers friends have.

And here is something I have been meaning to do for a while, have a look around Milwaukee gig from FOH perspective

http://www.ratsound.com/360_pics/mil_foh.html

Speaking of perspectives, have a look at an empty arena from Anthony's point of view

**** Nerd Speak ****

Stuff breaks. I guess "breaks" is a bit of a catch all for the various forms of malfunction that the various items decide to embrace. Today our broken thing adventure involved what we call the Eventide H3500. The reason we call it that is that those are the words written on the front. What this thing does is something we soundies call "effects." Now, I am not one that is big on effects and with my setup only having a grand total of two, I pretty much use about 1/3 of the norm for shows half the size. The good part is that I don't really need a lot of effects with this band, the bad news is that with only two units, I really really do need and use them and losing one is a big deal. Furthermore, the units I like are neither new nor easy to find nor particularly special for that matter. Just simple older dependable easy to use and solid sounding effects boxes. I leave all the "buy the latest and greatest gizmo to the engineers that feel thave it still run, electronics often are similar and depending on what it is, there are usually a bunch o bits that ya don't really need. In this case, it was a small capacitor that most likely helped with keeping RF noise down. What really matters is that not only does the unit work but also it is a tiny bit lighter as well!!

**** New! Scott the Lampi Cartoon Series ****

How about a little cartoon series made by Scott to join our bloggery space?

**** End! Scott the Lampi Cartoon Series ****

Finally, ooooh, look out the bus door over here, yikes, looks like the damn storms are fitting to chase us again, oh well.

Now for some finger crossing that it was just a spare and we did not really need him in there anyway as we plug the unit back in and .... Hurray! It works!!!

Some may ponder why they would put spare blobby blobs in there and logic would dictate that it must of had a purpose but that is not always the case. Just like you can take a bolts out of a car motor and have it still run, electronics often are similar and depending on what it is, there are usually a bunch o bits that ya don't really need. In this case, it was a small capacitor that most likely helped with keeping RF noise down. What really matters is that not only does the unit work but also it is a tiny bit lighter as well!!

**** New! Scott the Lampi Cartoon Series ****

How about a little cartoon series made by Scott to join our bloggery space?

**** End! Scott the Lampi Cartoon Series ****

Finally, ooooh, look out the bus door over here, yikes, looks like the damn storms are fitting to chase us again, oh well.

The watching out for and making huge water messes, but worth every second,

Dave Rat

PS, Foa anyone interested, I did an interview for Guitar Center a few months back that just came out.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/interview/daverat/index.cfm

I was hesitant at first but when I saw that several of my musician friends had done them too, well, I gave in. The crazy thing though is that it's all well known musicians and then me, Dave Rat the roadie!!

http://www.guitarcenter.com/interview/

How funny is that! This is not going to help me out with trying to shake the "5th Beatle" heat I keep getting. Eeeek!