Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Reality Cliff

Well hello hello, how about we start off this adventure with a Sound Nerd Speak update.

Back in post http://www.ratsound.com/cblog/archives/326-Seeing-Things-As-They-Really-Are.html I showed some scope pics and took a look at the time clock output of several pieces of gear. Well, as was pointed out to me by Andy and several others, the Yamaha MC7L trace shown on the bottom half was not so pretty because it was not terminated properly.

Aha! An oversight on my part and thanks to help from Yamaha, I actually have an accurate scope picture of a properly terminated Yamaha MC7L, as shown below:

Furthermore, the following highly credible insight has been bestowed upon me and though it does not answer definitively, it does provide some insight:

We have conducted numerous tests using various word clocks and feel that using external word clock can affect sound quality, both positively and negatively. Jitter is often believed to have an influence on sound quality, but we have not been able to pinpoint exactly what it is about external word clocks that may affect sound quality.

In my many years of working at Yamaha, I have heard many opinions from trusted and experienced Sound Engineers ranging from “I won’t use a digital board without an external clock” to “I don’t hear any difference”. So like many things in audio, it’s a preference based on one’s ears/taste (and budget!).

Thank you Marc from Yamaha!!

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

I remember the dented faded red pickup truck loaded up with coolers of beer and my scruffy neighbors. "Dude, hop in, it is going to bitchen, and we got hits!" And instantly teetering on the line of demarcation. Never really hung out with the neighbors. That nervous rush up from my gut as the pickup engine starts, "come on, are you in or not, we got to roll." The I started toward them. No money, I have no money. The allure of being welcomed and I so wanted to go. One of the guys jumps out and dashes back towards the house while another lights up a joint. No one would know where I was. Piles of sleeping bags and assorted haphazard items piled around the 3 guys and two girls. Vanish. To simply vanish. It slowly backs up, an arm out stretched to haul me in and another passing me the joint. One more step and no turning back. The overload short circuit of instinct. Frozen. Frozen in time. What if I got lost? What is lost? Distant, lost in thoughts of what if's. And someone runs by me and into the truck. "Later dude" and sputters an attempt at screeching tires and away they went. Even now, three decades later, I can feel a heart rush wondering where my life would have twisted, had I jumped in the truck, that time.

Sitting in front of my dad's 19" Magnavox TV with a small mess of spliced wires connecting the headphone mini jack of the TV to a Panasonic mono cassette recorder. Maybe you remember, they ran on 6 C cells, had a built in speakers, a handle that slides out the front and big mechanical buttons that crunch down jamming the the tape heads into to place. Ted Nugent had RE20 mics on every rack rack tom. Aerosmith was who I really wanted to see. It was Cal Jam 2 and I watched every moment possible on the grainy color faded set and recorded it all. I could have been there. I was almost there. I was nowhere. I was nowhere near done with my homework. I was living in Hermosa Beach and I was three months away being able to drive.

Looking back, it probably was a better idea not to jump in with no sleeping bag in that pre cell phone era of being a kid with no cash.

So lets get down with a little bit old school! Here is a cool web page on The California Jam. http://www.gambleboards.com/jamtext.htm

54,000 WATTS OF AUDIO POWER
105 dB SPL AT ONE MILE
200,000 SATISFIED ROCK FANS

Tycobrahe. My very first exposure to the alien concept that a gypsy life could be led was a couple of Tycobrahe roadies with a house full of sound gear living next to a girl named Sheri. But that story I will save for another day.

Reminiscing about jumping off cliffs,

Dave Rat