Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

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

So the Champaign show was in this little round arena that left me finding the FOH mix area at around 65 feet from the front of the stage.

Personally, I am really easy going about how far I mix from now a days. I did not used to be that way though. I used to have a miserable time mixing if I was too far from stage or I was not exactly the same distance every show. Too far away and I would mix too loud and heard too much room sound, too close and it sounded too loud and I would have troubles keeping things balanced as you can get away with a much sloppier mix when you are close and still have it sound good, but only to other people that were close as well. Those days are long gone. I do like to be centered but sound wise, heck I am fine being 100, 150 or even 200 feet away and letting more audience humans have a better view. That does not come without a bit of a cost though. I miss seeing the band up close and clearly. So in Champaign, it was refreshing to be so close and I took the opportunity to squeeze in some photos between audio cues and the room sounded quite good so I did not have a lot of adjusting to do. So, for those of you that like the band shots, I hope there are a few here you'll enjoy.

Oh, and hello Ratketeers! You three got a special treat and it was great to hang and cool gig choice to venture your adventure and thank you for swag heaven! And then comes time to roll and off to San Antonio and with big eyes and an honored heart I took the shortcut way around the twenty hour bus ride

Gaining a few hours of time not lost buying myself a dent in the infinite string of unanswered emails and ever growing "to do" list and a pile of moments I try and spare each day to share the fleeting adventure called tour with you. Next up, I take a little trip to another rock show on my off.

The constantly in motion and promising that I will do my best to catch up and respond to all,

Dave Rat

Good morning! So on our day off a few days back in Des Moines, we went on a roadie adventure called bowling as world saturated in outdoor ice inspired us to have an indoor group field trip. Here you can see a us roadies piled into a hotel shuttle

Where we headed toward the fierce competition of the lanes

to roll and bowl

Followed by a most fun adventure with our dreamy Des Moines, Ashley, Heather and Katie and joining Salim, Scott and I for blizzardy hike to a closed bar. But wait, like light in the darkness (literally) we found the curious place called The Blazing Saddle filled with fun and friendly people having way too much fun. Instantly, Scott joins in as he was filled with exuberance and joins in the gaiety of the festivities

OK, off to go see what's inside the world called gig,

Dave Rat

Good morning world of coldness

Blizzards are both cold and windy. Furthermore, they tend to heap a big pile of inconvenience onto this contraption called life. While slippery is an asset for some things, when blankets of snow form a slippery layer between car tires and the earth on which they travel, the likelihood of a less than optimum outcome is considerably increased. Being that our roadie lives are spent a midst a traveling road show, it is safe to say that we are not overly thrilled that this blizzard has decided to showcase it's capabilities in the same city and time that we are attempting to rock. The treacherous blizzard attempts to unrockify us but to no avail as we will persevere sally forth and onward ho.

**** Electric Inside ****

Something so magnetically wonderful about the going inside where the electrons flow. Ooooh, she is electric inside! and in we go as a piece of gear has found the desire for some special attention. This time it is the CD burner that records the reference CD's off the Pro Tools rig. These are the disks that on any particular day a band member will request a recording of the show to hear a certain jam or approve something for a Euro "B" side or numerous other things that inspire a listen from their side. It stopped working yesterday but too late try and fix for the gig. Also and of course, JF wants a copy of the yesterday's gig, Arrrrgh!! No major deal as we can re-copy it off the Protools recording but, it is just too funny how the day it stops working is one of the not so common show-listen requests. So, this little guy has been a die hard workhorse and in a world where CD recorders on the road often have an average life span of less than a year, this 5 year old unit is/was amazing. It wont read CD's was the initial problem and then I tried the "8 inch drop" method of mechanical realignment only to find that the CD tray became fully jammed and loose things have now appeared inside. Further attempts at the drop method proved equally frivolous. Apart she comes, and Roadie Lee has her in pieces for me to gander.

and in that boxy box is where the issue lives. I forgot to photo the full glory of all the guts involved but it turns out the the problem was the lasery spining thing decided that it was going mobile.

The lose bits were screws and after some figuring, fiddling and only a small hand full of spare parts, hurray she is all fixed up!!! Plus, it was the special day for repairs as I got to fix JF's and Chad's iPod's as well! One had a faulty hold switch and the other was locked up so I took them both apart, reseated the wire to the hold switch and pulled the battery and then did a system reset to fix the locked unit. Three for three, today is a good day!!

**** Bye Bye for now, Electric Inside ****

Hello old school transportation method. How glad am I that the tour bus has superceded this as a way to get around.

Lets see, figure 4 roadies per coach and we have 60 crew so we would need 15 or so of these, no back lounge, no coffee machine, no bunks, wow so glad I was not doing a major rock tour in the mid 1800's!! Those roadies had it rough.

**** Scott the Lampi's Comic ****

**** End Scott the Lampi's Comic ****

Hey, wait a minute, Scotty you just wait till I tell the rest of the story!!

Dave Rat

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.

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 pe offender.

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!

 

 

The delays were delayed. We were told that our flight was delayed but when it was time to board, it turns out that the delayed boarding was delayed as well. Right before heading out on towards the runway, the pilot informed us that there is a bit of a delay so he shut the engines back down and we stayed parked for 1/2 hour before being delayed 15 minutes more and heading out. Other than the further delay in getting a take off slot, we took to the skies without further delay. Landing only two hours late, it turns out that there was delay getting into the gate because of another aircraft parked there. Unfortunately the "alley" where our gate was is only wide enough for one plane at a time and we are at the end of a line of planes with the same plan as us, no problem, it will just be a minor delay.

So we land, the backline three

and I, gather our luggage and then push it around in circles as none of us have clear info on what to do now. If it was not for a few text messages from Scott the Lampi who just went through the same confusion, we would have not known anything. Turns out that we are to take the hotel shuttle to the Airport Hyatt, a lame square temporary human habitat plopped in the middle of a flight path. The video ad in the shuttle bus on the way over, much to our glee, informed us that the "The Hyatt O'Hare is currently going through a major renovation which will soon make it a new and exciting business epicenter." Interpretation - Expect to try and sleep in a hotel under construction. And with that,

Welcome to the glamour of doing a rock tour!!!

First stop, Chicago-ish Illinois for a rock show. We were here with Lollapalooza but now it is time for proper full Peppers gig, kind of near the windy city. Good morning, it's coffee time and soon it will be time to head in to the office for a work day in an arena filled with loud music.

Come on, lets go turn up the giant stereo!

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

**** Sound Nerd Speak (with a little bit of Drum Nerd Speak) ****

A little bit about resonance and damping. There are many types of speaker enclosure designs but for the most part they can all be distilled down to two basic types. Loudspeaker enclosures that have a hole somewhere in them that leads to the outside world and enclosures that do not. Some of these designers can be very complex with maze of chambers while others are truly just a hole in the box or a hole so big that there is not even a box per se. Secondly, speaker boxes can be made out of a wide variety of materials ranging from woods, plastics, metals or even concrete. Finally, inside of these loudspeaker enclosures, the creators often put some sort of filling like fiberglass or foam or felt product. While there are many other factors, all of the above choices have significant effect on the low frequency response and how damped or resonant the enclosure/loudspeaker combination will be.

To visualize what is meant by resonant, think of a bell. A highly resonant bell will ring for a long time after being struck. Now stuff a sock in it and though the tone is the same, it does not ring at all, "dink." Loudspeakers in enclosures act much the same way and just as changing the size and shape of the bell will alter its tone, so does the size and shape of a loudspeaker enclosure.

So like the bell, a loudspeaker can be designed to "dink" or "rrrrring" depending on the size of the hole, the amount and type of filler and the size of the enclosure and many other factors. Ok, Acme Speaker Maker has designed what they believe to be a super cool floor monitor. Sounds great, tests great, it is loud and not so resonant that it sounds overly bongy but not so damped that it sounds thuddy. Acme Speaker found during the design phase that if they tuned the wedge at 50HZ with a well designed port (the hole) and duct (little tube attached to the hole), and used no filler that they could extend the low end of the box flat, a bit further. They release it and sell it and Roadrunner Sound buys a big pile of them. Off they head to the first rock show in a high school gym for a gig with local heavy metal band, The Falling Anvil.

First they play some music through them and they sound pretty good. Out comes the vocal mic, check one two, turn it up, check one two, turn it up and "blooooooooo" a low end feedback is everywhere. Heading over to the EQ, Roadrunner sound finds a whole bunch of 50 HZ needs to be taken out. It is everywhere. Everything sounds muddy but hey, what what happened? Not only that, they have to take out so much low end that the monitors now sound thin. It is like they only have a choice between thin and muddy. They sounded fine when we listened to them in the carpeted demo room back at Acme Music store. Plus, Roadrunner Sound even went to the factory where they had all kinds of really expensive test gear that showed how perfect the monitors were. The big room with all the padding on the walls was way cool. What the heck happened?

Well, this scenario is pretty much the norm for an incredibly high percentage of pro audio speaker products. Manufacturers test in anechoic chambers (rooms without reflected sound), often using test tones and signals focusing on flat response and max volume. The sound companies quite often use the products in rooms with lots of echo and the real issue is that some of the sound from the monitor speakers gets back into the mic and then comes out the monitor and back to the mic, round and round. If the amount is increasing, it is called feedback, screech! or Wooooo!, but if it is there but not enough to regenerate, then it just makes things more resonant sounding. These two things, room resonance and regeneration, combine in the live environment to increase the resonance of the loudspeakers in real world use.

Now comes along another manufacturer, Clever Sound, that designs loudspeaker systems specifically to be used in the real world. Knowing that a bulk of the market they shoot for is either going to be on amplified stages or resonant rooms, they design their cabinets to be under damped. To achieve this they tune them lower and the box begins to roll off at 60HZ yet is still usable down to 40HZ but it requires a bit of EQ. Also, they stuff the box with lots of filler which gives it a very tight thud sound when it is not in a resonant room with an amplified stage. With music in the anechoic chamber, the loudspeaker sounds a bit dead but with a mic it seems to liven up a bit.

Unfortunately though, because Clever's monitors are over damped, the specs show that they are lower volume and lower efficiency than the resonant ones. Unfortunately, Acme's resonant wedges sound louder and even though the extra volume is fairly useless is many of the real world shows because it needs to be EQ'ed out, it is still enough to increase sales.

This resonance vs damped situation also exists with drum kits. In the studio in a non amplified environment that is acoustically controllable for resonance, it is quite common to use ringy drums with no damping. The puzzled drummer then queries, "what is wrong with these live, they sound great in the studio, that is the sound I want." Aha, but in the studio you did not have a drumfill blasting, or a bass guitar rig three feet away wiggling all the drum heads or a PA system thumping and the the room in the studio had all those cool rolling sound panels. "OK, tell ya what, if turn off your drumfill, move you way over there away from the bass player and PA and surround your with acoustic panels, then you can play this kit all ringy like that. But I have a have a better idea because no one will see your stick twirls over there, how about we deaden the drums a bit and then crank the drumfill and PA till it brings them back to life? Then we do a rock show!

All that frustration with tuning drum monitors and ringy drums applies to tuning monitors. It is too bad though that drums are fairly easy to re tune and damp down mechanically while monitors, subwoofers and main PA speakers it is often integral to the design of the system.

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

The scratching my head,

Dave Rat