Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

The economy and its financial implosion thereof dominates the news and as with every self fulfilling prophesy, each news report just seems to fuel the flames to torch some more. What better way to put out a fire than to throw money at it? To be realistic, my humble small company and humanly wandering perspective does not adequately position me into a position of experience and credibility to tackle the complexities of the spiral I hear so much about. That said, I have done some pondering about the matter and what I came up with is this:

Imagine three humans, one who cuts lumber, one who builds things and one who grows food. And lets say the food grower has $100. He hires the builder to build him a shed, and the builder buys lumber who in turn buys food who in turn builds a barn and round and round the $100 goes from hand to hand. In fact, in theory, that single $100 could go around so many times that at the end of the year, each human shows that they made $500 a week, $26,000 per human totaling an annual combined income for the three humans of $78,000, from a single $100 bill.

It is not the amount of money that matters, rather it is the speed at which money travels that determines how much each person makes acquires and has. By years end, they all could have more of everything than they know what to do with.

Now lets add in taxes and put a big tax on every transaction and within a fairly short period of time that $100 will dwindle to near nothing. Spending with caution becomes imperative and the three humans will live impoverished unless they switch to an illegal barter system to circumvent the taxes.

Now lets add in deception wherein value is falsely represented. The farmer sells inedible food, the builder never builds on time and the lumber is rotted or perhaps the $100 bill is fake or worth only a fraction. Regardless of the deception, the fundamental is that the product or service is misrepresented and worth less than the amount it is sold for and therefore does not perform as expected. Deception has a similar effect as taxes but is perhaps time delayed. The ripple effect of the faulty construction of the shed allows the crop seeds to be eaten by critters impacting the next harvest and so on.

Taxes and deception both have the impact of adding friction to the flow of money and slowing it down. So from this simple perspective, the key to economic management is to keep money flowing at a reasonable pace. Too fast and things grow out of control, too slow and things grind to a halt.

Hence this is where we find ourselves now. Houses falsely represented in value, perhaps due to the excessive speed of money leading up to the collapse or perhaps due to deceptive loans extended to people lacking the financial position to repay. Regardless, there is no less money here on this planet today than last year, it is the velocity that money travels from one hand to the next that has changed. The speed of money has significantly slowed.

So how does on fix a financial engine bogging down with so much friction? Well, there seem to be two trains of thought:

1) Step on the gas and dump more fuel into the system, as in 'huge influx of cash' to overpower the friction

2) Take our foot off the brakes to reduce friction by holding those responsible for misrepresentation accountable while lowering taxation.

What do I think is the best way to get the economy back up to speed? Well, I think a focus on reducing payroll and sales taxes would be the first thing I would do. Clean, simple and immediate. No sales tax, nationwide and cut all payroll withholdings in half for both personal and businesses, effective immediately. This temporary nitro boost to the economy means more money in the pockets and/or everything just got cheaper, depending on where you live. Instantly and easily reducing the friction to the financial system in a way that is controllable. Then, as this money gets spent or saved and things ramp up, just scale the sales taxes and payroll taxes back up. Sure the governments and states take a financial hit in the short term but when the money flows again, it will all be made back up.

Oh, and as far as the huge cash dump into the banks that screwed us? Take that $ and loan it to the states and to cover budget shortfalls from the reduce tax income. At least that way the fed will be able to get paid back at some point.

Anyway, I have been rocking the old records at home and the first Run-DMC album has been making me smile with the old school beats. I find it particularly interesting that this 1984 song so perfectly seems to describe today as well.

 

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And while on the topic of the gov, may as well add your # to the do nat call registryhttps://www.donotcall.gov/

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While continuing the financial fun, take a peek at one of the coolest and funniest album marketing strategies I have ever heard of from the super cool guy and awesome drummer, Josh Freese and his new album 'Since 1972'. He is offering some pretty fun deals if you have some extra cash

$7

* Digital download of Since 1972, including 3 videos

$15

* CD/DVD double-disc set
* Digital download

$50

* CD/DVD double-disc set
* T-shirt
* “Thank you” phone call from Josh for buying Since 1972. You can tell him what you like about the record that you purchased, or what you thought sucked. Ask whatever you want, like “Is Maynard really THAT weird?” or “Which one of Sting’s mansions has the comfiest beds?” or “Are Devo really suburban robots that monitor reality or just a bunch of dads from Ohio?” or “Why don’t the Vandals play more stuff off the first record?” It’s your 5 minutes to yack it up. Talk about whatever you want.

$250 (limited edition of 25)

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* T-shirt
* Signed drum head and drumsticks
* Go on a lunch date with Josh to PF Changs or The Cheesecake Factory (whatever you’re into)

$500 (limited edition of 15)

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* T-shirt
* Signed cymbal and sticks
* Meet Josh in Venice, Calif., and go floating together in a sensory-deprivation tank (to be filmed and posted on YouTube)
* Dinner at Sizzler (get your $8.99 steak and “all you can eat” shrimp on)

$1,000 (limited edition of 10)

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* T-shirt
* Signed cymbal, drum head and drumsticks
* Josh washes your car OR does your laundry … or you can wash his car
* Have dinner with Josh aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif.
* Get drunk and cut each other’s hair in the parking lot of the Long Beach courthouse (filmed and posted on YouTube, of course)

$2,500 (limited edition of 5)

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* Get a private drum lesson with Josh, or for all you non-drummers, have him give you a back and foot massage (couples welcome)
* Pick any 1 member of the Vandals or Devo (subject to availability) to accompany you and Josh to either the Hollywood Wax Museum or the lunch buffet at the Spearmint Rhino
* Signed DW snare drum
* Take 3 items of your choice out of his closet (first come, first serve)
* Change diapers and make bottles with him for an afternoon (after hitting the strip club)

$5,000 (limited edition of 3)

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* T-shirt
* Josh writes a song about you and makes it available on iTunes
* Co-direct a video with him for the song about you and throw it up on the YouTubes
* Josh gives you and a friend a private tour of Disneyland
* Get drunk together. If you don’t drink, we can go to my dad’s place and hang out under the “Tuba tree”
* Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam will send you a letter telling you about his favorite song on Since 1972

And to see the rest of them, check out:

http://soundcheck.freedomblogging.com/2009/02/20/want-josh-freese-to-join-your-band-got-75000/4962/

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And a tidbit about out rat brethren from other parts of the world:

http://www.asylum.com/2009/02/20/unbelievably-massive-rat-caught-in-china/?icid=200100125x1218513062x1201316048

  **** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Okey dokey, here is a bit more on the L'Acoustics K-1 rig:

New fly bars that are the same dimensions as the boxes. Those beams on top rotate 90 degrees pin into the bars and offer plenty of leverage for up and down tilt.

Ohh, the sexy delta plate for side to side focus of the arrays

Nifty rigging allows you to pin your angles before you lift the box and click click click, the boxes open up and grab the proper positions as you lift with rigid locked angles. Say bye bye to tension straps.

Four channels of 1800 watts in two rack spaces fully processed, this little lightweight amp powers two K-1, 4 K-1SB, 4 SB28's or any other L'Acoustics gear you may have laying around.

So we had a gathering of Rat's and friends for the first K-1 training seminar ever. And well, we may as well get some surfing in. That would be myself, Manny, Tony Luna, Ronnie Kimball, and Brian Rat

Ok, and off I go to try and figure out the rest of the world.

DR

Cool Shit

With the exciting delivery of the new PA system to Rat and the significant advantages and innovations over anything else I have ever heard or mixed on, I though maybe a peek at some other cool and exciting ideas outside the pro audio world, is in order.

Check out these new Michelin wheels known as the Tweel. Thank you Maija for the heads up on this one.

Even cooler, take a look at the video below:

Slipping over into some sound nerd speak, check out this speaker technology:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things.html is an interesting video and if you are curious enough search out more on ted.com like the Wii hacks. Thank you Grier.

Like everything in life, for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, so to prevent my blog from becoming a black hole and consuming the universe, I have included a web page sent to me be the illustrious Dan Hadley:

http://www.nathanmarciniak.com/elemental/

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Hey! MicroWedge 15 has been released and is now available. These are not much bigger han the MicroWedge 12's, louder and sound every bit as great and have considerably more low end capabilities.

I am heading off to EAW tomorrow to work on some new and exciting MicroWedge products as there are 3 more in the pipeline.

As for a tidbit of info on the K1 system, the LA-8 amps have limited but very specific internal EQ. Unlike trying to EQ a line array with a standard parametric, graphic or digital processor version thereof, the controllable parameters of the K1 EQ are linear phase, locked latency filters. This means you can EQ some elements in a line array without causing interference issues due to phase and time-error interactions between adjoining boxes.

In other words, do you know all that "frequency shading" that so many vendors have been implement without giving it a serious thought about ramifications? Like adding some high frequency EQ to the upper boxes or turning up down the horns in the bottom? Well, depending on the processor, adding that eq causes a phase shift, time shift or both in the HF. Most processors only cause a phase shift while a few cause a time shift as well. This phase shift is so drastic that it can easily be heard with a simple test.

Take a mono music signal and input it into your digi processor of choice. Bypass all EQ and all crossovers so you just get a full range signal. Using headphones, route output 1 to the left ear and output 2 to the right ear. Ok, both ears should sound identical. Now put a 30HZ high pass on one output but not the other. You should hear a shift in the centering of the sound. Almost as if the sound now has a diagonal center. Now try putting tiny amounts of delay on one ear or the other. You will be stunned by how accurately your ears can hear the even 1 millisecond.

OK, so what does this all mean? Well, just as your ears hear those subtle phase and time issues, adjoining line array boxes "hear" them as well and any differential in the time or phase will deteriorate the summation of adjacent boxes, cause unpredictability and reduce the consistency of coverage.

Ok, enough for now, I will try and offer a bit more insight into K1 system with each blog post.

Rock on!

Dave Rat

Awake is not Sleeping

"My favorite thing is sleeping, when I am not awake." I said it jokingly but when I heard the words I began to ponder laying in bed hitting the five minute snooze on my phone alarm. Just a bit more time in a warm bed with too many blankets until finally giving in to haul my humanly body out and start my day.

This aint right. I must be broken. And as I pondered it more it becomes so clear that the reluctance toward entering the new day means something is amiss. Not sure what I will change but need to flip something over and find a way to jumping out of bed something I look forward to.

Perhaps a holiday is in order and I need to embrace some travel and adventure. Any suggestions?

Anyway, back to last month and well, I must admit that I am not much of a holiday human. I get overwhelmed by the lemming masses crowding into streets and stores and I enjoy Christmas music about as much as being late while stuck in traffic on a hot day with no air conditioning. Oh, I sure love that feeling of doing exactly the same thing as everyone else at the same time. That said, the Rat Sound holiday party is always a good time and for the first time in quite a while the three original founders of Rat Sound were all in the same place at the same time. Say hey to Brian and Tommy Rat!

As with any good get together, the story of fun is often told what is left behind.

Perhaps I should also mention that there is a house policy in my home:

"If a human inside the house or on the property inadvertently drops their drink AND the container is made of glass AND the glass breaks, all other humans holding glass containers are required to immediately also drop or throw their glasses causing them to break."

This is a very important rule as it prevents the initial glass dropper from having any bad feelings and helps maintain the positive momentum of the gathering.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

It did not hit me fully until the party, nor did it hit me as hard as the planet earth in my surf crash. But it did hit me sure enough as I stood amongst a gathering of so many people I hold in such high regard who joined us for the Rat/L'Acoustics K1 listening party. Little ol' punk rock Rat Sound a huge, 'top of the line' PA system from the worlds most prestigious and respected manufacturer. I feel the same, the world feels the same, from the inside of Rat world, taking on the K1 system was the next natural step, there was no other option that made any sense. It feels exactly the same as when Rat bought the V-Dosc system a decade ago. What hit me was the view point from outside world. The reality that Rat has made such a huge decision, the timing versus the economy and the realization that people are truly excited but me in a bit of a stunned daze. And it dawns upon me that I have been so wrapped up in the inner workings of orchestrating all the business side, the I forgot to remember the most important part, that "ha! we just just got big giant huge awesome new quarter million watt toy!"

The K1 training course was a jam packed three day adventure Headed up by Flo and Steve who were awesome. Day one was theory covering the concepts behind V-Dosc and the new dimensions added into the K1 rig. Day two was software and learning the 3d sonic modeling and capabilities of Soundvision and the control of the LA Network manager software that con troll the processors in the amplifiers. Day three was hardware and flying the rig followed by a party with lots of friends and industry humans coming down to give a listen.

Meet Flo and Scott that headed up the training class:

And the highest concentration of K1 trained humans on the planet Earth

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

Oh, and so as not to let the lampi's feel left out and know that I am thinking of them:

Dave Rat

And the oh so painful sensation of an abrubt stop. To jump is exhilerating, but to land can be a bit less enjoyable unless a proper preperation is made. Hence the trauma climbing to the great heights of economic wealth without an adequate safety net. And also hence the thrill of slicing through a giant wave while forgetting to avoid the facepart of my head hitting the planet earth. But please, let me rewind.

Sunday November 30th was a quite fabulous surf day. C-Street Ventura saw consistant sets of double overhead waves. My first session with the Gene and Larry from the am crew at 7:30 went pretty well and brought out my five dollar, 8 foot board I bought a yard sale.

It took a little repair work

but it is my favorite as it rides like a mini long board, is super light and fun. But that day with the current so strong, I switched up to the Rat Board for session 2

after breakfast and headed back out with Brian Rat and his two friends as they drove up from down south. All good and the waves were building and we lasted about an hour and a half before heading in.

So exhausted from over three hours out already and pulling out of the parking lot I get a text message from Johnny who Ventura locals may know from Tony's Pizzeria, an awesome cool Pizza spot right up the street. So out of the parking lot and up to park again just up the way and 15 minutes later I am wet suited up for session number three. Oh my, my arm are rubbery and I get the longest surf ride I have ever ridden. Google earth says it is just under a half mile.

I wish I still had a picture of the surf that day to show you but that is another story. Anyway, thrilled and so happy I go to exit the water and a little wave comes up behind me while paddling in and boom crunch ow! Turns out the strong current had dug a trench and while I was trying to paddle in, what seemed to be a small wave jacks up with the tail of my board and shovels me head first into the planet earth. I got no mirror but but my hand indicates lots o blood. Dazed and delerious I stumbled myself out and found an overwhelming desire to lay down and regoup my thoughts and contemplate the long hike bak to the car. Next thing I know the lifegaurds and paramedics have me surrounded and won't let me escape.

I must say that it really smarts to try and restraighten one's own broken nose. I got to ride in a lifeguard pickup truck and an ambulance and most of all I want to thank Johnny for being a hero and looking out for me. He recued my car, brought me my clothes and made sure my surfboard had a safe place to stay till I escaped stich giving nurses and hospital world.

14 stitches and a broken nose and no surfing for three weeks later I was back on track. Not that I missed a day of work.

Most importantly, don't worry, I know what you are thinking and it is ok, the Rat surfboard is fine! What comes to mind is a short story that Anthony K told me once, so I looked it up and found it:

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The Story of the Taoist Farmer

This farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to condole over his terrible loss. The farmer said, "What makes you think it is so terrible?"

A month later, the horse came home--this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer's good fortune. Such lovely strong horses! The farmer said, "What makes you think this is good fortune?"

The farmer's son was thrown from one of the wild horses and broke his leg. All the neighbors were very distressed. Such bad luck! The farmer said, "What makes you think it is bad?"

A war came, and every able-bodied man was conscripted and sent into battle. Only the farmer's son, because he had a broken leg, remained. The neighbors congratulated the farmer. "What makes you think this is good?" said the farmer.

As told by Executive editor, Elise Hancock, in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1993, page 2, in section entitled Editor's Note

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I am not sure what the good part is yet but I know I will find it!

And as far as sound world, I guess the latest on the Rat front is http://fohonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2041&Itemid=1

Till soon again and Happy New Year!

Dave Rat

If only amongst the turmoil I stole the free moments to document the unbelievable flurry of last month's ride. So that leaves me with looking back in retrospect to share the hazy highlights. The glee of Obama victory waning yet the momentum lingers. I don't care much for 'hope' and 'faith' as they are to me is just versions of self deception, so in my life I have chosen to replace those lazy crutches with a vector of positive momentum. I don't hope, but rather I push pressure in the desired direction to do my best to unravel a desired outcome. Though I can not foresee the how it will unfold, my experience leads me to believe that I can increase the probability of ending up in the vicinity of where I desire. At least that is what seems to happen except when it doesn't.

As tempted as I am to say times are hard, they equally challenging in a wonderful way. Home prices collapse as gas skyrockets only to plummet, the banks dissolve the lines of credit that fuel and support business and productivity trying to bankrupt the unprepared and over exposed. Batten down the hatches as we are deep in the storm.

Last month the one of our banks pulled Rat Sound's credit line with 4 days notice. Not good news indeed as we head into the winter slow down. Fair enough, we were wise to use more than one bank and we have other resources. Off to find a new one and a bit of time and a brand new credit line. Then same thing happens to me personally, a letter saying I used to have access to a home equity that is now near zero. Aaargh and a few days and some phone calls later, I get that lined back up. The banks are trying to bankrupt a successful business. So dumb. It brings back the memories of battling financial institutions in the early days and reminds me once again that to rely on an outside entity is weakness. Always have a backup plan and let no one hold the reins of my future.

Anyway, on the more fun side of things, in perfect punk rock rebellion, what better way to celebrate economic hard times than to do the exact opposite? Come on, lets go shopping and if you are going to do something, no reason to bother unless you are going to do it right, right? So then what shall we buy?  Oh, I know!  How about the hottest new super cool best sounding bad-ass PA system ever made! We at Rat have spent the last two months lining up a purchase of a full stadium-sized L'Acoustics K1 sound system. It's only a bit more than a cool million and the largest equipment expansion in Rat Sound's 28 year history.

Oh, and so a few pics of parts of the sexy new system:

Here you can see 24 SB28's, 24, K1's 8 K1 subs, 200,000 watts of LA8 power, fly bars, amp racks and all kinds of other goodies that make up the best sounding PA I have heard yet and this is only the first delivery.

Silly annoying banks and the beauty of this whole adventure is how much I have learned in the business world, nothing like a challenge keep things interesting and I felt this video clip eloquently shares my feelings toward those financial institutions:

Stay tuned for Rat Holiday Party, my run in with planet earth and aargh, I lost yet another camera!

Dave Rat

As a human I celebrate how sweet it is to be wrong. I must admit that after the election I felt a glee equal to the dread realizing that our future was Bush, not once but twice. If you are up for an eerie grin, take a look at this spookily prophetic tongue and cheek article published January 17th, 2001. The day Bush took office:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Ah but then the earthy aspect of wondering how this regime change will effect me, my business and my world. I cringe as well as I believe that balance of power is fundamental to stability and ultimately happiness. Be it in a relationship, a company, a band or the houses of our government. The republicans in all three houses wreaked the havoc in which we now bask and democratic over-swing in the opposite direction concerns me as well. If only a happy medium could be found. But in the mean time, how about a visit to the happy medium of a Weezer show?

I have been so wrapped up and smothered in the business world of Rat Sound, I find myself forgetting and a trip to a rock show is refreshing. So much is going on. The economic crisis is crushing our credit lines, and launching us into defense mode. Good thing we have the experience of difficult times in our past help navigate.

I remember way back in Reagan era recession when economic issues washed through. I remember military expansion screeching into corporate downsizing and out of control interest rates and inflation. I remember the collapse of huge 70's rock tours and the counter-bloom of punk rock rebellion gaining traction and in turn becoming the tide which carried Rat Sound to new heights. Like the greenery upon the hills after a fire. The strong and positive will survive. In the mean time, much work is to be done to insure a positive outcome. And speaking of tides, this is what a short wander from my front door looked like right before I dived in to the chilly waters of Oxnard Shores with a smile and a surfboard:

I guess it is all just a matter of perspective,

Dave Rat

As we teeter on the verge of of what is presented as selection, an election. A tally of national opinion as check marks and button pushes are swept together into a theoretical pile upon which our future hinges. Ahh, the value of a vote where100's of hours of in-depth research and whimsical impulses driven by whom has better hair, are equally weighed. A vote for greed and a vote for humanity. A vote for hate and a vote hope.They are all as equally worthless as they are valuable. The great embrace of those that are willing to participate. I believe the system is flawed, I believe that just as we modern Americans gorge on junk food and television, we as Americans can not help but lemming our way into whatever we are least afraid of.

Dave Rat election prediction is McCain wins by a slim and controversial margin. Allegations of voter fraud, some founded, some not. The scales tilted by the an over estimation of the young actually voting and an underestimation of the primal fears and the true persuasive strength of the good 'ol boys.

Did I mention that I believe it is the balance of power that keeps things from spiraling off the deep end? Perhaps the republican 3 house trifecta with six years of total control guided our American ship to the depths of the rocky waters that our world now lays. Oh well, the world has seasons and perhaps a prolonged financial winter was inevitable. To observe the seasons does not mean I have the desire to change them.

Oh, this video is funny:

http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/index.html?nid=ln4DSfnE4lgGUqbDYQQAWzMxMzg3NDY-&referred_by=10991004-E01k8mx

Speaking of gullible humans, here is the sucker magnet of the week

Tubeolator http://web.archive.org/web/20010406053513/http://www.altmann.haan.de/tubeolator/default.htm

And a spew of senseless gibberish trying to appeal to simple minded logic:

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/speaker.htm

Whether it is political character assassination or snake oil salesmen, I find moments where in confusion I wish there was some sort of moderator. Some imposer of ramification to discredit and silence those that propagate untruths for personal gain. Then clarity returns and I realize that just as the unsuspecting rat is eaten by the snake camouflaged and hiding in the grass, the naive human whom allows themselves to be preyed upon by the deceptive, is just another aspect of the natural order.

Since my last dive into bloggery sharing, much has happened. First and foremost, we have lost a friend. Sound man down I am sad to say. Jim Douglas is someone whom I have held much respect for many years and I will hold his memory with a smile.

Another shocking and unexpected event hits home with some scary reality. A plane crash and Travis Barker is someone I have toured with and am honored to know and relieved to know he is doing well. Losing two of 'our people' and two of our plane flighty friends sends shudders deep. Good bye Little Homey.

And absorbing sadness, to mark a point to stand upon and launch ahead, lets slip back into the world of sound.

I did a couple of speaking gigs in early October. First was AES in San Francisco where I had the honor of sitting on a panel with

Phil Garfinkel from Audix, me, Richard Bataglia does Flecktones sound, Dan Healy ala Grateful Dead sound engineer and worked on the Wall of Sound, Mick Wheelan did sound forever for all kinds of cool bands and is now with Sennheiser, Dean Giavaras from Shure was the moderato and brought me on board and Mark Gilbert also from Shure.

The panel was about live mic techniques and how cool is that that I got to hang out with some industry heavy hitters? Oh, and I even got to chat with Dan Healy for a bit about the Wall of Sound and what I was doing with the double hung PA. It was definitely one of those moments I would never have ever guessed would exist.

Taking a wander about the AES trade show, easily the most curious thing was this speaker that looks like a fan:

The way it works is the blades quickly tilt back and forth and push or pull the air accordingly. They had a demo setup in a hotel room and it was quite an impressive sub woofer. The downside was that they needed a second hotel room to act as the speaker box. But talk about going low, this thing can all the way down to 0 hz! Yep, that would be DC or put another way, "wind!"

http://www.rotarywoofer.com/

Not much more did I see that excited me. I did like this Earthworks piano mic setup though:

It is nice to see simple clear solutions and I did end up getting to use one and I liked it.

Yet even in the seemingly safe and credible world of AES, do not under estimate the ability of people to come up with ways to weasel and scam. Check out this "you can definitely hear the difference" promo:

They are selling AC cords! Ok, lets think this through. AC power travels hundreds of miles on high power lines before hitting your local transformer somewhere a few blocks away. It then travels down power company wires before getting into your house or the venue where it travels some other lengthy distance down some old solid copper wire though numerous connections. Finally, you plug in this fancy shmancy power cord to bring the AC the last 6 feet and "wow! hey, that sounds great!" It just don't make no sense. Though a friend of mine often says "money will always revert to it's rightful owner." Hence I guess people dumb enough to buy into this deserve to to have their money fretted away.

Finally for today, my last adventure is another speaking gig but this time at Citrus College where I talked to a group of Japanese sound students.

Thank you Alan! That was really an interesting experience and I truly enjoyed it. It is really crazy talking through an interpreter. The new experiences just keep coming and I love it.

Rock on!

 

Dave Rat

 

I would so love to share some in depth observation or revelation of usefulness that would leave all that read these words with a smile. Hopefully by the time time I finish writing this entry, I will stumble upon something down those lines but in the mean time I will offer a brief update on my wanderings.

Though no one like a quitter, I did take a small break from my break from mixing bands. Actually, it does not really count because I'm not against mixing, just trying to see if I can both survive and not tour at the same time. Anyway, off to Santa Monica to fill in for my good friend Craig Overbay who mixes Weezer.

The morning radio shoot was not a major enough of an event to fly Craig down from Seattle so I got the honors to fill in and actually quite enjoyed it. Here is a live video from the radio show:

Cool how the Rat made it in, not so cool that the camera has trouble finding a focus. For those of you who may not be familiar with Weezer's actual Pork and Beans video, it is really cool! They went and found the people that did the most popular YouTube videos, flew them all out to the same place and filmed a Weezer video based on the YouTube videos. This site has a link to the Weezer video and then links to the original video from which Weezer built it. It is worth a watch as some of them are really funny!

http://valleywag.com/392972/weezer-undestands-how-to-work-youtube

And while roaming the world of web, check this out:

http://www.metafilter.com/74482/Rat-Sound-the-original-punk-rock-sound-company

I received an email asking Rat was ok with a post on MetaFilter and to be honest, I had not heard of it before. Anyway, I guess I am in the minority there cause after the post went up, I got a bunch of emails from people who saw it.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

What else, oh! I went to see Radiohead at the Santa Barbara Bowl and they were touring with the new L'Acoustics K1 system.

Here you can see 4 K1 subs per side at the top of the array, 8 K1's per side, 3 dV-Dosc per side and 3 clusters four SB 28's configured 3 forward and 1 facing backward in each. Also there are some assorted deck fills. As expected, the system was clean, clear and impressive, nothing surprising other than how darn great it sounded! I want one! This is destined to be the sound system by which all others will be judged.

While in the sound side of things and in web cruising video mode, check out this video EAW made covering the MicroWedge features. Love to hear comments on it.

On a less cheery note Dolby has announced that their state of the art processors http://www.dolby.com/professional/live_sound/Products/lake_processor.html

will be discontinued and users have less than 30 days to place all orders for any units that they will ever need for ever and ever.

Since its introduction, the Dolby Lake Processor has helped the world’s top touring sound companies and performing arts centers to improve the performance of their systems and has been widely recognized as the state of the art:

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As Dolby looked to the future, we observed an accelerating shift toward integrated speaker processing, equalization, and digital audio networking into amplifiers and powered speakers. As a result of these observations, Dolby and Lab.gruppen developed a program to take advantage of this trend by creating an amplifier that integrated DLP technology. So the Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management system with “DLP inside” was launched to great success—and we understand that more models will be introduced soon.

With the success of the Lab.gruppen project, and to align Dolby with our future corporate strategies, we have decided to exit the Live Sound business. As a result, we are announcing the final production run of the DLP, after which we will discontinue its manufacture. We have allowed the next 30 days (through September 30, 2008) for you to calculate your needs and to place final orders. This final production run will be set to fill the open orders we have as of the close of business on that date. Delivery schedules may vary from our previous norms, so please plan accordingly.

Dolby is committed to supporting both the DLP and Lab.gruppen’s efforts for the future. We will provide our standard warranty coverage and one-year of software maintenance on this last run of DLPs (see the attached Warranty Statement and End User License Agreement for these details). Dolby is no longer developing new features for DLP or Lake Controller software after release 5.1.

We would like to thank you for your support and hard work as we built this business. Your dedication and enthusiasm for the Dolby and Lake brands was a key component of the success we achieved. We are gratified to know that DLP technology will live on through our partnership with Lab.gruppen and we wish each of you much success in the future.

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All I can say is Yikes! So glad that Rat Sound went with XTA processors, and my heart goes out to the companies that are mind crunching the decision of whether to stock up or liquidate their DLP inventory.

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, as drastic as this notice seems, it does highlight something interesting. Just as the Line Array caused a monumental shift in pro audio, I believe we are at the doorstep of another massive shift and the days of the "dumb amp" in cutting edge audio is over. These new generation of smart amps are incredible. Things like being able to sense the impedance profile of the speakers connected to it and tell you if the system is wired wrong and what type and how many of each speaker type is connected to the amp is just the beginning! Exciting stuff so perhaps rather than loose too much sleep over last years processor, may as well start diving into next years Procamplifier.

And for the smaller companies? Well, expect a lot of cool used amps and processors to show up over the next few years as we audiots make this painfully expensive step forward into yet another new realm.

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

Other news and such, I had the pleasure of seeing Jack Johnson

and Bob Dylan as well, as I got out and about and I really need to figure out a new system to remind me to bring my camera. The whole "attach it to the Peppers laminate plan just does not work well anymore.