Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Heavy Gear

So getting ready to tour with Soundgarden and the gear left on trucks today. I cool K1 rig and lots of toys. Jamie and the rest of the shop Rats have spent the last week or so building up the ,complex kluge of gear for the run and it should be cool. Here is snap of the FOH racks as I will start the tour. I have some fun new things going on with subs that I am hoping will pan out as planned. A newer cleaner setup to replace the vortex, though not quite as sexy looking plus some new control features I am pretty psyched about. I am planning on setting up sideways again with the console controlled by my right hand as I face forward towards the band. In front and off to the right will be the racks shown below. The goal is to have a wide open space between the band and I with no gear between while being able to clearly see the RTA, system EQ's and the rack gear. Stepping back will allow a full scan of everything going on with the system.

The Dorroughs meters are new and I am hoping the average versus peak simultaneous metering will do a good job of giving a clear visual on how well the subgroup compression technique I use is working. For more info on that, check out the youtube video I did on the subject.

Cool cool, excited to get out and about have some fun getting this rig dialled in for some epic gigs with a super cool heavy band!

-Dave Rat

 

Here comes summer sunshine and time to jump back in to making the world a louder place to live in. Red Hot Chili Peppers have a new album coming out at the end of August directly followed by a world tour schedule that keeps rolling through 2013. Bye bye home. well, not really as Peppers tend to travel a 3 week on, 2 week off pattern so I wont totally disconnect from the world I currently live in. Plus with my daughters now 15, I am planning to have them take turns coming out to visit on and get in some travels and adventures. Oh, and the first gig is in Hong Kong, never been so its always cool to go to a new city.

But before all that kicks in, I will be out for all of July mixing Soundgarden for a one month North America run. It just all comes at once. Unfortunately I could not take the upcoming Blink 182 tour as it overlaps both Soundgarden and Peppers, but at least two of the three bands I mix have schedules that fit well enough.

Whenever I head out on the road for a major full production tour, I try and formulate some sort of useful or memorable adventure to attach to the travels. On Rage Against the Machine tour in 1996, I decided I would learn HTML and build a web site, back when it was not a point and click process. Unfortunately "Way Back Machine" did not capture the images of the old Rat Site but here is a link to the archive.

And if you are not familiar with Way Back Machine, it archives the internet so you can see web sites as they were, way back when.

Google beta site 1998

Enron from start to collapse

The very first Twitter Web Page

I find it both interesting and useful. I use it to look up old specification on audio gear that is no longer made and with a bit of digging there is all kinds of seemingly long lost info that is still around.

Speaking of way back, way back in April Rat Sound provided the gear for our 11th Coachella Festival and our 5th year supporting Stagecoach Festival, except this time there were three weekends instead of two and a the Big 4 show with Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth kept us in the desert for three weekends with 7 semi trucks of gear.

Oh, so back to useful and memorable, one tour I learned to weld and had a 200 amp welder shipped to my hotel and made an electric gocart, another tour I learned to scuba dive during a week off in Bali, but mainly I try and focus on the fact that I have a giant sound system at me disposal and try and figure out some sort of new or improved way of presenting large scale audio.

So, for these tours, so far, I have four things on my plate:

1) I have a new sub setup that appears to be an improvement over the Vortex/Orgasmatron configuration

2) I have worked out a sub woofer processing method that should reduce if not eliminate the two primary nulls realized from two spaced sub sources. I did some youtube vids on subs setups and I look forward to testing the new processing.

3) As the sound world clamours deeper into the layered menus of digital control, the amount of information involved with mixing is growing exponentially while the amount of useful information we have access to becomes buried and diluted. Maybe it is all my punk rock anti follow the flow tendencies or perhaps I just want a simple clean controllable environment to mix in. Either way, I am excited about adding big giant VU meters to my setup. http://www.dorrough.com/ There is more to this than just a having a big meters as these provide some valuable insight into the sound being reproduced directly in line with my mixing strategy.

4) And more down that line, I had a great time mixing Paul Van Dyk in the Sahara Tent at Coachella this year. Two inputs, both Left and Right. I made a point of running the audio in a direct super clean path and used some Tonelux Mic pre's, EQ's and went directly into the amps from there. The sound quality difference over the more complex audio path from the normal setup was audible and preferable So, I am going to do some work on cleaning up and reducing the complexity of the audio path to get a cleaner sound to the speakers.

Ok, that's it for now, except one more thing. I officially declare the recession over. Just as it took a year for the realities of the recession to penetrate deeply enough into the depths of our economy for all to agree that it actually existed, the recovery will be denied by those late in the healing process until long after positive momentum is firmly entrenched and and driving the powerful core economic direction in a positive direction. Unfortunately the late healers involve employment figures and housing prices, so bemoan if you wish but the reality is that now, right now is the time that point that 5 years from now you will look back and go "man, I should have blah blah blah'ed back then because the people that did are on top of the world."

Ok, that's it for now, I will try and get some regular pattern for blogging again now that I am getting back into touring mode. In the mean time to fill the spaces between the blog posts that actually require me to sit down at a computer, I will continue doing updates and such via twitter and Facebook as well as posting links to stuff on daverat.com. Cool cool and see ya'all soon!

Dave Rat

Home from six weeks away and this time rather than acclimate I am enjoying maintaining the pace. Bring it on, hit the ground running with morning jogs, surfing anything remotely resembling waves and full steam ahead in work world. I finally have wrapped my head around embracing the business side of things by reframing it from a chore to a challenge.

Oh, I just got asked by Jonathan Novick to be a noon time Keynote speaker at AES in San Francisco on friday November 5th as well as to be on a panel with Tom Young discussing fill speakers for live concerts. I have been pondering what to speak about putting together an outline and am thinking I will start with a bit about the allure and challenges of the road life. I want to also cover understanding some fundamental differences between live and recording worlds hopefully from a fresh angle followed by some technical of the live sound challenges that would be beneficial to overcome. Finally talking about how the brilliant AES audio minds could help push live audio to the next level.

Since it is important that I am on track with covering aspects that wants to heard, I though I would ask. If you you are going to be attending AES and have subjects or suggestions you feel would be interesting that may fit, send me message or post a comment and I will try and cover it. Plus this will hopefully give me a better understanding of the direction to take it.

And while we are rocking social networking for the betterment and fun of all involved, it took me a while to find but I stumbled on an angle with twitter that seems to be going well. The random twitter updates without some substance never felt quite right to me so I started intermixing "Sound Tips." What I found was that not only was I getting a positive response but also it acts as a simple 'thought storage space' to hold concepts I feel worth remembering. So here is a consolidation of the Sound Tips so far and if you want further expansion on the concepts, there are some great response threads on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/?ref=mb&sk=messages#!/1drat

**** Sound ips ****

1) Spaced apart subs create a power alley. Use this instead of stacked behind for drumfill to get less lows washing the stage

2) Be sure to actually listen to your reference RTA or smaart mic before trusting it. A lot of those mics distort at higher volumes

3) Find the room resonance and kill it. Typically 200 hz for 2k cap dropping to 125 hz for 20000 cap

4) Ears want to hear a smooth response over time, disregard short term peaks, use 10 seconds averaging minimum on Smaart/RTA

5) For line checks in headphones PFL the L&R, turn all channels on/up to hear post fader actual relative levels rather than solo

6) The closer u mic the more instrument u get & the less background noise. Downside? Extra low end but lows are easy to EQ out!

7) Point the guitar rig on stage slightly outward or upward so it does not blast you at FOH a few inches makes a big difference

8) If you have hum and you can't fix or no time, try polarity reversing some channels like backing vox to force cancel it out

9) The whole 'phantom from foh OR mons is silly. Phantom from both is all good and gives redundancy and won't hurt anything

10) Why use boomy mics on boomy instruments? Try small dia condensers for clear sound, Use boomy Lg dia mics on thin instruments

11) Sound Tip: Engineers that mix with blasting kick are like 'learning to drive drivers.' Gas it on green & slam breaks on reds. Pro's r balanced.

**** End Sound ips ****

Oh, also I have been trying to centralize all the info on http://www.daverat.com which streams my blog, twitter, Rat Forum and has links to many of the articles I have written.

Ok, here are some more pics

Mark Hoppus, Blink 182

Monster Magnet

Paris from the Eiffel Tower

The Arch!

Mel, Robert, Daniel and I hanging in Vienna. Daniel took us on an awesome tour of the city, thank you!

Ahh the ramp push

Uh oh!

Travis

Travis says hello to Daniel

Pretty Sure this was Vienna and I think we have all felt this at one point or another

Cool cool, and off to rock some homework with one of my shorties,

Dave Rat

Back Again

First Blink 182, now Soundgarden, hey I am the reunion guy! Oh, if you are in to the sound nerdery stuff, I have been pretty good about getting videos up on youtube about various sound world things. I really try and cover subjects or explanation that are off the beaten path. Check out either http://www.youtube.com/user/www73171 or http://daverat.com/ if you are into that kind of stuff.

Oh and while I am doing shameless plugs, if you need any sound or video gear, give Daniella or John Karr a shout and they will hook you up.  Rat keeps low sales margins, will gladly give you real world advice and if you ever have any issue with anything we sell ya, we will take care of it and get you dialed in and happy.

Finally the first batch of Rat NL4 Sniffers are coming in next week and though I have not seen the production final, the photos I've seen are really cool.  The web site is still being worked on but to check out the products as they become available take a peek at http://soundtools.com/  

OK, time for some ramblings and adventures

**** Back in the Day ****

Rewind twenty years back to the most grueling non Black Flag tour I have traveled. Three of us across on the bench seat of rented bobtail truck, following the band busses and hauling the monitor rig and FOH drive.

Danzig, Soundgarden, Corrosion of Conformity, Warrior Soul after Boston
07/27/90 Santa Monica Civic, Los Angeles, CA
07/28/90 Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA
07/29/90 Wilson Theater, Fresno, CA
07/31/90 Horticultural Center, Salt Lake City, UT
08/01/90 C.I. Sports Complex, Denver, CO
08/03/90 Riviera Theater, Chicago, IL
08/04/90 Central Park Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI
08/05/90 First Avenue Club, Minneapolis, MN
08/07/90 Mississippi Nights, St. Louis, MO
08/08/90 Bogart's, Cincinnati, OH
08/10/90 Latin Quarter, Detroit, MI
08/11/90 Agora, Cleveland, OH
08/12/90 Metropol , Pittsburgh, PA
08/13/90 Concert Hall, Toronto, Canada (cancelled)
08/15/90 Citi/Axis, Boston, MA
08/17/90 Beacon Theatre, New York, NY
08/18/90 Airport Music Hall, Allentown, PA
08/19/90 Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA
08/21/90 Ritchie Coliseum, College Park, MD
08/22/90 The Boathouse, Norfolk, VA
08/24/90 Huger Street Concert Hall, Columbia, SC
08/25/90 Center Stage, Atlanta, GA
08/27/90 Houston, TX
08/28/90 San Antonio, TX
08/29/90 Unicorn, Dallas, TX
08/31/90 Celebrity Theater, Phoenix, AZ
09/01/90 UCSD, San Diego, CA

I was doing monitors and Danzig was easily the worst artist to work with, still to this day, that I have ever encountered. That said, misery in retrospect is always a great story and there were some really memorable times. Us soundies, Brandon, Karrie and I had an ongoing battle with the backline/merch truck. I think Brandon sent me this pic a while back.

 

I remember threading a bass string through a six pack of empty beer cans and attaching the contraption via another bass string around the exhaust pipe of their truck and then using some gaff tape to hold the cans against the muffler. A few miles out on the freeway at 3 am, the gaff tape melts, the cans drop and drag and bounce and we honk and zoom by with huge smiles.they pull over on a pitch black highway to the mysterious clanging sound.

At another gig they trapped poor Brandon in the back of our truck and sealed the door right after tossing in a brick of firecracker. We heard this banging sound and opened the truck to a huge smoke plume and a human comes coughing out. Tiger balm on their truck seat, an Estes Rocket launcher fuse attached to an M70 attached to the dome light in their truck and on and on the pranks went. Glenn Danzig once took a swing at me mid show, the feisty little fighter he is. And everyday we found endless amusement in the eight foot high drum riser with a giant foam skull that had lights behind the eyes, we called it "Bullwinkle."

Anyway, for as much as Danzig was comic humor with a bad attitude, Soundgarden was pure heavy intense power and awesome to watch and cool people. We got on great with COC and Warrior Soul. After the tour we all went our separate ways, Rat Sound was really not very big at the time and Soundgarden took off and went with Showco for sound for the next twenty years.

So here I am two decades later doing front of house rather than monitors and mixing one of the early bands that took a chance and took a little punk rock sound company on tour with them.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Sound Tip!

Ok, all you soundies should know that when setting up your main PA if you put all the subs stage center, you get pretty much an omni pattern or a fairly even coverage left to right but it tends to over sub woof the band. With newer cardioid setups you can reduce the 'band kill' a bit but still having the band 3 feet from subs that are trying to shoot low end hundreds of feet is bound to cause issues.

Here is a plot of two low sources spaced about 18"

So we space our main PA subs out and put a pile stage left and a pile stage right. This gets the subs father from the band but gives us a a power alley down the middle and reduces the low end off to the sides. While practical, their are several undesirable side effects like the creation of a power alley and diminishing low end off to the sides. If you have been following this blog you will know it is something I have spent much time on.

Ok, now check this out! First the good news; here is one of those rare things in our sound world that is super easy, has no real negative side effects and improves the quality of what we are trying to achieve. That bad news? All you front of house engineers do not get to enjoy it because it is a stage monitor tip. Think about the coverage pattern of two spaced subs, hot in the center, quieter off to the sides, where would that be useful?

How about drum fill? Rather than stacking two subs directly behind the drummer, what is you spaced those two subs apart and put one on either side? Then your sub response would look more like the plot below:

Now, with the drummer in the perfect hot spot. and the rear lobe fairly harmlessly behind the drummer, we now get a bit less bleed into the drums and less bleed to other parts of the stage. Pretty much you would be intentionally creating a power alley just for the drummer. Want to take the concept further? Use three subs. One behind the drummer and one to each side. Either physically place them equidistant from the drummer or if space behind is an issue, use time delay on the rear sub so all three subs are timed to hit the drummer at the same time.

The cool part about the triple setup is it creates a perfectly timed focal point of low end on the drummer but the low end tapers off as you get further down stage as well, reducing the drum sub level heard by the singer.

The effect of this is not overly dramatic but it is audible, usable and another useful tool to add to your sound tool box.

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

I am actually in Scotland right now, out with Blink 182 doing production rehearsals. I will try and get caught up on more of the Soundgarden adventure and will have plenty on Blink to come as well, but for now, how about some pictures?

I actually have quite a bit to do mixing soundgarden so I did not really have a chance to shoot show pics without screwing a cue, but here is the pre show Vic Theater

So though I do not do it often anymore, this Soundgarden gig was just myself as a sound engineer and every bit of gear was supplied by other vendors. For the monitor rig and FOH drive, I had the great pleasure of working with Carlson Audio. They did a wonderful job and best of all I had the honor of long time friend Allan Bagley as my FOH tech. Thank you Allan!

Whenever possible I try and carry extra subs. Even if I just use them as an effect, having a bit of nitro boost never hurts. For Soundgarden at Lollapalooza I pondered this for a bit, hmmm, what can I do that is kind of cool and unique? Hmmm, oh I know, what about giving some quad 21" subs a try? A few phone calls and Hello Cleveland! Thank you Ryan McCauley and all for making this happen.

How were they? Well, keep in mind the Clair I5 rig had 24 subs already which worked quite well. I used the McCauley's as Infra-Subs and eight of these 500 pound monsters, each on its own 14000 watt Lab Gruppen, put up a solid match for SPL and definitely hit some lower frequencies. Ooooh, I love playing with big toys!

Here is a shot from stage of FOH mix during the wee hours of our 7 am line check load in.

And back the other way

I watched a bit of Wolfmother and that is about all I got around to shooting

And to try and end up in the current time frame, this is my sound world for the Blink 182 non-festival gigs. Notice the compact XL4. Other than a couple of Rat racks, this one is all SSE gear from the UK.

Ok, off to go sort out some crazy mechanical spinning drum riser. Let me ask you this. How do you run a snake to a spinning turntable drum riser that flips end over end? Hmmm, good question and Steve Walsh and I are knee deep in unraveling this conundrum. Will let ya know as soon as we figure it out and also know if it works :)

Dave Rat

Well it has been a while since I posted, not for lack of desire but rather lack of focus. Like the stock market or surfable waves, so goes inspirations and distractions. Anyway here's what I got. I did three low tech scruffy youtube videos, this time talking about optimizing mic polarity for monitors and front of house for live shows.

Part 1 covers setting kick polarity as well as the rest of the drum kit to align with the drum fill and increase volume and reduce feedback.

Covers setting polarity of bass mics, DI's and in ear monitors to line up with the monitor wedge system polarity. Also a bit about the effects of delay caused by digital console on in ear setups.

Covering polarity of main PA versus monitors, conventional and cardioid sub and polarity of polar patterns

And now for some less techie stuff, check out this bike. Ooooh! Anyone know who makes these things?

My little pooch Bones is doing well, super pal and jogging partner that I clocked at 20 miles per hour, boy can he run!

Here are what I consider to be my super cool mixing essentials. I brought this in to the Roxy to mix some Chris Cornell solo shows.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

The secret to the Lexicon PCM60 sound is the analog front end. Basically you can get a nice reverb sound from these but they really light up when you hit them hard and clip the input. What happens is that the clipping adds a bit of distortion to the signal that then gets fed into the reverb causing a rich thicker sound when used on drums. So even though there is only 4 room sizes, 4 reverb time and 2 types, that added dynamic of adding the input crunch, adds a whole new dimension of sounds. Oh, and also, the input distortion is so rich that I actually use the PCM60 as a distortion effect on vocals with the reverb mix knob dialled to direct. And it is the best vocal distortion effect I have found.

The DPR404 is just simple, compact and a very usable compressor unit. The key to a good comp? The meters actually look like what you hear it doing.

The H3500 is awesome because you can around the presets and saved memories in a snap. I just memorize my program #s and punch them in on the keypad. None of this "button hold down crap" to change parameters either, just spin the wheel. Great for vocal thickening, autopanner, long delays, and pretty much all I need for everything vocal (except distortion).

The Denon D2000 headphones are my now go to winner of the Mighty Headphone Quest I blogged about and I don't leave home without them.

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

Oh, and speaking of super cool, my 14 year old daughters are pure awesome! As you can see their exuberance that I dragged them into Home Depot, they are my pals, part time roommates and best friends all rolled into two.

Hey, so you fire up your PA and much to your dismay you find one of your cone speakers has developed a rip. Aaargh! Need to make it through a gig? Or maybe it was just a wayward screwdriver, either way, here is the glue ya want to fix it. Available at most auto parts stores, this is nearly identical to the glue used when the speaker was assembled. If you can, patch from the back to minimize ugliness. It dries pliable and super strong and very quickly.

MicroSubs are doing great! Pearl Jam and Limp Bizkit both are using them on current tours as drum subs and we are getting rave reviews. Here you can see one of the engineering models with the Rat Cover we made.

I took this a few months back when I mixed Soundgarden at the Showbox in Seattle. I hate saying this but 'you should have been there!' It was goosebump awesome! There are some pretty good youtube videos of the show floating around that are worth checking out.

And speaking of exciting, here is a pic of the inner sanctum of Red Hot Chili Peppers rehearsals. They are rocking an all MicroWedge 12 setup and all the wedges are being run in passive mode! I cant tell ya much but I can tell ya that I am super excited about what I have heard and can not wait till tour.

And speaking of MicroWedges, here is Chris Cornell's stage setup for the Roxy shows. These were also run in passive mode. Oh, so easy! A Lab Gruppen 6400 runs 2 mixes no processor and a MicroWedge in Passive mode will beat most biamped and fully processed wedges out there, I did not even use 1/3 octave EQ's as the channel EQ was more than enough to get them louder than needed.

So I am at E3, the big Gaming convention doing some mixing and what do I see? Hey, a Rat Trap 5 caster plate! Relabeled and being used for a non Rat Trap 5 application. IU thought about doing the "hey that's mine" but decided that we have enough spares and I really did not want to lug it around all day. Consider it a gift AVP.

So what have I been doing these last fem months other than the above? Well, surfing of course with the C-Street 7 am crew that is actually now the 7:30 am crew. Which lately, due to the fact that the wave height to human size ratio has been a bit low, I think the surf observation crew, may be more appropriate.

Another tough surf day.

Oh, we finally have MicroWedge tripod stands available that fit both the MicroWedge 12 and MicroWedge 15. Here is the series of prototypes starting with the Radian version on the left and the final version with reversible plate on the right. If ya need these, give the Rat Shop a shout and talk to John Karr.

I am saddened to say that those of you following the Free the Tree movement of 10's and 10's of people, http://www.facebook.com/?ref=mb&sk=messages#!/pages/Free-the-Tree/309695452220?ref=ts

that the tree is finally free, though not in the manner we hoped or expected. Capital punishment for it's crimes has been handed down. No trial, no appeal.

Finally, if you own a sound company or any type of rental company for that matter, I am sure you run into the "should we buy the gear? Subhire it? Is Lease better than getting a loan? How will this effect our income? Our cashflow? How long to recoupe? and so on. So, I created a simple Rent versus Purchase calculator. Just plug in the purchase price and how much it would cost to subhire the gear, how many rental week you predict it will work and a few other numbers and it should ghelp a bit with the decision. It is in Excel and there is a link to download it below though at some point I hope to post a functioning web version.

Rental vs Lease-Purchase_blog

Rock on and till sooner or later,

Dave Rat

The Scooter

Check this sexy machine out! My favorite tour necessity.

As innocent as it looks, this baby cruises at 17 miles per hour has two 21 cell, 25 volt 5000 mAh NiMh battery packs hidden in the belly, each good for 10 miles on flat ground and the brushless motor offers almost zero rolling resistance, folds up and weighs in a mere 28 pounds! The Xootr EX3. Heck, back before 9/11 I used to ride to the airport from old house and carry it and a backpack on the plane for short trips. Unfortunately I am sad to say these are long discontinued. But if you ever can get your hands on one, you will not regret it.

Like everything though, things break. Especially if they are my things.

The most recent repair was a battery issue where a connection between calls broke. It's a bit of a pain to fix but at $175 bucks a pack, it is well worth the effort. By poking small holes in the shrink wrap I located where the bad connection was. Then cut away the shrink and carefully bend out the cell. The issue is trying to resolder the cell back in without dissembling the whole pack. But, since NiMh cells use the outer can as the negative, there is a workaround. If you solder a thin metal tab to the positive of the cell in the pack then slide the cell you bent out, back place:

You can cut away the shrink wrap and solder the tab to the outside of the can. It is a bit hard to see but if you look carefully, its there.

And back on track! And hey, look what I found!

An honor indeed! Thank you Travis, Mark and Tom for inviting me on this incredible adventure.

My Office!

Ok and on to:

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Ok, so one of the wonderful realities of our world as traveling sound humans is that everyday is a new adventure. So now that the Vortex (Orgasmatrons), Slotfire and V-Fire setups are running smooth and predictable, we can now start upping the anti a bit. We learned from Jones Beach shows that the Diagonal Vortex was effective for venues that require a narrower coverage. Remember that Vortex was designed to cover up to 135 degrees off axis but in a field or shed that is too wide. So rotating them 45 degrees does well for narrower coverage patterns.

But as anyone who has toured knows, we have to deal with a wide variety of setup spaces, restrictions and issues. So here are a few more setup variations for y'all to ponder.

Vortex two dimensional control. Offers rejection behind the subs and on stage. Needs space around them. Offers very wide coverage. Steerable. Occupies an 8 by 8 footprint.

Slotfire single dimension control. Coverage is symmetrical in front and behind. Works best when against a wall to block rear energy. Steerable width. Offers rejection center stage and somewhat behind. Controllable front compression alters sub tuning/tonality. Requires 13 by 4 footprint.

V-Fire single dimension control. Coverage is focused forward and reduced behind. Does nor require a rear wall. Steerable width. Offers rejection center stage and somewhat behind. The V is less than optimum and slightly downgrades the tonality. Requires 13 by 4 footprint.

But what to do in this venue in Birmingham? We had a fairly open space. The barrier to the right in the photo is audience side and just a blow through scrim. Unfortunately there was not enough room for a vortex without jamming up monitor world . Plus the vortex would have to be diagonal to be aimed right and there was no way. So here is a Smooshed Vortex setup.

The math works well and coverage should be good with excellent rejection behind and on stage. But wait? Really? Am I going to point a 3 stack of double 18"s at our monitor guy?

Well, it made me nervous enough that we setup one side with the middle speakers pointing toward the audience but the math was not a good.

and the other side as the calculations told me would be superior

And we fired it up and sure enough, we spun the other side and ran with double 18"s pointed right at a happy Steve!

And how about one more setup that may com in handy and is super easy. This is basically the setup we used at coachella and works on the same principle as the Slotfire

Two stacks of 6 subs per side. Space at 8.5 feet center to center. Lay in a 3ms delay to the outside stacks and bingo. Simple clean 180 degree 45 hz-ish center frequency cancellation towards center stage and focal points like 20 or 30 degrees off center. Longer delay widens and shorter will narrow. Though the side effect of other delay times is that your cancellation area moves around.

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

Two of these belong to me!

And off to watch Fall Out Boy!

Dave Rat

So for the past week or so, I have not been doing so hot and hence my bloggery silence. Neck moved wrong and arm went numb followed by crazy painful muscles in my shoulders and arms plaguing my every movement and sleepless nights.

4 Chiropractors, first Chris in San Fran who came out and stayed for the show. Even rocked a third adjustment in the tour bus after the gig.

Then Regan Jung in Irvine who I went to two days in a row

And I found a Chiro in Albuquerque on a sunday!

And though the pain reduced from extreme to tolerable, still not sleeping.

Massages helped as well.

X-rays and a finally a doctor visit that left me with a bag full full of drugs.

Not much into taking pain killers and such but oh if only I could sleep! Hence my bloggery absence as no position was compatible with computing. Ahh, but today I finally am doing well again and have good stretch and home made traction system that is working great. So happy to feel lack of exhaustion and pain! Sooo, Ha! game back on and sorry about the vanish!

So far this tour I have left my Pointy Hat and 'HLBM' shirt in a hotel in Indiana,

my Black Felt Cowboy Hat and shades in a car in Kansas,

my replacement Black Straw Cowboy Hat and new shades in a town car in Oxnard

and my Black Felt Cowboy hat again in a runner car in Dallas! I have been reunited with two of the three via Fedex,

the third awaits me back home and got the felt hat back a second time in Florida. As much as I mourn the loss of each cherished item, the heartwarming offset of refinding and arranging a successful return, more than balances. I am no slouch when it comes to separating myself from my belongings and have developed quite the skill at retrieval of the ones that matter. But playing lost and found is not all that I am good at as I am extremely well versed at breaking things as well. Cell phones, cameras and laptops are so easy to destroy that I won't even bother tying to list the multitudes of successful destructions.

Sound systems, cars and other material items are also no match for my skills, but perhaps one of things I am best a breaking is my own humanly self. So today as I am finally in the upswing of healing from relapses of yet another old injury flaring up, I thought I might share a brief run down of some of the top Drat bash contenders. Now as far as humanly injuries that skateboarders, machinists and competitive motor sport humans receive, I realize all mine add up to barely a scratch, but hey, I am just sound guy! So in no particular order of time:

1) Left hand thumb - While sound proofing a rehearsal space in the Sun Valley Rat Shop, standing on the top rung of a step ladder firing 2 1/2 inch staples overhead with a pneumatic staple gun, I found my thumb somehow became firmly attached to the 2x4 ceiling. Alone, hand overhead, unable to dismount the ladder I had no option but to pause for a ponder. Hmmm the possible results of dropping the safety-bypassed staplgun, knowing my luck would leave me with a second staple through my body. Aha! I lowered the gun via air hose and proceeded to use my other now free hand to pry thumb and staple from the ceiling which was no easy feat. Wandering around the shop I found pliers useless and it was not till I located a small pair of Vice Grips and firmly clipped them onto the thump piercing staple that I felt I could pull the ting out. So I pull and the thumb just bends so I used a speaker box to stop my thumb from moving and pulled the staple out from. my thumb bone. I then went on to finish sound proofing.

2) Right Hand pointer finger - Sun Valley Rat Shop, no coffee, living in the Rat Shop and the 6 am 'good morning' is the sound of the table saw. Time to make some Rat Subs! All is going well, I have the plans in my head and while cutting some port supports, I feel a strange vibration in my finger. Ooooh, this cant be good. No pain but the look of a saw blade width 1/2" deep notch in my pointer is a bit disturbing. Toilet paper and gaff tape bandages sure do leak a lot! There are some rat subs somewhere that looked like a slaughterhouse before they got carpeted. That one really hurt, sleeping was a bummer that night. Never did get around to visiting a doc on that one either.

3) Left Elbow - Big Bear, CA Flying down the hill and up the side wall on my snowboard, spinning right in the air I attempt a blind side aerial 270 (I am goofy foot) and lost some traction. Half way through, mid air, elbow meet tree, tree meet elbow. I am not sure how far around the wrong way it went but I instantly became mush ball sliding. I did go to a doc for this one where he put some electrical wires on me, told me to come back 3 times a week, charged the insurance a bunch of cash, sold me some drugs and said the hyper extension was so severe I would never have full extension again. Never went back, spent the next few months painfully sleeping with my arm under me twisted in such a way as to straighten it out and it healed up just fine, full extension and all.

4) Right Shoulder - World Theater Chicago. You ever have those days where everything goes horribly wrong? Ever have three in a row? I had guests, issues back at home that needed dealing with, it's raining, cell batteries dying, cell service issues pressure from all directions and finally, cell gets wet and dies. Got a new cell, but Nextel could not activate outside my home area. Really? Send fedex cell home to activate and send back? So I get a new #. But now I can't check old voicemail because you put my new number on my account. Need to fly to LA to activate? Now completely isolated, no phone #'s no one can reach me and meltdowns in every direction, Rat issues, personal family issues and oh, that's right friends coming to the show. On the 3rd day, I had things under control. Got someone to get a new phone on my old # back home and auto forward to my new #, like a ton of bricks off my back relieved. Everything is a timeless blur and all I know is that tonight I will finally sleep. I take a moment, a celebration of success and hop on my Suzuki DR200SEX (yep, really, that is the model #!) that lived in a road case in the sound truck and off I go. Off I go exactly as I had when I headed into town to deal with phone nightmares earlier. Fourth loading bay down, veer right and down the loading ramp except..... Uh oh! Earlier, how much earlier? Yikes, that was yesterday and we are not where we were yesterday. And instead somehow in the spacetime continuum the ramp has vanisher. Too late and mid turn I find myself flying through the air before the motorcycle slams down on top of me. Laying slow motion in a hospital bed with a Demerol shot in my ass I am told I have a separated shoulder. I ended up bribing the doctor to release me with Peppers shirts just in time to get back and stumble with assistance to the sound board as the band walked on stage. Never miss a gig! But oh boy, was pass out avoidance an pain making a hard show to mix. Thank you Grandpa!

5) Lower Back - Why I was hanging upside down from a wire by my foot is a good question. Why I did not take off my belt pack is a better question. But regardless, when I reached up to free myself and the wire snapped and I landed flat on my back on a concrete slab with a mini-maglite between the floor and my spine, that sent an electric shock through me that I will never forget. Ow ow and super ow! The doc said he can't do much till the swelling is down, it took me damn near 1/2 hour to baby step my way from the bus to the sound board each day. I refused to relinquish my top bus bunk, which was easily another 1/2 hour adventure of pain to escape each morning.

6) Right Foot - They cut the ropes! X Games in Big Bear and they cut the ropes and let the public on the competition snowboard courses, awesome! A forty feet lip to landing jump and another jump about 25 feet but with more height both following a really cool aggressive 'S' Boardercross course. It took a few runs before I was clearing both jumps with 50-50 and tail grabs, I never did get the big air 360's wired. One more run as I feel myself getting bit worn but I am going to hit them big. Easily cleared the 40 footer and charged the 25. For big jumps I pick out a tree for a marker and go full speed from there, that way I hit the jump at the proper speed. Wait, which tree was the charge marker? Oh no! Looking down watching the landing area fall away while still rising is not a good feeling. Thankfully I did land it and came down full force onto the flatland from maybe 25 or 30 feet up easily 20 feet past the landing. Not so thankfully my knees hit my chest and the hard pack snow gave way sinking my board a foot deep, instantly stopping. That's when front knee hit the front of the board While my foot remained strapped in sideways ripping all the muscles and leaving me hobbling around for months. For the next two snowboard seasons I had to ride switch stance.

7) Face #1 - Exuberant I bolted out the front door full speed leaping off the 3 steps and headed out to meet my friends. Lifeless I lay in a pool of blood as mid air the open garage door had not allowed my head to travel at the same speed as the rest of my body laying me out horizontal mid air. Concussion, broken nose and lots o stitches.

8) Face #2 - I almost made it to her house. I was dating a girl named Beverly Hills, with whom I am still friends and it was she and I who came up with the name Rat Sound one morning while watching my pet snake feed on a rat. Anyway, just a block away and a wrong turn found my exhausted delirious self breaking the windshield of my Datsun B210 with my face as I collided with a parked Mercedes. I remember my eyebrows were still in the windshield. Broken nose, lots of stitches, whiplash and I was pulling glass from my forehead for months afterwards. My car was totaled.

9) Face #3 - C- Street , Huge day surfing, third session and double overhead plus waves saw my longest ride ever, adrenaline rush and thrill and I go to get out of the water and from behind a wave barrels up and pitches me face down into the gravel. Ha, Broken nose and more stitches, the surfboard was fine.

Cool cool, enough of that. Hey, say hey to Arne and his daughter! I met him when I was 17 years old and working at Mattel toys fixing those little football games.

Well, he was in a band called the Alcoholics (http://ratsound.com/tours/early/flyers/index.htm for more old flyers)

And I did my very first recording ever on a Teac 4 track of his band. I also met Tom Hodder at the same place I did the recording. Tom is the one who taught me to build speaker cabinets. So cool how certain people are instrumental in altering the direction my life takes! One of the best parts about touring is finding those old friends and meeting new ones.

Enough for now. Off to enjoy beautiful Birmingham Alabama. Hey, I was born in this state, my people!

Dave Rat

 

Each trade has tool set. The fundamental and most basic item around which that craft is formed. A carpenter's hammer, a logger's ax, a fisherman's rod. The older the craft the more archaic the tools tend to be.

For a chef, it is the knife, Here our head caterer Jeremy's love for these handmade Japanese folded steel knives is so deep it literally brings him to tears as explains their quality and craftsmanship

Speaking of crafts and using tools, here you can see the proper usage of an XL4 as an elevation platform while foot mixing.

Missy is our tour manager Adam's assistant and doing a fine job of making that Rat hoodie look awesome.

Ok, you are at a gig, option 1, head to your seat and watch the show, Option 2 hop into kiddie pool fully clothed with some dudes. Hmmm, tough tough decision.

Fortunately though, someone from the radio station that came up with this brilliant idea relieved us of this unsightly obstacle soon after the show ended buy dumping a torrential waterfall down the seats creating a 3" deep lake for the subs to sit in and the crew to saturate their shoes in during load out.

Check out this mirrored drum head!

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Ok, link of the day comes from my good friend Jamie Anderson who heads up Rational Acoustics. While I roll with my basakwards low tech and analog ways, Jamie does Smaart training and is all up on the other approach. So when he stumbled upon this gem, he knew where to send it. The ultimate analog delay!

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2005/august/text/content4.html

And on to less serious stuff. When I was laying out the initial Vortex designs, I started with what seemed a good place. Take the B sub and place in a conventional manner, then build from there. I really try to break down those barriers and open up to all possibilities but looking back I realize that it had no real logic other than just clinging to something familiar. And that decision made without fully justifying meant that the design was a bit less optimized than it could be.

Below you can see a simplified drawing of what is going on with the summations and cancellations of the Vortex setup. On the left side you see a counterclockwise setup on stage left. On the right side you see a counterclockwise setup stage right. Though the setups are the same, notice how much cleaner the left side is.

Green arrows represent summation, Red represents useful cancellations in the band that we are reproducing and gray is imperfect summation with some cancellation. The arrows are drawn from box center through box center. The arrow lengths are meaningless.

One of the issues we had with the original setup was that I was getting a bit too much sub off to the sides. So I started pondering and realized, hey wait, let's reverse directions of the Vortex and it should move our primary focus to the deep corners of the arena where we want it and paper and sure enough, the real world result matched the pen and paper prediction!

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

Ha, meet Juan (lampi), Robert Rat (stage), Josh (carpenter), Jim Rat (foh), Derek (automation - stuff that moves during the show, like Travis), Randy (Famous Stars and Straps promo), Jeremy (food), Me (trouble coordinator), and Justin (automation)

And so ends another terrible day at the office.

Dave Rat