Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

3:10pm. At the gig, Pink Pop Festival. Had dinner last night with Mark (monitor engineer), excellent Indian food in Amsterdam and off to bed. No big party night for me, balance and rhythm is my goal in the turmoil.

**** Highlight of the Day - Raspberries ****

I have never tasted or seen a better raspberry than I had today, they were perfect beyond what I though a raspberry could be. I ate the whole package of them.

The Ben and Jerry's bean bag pillows in "The Compound" were a close runner up and take second place for HOTD. Leif (lighting tech) and Scott were soon joined by myself.

When touring on this level and headlining large festivals means we often get a "Compound" with all Peppers related dressing rooms, production offices, crew room etc. It is really cool to have a place to hang and get away from the fray, even if you can not escape the PA thumping from the other bands. I am going to un escape the Flaming Lips at 5:30 though, I love that band, along with the Pixies, Modest Mouse and Ween, they are one my favorite bands that I have not directly worked for. They did open on a Peppers tour but unlike my many of my other favorite bands, they have never been an official Rat tour.

Nick the Fly finds a car:

Third Highlight of the Day, I talked to Wayne, Flaming Lips singer and he still loves Rat shirt from 10 years ago, got his address and some fresh Rat swag is headed his way! Thank you Daniella!

With each passing day of tour I seem to drop another pattern from home and slide closer to just maintaining basic necessities. I have been doing work almost entirely from the BlackBerry as getting an internet connection is more cumbersome than valuable at this point. It is like swimming upstream to try and cling to things like daily shaving, anything remotely resembling a schedule, consistent healthy eating, reasonable sleep patterns and regular communication with any human that is not within shouting distance. When we stop changing countries on a near daily basis, it will get easier.

**** Issue of the Day - Lack of V-Dosc or even more scary, lack of subs! ****

Especially considering that today is a 'Throw and Go' gig for 60,000. That means we get the stage for the first time at set change and we have to get backline, monitors, main system tuned and dialed while the audience is in front of the stage. With a familiar PA system, it is not a big deal but I have only mixed on this type of Martin Line array twice before and had better than ok results. Also, I try never to subject the audience to the check one two or testing of instruments over the sound system, even if the festival does allow it. When I mix, the first time the audience hears band's instruments through the sound system is when the band hits the stage. What I will do is play familiar music to EQ/tune, ask a lot of questions and eliminate every variable I can.

Going from 44 Rat Subs for 20,000 people to 24 Martin subs for 60,000 people is a bit of a concern.

I do like the Martin better than Vertec rigs though. I will now rename Vertec from the Ford Explorer of sound systems to the McDonalds of sound systems. You can get one anywhere in the world, it will keep you from starving, lots of people love their burgers and I will have one if I have to, but given the choice I would much prefer a meal created by a world class french chef.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Oh yeah, subs, 24 is just not going to cut it and the main line array boxes go down fairly low. Using the mains all the way down and overlapping the subs is an option I will not be doing. I like to have separate control over all the sub lows on a single eq and fader. What I am going to do is high pass the main system as I always do (between 100 and 160, venue dependant). I will then split my sub woofer send into a spare x-over and send a second subwoofer send as well that has an independent trim, x-over and mute on my side. The second sub send will get added back into the left and right mix via an XL88. Basically it is a sub on an aux send emulation. I do it a lot when I run into Clair S4 systems when they are not configured with subs on an aux.

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

Franz Ferdinand is just finishing up so it is time to get ready to rock.

1:55 am

**** Issue of the Day Part 2 - Wind ****

Technically, sonic projection software will predict system coverage over large areas from giant PA hangs. What it will not predict is the catastrophic effects that wind has on sound, the amount of wind and ways to reduce the bummout factor.

The wind blew sound all over the place. One way of thinking is that wind is an unavoidable act of nature. My experience has been that there are several things that can be done to reduce sonic trauma due to wind.

1) Never rely on just 1 hang per side for a large outdoor show where wind is even a remote possibility. With 2 clusters a side I have found that when wind blows the sound of one cluster away from you, it often will blow the sound of another cluster towards you.

2) Cover extra width. By over-covering you will gain some buffer zone and keep the outer audience covered with breezes and mellow gusts.

3) Minimize long distance throw and rely more heavily on multiple/regional delay clusters. The farther you project sound, the more susceptible it is to wind and environmental issues.

Dave Rat

3:30 am - Parked at the venue, on the tour bus, load out continues. Not very happy with my bunk pillow, thin with poking feathers.

I took a full drink onto the Pro Tools pre amp rack tonight. Some kind of sticky solution that I saw coming in a high arc before crashing onto the rack and splashing across the console. Oh, man, just a mess and all I have is an unwashed t-shirt someone gave me that is as absorbent as a rubber mat. Oh well, at least I did not lose any channels. I mix the show with sticky fingers.

Tonight (later this morning), what we call 'the core crew' will ride about four hours to Rocking Rio Festival in Lisbon where we will get dropped and lose the busses and live at the gig till after the show. The main production crew (everyone else) will do a 30 hour drive to Lyon, France.

The core crew are the ones that we really can not do a show without. The backline techs, sound engineers, lighting human, some production humans, some backstage humans, stage manager and usually engineer techs as well.

European driving laws are much more strict than US laws. To do a 30 hour drive it will take 3 drivers per bus as each one is only allowed like 8 hours without a full sleep. They have little paper disks in the speedometers over here that mark the time traveled and speed each professional driver travels and they get in all kinds of trouble if their disks don't match the law.

I have a lot going on on this tour. Mixing main PA, I also mix a recording 2 track mix on headphones that has audience mics mixed in and somewhat different levels. We have VIP fills that fed off that mix as well located on each side of stage. Nick the Fly, my FOH tech is keeping Pro Tools running and after switching to the internal 400 gig, we had not crashes last night.

SoundNerdSpeak

• The Main PA System is 2 hangs per side each consisting of 12 V-Dosc and 3 dV-Dosc.
• The side wrap system is 2 hangs per side each consisting of 9 dV-Dosc
• Plus we have 44 Rat Subs and 6 L'Accoustics self powerd 8" speakers for VIP fills.

The main PA is divided into a stereo inner system and a stereo outer system. The side wraps are divided into near pair (the side wraps closer to me) and far pair. The near pair is sent a signal that is a mono version of the inner system and the far pair is sent a mono version of the outer system.

End SoundNerdSpeak

 Must sleep.

Dave Rat

Jet Lag

The bed-glue sensation that comes with jet lag is not like any other form of exhaustion. Heavy bloodless limbs sinking into the bed, head stuffed with molasses drenched cotton balls. Thick dreary mud.

It's puzzling to think about how the body knows, its not dehydration, must of drank 6 bottles of water, no alcohol in weeks. I don't take drugs, rarely even aspirin and no go on the sleep aids. I maintained my eating pattern so the only thing I can think of is the sedentary process of over-sitting or the air pressure changes of flight does something screwy to my body. In any case, going to try and break out of the muck and do some swimming. No desire to play jet lag games.

**** Highlight of the Day - The Beach ****

Back from the beach with Scott and his wife Anna and it was awesome!. Reluctantly agreed to a 5 Euro massage from one of many people offering various things in the sun. Talk about amazing! Who would of knew, it ended up being 45 minutes of bliss for 20 Euro. This rules!

**** Issue of the Day - Ear Molds ****

We have a new monitor engineer on this run (9th in as many years) and with the change came a rush order for In Ear molds to match the band's type. These things are little speakers like the ones that come with an iPod except they are custom fit to each human. It would not be good to start a tour with a mon engineer that has unmatched molds, shipping Fed Ex to Europe risks unacceptable import/customs delays.

The Sound System

The PA for this tour is really cool! And I sure hope it all works as planned. Like the last Peppers tour I will be using a V-Dosc system again but this time it will be quite unique. Last November I was in Mexico on the most dreamy holiday when the email came. There is to be a phone conference ASAP with Peter (Band Management), Bill (Production Manager), Grier (Video and Set Designer) and myself to discuss the plans and concepts for the upcoming tour. It must be special, new and fresh, Peter asked us all "what can be done to push production to the next level and and make this tour extraordinary?".

Like a dream come true, to design a sound system that is new and exciting, I told him I would work on my part of the equation. It needs to be something that sounds great and is not a one-shot-wonder effect. Quadraphonic is too limited and only applies to audience within the quad coverage field plus it pulls focus away from the stage. I want something that benefits all that attend. The band changes their set every night so having a 'song based effect' would not apply either. Furthermore, Peppers' free form spontaneity requires a high level of flexibility.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

The idea that evolved was based on knowledge I acquired designing the MicroWedge monitors. I had done quite a bit of research and was able to recreate and prove that speaker have reduced clarity as you increase the complexity of the signal sent to them. It is fairly easy to demonstrate, just listen to a vocal mic through two speakers at a mid to high volume and then add in a 50 hz tone at high volume. It blurs the vocals. Now use two speakers with the vocal in one and the tone in the other and the vocal will stay clear. There are several issues but I believe the main one has to do with the speaker efficiency while the voice coil is centered in the gap. The speaker is less efficient when the voice coil is at its extremes, the 50 hz tone reduces the time that the voice coil is centered. Some monitor engineers run separate instrument and vocal wedges for this reason. What if I applied that setup on a grand scale? Two PA's!

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

Here are some pics from our production days at the Forum in LA

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We are also doing some cool stuff with the subs and I will cover that on another day.

Also it is very important to notice the blow up doll that they use to focus lights.

Dave Rat

Today is a new day! And do you want to know what is special about this 'day of new'? Well, today is a day where every single thing I get to use for the rock show is new, Oh Joy! Not new like 'brand new,' new like it came from the rental shop and I get to start from dead scratch building all the audio settings. One of the questions I get asked often by people at shows is "Do you really know what everyone of those knobs do?" Well, actually I don't because there are a few in the middle that I am convinced do not do anything useful but for the most part, "yes, I do."

First order of business, communicate to my FOH assist for the day, who's name is Rabbit, how I want all the gear patched and configured. As you all may well have guessed, I am not much one for the standard configurations. Next, I spend a good chunk of time 'zero-ing' everything out to a starting point followed by a good solid hour or more of knob turning. Not only do I know what every knob does, I have actually have memorized how I want them all set.

As an added bonus, I am in a new venue (for me) with a new PA type that I have neither mixed on nor seen in person before called a 'Butterfly System'. Several weeks ago when I found this out, I could hardly contain my excitement and wrote the following email addressed to our leader roadie Bill, the production manger:

"Oh boy, Oh boy!!! I get to use a new PA. Nothing cheers me up like switching to new rig I have never used with a band that does not sound check in a far away place under much scrutiny! Heck, maybe we should get the band to join in the new gear fun and ask John and Flea if they want new guitar and bass rigs for the gig? Oh and we can switch AK to a new type of mic while we are at it and when was the last time you got a new computer? I hear Linux is great, maybe we can all switch to new laptops for the gig and we can all have good times trying to get work done on our new toys!!

As far as those cardioid stumble bumps with an 18" forward and 15" facing the wrong way, I consider them annoying at best. If they work twice as well as company XXX's attempts and 10 times better than embarrassment that company XXXX calls a cardioid sub, I will just be mildly bummed. I am sure they get loud but so does a jack hammer. Nothing like a pile non-linear one-note-wonders to make my day!

OK, kidding aside, I can deal with the gear, just make sure there are some real subs in there on an aux, 8 dual 18"ers minimum and when I get there I guess I will have some fun and see what that PA is really made of.

All good, real dual 18" subs on an aux = happy rat.

Dave Rat"

As you can see, I was quite excited. I X'ed out the manufacturers names because I did not want one of their competitors to get over-excited and take my comments out of context. Bill of course responded with the all around feel bad response of "Dave, you can have what ever you want for gear, no problem, just let me know." Unfortunately, the only gear I really want is on it's way to Hamburg so I will just have to bring my pirate sword and see if I can maneuver this sound ship through the treacherous round waters.

**** Special Award Celebration ****

I hereby by the powers vested in me award London the "Put rock bands in less than optimum acoustic environment" award. This award was earned by London for it's exceptional and dedicated work done by embracing both Earl's Court and the Roundhouse as musical venues.

Though round sound is not the optimum, the small intimacy of the gig more than made up for it and what makes for a great rock show is a combination of many things. Especially memorable was the super cool ending jam!

Arrrrgh,

Dave Rat

I love the shows. I especially love the time frame from the moment the house lights go dark and the deafening crowd roar pushes adrenaline through my veins. I love the first note, I love the overdrive of Flea's bass and thundering subs. I love turning up the guitar loud when it comes in on Can't Stop and I love it when AK's vocals comes through loud and clear on the very first word. And with each part I love, the crowd roars as if expressing what my mind is thinking. I love the rock shows. I also love to watch the rock shows and some days I can see better than others:

**** Begin Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 2 ****

These roadies consider themselves a team of highly trained specialists that parade into the gig at the latest possible moment to perform their critical duties before heading to the bus earlier than any other department, aside from the band themselves. While this concept may have similarities to the truth, it would be more accurate to catalog them as a group of 5th Beatle's requiring a fairly high maintenance level and while performing relatively little work.

Today's "Meet a Roadie" roadie's will be what we call backline, monitor engineer, FOH engineer and LD (lighting designer). Being that they all travel on the same bus as I do and I am one of them, you most likely have already met us all by default, if you have been hanging around here for while. Never the less, that does not excuse any of them from this excellent opportunity to parallel the Meet a Roadie Campaign with the embarrassing roadie picture project. Two great tastes for the price of one and so .....

An excerpt from Day 89:

Backline Techs and Monitor Engineer - These techs have an even later of a call time and finish relatively early in the big picture. The workloads are fairly light comparatively but the responsibility huge. Each backline roadie deals directly with their band human, one each for bass, guitar and drums while the monitor engineer with all four in he band. Every nuance from which guitar tuned how and when, to making absolutely double extra sure that the guitar, bass, drum and monitor rigs operate as close to perfection as possible, every single show. There is no error unseen by either the band member or possibly the entire audience. They have both awesome gigs and mind bending stress as each of them is pretty much responsible for the band hearing themselves and each other so they can perform the show.

FOH World - Lighting designer and FOH Sound Engineer live in a bit of a different realm. On one hand they are far from the fray of stage where the action is, on the other hand, everything the audience sees and hears is at their finger tips. The mass of ears and eyes is a unique critique that responds to feeling and emotion. Meanwhile, there are enough people in the know at each show that errors do not go unnoticed. It's an ethereal slow, distance once removed, stress that can pop into immediate trauma if something important goes pear-shaped. A gig I love and would not trade for the world.

The shy and humble Chris Warren is truly a magnificent example of a roadie. Not only has he been The Peppers drum tech for over seven years, he is also a talented musician as well playing several part during the show and even stepping out to sing for the encore intro.

Next in our line up of tough guys is none other than the legendary Dave Lee. As a true veteran that joined the organization back in the One Hot Minute days, he actually has transitioned from Navaro to Fruciante. He is the one who keeps the incredibly complex and precarious creation called "John's Guitar Rig" functioning at least most of the time.

Rounding out the backline three is none other than the powerhouse we call Tracy. As the maintenance machine responsible for ensuring you hear the flurry and intensity of bass sounds created by Flea, a bassist in a band of his own and more recently Bus 2 Guitar Hero king, his task is not one to take lightly.

Bus # 2 is sometimes referred to as the 'old school bus' due to the fact that six of the eight roadies onboard have over seven years with the band. So next I introduce a roadie that is not only new, but young as well and weighing in at a mere seven months and already on the geriatric bus, we have roadie Daniel. Carrying the multiple responsibility of supplying all four band members with the sound they want to hear and also the closest thing we have to an 'Anthony Tech.' This boy has lot of weight on his shoulders and is so new that he has yet to earn the honor of an embarrassing roadie pic. Here seen still eating candy, I present, our monitor engineer:

Familiar to all and most likely you have seen a bit more of him than you ever wanted to, lets give a warm round of applause for the pillar of visual presentation at the rock show, Lampi Scott:

Not only does Scott operate the visuals you see, he was also involved with the design of the show with another roadie that only joins us for the beginning of the tours but is never forgotten, roadie Grier:

On our bus remains three, Lyssa B, Rose and me. To do them justice, I will be savoring the presentation of the tour ladies of Bus 2 for a future blog. So now for the grand finally of 'Meet a Roadie Episode 2,' I will make a rare exception to my self created rule of never displaying photo's of our musical four while they are off stage and share with you one of my personal favorite embarrassing roadie photos featuring myself and three honorary roadie's that we hold in high regard:

and though honorary roadie Chad is not in the photo, we must not forget to honor him equally as well in this celebration deemed, 'Roadie Awareness Week.'

**** End Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 2 ****

The luckiest roadie in the world,

Dave Rat

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Being the curious roadie I am, I did a bit of research on the subwoofers (subs) and their curious setup. For the super sound nerds out there you can read more here:

http://www.dbaudio.com/pub/live/TI330_E.PDF

For the rest of you that would rather have me smooth over and summarize, basically what they are doing with the backwards speakers are trying to cancel out the sound behind the subs. On paper it looks good and there are some good parts to the idea though attractiveness is surely not one of them. Loud they were but more like the boom boom of an over-stereo-ed low-rider car than the smooth soothing sound I seek. These subs really liked to reproduce some of the notes Flea played and did not like to reproduce other notes so much. For any of y'all there, you may have even heard me take a small sound slapfrom AK for over subwoofering them stage. Getting lots of nice low end to my pals in the crowd without blurring the vision of my other pals on stage is a tricky trick indeed. But hey, it was all good enough to make for great show.

OK, now back to the important stuff like being a pirate!

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

Arghhh, me boat awaits me:

Arghh, me first mate Nick the Fly and I feasting tasty ice treats, arghh:

I watched the Killers:

Gnarls Barkley and our friend Josh is in the band!

And the highlight was seeing The Who for the second time in my life. It made so happy thoroughly enjoyed it as did all the rest of band and crew, guitar arm windmills, little steps and microphone acrobatics mixed with hit after hit made their show pure fun!

And of course, closing the evening once again in the strangest string of coincidences was surprisingly my favorite band, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, hurray!

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And hurray for happy surprises and super heroes!

Arghh,

Dave Rat

IMIYABSH!

Upon arrival last night my phone informs me that the hotel has been changed. Turns out that after the fairly grueling flight, the hotel was filthy and in disrepair enough to inspire relocating. My phone also informed me that there is a crew dinner and I should head over. So off I headed, travel bag in tow

The place is a famous steak house and in the photo you may notice that everyone is looking in Dave Lee's direction. This is because he is about to be served that largest cut of prime rib that anyone had ever seen.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Walking into a pre set venue brings with it a bit of anticipation. By pre set, I mean one where myself or the crew I tour with is not in total control. First order of business is a quick wander to determine what my challenges will most likely be. Mental notes of anything out of the ordinary. Today it all looks solid, plenty of gear and a curiosity. As you can see from the photo below, there are six twelve foot high tower like stacks of speakers in front of the stage. Furthermore, the middle speakers are facing backwards. Hmmm.

D & B subs, never used them that I know of before, been interested in hearing them though it also appears that much to the dismay of lampi roadie Scott, we will to do a lot of seeing them as well.

So today we do a setup and the backline roadies will rock out their preferred roadie jam of "Give It Away" for a change, again. Hurray for V-Dosc PA, though I already miss the dual system, it is all good, I know several of the crew and I feel confident. As far as the subs, not sure yet, wow are they loud but not sure if they are the right loud. Will find out soon enough though. In the mean time......

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

Ever wonder where all the power comes from at a big outdoor festival? More often than not, generators. Kind of like those stupid little things that rubbed on your bike tire to power your headlight. I hated those things. Huge generators and like the bike version, they make electricity by spinning a something kind of like a super giant tire rubbing device. Big diesel engines built into truck trailers and if you follow just about any wire long enough, sooner or later you will end up standing next to one of these things. Here I have located the end of all wires. One would think that this would roadie gathering area with their well known affinity for wires and all. But nope, turns out that power central is a lonely place with not a roadie in sight.

Ooooooo, look at all those wires. Thump thump thump goes the roadie heart.

The dreaming of wires

Dave Rat

SNIAGTTPWIWTCABY!

The US is a great country built by many amazing and brilliant people. Unfortunately the most adamant flag waivers are more likely to fall into the categories of unhealthy, lethargic, self righteous followers whose bragging rights are based on the plot of dirt they were born. Hmmmm, the beauty of clinging on the accomplishments of others, versus creating them of their own. And when ever I remember to I ask myself "What can I do that is unique, different, amazing and special, today or any day? And how well am I treating my my mind, my body, the critters around me (humans included) and the planet I reside?" I find I am most deeply happy, as that is when my world is balanced and I am pursuing new adventures. That is of course not the same as when I have the most fun, which lays more in the realms of playfully devious or the seeking of thrill.

And thrill seeking we did. Here you can see roadies Chris Warren and Scott the Lampi very seriously rocking out on Guitar Hero:

For those of you confused enough to think that Guitar Hero is just a silly Playstation game where you rock out on a toy guitar to hit songs, well you're right, but it is embarrassingly fun. Personally, I am not much for video games, as they time sponge away my world. Furthermore I am odd in that I don't watch any TV either. So when Nick the Fly's brother, Sailing Joe, dropped me off a Guitar Hero game last year (Joe works for the G. H. company), I must admit, I made an exception and spent some time rocking the toy guitar. Thank you E, D and G for hanging out and a great time!

**** Begin SoundNerdSpeak ****

Subwoofers on an Auxiliary Send

Most sound systems are made up of speakers that vary in size depending on the frequencies they reproduce. Smaller speakers for the higher notes and bigger speakers for the lower notes. At home for your computer you most likely have a pair of roundish speakers mounted in plastic boxes. For your living room there may be a big speaker a mid sized and a smaller one mounted in some wooden boxes. Also home systems typically have one stereo amplifier and there are some electronic parts inside the speaker box that divide the music to send low notes to the big speakers and highs to the little ones.

On large scale sound systems there is pretty much the same thing except the sound is divided the sound up before the amplifiers. That means there is a separate amplifier for the lows, another amplifier for the midrange and yet another amplifier for the highs. On the Peppers we are carrying with us, there are fourteen 2000 watt stereo amps just for the sub woofers alone and many more amps for lows, mids and highs.

I do everything in my power to assure that the sound systems I use are configured such that there is a separate control over the signal sent to the sub-low speakers (sub woofers). For me that is extremely important. The technical term is 'subwoofers on an auxiliary send' or 'subs on an aux.' Subs on an Aux is what gives me the delicious control over that syrupy low frequency ooze that wraps around you and connects your body to the lowest of bass notes and thump of the kick drum. Unfortunately, I am often denied this control when using alien (not Peppers touring) sound systems. Today, once again I am appreciating how awesome it is to have subs on an aux and 'our' PA!

**** End SoundNerdSpeak ****

And then there were these guys, of course:

And finally just to make you smile, check out the picture at the bottom of this web page:

http://flipsidefanzine.com/Gallery2.html

Clearly I was planning on being very thirsty and not very hungry. Oh, and if you are curious about the punk rock scene in the early 80's, you should take a look around Michelle Flipside's site. You know the Ramones movie "Rock and Roll High School?" That was Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, CA where I met Michelle in my tenth grade english class.

The not quite so thirsty,

Dave Rat

SDWSAFG!

Do you know that feeling of camping and waking at the crack of dawn to a misty crisp refreshing lung full of air? That beautiful scene that you sealed outside as you zipped your tent in the darkness the night before? Well, touring is nothing like that. At some point during the previous night I escaped the gig after the my little bit of the load out was done and shacked up in the bus while 12 trucks of gear was loaded. At some point the world I left behind when I closed that bus door disappeared and a brand new world showed up in the morning. Hello new day, hello new city, or parking lot as the case may be. No real fresh air, just a hot parking lot and the little game of 'find the entrance to the gig' that I get to play.

Today is laundry day. The way it works is I pack my little bag with all my dirty clothes, go find a numbered tag in the production case and pin it to my bag. Then I put $20 in an envelope and write my number on it and my name. At some point, later if all goes well, my bag and an envelope full of change will be in the production office. Also at some point later, someone will come on the bus after the gig and say "hey, Dave Rat, you know your laundry is still in the production office." I then go get my laundry.

Take a look at this picture and remember it clearly the next time you even consider complaining about what a pain it is to parallel park.

That is a 53 foot articulated trailer, down a ramp, fully loaded 4" from the wall.

Want to see some speakers before they get dressed?

Look at the cute little Rats on the backs of these V-Dosc boxes, 72 of them on this tour. Each box has two 15" speakers, four 7" speakers and two 2" horn drivers. If you multiply that all up it equals a lot.

Finally, oooooooh sexy Rat Subs! 44 dual 18" cabs out here. These babies can really move some air and are responsible for the breathless pauses in time when Flea hits the super low notes and the stage wings are actually aluminum grating over a block of 12 of these.

The 'showing my sound nerdy roots'

Dave Rat

WIARIWCFMW!

Today is the last of the 4 shows here and it has been a bit of a journey. I started out in near horror of the acoustics and ended up with a mild affinity or acquired taste for the venue. Like driving a different car, there is a feel to each venue and with each song or day, familiarity grows. From day to day we made subtle changes, nothing drastic but refinements that when combined together seemed to bring things to a balanced state. Either that or the parts that bothered me became like sound of an air conditioner in the background, where I just don't notice it after a while. As my expectations slipped away and the enjoyment of the beauty of situation at hand replaced them, I can say I enjoyed the adventure immensely.

Oh, and though I rarely if ever get star struck, partially because I can never recognize anyone and partially because there are not many stars that would strike me, I did feel a bit of awe when Jimmy Page stood behind me and watched the entire show from the sound board area. I was honored to meet him and his son and some things just transcend time. Who would have guessed that 29 years after seeing him at work with his bow in hand on Song Remains the Same tour in '77 (my very first rock concert), that he would come see a show that I am working and turning knobs through a towel! And not only that, he was friendly, sincere and amazingly cool, that rules!

Being a sound engineer can be quite challenging. If you think about it, the people that know most clearly what the show should sound like will never actually hear/experience the show from the audience perspective because they will be on stage. The audience is comprised of humans with vastly differing preferences, some favoring guitar, some want tons of bass, some love the drums and lots and lots that only care about vocals. Now splash in the fact that a portion of the audience is younger and want it loud, a portion are older and want it lower in volume and some of the older ones are going deaf and want it loud like the younger crowd. Now screw with their hearing by dumping in thousands of gallons of beer and drinks into a portion of the audience while leaving the rest completely sober and grab a hand full and cook their brains with whatever other mind altering substance they chose to consume. Now stir in the opinions of the girlfriends or wives of the band members and surround yourself with the bands management. The end result is a sonically diverse perspective concoction with an opinion set as varied as the critters that inhabit the earth.

The key to being a successful sound engineer is confidence and clarity. Your own confidence so you don't get drowned in the sea of opinions and even more importantly, earning the confidence of the artists so that when they walk on stage they know that it will be the best it can be given the variables at hand. Combine that with the clarity of knowing the difference between the things you can and can not control, The clarity to know that the gear is just a tool and never responsible for good sound. And the clarity to find that balance that keeps as many people as possible happy while maintaining the sonic presentation the band wishes to be presented.

Years ago I used to dread when band girlfriends and management would stand out front with me, and I had seen all too many shows where an off hand opinion brought much grief. Now things are different and truly I enjoy being surrounded by people that know the music and know the band and are discerning and care about it being right. Of all the people that come hang out there is one that really enjoys keeping us FOH (front of house) humans on our toes. Here you can see that I marked off and correctly labeled his favorite place to stand:

Thank you Peter for coming to hang out and keeping things interesting!

The sometimes very happy - Dave Rat

The grueling part of the tour is done. We have done nothing but virgin stadiums and "throw and go" festivals so far. Now we have two load ins and two load outs left. Two days here in Manchester and four shows over 5 days in London and then home.

When I was a kid, I loved stereos. I loved speakers. Big speakers and power amps! I remember going with my dad to buy a receiver at Pacific Stereo and we picked on out that had 100 watts per channel, I could not wait to get home an turn it up, feel the power, push every button, feel the detents on the huge volume knob. It was not long before a slight difference of opinion regarding the preferred listening material and volume manifested itself. On one hand he favored a barely a audible duet of a flute and cello while I on the other hand felt Black Sabbath's War Pigs at full volume was more appropriate dinner music. Even the seemingly overly fair compromise of offering the soothing flute sounds of Jethro Tull's Aqualung played at 3/4 volume was rejected. We reached an insurmountable impasse and clearly his prejudicial stance left me with no other alternative than to silently rebel by huddling in the corner with headphones feeling connected and justified listening to CSNY's 4 Way Street album attempting to pick out all four guitar parts in Southern Man.

Well, I still have those headphones and 100 watts per channel, well, that is kind of like having lollipop in my pocket vs owning a candy store.

**** Start SoundNerdSpeak ****

Today c'mon, lets go look at power amps! We will start with subs. Here we have Stage left sub amps consisting of 6 Crest 7001's that each power 4 double 18" cabs. These amps develop over 2000 watts each in the configuration we run them. 12,000 watts and this is stage left and there is another 12K over on stage right.

Next in line is the power for the main system. Eighteen Crown MA5002VZ power amps that push around 5000 watts or so each, so figure 90,000 watts here plus the 4 MA3600's in the foreground driving another 12,000 watts and we can round that off to 100K in mains power on this side of stage.

And finally, the side wrap systems and center cluster is powered by Lab Gruppen 6400 amps on this tour and we see eight of those sitting next to the 6 XTA 428's acting as system processors. At around 4000 watts each the way we run them, lets toss in another 30,000 watts per side.

All in all, I am seeing around a 1/4 million watts laying around here. Ha ha, that would be roughly equal to twelve hundred and fifty of those Pacific Stereo receivers and if you stacked them all up it would be a tower over 500 feet high.

And now me and 20,000 of my closest friends gather together on a regular basis to listen to one of my all time favorite bands on big huge speakers!

And the rock show:

Pre rock stage shot:

And the other way

Scott the Lampi

And one of the perks of this whole rock things is the cool people I get to meet. Glen Hughes (Deep Purple Singer) is not only a rock legend, he is incredible down to earth, cool and an all around great person, a true honor. Glen recorded his latest CD at Chad's house and I went down and mixed one his shows a while back at House of Blues in Hollywood.

Dave Rat

MLTMGMMHFFA!