DR Blog – Vienna and Home

Last show of euro arena leg 4 and the wrestling matches have rejuvenated a bit of the old comraderie from years past. I have been spending more time around the dressing room the last few days with my long time friends. I tend to run fairly isolated from the tour and the Trump election had pushed me further into being a hermit.

It’s now 2 am and just back at the hotel with 5 hours to my plane takes off, it’s all about being really good at setting alarms and timing finesse.

We said goodbye to Deerhoof and pick up Babymetal as the new opener on the next run early December.

So here I lay not as tired as I wish I was with my ears slightly ringing as they do. . Plus I have the added bonus of a bunch of new aches from wrestling.  I must admit I kind of enjoy the feeling of being human and taking some hits from exposure. Otherwise things would get boring much quicker.

Speaking of ears ringing, many people ask me how I deal with ear protection.

My strategy has evolved over the years from reckless bombardment to moderating. Years ago when mixing Rage Against the Machine, my ears hurt and I had not yet developed a strategy to hold a mix together and reduce my exposure at high volumes. 

As wisdom grows worked out a strategy wherein I triangulate the tonal balance of the sound. I use the RTA for a visual reference, the knob settings as a mechanical reference my ears as an auditory reference for the first few songs and a few other times during the show. The rest of the time I use some 20db soft silicon ear plugs I got custom molded from JH Audio that work really well for me. I put them in, let my ears adjust to the lower level and mix most of the show that way.

Ok, should try and sleep. good night

DR

Oh, found the boiler room

DR blog – Festhalle Frankfurt

Just to give you an idea of what what kind of audio challenges we sometimes face, give a listen to this cable ramp drop

cable ramp drop

Today is the day of the Peppers wrestling match, they brought in a mat, set it up in the middle of the venue, multiple cameras and up on the big screens. 

Match 1 was two of our fabulous caterers Tanya and Vicky

Match 2 was band photog Dave vs guitar tech Ian

Match 3 Lampi Scott vs me, Dave Rat

And match 4 tour Manager assist and guest bass player Sammy vs Flea

Must admit I was nervous but it truly was great fun, here is a clip from Flea’s match on Instagram 

flea vs sammy

And here is a shot of Scott and I

Cool cool, moving on to the bigger picture.

On November 26th 2006 I was in this same room with this same band pondering the same worldly things but from a much safer distance of time and residency.

And it was a bit eerie reading what I wrote a decade ago given the current realities

Roadies in the Midst Blog, Frankfurt, Nov 27 2006.

And may as well take the same pic I did back then.

On the sound front, the new Rat SDS30 SuperSubs are moving through production and the first batch should be landing at the rat shop in a few weeks. 30″ cone, 10,000 watts self powered and should be quite impressive to hear a whole array of them.

This enough for now, time to wander as I am now in Vienna

DR