WEBVTT - Robert Scovill 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.240 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob met Sets podcast. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:18.280 My guest today is Robert school Why music Engineer extraordinary. Robert, 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.079 good to have you on the podcast. It is my pleasure, 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.239 Sarah good to be here. Thank you for him writing 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.960 me in very nice Okay, we were scheduling this and 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.479 you said you had to do the CMT Awards. What 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.880 did that involve? Honestly, it was a very last minute thing. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.839 I um, I'm kind of enlisted to mix Kenny Chesney 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:37.840 this year. He's gonna go out and mix. You're gonna 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.680 do his normal stadium run throughout the year. So we 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.040 were in rehearsals. We were in Nashville and rehearsing for 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.680 about six weeks total, and then right before we were 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.320 ready to finish, I mean the day before we were 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.800 ready finished, they said, oh, we're gonna have Kenny closed 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.440 the CMT Awards, so we're gonna go do that. So 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.120 everybody kind of dropped everything they were doing and said, okay, 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.120 let's go get ready to do the c MT Awards. 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.000 So they closed the show and uh, it kind of 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:02.480 went off without a hitch. It was a nice thing, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.399 but you know, you kind of get these curve balls 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:05.840 thrown at you all the time. You know, so no 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.520 problem there, let's go. So how do you interfaces Kenny's 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.560 engineer with the engineer for the show? Yeah, it's it's 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.839 an interesting thing, and honestly, every one of the award 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.040 shows are different in how that sort of happens. I mean, 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.320 as you can imagine, every band that comes on any 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.399 of these shows. Uh, you know, has their own people 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.840 that work for them. But you know, depending on what 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:28.920 city you're working in, you know, it can be heavily 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.600 regulated by the union. Uh you know some Nashville or 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.280 Tennessee is kind of a right to work state, so 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.280 it's not necessarily union. But you know, if it's not 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.039 too complex, you know, more often than not, you're just 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.959 gonna be you know, kind of the backstop for the 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.560 engineer that is actually mixing the event to air. You're 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.720 gonna kind of let him know, Okay, this is what's 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:50.280 going to be hit and you here be ready for this. 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.360 Usually there's you know, there's plenty of run throughs, you know, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.280 or camera blocking and rehearsal, so you can kind of 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.840 get pretty well set where you feel comfortable with the 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:00.680 audio that's gonna go to air and then the man's 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.240 has got to get up there and performance, so uh, 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.200 you know, so preparation is kind of the key to 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.120 it sometimes. I mean, I over the last couple of years, 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.560 I've gotten my Union card, after you know, forty years 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.560 in the business, I got a Union card so that 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:14.520 I could actually be the guy sitting in the chair 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.000 for some of these awards shows where I'm on the 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.120 other end of it, where the band's engineers coming up 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.560 and guiding me through it. So you know, I've kind 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.360 of been on both ends of it. Now. Okay, so 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.640 you're rehearsing with Kenny getting the sound right when he 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.120 actually does an award show. How much of his own 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.840 equipment does he bring and how much of the sound 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.440 from the stage are you responsible for before it feeds 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.600 into the mixer for television? Right? Well, again, I mean, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.760 I hate to be so abstract about it, but it 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.680 depends on the show. Like you know, obviously, some television 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.359 shows are uh, you know, a pre record or you'll 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:49.960 record it and then the band will get up there 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.119 and mime to it. Uh. Some of them are fully live, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:54.880 things like Rock and Wall Hall of Fame induction that 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.120 is a completely live event. You know, everybody's performing at that. 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.359 But you know, kind of depending on the producers you're 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.840 working with or the show format, you know, sometimes it'll 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.560 it might even be a hybrid of that, whereas prerecorded music. 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.520 Band is playing to it, but it's all live vocals, 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.760 you know, So it can be any combination of those things. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.960 For TV UM TV is a very particular little animal 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.360 there for doing live music for sure. Okay, so if 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.000 you're doing it, do you record the live track and 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.480 you do it before and how do you do that? Yeah? Well, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.560 I mean luckily, in this day and age, we're, you know, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.160 with the way we do live sound now, we're we're 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.000 set up to do any kind of recording, any kind 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.960 of multi track recording, any kind of to mix, etcetera. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.320 So what happened in this particular situation was, you know, 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.240 we were recorded it at rehearsals. I mean it was 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.440 actually the band playing the player run through. You record it, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.240 then you remix that in a studio and bring in 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.320 what are called stems, which are you know, one volume 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.760 control basically for the drums, one for this guitar player, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:53.360 one for the other guitar player. It's kind of pre 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.120 mixed and then that's what goes to air, and then 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.120 they put live vocals right on top of it. So, 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.960 you know, television product and you know they're looking for consistency, predictability. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.880 You know, they've got to stay on schedule, you know, 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.760 to the second. Really, so everything is really really highly 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.280 scripted for those TV show, especially live TV for sure, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:13.960 you know, so they don't they don't allow a lot 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.480 of flexibility there. Really for the most part, they want 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.120 to know exactly what's coming at him and deal with 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.000 that accordingly. Okay, so if Kenny is doing live vocals, 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.680 does he bring his own mic and do you sit 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.479 there with the engineer saying set the board like this, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.600 this is how he likes it, Again, depending on the show. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.480 On the vast majority of shows, especially for a lead vocalist, 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.479 they can bring their own microphone. Sometimes it gets into 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.120 a little bit of a problem if they want to 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.200 bring a wireless microphone, because you know, wireless frequency management 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.880 in this day and age is very very challenging, so 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:46.840 you know, you'll you'll be under the strip confines of 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:48.880 why he has to work within this frequency range for 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.400 the transmitter and the receiver, etcetera. But usually that's that's 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.480 even acceptable, and we can kind of get that going 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.720 and then they can be comfortable with their own mic, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:57.840 you know. I mean, you know, see a lot of 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.360 artists they have their own mic blinged out and cutting 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.479 jewels and be dazzled and all kinds of other stuff 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:04.560 on it, so you know, it's part of their brand, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.720 so to speak. So they'll theyn't want their own mic, 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:08.719 and and that's fine. I have no problem with that. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.560 And then yeah, you'll sit there with the engineer and go, Okay, 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.560 these are kind of the characteristics of Kenny's voice you 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.360 need to look for here, you know, blah blah blah, 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.240 and just try to help him be fast and get 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.320 through it. So, okay, you mentioned the Rock and Roll 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.520 Hall of Fame. You've been the overall engineer for those telecasts, correct. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.960 My first one was this year. I did the one 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.360 this year after they you know, they postponed for a year. 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:29.800 I was supposed to do it the year before, but 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.200 then COVID shut it down. So this was my first 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.919 year handling that and it was really cool. I really 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.760 loved it. I hope I hope they asked me back 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.359 to do more of them. Let's start from the beginning. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.360 How did you get the get One of the um 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.599 production managers for the gig knew me from touring years 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.640 and years ago. We toured together, and you know, just 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.880 reputation carries a lot of weight in that situation, and 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.680 they had an opening and he called me and said, hey, 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:53.680 are you would you be interested in mixing and rock 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.480 and roll Hall of Fame inductions? I said, heca, yeah, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.679 let's go. So, uh, you know a lot moving parts 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.880 in that show, Man boy, I mean, it's a it's 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:04.960 a big it's kind of a monster to wrestle to 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.160 the ground from the musical end of it as well 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:08.599 as the rest of it. I mean, it's that's a 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.160 big production to do, and especially given that they want 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:13.960 to do it all as live performance. You know, there's 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.640 there's no there's no miming in that show for sure. 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.719 So that that's cool, That makes it. That's attractive to me. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.919 You know, I love being involved in those sort of 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.159 things and taken on that kind of that kind of task. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.839 So you get the gig? How long before the recording 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.000 date in that situation, Well, because of COVID, I had 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.920 it almost a year and a half before. But in 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.239 a normal situation, you know you're gonna get in listed 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.919 for that gig a good a good six months in 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:39.919 advance because you're doing a lot of work in the 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.080 background on that interfacing with every band that's going to 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:44.760 get there. What you know, what are you going to bring, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:46.360 what instruments are you going to show up with, how 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.320 are we gonna make it, who's going to be the 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.000 house band? And even in that situation, you know you're 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.560 going to have, you know, that grand finale thing where 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.000 you're gonna have multiple bands up on stage playing at 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.040 the same time. So I mean it's you know, from 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:00.640 an audio point of view and be a little bit 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.560 like hurting cats, you know. I mean there's a lot 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:04.920 you know, what do we do with three bass players 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.720 during the performance of one song, or you know, six 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.600 guitar players, or you know all of those things. So 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.160 you know, that gets very challenging to make that kind 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.280 of you know, just go and work. So it's a 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:18.360 there's a lot of planning involved for that, lots and 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:20.920 lots weeks of planning for Okay, so in the weeks 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.880 of planning, since you're the major domo, to what degree 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.160 are you in charge? To what degree do they bring 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.640 the wrong guy. Tell you to what degree do you 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.239 dictate to them based on television limitations. Yeah, in that situation, 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.400 I'm the mixer on record and the mixer of records, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.280 so I will be mixing all the events. You know, 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.400 their engineer is welcome to sit down right next to 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.800 me and say, Okay, here's what I need to hear. Here. Uh, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.040 let's make this a little bit louder lessen. Don't worry 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:46.920 about that. That's fine. You know, he can help guide 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.560 me through it, for sure, and I welcome that. You know, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.360 that's that's a very necessary element of that. But at 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:53.960 the end of the day, you know, I end up 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:55.280 having to be the one to mix it. I'm going 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:56.840 to be the one that has to answer for it, 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.480 et cetera. Again, it comes back kind to TV production 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.840 where it's like, I've got to have predictability. I've got 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.160 to I've got to have known entities there. You know, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.200 as many as many constants and known entities as we 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.440 can create in television production, that's what is wanted. That 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.720 is what is desired by the producers for sure. So 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.040 to get it right, how much rehearsal was there? You 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.200 get quite a few run throughs with each act on 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.160 the day before the show. Um, there is an off 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.880 site rehearsal where you know, they'll have a musical director 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.000 that will meet with the talent and they'll figure out 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.080 whether they're going to sing with the house band or 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:31.640 you know, it's going to be a band on its own, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.080 like you know in that situation. You know, Food Fighters 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:35.760 was one of the bands that went in, so they 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.280 were going to play on their own for sure, but 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.960 yet you know somebody like uh, you know, Mickey Guyton 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:42.560 was going to do a piece and she was going 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.440 to sing with the house band. So all of that 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.520 is rehearsed off site. There are rehearsal spaces set up 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.320 away from the show, uh, you know for weeks previous 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.559 where they're rehearsing and working on arrangements. Who's going to 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.160 sing what, etcetera. And then I show up, you know 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.080 really the day before the actual tape and airing, uh, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.520 and we have a full run through, and you know, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.600 a lot of time is spent with the artist on 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:08.600 stage doing camera blocking, you know, like getting all the 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.920 camera shots sorted out, you know, all the cues sorted out, etcetera. 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.680 And they're doing run throughs of it during that that period, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.520 so you have a lot of time to kind of 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.760 prepare the music and get it hopefully mixed properly for 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.120 the audience. You know, it's kind of a I mean, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.120 it's kind of nerve wracking mixing for that audience. I 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.160 mean it's a pretty heavy audience sitting there listening to 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.520 you present those those bands, you know, so it'll get 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.760 your attention. So the mix you hear in the room, 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.400 is that the same as the mix that goes over 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.240 the air. It is not. There is always a mixer 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.200 that mixes to air, and there is always a mixer 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.920 that mixes for the room, and just as there's there 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.360 are mixers that mix for the artist on stage as well. 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.080 You know, they're considered monitor mixers. So yeah, there's there's 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.240 multiple mixing formats taking place at the same time, and 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.439 it's all recorded in multi racked form. If they want 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.000 to get back and remix it for the post for 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.520 postwork before it actually goes to air, which they almost 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:58.920 always do there. You want to get it as good 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:00.800 as you can before it actually is to air, you know, 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.320 So every act brings their own monitor mixers. They can 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.360 absolutely I mean most monitor. Most acts at that level 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.880 and of that caliber have their own monitor engineer as well, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:12.360 and same sort of thing. He would walk in and 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.840 work with that monitor engineer to get all their ear 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.200 mixes or their you know, their speaker mixes worked out 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:18.760 properly for the artists. They're going to know all the 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:23.160 artists sensitivities and sensibilities at that point. So yeah, you know, 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.480 like I said, we welcome it as like bringing on. Yeah, 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:27.320 the more info you can give me here, the better 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.959 it's going to get. Just make my my world a 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:31.839 little better here, as opposed to having to guests for 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:33.679 an hour here and then figure it out at all 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.640 the wrong times. So what's the difference between mixing for 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.040 the room and mixing for television? Very big difference in 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.880 my opinion. I've done both, and you know, you're mixing 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.080 for a very different medium when you're it's really no 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.760 different than mixing the live p a versus mixing for uh, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.960 you know, for CD or streaming or any of that. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.000 You know, they are two very very different dynamic ranges. 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.040 They're two very very different frequency responses. Uh, there's a 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:05.440 a very different outlook on you know, volume in those situations. Etcetera. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.080 So you know, there are guys that have done both 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:09.880 at the same time. You know, in a pinch, I 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:11.640 have done both in the same time, and it is 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.040 really really hard to do and make them make them 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.000 both great. You know, usually one suffers a little bit 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:18.800 because of the other one, you know, in terms of 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.120 you know, mixing life for the room versus mixing for air. 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:22.480 You know, if you're trying to do both those things 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.520 at the same time, that's hard, that's really really challenging 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.360 to do. So something like the Rock and Roll Hall 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.360 of Fame, which is recorded before. Are you involved in 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.400 post and how much work is done in remixing? I 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.920 can only use this year's experience as the the basis 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.280 of this conversation. I was not involved in post there. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.280 I don't feel like I need to be really uh, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:46.160 you know, the engineers that are that are mixing that 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.360 thing are fantastic. I actually thought this year's show sounded 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.199 fantastic over the airwaves, so they did a super John there. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.360 I'd probably just be in the way if I was there. Okay, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.600 there's a lot of literature and a lot of knowledge 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:03.439 of what's going on in the recording studio. Oh and automation, etcetera. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.559 Let's start, what is the board that you use to 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.520 mix lots? Well, you know I'm old enough you and 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.280 you can see on camera here I got enough gray 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.040 hair to back this up. But you know, I've been 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.559 around for a long time watching mixing console development here 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.480 over over forty years. So you know, the capabilities that 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.400 we have in live sound today from mixing consoles are 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:26.880 just incredible. I mean, we have reached really a really 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.920 high degree of capability and mixing consoles there. Obviously everybody 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.360 now is mixing for the most part in digital uh 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.920 just because of all the capabilities, and it especially for 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.120 things like you know, Rock and Hall of Fame and 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.520 some of these other very complex shows. I don't think 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:43.400 we could do them an analog. If we did, we 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.520 it would require two or three mixers at the front 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.600 of house to be able to do that. But we 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.120 can do that all in one console now. So the 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.760 capabilities are absolutely fantastic. Um, But I work on a 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.400 Are you looking for a name of a console or 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.040 just sure? Yeah, I I work with uh an Avid 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.320 sxl Avid Technologies and the live sound business. Now. I 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.400 actually helped them get into the live sound business in 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.680 two thousand right around that area where we helped. You know, 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:13.240 I was kind of enlisted to come in and help 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.439 them conceive a console line that would work in live sound. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.360 So you know, we kind of came in and uh 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.200 kind of reinvented the wheel a little bit in that world, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:24.920 you know, because you know, that was a world that 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.200 was living in, you know, primarily in pro tools and 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:28.840 video editing, and now all of a sudden we were 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.160 going to jump into live sound. So you know, they 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.319 they've kind of done some things that have really reshaped 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.840 the way people work in that market. Now, So what 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.600 was our inspiration to get into live Soule? Well, I'll 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.960 ask that. I'll answer that question with a question, what 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.400 is anybody's inspiration to build any product? Bob. It's revenue, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.160 you know, they want to make money. But by the 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.640 same token, they had a gentleman working there named David 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.240 le Bolt. I don't know if you know David and 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.800 know that name. Um I met him in the early eighties. 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.000 We were touring together with an artist named Lori Anderson, Uh, 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.040 kind of doing a world tour. He was the keyboard 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:04.520 player on the tour. I was one of the mixers 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:05.920 on the tour and we kind of hit it off 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.400 stop for a second, got in the whole rock and 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.880 roll guy, How do you end up working with a 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.040 performance artists like Lorie Anderson? You know, I don't know, man, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.600 These gigs just come across the desk, and you know, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.920 you know, I would be lying to you if I 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.000 said when I got asked to do the gig that 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.600 I knew everything about Lorie Anderson. I didn't. I had 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.800 to go study it and and understand who she was. 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:28.840 But I'm just telling you. Once I got into that 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:30.880 camp and worked there a little bit, I was completely 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.960 on fire for it. It was so cool technically, I mean, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.640 it was performance art, no no doubt about it. I mean, 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.560 and you know, she was really pushing the envelope technically 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:42.960 of what you could do on stage and and with 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.200 audio there. So it was fascinating to be a part 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.280 of it. And I think that's part of what drove 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.080 this conversation that we're gonna have here, because David was 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.280 really into it and being the keyboard player. I mean, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.360 it was right when Samplers and all kinds of things, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.400 we're really just starting to hit the hit the landscape there, 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.160 and so he and I hit it off famously. We 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.440 did the tour, we went our way as at the 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:05.920 end of the tour and he went off. He played 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.280 with Billy Joel for a long time, and then I 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.160 went on, you know, toured a bunch of metal acts 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.840 and all kinds of other things. And at some point 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.040 he actually went to work for digit Design. At that point, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.200 you know, who was developing pro Tools at the time. 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.600 This was pretty early on in the development of pro Tools, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.240 and he kind of drove all that technical development to 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.160 make that a really, really credible product in the studio. 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.760 I mean he he really brought a lot of that 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.520 functionality and made it a credible product as a recording tool. 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.080 And by the time the late nineties, you know, two 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.080 thousand rolled around, I mean pro Tools was pretty ubiquitous 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.960 in the recording studio. I mean it was everywhere. And 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:45.600 I get this call one day, I'm I mean, I'm 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.320 at my home in Arizona and I get this call 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.040 from David and I haven't spoken to him in twelve years. 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.200 You know, Hey, uh, you know I'm working for digit Design, right, yeah. Yeah, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:57.960 we're thinking about putting together a live sound console. We 0:15:57.960 --> 0:15:59.880 want to use plug ins blah blah blah blah. You know, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:01.200 do you think we have to do it? I mean, 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.000 this is something we got to do. And I just said, 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.000 absolutely not. Don't do it. Don't do it. We don't 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:07.760 want that, you know, we don't want pro tools in 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:13.320 the life sound. But you know, the conversation carried on 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:14.880 and he kind of convinced me to come up to 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:16.560 San Francisco and meet with him. So, you know, we 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.640 sat around at dinner table when when night, kind of 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.160 discussing what we thought a digital console should be in 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.720 life sound, and lo and behole. Five years later, you know, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.040 we released this thing called The d Show from digit Design, 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:32.600 you know, a company who had zero brand equity, zero footprint, 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.920 and live sound, and yet we took it really to 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.080 be one of the most lauded consoles out there today. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.080 So you know, that was that was fun to be 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:40.280 a part of that. That was kind of a new 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.200 take for me, you know, to get in on the 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.200 manufacturing side of it. And you know, I've been working 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.720 with digit Design well Avid now you know since officially 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.840 since two thousand five on console development. That's been a 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.800 lot of fun. How big a market is there are 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:54.880 you're talking in revenue or just people or you know, 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:56.920 I mean, I think of how many acts on the road. No, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.160 a lot of these things have consumer level video YEO 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.720 editing and all this stuff. When I think of live sound, 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.399 there's a limited universe for how many people are looking 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.680 for something of this capability. Well, it's funny you bring 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.680 this up, because you know, I think this is h 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:19.240 indicative of how people view live sound to begin with, right, um, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.360 where they think it's this kind of small thing that's 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.359 off in the corner, and you know, compared to Apple 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.520 or something like that. Of course it is small, right, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.679 but you know, just put something into your mind, just 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.359 for a second. Now, on a given day, just in 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.159 the United States, how many shows happened. I'm gonna let 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.359 you tell me, because I would say, I don't know. 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.840 I've never been able to research, but it's it's thousands 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.399 upon thousands of certain right, every one of those shows 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.600 has a sound reinforcement need, It has a console need. 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.119 Now buckle that into the concept, and I'll give you 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:52.879 this number because I know how many. I know this 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.040 one was accurate. From a few years ago. I was 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.480 doing some research on the houses of worship market, which 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.879 was moving into production, you know, in their services. This 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:06.399 was probably oh, this was probably mid two thousand's, you know, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:08.800 and I was kind of coming back to Avid and 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:10.920 making a player for them. We should examine this market 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.960 that stands up be a very rich market. And I 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:16.639 kind of brought up the number. I said, you know, 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.080 who knows how many churches there are in in America? 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.000 And you know, I could see that kind of gears turning, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:24.760 and they, you know, they really weren't thinking too hard 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.440 about it. I said, today, right today, it's three d 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.240 and thirty five thousand churches in America. Every one of 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.600 them have a sound reinforcement need on Sunday and throughout 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.400 the week. So you know, I mean, when you start 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.120 putting the numbers together, all of a sudden you start 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:41.840 thinking about it's like, well, okay, now let's make that 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.080 a global number. It's pretty big number. It's pretty big 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.679 market out there for this. You just gotta go find it. 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:49.159 You know. It's just not one of these things that 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.720 are that is in everybody's windshield when you see it. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.680 You know. Okay, So since you're involved with Avid, how 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.240 simple a product do they make for like houses of worship? 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.000 We were us to play pretty far down into that market. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.440 But see, I mean even even what you say there, 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.520 I say to you, hey, man, don't think of house 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.720 of worship as being a simple thing. I can I 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:15.720 could name you sixty churches plus in America that have 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:22.480 live sound, recording, studio broadcast type facilities that would rival NBC. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.679 I mean, they're unbelievably technically adept. You know. So you 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.919 know that that whole house of worship market is a 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.359 big thing now, big big deal man. Okay, So in 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:35.840 terms of the console, yeah, I want to get one 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.920 from Avid. Do they build custom depending on the number 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.360 of channels where you have a certain number of products 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.679 and you choose from those products. No, they have a 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.680 I mean again, we in our current product range, we 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.320 don't play very deep down into the market. There are 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.720 other competitors that play at the much much more inexpensive 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.359 end of it. I mean, it's really a professional product 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.560 right now. But we kind of changed the game here 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:01.280 recent they because we kind I think, you know, I 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:02.719 kind of saw the writing on the wall and how 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.000 this was going to go into the future, and we 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.600 have this thing called I can't believe I'm going to 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.960 talk about this on your podcast. We have this thing 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.960 called unified platform, right, which is basically a menu of products, 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.080 so you can pick how many faders you want on 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.040 your console, how how powerful of an engine you want, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.240 how many microphone preamps do you want to be able 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.159 to and just kind of ala carte put together a 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.840 huge system or a pretty small system, right, and you 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.040 can kind of piece this together as opposed to making 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.720 a small one, making a not so small one, making 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.640 a bigger one, making a bigger, bigger one, etcetera. Because 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.560 the challenge that comes with that in software development is 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.920 you end up having software that is specific to every 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.639 product and you can't keep the development going. In our world, 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.600 we create one piece of software that works on everything, 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.440 all of our hardware interacts and can scale. It was 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.560 the first first time this had ever been done for 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.439 any kind of live sound product, you know, where you 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.560 didn't have an actual product per se. You had pieces 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.359 that you put together into a product. And that allowed 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.040 us to have one string of development with software. We 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:20.760 developed one piece of software that works on everything we make. Okay, Traditionally, 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.240 software that has a relatively small user base is buggy, 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.960 So how does the software for av it? Well, every 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.800 software has bugs. I will say that, but you know, 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.600 we're also very cognizant of the fact that we work 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.000 in live sound. Right, this is live events. You cannot 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.040 be sitting in front of sixty people and have a 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.280 software bug to take your show down. You can't do it. 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.840 I mean, you just can't be allowed. Now that that said, 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.959 no one's perfect, and you know, I've it sounds uh, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.399 what's the word, kind of contrived and rationalized, but I've 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:58.240 said to people at times, Okay, look, this is the 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.800 world we live in. Here. It doesn't matter how much 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.720 money do you spend, or how much how many of 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.720 the great people you get to work. Sometimes the space 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.720 shuttle crashes, sometimes the space shuttle blows up. You can 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:11.320 have the best people in the world, the most money 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.120 in the world working on it, but things happen. The 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:15.720 thing you have to be able to do is be 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.679 able to respond to the failure. Right, It can't be 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:20.480 a failure that just well we just got to stop 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.240 the show. You know, you've gotta have you gotta be 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.840 able to respond to a failure and keep the show going. So, 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.280 you know, we we're pretty adepted at doing that kind 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.080 of thing. It it took time to get that. But 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:32.200 that was one of the calling cards of our our 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.600 product when we first came to market was that it 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.480 was very reliable, I mean really really reliable and you 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.040 could really count on it. So and it sounded great, so, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.119 you know, added bonus. So you have a lot of 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.600 experience forty years. What kind of problems have you had 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.240 in the middle of the show. Oh man, it's a 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.520 long list. I mean, you know, there's lots of times 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.160 where it you know, it has gone sideways, no doubt 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.120 about it. I mean, you know, I mean I've said 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.320 this to artists trying to get them to calm down 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.880 a little bit after a mishapp is like, hey, relax, 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.480 I've messed up way bigger shows than yours. Okay, so 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:08.840 you know, just take it easy. It's gonna be fine here, 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.320 We're gonna get through this, you know. But yeah, you know, 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.480 everything from microphone failures to console failures to p as 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.280 on fire. I mean, you know, I mean, after forty years, 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:19.719 you know, you can feel like you feel like you've 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:22.320 seen it all. You definitely haven't, but you can feel 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:24.159 like you've seen it all. So let's assume you have 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:26.440 a misshap did you ever have to end the show 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:28.359 or do you always have a way to patch it 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.200 back up for extra equipment. I personally have never had 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:33.240 that happen. I know of shows that have had that 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:35.840 happen where they haven't been able to continue the show, 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:39.280 you know. But you know, in fairness, I've seen that 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.280 happen for a litany and reason. It's not just an 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:43.560 audio failure, you know. So there's all kinds of things 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:45.840 that could cause that. But you know, Bob, I mean, 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:48.800 and this may take us down a deeper conversation here. 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.399 That's the beauty of live sound, right, It's the beauty 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:57.200 of it. Everything's at risk. It's at best when it's risky, 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.399 when when things might just go haywire. That's the juice. 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.440 That's the juice everything. When everything is all sort of 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.240 out and predictable and all the bows are tied on 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:09.680 the knots and everything, you know, that can be pretty 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:12.280 vanilla at times, that can get kind of stale. I 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.399 actually think the desire to do that is has driven 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:19.000 us into some bad corners and performance and live event, 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:20.720 you know, where we try to make it too safe 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:23.919 and too predictable and too perfect. It's like, hey, let it, 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:26.639 let it ride. Let's go, you know, let's have some 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:28.720 juice in the room here. Let's get back to that. 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:31.560 But first let's talk about the console. What makes a 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:35.680 live console different from a studio console. Yeah, okay, so 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:41.359 h a live console has to have way more h oh, 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:43.480 guess we're gonna get we might get geeky here, go 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:49.080 geek absolutely go geeki has way more summed outputs on it. Like, um, 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:51.639 let me see how I want to frame this conversation here. So, 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:56.320 in a studio, you're primarily concerned with either getting individual 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:59.840 microphones and sources, two tape tracks or in this case 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:02.160 this time of the world, into pro tools tracks where 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.800 you might have you know, a hundred tracks of instruments, 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:08.080 and then you are mixing that down to a single 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:12.080 stereo or five point one or surround. You're mixing that 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:14.760 down to a single format, a single pair about puts 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:17.399 out of the console. And the other thing that the 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:20.119 live sound console does very very well is it allows 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:23.280 you to do that and provide monitoring to the musicians 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:25.760 in the studio right where they can hear their mixes, 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:28.320 they can you know, they can sing, do everything that 0:25:28.359 --> 0:25:31.359 they need to do during the tracking phase. Right, So 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:35.000 recording consoles are very adept at that. Live consoles, on 0:25:35.040 --> 0:25:40.120 the other hand, really don't aren't thinking necessarily about providing 0:25:40.480 --> 0:25:44.000 you know, you know, mixes back to the musicians at 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:46.200 the front of house position. I'm talking here, he's really 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:49.280 just worried about mixing. Period. In this day and age, 0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:51.600 we're multi tracking at the same time, but he's really 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:54.360 primarily worried about mixing. But he's going to send out 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:58.240 puts to multiple places, multiple speaker systems, He's going to 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:00.280 have all kinds of stuff that has to do with 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:02.480 that p A system, not just a pair of control 0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:05.400 room monitors now, so he's got a whole lot more 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:09.159 on that console to deal with. And um, there are 0:26:09.200 --> 0:26:11.640 different types of automation, Like in the studio, you would 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:15.240 have what's called run time automation, where we can record 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:17.919 something into the recorder and then play it back and 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:21.080 start doing moves on the console. That and the moves 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:24.359 on the console are also recorded into the d A W. 0:26:24.720 --> 0:26:27.359 And now when I play back, it's not only playing 0:26:27.359 --> 0:26:29.240 bout the audio, but it's playing back all my moves. 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:32.480 I can adjust those, I can edit those, etcetera. That's 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:34.639 that's really rare in life. Sound. You don't see that 0:26:34.720 --> 0:26:37.040 very often in life sound unless the act is using 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:40.480 a lot of playback. If they're relying on almost entirely 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:43.040 on playback, then you can kind of get that going. 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:46.240 But more often than not, live sound consoles have what's 0:26:46.240 --> 0:26:50.720 called snapshot automation, right, which is okay, for this song, 0:26:50.920 --> 0:26:53.600 I need to get the console in this state to 0:26:53.680 --> 0:26:56.919 get it ready for me to mix it right, And 0:26:56.960 --> 0:26:59.800 I might need to get it in forty different states 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:03.800 for forty songs, depending on what instrumentation is being played 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:05.639 at a time. So really that's kind of one of 0:27:05.680 --> 0:27:09.159 the main kind of junctions of difference there is that 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:11.639 in the studio we're typically working on one song at 0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:14.520 a time, and live sound we're working on thirty or 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:16.560 forty songs at a time. Right, We've got to be 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:19.040 able to prepare to be able to mix thirty or 0:27:19.080 --> 0:27:23.879 forty sometimes really intricate songs and really intricate changes bang 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:27.359 bang bang bang bang. That's rarely the case in the studio. Okay, 0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:30.399 when you mix on your desk, how many channels do 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:32.760 you use? As many as I got, I'll use them 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:35.440 all now, uh you know, I mean, I'll give you 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:38.040 an example for and really this kind of thing is 0:27:38.040 --> 0:27:40.320 really shifted over time now with digital consoles because we 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:43.600 have the ability to have way more inputs into the console. 0:27:43.680 --> 0:27:46.399 So for Kenny Chesney right now, which is you know, 0:27:46.480 --> 0:27:51.280 three guitars, bass, drums, keys, five vocalists. I mean, that 0:27:51.320 --> 0:27:53.320 sounds kind of simple, but by the time you really 0:27:53.359 --> 0:27:55.040 get it mapped out and do the things you want 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:57.760 to do, that's that's approaching a hundred channels, you know, 0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:01.240 probably a hundred and ten, hundred and twelve, uh inputs. Now. 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:04.040 Part of that is also the way we're recording, Like 0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:08.680 I record probably upwards of probably upwards of fifteen sixteen 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:11.919 audience mis to be used in post. Like I'll record 0:28:11.920 --> 0:28:14.600 a five point one mic, I'll record spaced microphones for 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:16.880 the audience, so that when they get it to post, 0:28:16.920 --> 0:28:18.399 if they want to mix it in five point one, 0:28:18.400 --> 0:28:19.959 they have the ability if they want to mix it 0:28:20.280 --> 0:28:22.960 in stereo, they can use the other audience mix things 0:28:23.000 --> 0:28:25.440 like that. So channel count can grow, you know, pretty 0:28:25.520 --> 0:28:29.679 dramatically based on the based on your inputs. I mean, 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:33.320 probably the most famous you know concept of this was 0:28:33.400 --> 0:28:35.800 you know, when I was mixing Rush. I mean that 0:28:35.840 --> 0:28:41.560 was a hundred and eighteen channels for three guys, you know, 0:28:41.640 --> 0:28:44.920 but one entire console was the drum kit, you know, 0:28:44.960 --> 0:28:47.600 I mean that was that was Neil's kit. So you know, 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:51.080 the input count group pretty pretty big there. Okay. You 0:28:51.120 --> 0:28:53.840 know the more modern recording studio boards have a lot 0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:56.800 of effects built in as opposed to outboard gear. On 0:28:56.920 --> 0:29:01.240 these Avid desks, are there any effects old in or 0:29:01.280 --> 0:29:04.160 any other digital effects? Well, it was kind of our 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:07.400 calling card at at Avid right because you know, they 0:29:07.440 --> 0:29:10.160 were the first guys to ever really kind of you know, 0:29:10.280 --> 0:29:12.440 I dare I say invent, but you know, they brought 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:15.440 plug in architecture to the recording market, you know, where 0:29:15.440 --> 0:29:17.760 you could have emulations of all of this really great 0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:22.240 analog gear. And you know, it's kind of when we 0:29:22.320 --> 0:29:23.880 kind of brought that. I was kind of one of 0:29:23.920 --> 0:29:25.800 the things when David was talking about bringing into the 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:27.800 live sound that was the point where I went, okay, 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:29.760 now wait a minute, that could be really really something 0:29:29.840 --> 0:29:32.880 here if we could do that in live sound right 0:29:32.880 --> 0:29:35.360 where you could have you know, some of these really 0:29:35.440 --> 0:29:39.120 coveted piece you know, Poltch eques and fair Child limitars, 0:29:39.160 --> 0:29:41.760 these things that you know, you can't you can't even 0:29:41.760 --> 0:29:43.600 buy them. You at the time, you couldn't even buy them. 0:29:43.600 --> 0:29:45.320 But if I could get plug in versions of that 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:47.680 and use them in live sound, Wow, what a what 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.600 an incredible thing that would be, right? So, yeah, all, 0:29:51.640 --> 0:29:54.280 at least for my shows, nearly I'll say ninety eight 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:57.520 percent of the processing is inside the console. I don't 0:29:57.640 --> 0:30:02.480 use outboard gear anymore. And it's just such a luxury. 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:04.880 I mean, I'm just so spoiled with it now. Where 0:30:04.920 --> 0:30:08.360 we can you know, as opposed to going out and 0:30:08.400 --> 0:30:11.320 spending thirty two dollars for a single channel of fair 0:30:11.400 --> 0:30:14.800 Child compression. Well, I can have an emulation of that, 0:30:15.360 --> 0:30:16.959 you know, sitting on the console, and I can use 0:30:16.960 --> 0:30:18.320 as many of them as I want to use if 0:30:18.320 --> 0:30:19.920 I want to use it, do it, you know? And 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:23.120 is it exactly the same as it of what a 0:30:23.280 --> 0:30:26.040 that fair Child thing is? No, of course not. But 0:30:26.320 --> 0:30:29.240 there's a practicality that has to come with with live sound. 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:32.760 You know, you wouldn't go out and rent, you know, 0:30:32.920 --> 0:30:35.640 a hundred thousand dollars worth of processing to take with 0:30:35.680 --> 0:30:39.360 you on the road. I mean, it's just impractical. Uh. So, 0:30:39.480 --> 0:30:42.120 you know, there's a practicality that comes with digital that 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:45.440 is really, really enticing for life sound. So I love it. 0:30:45.600 --> 0:30:48.760 I'll never go back, honestly. Okay, so give us the 0:30:48.760 --> 0:30:52.080 old digital compared to analog wrap. Well, it's way more 0:30:52.120 --> 0:30:55.080 complex than anybody makes it. I'm telling you right now. 0:30:55.120 --> 0:30:57.680 It's not a binary argument. You know, which is better 0:30:57.720 --> 0:31:00.720 analog or digital? And I'm famous for saying it, and 0:31:00.800 --> 0:31:04.280 I totally believe it. I need them both. I need 0:31:04.320 --> 0:31:07.480 them both. We can't just say it's either one or 0:31:07.520 --> 0:31:09.520 the other. I need them both. They both have their 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:12.160 elements that we need to go with it. And I 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:15.160 think the argument is actually much deeper, deeper than sound quality. 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:17.400 And I say this about the studio as well, in 0:31:17.440 --> 0:31:20.520 live sound and other elements, because I think what people 0:31:20.560 --> 0:31:22.840 miss a lot of times. I've even used albums as 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:26.640 the example here. You know, albums compared to CDs, compared 0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:30.800 to streaming. What people miss is the analog experience, right, 0:31:30.920 --> 0:31:34.440 the workflow, you know. I mean, I'm one of those guys. 0:31:34.680 --> 0:31:37.280 As part of why I love albums, I love opening 0:31:37.320 --> 0:31:39.760 that album, I love reading credits, and all of that 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:43.120 element is part of the experience for me. Well, it's 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:47.200 very similar in analog recording. You know, where I want 0:31:47.200 --> 0:31:49.400 to see tape rolling. I you know, I want to 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:52.360 work at a certain pace. You know, analog allows you 0:31:52.400 --> 0:31:54.520 to work at a much slower pace or demands that 0:31:54.560 --> 0:31:56.400 you work at a much slower pace than in digital. 0:31:57.040 --> 0:31:59.600 So you know, there's there's just all kinds of things 0:31:59.600 --> 0:32:02.560 about it, above and beyond sound quality that play into it. 0:32:02.800 --> 0:32:06.080 There's an analog aesthetic you know that works there. But 0:32:06.160 --> 0:32:08.720 you know, with with the digital technologies that are out 0:32:08.720 --> 0:32:10.960 there today, I'm on record to say in this and 0:32:11.000 --> 0:32:13.760 I stand by it, I can take a digital piece 0:32:13.760 --> 0:32:16.960 of technology and I can make it sound more analog 0:32:17.000 --> 0:32:19.280 than analog if you know how to do it. You know, 0:32:19.360 --> 0:32:21.400 you just gotta have the skill to do it, have 0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:23.280 the tools to be able to do it. It's very 0:32:23.280 --> 0:32:26.920 analogous to what we see now with film right where 0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:30.400 I can take the sterileness of video and make it 0:32:30.440 --> 0:32:33.000 look like the oldest film you ever saw in your life. 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:35.480 You know, all of that possibility is there. And I 0:32:35.520 --> 0:32:39.000 think that argument of analog versus digital and audio is 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:42.800 very comparable to the argument of film versus video. For 0:32:42.840 --> 0:32:46.000 a storyline, you know, if you watch something in video 0:32:46.080 --> 0:32:49.240 and you watch something in film, something that has film 0:32:49.280 --> 0:32:51.320 look on it or that looks like film. It evokes 0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:54.160 a different response. There's no if stands robuts about it. 0:32:54.160 --> 0:32:58.400 It does. And the same thing applies to analog versus digital. 0:32:58.480 --> 0:33:01.800 Analog evokes a different response. Uts it evokes it because 0:33:01.840 --> 0:33:04.320 we have been programmed to listen to it that way 0:33:04.640 --> 0:33:07.959 for the last sixty or seventy years. We're emotionally tied 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:11.680 to that analog sound quality, and we want it. We don't. 0:33:11.720 --> 0:33:13.760 We didn't realize we wanted it until it was taken 0:33:13.800 --> 0:33:16.040 away and I was like, oh, wait a minute, that 0:33:16.280 --> 0:33:18.440 that's not what we like. Let's have some of that back. 0:33:19.360 --> 0:33:22.960 But you know, so analog is really really important. But 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:26.120 what I trade away all the digital capability just to 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:29.160 have an analog signal path for life sound? I would not. 0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:32.040 I would not just staying on analog digital for a second. 0:33:32.360 --> 0:33:35.120 There are some engineers say that what you're really hearing 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:39.480 in the analog is distortion. And then there's the experience 0:33:39.560 --> 0:33:42.719 of putting on some c ds in some vinyl records 0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:44.800 and you feel a warmth in the analog that you 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.360 don't feel on the c D. Tell us, from a 0:33:47.400 --> 0:33:51.160 professional viewpoint, what's going on there? It is distortion. It 0:33:51.320 --> 0:33:55.520 is it's very very well managed sometimes poorly managed distortions, 0:33:55.560 --> 0:33:58.480 but it is what we love about it, right, and 0:33:58.640 --> 0:34:01.480 most people don't realize it. And I'll just at risk 0:34:01.520 --> 0:34:03.520 of letting the cat out of the bag. You would be, 0:34:04.320 --> 0:34:07.440 I think as a consumer, would be mortified, maybe is 0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:11.399 the right word to understand and watch and see how 0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:16.040 much distortion is intentionally injected into music today to get 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:18.520 it to have the vibe that it had thirty or 0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:21.759 forty years ago. I mean, it's it's breathtaking how much 0:34:21.800 --> 0:34:23.879 it is, you know. I mean, it's going to get 0:34:24.320 --> 0:34:26.480 maybe even drive us into this conversation of what is 0:34:26.520 --> 0:34:30.640 good audio, what is great audio? I mean, it's such 0:34:30.680 --> 0:34:34.560 an open ended palette now, especially in music. Music is 0:34:34.560 --> 0:34:37.920 such a unique animal for this discussion, you know. But 0:34:37.960 --> 0:34:40.920 you know every sense Rocket eighty eight and Ike Turner 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:44.759 and Jackie brett Ling, brett Ling, you know, we've had 0:34:44.760 --> 0:34:49.040 distortion in play, intentional distortion in play because it evokes 0:34:49.040 --> 0:34:52.080 an emotional response. You know, it has a statement to it. 0:34:52.800 --> 0:34:55.840 Think about what rap and hip hop music would have 0:34:55.920 --> 0:34:58.239 been like in the eighties if it wouldn't have come 0:34:58.280 --> 0:35:01.880 from the boom box era, which was just horribly distorted audio, 0:35:02.120 --> 0:35:05.080 But that gave it the sense of being urban, right, 0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:08.440 that was the urban signature. That was the thing. This 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:10.560 came from the street, right, It didn't come from a big, 0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:17.000 glossy studio. You know. There's all these sonic signatures and 0:35:17.040 --> 0:35:19.520 little tip offs to let you know where that music 0:35:19.560 --> 0:35:22.040 came from. You know, I mean so many, so many 0:35:22.120 --> 0:35:24.520 artists don't want to look shiny, you know, because there's 0:35:24.520 --> 0:35:27.160 no street cred in it from an audio perspective, I'm 0:35:27.160 --> 0:35:29.920 talking right. Okay, Let's assume an act is going on 0:35:29.960 --> 0:35:33.480 the road. Most of these acts, other than the reamplifiers 0:35:33.480 --> 0:35:37.000 and their guitars and through other instruments, rent the equipment, 0:35:37.120 --> 0:35:40.560 you know, in arena level rock at these big tours, 0:35:40.640 --> 0:35:44.560 who owns the actual avid board? The sound company. So 0:35:44.600 --> 0:35:48.680 there's an entire sound company industry now that's been rocking 0:35:48.719 --> 0:35:52.520 and rolling and going strong now for you know, thirty 0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:54.880 forty plus years now. I mean it started out certainly 0:35:54.880 --> 0:35:56.960 as a cottage industry. I mean when I got into 0:35:56.960 --> 0:36:01.000 the business, and but as a fledgling I mean, we 0:36:01.000 --> 0:36:03.720 were only ten years rood from Woodstock at that point. 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:06.040 You know, it was amazing, you know, I was looking 0:36:06.080 --> 0:36:07.719 at a post on Facebook the other day for cal 0:36:07.840 --> 0:36:11.040 Jam Too, which I remember seeing as a kid, and 0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:12.799 you know, I had this kind of lightbulb moment. I 0:36:12.840 --> 0:36:15.719 was like, Okay, look at what's going on here technically 0:36:15.880 --> 0:36:18.879 at this thing. This is only about eight or nine 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:21.719 years removed from Woodstock. I mean, look how far this 0:36:21.760 --> 0:36:24.800 industry has come just in that seven eight nine years, 0:36:24.840 --> 0:36:28.160 you know. And that was all just sole proprietorship people 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:31.399 just pulling it together and getting together. You know. It's 0:36:31.480 --> 0:36:33.439 when we really started to see the emergence of JB 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:36.400 L you know, as a professional audio company, because they 0:36:36.440 --> 0:36:38.800 provided a lot of the speaker system for that that show. 0:36:39.239 --> 0:36:42.560 You know, Meyer Sound was really really influential in in 0:36:42.560 --> 0:36:45.920 in the growth in the development of what that industry 0:36:45.960 --> 0:36:48.239 has become. So to kind of circle all the way 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:50.200 back to your question, Yeah, there's a sound company that 0:36:50.239 --> 0:36:52.880 would provide all of that technology, all the speaker technology, 0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:55.759 all the mixing technology, etcetera. To the act. The act 0:36:55.760 --> 0:36:58.759 would lea set out for the the course of the tour, 0:36:58.800 --> 0:37:00.400 and then when they're done, they move on to another 0:37:00.719 --> 0:37:03.279 another act. You know. Okay, so do you personally own 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:06.200 any equipment that you might use on the road. Yeah, yeah, 0:37:06.280 --> 0:37:08.399 I mean I own microphones that I use. I mean, 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:11.640 I used to own my own consoles, and and there 0:37:11.640 --> 0:37:13.520 are artists are there are mixers out there that do 0:37:13.560 --> 0:37:16.240 own their own consoles and still use them out there today. 0:37:16.239 --> 0:37:18.440 I used to own a lot of my own effects processing. 0:37:18.520 --> 0:37:20.120 I mean, I was one of the one of the 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:23.120 earlier guys in the eighties that was taking a lot 0:37:23.160 --> 0:37:26.360 of studio processing out on the road and trying to 0:37:26.440 --> 0:37:28.279 make that happen out there. You know, we were kind 0:37:28.320 --> 0:37:30.279 of trying to make that transition. I mean, there was 0:37:30.320 --> 0:37:32.200 a period of time in the late eighties where you know, 0:37:32.760 --> 0:37:35.200 some of the front of house positions, probably mine included, 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:38.200 would arrivaled most studios, especially when I was mixing Rush 0:37:38.320 --> 0:37:41.359 or or Deaf Leopard for sure. You know, those were 0:37:41.440 --> 0:37:46.240 big front of house positions that were very technically complex positions. Okay, 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:48.239 so let's assume you get hired for an act. Let's 0:37:48.280 --> 0:37:51.759 leave Chestney out because he plays stadiums, which is a 0:37:51.760 --> 0:37:54.400 whole another ball game. We'll get to that. That's adult 0:37:54.440 --> 0:37:57.560 audio there. Man, that's a whole another thing. That's right. Okay, 0:37:57.600 --> 0:38:00.360 So let's just talk and arena act. You get hired 0:38:00.400 --> 0:38:02.320 to do the gig, this is the first time you 0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:05.319 work with the act Do you go and hire all 0:38:05.360 --> 0:38:08.680 the equipment? It depends. I certainly would could. I mean, 0:38:08.680 --> 0:38:10.359 if they've brought me into the gig, then I want 0:38:10.360 --> 0:38:12.960 to have influence on what gear we're going to use. Yeah, 0:38:13.320 --> 0:38:15.680 So you know, obviously there are fine there are accountants 0:38:15.719 --> 0:38:19.719 that get involved in budgets that have to be honored, etcetera. 0:38:19.800 --> 0:38:22.560 But you know, there's certainly preferences. I certainly have preferences 0:38:22.560 --> 0:38:26.200 of speaker systems and companies to work with out there. 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:29.239 For sure, you're gonna put me on the spot like that. 0:38:31.480 --> 0:38:35.120 Certainly with the speakers, people are always interested in that. Yeah, well, 0:38:35.160 --> 0:38:38.839 speaker and speaker development, man has really come a long way. Man, 0:38:38.880 --> 0:38:41.080 hearing about about the last twenty five years. Man, there's 0:38:41.080 --> 0:38:45.640 been some phenomenal advancement and speaker technology. But you know, 0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:47.480 I mean there's the big companies out there. I'm working 0:38:47.480 --> 0:38:50.440 with Claire Brothers for Kenny Chesney, which is you know, 0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:53.600 I'm Claire Brothers is the undisputed champ of sound companies. 0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:55.880 They are the biggest one by far. They probably they 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:59.839 probably address sixty the clients out there in the world. 0:39:00.000 --> 0:39:04.080 To day. I've used sound image with great effect there 0:39:04.080 --> 0:39:07.800 out of Southern California down an Escondido. Really great company. 0:39:08.800 --> 0:39:12.439 Who else? I mean, there's so many good companies going now. Okay, 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:16.120 so forget the intermediaries. You're dealing with a company. You're 0:39:16.160 --> 0:39:19.279 on an Aerweena tour forty dates. What do you need? 0:39:19.440 --> 0:39:21.160 Do I gotta know what kind of music we're trying 0:39:21.200 --> 0:39:23.920 to present? You gotta know? You know, are we going 0:39:23.960 --> 0:39:26.719 to make something that's freaking loud and impactful? Here? Are 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:29.440 we looking for intelligibility? What is the act? Is it 0:39:29.480 --> 0:39:31.560 adell or is it a Metallica? They're going to require 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:35.600 very very different PA systems and very different capabilities for 0:39:35.640 --> 0:39:37.480 that room. So you know, I've got to know that first, 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:40.480 I've got to understand it musically, what what what the 0:39:40.480 --> 0:39:42.960 fans are gonna expect there, And then you do a 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:45.400 design that you have to kind of in these in 0:39:45.400 --> 0:39:47.360 this day and age, you have to fit into lighting 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:50.480 and video production because you're your third in line. Now. 0:39:50.600 --> 0:39:52.600 You know, the first things that get done our video 0:39:52.640 --> 0:39:55.560 production and lighting production, and then we try to squeeze 0:39:55.600 --> 0:39:57.360 in some sound in there and get it in hopefully 0:39:57.400 --> 0:40:00.520 in the right positions to address the geometry in the room. 0:40:00.719 --> 0:40:03.720 So all of that comes in place very complex formula 0:40:03.920 --> 0:40:06.680 of Okay, if it's going to need to be this, 0:40:06.960 --> 0:40:08.919 it's going to cost this much, it's got to fit 0:40:08.960 --> 0:40:12.080 in here. How does it impact the production schedule? You know, 0:40:12.120 --> 0:40:13.640 are we going to have time to put it up? 0:40:13.680 --> 0:40:16.560 And you know, all of that gets put into a 0:40:16.560 --> 0:40:18.480 hat and shake it up and hopefully come out with 0:40:18.520 --> 0:40:20.759 the answer there. You know, you work very closely with 0:40:21.719 --> 0:40:24.040 you know, the production team, meaning the lighting designer, the 0:40:24.560 --> 0:40:28.440 video designer, and the production manager, and then the accountants 0:40:28.440 --> 0:40:30.040 come in at some point and tell you that's going 0:40:30.080 --> 0:40:32.000 to cost way too much and we can't do it. Okay, 0:40:32.000 --> 0:40:35.040 you're interested most and getting the best sound. Do you 0:40:35.040 --> 0:40:37.080 ever butt heads with these people and say, well, I 0:40:37.120 --> 0:40:39.359 hear what you're You know, with the classic thing, you know, 0:40:40.040 --> 0:40:44.280 couples have a living room and one of the members 0:40:44.280 --> 0:40:46.480 of the couple doesn't want anything to show, and then 0:40:46.520 --> 0:40:49.000 the other person's well, I want the big speakers and 0:40:49.080 --> 0:40:52.360 all the equipment that lights up. So these are different 0:40:52.360 --> 0:40:55.439 considerations video and audio. So to what degree is there 0:40:55.600 --> 0:41:00.200 a battle? That's a strong term, but every every here, 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:03.759 I mean it's a knockdown, drag out fight. I'm not 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:07.240 exaggerating it. I mean it's a battle every tour, honestly, 0:41:07.239 --> 0:41:09.399 go into stadiums, it actually gets a little easier because 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:11.399 the you know, the places where you're gonna be able 0:41:11.400 --> 0:41:13.000 to do things in the structure that's going to hold 0:41:13.000 --> 0:41:15.239 it is a little more forgiving than what you're going 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:16.799 to do in an arena. But you know, you look 0:41:16.840 --> 0:41:19.200 at the complexity of some of these arena shows now 0:41:19.840 --> 0:41:23.239 and trying to get speaker systems fit into that that 0:41:23.280 --> 0:41:25.719 can actually properly address the geometry and make it where 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:28.479 everybody can actually hear what's going on. It's in the way, 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:30.600 it's in the way. You know, it's hanging in front 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:34.040 of the video screen, right, so it's gotta move, we 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:35.960 gotta go higher, whatever we gotta do, you know what 0:41:36.000 --> 0:41:38.480 I mean. There's all kinds of parameters that get put 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:41.680 into play there to make that work, especially especially so 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:43.960 for television. I mean Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 0:41:44.000 --> 0:41:46.160 is a great example of that, where you know, the 0:41:46.239 --> 0:41:49.480 camera shot is the whole thing. There can't be p 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:51.560 a hanging down in the camera shot. You've got to 0:41:51.600 --> 0:41:53.680 have a p A system that can go high, aim low, 0:41:54.200 --> 0:41:57.319 cover the geometry etcetera. You know, it's there's a lot 0:41:57.320 --> 0:41:58.960 of a lot of moving parts there, like I said, 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:01.960 that have to get into play. So I mean, I 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:04.360 hate to give you the stock answer. Well, it depends, 0:42:04.600 --> 0:42:06.920 but it depends on what are we doing TV. I'm 0:42:06.920 --> 0:42:09.440 sure every situation is you need. But you know, videos 0:42:09.520 --> 0:42:11.279 king right now, you know, I mean, it gets all 0:42:11.320 --> 0:42:21.279 the consideration right now. So let's just go to the extremes. 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:25.279 Adele and Metallica. Literally, what brand of speaker would you 0:42:25.320 --> 0:42:28.600 want to use and what brand of amplifier? Well, I 0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:30.880 don't know, is the honest answer. I mean I have 0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:33.520 ones that I would lean towards. I mean, you know, 0:42:33.560 --> 0:42:37.719 there are some of these very very dsp driven, very 0:42:37.800 --> 0:42:41.600 accurate speaker systems that can cover i mean to the seat. 0:42:41.760 --> 0:42:44.120 You know, you can build in these these polar patterns 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:46.600 for these PA systems where you know the p A 0:42:46.760 --> 0:42:48.560 is the sound from the p A is literally not 0:42:48.640 --> 0:42:50.720 hitting any of the walls, it's only hitting the seats. 0:42:51.239 --> 0:42:54.040 So you know, from for Adele, I would choose something 0:42:54.120 --> 0:42:57.359 that had that capability. For Metallica, you know, you want 0:42:57.400 --> 0:42:59.480 something that has a little bit of that capability for sure. 0:42:59.520 --> 0:43:01.000 You want to be able to be precise with it. 0:43:01.280 --> 0:43:03.239 But man, it's got to have some balls to it. 0:43:03.280 --> 0:43:05.560 I mean, it's going to have to have some oomph 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:07.920 to it because there's gonna be a volume element to that, 0:43:08.400 --> 0:43:11.680 and a punch element to that and impact element to that. 0:43:11.680 --> 0:43:15.040 That is absolutely vital for the show to succeed. Right 0:43:15.200 --> 0:43:18.400 whereas Adele that's gonna be there's gonna be some elegance 0:43:18.440 --> 0:43:20.200 to that, there's going to the vocal is going to 0:43:20.280 --> 0:43:22.839 be It's going to be all about the vocal there. Really, 0:43:22.840 --> 0:43:26.880 how do I get this beautiful, tall, elegant, highly addictive 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:29.680 vocal that every person in the room can understand every 0:43:29.680 --> 0:43:32.560 word that she sinks? You know? Two different really agendas 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:34.959 there to really two different agendas there. Let's talk about 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:38.440 the speakers. Are these brands consumers would be familiar with 0:43:38.520 --> 0:43:41.920 and probably not now they're really I mean short of 0:43:42.000 --> 0:43:44.439 you know, JB. L. I'm I'm sure that's ubiquitous enough 0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:47.080 that everybody would know it. But you know these now 0:43:47.160 --> 0:43:52.320 these are very uh, you know, brands that are focused 0:43:52.360 --> 0:43:54.680 really entirely on professional sound. Not to say that they 0:43:54.680 --> 0:43:56.279 don't go down into the consumer market with some of 0:43:56.320 --> 0:43:59.240 their products, but their primary focuses on and a couple 0:43:59.280 --> 0:44:02.520 of the names us for the record uh AL Acoustics, 0:44:03.239 --> 0:44:05.520 which is a French company that kind of they really 0:44:05.760 --> 0:44:07.719 are responsible for kind of changing the whole game and 0:44:07.760 --> 0:44:09.800 going getting us to go to this thing called line 0:44:09.840 --> 0:44:12.560 Source where you here's you see speakers hanging in a 0:44:12.600 --> 0:44:17.040 straight line uh E, A, W D and B Audio 0:44:17.480 --> 0:44:21.520 Audio Technique U JB L. Of course, you know those 0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:24.359 are probably the big big players in it right now. 0:44:24.680 --> 0:44:28.239 Claire Claire Brothers makes their own proprietary boxes called Cohesion, 0:44:28.640 --> 0:44:31.200 which were very, very good. So let's talk about what 0:44:31.280 --> 0:44:34.160 was the breakthrough exactly of the French company. It's called 0:44:34.280 --> 0:44:38.520 line Source. So if you have a memory of looking 0:44:38.520 --> 0:44:41.840 back on shows and you paid any attention to speaker 0:44:41.920 --> 0:44:46.399 systems in the past up until about let's call it, 0:44:47.280 --> 0:44:49.160 I'm going to call it the mid to late nineties, 0:44:49.160 --> 0:44:52.280 was when we really started to see the shift. Previous 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:54.200 to that, you saw a lot of speaker systems hanging 0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:56.400 in a horizontal way. We kind of called it a 0:44:56.400 --> 0:44:59.080 golf ball. Look right where you would see they would 0:44:59.120 --> 0:45:00.640 be four or five cab it's deep, and then they 0:45:00.640 --> 0:45:02.440 would kind of wrap around the corner. You know, you 0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:04.400 would see this just this I mean it was almost 0:45:04.440 --> 0:45:06.840 like looking at a whole bunch of little cabinets that 0:45:06.880 --> 0:45:10.440 made it look like one big speaker cabinet. And we 0:45:10.840 --> 0:45:14.080 generally refer to that as a horizontally arrayed p A system. 0:45:14.120 --> 0:45:17.000 You know, we're worried about it going in this direction. Now, 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:19.560 the downside of the horizontally p A system was that 0:45:19.600 --> 0:45:23.640 it was very hard to cover steep geometry. If you 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:25.960 had to cover very high, like you had seats that 0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:30.279 were steep or high, you didn't have enough angling in 0:45:30.320 --> 0:45:31.880 that horizontal p A to be able to get it 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:34.000 up there and and direct energy up there. It was 0:45:34.080 --> 0:45:38.120 very difficult to do, especially for a hanging p A system. 0:45:38.160 --> 0:45:40.000 It was if it was a stacked p A system, 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:42.640 you could kind of get it, but still that that 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:46.880 had its own limitations as well. So in the nineties, uh, 0:45:47.280 --> 0:45:51.879 we had some development in speaker driver technology that came 0:45:51.920 --> 0:45:54.880 to play, and it allowed for us to do vertical 0:45:55.760 --> 0:45:58.480 hanging of these speaker systems and and then these vertical 0:45:58.520 --> 0:46:02.279 line sources. What's really critical to making it work is 0:46:02.320 --> 0:46:06.400 the spacing between the speaker components. So you know, if 0:46:06.440 --> 0:46:08.719 you took the grill cloth off of one of these 0:46:08.800 --> 0:46:11.600 line source speaker systems. You would see too low frequency devices, 0:46:12.080 --> 0:46:14.080 and then you would see some mid frequency devices, and 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:15.720 then right in the center you would see a whole 0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:20.439 line of high frequency devices. And that high frequency line 0:46:20.440 --> 0:46:23.400 of devices might be thirty ft tall. Right, But what 0:46:23.520 --> 0:46:28.279 that allows for is that mathematically that line of speakers 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:32.360 is working as one speaker. To the ear, it appears 0:46:32.400 --> 0:46:34.800 to be one speaker. That's the goal there. Now the 0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:37.160 challenge with it is how do I then how do 0:46:37.200 --> 0:46:40.520 I expand horizontal coverage? How do I get coverage around 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:42.839 the corner where you have to hang more lines around there? 0:46:42.880 --> 0:46:44.080 So if you were to go to a show today 0:46:44.120 --> 0:46:46.560 and see it, you would probably see on either side 0:46:46.560 --> 0:46:50.839 of the stage, you know probably two maybe three line sources. 0:46:51.239 --> 0:46:54.080 And the other big advantage of line sources is very 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:56.400 easy to cover the vertical geometry. If I need to 0:46:56.400 --> 0:46:59.000 cover high, I need to cover a steep Remember I 0:46:59.000 --> 0:47:01.200 talked about TELEVI in production when we might want to 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:04.560 fly high but then shoot audio straight down. I can 0:47:04.600 --> 0:47:08.960 do that with a line source very effectively. Right, So 0:47:09.000 --> 0:47:11.320 that that the game really changed in the late nineties 0:47:11.320 --> 0:47:13.600 once those came to bear and we were able to 0:47:13.640 --> 0:47:16.640 amplify and have these components, these smaller components that could 0:47:16.719 --> 0:47:19.040 handle the amount of power and have the amount of 0:47:19.040 --> 0:47:21.719 output available to them. Then line source became the thing. 0:47:21.800 --> 0:47:24.840 And unlike any time I've ever seen in the history 0:47:24.840 --> 0:47:27.400 of sound reinforcement, the entire industry just kind of stopped 0:47:27.400 --> 0:47:29.400 on a dime and went, yep, we're gonna go a 0:47:29.440 --> 0:47:31.279 line source. Here we go. And you know, from that 0:47:31.320 --> 0:47:33.880 point on you hardly saw any horizontally ran pas for 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:37.080 a long time. And what are the amplifiers that are used? Man, 0:47:37.200 --> 0:47:41.279 super super high power networkable amplifiers now where we can 0:47:41.360 --> 0:47:43.920 get audio to them off of an audio network, but 0:47:44.200 --> 0:47:47.040 you know, thousands and thousands of what's available to you 0:47:47.040 --> 0:47:48.600 because headroom is what you want there. You want to 0:47:48.719 --> 0:47:51.040 be able to do really push things up and not 0:47:51.239 --> 0:47:54.480 have it distort and and blow up the speaker component. 0:47:54.560 --> 0:47:57.279 And what are the brands used in the amplifers. Most 0:47:57.320 --> 0:47:59.439 of the companies are making their own amplifiers at this point. 0:47:59.440 --> 0:48:03.000 Alocoustic makes its own amplifiers. DNB Audio Technique makes their 0:48:03.000 --> 0:48:08.000 own amplifiers. Uh, you know, Crown Amplifiers works in conjunction 0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:11.680 with J B. L Um who else There's I'm probably 0:48:11.719 --> 0:48:14.400 missing a ton of them here U E. A W 0:48:14.600 --> 0:48:17.120 has their own amplifier package made by power Soft. I 0:48:17.200 --> 0:48:18.880 believe this Powersoft may and it might have moved to 0:48:18.920 --> 0:48:22.200 a different amplifier now for the and your riggs. But 0:48:22.440 --> 0:48:24.440 you know it's all in house, and you know they're 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:26.480 making their owns now that you wouldn't necessarily go out 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:28.439 and buy them off the shelf there. It's all part 0:48:28.560 --> 0:48:30.320 of the system design now. So if you go to 0:48:30.360 --> 0:48:32.759 Claire Brothers, they have all of this stuff and you 0:48:32.880 --> 0:48:35.920 pick and choose what you want. Yeah, especially Claire Brothers 0:48:35.960 --> 0:48:37.480 in in this day and age, they used to be 0:48:37.719 --> 0:48:39.799 really they've kind of changed their model now. They used 0:48:39.800 --> 0:48:42.440 to be a proprietary company where you know, in the 0:48:42.480 --> 0:48:44.359 early eighties they were one of the few companies, one 0:48:44.400 --> 0:48:46.600 of one of two or three companies really, Claire Brothers, 0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:50.600 Shoko I probably put Britannia Row in there, maybe Concert 0:48:50.680 --> 0:48:53.399 Sound over in Europe in there that we're making their 0:48:53.440 --> 0:48:57.200 own boxes because the manufacturers weren't really able to manufacturer 0:48:57.239 --> 0:49:00.319 a box that could could do that. Yet Alter Sound 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:02.640 out of San Rafel was great. You know, that was 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:04.839 the Grateful Sound company for the longest period of time. 0:49:05.200 --> 0:49:07.120 But they you know, they were they just decided, Hey, 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:09.520 we're gonna make our own boxes, make our own speaker systems, 0:49:10.280 --> 0:49:13.280 you know like that. You went to that company because 0:49:13.360 --> 0:49:16.640 they had the technology and the technical infrastructure to go 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.640 out and do these huge tours at the time, you know, 0:49:19.960 --> 0:49:22.160 I mean I think back to show's you know, like 0:49:22.320 --> 0:49:25.360 Live Aid and you know, the the first rock and 0:49:25.480 --> 0:49:28.239 rios down in you know, in South American stuff. I mean, 0:49:28.280 --> 0:49:29.680 there was only a couple of companies that could have 0:49:29.719 --> 0:49:33.359 even possibly pulled that off, you know, and today there's 0:49:33.520 --> 0:49:35.399 you know, you can you can go out and buy 0:49:35.640 --> 0:49:39.120 a concert sound system off the shelf and call yourself 0:49:39.160 --> 0:49:42.359 a sound company. You know. So I am old enough 0:49:42.440 --> 0:49:46.560 to remember two things. One, when the venue provided the 0:49:46.600 --> 0:49:51.040 sound reinforcement to that the only thing going through the 0:49:51.160 --> 0:49:54.200 p A was the vocal. Yeah. So at this point 0:49:54.840 --> 0:50:00.200 is every instrument might, every amplifier might what's going I'm 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:03.440 there for rock and pop music, yeah, absolutely every I 0:50:03.440 --> 0:50:05.880 mean it's very much like studio mixing at the console, 0:50:06.239 --> 0:50:09.160 and you're just bringing it to a big p A system. Now, 0:50:09.200 --> 0:50:10.600 if you if you go all the way down into 0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:13.359 something like you know, if you get to jazz things 0:50:13.440 --> 0:50:17.239 like that, then then you're really you're not necessarily not 0:50:17.360 --> 0:50:19.480 necessarily putting everything in the p A system, you know, 0:50:19.560 --> 0:50:22.040 you're you're back to what we would kind of label 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:25.759 a sound reinforcement methodology there right where, Okay, let me 0:50:25.800 --> 0:50:27.640 take what I can hear on the stage and then 0:50:27.760 --> 0:50:29.840 just fill in the holes with the p A you know, 0:50:29.920 --> 0:50:32.880 and try to make it very organic feeling. You know, 0:50:32.960 --> 0:50:36.040 you don't, especially for things like symphony and pops. You know, 0:50:36.160 --> 0:50:38.560 you don't really want to experience p A system there. 0:50:38.600 --> 0:50:40.600 You know, you want it to be more like I'm 0:50:40.640 --> 0:50:44.359 experiencing the orchestra here, right, So, even though you might 0:50:44.400 --> 0:50:46.600 have all the inputs and all the mike stations of 0:50:46.640 --> 0:50:48.960 an orchestra get up, you really don't want it to 0:50:49.040 --> 0:50:50.480 be a parent that it's coming out of a p 0:50:50.600 --> 0:50:53.320 A system that wants to be very invisible for the listener. 0:50:53.400 --> 0:50:56.600 There so different sensibilities depending on the music for sure. 0:50:56.760 --> 0:50:59.520 So being like Petty you worked with for forty years, 0:50:59.600 --> 0:51:02.640 or Kenny Chestney, how many mikes do you need? Well, 0:51:02.680 --> 0:51:05.120 how many instruments you got, you know, and and how 0:51:05.200 --> 0:51:08.000 many like some of the guitar players you know they 0:51:08.080 --> 0:51:11.320 may play like well, Kenny Greenberg has got two different 0:51:12.080 --> 0:51:15.320 amplifier packages that he uses. John's got a couple of 0:51:15.360 --> 0:51:19.919 different amplifier packages. Uh. You know, Uh, Danny, the stage 0:51:20.000 --> 0:51:23.160 left guitar player, is working completely on amplifier emulation. He's 0:51:23.280 --> 0:51:26.759 using these things called fractals, which are no live amplifiers. 0:51:26.800 --> 0:51:29.680 It's it's all digital. But it sounds fantastic, you know. 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:33.000 I mean they work really really good. So you need 0:51:33.120 --> 0:51:35.440 something for every instrument. You know, on the drums, I've 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:38.640 probably got in there fre just you know, probably upwards 0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:42.640 of sixteen eighteen microphones in play microphone channels on the drums. 0:51:43.080 --> 0:51:46.560 So it just depends on how many, how many inputs 0:51:46.600 --> 0:51:48.680 you got up there, how many instruments you got up there. Okay, 0:51:48.920 --> 0:51:52.600 once you showed up in the rehearsal room with Chestney, 0:51:53.120 --> 0:51:55.640 how long did you take you to get miked and ready? 0:51:55.880 --> 0:51:58.320 Just miked and ready? You know, we were ready the 0:51:58.360 --> 0:52:00.880 first day. And again it kind of comes out of preparation, right, 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:02.920 I mean, before I ever got there. I mean, this 0:52:03.000 --> 0:52:05.080 is kind of where we're adding sound reinforcement these days. 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:07.680 You know, this is uh, you know, that whole concept 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:10.840 of virtual sound check that is in play now. You know, 0:52:10.960 --> 0:52:14.920 I took they had recorded tracks from the twenty eighteen 0:52:14.960 --> 0:52:17.440 tour En Tour, you know, pro tools sessions that were 0:52:17.480 --> 0:52:20.120 recorded right off the live sound console. I brought them 0:52:20.160 --> 0:52:21.759 into my place here. I have console and p A 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:24.279 system set up at my place here. I brought that 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:27.680 in and I'm mixed that show in preparation of showing 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:29.800 up for rehearsals. And when I showed up my console, 0:52:30.440 --> 0:52:32.200 a lot of it was already set and ready to go. 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:34.279 Is just plug in the microphones and bring in the band, 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:37.000 let's go. You know. So, you know, the the amount 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:39.920 that you can prepare now today compared to what what 0:52:40.080 --> 0:52:42.279 it was, you know, twenty years ago, twenty plus years ago, 0:52:42.840 --> 0:52:44.680 is dramatic now, I mean, I can, I can come in. 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:46.400 I did the same thing with Rock and Roll Hall 0:52:46.400 --> 0:52:47.960 of Fame, even though I didn't have the bands there. 0:52:48.440 --> 0:52:50.280 You know, I could use tracks to kind of prepare 0:52:50.400 --> 0:52:53.040 the console to get ready for that show, and when 0:52:53.080 --> 0:52:55.200 the bands came in, I was way way far ahead 0:52:55.239 --> 0:52:56.759 of the game. You know. Okay, if you were a 0:52:56.800 --> 0:53:00.920 regular recording studio, setting up mike is getting the sound 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:04.399 can sometimes take a week. So in this particular case, 0:53:04.680 --> 0:53:07.359 are you literally going on stage and setting up all 0:53:07.400 --> 0:53:09.400 the mics. Well, I have somebody do it, but I 0:53:09.680 --> 0:53:13.120 I have total providence over where those microphones get placed. 0:53:13.600 --> 0:53:16.680 Like you know, I even have some alignment procedures, some 0:53:16.840 --> 0:53:19.800 very specific alignment procedures that are used on certain microphones 0:53:19.880 --> 0:53:21.759 to get them exactly in the position I want them 0:53:21.800 --> 0:53:23.759 to be in. And you know that part of it 0:53:23.880 --> 0:53:25.840 is really not that different from the studio. That that 0:53:25.920 --> 0:53:27.439 piece of it is very similar to what I would 0:53:27.440 --> 0:53:29.440 do in the studio as well. You know where we're 0:53:29.480 --> 0:53:33.200 working on microphone choice, we're working on microphone placement. We're 0:53:33.239 --> 0:53:36.280 working on getting the right instrument into the right amplifier 0:53:36.360 --> 0:53:38.520 to get the right sound. Is that the pickups we want, 0:53:38.600 --> 0:53:40.120 is that the strings we want? Is that the guitar 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:43.000 we want to use? For that part. I'm involved in 0:53:43.040 --> 0:53:45.800 all of that with musicians more often than not, in 0:53:45.920 --> 0:53:48.200 picking what drumheads are we going to use? Okay, are 0:53:48.239 --> 0:53:50.279 these how many PLA shells? Is this? Is that what 0:53:50.360 --> 0:53:52.560 we're gonna do there? Okay? Yeah, alright, okay, yeah, I'm 0:53:52.600 --> 0:53:54.360 good with that. On the kit, what symbols are you 0:53:54.440 --> 0:53:57.200 using and using heavy light? All of that plays into 0:53:57.239 --> 0:53:59.160 it because you're gonna mix it. You know, you're at 0:53:59.160 --> 0:54:00.880 the end of the day, you're out of the responsible 0:54:01.520 --> 0:54:03.920 for what it's gonna sound like. So, you know, the 0:54:03.960 --> 0:54:07.160 guys that I've worked with in my life. I'm not 0:54:07.280 --> 0:54:09.439 necessarily preaching that every guy needs to work this way, 0:54:09.960 --> 0:54:11.920 but I know for the guys that I've worked with 0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:14.560 and been around in my life and that that mentored me. 0:54:15.440 --> 0:54:18.120 I picked up on it very quickly that the guys 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:21.040 that knew audio the best didn't necessarily know how to 0:54:21.080 --> 0:54:23.400 operate the console the best, but they knew how to 0:54:23.440 --> 0:54:26.399 get the sounds. They knew. Okay, you want that guitar sound. 0:54:26.480 --> 0:54:29.400 I need that guitar with that pickup and those strings 0:54:29.440 --> 0:54:32.160 on it into that amplifier through those speakers, and we're 0:54:32.160 --> 0:54:34.040 going to use one of these two microphones here, and 0:54:34.080 --> 0:54:36.520 that's probably going to do it. You know. That's the 0:54:36.600 --> 0:54:38.120 things they knew. And then once you get to to 0:54:38.280 --> 0:54:40.520 the console and it's just about mixing the thing, you know, 0:54:40.560 --> 0:54:42.600 I mean, it's just about getting it together. Okay, tell 0:54:42.719 --> 0:54:46.920 us about virtual sound check. Yeah, that's kind of my 0:54:47.000 --> 0:54:49.400 pride and joy there. You know, I've been kind of 0:54:49.480 --> 0:54:53.520 credited as you know, developing this whole concept and and 0:54:53.640 --> 0:54:56.200 bringing it to bear. Um. I mean I'll give you 0:54:56.239 --> 0:55:00.680 the reader's digest version of the story. So you know, 0:55:00.760 --> 0:55:02.759 one of the things, one of the challenges we have 0:55:02.880 --> 0:55:06.200 in life sound previous to virtual sound check is the 0:55:06.440 --> 0:55:09.319 only time you, as the mixer, ever get to work 0:55:09.520 --> 0:55:14.600 on the audio like practice, work on sounds, make changes, experiment. 0:55:14.760 --> 0:55:17.120 The only time you ever get to do that is 0:55:17.200 --> 0:55:20.080 when the band is on stage or the audiences in 0:55:20.160 --> 0:55:22.880 the room, and the band is on stage, so you 0:55:22.960 --> 0:55:25.160 know it. It makes it where there was a whole 0:55:25.239 --> 0:55:27.400 lot of guesswork. I mean, you could kind of hear 0:55:27.440 --> 0:55:30.960 instruments and stuff, but you couldn't really mix anything until 0:55:31.000 --> 0:55:33.759 the band was on stage and playing. And you know, 0:55:34.160 --> 0:55:36.960 to ask a band who's getting ready to a concert, Hey, 0:55:37.040 --> 0:55:39.040 I need you to do this song about ten times 0:55:39.160 --> 0:55:42.680 for me to get it ready, It's not gonna happen. 0:55:43.160 --> 0:55:45.600 It's not going to happen. So you know the reality 0:55:45.680 --> 0:55:49.320 of what happened with that, I mean, there's two realities, 0:55:49.360 --> 0:55:52.920 stark realities that happen as results of that. One is 0:55:54.200 --> 0:55:56.759 previous to virtual sound check. You were gonna learn the 0:55:56.840 --> 0:56:02.400 show on the road during the SARTs. The show that 0:56:02.520 --> 0:56:04.719 I mixed two weeks from the first date is going 0:56:04.800 --> 0:56:07.719 to be infinitely better than the first show because I'm 0:56:07.760 --> 0:56:10.880 still learning it. I'm still understanding what to do on 0:56:10.920 --> 0:56:13.440 the console still. You know, any experiments I gotta do, 0:56:13.480 --> 0:56:15.359 I'm gonna have to do showtime and figure it out 0:56:15.440 --> 0:56:18.200 and get it going right, so that happens over course 0:56:18.280 --> 0:56:21.120 of time. Now, add to that, you may have people 0:56:21.160 --> 0:56:25.200 that are very inexperienced mixers in life sound. They're gonna 0:56:25.400 --> 0:56:29.120 learn their craft in front of the audience. It's going 0:56:29.160 --> 0:56:31.799 to happen over time. I mean, I think it's part 0:56:31.840 --> 0:56:33.800 of why live sound kind of got a got a 0:56:33.840 --> 0:56:36.200 bad rap over a period of time and is considered 0:56:36.280 --> 0:56:38.200 not very good because you have a lot of very 0:56:38.239 --> 0:56:41.200 inexperienced people in there, you know. I mean, you know, 0:56:41.280 --> 0:56:44.640 when I've taught mixing clinics and you know, things like that, 0:56:44.680 --> 0:56:46.560 I've always tried to get across people. Look, you want 0:56:46.600 --> 0:56:49.400 to learn how to mix, Get in the studio and 0:56:49.520 --> 0:56:52.279 learn how to mix when there's nothing at stake, right, 0:56:52.400 --> 0:56:54.080 get in there and learn how to do all the 0:56:54.160 --> 0:56:56.719 ear training and learn all the audio cues that you 0:56:56.800 --> 0:56:58.400 need to learn to get out and then do it 0:56:58.480 --> 0:57:01.239 under pressure live. You don't come out live and just 0:57:01.760 --> 0:57:03.719 learn the craft over five or six years of really 0:57:03.760 --> 0:57:06.000 bad mixing right and put the audience through it. So 0:57:06.200 --> 0:57:09.239 all of this to say, we needed another way to 0:57:09.360 --> 0:57:12.480 do this right, And this really all came to bear. 0:57:12.640 --> 0:57:15.480 You know, it's all down to timing of technologies. So 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:20.560 I got invited into mixed Petty live around Wildflowers. They 0:57:20.560 --> 0:57:22.360 had just finished Wildflowers and we were going to do 0:57:22.440 --> 0:57:27.160 the the Dogs with Wings tour. This was well, as 0:57:28.000 --> 0:57:30.520 luck would have it. I'll give the little sidebar here, 0:57:30.520 --> 0:57:33.360 as luck would have it. Right about that time, these 0:57:33.480 --> 0:57:37.000 small modular digital multi track recorders came out. They were 0:57:37.000 --> 0:57:40.360 called a DAT right, which was a VHS cassette that 0:57:40.440 --> 0:57:44.240 did eight tracks of digital recording and you could cascade 0:57:44.280 --> 0:57:47.720 them together to make forty eight tracks, sixty four tracks 0:57:47.760 --> 0:57:49.800 of digital recording, whatever you wanted to do, right. So 0:57:49.880 --> 0:57:53.240 I had those in my studio already, had been using them, 0:57:53.280 --> 0:57:55.480 been recording bands. You know. That was around the time 0:57:55.520 --> 0:57:57.720 I was trying to get my label together and and 0:57:57.840 --> 0:58:00.160 get that whole part of my my my empire one. 0:58:01.200 --> 0:58:02.880 But I got invited to do the Petty thing. Now, 0:58:03.640 --> 0:58:05.479 you know, Petty has already been together at that point, 0:58:05.600 --> 0:58:09.080 you know, about you know, fifteen years maybe, and the 0:58:09.160 --> 0:58:12.440 band knows each other, you know. I'm in rehearsals and 0:58:12.440 --> 0:58:14.200 I'm kind of set up in another little room because 0:58:14.200 --> 0:58:16.040 it's a pretty small rehearsal space, and I'm kind of 0:58:16.080 --> 0:58:17.840 set up in another room with my consoles and some 0:58:17.920 --> 0:58:20.680 control room monitors, and I'm just gonna work on mixes 0:58:20.720 --> 0:58:23.200 in there while they're rehearsing to get ready for the 0:58:23.280 --> 0:58:26.840 first show. Well, and you probably know this from you know, 0:58:26.920 --> 0:58:29.080 being around the Heartbreakers and that stuff. This was Petty 0:58:29.080 --> 0:58:32.360 and the Heartbreakers. I mean we we did five days 0:58:32.480 --> 0:58:37.200 of rehearsals. I never heard one Petty song, not one. 0:58:37.320 --> 0:58:38.960 It was all covers. It was just like, oh, hey, 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:41.840 let's do uh, let's do this Johnny Cash thing, you know. 0:58:42.000 --> 0:58:43.800 And they would dig into that, so, you know it. 0:58:44.120 --> 0:58:46.640 It became kind of the treehouse where they would just 0:58:46.680 --> 0:58:49.480 go hang out and play music. It wasn't really rehearsals 0:58:49.600 --> 0:58:54.000 per and I kind of had this moment of abject 0:58:54.200 --> 0:58:57.080 fear of thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to get 0:58:57.080 --> 0:59:00.960 to the first show having never heard Tom Petty song 0:59:01.280 --> 0:59:03.800 through this console. You know, it's I'm gonna get to 0:59:03.880 --> 0:59:05.240 that show and it's going to be nothing like what 0:59:05.320 --> 0:59:08.600 I'm doing. Right now. So this was like on a 0:59:08.680 --> 0:59:11.640 Thursday Friday, and again just kind of as luck kind 0:59:11.640 --> 0:59:12.760 of have it. You know, I was working on a 0:59:12.840 --> 0:59:15.680 particular style of console at that time that would allow 0:59:15.760 --> 0:59:17.560 for this kind of thing to happen, and I had 0:59:17.640 --> 0:59:20.360 this kind of lightbulb moment of just thinking, you know what, 0:59:20.440 --> 0:59:22.720 I've got to create a studio workflow here. I've got 0:59:22.760 --> 0:59:25.560 to be able to record this because I'm gonna bet 0:59:25.760 --> 0:59:28.720 next week before we leave, they're going to run through 0:59:28.800 --> 0:59:31.600 the set once just to kind of make sure everybody's 0:59:31.760 --> 0:59:33.800 on point and make sure everybody's okay. And you know, 0:59:34.000 --> 0:59:36.000 not not the least of which that was Steve Ferroni's 0:59:36.040 --> 0:59:39.040 first time with the Heartbreakers, so he was panicking the 0:59:39.120 --> 0:59:40.960 same way, you know, thinking I'm gonna get to the 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:43.480 first show, we're not playing any of these songs. So 0:59:43.720 --> 0:59:46.520 I literally called my wife and I said, Honey, I 0:59:46.680 --> 0:59:49.080 need you to go grab a screwdriver, and I need 0:59:49.160 --> 0:59:50.960 to go in the studio and I'm gonna have you 0:59:51.080 --> 0:59:53.600 pull out all these digital recorders and I'm gonna even 0:59:53.600 --> 0:59:55.920 send them to me. So over the course of the weekend, 0:59:56.040 --> 0:59:57.680 she sent those to me and we were able to 0:59:57.760 --> 1:00:00.320 interface them to the console in a way that it 1:00:00.400 --> 1:00:02.520 was very much like a studio workflow, where I could 1:00:03.280 --> 1:00:07.040 the band could play, I could record it literally, rewind, 1:00:07.360 --> 1:00:11.560 put the machines in play, and practice mixing that audio 1:00:11.680 --> 1:00:15.160 through the console without the band playing there right. So 1:00:15.440 --> 1:00:17.320 we didn't we didn't know it was called virtual sound 1:00:17.360 --> 1:00:18.960 check at the time. The name for it didn't come 1:00:19.000 --> 1:00:22.000 along until years and years later. But I spent the 1:00:22.080 --> 1:00:28.080 next probably six eight years developing that process, you know, 1:00:28.160 --> 1:00:30.600 with analog consoles and digital recorders. At some point I 1:00:30.640 --> 1:00:33.600 switched over to pro tools and all kinds of things, 1:00:33.720 --> 1:00:36.640 and you know, I knew we were onto something at 1:00:36.640 --> 1:00:40.200 the first gig because you know, I mean, I don't 1:00:40.240 --> 1:00:41.800 know how much your listeners or anything you know about 1:00:41.840 --> 1:00:43.760 this kind of process. But for years of the process 1:00:43.840 --> 1:00:46.320 for getting the p A system to sound right in 1:00:46.360 --> 1:00:49.560 the room, would will play some prerecorded music, We'll play 1:00:49.600 --> 1:00:51.960 our favorite CD, try to get the p A system 1:00:52.000 --> 1:00:53.760 sound right, and then we'll mix and try to make 1:00:53.800 --> 1:00:57.080 it sound right. And especially as the nineties war on, 1:00:57.680 --> 1:01:02.760 you know, mastering and equalization of recorded music changed dramatically. 1:01:03.680 --> 1:01:06.680 I mean it's way brighter, way more compressed, way less 1:01:06.800 --> 1:01:09.520 dynamic range than anything you're ever going to be able 1:01:09.560 --> 1:01:12.600 to make happen in the p A system with live microphones, right, 1:01:12.920 --> 1:01:15.200 So those two worlds kind of diverged where you could 1:01:15.240 --> 1:01:17.360 get get the PA to sound really good and then 1:01:17.440 --> 1:01:19.840 have the microphones come online and wouldn't sound very good, 1:01:20.080 --> 1:01:22.960 wouldn't be representative of it at all. But the thing 1:01:23.000 --> 1:01:25.200 I noticed with virtual sound check right away was, oh 1:01:25.240 --> 1:01:27.800 my gosh, we've got the most relevant source for the show. Now. 1:01:28.640 --> 1:01:31.439 If I hit rewind and hit play here and get 1:01:31.520 --> 1:01:33.720 that to sound really good in the p A when 1:01:33.760 --> 1:01:35.600 the band walks on stage, it's going to sound really 1:01:35.640 --> 1:01:39.000 close to that, right because now we're just trading tracks 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:41.200 for microphones. We're just trading them off and saying which 1:01:41.240 --> 1:01:44.280 one are you listening to right now? Tracks or microphones? Now? 1:01:44.400 --> 1:01:46.840 So you know, I'm I'm really oversimplifying it. But that 1:01:47.000 --> 1:01:51.480 developed over a period of years and really the I 1:01:51.560 --> 1:01:53.840 think for me, the validation came one day, and this 1:01:54.000 --> 1:01:56.680 was about two thousand five. This was after the first 1:01:57.640 --> 1:01:59.360 you know, once I got to digit design, I remember 1:01:59.400 --> 1:02:02.640 started thinking, okay, we could actually make this a valid 1:02:02.760 --> 1:02:06.600 product feature and really kind of completely reshape the industry here. 1:02:07.080 --> 1:02:09.400 So we released the ability to do that and called 1:02:09.440 --> 1:02:11.400 it virtual sound check with the one of the first 1:02:12.200 --> 1:02:14.920 digit design consoles. And we were sitting in rehearsals in 1:02:15.040 --> 1:02:18.280 Sony or it was actually on the Paramount lot, I think, 1:02:19.200 --> 1:02:22.520 full production, the whole nine yards and Tom and the 1:02:22.560 --> 1:02:24.200 band had been in the day previous, and I had 1:02:24.240 --> 1:02:27.720 recorded the entire set and was going to come in 1:02:27.800 --> 1:02:30.840 the next morning and just go into virtual sound check, 1:02:31.280 --> 1:02:33.200 tear it all apart and see what I wanted to 1:02:33.240 --> 1:02:36.040 do with it. And I haven't mentioned it, but keep 1:02:36.040 --> 1:02:38.240 it up in mind. Tom had no idea I had 1:02:38.320 --> 1:02:40.920 this ability to do this. I mean I kind of 1:02:41.000 --> 1:02:42.920 kept it secret for the longest amount of time. He 1:02:43.000 --> 1:02:45.000 had no inkling that we could do this. I would 1:02:45.040 --> 1:02:47.400 always virtual sound check, then the band would come in 1:02:47.440 --> 1:02:49.000 and do their actual sound check, and then we would 1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:52.200 do the show. So he I came in the next 1:02:52.280 --> 1:02:54.200 morning and again was going to break it all down 1:02:54.280 --> 1:02:56.920 and try to get, you know, really dig in and 1:02:56.960 --> 1:02:59.080 see what I needed to do on this. And I 1:02:59.120 --> 1:03:00.760 didn't realize that as time, but he was in the 1:03:00.800 --> 1:03:03.200 building and he was sitting on a couch about thirty 1:03:03.240 --> 1:03:05.200 ft behind me, off in the corner, waiting to do 1:03:05.320 --> 1:03:10.200 some interviews and he tells the story way funnier than 1:03:10.240 --> 1:03:12.000 I could ever tell it. He said he was sitting 1:03:12.000 --> 1:03:14.360 there on the couch and kind of had this panic 1:03:14.440 --> 1:03:16.680 moment of, well, wait a minute, that is that my 1:03:16.800 --> 1:03:19.600 band sound checking right now? Why am I not? Why 1:03:19.600 --> 1:03:22.160 am I not there? And then he heard his voice 1:03:22.200 --> 1:03:23.880 come through the p A and he was like, Okay, now, 1:03:23.920 --> 1:03:27.720 wait a minute, here's what's actually happening right now. You know, 1:03:27.840 --> 1:03:30.240 there was this kind of pause moment. So he kind 1:03:30.280 --> 1:03:33.640 of came up to the console and we were talking 1:03:33.680 --> 1:03:35.440 about it, and I kind of revealed what I was 1:03:35.520 --> 1:03:37.240 going on, and you know, I mean, he was he 1:03:37.360 --> 1:03:39.520 was such a smart guy. I mean, he just he 1:03:39.680 --> 1:03:42.000 just got it. You know. He was like, Okay, wait 1:03:42.040 --> 1:03:45.160 a minute now, so you're telling me that for the 1:03:45.200 --> 1:03:47.200 first time ever in my life, right now, I'm going 1:03:47.240 --> 1:03:48.760 to be able to sit here and listen to how 1:03:48.840 --> 1:03:51.960 my show sounds in the in the venue, just like 1:03:52.040 --> 1:03:53.960 when we're playing. I said, yeah, you want to hear it? 1:03:54.000 --> 1:03:57.680 Here we go, you know, and sorry, and and we 1:03:57.800 --> 1:04:00.440 sat there and had this just incredible bonding moment of 1:04:00.720 --> 1:04:03.920 you know, he was just like, I I've never heard 1:04:03.960 --> 1:04:05.560 it sound like this. He goes, this is just the 1:04:05.640 --> 1:04:07.520 greatest thing I've ever experienced in my life, you know, 1:04:07.560 --> 1:04:09.480 I mean he was just over the moon about it, 1:04:09.480 --> 1:04:11.960 and it changed our relationship from that moment on. I mean, 1:04:12.640 --> 1:04:14.560 you know, he I think he understood where I was 1:04:14.600 --> 1:04:16.200 coming from in terms of what I was trying to 1:04:16.240 --> 1:04:18.600 accomplish with it, and you know, all of a sudden 1:04:18.640 --> 1:04:19.920 he was married to it. He was like, oh, this 1:04:20.080 --> 1:04:22.920 is great. And then he had the ultimate epiphany of well, 1:04:22.960 --> 1:04:24.720 wait a minute, can you do this for monitors to 1:04:24.960 --> 1:04:27.000 for the monitor console. I was like, yeah, of course 1:04:27.080 --> 1:04:31.320 we can. So that was in two thousand five, and 1:04:32.160 --> 1:04:35.120 from that point forward to the end of our time 1:04:35.280 --> 1:04:38.720 together in two thousand and seventeen, that bend. That band 1:04:38.920 --> 1:04:41.120 was never in the building again for a sound check. 1:04:41.560 --> 1:04:44.440 We only used virtual sound check to get ready for shows. 1:04:45.440 --> 1:04:48.120 And you know, of course I didn't see all the 1:04:49.520 --> 1:04:52.440 the positives from it at the time, but I actually 1:04:52.520 --> 1:04:55.320 think that process actually extended the life of the band 1:04:56.400 --> 1:04:58.040 over a period of that over that period of years, 1:04:58.080 --> 1:05:00.320 because you know, Tom is famous for saying it, you know, 1:05:00.560 --> 1:05:02.600 we don't sound check. It can only break up the band, 1:05:02.800 --> 1:05:06.360 you know, because everybody's in you know, three o'clock in 1:05:06.360 --> 1:05:08.480 the afternoon, they're in a horrible mood, and then when 1:05:08.480 --> 1:05:10.600 they're done, they gotta go sit in some danky dressing 1:05:10.680 --> 1:05:12.920 room and listen to a horrible opening act and then 1:05:12.960 --> 1:05:15.640 come on stage. You know. I mean it just grinds 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:18.720 on you, absolutely grinds on you. Over the course of 1:05:18.760 --> 1:05:21.440 a tour, well, that all went away now. I mean 1:05:21.480 --> 1:05:24.520 there were nights where we would be at the set 1:05:24.640 --> 1:05:27.600 change between the opening act and tim going on, and 1:05:27.640 --> 1:05:29.600 they still weren't in the building. I mean they would 1:05:29.600 --> 1:05:32.040 literally walk off the bus, walk up on stage and 1:05:32.160 --> 1:05:35.240 start the show. And I noticed it really really early on. 1:05:35.360 --> 1:05:38.000 It was like, wow, these guys are so focused right now, 1:05:38.680 --> 1:05:42.120 like they're just playing on fire now, you know. It 1:05:42.480 --> 1:05:45.680 changed the dynamic of the show. Everything, everything just became 1:05:45.720 --> 1:05:48.520 a positive as a result of it. It was just 1:05:48.920 --> 1:05:52.280 such an amazing time and an amazing experience, you know. 1:05:52.400 --> 1:05:54.800 So that that to me was the ultimate validation of 1:05:54.920 --> 1:05:57.520 that process. Does everybody do this now? A lot of 1:05:57.560 --> 1:06:00.360 people do? I mean it it really changed the industry. 1:06:00.400 --> 1:06:02.720 It changed the mindset of a lot of people. Yeah, 1:06:02.840 --> 1:06:04.720 I don't think as many people do it as should. 1:06:04.920 --> 1:06:07.520 I'll be honest about it. I think more people should 1:06:07.560 --> 1:06:10.520 do it because I think it's a the ultimate way 1:06:10.600 --> 1:06:13.520 to get your arena or your club or whatever it 1:06:13.680 --> 1:06:15.800 is ready for your show. Like I said, it's the 1:06:15.840 --> 1:06:17.600 most valid thing you can play through the p A 1:06:18.240 --> 1:06:20.160 because it's gonna be if it sounds like that way 1:06:20.240 --> 1:06:30.000 with the tracks, it going down that way with your band. Okay, 1:06:30.040 --> 1:06:33.240 So let's see you're doing rehearsals with Chestney. How many 1:06:33.360 --> 1:06:35.320 rehearsals are there? Well, I mean when you get ready 1:06:35.360 --> 1:06:37.720 for something like this. And we had some unique circumstances 1:06:37.760 --> 1:06:39.920 with Chesney this year because he's got two new band members, 1:06:40.040 --> 1:06:42.240 Like they replaced the drummer and they replaced one of 1:06:42.280 --> 1:06:44.920 the guitar players, so they extended the rehearsal time to 1:06:45.000 --> 1:06:47.200 make sure that the new guys were going to be, 1:06:47.840 --> 1:06:49.960 you know, up to speed with the songs, et cetera. 1:06:50.080 --> 1:06:52.800 So I took full advantage of that. But we had about, 1:06:54.720 --> 1:06:57.160 oh gosh, I'm gonna say about three weeks of what 1:06:57.280 --> 1:06:59.160 we would call band rehearsals, right, which is in a 1:06:59.240 --> 1:07:01.800 smaller place where just the band is set up with 1:07:01.840 --> 1:07:03.880 their band gear and everybody's just learning the songs and 1:07:04.480 --> 1:07:07.760 getting familiar with them. And then we had about two 1:07:08.920 --> 1:07:11.320 maybe three weeks of what I would call production rehearsals, 1:07:11.360 --> 1:07:14.360 which we moved to a much bigger facility. Excuse me. 1:07:15.000 --> 1:07:17.000 We have a p A system, we have the lighting system, 1:07:17.080 --> 1:07:20.160 the video systems up, and then all the production elements 1:07:20.160 --> 1:07:22.880 are working on the songs at that point in rehearsing 1:07:22.880 --> 1:07:24.840 their pieces of it. You know, Obviously, lighting guys got 1:07:24.920 --> 1:07:27.600 to know other cues. I've got to know how to 1:07:27.720 --> 1:07:30.000 run the set and you know, make all my changes 1:07:30.320 --> 1:07:34.520 song to song to solong. Excuse me. Video guys have 1:07:34.600 --> 1:07:36.560 to have all their content together, etcetera. So that's the 1:07:36.640 --> 1:07:39.440 production rehearsal, and then we're gonna go down to Tampa 1:07:39.720 --> 1:07:42.160 next week and do the two about three or four 1:07:42.240 --> 1:07:45.440 days in the stadium to get everybody acclimated to that, 1:07:45.560 --> 1:07:47.200 and then after that we just go, you know, and 1:07:47.280 --> 1:07:49.480 then after that there's no more rehearsal periods. Okay. I 1:07:49.520 --> 1:07:52.320 guess what I'm asking is what recording do you use 1:07:52.520 --> 1:07:56.440 for the virtual sound check last rehearsal or you're recording 1:07:56.480 --> 1:07:59.880 all along the way. I'm recording every day, and I 1:08:00.000 --> 1:08:04.480 always use the most recent version of the songs, so um, 1:08:05.000 --> 1:08:07.480 you know, like every day of rehearsal, if I was 1:08:07.560 --> 1:08:09.880 coming into work on my on what I would need 1:08:09.920 --> 1:08:12.080 to do on the console, I was using yesterday's audio, 1:08:12.640 --> 1:08:14.439 and the same thing will apply on the tour. I'll 1:08:14.480 --> 1:08:17.160 always use the most recent version. So when I get 1:08:17.200 --> 1:08:20.000 to Tampa, I'll be using on the first day of rehear, 1:08:20.040 --> 1:08:22.439 so I'll be using audio from the first day of 1:08:22.520 --> 1:08:25.040 rehear or the last day of rehearsals, and then the 1:08:25.120 --> 1:08:27.400 second day in Tampa, I'll be using the first day 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:29.880 of rehearsals in Tampa as that basis. And then it 1:08:29.960 --> 1:08:32.600 just keeps leap frogging as you go along. And the 1:08:32.640 --> 1:08:34.360 beauty that you get out of all this this this 1:08:34.479 --> 1:08:36.680 is the other head of benefit as you create an 1:08:36.760 --> 1:08:39.640 archive then, right, I mean this this was one of 1:08:39.720 --> 1:08:41.599 the once I once I got Petty to buy off 1:08:41.640 --> 1:08:43.439 on this one and his management to buy off on it, 1:08:43.880 --> 1:08:45.920 then the light bulb really came off. It came on. 1:08:46.080 --> 1:08:48.560 It was like, guys, you know, we don't have to 1:08:48.600 --> 1:08:51.560 erase this every day. Let's keep these multi tracks and 1:08:51.560 --> 1:08:54.160 put them in your archive, right because you can remix 1:08:54.240 --> 1:08:58.280 any of this and and put it out for product, 1:08:58.560 --> 1:09:01.559 especially now, you know, I mean, Kenny's got no Shoes radio, 1:09:02.160 --> 1:09:04.640 you know, Tom had serious you know, you know the 1:09:04.720 --> 1:09:07.400 Tom Petty Show. On Tom Petty Radio Show. You can 1:09:07.520 --> 1:09:10.479 just you're just gonna be so flush with fresh material 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:14.160 if you want it, you know, And I'll tell you something, Bob, 1:09:14.240 --> 1:09:16.479 I mean really. One of the underlying agendas for me, 1:09:16.640 --> 1:09:18.880 this was a personal one for me, was being able 1:09:18.920 --> 1:09:21.200 to do this because the technology allowed us to do 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:24.200 it right. The technology allows us to do this inexpensively. Now, 1:09:24.320 --> 1:09:27.560 this concept of multi tracking our shows and archiving it. 1:09:28.080 --> 1:09:31.200 One of the things for me was I love live music. 1:09:31.640 --> 1:09:34.400 I love live recorded music. I mean I grew up 1:09:35.320 --> 1:09:37.720 I had every live album known to man, you know, 1:09:37.840 --> 1:09:41.120 from nineteen Let's let's start for one second. What are 1:09:41.240 --> 1:09:44.080 is the best or the two best live recordings in 1:09:44.200 --> 1:09:46.719 your book? Oh, you're gonna put me on this, Okay, 1:09:46.760 --> 1:09:49.120 I'm gonna say Allman Brothers at the film wore that 1:09:49.439 --> 1:09:51.360 that is got to be right up at the top 1:09:51.400 --> 1:09:53.960 of the heap because it's just such a magical set 1:09:54.040 --> 1:09:56.320 of performances and recording. I mean, Tom doubt but just 1:09:56.800 --> 1:09:59.599 just killed it. And then I'm going to say, because 1:10:00.040 --> 1:10:02.519 the thing you have to put with live recordings is 1:10:03.800 --> 1:10:06.360 there's an audience capture that needs to take place as well, 1:10:06.760 --> 1:10:09.439 So you know, the audience recording is a big piece 1:10:09.520 --> 1:10:12.120 of it. And I still to this day say Frampton 1:10:12.200 --> 1:10:16.160 Comes Alive is the best audience engaged recording I've ever 1:10:16.240 --> 1:10:19.240 heard today. Now there's one that's close to that, and 1:10:19.360 --> 1:10:24.440 it's Buck Owens Live at Carnegie Hall. That's an incredible 1:10:24.560 --> 1:10:27.800 audience recording there. But you know that that is what 1:10:28.000 --> 1:10:31.080 makes live albums work for me, is when you can 1:10:31.120 --> 1:10:34.320 tell that's the actual audience that's recorded and they are 1:10:34.479 --> 1:10:36.720 fully engaged with that artist. You can hear it. They're 1:10:36.800 --> 1:10:39.479 just hanging on every word. And I've yet to hear 1:10:39.520 --> 1:10:42.479 anything that matches that with Frampton Brampton Comes Alive. You know, 1:10:42.560 --> 1:10:44.040 next time you listen to it, just pay attention to 1:10:44.120 --> 1:10:46.320 the audience. It's just incredible. I guess for a long 1:10:46.439 --> 1:10:49.000 time people said that Live It Leads was the best 1:10:49.080 --> 1:10:51.320 live album, but I didn't hear the audience, so it 1:10:51.400 --> 1:10:53.040 didn't work for me, And there's some truth to that. 1:10:53.200 --> 1:10:55.320 Although that's very high on my list. I mean, I 1:10:55.640 --> 1:10:57.320 mean that one kind of set the bar for me 1:10:57.400 --> 1:11:00.280 for a long time. I'm I wore out multiple opies 1:11:00.320 --> 1:11:02.280 of that one, but the other one, and I know 1:11:02.400 --> 1:11:06.040 you worked with this band, Tesla five Me and Acoustical Jam. 1:11:06.800 --> 1:11:08.400 I was piste off because I didn't get to mix that. 1:11:08.520 --> 1:11:10.240 But that's a whole another story. We'll save that for 1:11:10.280 --> 1:11:14.240 another episode. But you recorded that, No, I didn't. I didn't. 1:11:14.320 --> 1:11:16.439 I was on that tour and kind of mixed a 1:11:16.479 --> 1:11:19.080 bunch of the tour that was radio great, radio controversy. 1:11:19.200 --> 1:11:22.000 And then they went off and did that. Oh, forgive me, 1:11:22.040 --> 1:11:24.080 I'm going to forget. The guy who recorded it's Dan. 1:11:25.200 --> 1:11:28.439 Oh gosh, guys, forgive me. I'm spacing his last name. 1:11:29.000 --> 1:11:30.439 But he worked with the band for a long long 1:11:30.520 --> 1:11:32.720 time and he recorded it and mixed it and did 1:11:32.800 --> 1:11:35.360 a phenomenal job on it. And you know, I'm sorry 1:11:35.400 --> 1:11:38.000 to say he's not with us anymore, but he was great. 1:11:38.080 --> 1:11:39.240 He was one of the you know, he's one of 1:11:39.240 --> 1:11:40.679 those long time guys that have been with the band 1:11:40.720 --> 1:11:42.040 for a long time, and they let him do it 1:11:42.160 --> 1:11:45.160 and it came out great. Okay, let's go back a chapter. 1:11:46.520 --> 1:11:48.880 I have been at the venue. I know the people 1:11:48.960 --> 1:11:51.439 at the venue, and they were there at sound check 1:11:51.840 --> 1:11:54.559 and one act I don't want to mention the specific 1:11:54.720 --> 1:11:57.400 name here, they said that guy can't sing it all yeah, 1:11:57.560 --> 1:12:00.599 and it's all effects or there's another household being I'm 1:12:00.640 --> 1:12:03.280 good friends with these people and they say, all the 1:12:03.400 --> 1:12:07.560 backup vocals are on hard rock. Okay, how do you 1:12:07.800 --> 1:12:09.400 do that? Do you want to know how you do 1:12:09.520 --> 1:12:12.800 it or why you do it? Both? Yeah? Well this 1:12:13.000 --> 1:12:14.760 is a well and it's going to play into what 1:12:14.840 --> 1:12:17.519 I was going to promote here. You know what I'll 1:12:17.600 --> 1:12:19.600 get to this. Just hang with me, bear with me 1:12:19.680 --> 1:12:21.920 here one second. You know, one of the things I like, 1:12:22.120 --> 1:12:25.360 I love about live music and live albums was this 1:12:25.479 --> 1:12:27.680 sense of, you know, kind of getting to hear what 1:12:27.800 --> 1:12:29.599 the band could do before you go see them live. 1:12:29.640 --> 1:12:31.760 I mean, that was always the thing for me. But 1:12:31.920 --> 1:12:35.120 as I matured and I got older, you know, I 1:12:35.160 --> 1:12:38.240 started to realize, you know, and I got exposed to 1:12:38.320 --> 1:12:41.840 production techniques, etcetera, that some of these live recordings that 1:12:41.960 --> 1:12:45.920 I grew up loving, we're actually just completely redone in 1:12:45.960 --> 1:12:48.800 the studio with audience added to him. And I was like, well, 1:12:48.840 --> 1:12:52.920 wait a minute, that's that's not live. That's not live. 1:12:53.040 --> 1:12:55.600 I don't want I don't want my live record to 1:12:55.760 --> 1:12:58.639 be you going in and singing perfect vocals over it. Now, 1:12:59.360 --> 1:13:01.639 you know, because the thing that happens with that from 1:13:01.720 --> 1:13:04.280 production point of view, and I've experienced this, you know, 1:13:04.360 --> 1:13:08.639 mixing some of these products, is that, well, the audience 1:13:08.720 --> 1:13:11.160 mix that are out there are also picking up what's 1:13:11.160 --> 1:13:13.560 coming out of the p A to some degree, so 1:13:13.720 --> 1:13:16.360 they can hear those audience mikes can actually hear you're 1:13:16.479 --> 1:13:19.080 very poor vocal. So now if you go in the 1:13:19.160 --> 1:13:21.880 studio and you record a perfect vocal and we tried 1:13:21.920 --> 1:13:24.280 to add the audience, you can hear the bad vocal 1:13:24.360 --> 1:13:27.120 behind it. So what ends up happening is we start 1:13:27.160 --> 1:13:29.320 to pull the audience farther and farther away off of 1:13:29.360 --> 1:13:32.519 the record and maybe even putting canned audience on it. 1:13:32.920 --> 1:13:35.200 So now it's not even the live audience anymore. It's 1:13:35.240 --> 1:13:38.280 not the live performance or the live audience. I was like, well, 1:13:39.080 --> 1:13:41.520 and and I mean, you've got to keep it in context. 1:13:41.840 --> 1:13:45.160 Right at that point in music history, you know, live 1:13:45.400 --> 1:13:49.240 records were kind of throwaway kind of they were Sometimes 1:13:49.280 --> 1:13:51.920 they were done to complete record contracts so I could 1:13:52.000 --> 1:13:54.680 move on to another label, you know, all those kinds 1:13:54.720 --> 1:13:57.240 of things. So and you know, it was very expensive 1:13:57.400 --> 1:13:59.800 at that point in history to record. So you know, 1:13:59.840 --> 1:14:02.840 if the truck your two thousand dollar a day, you know, 1:14:03.200 --> 1:14:06.439 plus crew, plus expenses. If that showed up and recorded 1:14:06.479 --> 1:14:08.320 a really bad show, well guess what you were keeping 1:14:08.360 --> 1:14:10.680 it and you were going to go fix it. So 1:14:10.840 --> 1:14:13.120 part of my agenda, I promise you, part of my 1:14:13.200 --> 1:14:15.920 agenda with kind of developing this whole multi track archive 1:14:16.000 --> 1:14:18.160 thing was what that's going to allow us to do 1:14:18.640 --> 1:14:22.840 is record every night, not just certain nights, record every 1:14:22.920 --> 1:14:26.320 night and then go pick the performances that are worthy 1:14:26.479 --> 1:14:29.479 of being mixed and released. And that's you know, with 1:14:29.560 --> 1:14:32.760 Petty's Anthology, that's what happened there. You know, we had 1:14:32.920 --> 1:14:35.720 enough recordings where we could kind of go through and go, wow, 1:14:35.760 --> 1:14:37.880 we don't have to fix anything there. Let's let's release 1:14:37.920 --> 1:14:40.400 that sucker, mix it up and let's go you know, 1:14:40.560 --> 1:14:42.599 and then it becomes very pure, right, I mean, then 1:14:42.640 --> 1:14:46.519 it becomes really what you're stating that it is right 1:14:46.680 --> 1:14:48.560 and that that's always been my goal on it. And 1:14:48.720 --> 1:14:50.280 you know, one of the other sidebars I would give 1:14:50.280 --> 1:14:53.240 you on that is and I watched this happen with 1:14:53.560 --> 1:14:55.960 every act I've ever worked for. I don't care how 1:14:57.040 --> 1:15:00.479 proficient they are. I have seen this happen in the 1:15:00.600 --> 1:15:04.160 days before multi track archiving, like I've tried to develop here. 1:15:04.640 --> 1:15:06.360 If you had the truck show up and say, okay, 1:15:06.360 --> 1:15:08.120 we're gonna do Los Angeles next week and we're going 1:15:08.160 --> 1:15:10.200 to record it, hopefully get a live album out of it. 1:15:10.920 --> 1:15:12.559 You could we do with the band where you've done 1:15:12.640 --> 1:15:17.680 sixty shows together just overall, just great shows. And the 1:15:17.800 --> 1:15:20.840 minute that truck shows up and that red recording light 1:15:20.920 --> 1:15:24.560 goes on, they turned into a different band. They're just 1:15:24.760 --> 1:15:28.519 a different band. They're playing different, they're they're over trying 1:15:28.880 --> 1:15:31.880 all kinds of things, and you just walk away on that, 1:15:32.000 --> 1:15:36.080 ain't it? That ain't the one we wanted. Well, multi 1:15:36.120 --> 1:15:39.519 track archive eliminates that process because they don't they don't 1:15:39.560 --> 1:15:41.760 have red light fever. Then the red lights on every night, 1:15:41.800 --> 1:15:45.160 they get used to it, and you get the smoking performances. 1:15:45.240 --> 1:15:46.680 You know, you just gotta be able to go in 1:15:46.760 --> 1:15:49.080 and mind them out of there and find them right. 1:15:49.800 --> 1:15:52.960 It's it's awesome, it's absolutely awesome. Well that's the live then, 1:15:53.240 --> 1:15:55.240 but let's go to the acts on the other end. 1:15:55.320 --> 1:15:57.120 You want to cover. Yeah, we were gonna get back 1:15:57.120 --> 1:15:58.880 to that, right, Sorry, I promise you we get back 1:15:58.920 --> 1:16:02.840 to that. So, I mean, I'm so I'm so mixed. 1:16:02.840 --> 1:16:05.240 About this and and got to keep it in context 1:16:05.320 --> 1:16:11.479 at times, I think, right, I mean, I'm okay, I 1:16:11.840 --> 1:16:15.400 I promise you I'm okay with using tracks with backing tracks. 1:16:16.439 --> 1:16:20.320 What I'm not okay with is people miming to backing tracks. Now, 1:16:20.600 --> 1:16:22.400 I want to keep this in context here. I want 1:16:22.400 --> 1:16:25.439 to keep TV out of it and talk about only 1:16:25.880 --> 1:16:31.000 the concert hall we're paying to go see the band perform, 1:16:31.840 --> 1:16:35.400 right when that is all tracks and just sit people 1:16:35.479 --> 1:16:37.599 lip sing it, sinking to it so that they can 1:16:37.920 --> 1:16:39.840 do other things or what are maybe they can't sing 1:16:39.960 --> 1:16:42.360 and they feel like they're insecure, I have to sing 1:16:42.439 --> 1:16:46.439 to the track, etcetera. I'm really uncomfortable with that as like, 1:16:46.760 --> 1:16:50.240 I mean, that just feels really really misrepresented to me. 1:16:50.600 --> 1:16:53.960 You know, it feels very phony to me, and you know, 1:16:54.040 --> 1:16:58.360 there's it's like and I just am uncomfortable with that. 1:16:58.600 --> 1:17:00.559 But by the same token, I look it and go, well, 1:17:00.560 --> 1:17:02.519 that's a function of the industry that we have right now, 1:17:02.640 --> 1:17:05.080 the record business that we have right now. Right think 1:17:05.120 --> 1:17:08.920 about this now. The record industry is upside down. It's 1:17:08.960 --> 1:17:12.680 completely backwards. Now. The first thing we do as an 1:17:12.760 --> 1:17:16.639 artist now is make a record and then go out 1:17:16.720 --> 1:17:20.160 and learn how to perform it. You know, artists today 1:17:20.280 --> 1:17:23.800 don't have that crucible of performance in front of an 1:17:23.800 --> 1:17:26.479 audience where they have where they learn how to sing 1:17:26.680 --> 1:17:29.240 with nerves and in front of people, they learn how 1:17:29.280 --> 1:17:31.479 to develop their charisma, all of these sorts of things, 1:17:32.439 --> 1:17:35.680 and then go make the record that's completely upside down. 1:17:35.720 --> 1:17:39.320 Now they just don't have to go through that crucible anymore. 1:17:39.600 --> 1:17:41.960 And we see it all the time where you know, 1:17:42.040 --> 1:17:44.360 people make their record at home, whatever they the thing 1:17:44.439 --> 1:17:47.000 blows up, they do really big, and now they're playing 1:17:47.000 --> 1:17:50.519 in front of Lollapaloosa and they don't have the chops. 1:17:51.280 --> 1:17:52.800 They don't have the chops to do it live. But 1:17:52.920 --> 1:17:56.400 on a technical level, you're working with an act they 1:17:56.479 --> 1:17:59.200 want to use canned backup vocals. How do you literally 1:17:59.320 --> 1:18:02.080 do it? It's done in a digital audio workstation, which 1:18:02.160 --> 1:18:04.120 is like pro Tools. There's lots of other ones out 1:18:04.120 --> 1:18:06.800 there like Ableton and etcetera. Where they bring in the 1:18:06.880 --> 1:18:10.240 tracks from the record, put them in there. Whoever the 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:13.120 band is playing to a click track, and at the 1:18:13.200 --> 1:18:15.360 proper time in the song, those backing vocals come up 1:18:15.360 --> 1:18:17.160 and they come into your console. You turn them up 1:18:17.680 --> 1:18:19.479 and they sound just like the record coming through the 1:18:19.520 --> 1:18:21.600 p A system. Okay, I know what a click track is, 1:18:21.680 --> 1:18:24.600 but from my OEMs, explain how it works live. A 1:18:24.640 --> 1:18:27.400 click track is I mean another word for it is 1:18:27.439 --> 1:18:30.599 a metronome, right, But in our world we have recorded 1:18:30.680 --> 1:18:32.840 versions of that where you know, it's recorded as a 1:18:32.880 --> 1:18:37.840 specific tempo. Everybody knows where the the first beat of 1:18:37.920 --> 1:18:40.320 the song is and it just starts clapping. It just 1:18:40.400 --> 1:18:42.880 starts ticking, right, So the song is going along and 1:18:42.920 --> 1:18:47.120 it's going this is the tempo that we're playing the 1:18:47.160 --> 1:18:52.000 song too. And at the you know, at bar or 1:18:52.040 --> 1:18:54.040 whatever it is, here come our backing vocals. You know. 1:18:54.200 --> 1:18:57.160 So Petty played the super Bowl. Were you involved in that? Ye? 1:18:57.920 --> 1:18:59.839 So how did you do that? Dude? It's the scariest 1:19:00.000 --> 1:19:03.280 fifteen minutes of your life. It's it's the most intense pressure. 1:19:03.800 --> 1:19:05.479 I think I may have ever felt that a gig, 1:19:05.800 --> 1:19:07.960 you know. So the way you do that is honestly 1:19:08.320 --> 1:19:10.960 very similar, you know, and they do it in a 1:19:11.040 --> 1:19:12.880 really cool way there. I like how the super Bowl, 1:19:13.120 --> 1:19:14.840 at least I'm assuming they're still doing it the same 1:19:14.880 --> 1:19:19.000 way where you you prerecorded on the day, the day's 1:19:19.080 --> 1:19:21.639 leading up to the event, and then the band plays 1:19:21.680 --> 1:19:23.560 along with the tracks, and you have the choice of 1:19:23.720 --> 1:19:26.000 using as the mixture. You have the choice of using 1:19:26.400 --> 1:19:29.160 the actual mix or the tracks. And you know, the 1:19:29.240 --> 1:19:31.960 lead vocal can be all live, it can be partially live. 1:19:32.040 --> 1:19:34.120 You have the choice of doing it because they know 1:19:34.240 --> 1:19:36.840 that that. You know, if the lead singer forgets the 1:19:36.920 --> 1:19:39.600 lines or whatever, you know, the guitar player misses the 1:19:39.680 --> 1:19:42.080 part mrs the solo, you just lean on the track 1:19:42.200 --> 1:19:45.639 and finish out the song. So again, it's it's down 1:19:45.680 --> 1:19:49.240 to that thing. It's so time driven and so like 1:19:49.400 --> 1:19:51.920 the brackets have got to be perfect around that. It 1:19:52.000 --> 1:19:55.080 can only last this long. We cannot have any mess 1:19:55.160 --> 1:19:59.439 ups here, etcetera. You know that is about predictability, etcetera. 1:19:59.640 --> 1:20:00.880 So I you know, I don't. I don't think it's 1:20:00.880 --> 1:20:03.040 a huge secret what goes on there. But you know 1:20:03.200 --> 1:20:05.160 that said, there have been live performances on there, you know, 1:20:05.400 --> 1:20:07.040 I mean a lot of part of the Petty thing 1:20:07.120 --> 1:20:10.160 was live, for sure, part of the Prince thing was live. 1:20:10.360 --> 1:20:13.519 You know, I'm playing guitar. Were you literally control or 1:20:13.640 --> 1:20:16.240 was one of their engineers in control for the broadcast? 1:20:16.320 --> 1:20:18.840 Is one of their engineers for the house? I was, well, 1:20:18.920 --> 1:20:20.720 I was, it was a similar sort of thing where 1:20:20.720 --> 1:20:22.600 you have a house engineer who's doing it, who's a 1:20:22.680 --> 1:20:24.439 union guy, and you're sitting right next to him saying, yeah, 1:20:24.479 --> 1:20:28.240 let's do that. Yeah, you're you're guiding there. Okay. One 1:20:28.320 --> 1:20:32.799 thing about live sound is every building is different. Indeed 1:20:32.880 --> 1:20:36.960 it is. Okay, so are you saying now? With virtual 1:20:37.120 --> 1:20:39.639 sound check, it makes it so much easier, whereas before 1:20:39.720 --> 1:20:42.120 you were just on the flaw. Yeah, because you can 1:20:42.160 --> 1:20:45.799 take actual band audio that's played at the right dynamic everything, 1:20:46.400 --> 1:20:48.679 send it through the p A system and really take 1:20:48.760 --> 1:20:52.360 your time and figure out how good is my PA coverage? 1:20:52.479 --> 1:20:54.320 Am I actually getting all the way up to those seats? 1:20:54.880 --> 1:20:56.320 You know, what does it sound like up there? What 1:20:56.439 --> 1:20:58.760 is what does my band sound like sitting over in 1:20:58.800 --> 1:21:01.600 these seats? Right now? I can go evaluate it and 1:21:01.680 --> 1:21:06.360 adjust it. You know. The biggest piece of positive I 1:21:06.400 --> 1:21:08.000 think for virtual sound check is it gives you the 1:21:08.080 --> 1:21:12.080 ability to practice when nothing's at stake. You can experiment, 1:21:12.240 --> 1:21:15.519 You can try things, all kinds of things without the 1:21:15.560 --> 1:21:17.720 band sitting on stage, you know, being freaked out by 1:21:17.760 --> 1:21:20.479 a bunch of weird sounding audio or the audience not 1:21:20.640 --> 1:21:22.120 not having to do it in front of an audience. 1:21:22.160 --> 1:21:25.320 It's very very analogous to a studio workflow where you're 1:21:25.360 --> 1:21:28.559 working on mixes, you know, like in virtual sound check. 1:21:28.960 --> 1:21:30.880 I'm no use kidding as an example, because the most 1:21:30.920 --> 1:21:32.519 recent thing, you know, I might I might spend one 1:21:32.680 --> 1:21:35.640 entire day of rehearsals working on one song, you know, 1:21:35.720 --> 1:21:36.960 for the set, trying to get it to be what 1:21:37.040 --> 1:21:38.599 I wanted to be. So you know, you could never 1:21:38.720 --> 1:21:41.880 do that that was not just simply not possible in 1:21:42.080 --> 1:21:45.280 pre virtual sound check. Okay. In an arena show, how 1:21:45.320 --> 1:21:47.040 long we'll it take you to set up depends on 1:21:47.080 --> 1:21:51.280 the size of the production, but usually usually you'll start 1:21:51.400 --> 1:21:54.040 at six in the morning and bring in that entire 1:21:54.120 --> 1:21:56.560 production that day and be ready for a Show'll be 1:21:56.640 --> 1:21:58.800 ready for the doors to open by six pm. How 1:21:58.880 --> 1:22:00.960 much of the time are you there, Well, I'm usually 1:22:01.000 --> 1:22:03.320 in there in the morning, working out early in the morning, 1:22:03.520 --> 1:22:07.759 so I'm available, but my my process doesn't start until probably, 1:22:09.160 --> 1:22:13.200 you know, somewhere between eleven and one o'clock. And it 1:22:13.280 --> 1:22:15.360 also depends on how many bands we have on the bill. 1:22:16.200 --> 1:22:18.200 You know. Stadiums is a very very different thing. You 1:22:18.439 --> 1:22:20.360 have about a week to load in for a stadium. 1:22:20.400 --> 1:22:23.240 There's a lot of steel build that has to take place, 1:22:24.240 --> 1:22:26.120 a lot of stuff has to go into place in 1:22:26.160 --> 1:22:29.160 the stadium, a lot of delay speakers, etcetera that go 1:22:29.240 --> 1:22:32.000 out in the far reaches of the stadium. All kinds 1:22:32.040 --> 1:22:34.639 of stuff. Is very like I said earlier, it's adult audio. 1:22:34.760 --> 1:22:37.599 It's very very complex, very challenging. So let's assume it's 1:22:37.600 --> 1:22:40.519 an arena thing. You're there, you're working out. Once you 1:22:40.640 --> 1:22:43.080 stit in behind the board, how long does it take 1:22:43.120 --> 1:22:45.320 you to get it right? If I've done my job 1:22:45.640 --> 1:22:48.880 in the process called system tuning, which is kind of 1:22:48.920 --> 1:22:51.040 equalizing the p A and make sure the distribution of 1:22:51.120 --> 1:22:53.920 it right, It'll usually take me about I don't know, 1:22:54.000 --> 1:22:56.960 maybe thirty minutes thirty forty minutes to just kind of 1:22:57.040 --> 1:22:58.599 check things and make sure they are where I want 1:22:58.640 --> 1:23:01.320 them to be, because you know, the the cool thing 1:23:01.360 --> 1:23:03.200 at least this is my approach. Once I get the 1:23:03.280 --> 1:23:06.559 console kind of set and and know all the moves 1:23:06.600 --> 1:23:08.400 that are going to take place during the show, that's 1:23:08.439 --> 1:23:12.120 kind of a constant, right, So like you know, if 1:23:12.200 --> 1:23:14.280 we start that process and I'm on song three and 1:23:14.360 --> 1:23:16.599 it sounds right to me and everything is responding that way, 1:23:16.840 --> 1:23:18.519 then I'm confident that the rest of the show is 1:23:18.560 --> 1:23:20.840 going to work as well, you know, unless I need 1:23:20.880 --> 1:23:22.519 to go really dig in on something and work on 1:23:22.600 --> 1:23:24.120 it and say, oh and I need to get that better, 1:23:25.080 --> 1:23:28.679 you know whatever. So yeah, forty minutes. Tell me about 1:23:28.680 --> 1:23:31.599 the equalization. Well, we have all kinds of possibilities now 1:23:31.640 --> 1:23:34.960 with equalization, I mean, and really it's just I mean, 1:23:35.000 --> 1:23:36.680 it sounds like a big flute word, but it's just 1:23:36.800 --> 1:23:39.880 really trying to get this thing totally balanced so that 1:23:40.000 --> 1:23:42.280 it sounds like the music you're trying to present, right. 1:23:43.040 --> 1:23:45.400 So you know, if it's I mean, if it's Metallica, 1:23:45.640 --> 1:23:47.639 you can bet there's going to be a huge based 1:23:47.680 --> 1:23:50.680 drumb element, a huge bottom end element, along with some 1:23:50.920 --> 1:23:55.000 very loud, bright guitars and you know, a big vocal. 1:23:55.040 --> 1:23:56.880 I mean, it's going to be in your face, you know, 1:23:57.400 --> 1:24:00.280 whereas I mean, we'll just keep using it as the 1:24:00.360 --> 1:24:02.799 example here. If I was mixing Adele, very very different 1:24:02.840 --> 1:24:05.519 profile through the p A system, they're much more focused 1:24:05.560 --> 1:24:16.479 on intelligibility and elegance, you know. Needless to say, in 1:24:16.560 --> 1:24:19.639 the days of your you would go to the gig 1:24:20.000 --> 1:24:23.960 and the sound was bad, okay in the arena, in 1:24:24.080 --> 1:24:26.920 the stadium, if you knew the songs, you knew what 1:24:27.040 --> 1:24:30.200 they were playing, you'd fill in. And it has certainly 1:24:30.280 --> 1:24:32.800 got better. You certainly have the Forum in l A 1:24:32.920 --> 1:24:37.439 which is dedicated solely to music, but generally speaking that 1:24:37.720 --> 1:24:40.439 is not the case. I mean, I've certainly been at 1:24:40.479 --> 1:24:43.040 gigs where the front of hall mixer, you know, and 1:24:43.120 --> 1:24:45.560 it sounds good right where he is or she is, 1:24:46.040 --> 1:24:48.240 and then the rest of the room sounds terrible. Yeah, 1:24:48.320 --> 1:24:50.760 that can happen, although I'll say that happens way less 1:24:50.840 --> 1:24:53.360 today than I think it's ever happened. I mean, we've 1:24:53.400 --> 1:24:56.920 gotten that so much better now. Certainly the Petty, the 1:24:57.320 --> 1:24:59.200 p A system that I had on Petty, I think 1:24:59.280 --> 1:25:01.960 was the best ample of that where I was really 1:25:02.080 --> 1:25:04.439 really confident that however it sounded where I was sitting 1:25:04.880 --> 1:25:07.519 was pretty much how it sounded everywhere else in the house. 1:25:07.640 --> 1:25:09.160 You know, from a tonal point of view, it may 1:25:09.200 --> 1:25:12.040 not be the same volume everywhere, but tonally it sounded 1:25:12.080 --> 1:25:13.960 that way up there. You know, the things I was 1:25:14.000 --> 1:25:16.720 doing on the on the console would translate to big 1:25:16.800 --> 1:25:19.600 pieces of the audience, you know. So that was that 1:25:19.680 --> 1:25:21.479 was a big move forward. That that PA system was 1:25:21.520 --> 1:25:23.559 a big jump forward. Well, actually, I know. I saw 1:25:23.680 --> 1:25:25.920 that gig on the final weekend and I was very 1:25:26.040 --> 1:25:29.400 close and I was astounded how good it sound, because 1:25:29.400 --> 1:25:31.000 I go to a lot of gigs at the Hollywood 1:25:31.040 --> 1:25:34.719 Bowl and you know, you know that the act is there, 1:25:34.840 --> 1:25:38.320 but it's not crystal clear if you're sitting fifteen rows back. 1:25:39.640 --> 1:25:42.519 You know, I remember you. I remember reading one of 1:25:42.560 --> 1:25:45.600 your letters where you commented on this, Bob, and I 1:25:45.640 --> 1:25:47.560 actually wrote you back. I don't know if you hear this, 1:25:48.240 --> 1:25:50.160 well I do. That was all around the time that 1:25:50.439 --> 1:25:53.000 you know, Tom died and then Tony used what I 1:25:53.080 --> 1:25:56.640 wrote at the memorial service. But moving on from that, 1:25:57.320 --> 1:26:00.280 you were talking about the speakers that can direct lead 1:26:00.360 --> 1:26:04.479 point someone. Have you heard the demonstration for the sphere, 1:26:04.720 --> 1:26:08.439 the Madison Square Gardens sphere. I haven't heard the demonstration yet, 1:26:08.479 --> 1:26:11.640 but I understand the concepts behind it and irrelevant of 1:26:11.720 --> 1:26:14.160 the finance. Some people think the venue is too large 1:26:14.280 --> 1:26:16.800 or whatever. Does it work? I mean it works in 1:26:16.840 --> 1:26:20.360 the demonstration, you know, but that's a small scale thing. Well, 1:26:20.640 --> 1:26:22.680 you know, I think it can work, certainly, you know, 1:26:23.200 --> 1:26:26.360 but I think it's gonna be how do I want 1:26:26.400 --> 1:26:28.320 to say this? And you kind of say it the 1:26:28.439 --> 1:26:32.720 right way. It is all gonna come. It's gonna work 1:26:32.800 --> 1:26:35.200 better for certain styles of music than others, no doubt 1:26:35.200 --> 1:26:39.200 about it. I can't foresee certain styles of music actually 1:26:39.240 --> 1:26:42.160 benefiting from that. But the technology in and of itself 1:26:42.439 --> 1:26:44.880 and the functionality of it and the capability of it 1:26:45.360 --> 1:26:49.439 is super impressive. I mean, it's super impressive. It's going 1:26:49.479 --> 1:26:51.560 to get used in lots and lots of places. But 1:26:52.000 --> 1:26:54.880 you know, live music is a it's a particular animal, 1:26:54.960 --> 1:26:58.519 you know, especially live rock music, lave pop music. You know, 1:26:58.600 --> 1:27:03.040 it demands sir and things. And I'll be very interested 1:27:03.080 --> 1:27:05.800 to see how that translates in that style of venue, 1:27:06.479 --> 1:27:08.280 you know, with that kind of kind of approach, because 1:27:08.320 --> 1:27:10.040 they're making a lot of claims there where I kind 1:27:10.080 --> 1:27:11.720 of where I kind of brace myself a little bit 1:27:11.760 --> 1:27:14.439 and go, wait a minute, I'll be sure about this here. Okay, 1:27:14.560 --> 1:27:17.400 I need to hear that before I'm gonna sign off 1:27:17.479 --> 1:27:19.439 on that, you know. Okay, for those out of the loop, 1:27:19.880 --> 1:27:23.000 this is a concept where every seat gets to their 1:27:23.000 --> 1:27:27.840 own individual sound. Just reference why different types of music 1:27:27.960 --> 1:27:30.800 would be better or worse under those situations, you know, 1:27:31.040 --> 1:27:33.240 I mean, if I read the thing correctly, you know, 1:27:33.320 --> 1:27:36.080 the idea is that I can have a set of 1:27:36.120 --> 1:27:40.200 speakers that are focusing one thing into a zone of 1:27:40.320 --> 1:27:43.160 the audience, while you can be sitting a couple of 1:27:43.160 --> 1:27:45.439 seats away and not hear it at all. Right, I 1:27:45.479 --> 1:27:49.559 mean you can do this, I mean abject localization of audio. 1:27:50.120 --> 1:27:52.680 So that's where I kind of come from it as well. 1:27:52.760 --> 1:27:55.240 That's a very very powerful concept. I mean, I can 1:27:55.280 --> 1:27:57.439 see where that can be used very handily for a 1:27:57.479 --> 1:27:59.920 lot of things. But is that really what we want 1:28:00.080 --> 1:28:04.600 for concert sound? Right? I mean I I you know, 1:28:04.760 --> 1:28:08.200 I want the audience to have dare I say a 1:28:08.360 --> 1:28:11.840 unified experience here? Right? I want them all to be 1:28:12.000 --> 1:28:14.120 relating to the music that's kind of the same way. 1:28:14.439 --> 1:28:16.439 And it's you know, I mean, we we're never gonna 1:28:16.439 --> 1:28:18.200 get it. I don't think where every scene in the 1:28:18.240 --> 1:28:21.040 house sounds exactly the same. And I don't even know 1:28:21.120 --> 1:28:22.800 if I would want that. It's like, not every seat 1:28:22.840 --> 1:28:25.160 in the house looks the same. Why would I want 1:28:25.200 --> 1:28:27.320 it to sound exactly the same over there? I don't know. 1:28:27.360 --> 1:28:29.200 I'm a little I'm a little iffy with that at times. 1:28:29.320 --> 1:28:31.760 But you know, what I want is consistency. I want 1:28:32.000 --> 1:28:34.400 I want, you know, the engagement from the audience to 1:28:34.439 --> 1:28:36.600 be really, really good. And I can tell you as 1:28:36.640 --> 1:28:39.559 a concert sound mixer, I spend the night looking around 1:28:39.600 --> 1:28:42.040 that a building, and you can tell whether people are 1:28:42.120 --> 1:28:43.840 having a good show where they can hear a good 1:28:43.880 --> 1:28:45.680 show up there or not. You can tell but just 1:28:45.760 --> 1:28:48.439 by their engagement whether it's right. I don't need any 1:28:48.520 --> 1:28:50.839 microphones or any instruments to tell me whether the coverage 1:28:50.880 --> 1:28:52.519 is good. All I gotta do is watch the people. 1:28:53.360 --> 1:28:55.240 They'll tell me whether it's good. So how do you 1:28:55.400 --> 1:29:00.360 place the audience microphones in our arena? Well, typically they're 1:29:00.360 --> 1:29:02.920 placed there's a set that are placed up along the 1:29:03.000 --> 1:29:05.040 front plane of the play of the stage. You know. 1:29:05.160 --> 1:29:08.479 I'll typically have four to six microphones spaced out to 1:29:08.560 --> 1:29:11.599 kind of pick up the front field of the audience, 1:29:11.680 --> 1:29:13.760 and then I have some other ones out where I'm at. Like, 1:29:13.840 --> 1:29:16.160 I'll usually put a five point one mic which is 1:29:16.200 --> 1:29:19.080 a kind of a head, you know, it looks kind 1:29:19.120 --> 1:29:21.439 of like a head that's sitting right in the middle 1:29:21.439 --> 1:29:24.000 of the arena, and it picks up left, center, right, 1:29:24.160 --> 1:29:27.439 and surround in the rear, all in one microphone, and 1:29:27.520 --> 1:29:29.559 then I'll kind of support it with some other microphones 1:29:29.600 --> 1:29:32.800 out there so because it's it's one of the harder 1:29:32.880 --> 1:29:34.920 things to do in big arena sounds, get a good 1:29:35.080 --> 1:29:37.720 crowd capture, you know, a good crowd recording. Okay, let's 1:29:37.760 --> 1:29:39.680 go back to the beginning. You know, you sent me 1:29:39.760 --> 1:29:43.479 an article talking about an influential experience with Russell Pope, 1:29:43.960 --> 1:29:47.360 who was mixing Super Trip. I mean that album, you know, 1:29:47.439 --> 1:29:49.840 and there's a half speed Master version trying the entry, 1:29:49.840 --> 1:29:52.639 and that album is just, oh man, unbelievable what it says, 1:29:52.760 --> 1:29:55.400 what it sounds. It changed me. I mean, I mean 1:29:55.439 --> 1:29:58.160 the record changed me, and then the concert absolutely changed me. 1:29:58.280 --> 1:30:03.240 So was that really the lightbulb moment? Yeah, yeah, no 1:30:03.320 --> 1:30:05.519 doubt about it. Like I said that, that was the 1:30:05.600 --> 1:30:09.600 moment where because again you gotta keep it in context, right, 1:30:09.680 --> 1:30:12.479 this was V four Now, I mean I was a 1:30:12.600 --> 1:30:16.000 freshman in high school. Is at the Fox Theater in St. Louis, 1:30:16.720 --> 1:30:19.439 and you know, I mean I was a kid. I 1:30:19.439 --> 1:30:20.560 mean I was a kid who wanted to be a 1:30:20.680 --> 1:30:22.080 musician at that point. I mean I wanted to be 1:30:22.160 --> 1:30:24.360 Mitch Mitchell and the Jimmy Hendrix experience at that point, 1:30:24.439 --> 1:30:26.800 you know, that's who I wanted to be. And I 1:30:26.880 --> 1:30:29.280 didn't really know anything about production other than kind of 1:30:29.360 --> 1:30:31.840 what I've been able to kind of glean from, you know, 1:30:31.960 --> 1:30:34.599 pop rags and Rolling Stone and things like that. I mean, 1:30:34.800 --> 1:30:36.720 he just had no sense of really what it took 1:30:36.760 --> 1:30:40.639 to do that. And by that chance meeting with Russell, 1:30:40.720 --> 1:30:43.240 I got to see an actual mixer and you know, 1:30:43.479 --> 1:30:46.040 understand that there's a p A system up there. Now 1:30:46.320 --> 1:30:48.720 you know it's not you know, it's not just the 1:30:48.800 --> 1:30:51.000 guitar amps up there playing. We're actually miking it and 1:30:51.400 --> 1:30:53.200 mixing it back to the PA. So you know, it 1:30:53.360 --> 1:30:57.080 was this huge, huge awakening moment. And you know, kind 1:30:57.080 --> 1:30:58.559 of like I said in the article, I walked there 1:30:58.560 --> 1:31:00.120 and walked out of that thing and just going, oh, 1:31:00.160 --> 1:31:02.920 I know what I want to do, no question about it. 1:31:02.960 --> 1:31:05.120 I don't want to be a musician anymore. That's what 1:31:05.200 --> 1:31:07.600 I want to do right there. So how did you 1:31:07.720 --> 1:31:12.400 fulfill that dream? Well, that's a that's an interesting story 1:31:12.439 --> 1:31:14.480 for a night, you know, because by the time night 1:31:14.560 --> 1:31:18.640 rolled around when I was graduating, uh you know, I 1:31:18.720 --> 1:31:21.040 mean I remember going to my high school counselor and saying, Okay, 1:31:21.080 --> 1:31:22.080 this is what I want to do. I think I 1:31:22.160 --> 1:31:25.120 brought in some recording magazine It wasn't even a recording magazine. 1:31:25.120 --> 1:31:27.400 It was a magazine that was talking about right, had 1:31:27.400 --> 1:31:29.479 a recording console on it or something. I was like, 1:31:29.560 --> 1:31:30.760 this is what I want to do right here. And 1:31:31.920 --> 1:31:33.479 you know, at that time, you know, there were no 1:31:33.600 --> 1:31:36.200 recording schools, there was no there was none of that. 1:31:36.240 --> 1:31:39.000 I mean, it was truly truly cottage industry at that point. 1:31:39.800 --> 1:31:41.120 And he kind of looked at me and goes, well, 1:31:41.160 --> 1:31:43.840 it looks technical. Maybe should go in the army. You know. 1:31:46.160 --> 1:31:50.439 I was like, Nah, I'm not gonna in the army, dude, No, No. 1:31:51.400 --> 1:31:53.240 And you know, funny enough, you know, around that time, 1:31:53.280 --> 1:31:56.640 I mean this was eight, This was right at at 1:31:56.680 --> 1:31:59.240 the time that Boston came out with their first record, right, 1:31:59.760 --> 1:32:02.080 and all the mags we're running the story of Tom Schulz, 1:32:02.120 --> 1:32:05.360 which I just recently kind of rediscovered him here again recently, 1:32:06.120 --> 1:32:08.519 and you know, I for some reason, I got on 1:32:08.680 --> 1:32:10.840 fire with that. I was like, oh, this is so cool. 1:32:10.840 --> 1:32:13.160 I mean, here's a guy who was really technically adept. 1:32:13.920 --> 1:32:16.280 He's also a musician, you know, kind of a renaissance man, 1:32:16.360 --> 1:32:20.479 really right, you know, technically adept musician made this incredible record. 1:32:20.920 --> 1:32:22.960 And I remember when that record came out. There was 1:32:23.000 --> 1:32:24.960 two records that came out kind of that year or 1:32:25.080 --> 1:32:27.200 that era. It was that one and the first man 1:32:27.280 --> 1:32:31.960 Halen record, where it you know, really crystallized in my brain. 1:32:32.040 --> 1:32:34.360 At some point I was like, Wow, these records don't 1:32:34.479 --> 1:32:38.599 sound like any other record, Like, what is the deal here? Man? 1:32:38.640 --> 1:32:41.200 I mean, these things sound amazing, you know. And you 1:32:41.280 --> 1:32:42.840 know at that time, you have a stereo, right, I 1:32:42.880 --> 1:32:46.519 mean I remember just cranking that stereo up and listening 1:32:46.560 --> 1:32:49.639 to those those albums and just being the greatest thing, 1:32:49.880 --> 1:32:51.560 you know. So it was like, I've got it. I 1:32:51.680 --> 1:32:53.280 got to know how to do this. This is what 1:32:53.400 --> 1:32:57.320 I want to do, you know. And you know, as 1:32:57.640 --> 1:33:01.760 I mean, it's just you know, an episode of incidents, 1:33:01.840 --> 1:33:06.040 you know that that transpires. So we decide, and I 1:33:06.120 --> 1:33:07.960 think this is partly based on the Tom Schuls thing. 1:33:08.040 --> 1:33:09.560 We decide, Okay, what we need to do is go 1:33:09.680 --> 1:33:12.080 to an electronics institute and get you a degree there. 1:33:12.160 --> 1:33:15.320 That's what we need to do, right. So I signed 1:33:15.400 --> 1:33:19.040 up for this electronics place called Missouri Institute of Technology 1:33:19.200 --> 1:33:22.320 is one of the varie institutes, and I was going 1:33:22.360 --> 1:33:24.920 to go get a double E and electronic engineering, right, 1:33:25.120 --> 1:33:26.880 And I figured, well, this is the way you get in. 1:33:28.280 --> 1:33:30.920 So I'm I'm there for a good year. I mean, 1:33:30.960 --> 1:33:33.040 I went right out of high school. I was seventeen. 1:33:33.200 --> 1:33:36.000 I was in college by the time that summer even started, 1:33:36.800 --> 1:33:40.160 and you know, I was probably I don't know, maybe 1:33:41.479 --> 1:33:43.720 just a few months away from my bachelor's degree. And 1:33:43.840 --> 1:33:47.720 remember thinking this ain't it. I mean, I'm not doing 1:33:47.760 --> 1:33:50.240 I'm not learning anything about recording or live sound or 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:52.120 any of this kind of stuff. I mean, this is 1:33:52.920 --> 1:33:55.960 this is not it. And it just so happened. On 1:33:56.040 --> 1:33:58.400 the bulletin board of the school, a local sound company 1:33:58.439 --> 1:34:02.160 in Kansas City, a company called Superior Sound, posted a 1:34:02.280 --> 1:34:04.639 one ad for people to come down and help out 1:34:04.840 --> 1:34:06.840 with these big concerts that they were doing down in 1:34:06.920 --> 1:34:08.840 this place called Brush Creek, which was right down in 1:34:08.880 --> 1:34:12.479 the high end district of Kansas City shopping district down there, 1:34:12.800 --> 1:34:15.160 and they would have ten, twelve, fourteen thousand people on 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:17.880 a weekend for a free concert down there. So they 1:34:17.960 --> 1:34:20.080 needed help putting up the p a system, stage, everything. 1:34:20.080 --> 1:34:22.320 I was like, Okay, yeah, I'll go do this. So 1:34:22.439 --> 1:34:24.760 I go down there and I show up for the 1:34:24.800 --> 1:34:28.800 first gig, and you know, they they were excited about 1:34:28.840 --> 1:34:31.000 having me there because they was like, oh, electronics guy, Okay, 1:34:31.040 --> 1:34:32.559 he'll be good, he'll be able to help us out. 1:34:33.040 --> 1:34:36.360 I was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. I blew up 1:34:36.360 --> 1:34:39.559 a couple of amplifiers, all kinds of stuff, and they 1:34:39.600 --> 1:34:41.840 didn't invite me back. I wanted to go back the 1:34:41.880 --> 1:34:43.960 next weekend, and I was like, they didn't invite me back. 1:34:44.840 --> 1:34:46.720 And I was just heartbroken, you know. I was like, 1:34:47.600 --> 1:34:49.439 I've blown it, you know, that was my shot. So 1:34:49.680 --> 1:34:52.560 I just kept showing up. They wouldn't call me, but 1:34:52.640 --> 1:34:54.479 I would show up every weekend. And I did that 1:34:54.720 --> 1:34:57.800 entire summer series, just showing up. And by the end 1:34:57.880 --> 1:34:59.040 of it, you know, it was me and two or 1:34:59.040 --> 1:35:00.639 three other guys. We were the guys that were there 1:35:00.720 --> 1:35:02.680 every week and I knew the sound system as good 1:35:02.680 --> 1:35:04.640 as anybody by the end of the summer. And they 1:35:04.720 --> 1:35:07.080 ended up giving me a job after that and and 1:35:07.240 --> 1:35:08.960 going to work for them, and and it's luck have 1:35:09.120 --> 1:35:11.439 it would have it. I mean, I worked with an 1:35:11.520 --> 1:35:14.720 incredible set of mentors there. They were just those guys 1:35:14.760 --> 1:35:18.120 were really really knowledgeable. They understood how audio worked and 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:22.240 really bread that into me. Thank god. Uh And and 1:35:22.439 --> 1:35:25.040 then then the next step of that was you know, uh, 1:35:25.200 --> 1:35:27.479 this band called Shooting Star out of Kansas City and 1:35:27.960 --> 1:35:30.040 you might remember, and they were did four or five 1:35:30.080 --> 1:35:34.800 records for Virgin Virgin Atlantic. Um Gus Dudgeon produced their 1:35:34.840 --> 1:35:38.920 first record. Ron Nevison produced one of the records. Anyway, 1:35:38.960 --> 1:35:41.439 I got hooked up with them, uh you know, from 1:35:41.479 --> 1:35:43.360 doing demos and all kinds of other stuff, and ended 1:35:43.439 --> 1:35:45.439 up going on the road with them, and we went 1:35:45.479 --> 1:35:48.360 out our first tour together. I mean I was nineteen 1:35:48.439 --> 1:35:51.240 twenty years old, barely I wouldn't even old enough to 1:35:51.320 --> 1:35:53.600 drink yet. You know. We were opening for Journey, we 1:35:53.720 --> 1:35:56.599 were opening Razizi Top. We wrote in a Jefferson starship, 1:35:57.320 --> 1:36:00.160 et cetera. And I was lucky enough to part lay 1:36:00.200 --> 1:36:02.519 that into a career. I mean I met everybody and 1:36:02.680 --> 1:36:06.439 and got exposed to a very big, high level concert 1:36:06.479 --> 1:36:08.560 experience at a really really young age. I mean I 1:36:08.640 --> 1:36:10.400 didn't really come up through the clubs. I mean I 1:36:11.160 --> 1:36:13.280 started out at that level, you know. So I was 1:36:13.520 --> 1:36:16.519 very very fortunate, very lucky. What'd your parents say about 1:36:16.600 --> 1:36:22.600 your dreaming career choice? They were not too impressed. You know. 1:36:22.720 --> 1:36:24.320 It's funny, you know, my mom and dad were not 1:36:24.439 --> 1:36:28.240 impressed until there was two things that made it kind 1:36:28.240 --> 1:36:30.519 of okay. I went off to do some shows with 1:36:30.560 --> 1:36:35.840 Tammy Wynett. It was like, well, anyway, you're working with Tammy. Okay, 1:36:35.880 --> 1:36:37.479 wait a minute, and I'll tell us more about this, 1:36:37.600 --> 1:36:39.120 you know. Then all of a sudden it was it 1:36:39.200 --> 1:36:42.120 was kind of okay. And then my dad was you know, 1:36:42.280 --> 1:36:44.920 he was kind of an engineer guy, mechanical engineer. I 1:36:45.000 --> 1:36:48.160 mean he was really kind of a savant mechanically, uh, 1:36:48.320 --> 1:36:50.560 and worked on all these this heavy equipment, all this 1:36:50.640 --> 1:36:53.760 kind of stuff. And I invited him. He never got 1:36:53.840 --> 1:36:55.479 to go see a show until I was working for 1:36:55.560 --> 1:36:58.040 Deaf Leopard, which was in the late you know, mid 1:36:58.080 --> 1:37:00.680 in the late eighties, and he showed up one day 1:37:00.680 --> 1:37:04.840 and once he saw all the semi trucks and all 1:37:04.920 --> 1:37:07.360 the all the chain motors, you know, putting all this 1:37:07.640 --> 1:37:09.800 style of stuff out and play, then he was all in. 1:37:10.080 --> 1:37:11.519 He was like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest 1:37:11.520 --> 1:37:13.320 thing I've ever seen. Can you get me some of 1:37:13.360 --> 1:37:16.680 those chain motors? I need some of those. It was 1:37:16.760 --> 1:37:19.640 pretty cool and where they were great with it from 1:37:19.640 --> 1:37:22.120 then point on. Obviously, Okay, if you're working with Shooting 1:37:22.200 --> 1:37:24.760 Star and you're cutting demos, was there ever a time 1:37:25.040 --> 1:37:27.280 you said, well, maybe I should work in the studios 1:37:27.280 --> 1:37:29.000 sup post to live. Well, I did a lot of 1:37:29.040 --> 1:37:31.000 studio work during that time because I needed to make 1:37:31.040 --> 1:37:33.600 a living. So there was studios in town that I 1:37:33.720 --> 1:37:36.799 was working in at the time, and kind of moonlighting 1:37:36.840 --> 1:37:39.360 in the studios, kind of moonlighting at the sound company, etcetera. 1:37:40.080 --> 1:37:42.679 But you know, I mean it was a great learning experience, 1:37:42.720 --> 1:37:44.600 and that's why I always promoted you know, it's like, 1:37:44.680 --> 1:37:46.080 hey man, you want to get in and learn how 1:37:46.160 --> 1:37:48.360 to listen and learn how to hear because you know, 1:37:48.400 --> 1:37:49.800 I'll say it right here, I say this all the 1:37:49.840 --> 1:37:53.439 time I'm mixing clinics. Mixing is not a technical skill. 1:37:54.120 --> 1:37:57.120 It's a listening skill. It's not a technical skill. You're 1:37:57.160 --> 1:38:01.560 just using the the technology to present a vision that 1:38:01.640 --> 1:38:03.800 you have in your head. You know, you have to 1:38:04.240 --> 1:38:06.760 if you want to mix music, You've got to understand music, 1:38:06.880 --> 1:38:11.040 not technology. You've gotta have music sensibilities. You gotta understand 1:38:11.400 --> 1:38:13.479 why I go for this sound in that genre music, 1:38:13.520 --> 1:38:14.960 and I go for this sound in the genre music. 1:38:15.000 --> 1:38:17.920 You have to be well studied in music, not technology. 1:38:18.200 --> 1:38:19.759 I mean, you still have to understand how to operate 1:38:19.760 --> 1:38:21.519 it don't get me wrong, But the guy that are 1:38:21.600 --> 1:38:25.400 guys that are really really excellent edit understand music and 1:38:25.560 --> 1:38:29.320 understand how to present it, you know. So, uh, that's 1:38:29.360 --> 1:38:31.080 what the studio will do for you, you know, you 1:38:31.320 --> 1:38:34.320 because you're digging in at such a finite level there, 1:38:34.400 --> 1:38:36.240 you know, at such a detailed level there you you 1:38:36.479 --> 1:38:39.759 understand what makes music tick. You have to in that situation. 1:38:40.200 --> 1:38:41.560 And if you can go out and start applying that 1:38:41.640 --> 1:38:44.360 in live sound, you're you're going to be good. You're 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:46.720 gonna be really good. The guys, the best guys that 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:48.559 I see that do this job usually start out as 1:38:48.680 --> 1:38:51.880 musicians and that builds their music sensibility, and then it's 1:38:51.880 --> 1:38:54.960 a matter of expanding and broadening your taste into production techniques, 1:38:55.080 --> 1:38:57.719 you know, which speaks to your ears and your hearing, 1:38:58.720 --> 1:39:02.559 you know, just jically, everybody loses a certain amount as 1:39:02.600 --> 1:39:06.280 they get older. To what degree are you conscious of that? 1:39:06.560 --> 1:39:10.560 Protect yourself? Worried about it? Well, I've had this discussion 1:39:10.560 --> 1:39:12.560 a couple that I actually didn't had this discussion on 1:39:12.600 --> 1:39:15.400 another podcast with another group of mixers where we were 1:39:15.400 --> 1:39:17.360 talking about this. And you know, when I was living 1:39:17.400 --> 1:39:19.599 in Los Angeles, I used to get my hearing checked 1:39:19.600 --> 1:39:21.840 every year. I mean, and I still get it checked regularly. 1:39:21.880 --> 1:39:25.160 I'm I'm probably about two years away from my last check. 1:39:26.240 --> 1:39:28.960 But what I in doing that, I had a regular 1:39:29.000 --> 1:39:31.680 audiologist and he really explained a lot of things to 1:39:31.760 --> 1:39:33.920 me and set me up for really great success with 1:39:34.040 --> 1:39:36.200 my hearing. And I've put this on other people as well, 1:39:36.720 --> 1:39:39.240 and his his his take on it was really interesting 1:39:39.640 --> 1:39:41.800 because he was also a guy who did audiology for 1:39:41.880 --> 1:39:44.519 a lot of mixing engineers around town, like he did 1:39:44.520 --> 1:39:46.280 a lot of scoring engineers and a lot of other 1:39:46.520 --> 1:39:48.720 like rock mixer guys. I just have to ask this 1:39:48.880 --> 1:39:51.200 at the house clinic, where'd you find this guy? And 1:39:51.280 --> 1:39:53.880 my tax guy referred to me believe it or not, 1:39:54.880 --> 1:39:56.720 because you know, if he knew all the all these 1:39:56.800 --> 1:39:59.640 other people from doing their taxes, but you know, the 1:39:59.760 --> 1:40:01.439 thing pointed out to me. He says, Look, you know, 1:40:01.840 --> 1:40:04.320 everybody's worried about you concert guys, you know, and the 1:40:04.400 --> 1:40:06.679 volume and everything. He said, I'm not worried about you guys. 1:40:07.240 --> 1:40:09.080 He says, your hearing is going to be fine because 1:40:09.120 --> 1:40:11.920 you're only exposed to it for short amount of short 1:40:11.920 --> 1:40:15.120 amounts of time. Even though it's high volume, it's not high. 1:40:15.200 --> 1:40:19.560 You know, it's not at these deafening volumes entirely for 1:40:19.680 --> 1:40:22.080 two hours at a time. It's it's in peaks and valleys, 1:40:22.240 --> 1:40:24.880 he said. The guys that have the most trouble are 1:40:24.920 --> 1:40:26.600 the guys that are sitting in fair of a in 1:40:26.680 --> 1:40:30.320 front of a pair of small speakers for eight ten 1:40:30.680 --> 1:40:34.000 twelve hours a day, he says. You know, he says, 1:40:34.040 --> 1:40:35.879 I got, I know. Scoring guys that are doing symphony, 1:40:36.439 --> 1:40:38.200 he said, that are working, you know, eight ten twelve 1:40:38.240 --> 1:40:40.200 hours a day, he says. You would not believe how 1:40:40.240 --> 1:40:42.479 bad they're hearing is he said, And they're listening in 1:40:42.560 --> 1:40:45.960 just at moderate levels. But it's repetitive, he says, it's worried, 1:40:45.960 --> 1:40:48.920 it's just constantly working. So one of the things he 1:40:49.000 --> 1:40:51.879 advised to me was that try to stay away from headphones. 1:40:52.040 --> 1:40:54.920 So that's the first thing, uh, he said, at the 1:40:55.040 --> 1:40:57.479 end of the night. If you know, if your ears 1:40:57.479 --> 1:41:00.400 are tired, put in some of your plugs so you 1:41:00.560 --> 1:41:03.240 average in some really really quiet time and give your 1:41:03.280 --> 1:41:05.840 ears a chance to recover, he says, And you're you're 1:41:05.880 --> 1:41:07.519 gonna be fine over time, he says, if you can 1:41:07.600 --> 1:41:10.720 just stay away from high impulse things. He says, if 1:41:10.760 --> 1:41:13.439 you go to the shooting range, make sure you double protect, 1:41:13.520 --> 1:41:15.960 he said, do twice as much protection as you think, 1:41:16.240 --> 1:41:18.680 because that impulse is the one that's that's going to 1:41:18.840 --> 1:41:21.240 kill your hearing. For sure. It's a gunshot. That kind 1:41:21.280 --> 1:41:23.320 of impulse would do you in. It's about drummers have 1:41:23.400 --> 1:41:27.439 a really typically have a bad time with with hearing, 1:41:27.520 --> 1:41:30.479 you know, because it's very high impulse, high impact audio 1:41:30.560 --> 1:41:32.920 a little bit slower. How did you get from Shooting 1:41:33.080 --> 1:41:37.679 Star up the ladder? Well? Uh, like I said, Shooting 1:41:37.720 --> 1:41:41.360 Star was opening for all these acts, and uh, you 1:41:41.400 --> 1:41:43.160 know in those days, I mean, you know, you kind 1:41:43.160 --> 1:41:44.360 of had to be a little bit of a jack 1:41:44.400 --> 1:41:46.640 of all trades. So not only was I mixing, I 1:41:46.760 --> 1:41:48.880 was also the drum road on the tour, you know, 1:41:49.040 --> 1:41:51.800 set up the drums and tune him everything. Uh. And 1:41:51.960 --> 1:41:54.479 that got me a job because I think we had 1:41:54.520 --> 1:41:58.240 done some some um tour, some shows with John Mellencamp 1:41:58.320 --> 1:42:02.479 at that point early eighties there. Uh, right when John 1:42:02.520 --> 1:42:03.760 was getting ready to go out and do the Pink 1:42:03.800 --> 1:42:06.160 Houses tour, one of the guys that I knew from 1:42:06.240 --> 1:42:08.240 that tour called me and said, Kenny Arnolfs looking for 1:42:08.240 --> 1:42:09.439 a drum guy. You want to come out and do it. 1:42:10.520 --> 1:42:12.600 I said, yeah, I'll come out and do it. So 1:42:12.760 --> 1:42:16.000 I was Kenny Arnolf's drum tech for about a tour. 1:42:16.360 --> 1:42:19.599 And during that period, you know, there was a sound 1:42:19.640 --> 1:42:22.080 company working on the thing, and you know, what am 1:42:22.080 --> 1:42:24.160 I gonna do when I'm when the drums are set up? 1:42:24.160 --> 1:42:25.760 I got nothing to do until we get ready to 1:42:25.800 --> 1:42:28.160 go back. So I started working with this SA guys 1:42:28.200 --> 1:42:29.800 on the sound crew and helping him put up the 1:42:29.840 --> 1:42:31.679 p A every day, you know, blah blah blah blah. 1:42:32.280 --> 1:42:34.559 And that led to a job with that sound company, 1:42:34.960 --> 1:42:38.280 and then from there, you know, convinced them a little bit, 1:42:38.360 --> 1:42:42.080 a little bit slower. In your legacy information, it says 1:42:42.120 --> 1:42:44.559 you were the monitor mixer and you got fired by 1:42:44.680 --> 1:42:47.000 Melon cap Oh. I did, Yeah, I mean that was 1:42:47.200 --> 1:42:50.560 that was a watershed moment for me. I mean, no 1:42:50.680 --> 1:42:52.360 doubt about it. I mean, and so, how did you 1:42:52.439 --> 1:42:55.000 become the monitor mixer? Was that just after you were 1:42:55.040 --> 1:42:57.200 the drum roady? Yeah? So I did drum roading on 1:42:57.280 --> 1:42:59.840 the Pink Houses tour and then the next door they 1:42:59.880 --> 1:43:01.800 were going to move to another monitor engineer, and I 1:43:01.960 --> 1:43:03.920 lobbied for that position. I said, I can do that. 1:43:04.240 --> 1:43:09.280 Let me do that right, And technically, I mean I 1:43:09.439 --> 1:43:11.760 was more than capable of doing it without a doubt. 1:43:11.800 --> 1:43:14.240 But you know, I actually had a guy and go 1:43:14.320 --> 1:43:15.840 through a little bit of a crucible there, and I 1:43:16.000 --> 1:43:19.879 learned something about myself there, because I mean, John's reputation 1:43:20.000 --> 1:43:21.640 kind of precedes him. You know, everybody knows he's a 1:43:21.720 --> 1:43:25.320 very very difficult guy to work with. And you know, honestly, 1:43:25.360 --> 1:43:27.439 of all honesty, I was not mature enough for that gig. 1:43:28.080 --> 1:43:30.800 I was not mature enough to handle him as if 1:43:30.840 --> 1:43:32.920 you're going to handle him, but just not mature enough 1:43:32.960 --> 1:43:35.960 to deal with him properly. And he saw it. I 1:43:36.040 --> 1:43:38.120 mean he saw me as being a little weak and 1:43:38.240 --> 1:43:39.280 he was going to go out and do a big 1:43:39.360 --> 1:43:41.360 tour there, and he was just like, I can't have 1:43:41.479 --> 1:43:42.920 this guy sitting on the side of the stage. I 1:43:42.960 --> 1:43:45.680 gotta have somebody I know has it together here and 1:43:45.800 --> 1:43:48.479 can and can deal with me. And I wasn't that guy. 1:43:48.520 --> 1:43:51.320 I just wasn't mature enough yet to do it. And 1:43:51.680 --> 1:43:54.679 you know, I had to kind of have a little 1:43:54.680 --> 1:43:56.800 look in the mirror there and kind of go, Okay, dude, 1:43:56.800 --> 1:43:59.840 if you're gonna do this work, you know, there's more 1:44:00.000 --> 1:44:01.800 to it. Then just being able to technically do it. 1:44:01.880 --> 1:44:04.080 You've got to be able to interface with people and 1:44:05.240 --> 1:44:07.320 work with them and deal with them on their levels, 1:44:07.400 --> 1:44:09.000 you know, and that is not a technical level. That's 1:44:09.000 --> 1:44:11.680 a personality thing. You've got to learn to hang and 1:44:11.880 --> 1:44:13.240 and be able to do it. So, you know, it 1:44:13.320 --> 1:44:16.320 kind of reshaped my thinking and what I was watching 1:44:16.400 --> 1:44:18.000 and what I was doing from that point forward. I 1:44:18.200 --> 1:44:19.800 used it to great effect when I went to work 1:44:19.880 --> 1:44:22.920 for Prince said that all came right around and I 1:44:23.600 --> 1:44:25.360 used every lesson I learned on that tour on that 1:44:25.439 --> 1:44:28.000 Prince Store. Okay, if you go to a recording studio, 1:44:28.640 --> 1:44:32.920 the engineer, generally speaking, is quiet and a yes man. 1:44:33.600 --> 1:44:37.880 He is not an individual with character saying no. That 1:44:38.040 --> 1:44:42.200 might be the producer. So as a front of fall engineer, 1:44:42.840 --> 1:44:45.200 you know, what kind of personality do you need? Do 1:44:45.280 --> 1:44:47.400 you know that, Hey, I can't push too much. That's 1:44:47.439 --> 1:44:49.519 just not my role. You've gotta be able to read it. 1:44:50.200 --> 1:44:52.200 You gotta be able to read the person and see 1:44:52.240 --> 1:44:54.760 where you can go with it, you know. I mean 1:44:54.800 --> 1:44:56.920 where I ended up with Tom Petty versus where I 1:44:56.960 --> 1:44:59.719 started with Tom Petty were two very very different places. 1:44:59.800 --> 1:45:02.160 You Yeah, it's it's earned, it's not given. You know, 1:45:02.280 --> 1:45:05.120 you have to you have to earn that voice in 1:45:05.280 --> 1:45:07.720 that room for sure. Well, you tell the story in 1:45:07.800 --> 1:45:11.600 one of your publications about telling Tom to change his 1:45:11.720 --> 1:45:13.800 money and he says, the last guy who said that 1:45:14.080 --> 1:45:16.880 it's no longer here right before he was gone. Yeah, 1:45:18.680 --> 1:45:20.479 So you know, luckily I was smart enough when that 1:45:20.520 --> 1:45:22.040 happened to go, you know what, Tom, We're just gonna 1:45:22.080 --> 1:45:23.680 give that mike another try for a little bit. We're 1:45:23.680 --> 1:45:25.080 gonna we're just gonna work with that one for a 1:45:25.120 --> 1:45:27.120 little bit. But I mean it's a perfect example of 1:45:27.200 --> 1:45:28.680 what I'm talking about. You know, I tried to come 1:45:28.720 --> 1:45:32.160 in probably a little too heavy handed there, and but 1:45:32.400 --> 1:45:34.639 but over time, you know that that completely turned around 1:45:34.640 --> 1:45:38.320 where you know, Tom was very reliant on me for 1:45:38.439 --> 1:45:40.360 what we were going to do, and you know he 1:45:40.479 --> 1:45:42.439 was I mean, I'm very proud to say he was 1:45:42.479 --> 1:45:44.599 on record as saying, I'll never do it without that guy. 1:45:44.840 --> 1:45:47.760 So if he's not available, I'm not available to go 1:45:47.840 --> 1:45:50.479 on the road. So that was probably the highest compliment 1:45:50.520 --> 1:45:52.439 I've ever gotten in my life, that's for sure. Okay, 1:45:52.600 --> 1:45:55.080 so you ultimately got him to change the mike. How 1:45:55.160 --> 1:45:59.240 did you do that, well, you know, again, you have 1:45:59.400 --> 1:46:01.720 to get a you end up having to have some 1:46:01.840 --> 1:46:05.920 credibility at some point. And uh, I mean, I'll tell 1:46:05.960 --> 1:46:09.479 the story. So we were that first tour had finished 1:46:09.479 --> 1:46:13.160 and we had stayed on the particular microphone. I won't 1:46:13.240 --> 1:46:16.000 name names here, so but it was just the wrong 1:46:16.040 --> 1:46:19.080 mac phone for the application. So we come around to 1:46:19.160 --> 1:46:22.080 the next tour now and we're in production rehearsals, et cetera. 1:46:22.280 --> 1:46:24.240 And I was like, Okay, it's either going to be 1:46:24.320 --> 1:46:26.080 the mic or me. I'm not going to survive another 1:46:26.120 --> 1:46:29.280 tour with that microphone. So I had another microphone that 1:46:29.280 --> 1:46:30.960 I thought was gonna be a really good choice for him. 1:46:30.960 --> 1:46:32.000 So I just went up and put it on the 1:46:32.040 --> 1:46:33.720 stand and plugged it in, and I said, to the 1:46:33.800 --> 1:46:36.840 monitor guy, do what you need to do. This is 1:46:36.840 --> 1:46:39.000 going to be this way until he tells me that 1:46:39.240 --> 1:46:40.800 we need to change it. All right, I'm just gonna 1:46:40.840 --> 1:46:44.280 see where we're gonna go here. So he came in 1:46:44.560 --> 1:46:47.080 and he, you know, immediately was like, wow, what what 1:46:47.160 --> 1:46:49.840 the heck is this? You know? And I came walking 1:46:49.880 --> 1:46:51.320 from the front of house up to him and I said, look, 1:46:51.360 --> 1:46:53.599 I want I want you just to try this, I said, 1:46:53.640 --> 1:46:56.560 we're really in early in rehearsals here. Just give it 1:46:56.600 --> 1:46:59.200 a try, see what you think. If it starts to 1:46:59.280 --> 1:47:01.280 feel good, then I want you to give it a try. 1:47:01.280 --> 1:47:02.640 If you hate it, then we'll go back to the 1:47:02.720 --> 1:47:04.360 end of micro alright, So but just give it a try. 1:47:05.360 --> 1:47:07.519 So the band kicks in. They do two or three songs, 1:47:08.360 --> 1:47:10.600 and I can see he's still kind of processing, you know, 1:47:10.680 --> 1:47:12.800 he's I can see his head kind of working, going 1:47:13.160 --> 1:47:14.640 is this really as good as I think it is 1:47:14.760 --> 1:47:16.960 right now? You know what's going on here? Can I 1:47:17.040 --> 1:47:20.120 really trust this? And luckily, I mean I think it's 1:47:20.160 --> 1:47:24.720 what saved me and the whole thing almost as it 1:47:24.840 --> 1:47:28.599 was happening, you know Howie and Scott Thurston both chimed 1:47:28.680 --> 1:47:31.800 in together at the same time and said, wow, we 1:47:31.920 --> 1:47:34.639 can hear you really really clearly over here right now, 1:47:35.560 --> 1:47:38.120 like it's so easy to sing to your voice right now. 1:47:38.160 --> 1:47:41.360 I mean, they were and it was totally imprompted and unscripted. 1:47:41.400 --> 1:47:43.479 I didn't ask him to do it. It just came 1:47:43.520 --> 1:47:46.680 out of, you know, organically, out of the conversation. And 1:47:46.840 --> 1:47:48.800 from that moment on we were on that microphone. We 1:47:48.920 --> 1:47:51.840 didn't change that microphone for years. You know, Okay, let's 1:47:51.880 --> 1:47:54.560 go back. So you're with the Sound company. You know, 1:47:54.640 --> 1:47:56.560 you you finished Smith Mellot Camp, you go with the 1:47:56.600 --> 1:47:59.800 sum company. What's the next step after that? Next step 1:47:59.800 --> 1:48:01.960 after that was really going to work for the Sound company. 1:48:02.000 --> 1:48:04.320 I went to work for this company called Electrotech, which 1:48:04.479 --> 1:48:07.880 was kind of uh an after version of t f 1:48:07.960 --> 1:48:11.120 A Electro Sound, one of the more famous stalwart companies 1:48:11.160 --> 1:48:13.760 that kind of started this industry. They were out of 1:48:13.800 --> 1:48:16.680 Canoga Park, California. So I moved to California. I went 1:48:16.760 --> 1:48:18.559 to work for the Sound Company and was just taking 1:48:18.600 --> 1:48:20.439 gig any gig I could get my hands on at 1:48:20.479 --> 1:48:23.040 that point. And then another gig came up to mix 1:48:23.120 --> 1:48:26.760 for the Go Goes, So I took that I and 1:48:27.200 --> 1:48:28.680 had a really great time on that. It was very 1:48:28.680 --> 1:48:31.080 successful on that. And then the next thing that came 1:48:31.160 --> 1:48:35.160 my way mixing wise, let's say I did Rick Springfield 1:48:35.240 --> 1:48:38.040 in there for a period of time, and then really 1:48:38.080 --> 1:48:40.040 the next the next kind of big opportunity that came 1:48:40.080 --> 1:48:41.360 my way, and it really just kind of fell in 1:48:41.439 --> 1:48:43.960 my lap because nobody else wanted to take it. Ironically, 1:48:43.960 --> 1:48:47.439 at the time, I was mixing Alice Cooper and this 1:48:47.600 --> 1:48:49.639 was right when Alice was trying to make her comeback. 1:48:49.680 --> 1:48:52.200 You know, this was he had been down and you know, 1:48:52.240 --> 1:48:54.000 out of the business really for a period of years there. 1:48:54.040 --> 1:48:57.920 This was I think something like that at eight five 1:48:58.000 --> 1:49:00.400 it was you know, Nightmare Returns where it was his 1:49:00.479 --> 1:49:02.680 first time back, and I jumped all over it. I 1:49:02.800 --> 1:49:04.840 wanted to mix that so bad. I was a huge 1:49:04.880 --> 1:49:07.519 Alice Cooper fan when I was a kid. It was 1:49:07.600 --> 1:49:09.360 one of one of the very first concerts I ever 1:49:09.400 --> 1:49:10.800 got to go see. My mom took me to go 1:49:10.880 --> 1:49:13.439 see it when I was a young teenager and I 1:49:13.600 --> 1:49:15.760 was totally hooked on him. I just thought they were 1:49:15.760 --> 1:49:18.240 the greatest records and still do to this day. There 1:49:18.400 --> 1:49:21.320 were just those those early bob Ezrian records were just 1:49:21.479 --> 1:49:24.600 sensational from him. I read a review that raved I 1:49:24.640 --> 1:49:26.799 didn't know if it was a joke and Rolling Stone, 1:49:26.920 --> 1:49:29.240 So I bought the record. I dropped the needle and 1:49:29.400 --> 1:49:34.439 I heard under my wheels. I was closed instantly, Am 1:49:34.479 --> 1:49:37.519 I right? So absolutely? I mean it was just and 1:49:38.040 --> 1:49:40.040 I can go back and listen to those records today 1:49:40.080 --> 1:49:42.280 and relive them. So long story short, I mean I 1:49:42.360 --> 1:49:44.040 jumped all over it. I was like, oh, I will 1:49:44.600 --> 1:49:48.240 do anything to mix that tour, you know, and okay, 1:49:48.280 --> 1:49:50.599 so you'll get the whole DNA here. So on that tour, 1:49:52.040 --> 1:49:55.160 one of the opening acts was Tesla. So that's my 1:49:55.280 --> 1:49:59.439 first interaction with Peter Mention and Cliff Bernstein, right, So 1:49:59.560 --> 1:50:02.760 they're out hearing me mix on this tour, and you know, 1:50:02.800 --> 1:50:04.719 I mean it was pretty kind of a low rent production. 1:50:04.800 --> 1:50:07.479 I mean, it was tough to make it sound really big, 1:50:07.560 --> 1:50:10.920 and we didn't have very much PA system, etcetera. But 1:50:11.080 --> 1:50:13.479 you know, I in those days and I still do 1:50:13.560 --> 1:50:16.559 it to to this day. You know, I'm always recording 1:50:16.640 --> 1:50:18.320 what I'm doing on the console. At that point, I 1:50:18.400 --> 1:50:20.479 was recording to cassettes, and you know, i'd go back 1:50:20.520 --> 1:50:21.800 and listen to it at the end of the night 1:50:21.840 --> 1:50:23.719 and kind of review what I was doing and go, Okay, 1:50:23.720 --> 1:50:25.040 I know what I need to do there now. And 1:50:25.160 --> 1:50:28.280 so it was just study tapes. You know. Well, during 1:50:28.320 --> 1:50:31.439 this period, somehow, and I've said this before and I 1:50:31.800 --> 1:50:36.040 still don't know how, but somehow, during this period, Joe 1:50:36.120 --> 1:50:39.559 Elliott got ahold of one of my desk tapes, one 1:50:39.640 --> 1:50:42.679 of my board tapes. It might have been through Ross Halfen. 1:50:42.800 --> 1:50:45.640 The photography was after shooting Tesla. It might have been 1:50:45.760 --> 1:50:47.720 I don't know, I swear to you, I don't know. 1:50:47.920 --> 1:50:49.720 It might have been through Brian Wheat. He might have 1:50:49.800 --> 1:50:53.800 gotten it to him. I don't know. But you know, 1:50:53.880 --> 1:50:57.479 the tour ends and I'm kind of working on thinking 1:50:57.479 --> 1:50:59.240 about what's going to be my next move. You know, 1:50:59.280 --> 1:51:02.200 Deaf Leppard is in working on Hysteria now for god 1:51:02.320 --> 1:51:04.200 knows how long. You know, it's getting ready to release. 1:51:04.840 --> 1:51:06.800 But you know, I'm not really visible to that, and 1:51:07.360 --> 1:51:09.679 but I know that Cliff and Peter are also doing 1:51:09.920 --> 1:51:12.080 They also managed Docking at the point at that point, 1:51:12.120 --> 1:51:13.320 and I remember thinking, you know what I'd love to 1:51:13.439 --> 1:51:15.600 mix doing. Maybe I'll call Peter and see if you, 1:51:15.800 --> 1:51:18.519 you know, consider me for Docking. In the meantime, in 1:51:18.600 --> 1:51:22.000 the background, there's this conversation going on between Joe and 1:51:22.160 --> 1:51:26.040 Peter where Joe is going, that's our guy, whoever mixed 1:51:26.120 --> 1:51:29.000 this tape, that's the guy we need to mix our tour, 1:51:29.439 --> 1:51:32.320 that's the guy we want. And he is really all 1:51:32.320 --> 1:51:34.120 about the vocal performances on it. He was like, the 1:51:34.200 --> 1:51:36.120 vocal sound unbelievable on this tape. You have to get 1:51:36.200 --> 1:51:39.120 this guy, and Peter was kind of going, are you 1:51:39.320 --> 1:51:41.120 sure this is the guy. I'm not listening to this 1:51:41.240 --> 1:51:43.040 every night. I'm not. Are you sure this is the 1:51:43.080 --> 1:51:45.400 guy we want? And Joe God love him. I mean 1:51:45.439 --> 1:51:47.400 I owe him a dead of gratitude like nobody's business. 1:51:47.479 --> 1:51:49.200 And he was like, Yeah, that's our guy, that's the 1:51:49.240 --> 1:51:52.639 guy we want. So I get home a week later 1:51:52.840 --> 1:51:55.360 and there's a message on my machine from C Prime, 1:51:55.479 --> 1:51:58.960 you know, and I'm thinking, fan fuckantastic. Carry this. I'm 1:51:59.000 --> 1:52:00.920 going to get docking. I know they're going to give 1:52:00.960 --> 1:52:04.360 me the dock and kid, hey, we think we want 1:52:04.400 --> 1:52:06.519 you to do Deaf Leppardy interested in doing Deaf Leopard 1:52:06.640 --> 1:52:10.000 And I was like, yeah, okay, I'll do deaf Leppard. 1:52:10.800 --> 1:52:14.479 So off we go to London and the rest is history, 1:52:14.520 --> 1:52:16.439 as they said, Just so I know where does Tesla 1:52:16.479 --> 1:52:18.519 fit in this game? They were the opening act for 1:52:18.560 --> 1:52:21.559 Alice Cooper on that But you worked for Tesla too. 1:52:21.800 --> 1:52:25.880 That was afterwards. That was after Okay, I gotta ask, Okay, 1:52:26.080 --> 1:52:29.000 you are the front of whole Guy, but especially on 1:52:29.160 --> 1:52:32.560 that Deaf Leopard tour, there are a lot of shenanigans. 1:52:34.680 --> 1:52:37.160 You're gonna put me in the TMZ zone here, aren't you. 1:52:38.080 --> 1:52:42.040 I don't really need that level of detail. I want 1:52:42.080 --> 1:52:46.639 to know to what degree did you participate. Oh my gosh, dude, 1:52:47.160 --> 1:52:48.760 I'll just say I met my wife on that tour. 1:52:48.840 --> 1:52:51.439 Maybe we'll just leave it there. Actually I met her 1:52:51.479 --> 1:52:53.080 on air supply. I shouldn't say that I was mixing 1:52:53.120 --> 1:52:57.240 air supply at that Okay. The other thing is very 1:52:57.400 --> 1:53:01.680 hard to be part of a traveling entourage with raw. 1:53:01.840 --> 1:53:05.719 It's worse for the performers themselves. They played for twenty 1:53:05.800 --> 1:53:09.320 thousand people. They can't calm down there with the same 1:53:09.479 --> 1:53:12.920 five assholes they've known since they were twelve, and a 1:53:13.000 --> 1:53:16.759 lot of them, you know, turned to substances to cope. 1:53:17.040 --> 1:53:19.440 How did you cope? Well, I mean, I'm not impervious 1:53:19.880 --> 1:53:21.960 to the partying that happened in the eighties. I mean, 1:53:22.200 --> 1:53:24.240 I mean that was just a different time. I mean, 1:53:25.200 --> 1:53:26.800 you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll was in. 1:53:27.240 --> 1:53:29.439 It was going ten miles an hour during the eighties 1:53:29.479 --> 1:53:32.200 and the very early nineties, and until you know, the 1:53:32.240 --> 1:53:34.640 AIDS epidemic, put the cope, put the cabbage on it. 1:53:34.840 --> 1:53:36.559 I mean, that kind of shut the whole thing down 1:53:37.200 --> 1:53:40.120 there for your period of time. But you know, again, 1:53:40.200 --> 1:53:42.200 I'm I'm always stressed in this, man, You've got to 1:53:42.240 --> 1:53:45.160 put it in context. This is not rationalizing it, but 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:47.320 you just have to put it in context. That was 1:53:47.400 --> 1:53:50.479 an accepted piece of the puzzle out there. I mean, 1:53:50.840 --> 1:53:52.200 if you were going to be out there, you were 1:53:52.200 --> 1:53:54.160 going to be a part of that lifestyle. I mean, 1:53:54.240 --> 1:53:57.680 it's just and you know, I mean I still say 1:53:57.720 --> 1:54:00.559 this about touring to this day. You know, you've got 1:54:00.640 --> 1:54:03.160 to be able to hang. You know, you're not going 1:54:03.200 --> 1:54:06.479 to survive on these tours as the outlier very often, 1:54:06.560 --> 1:54:07.840 you know. I mean, you've got to be able to hang. 1:54:07.960 --> 1:54:09.160 And it doesn't mean you've got to give in and 1:54:09.240 --> 1:54:11.519 participate on everything, but you've got to be able to 1:54:11.560 --> 1:54:15.040 survive out there from a cultural point of view and 1:54:15.439 --> 1:54:17.320 you know, kind of a social point of view. I mean, 1:54:17.320 --> 1:54:19.240 you've got to have a personality that fits into that 1:54:19.360 --> 1:54:22.160 lifestyle out there. And it's not for everybody. It is 1:54:22.240 --> 1:54:26.160 just not for everybody. And it's a I mean, we're 1:54:26.160 --> 1:54:28.080 starting to see all the statistics come in now. You know, 1:54:28.200 --> 1:54:32.240 it's a stressful lifestyle. Traveling for a living is stressful 1:54:32.320 --> 1:54:35.120 and it takes its toll on people. Man, it's that 1:54:35.240 --> 1:54:37.080 bill starting to come do. Now we're starting to see 1:54:37.080 --> 1:54:39.760 it in our industry. Now, okay, let's just go through 1:54:39.760 --> 1:54:42.440 the litany. You work for Death Leopard, then you go 1:54:42.520 --> 1:54:45.440 to Tesla to take us through the acts. Actually I 1:54:45.520 --> 1:54:49.480 went from I went from Death Leopard to Rush, and 1:54:49.760 --> 1:54:51.400 you know I got that through Peter. You know, Peter 1:54:51.520 --> 1:54:54.080 introduced me to Getty one of the Death Leopard shows 1:54:54.080 --> 1:54:56.360 and we kind of hit it off. And that was 1:54:56.440 --> 1:54:58.760 the dream gig for me. If there was every one 1:54:58.840 --> 1:55:01.480 gig that I always want, it was mixing Rush. That 1:55:01.600 --> 1:55:03.280 was I was the Rush fan that got to mix 1:55:03.400 --> 1:55:06.000 the show. I've said that many times. So that was 1:55:06.080 --> 1:55:07.920 that was the brass ring for me during that period, 1:55:08.080 --> 1:55:11.240 no doubt about it. But I mean in terms of 1:55:11.280 --> 1:55:15.360 the time frame, yeah, I think it was Deaf Leppard hysteria, 1:55:16.320 --> 1:55:18.280 then onto Rush for a little bit, and then to 1:55:18.520 --> 1:55:22.040 to some testless stuff, and then back to def Leopard 1:55:22.080 --> 1:55:24.400 and then back to Rush. I mean it was it 1:55:24.520 --> 1:55:27.120 was just just constant. I mean I was always on 1:55:27.200 --> 1:55:29.440 the road during those pretty years. And at what point 1:55:29.520 --> 1:55:32.920 did you go independent stopped working for the Canoga Park Company. Oh, 1:55:33.040 --> 1:55:36.680 that was with def Leppard. Right right after def Leppard 1:55:36.760 --> 1:55:40.680 was my first truly truly independent gig where I was 1:55:40.720 --> 1:55:44.720 not working for the company, so from night late night on, 1:55:44.920 --> 1:55:48.160 I've been independent. So how did you end up working 1:55:48.320 --> 1:55:51.840 with Prince? You said, Yeah, that was just the you know, 1:55:52.320 --> 1:55:55.600 the phone rang one day and you know, one of 1:55:55.680 --> 1:55:58.080 the guys that I had worked with on Petty Uh, 1:55:58.480 --> 1:56:00.800 he was one of my systems engineers, was out on 1:56:00.920 --> 1:56:04.240 prints and kind of just said, Hey, I were in Phoenix, 1:56:04.240 --> 1:56:05.360 you want to come down and see the show. I 1:56:05.440 --> 1:56:07.240 was like, yeah, coming and see the show. So I'd 1:56:07.280 --> 1:56:10.040 love to see Prince. So I go down there, and 1:56:10.920 --> 1:56:12.800 I mean, not for nothing, man, I mean it it 1:56:12.960 --> 1:56:16.640 sounded bad. I mean it was just like who I 1:56:16.680 --> 1:56:18.600 mean it was, but you know, I mean you got 1:56:18.720 --> 1:56:20.440 to kind of know all the again, all the ins 1:56:20.480 --> 1:56:22.240 and outs of this, but I mean it was just like, Wow, 1:56:22.320 --> 1:56:24.640 this is not working. Whatever they're trying to do right here, 1:56:26.280 --> 1:56:27.960 this is not working. I mean I left after about 1:56:28.000 --> 1:56:32.880 six seven songs, and after I left the place, I 1:56:32.920 --> 1:56:34.120 kind of went out for a couple of drinks whatever. 1:56:34.160 --> 1:56:35.720 By the time I got home, there was a message 1:56:35.760 --> 1:56:40.360 on my machine from UH, from the tour manager saying, Hey, 1:56:40.760 --> 1:56:43.000 Charlie tells me you're available right now. Is there any 1:56:43.080 --> 1:56:44.400 chance you would want to come out and mix this 1:56:44.720 --> 1:56:47.560 for a while, you know. And I was like, oh boy, 1:56:48.720 --> 1:56:51.360 I mean, the dude's reputation kind of precedes himself. I 1:56:51.520 --> 1:56:52.880 mean I kind of heard what was going on. I 1:56:52.960 --> 1:56:55.160 was like, I don't know, it's like, I'm right in 1:56:55.200 --> 1:56:57.960 the middle of a record project right now. Said I 1:56:58.040 --> 1:57:00.920 don't think so, man, I'm you know, blah blah blah. 1:57:01.520 --> 1:57:03.800 And then they started throwing out money. You know. I 1:57:03.960 --> 1:57:07.400 was just like, Okay, that's a lot of money. I 1:57:07.520 --> 1:57:09.840 was like, okay, all right, well here's the deal. You know, 1:57:10.080 --> 1:57:14.120 I'll do it, but you know, I mean again, you know, 1:57:14.360 --> 1:57:17.920 Prince was known for just churning through engineers. And I said, 1:57:18.040 --> 1:57:20.080 I want all the money up front. I said, I'll 1:57:20.120 --> 1:57:21.600 come out, but I want all the money up front. 1:57:21.600 --> 1:57:23.360 I'll take a break from this project for two or 1:57:23.400 --> 1:57:25.800 three weeks, kind of bail water off the ship out 1:57:25.800 --> 1:57:27.640 there and get everything squared away, and then we can 1:57:27.680 --> 1:57:29.040 turn it over to somebody else if you want to 1:57:29.080 --> 1:57:31.720 do it. And he fully he goes, okay, be in 1:57:31.760 --> 1:57:36.920 San Antonio tomorrow. I was like, oh my god, but 1:57:37.080 --> 1:57:39.800 a long story short on it. You know. I got 1:57:39.840 --> 1:57:43.160 out there and really just the mixer and the p 1:57:43.280 --> 1:57:45.120 A system was a mess. I mean, really, that's what 1:57:45.200 --> 1:57:48.320 it was all about. Because the performances, the music, and 1:57:48.400 --> 1:57:51.760 the musicians were off the freaking chain. I mean, it 1:57:51.960 --> 1:57:54.040 was so good, you know, I just I had that 1:57:54.120 --> 1:57:56.600 kind of moment at the show, just thinking, Wow, look 1:57:56.640 --> 1:57:59.880 at these players. Why does this sound like this? And 1:58:00.520 --> 1:58:03.360 I mean, I want you know, it's not an effort 1:58:03.400 --> 1:58:05.040 to talk ill of the dead or anything like that, 1:58:05.160 --> 1:58:08.880 but you know, between the engineers that were there kind 1:58:08.920 --> 1:58:11.360 of mean and a yes man for Prince and his 1:58:11.680 --> 1:58:13.560 input on the console and his input on the p 1:58:13.680 --> 1:58:16.440 A systems, things were just just completely out of whack. 1:58:17.040 --> 1:58:18.920 And I it took me about three or four shows 1:58:18.960 --> 1:58:20.680 to get him to really trust what I wanted to 1:58:20.760 --> 1:58:23.800 do on the console and with the p A system, etcetera. 1:58:23.920 --> 1:58:25.560 But after a period of time I got him to 1:58:25.600 --> 1:58:28.520 trust it and we ended up having some really really 1:58:28.600 --> 1:58:31.680 great shows. We you know, we went from having three 1:58:31.760 --> 1:58:34.040 and four hour sound checks that were holding the doors 1:58:34.120 --> 1:58:37.320 to doing, you know, one song, two songs, Okay, that's great, 1:58:37.400 --> 1:58:39.800 let's go, you know, get it going on. So you know, 1:58:39.920 --> 1:58:41.440 he and I actually at the end of by the 1:58:41.520 --> 1:58:43.280 end of it hit it off pretty good. We it 1:58:43.400 --> 1:58:44.600 was to the point where I could go talk to 1:58:44.720 --> 1:58:47.200 him when I needed to talk to him. You know, 1:58:47.240 --> 1:58:49.240 I didn't have to go through his bodyguard or anything 1:58:49.320 --> 1:58:53.520 like that. And you know, it convenient to say it now, 1:58:53.600 --> 1:58:54.760 but you know, if I had to go back and 1:58:54.800 --> 1:58:56.480 work for him again, I would have gone back in 1:58:56.520 --> 1:58:58.240 the heartbeat. You know. We we we got to a 1:58:58.280 --> 1:59:01.880 point where we got some mutual respect built and then 1:59:01.960 --> 1:59:04.320 then it then it went swimmingly. It was really really 1:59:04.360 --> 1:59:07.280 good and a fantastic show man. My goodness, what a 1:59:07.320 --> 1:59:09.480 set of players. And how long did you end up 1:59:09.520 --> 1:59:11.360 working with them? It was only about three or four weeks. 1:59:11.560 --> 1:59:13.200 Wasn't long. Like I said, I was right in the 1:59:13.240 --> 1:59:15.040 middle of a record project I needed to get back to. 1:59:15.200 --> 1:59:17.880 So it's like I kind of bailed water on it 1:59:17.920 --> 1:59:19.440 for a little bit, got it all kind of sorted 1:59:19.480 --> 1:59:21.920 back out, and and really it's not even like we 1:59:22.000 --> 1:59:24.040 turned it over to somebody else. The the tour was 1:59:24.080 --> 1:59:25.440 coming to a close, so I just went in and 1:59:25.520 --> 1:59:27.680 closed it out and then we moved on. Okay, if 1:59:27.720 --> 1:59:30.520 you look at your CV, you work with certain acts 1:59:30.640 --> 1:59:34.040 for like three or ten years and then it ends. 1:59:34.120 --> 1:59:36.280 So you know, you work with Alice Cooper for six years, 1:59:36.360 --> 1:59:39.440 worked with Jackson Brown for three or four years. Why 1:59:39.520 --> 1:59:42.960 did these relationships end? Well, I mean sometimes it's just 1:59:43.080 --> 1:59:45.840 a matter of scheduling, you know, where you can't. I 1:59:45.880 --> 1:59:49.720 mean I was really fortunate to be able to really 1:59:49.840 --> 1:59:52.920 kind of buttressed together two or three acts there during 1:59:52.960 --> 1:59:55.360 the nineties, where I was if I wasn't working with Rush, 1:59:55.360 --> 1:59:57.480 I was working with Petty. If I wasn't working with Petty, 1:59:57.480 --> 1:59:59.960 I was working with Matchbox twenty, and just the round 2:00:00.080 --> 2:00:03.480 robin just continued. But at some point, you know, especially 2:00:03.520 --> 2:00:06.000 after Rush shut down for a little bit and then 2:00:06.040 --> 2:00:08.800 they were going to come back, that's I had a 2:00:08.920 --> 2:00:12.520 scheduling collision then, and I couldn't do both. I just 2:00:13.080 --> 2:00:14.800 they just was going to be impossible to do both. 2:00:14.840 --> 2:00:16.440 So I had to pull the record on one of them. 2:00:16.920 --> 2:00:19.000 And it was heartbreaking to do it. I mean, I 2:00:20.080 --> 2:00:22.200 I felt like I could have retired mixing Rush. I 2:00:22.520 --> 2:00:25.440 just loved that organization and those guys so much and 2:00:25.560 --> 2:00:28.320 loved that music so much. But it wasn't to be, 2:00:28.720 --> 2:00:31.840 you know, it wasn't to be. Okay if also, you're 2:00:31.880 --> 2:00:35.640 known for being an exercise junkie, and the thing that 2:00:35.920 --> 2:00:40.680 stuck out to me was the swim from Alcatraz to 2:00:40.880 --> 2:00:44.920 the shore, so illuminate that. Yeah, well this all kind 2:00:44.960 --> 2:00:47.960 of you know, this whole thing kind of started. You know, 2:00:48.040 --> 2:00:50.680 when you turn fifty, you know, weird things happened in 2:00:50.760 --> 2:00:53.360 your brain, you know. I mean, you know, when when 2:00:53.400 --> 2:00:54.480 I was growing up, when I was a kid, I 2:00:54.520 --> 2:00:56.600 was I always struggled between two things. Don't want to 2:00:56.600 --> 2:00:57.880 be an athlete? Who want to be a musician? I 2:00:57.880 --> 2:00:59.280 want to be an athlete. I wanna be a musician, 2:00:59.320 --> 2:01:01.600 and I you know, going through that as a teenager. 2:01:02.160 --> 2:01:05.120 And finally, you know, rightly, so it settled on music 2:01:05.200 --> 2:01:08.280 than goodness, because I'm not an athlete. I mean, if 2:01:08.320 --> 2:01:09.640 you looked at me, you were just going, yeah, not 2:01:09.720 --> 2:01:13.800 an athlete. But that said, you know, touring in and 2:01:13.920 --> 2:01:16.800 of itself is a physical activity. I mean, it is 2:01:17.160 --> 2:01:19.240 something that requires I mean, if you're gonna do it 2:01:19.320 --> 2:01:21.600 well and stay on top of it, you know, there's 2:01:21.600 --> 2:01:23.520 a physical element to it. And it's part of what 2:01:23.600 --> 2:01:24.960 I love about it. It's part of what I love 2:01:24.960 --> 2:01:27.480 about it more than being in the studio, which is 2:01:27.640 --> 2:01:30.360 very sedentary. But I like me and moving. I like 2:01:30.640 --> 2:01:33.080 my windshield changing every day, all of that kind of stuff. 2:01:33.120 --> 2:01:36.960 But It's physically very, very demanding. And I got kind 2:01:37.000 --> 2:01:39.160 of turned onto this by a friend of mine here 2:01:39.200 --> 2:01:41.040 in town. You know, a neighbor friend of mine who 2:01:41.120 --> 2:01:42.840 was doing this. I was at a party. We were 2:01:42.880 --> 2:01:45.280 just chatting one night, and I was just about to 2:01:45.320 --> 2:01:50.600 turn fifty, and somehow this subject came up of swimming Alcatraz, 2:01:51.000 --> 2:01:52.760 and I was like, hang on, hang on a minute, 2:01:52.920 --> 2:01:55.440 hang on, you're telling me that they actually let you 2:01:55.600 --> 2:01:58.360 do that. And he was like, yeah, yeah, they hold 2:01:58.360 --> 2:02:01.560 a race every year. They they do it as a biathlon, 2:02:01.720 --> 2:02:03.440 and then they do this thing called the Escape from 2:02:03.440 --> 2:02:06.440 Alcatraz where you swim from the island into Golden Gate 2:02:06.520 --> 2:02:09.760 Park and or down to the Aquatic Center down there. 2:02:10.200 --> 2:02:12.920 I was like, okay, I'm all in. I am all in. 2:02:13.120 --> 2:02:15.840 I want to do this right now. I've never been 2:02:15.880 --> 2:02:19.880 a competitive swimmer, never been anything even remotely like that. 2:02:20.040 --> 2:02:21.680 I thought, okay, I'm going to train to do this, 2:02:21.920 --> 2:02:24.560 and and sure enough went and got a trainer and 2:02:24.920 --> 2:02:27.360 started doing it and did the swim. I mean it 2:02:27.960 --> 2:02:30.560 was you know, if you kind of read this, I 2:02:30.640 --> 2:02:32.320 kind of revealed this a little bit in my CB. 2:02:32.600 --> 2:02:36.520 So I've always been this way in my life where 2:02:36.640 --> 2:02:38.760 I've and I think it served me well in my 2:02:39.040 --> 2:02:41.240 in my job as a mixer as well as I've 2:02:41.280 --> 2:02:43.920 never backed down from anything. Right, if you put it 2:02:43.960 --> 2:02:45.840 in front of me and tell me I can't do it, 2:02:45.880 --> 2:02:47.600 I'm probably gonna find a way to do it. I 2:02:47.760 --> 2:02:53.320 like running at challenges, and all of the events like 2:02:53.400 --> 2:02:55.320 that that I do are like that. They're just things 2:02:55.360 --> 2:02:57.560 where you go, why would anybody do that? And it's like, well, 2:02:57.560 --> 2:02:59.680 I want to do it, because I don't I'm going 2:02:59.720 --> 2:03:02.520 to be uncomfortable doing it. You know that whole concept 2:03:02.600 --> 2:03:07.040 of get comfortable being uncomfortable. Man, that's that's concert life 2:03:07.120 --> 2:03:09.200 in a nutshell right there. You know, you've got to 2:03:09.240 --> 2:03:12.240 be able to manage your emotions and and get comfortable 2:03:12.280 --> 2:03:15.879 being uncomfortable. Right. Okay, so we've all seen the movies, etcetera. 2:03:16.120 --> 2:03:20.320 Supposedly you couldn't escape from Alcatraz. So how hard was 2:03:20.480 --> 2:03:23.880 the swim? Well, it's freaking hard, but you know you're 2:03:23.920 --> 2:03:25.400 doing it in a wet suit. I mean, you've got 2:03:25.520 --> 2:03:28.080 all the things in your favor there as opposed to 2:03:28.120 --> 2:03:31.560 be in a prisoner. You know, some malnutrition prisoner who's 2:03:31.560 --> 2:03:35.320 gonna try to swim and those I mean freezing cold 2:03:35.400 --> 2:03:38.160 water to try to get there, you know, try to 2:03:38.240 --> 2:03:40.880 do that without a wet suit. Although I mean, I'll 2:03:40.880 --> 2:03:42.680 tell the story because I love telling the story for 2:03:42.800 --> 2:03:44.520 some reason. You know, when you go out there, like 2:03:44.600 --> 2:03:46.000 you you march down the street and you get on 2:03:46.040 --> 2:03:48.440 a big barge and they take you out, you know, 2:03:48.520 --> 2:03:52.280 to the southwest portion of the island and you jump 2:03:52.320 --> 2:03:54.040 off into the water and you tread water there for 2:03:54.160 --> 2:03:57.040 you know, fifteen twenty minutes until the race starts. So 2:03:57.200 --> 2:04:00.560 we're on the we're on the barge and everybody's in 2:04:00.640 --> 2:04:02.760 full wet suit everything, you know, because it's I mean 2:04:02.840 --> 2:04:05.680 it's cold water. And there are three girls on the 2:04:05.760 --> 2:04:08.280 barge with us, and we're looking at them, going, well, 2:04:08.280 --> 2:04:11.320 they're wearing one piece bathing suits. What the heck is 2:04:11.400 --> 2:04:13.320 this all about? These girls aren't gonna last five minutes 2:04:13.640 --> 2:04:19.080 in the water. They were Olympic swimmers. They were Olympic swimmers. 2:04:19.080 --> 2:04:21.120 They did the swimming about twenty five minutes, you know, 2:04:21.120 --> 2:04:25.160 I mean, they just beat the hypothermia. It's like, yeah, 2:04:25.200 --> 2:04:27.120 I feel like such a man right now. This is 2:04:27.280 --> 2:04:29.040 this is great. How long did it take you? And 2:04:29.160 --> 2:04:31.600 how bad are the currents? The currents are for real, 2:04:32.040 --> 2:04:34.280 and you've got to know where they are and and 2:04:34.400 --> 2:04:36.160 know how the currents because they do the race two 2:04:36.200 --> 2:04:38.080 times a year and the currents are different for each one, 2:04:38.120 --> 2:04:39.680 so you've got to study the currents a little bit 2:04:40.120 --> 2:04:41.840 and know it. And there's a guide boat out there, 2:04:41.920 --> 2:04:44.760 so you can kind of stay focused on the guide boat, 2:04:44.800 --> 2:04:46.400 but you know, you you kind of site toward the 2:04:46.440 --> 2:04:49.280 Transamerica building in the city and then let let the 2:04:49.320 --> 2:04:51.640 current kind of help you. But you you've gotta gotta swim. 2:04:51.920 --> 2:04:54.360 You kinda kind of edge against the current because if 2:04:54.400 --> 2:04:58.680 you miss the entrance to um the Aquatic Park down there, 2:04:58.800 --> 2:05:01.080 it takes you down underneath the ridge and you're out 2:05:01.160 --> 2:05:03.040 to see and have to go get rescued, you know. 2:05:03.200 --> 2:05:06.160 So you gotta pay really close attention to it. But 2:05:06.320 --> 2:05:08.560 it's hard, man, especially if the wakes are up there. 2:05:08.760 --> 2:05:11.040 That is a that is a challenging swim. It's just 2:05:11.240 --> 2:05:14.600 just under two miles, so you gotta you've got trained 2:05:14.600 --> 2:05:16.280 for it. You gotta be ready. So how long does 2:05:16.360 --> 2:05:18.320 it take you? I I did really well. I did 2:05:18.400 --> 2:05:20.760 surprisingly well. I mean I was right. I think I 2:05:21.360 --> 2:05:23.560 have on the wall out here somewhere. I know, I 2:05:23.640 --> 2:05:26.600 think I was something like forty nine minutes. So I 2:05:26.920 --> 2:05:29.040 finished in the It was a thousand people in the 2:05:29.120 --> 2:05:32.360 water for the start, which that in and of itself 2:05:32.440 --> 2:05:35.480 is just pure survival. But once they get started, you know, 2:05:35.480 --> 2:05:38.000 and you get going. But I finished, you know, top 2:05:38.080 --> 2:05:40.520 three hundred, top four hundred in it, which was really 2:05:40.600 --> 2:05:42.440 I was thrilled. I was like, there's no way I'm 2:05:42.480 --> 2:05:44.880 going to finish that high in this, but did great 2:05:44.920 --> 2:05:47.480 with it. So how often do you do with challenge? 2:05:47.680 --> 2:05:51.240 What's the hardest challenge you've done. I've been doing them 2:05:51.280 --> 2:05:53.760 every year since I turned fifty. I mean I've probably 2:05:53.840 --> 2:05:58.040 done in that time, I don't know, maybe fifty triathlons 2:05:58.920 --> 2:06:00.960 something like that, and I you know, I love doing 2:06:01.000 --> 2:06:02.800 these for periods of time. I was really into doing 2:06:02.840 --> 2:06:07.280 these tough mutter events, so I've done. In seventeen, I 2:06:07.320 --> 2:06:09.560 did this thing called World's Toughest Mutter, which is a 2:06:09.640 --> 2:06:13.040 twenty four hour race where you do I think it 2:06:13.160 --> 2:06:17.600 was twenty two obstacles on a five mile course. Uh, 2:06:18.000 --> 2:06:19.880 you know, all kinds of water, all kinds of really 2:06:20.120 --> 2:06:22.840 crazy obstacles, you know, electro shock, all kinds of things 2:06:22.880 --> 2:06:24.920 like that, and you do as many lapses as you 2:06:24.960 --> 2:06:28.080 can do of that in twenty four hours, so uh, 2:06:28.200 --> 2:06:30.280 and get as high on my allege as you can get. 2:06:30.520 --> 2:06:33.440 So I've done that twice. Those are really challenging. I 2:06:33.480 --> 2:06:35.200 think probably one of the most challenging things I did, 2:06:35.240 --> 2:06:37.720 probably short of Iron Man. Iron Man is really really 2:06:37.760 --> 2:06:41.240 a challenging event. But it was probably the Great Wall Marathon. 2:06:41.280 --> 2:06:43.760 I did the marathon on the Great Wall, and man, 2:06:45.480 --> 2:06:47.000 that was as close as I've ever come to not 2:06:47.080 --> 2:06:50.080 being able to finish a race because it's it's a 2:06:50.120 --> 2:06:52.960 full on marathon and within the marathon itself, you have 2:06:53.600 --> 2:06:58.280 essentially two two hundred and ten hundred fifteen story stair 2:06:58.360 --> 2:07:02.360 climbs inside a marathon. One happens at mile five and 2:07:02.400 --> 2:07:05.760 the other happens at about mile te and man, I 2:07:06.160 --> 2:07:07.760 didn't think I was going to finish it, but any 2:07:07.920 --> 2:07:10.200 it's a time limit, you have so much amount of 2:07:10.240 --> 2:07:11.960 time to finish that. But that was the hardest, probably 2:07:11.960 --> 2:07:15.000 the hardest thing mentally I ever had to tackle. Okay, 2:07:15.080 --> 2:07:17.240 So at this point in time, what are all the 2:07:17.360 --> 2:07:21.320 activities you're working on. I am currently well working for 2:07:21.440 --> 2:07:24.320 Chesney obviously, and you know we're really only doing about 2:07:24.320 --> 2:07:26.040 two shows a week on that we do a stadium 2:07:26.080 --> 2:07:28.680 every Saturday, and sometimes they'll throw in a shed show 2:07:28.960 --> 2:07:30.920 on you know, a Thursday or something like that, so 2:07:31.000 --> 2:07:33.760 it's not a terribly demanding schedule. And then the other 2:07:33.800 --> 2:07:36.560 times I'm working for avid Um, you know, doing the 2:07:36.560 --> 2:07:39.880 console design and development for them. So I've been you know, 2:07:40.000 --> 2:07:43.760 that's been kind of my stability gig, which I really love. 2:07:43.800 --> 2:07:45.840 I love working for the company and and love being 2:07:45.880 --> 2:07:48.400 able to contribute that piece of it to the industry, 2:07:48.960 --> 2:07:51.080 so that that's a lot of fun. And then you know, 2:07:51.160 --> 2:07:52.640 the rest of the time is just picking up other 2:07:52.800 --> 2:07:55.320 odd jobs. I love doing the award shows now, those 2:07:55.320 --> 2:07:57.440 are really fun to do. I recorded my first opera 2:07:57.640 --> 2:08:01.320 this past year. I did opera called The Copper Queen 2:08:02.120 --> 2:08:05.400 recorded that here in Phoenix, the Phoenix Eymphony. That was 2:08:05.520 --> 2:08:08.600 really fun to do. So, you know, there's no lack 2:08:08.680 --> 2:08:10.880 of work. Okay, So in the old days, you're going 2:08:10.960 --> 2:08:13.280 from tour to tour to tour. How much do you 2:08:13.360 --> 2:08:15.760 want to work now on the road as much as 2:08:15.840 --> 2:08:18.480 you can or you have a limit. I certainly don't 2:08:18.480 --> 2:08:20.120 want to work at the schedule I was working at 2:08:20.160 --> 2:08:22.760 in the late eighties and nineties. I mean, you know, 2:08:22.920 --> 2:08:24.760 I just I just don't want to work that much. 2:08:24.800 --> 2:08:26.760 I'm very selective about what I want to take and 2:08:26.840 --> 2:08:29.240 go out and do on tour. I mean part of 2:08:29.280 --> 2:08:31.440 the I mean I I really enjoyed the Kinney Chesch 2:08:31.480 --> 2:08:34.320 has anything. I really do. It's an incredible band. I mean, 2:08:34.360 --> 2:08:37.200 what an incredible group of players. I mean it's like, 2:08:37.960 --> 2:08:40.240 you know, mixing a studio band every night who is 2:08:40.280 --> 2:08:43.440 also a really good live band. But you know, the 2:08:43.800 --> 2:08:46.040 thought of getting out and doing trying to conquer all 2:08:46.040 --> 2:08:48.200 the stadiums. I really wanted to get out and do that. 2:08:48.440 --> 2:08:49.880 You know, I've done that. I've done a lot of 2:08:49.920 --> 2:08:53.280 stadium work in the past, but not to this level 2:08:53.320 --> 2:08:55.360 where I have my hands on it every single night 2:08:55.440 --> 2:08:58.080 for a stadium. That's like I said, that's I said 2:08:58.080 --> 2:09:01.720 it multiple times here. That's adult audio, really challenging to 2:09:01.800 --> 2:09:04.960 do really, really well. So I I was looking forward 2:09:05.000 --> 2:09:07.000 to take that on. Just to stop there one second. 2:09:07.360 --> 2:09:10.960 When Kenny play stadium, there's a retinue of acts. Do 2:09:11.040 --> 2:09:14.160 you mix all those acts? No? Just Kenny, just Kenny. 2:09:14.440 --> 2:09:16.440 I have done that in the past, like for one 2:09:16.480 --> 2:09:18.640 Tom Petty tour where Jackson was opening, I mixed both 2:09:18.760 --> 2:09:21.760 Jackson and Tom for the show. But that's that's pretty rare. 2:09:21.840 --> 2:09:23.640 You don't get a chance to do that very often. Okay, 2:09:23.720 --> 2:09:26.400 so you pick and choose. So at this point in time, 2:09:26.440 --> 2:09:28.160 you're on the road. How much of a year. I 2:09:28.280 --> 2:09:31.480 granted we've had COVID, but generally speaking, yeah, well, I mean, 2:09:31.920 --> 2:09:35.400 you know, Petty, you know, worked at a really civilized schedule. 2:09:35.480 --> 2:09:38.680 I mean, he wouldn't do more than you know, really 2:09:38.800 --> 2:09:41.400 rarely did more than three shows a week, four shows 2:09:41.520 --> 2:09:43.320 at the outside, So you know, that was a really 2:09:43.360 --> 2:09:46.960 civilized schedule. It was really civilized travel. I could do 2:09:47.160 --> 2:09:48.960 my I could do all the avid work while I 2:09:49.000 --> 2:09:50.800 was on the road because I'm an remote employee for 2:09:50.840 --> 2:09:53.240 them anyway, So it doesn't matter whether I'm working from 2:09:53.320 --> 2:09:55.360 my office or I'm working for the bus or working 2:09:55.360 --> 2:09:57.440 from a hotel room, and just doesn't matter. It's all 2:09:57.520 --> 2:09:59.200 kind of task based, you know, as long as I 2:09:59.200 --> 2:10:02.080 can get the work done, doesn't matter where I do it. Uh. 2:10:02.240 --> 2:10:04.800 As far as touring itself, you know, I'm a lot 2:10:04.920 --> 2:10:07.960 more picky about who I work for now, and you know, 2:10:08.040 --> 2:10:09.920 what the show is going to be, what the setting 2:10:10.040 --> 2:10:12.080 is going to be. So I'm I mean, I'm very 2:10:13.120 --> 2:10:14.880 blessed to be able to kind of be a little 2:10:14.920 --> 2:10:17.800 picky about who I choose to work for now. I 2:10:17.840 --> 2:10:20.720 mean the Chesney. Part of the attraction to the Chesney 2:10:20.760 --> 2:10:24.680 camp is it's just the greatest group of people. It's 2:10:24.800 --> 2:10:27.040 very much like the Petty camp in that regard, where 2:10:27.160 --> 2:10:29.080 you know, these are people you would hang out with 2:10:29.280 --> 2:10:32.000 off tour, you know, not just on tour. So you know, 2:10:32.200 --> 2:10:34.440 they're very enjoyable people to hang around with. So that 2:10:34.560 --> 2:10:37.520 that makes the whole thing even better and even more easy, 2:10:37.680 --> 2:10:40.120 you know. And do you have any children and what 2:10:40.240 --> 2:10:42.880 have you sacrifice being on the road all those years. 2:10:43.200 --> 2:10:46.040 I have three children who are all grown now. I 2:10:46.120 --> 2:10:49.760 have a twenty six year old daughter who is doing 2:10:49.920 --> 2:10:53.800 fantastic and fashion uh and designed. She I actually had 2:10:53.840 --> 2:10:55.720 her out on the last Tom Petty tour. She was 2:10:55.760 --> 2:10:57.920 one of the wardrobe stylists for Tom Petty for the 2:10:58.000 --> 2:11:01.920 last tour. But she's gone on to do other photography 2:11:01.960 --> 2:11:05.640 and styling work for commercials, etcetera, just doing fantastic. I 2:11:05.760 --> 2:11:10.000 have a middle son who's twenty three, who is completely 2:11:10.160 --> 2:11:13.160 wrapped up in the skateboard world. He is an incredible 2:11:13.200 --> 2:11:15.480 skater and a videographer now, him and a buddy have 2:11:15.640 --> 2:11:19.280 started a company called Liquid Chicken where they do all 2:11:19.320 --> 2:11:22.320 these I really just fantastic skate videos. He's got a 2:11:22.320 --> 2:11:24.960 really cool thing going on there. And then my youngest 2:11:25.120 --> 2:11:28.200 is probably the most musically inclined to the bunch. He's drummer, 2:11:28.240 --> 2:11:31.200 bass player. He'll end up being a producer by the 2:11:31.280 --> 2:11:34.080 time it's all said and done. But he's actually thinking 2:11:34.080 --> 2:11:36.160 about getting into folly work. He wants to do fully. 2:11:36.240 --> 2:11:37.960 I think he's kind of gotten the bug from doing 2:11:37.960 --> 2:11:40.520 all the gaming and everything. He's you know, he's kind 2:11:40.520 --> 2:11:43.080 of come to me and said, tell me about tell 2:11:43.120 --> 2:11:46.840 me about fully. How do you get into that? So 2:11:46.960 --> 2:11:48.960 that's that's pretty cool. He's he's just out of high school. 2:11:48.960 --> 2:11:51.280 He graduated last year. And you're still married to the 2:11:51.400 --> 2:11:55.880 same woman I am thirty five plus years now something 2:11:55.920 --> 2:11:59.120 like that. Yeah, we're kind of an outlier there. We've been. 2:11:59.280 --> 2:12:02.160 We've been together since day one, since we met, and 2:12:03.520 --> 2:12:05.400 I mean it feels as strong now as it's ever felt. 2:12:05.520 --> 2:12:07.280 She's actually looking forward to be going on the road 2:12:07.320 --> 2:12:09.360 because she's an empty nester now and she can come 2:12:09.400 --> 2:12:12.400 out and and to her now, so she wants to 2:12:12.480 --> 2:12:14.480 come out, you know, which was what we did in 2:12:14.520 --> 2:12:17.080 the early days. You know, we kind of you know, 2:12:17.120 --> 2:12:19.400 I think we were as a couple. I look back 2:12:19.440 --> 2:12:20.920 on it now, ago we were smart enough to do 2:12:21.040 --> 2:12:24.040 some really smart things there with our relationship, Like we 2:12:24.160 --> 2:12:26.360 were smart enough to know that, you know, if we 2:12:26.440 --> 2:12:29.640 were physically apart from more than two weeks, three weeks, 2:12:29.920 --> 2:12:32.640 three weeks was really outside, then it was just cost 2:12:32.680 --> 2:12:34.600 of business. She has to come out, we have to 2:12:34.640 --> 2:12:39.200 be together, continue bonding, etcetera. So that was kind of 2:12:39.240 --> 2:12:41.480 the rule up until the time we had, you know, 2:12:41.880 --> 2:12:43.480 until we got up to two kids, and then she 2:12:43.640 --> 2:12:46.160 was pretty homebound. From that point on. It was hard 2:12:46.200 --> 2:12:47.880 to bring the kids out on tour, and I'd end 2:12:48.000 --> 2:12:50.360 up in Arizona, you know. You know, I was in 2:12:50.560 --> 2:12:53.640 l A for the longest time, working there, you know, again, 2:12:53.720 --> 2:12:57.000 doing studio work and life sound work there. Uh, you know, 2:12:57.120 --> 2:12:59.040 working out a did a fair amount of work out 2:12:59.040 --> 2:13:02.320 of Keith Olsen's place good Night l A. You know, 2:13:02.680 --> 2:13:07.000 working with a bunch of people there, excuse me. And 2:13:07.080 --> 2:13:09.040 then at some point, you know, I started realizing, you 2:13:09.080 --> 2:13:10.440 know what, I don't need to live in l A 2:13:10.520 --> 2:13:14.080 to work in l A. So, uh, you know, we decided, 2:13:14.280 --> 2:13:15.880 you know, I was going to live somewhere else, someone 2:13:15.920 --> 2:13:19.440 that was less expensive, that's for sure. And both me 2:13:19.480 --> 2:13:21.320 and my wife were really big fans of the Southwest. 2:13:21.320 --> 2:13:23.480 I mean we looked at we looked at Taos for 2:13:23.520 --> 2:13:25.839 a little bit, and you know, places in New Mexico, 2:13:26.040 --> 2:13:28.440 and but at some point it was just like, Wow, Scottsdale, 2:13:28.480 --> 2:13:30.160 it's just such a great fit. I mean, it's so 2:13:30.320 --> 2:13:32.040 easy to get in and out of Los Angeles if 2:13:32.040 --> 2:13:34.280 I want to do it. You know, I had a 2:13:34.680 --> 2:13:37.760 I just kept my phone number, uh my l a 2:13:37.840 --> 2:13:39.960 phone number for the longest time, but lived in Arizona. 2:13:40.120 --> 2:13:42.320 And you know, if somebody called me up and said, hey, 2:13:42.360 --> 2:13:43.920 we got session brewining, you want to come in and 2:13:43.960 --> 2:13:45.200 do it, I'd said, give me a couple of hours 2:13:45.280 --> 2:13:48.600 and I go jump down on jump in Southwest Airlines 2:13:48.640 --> 2:13:50.320 and get there and and go do the work. So 2:13:51.280 --> 2:13:53.200 but you know, one of the things that drew me 2:13:53.280 --> 2:13:56.120 here at the time was, you know, like I kind 2:13:56.120 --> 2:13:57.600 of mentioned earlier, at one point, I was trying to 2:13:57.640 --> 2:14:00.480 put together my own studio and my own label. And 2:14:00.800 --> 2:14:02.600 you know, at that time, this was around the time 2:14:02.680 --> 2:14:04.760 I guess the gin blossoms were breaking out of here 2:14:04.840 --> 2:14:07.280 and some of the other people were coming out of Phoenix, 2:14:07.320 --> 2:14:09.760 and there was a lot of metal bands coming out 2:14:09.760 --> 2:14:13.560 of Phoenix. Um, I think Megadeth. Think. I think Dave 2:14:13.800 --> 2:14:15.040 was still here and he was doing a lot of 2:14:15.080 --> 2:14:17.320 Megadeth stuff out of here. And I was looking to 2:14:17.480 --> 2:14:19.480 come here and really cultivate some talent out of this 2:14:19.640 --> 2:14:22.760 area and start a label here. That was my goal. Uh, 2:14:22.880 --> 2:14:25.000 And I did okay with it. I did okay with it. 2:14:25.160 --> 2:14:28.600 I got probably five six bands signed to the label 2:14:28.680 --> 2:14:30.640 and then was trying to move them up. I had 2:14:30.680 --> 2:14:32.560 some inroads into Atlantic. I was trying to get them 2:14:32.560 --> 2:14:34.000 signed in there. But you know, at the end of 2:14:34.040 --> 2:14:35.720 the day, it was a lot of money spent, and 2:14:37.360 --> 2:14:38.960 you know, I just kind of had this epiphany at 2:14:39.000 --> 2:14:40.480 some point. It's like, you know, this is not my thing. 2:14:40.560 --> 2:14:41.960 As much as I wanted to believe I could be 2:14:42.040 --> 2:14:45.360 a producer, I just didn't really have the right chops 2:14:45.440 --> 2:14:48.640 for it. I mean, I didn't have enough musical acumen 2:14:48.720 --> 2:14:51.840 to really be a good producer. And the whole role 2:14:51.920 --> 2:14:54.040 even of a producer was changing during that period. The 2:14:54.120 --> 2:14:56.080 music industry was kind of upside down at that point, 2:14:57.160 --> 2:14:59.160 and it just kind of pushed me away. I just thought, 2:14:59.160 --> 2:15:00.760 you know what my thing is going to be live, 2:15:00.920 --> 2:15:03.480 and I know I have some things to contribute to 2:15:03.560 --> 2:15:06.800 the life sound world that are going to shape it 2:15:06.920 --> 2:15:08.400 and change it a little bit. I could just feel 2:15:08.440 --> 2:15:10.800 that coming, you know, So I really just kind of 2:15:10.840 --> 2:15:13.840 pulled the record on the studio and that whole kind 2:15:13.840 --> 2:15:15.440 of thing. Even though I was I was still mixing 2:15:15.480 --> 2:15:17.960 a lot of stuff there, I stopped tracking. I mean, 2:15:17.960 --> 2:15:20.800 I had a little mobile recording trailer that I would 2:15:20.800 --> 2:15:22.600 pull around and do events and stuff here and and 2:15:22.760 --> 2:15:25.240 do some mixing and stuff. But really I kind of 2:15:25.280 --> 2:15:28.520 got away from the label dream and just focused entirely 2:15:28.560 --> 2:15:30.840 on live sound. And you know, as as it's turned out, 2:15:30.880 --> 2:15:33.360 it served me very very well. How lucrative is it 2:15:33.480 --> 2:15:35.720 being a front of the house engineer depends on how 2:15:35.800 --> 2:15:39.600 good you are. Bob, Well, you're an elite player. I 2:15:39.680 --> 2:15:41.520 make more than I ever dreapt. I would make at it, 2:15:41.680 --> 2:15:43.360 I'll tell you that. I mean, I remember in the 2:15:43.640 --> 2:15:47.320 very early days of this, in the early eighties, just thinking, man, 2:15:47.480 --> 2:15:50.440 if I could just make if I could just make 2:15:50.480 --> 2:15:53.240 seven fifty bucks, maybe a thousand dollars a week, I 2:15:53.320 --> 2:15:58.800 could do this forever. You know. Needless to say, we've 2:15:59.000 --> 2:16:01.240 we've moved on past that figure. So yeah, no, I 2:16:01.720 --> 2:16:04.320 I've lived very comfortably. I mean, I'm not a high 2:16:04.360 --> 2:16:07.880 maintenance guy. Not I don't require a lot in my life. 2:16:07.920 --> 2:16:09.600 I can. I think I could actually live very simply, 2:16:09.760 --> 2:16:11.240 and I think that comes from living on the road. 2:16:11.320 --> 2:16:14.920 You learn how to live simple and and entertain yourself, 2:16:15.040 --> 2:16:17.280 you know. So, I mean I have a beautiful home here, etcetera. 2:16:17.320 --> 2:16:19.680 Don't get me wrong, but I don't think I have 2:16:19.840 --> 2:16:22.360 to have that to survive. So you've achieved so much. 2:16:23.120 --> 2:16:27.360 Any dreams left, goals left, people you want to work with. 2:16:28.200 --> 2:16:29.880 I mean, so many of the bands that I dreamt 2:16:29.880 --> 2:16:34.320 about working with, you know, I really don't exist anymore, etcetera. 2:16:34.560 --> 2:16:35.840 You know, there are still bands that I would I 2:16:35.920 --> 2:16:37.800 would love to go out and do and really try 2:16:37.840 --> 2:16:41.280 to put a really interesting spin on doing it, like 2:16:41.360 --> 2:16:43.640 do it really unique. I mean, there's there's this whole 2:16:44.120 --> 2:16:47.440 movement now and p A systems and and mixing consoles 2:16:47.480 --> 2:16:50.600 to do immersive work in in the life sound space. 2:16:50.920 --> 2:16:53.480 I'm really excited about trying to do some of that. 2:16:53.680 --> 2:16:54.800 I mean, I would love to go out and mix 2:16:54.840 --> 2:16:57.840 somebody like tool uh, you know, and do that kind 2:16:57.879 --> 2:17:00.760 of thing. Um. I mean, certainly in my heyday, I 2:17:00.800 --> 2:17:03.920 would have loved to mix Queen. I would have loved 2:17:03.959 --> 2:17:06.279 to mix the who you know, any of those bands 2:17:06.680 --> 2:17:09.160 that would have been just my dream gigs. But like 2:17:09.240 --> 2:17:11.240 I said earlier, I really got to mix my dream gig. 2:17:11.280 --> 2:17:14.240 Brush was my dream gig. That's the one I always 2:17:14.280 --> 2:17:16.800 clamored after to do. You know, what is this immersive 2:17:16.920 --> 2:17:20.520 thing you're talking about, Well, think of it like, although 2:17:20.600 --> 2:17:23.920 this is gonna probably confuse the issue more than than 2:17:23.959 --> 2:17:27.440 actually explain it, but think of it like atmost but 2:17:27.600 --> 2:17:29.600 for a live sound that's that's what it's gonna end 2:17:29.680 --> 2:17:32.360 up being. It's this thing called object mixing versus bus 2:17:32.520 --> 2:17:35.440 mixing for a live sound, and it stands to really 2:17:35.560 --> 2:17:39.960 really do some amazing things in sound production live sound 2:17:40.000 --> 2:17:42.440 production for sure, because you know, at risk of going 2:17:42.480 --> 2:17:45.040 into all the geeky part of it again. You know, stereo, 2:17:45.320 --> 2:17:49.080 as we've known it is great really for the majority 2:17:49.120 --> 2:17:51.120 of things that we do in our world. You know, 2:17:51.200 --> 2:17:54.240 we listen to almost everything in stereo still to this day, 2:17:55.240 --> 2:17:57.840 but large format stereo by the time you get up 2:17:57.840 --> 2:17:59.960 to arenas and by the time you get to stadium 2:18:00.080 --> 2:18:02.880 where you have these very large distance between the left 2:18:02.920 --> 2:18:05.240 and the right of the stereo can cause lots of 2:18:05.320 --> 2:18:09.279 problems in terms of coverage and consistency in sound stereot 2:18:09.360 --> 2:18:12.600 large format stereo is is really not the ideal thing 2:18:13.879 --> 2:18:17.360 to do in large format live sound, and the concept 2:18:17.400 --> 2:18:20.840 of doing it uh in an immersive speaker format is 2:18:22.000 --> 2:18:26.080 highly desirable, highly desirable. But we again this is again 2:18:26.120 --> 2:18:28.680 where the technology and we're just at that point in 2:18:28.760 --> 2:18:30.720 history where the technology is going to allow us to 2:18:30.800 --> 2:18:33.440 actually do it. The consoles have the capability of doing it. 2:18:34.240 --> 2:18:37.200 We have the ability in in these big DSP processors 2:18:37.280 --> 2:18:40.640 to build an immersive environment. We have the speaker system 2:18:40.720 --> 2:18:43.760 capabilities to do it. You know, all the pieces are 2:18:43.800 --> 2:18:45.840 falling in place to do it, and certainly the music 2:18:45.959 --> 2:18:48.760 is lending itself to it, you know, so it could 2:18:48.800 --> 2:18:51.240 be it could be very cool. Before that, when you mix, 2:18:51.320 --> 2:18:54.640 you're essentially mixing mono or are you mixing stereo? I 2:18:54.920 --> 2:18:56.840 call it kind of a wide modo. I mean, it's 2:18:57.000 --> 2:19:01.160 it's not mono in the sense really model by definition 2:19:01.200 --> 2:19:06.280 should be one speaker cluster, right, So stereo with everything 2:19:06.360 --> 2:19:09.280 pan to the center is kind of model, but it's 2:19:09.320 --> 2:19:12.640 not really model. So you know, I kind of for 2:19:13.200 --> 2:19:15.040 large format concerts, I'm kind of doing what I call 2:19:15.160 --> 2:19:18.160 wide model. Sure, there are things panned out left and 2:19:18.280 --> 2:19:20.720 right to do things, but for the most part, the 2:19:20.760 --> 2:19:23.560 most important information is at the center and is modeled 2:19:23.560 --> 2:19:25.879 because you want with the entire room to be able 2:19:25.920 --> 2:19:27.960 to read it right. You don't want people on one 2:19:27.959 --> 2:19:29.800 side of the room not hearing other things on the 2:19:29.840 --> 2:19:31.800 other side of the room. Just to go back a chapter, 2:19:31.959 --> 2:19:34.640 if there's twenty thousand people in the arena, actually most 2:19:34.680 --> 2:19:36.280 of them are a little bit smaller, but let's use 2:19:36.360 --> 2:19:41.040 twenty thousand, and you're using the sphere concept. Everybody there 2:19:41.120 --> 2:19:43.680 is getting a different sound. But if you're using the 2:19:43.800 --> 2:19:47.800 immersive concept, are I going to hear something completely different? 2:19:47.959 --> 2:19:51.160 If I'm you know, up in the rafters as opposed 2:19:51.160 --> 2:19:53.440 to on the floor, you could. I mean, in that 2:19:53.560 --> 2:19:58.200 situation you're gonna do, You're gonna have areas of seating 2:19:58.560 --> 2:20:01.680 that are going to be optimized for the immersive. Right, 2:20:01.800 --> 2:20:04.280 they're gonna this section of seats, maybe this is the 2:20:04.320 --> 2:20:07.720 floor seats, and the first bowl might be optimized for 2:20:07.800 --> 2:20:11.119 immersive where they get the immersive experience, and then people 2:20:11.200 --> 2:20:13.680 up in the upper things still can hear the show, 2:20:13.920 --> 2:20:16.520 they would hear what would be we would term a 2:20:16.640 --> 2:20:19.520 folded down version of the show. Right, they wouldn't experience 2:20:19.600 --> 2:20:22.119 the spatial element of the immersive, but they would still 2:20:22.320 --> 2:20:25.840 still hear all the elements. Right, So it just becomes 2:20:25.920 --> 2:20:28.480 phil speakers in that part of the arena, and they 2:20:28.560 --> 2:20:30.880 still hear the show and still hear every element of it, 2:20:31.240 --> 2:20:34.879 they just don't experience it immersively. Right. And your favorite buildings? 2:20:35.160 --> 2:20:42.440 Who favorite buildings? Um? I think my favorite sounding building 2:20:42.520 --> 2:20:44.960 that I've mixed in in the past ten years is 2:20:45.000 --> 2:20:48.120 probably the new FedEx Place, FedEx Dome or whatever you 2:20:48.160 --> 2:20:49.760 wanna call it in Memphis. I think the place in 2:20:49.840 --> 2:20:54.400 Memphis just sounds absolutely fantastic. Whatever they've done to it, 2:20:54.520 --> 2:20:56.480 you know what, have treated it however, they've done it 2:20:56.760 --> 2:21:01.520 absolutely fantastic. Um. I love me in the Gorge. I 2:21:01.600 --> 2:21:05.200 love Red Rocks. I love mixing at Red Rocks. I 2:21:05.320 --> 2:21:07.640 like the Hollywood Bowl. I'm actually fine at the Hollywood Bowl. 2:21:07.680 --> 2:21:09.200 I like I like how it sounds there, and I 2:21:09.280 --> 2:21:13.240 like the PA installed they got there. So um, I 2:21:13.320 --> 2:21:16.840 mean there's there's a lot of good places now, you know. 2:21:16.959 --> 2:21:19.920 I mean the architects are doing really good jobs with 2:21:20.120 --> 2:21:22.480 the places. That. Honestly, the places I hate the most 2:21:23.440 --> 2:21:26.039 are the places that are actually designed to do performance, 2:21:26.320 --> 2:21:28.560 which are the indoor outdoor sheds, you know, I think 2:21:28.600 --> 2:21:31.000 those are the those are some of the most challenging 2:21:31.040 --> 2:21:34.440 places to do, which is really unfortunate because they're designed 2:21:34.480 --> 2:21:37.000 to handle performance, you know, just because their indoor outdoor 2:21:37.240 --> 2:21:39.760 and there's a roof, low roof, yeah, just the well, 2:21:39.879 --> 2:21:42.520 you know, you would you would be tempted to think, well, 2:21:42.560 --> 2:21:45.160 it's outdoors, there's no acoustics, blah blah blah. You know, 2:21:45.320 --> 2:21:47.480 but yeah, there is lots of acoustics because of the 2:21:48.200 --> 2:21:52.800 coverage of the audience. It's usually all very hard material, 2:21:53.200 --> 2:21:57.680 very reverberant down under the under the roof. So then 2:21:57.760 --> 2:21:59.560 you have you have to address both worlds. You have 2:21:59.640 --> 2:22:01.800 to addres us a world that is outside the roof, 2:22:02.000 --> 2:22:06.680 which is outside, no reflections, no ambience, no anything, and 2:22:06.760 --> 2:22:09.320 then a very reverberant space down where all the seats are, 2:22:09.800 --> 2:22:14.280 and usually a stage area that sounds less than optimum, 2:22:14.320 --> 2:22:16.600 we'll put it that way. So to me, they're very, 2:22:16.680 --> 2:22:19.440 very challenging to do and very challenging to get speakers 2:22:19.480 --> 2:22:22.279 in the right places, in those right positions, in those places. 2:22:22.400 --> 2:22:25.959 So those are the most disappointing places to me. It's like, gosh, man, Fellas, 2:22:26.000 --> 2:22:28.640 if you're going to design it to do performance, how 2:22:28.640 --> 2:22:32.879 about we take these things into consideration. You know. Well, Robert, 2:22:32.920 --> 2:22:34.960 I want to thank you for taking so much time. 2:22:35.000 --> 2:22:36.640 I could listen to you all day. This is all 2:22:36.720 --> 2:22:39.000 really interesting stuff, because you know, you go to the 2:22:39.040 --> 2:22:41.160 show and you want to know what's behind the Other 2:22:41.240 --> 2:22:44.120 thing I want to say is you sent me the 2:22:44.480 --> 2:22:47.680 article that you wrote about Russell Pope. Yeah. I was 2:22:47.800 --> 2:22:50.600 stunned how well written it was. Oh well, thank you 2:22:50.800 --> 2:22:54.960 that seriously. I mean, I read for a living and 2:22:55.160 --> 2:22:58.800 most people can't write. I mean, so when someone writes, well, 2:22:58.920 --> 2:23:00.880 and this is not blowing smoke because it didn't have it. 2:23:01.040 --> 2:23:04.120 I'm literally reading, I'm shocked because most of this stuff 2:23:04.440 --> 2:23:07.040 is unreadable. Oh my gosh, thank you. I mean, that's 2:23:07.120 --> 2:23:09.280 that's really kind. I mean, I I kind of pride 2:23:09.320 --> 2:23:11.440 myself on it. I mean I've written, you know, dozens 2:23:11.480 --> 2:23:14.280 and dozens of articles and you know, obviously been featured 2:23:14.320 --> 2:23:16.120 in quite a few. But I mean I enjoy writing. 2:23:16.240 --> 2:23:19.520 I do. I I mean I enjoy putting blogs together 2:23:19.680 --> 2:23:22.160 things like that. So yeah, thank you. That's that's very kind. 2:23:22.280 --> 2:23:24.760 I'm very appreciative that you said it's hard felt. In 2:23:24.840 --> 2:23:26.560 any event, I want to thank you taking for the time. 2:23:26.640 --> 2:23:29.760 You've just been fantastic, so thanks again, Well, thank you. 2:23:29.920 --> 2:23:32.040 I mean it's you know, I was a little uh, 2:23:32.680 --> 2:23:34.600 you know when when I was asking to be on 2:23:34.720 --> 2:23:36.200 your show, I was just thinking, oh my gosh, what 2:23:36.360 --> 2:23:37.760 is this sound guy going to talk about on the 2:23:37.800 --> 2:23:40.760 Bob left Side Show. I was like, what are we 2:23:40.800 --> 2:23:43.040 going to cover? Man? But you know, thank you for 2:23:43.120 --> 2:23:45.200 making it so easy. And well, I say, there's so 2:23:45.360 --> 2:23:47.879 much we didn't cover. They go deep in the weeds, 2:23:47.959 --> 2:23:50.520 but I think we got a pretty good s mortgage 2:23:50.600 --> 2:23:54.080 board of what's going on. So Robert, thanks again. Hey, 2:23:54.160 --> 2:23:55.840 thank you and thanks for your letters. I mean, I 2:23:56.160 --> 2:23:58.760 enjoy your your thing. And before this I didn't even 2:23:58.800 --> 2:24:00.959 know you had a podcast. So now I'm really glad 2:24:01.040 --> 2:24:03.120 I can I can listen to you while I'm working 2:24:03.120 --> 2:24:06.199 out now, so it would be good. Absolutely until next time. 2:24:06.560 --> 2:24:29.760 This is Bob left Sex m