244. Continuing The Deep Dive Into Corporate Event Audio

Picking up where they left off in last time (here), in Episode 244 Sean and Andy continue their roundtable on corporate event audio with Aram Piligian, Brian Maddox, and Michael Curtis. Previously, they looked at the input side of corporate audio, and this time, focus shifts to the outputs — how to balance the needs of the live sound in the room with both recordings and live streams as well as how to minimize the sound of the room in a stream and why that may or may not be desirable. They also discuss how to keep an eye and ear on those feeds while still paying attention to the needs of the live audience, and tricks and techniques to get streams to sound as loud as they need to. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Links:
Episode 151: Brian Maddox & The Next Generation Of Audio Professionals
Episode 155, Part 1: Aram Piligian On The A2 Role In Corporate Audio
Episode 179: FOH Mixer, Systems Engineer & Audio Educator Michael Curtis
Episode 227: Events Mix Engineer Pete Wiejaczka
Episode 244 Transcript

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Episode 244 Transcript

Transcript

Episode 244: Continuing The Deep Dive Into Corporate Event Audio

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey everybody, welcome to this week's edition of Signal to Noise. This is actually part two of a conversation that we started in episode 243, so if you haven't listened to that one first, I suggest going back and checking that out. Uh, in that episode we talk with Aram Piligian, Brian Maddox and Michael Curtis all about the input side of corporate events--lav mics, lectern mics, and a bunch of processing tricks and placement tricks to get them to work better for you. 

This week, we're going to focus on the output side and, talk about some strategies for managing live streams and records while also managing in room sound at the same time, since often on small to medium corporate events, one person ends up having to manage both simultaneously. 

Before we do that though, the quick usual bit of housekeeping. First of all, if you love the show, we'd love for you to go into whatever podcast reader you're using, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, uh, anything else, and give us a good 5 star rating and tell people what you think of the show, so you help other people find it too. 

Uh, if you've got feedback on the show, you can also email that to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com. We're also still always looking for more questions from listeners that we can answer on the show or tips and tricks that you might want to share with listeners. 

So if you've got any of those, you can either email those to us as a text and we'll read it for you or make an audio recording and email it to us, orr you can go to http://speakpipe.com/s2n (and again, these are all linked in the show notes) and leave us a voicemail there. Questions, tips, you're also welcome to leave us feedback there as voicemail. 

And if we like what you send us, we'll probably use it in a future show, and otherwise we just love to hear from you either way.That being said, uh, let me get back into the discussion with the guys. I'm going to roll it back and give you just a little bit of a rewind to see where we left off last week, and then we'll hit the ground running. 

Enjoy!

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Brian Maddox: And the, the, the DaNSE, uh, the D A N S E, um, emulation in the Rivage, and I believe it's in the new DM7, uh, is a really, really good emulator for the Cedar, and Cedar done right is, is an amazing, that, that's one that you can put on almost everything, and as long as you, you know, As long as you go easy on it, it will just make everything cleaner and be completely transparent. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and two things I'll say on the on the dance, which is an amazing emulation and one of many, many reasons I love a Rivage anytime I can get it is, (a) if you're in the latest updates to the version six software, they've gotten rid of the extremely disconcerting bug, where after you hit the learn button on dance, audio would not alter at all for a good 10 seconds or so, and it would definitely make you clench a bit. So, if you have avoided using a DaNSE because of that, they have acknowledged and fixed that in one of the recent updates. 

Um, and the other thing which, uh, I think Brian was kind of getting to in passing is that while the default settings work great, if you know what frequency range you are trying to get rid of, you can narrow those handles in. 

And it becomes that much more powerful because the bands can be narrower. Um, and it also takes out the worry of hacking at something you don't want by mistake. And I mean, I've had shows where I've put it on 4099s on like wind and string instruments that were a little too far and picking up too much room. 

And yeah, if you tune it just to that part where you're getting the hiss or the buzz, like it's also one of the best ways to remove bass amp buzz I've ever had. 

Brian Maddox: Yep. 

Andy Leviss: I'm  

Aram Piligian: just nodding vigorously because I've had to do that exact thing. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and you just kind of like, particularly if you dial it in tight to the range that you want to make sure you're not like losing the fundamental. 

I mean, you don't even really have to, but it gets that much better when you do. Um, yeah, that's been a big one. I'm curious if anybody's tried, I think, because Waves make like their spin on that now too. Has anybody used that? I think we, I think we've got homework here. Have you, Michael? 

Michael Curtis: have a handful of times and it's worked well. I get handful meaning two. So a couple of times 

Sean Walker: Is that the clarity? Is that what they call it? 

Michael Curtis: Uh, actually just the the W84 WNS. 

Sean Walker: I gotcha. 

Michael Curtis: So not, so it's like an older processor, but it's similar six band guy. Um, and it was on a Waves LV 1 I was doing for a political gig and it was actually outdoor and it was more for wind noise and road noise rather than like a room. 

Uh, and it was, it worked well. So. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, that was, that was going to be one of my next questions was because I know that's one of those things if I'm doing a recorder or stream, that's one of the first things I'm going to drop in, but I've also taken to doing it when I'm just doing in room sound too. And I'm curious folks feelings on on that side of the question. 

Aram Piligian: It definitely, I find that it definitely, actually does more of what you would hope a 5045 does than, than that. So, you know, helping get rid of. Add the extra room that leaks in, um, just, you know, and it's a lot easier to ride the tightness control, at least in the Yamaha implementation of it. And, um, I have also found adjusting that range so that you're not necessarily getting rid of all the super high dandy stuff, um, cause If you let it, it will totally make it so that, uh, you know, when someone stops talking, it is almost dead silent. 

And, uh, I know Brian has some thoughts on, uh, you know, maybe shouldn't actually be dead silent when someone's not talking, um, in the room, but, uh, or for a stream, let's say, but the in room sound and, you know, what happens For the PA, it really does help clean up that too. 

Brian Maddox: Well, and that's, and that's, and I don't know how much time we have left, so I don't know if we can completely pivot into this, but yes, one of the things that, that you, that you want to watch out for is when you're doing a recording or especially when you're doing a stream, like we've talked about all the different ways that we can clean up lectern mics and clean up lav mics so that it's like all we're hearing is what they're, what they're saying and we're hearing nothing else, um, but then in a stream that ends up sounding really weird because now we don't hear any of the room. 

We don't, we have no sense that this person is speaking to a live audience. It sounds like they're in a studio and that's where you, that's where you start to dial in your, your ambient mics. The great thing is that if you can control all of the ambience that you're getting from the talent mics. Then you can add exactly how much ambience you want. 

To give that still a natural sound of people are in a room, you know, you now have control over it as opposed to just a bunch of stuff leaking into the lectern mic. And it also just means that all of that extra, um, Ambient sound. One, one of the things that took me 25 years to, to, to realize was the ambient sound in the room that was coming back into my lectern mic was being reified back into the room, creating more of itself and coming back into the, the LEC mic. 

I mean, it's not true feedback, but. The amount of ambience that's being produced out of the PA adds to that ambient sound in the room, which you already have plenty of because the room is already reflecting. Uh, but yeah, the more we clean these things up, the more we really have to look at making sure that we have some kind of ambient something to, to kind of fill in the holes for, for streaming and to some degree for records. 

Andy Leviss: So yeah, I mean, that's, that's a great question. Uh, question implied right there that, uh, maybe we get into a little bit is, uh, livestreaming versus records is, is, are there differences in the goals between the two for you and what are they or how much is that dependent on the gig? 

Brian Maddox: Uh, and are you asking me or the group 

Andy Leviss: Uh, I mean, asking the group, but why don't you go first since you're the one who kind of inspired the question just now. 

Brian Maddox: since I inspired the question? So I do, I have two different approaches. Um, and, and it really comes down to, uh, a lot of mistakes in records can be fixed in post. So I tend to be very conservative for records. Uh, I don't worry quite as much about smashing, you know, dynamic range. Um, if I have the option, I like to record the ambient mic separately so that in post they can add as much or as little as they want. 

Um, but you know, and I tend to be conservative with regards to the level that I'm hitting records at, because again, you know, the, you know, in post they have the option to. To fix a lot of this stuff. Now for a live stream, now, now I need to have, now I'm delivering a live broadcast show. And so I need to significantly narrow the dynamic range. 

I need to work at getting the microphones and the spoken word stuff. to be much, much closer in level to the playback stuff, um, which can be a significant difference if we just simply were to take the PA feed and stick it on a stream, like easily 10, 15 dB difference. So we need a different ratio between those two. 

Um, and we just have to, to really concentrate on, on narrowing the dynamic range in the stream and also making sure that there's some ambience in there to, to again, give the people that are, are, are watching a stream, a sense of this is an actual live event. I'm not watching a studio. Um, So to me, they're, they're kind of two different things. 

And, uh, I'll sometimes get in situations where the, you know, the video department will be like, Oh, just give us, you know, give us a feed and, you know, we'll split it and we'll put half to the stream and half to record. And I'm like, Oh, I really, really don't want to do that. Cause they're, they're two very different things. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And I mean, and I'll throw the footnote there that I, I. is kind of implicit in what Brian said that that's also a thing you need to ask the client, both for a stream and a record is what is their goal? Sometimes like particularly say it's a training session. They may want it like no, we want it to sound like a produced like training like the gig I just flew back on. 

The directive was basically, we don't really care what it sounds like in the room as long as everybody can understand it. We want a like clean record that people are going to go back and listen to. later or people who couldn't make it here you know and like the content is king on that one and like the fact that it's in a live room almost doesn't matter it's just to give the presenter somebody to talk to and for people who wanted to come see it in person um yeah and then as far as like As far as achieving that dynamic range, because that's been the big thing, particularly as we go to live streaming, and particularly as we all start doing streaming mixes from the same console often enough, is those dynamic targets for streaming, where we're getting into like, you know, Neg 14, Neg 16, you know, LUFS, LKFS is, It's hard to hit, that's a really, really narrow dynamic range, and I'm curious, and I feel like at some point, whether in person or Discord, I've talked to all four of you about trip tips and tricks to, to achieve that both live and in post. 

I mean, it's a, it's a thing that like I deal with every week for the podcast too, of trying to hit those, you know, similar targets. Um, and that's certainly easier because you can do it in post. Um, yeah, I'm curious for folks both if you've got ways to do that in console, particularly on Yamahas, which seem to be the de facto corporate console most days. 

Um, and gets a little, a little tricky there. I know I've found the, I'm blanking on the model there, but there's the Neve, like, uh, bus processor that's, that's in the CLQLs that the, the limiter and the comp on that are actually in the wrong order from where I would normally default to if I was using two separate pieces of gear to accomplish that, but it works well enough that usually in one piece there, I can get it. 

I've also. Sometimes done like chaining, you know, like the 1176 and the 2A, but like more aggressively than you would, but similar to a rock vocal, we're using one to narrow a little bit and then one to squish the crap out of, and then the channel limiter to keep it from clipping out, which when you're trying to get those high, you know, like loudness targets becomes a real concern. 

Um, and then, yeah, there's like, once you start being able to add output plugins in, a wider world opens up a little bit, which I can weigh back in on, but I feel like the other folks here might have smarter answers than me on that one. So, uh, what you got? 

Aram Piligian: Overall, I agree with the method of using multiple layers of compression in different places. That's the only way you have a shot. If you try and hit it with just one big bus comp at the end, it's gonna sound Um, and what does bad sound like? Uh, you know, meaning that you, 

Sean Walker: My mixes. 

Aram Piligian: meaning that the, you know, the voice is, doesn't feel like a dynamic voice anymore, it's just kind of this brick wall of sound, uh, and there's some vowels and some consonants in there. 

Um, Kind of gently compressing at different stages helps. And so, uh, things like dynamic EQ, watching your low end on the channel side also keeps your compressor from working too hard, uh, and pumping too much later on in the chain when you put it there. But yeah, um, I will definitely do something akin to, you know, that, that kind of bus processor. 

Um, and then also using the LA 2AM emulation as a true limiter. Um, it's not a, you know, peak aware limiter, but it just gives you that extra like bounce when something, when someone says something really loudly or, uh, or they clap or something like that, you know, something silly like that happens. And then on the output itself, the very brick wall y, uh, kind of compressor, um, basically set to limit minus one or two, uh, dB just. 

To actually catch peaks and keep it from clipping, um, and overdrive, more importantly from overdriving another device in the chain. Cause eventually you're, eventually you're sending this audio somewhere and that may not be able to accept what you're putting out. And, uh, yeah. I 

Sean Walker: Samesies. I think I even stole one of these tricks from you, but I used the two dynamics inserts on the CL or QL. One, kind of like you would 76 and two way, but one is kind of a super duper fast attack, like one millisecond attack, four to one ratio, and a hundred millisecond release. Just catching the kind of peaks that the first one I take. 

Aram, I think you're the one that told me about this, but like Getting just those like peaks when they get loud. The other one is more like one and a half to one still a reasonably fast attack, but it's lower threshold and kind of getting the rest of it. So it's a little more steady state, but neither one of them was really smashing that vocal too bad, but just kind of like keeping it in check. 

And those are after the dynamic EQ that like you said, is keeping that like super low mid out of there and getting that crazy. I think that's a trick I stole from either Ryan or you, but. Either way, I'm just stealing all these tricks and compiling them together. Then on the bus, another basically channel compressor from Yamaha to keep that, the bus intact so that like when one person is speaking, there's not a lot of compression, but if there are more people speaking, then it kind of kicks in and keeps everybody about the same level to the audience ish. 

And then on the stereo bus, the 33609 with the limiter in, kind of getting a little bit, because I'm an old rock and roll guy and I can't freaking help myself, but to have a little bit of squeeze on my stereo bus. And that, like you said, the limiter at like minus two or five or whatever its top, most highest threshold is, but it just has a little peak to keep the tops on. 

And I find if I ride things up and down into that, I can get the, the levels that we need without clipping things in the chain next to it. And it all still sounds pretty, I'm going to say reasonably dynamic, even though it's all, you know, squished a little bit at a bunch of different stages, but that's worked pretty well for me without having like an L3 or something to like really smash it at the end to get it to be like, you know, Show volume, you know what I mean? 

But to really just actually hit it with level rather than a limiter has worked pretty well for me. 

Michael Curtis: I'd say the only real tweaks from what y'all guys are saying, um, is how I use on the detector circuit, on the program compressor, I'll high pass at like 150, just so like the DJ isn't making it pump if I need to hit that loud, just so I can take some low end out of that circuit. Um, I've also been formulating a YouTube video in the back of my brain just for a super, super clickbaity title, but it's called, uh, Why You Should Mix on the Game Knob. But it's basically like, we have to keep the signal chain coming through all this stuff so sensitive within a very fine range, and all of it being pre fader, that sometimes you really have to level out presenters with the game first, and you're not riding faders near as much as you would think, except for in between presenters. 

So it's splitting up your brain. What is the gain knob for to keep your signal chain happy? And then faders are only for per presenter relative balances. Uh, so I think that what makes you really hyper aware of in corporate work is the exact gain structure of everything flowing through every place. And then once it actually hits a channel, then it can be fanned out to a prompter feed, an overflow room, a lobby mix, like keeping track of all these places is a lot. 

But to come back to your actual question about processing is, uh, another guy commented that there's actually a limiter in the dynamic, uh, the multiband compressor on the CL. It's just, it's called sealing, but I couldn't find it in the DM or the RIVAGE. Is that a thing, Aram? 

Aram Piligian: don't know, I actually went looking for it too after seeing that and I didn't see exactly what, uh, that person was referring to but I haven't, I didn't get to spend as much time playing with it as I would have liked to. I know there are two multiband compressors though. There's the premium rack one and then there's also like an old multiband compressor. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: that's just in effects, not in premium 

Aram Piligian: in 

Michael Curtis: Oh, it might be there. 

Aram Piligian: in that one. 

Sean Walker: I just went to the premium rack and looked and I was like, I don't know 

Michael Curtis: Yeah, I was like, I was like, I see it in the manual, but this guy's smoking crack and I couldn't find it. But okay, I'll have to find the not, the un premium, the Honda Civic. 

Sean Walker: you diva. 

Michael Curtis: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: The oldie DM2000, uh, expansion pack score. 

Sean Walker: Right. You know, the one thing I have learned today, Andy, through all these guys, is that you have been replaced as my most expensive friend and Brian and Aram have just cost me fucking DM7s, you guys. Thanks a lot. 

Aram Piligian: Yeah. I mean, Brian said it to me, uh, a couple, uh, probably not even a week ago, maybe two weeks ago that basically it's, we're, we're now spoiled brats and going back to a QL or CL is like, really? Do 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Yeah. 

Brian Maddox: did have two quick things to add to this only because they're, no one else has said this. Um, one. You know, when you're talking about, um, getting, getting stream levels and, and making it, you know, basically getting a ton of compression, but making it as transparent as possible, there's two things that I like to look out for. 

One, making sure that I'm using a dynamic EQ, um, with. The low, uh, low frequencies basically to eliminate P popping and, um, proximity because, you know, when we get presenters and they eat the mic, as soon as they P pop, the entire, everything you have compression wise after that suddenly triggers because it's just gotten hammered by a, and, and, and that makes your whole level dip for a split second. 

And it's just really, really obvious. So. You know, that's, that's a, uh, kind of a main, like if you start with that, that helps you a lot farther down the chain. And then this is another thing that I'm really coming around to. I have never been a, uh, external plugins, external processing guy, mostly for reliability reasons, um, and cause I'm old. 

Um, but, 

Sean Walker: I'm in the same shoes. 

Brian Maddox: but I'm, I'm coming around to. Uh, the use of some, some of the more advanced external plugins specifically post console into a stream. And I'll tell you the reason why. Because we have access to plugins. that might have, uh, you know, 10, 15, 20 milliseconds worth of latency because they're primarily used for DAWs. 

But when we're talking about, um, doing streams, we have a luxury of, we have to add delay. We have to add delay to, to, to re sync back to video because we're always, you know, 80 to 100 milliseconds ahead of them. So now we have this window that we can use to use look ahead compression. And as soon as you get into look ahead compression that's got 10, 15, 20, 30 milliseconds of look ahead, You can really start putting in, you know, finalizer plugins and, and, you know, really, uh, really high, high, the kind of stuff again, that you would normally use in a DAW and, and get these really much more, um, much more. What am I looking for? Just really way, way, way more leveler. Like you can use a leveler and yet it be much more transparent because, you know, it's able to adapt to the peaks that are coming in. Um, ahead of when it gets there, you know what I'm trying to say, it's the, you know, the difference of what you can do with plugins in a DAW because it's all look ahead versus what you can do in a console, which is all, you know, one or two milliseconds worth of time. 

are night and day. And so this is the one place where you can really leverage that extra latency to get results that you really can't get in the console, if that makes any sense. 

Aram Piligian: That's actually, uh, one of the two reasons that I bucked up and bought an RUIO. Um, the, the being able to do that mastering style output, uh, has been great. Uh, the, specifically, I'll use the, I'll use the Ozone Maximizer, which actually has a low latency setting on it that is pretty quick. Um, but it's still just that transparent, quasi true peak aware kind of, uh, kind of processing which is fantastic for that final bit. 

Um, and 

Sean Walker: awesome. 

Aram Piligian: yeah, it sounds really good and being able to help your stream out in that, in that way makes it, you know, worth it, uh, for me. Um, there's, there's all kinds of other elements that go into that and I did mean to jump back and correct something. You know, we're talking about the latency. For these plugins, there is, anytime you're doing something outside of the desk that isn't just analog, uh, you also have to, especially if you're hosting plugins somewhere, you need to measure and figure out how long the actual round trip latency of these devices is, um, because even if I have a quote zero, you know, zero millisecond latency chain in LiveProfessor, for example, uh, with my RUIO, depending on, What I set my buffer settings to, uh, you know, usually for it to be in a safe position for me, it's a round trip of like 13 milliseconds. 

Um, and that means you can't do certain things, or you need to compensate for certain things somewhere. But, uh, Yeah, just something, just something to clarify for anyone that, you know, is considering going down this road. There's, there's a bunch of different things to think about. Um, but the, some of the tools can be really effective out there. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and that's a very good point. It's zero latency, it's zero added latency to the insert path as exists. Yeah, we're always talking a bass level above that, um, and appreciate clarifying that. And also the, the highest latency thing I've tried lately, uh, for that thing was something Michael turned me on to recently, which is Sound Radix Power, which I did try on, on my, on my record mix, actually, for this gig this weekend. 

And it's Pretty solid. It's like, you have to get into like a little bit of like understanding like how gain structure works in it and like it's very much one of those plugins where A, I wish it had a true peak limiter in it. So I don't know if I put one after, but then you have to get into the mindset of understanding and knowing that the tool you have it hosted in is working in, in floatland, so that like, clip light at the end of that, as long as you're dealing with it after the fact 

Michael Curtis: hard, but ignore it. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: um, which I mean, the quick and dirty for folks who don't understand is the true peak basically means like, I don't understand the math well enough to explain it, but it is possible to get it. 

inter sample clips like between the samples where if you look at a straight meter no individual samples clipping but like as the signal pieces back together is my understanding of it it basically it can clip between those samples um and most audio processing software nowadays works in 32 bit float where there's so much dynamic range headroom, that that's not actually an issue as long as you deal with it before you convert down to your 16 or 24 bit output. 

So I think I ended up using, uh, Waves WLM which was, A, it gave me a second stage of LUFS metering that A couple parts of it are a little easier to read the short term and momentary from across the booth at the console. And also the one tool it has in the plus version, other than metering, is that it does have a true peak limiter. 

So you can set that to whether negative one, point one, point two, somewhere in there depending on your needs. and range of, uh, comfortableness. Um, and yeah, that worked, that worked pretty well. Um, there's still, I gotta spend a little more time experimenting with it and like understanding a couple of the quirks of how things work and, and where with like setting trim on that particular processor, like the input, uh, clip works. 

And again, the, as long as you listen to it and it's fine, you're probably fine, but it, it, depending on how much you're pre processing, the dynamics of what's going into it, it can still get a little, a little. butt clenching on the input meter and can get a little crunchy if you don't manage what's going into it. 

Well, I think, but it was the easiest time I've ever had hitting like a YouTube esque like 16 streaming target. But I gotta try the Ozone Maximizer and compare it now. 

Aram Piligian: Well, and this also, uh, brings up a good point to illustrate is that, as I mentioned before, you're sending these things to all kinds of other devices. Um, It's really easy to forget that you probably need to calibrate and actually send tone and actually make sure that, you know, what is neg 12 or neg 14 that you see coming out of your console is the same number that's hitting, you know, the recorder you're feeding or the stream encoder that you're hitting. 

And that can be really challenging at times. And, and, you know, you need to, Jump in and when you need to make sure that when, especially for streaming, that when test streams are happening, you have everything ready to be able to send them tone, and then also be able to monitor it back, um, and know that what's coming out of that stream is what you're putting into it, because Uh, when that doesn't happen, bad things happen. 

And I actually had a gig recently where we were feeding an encoder and, long story short, um, what happened with the digital encoding that we were doing wasn't working. And so we ended up needing to bail and use the, you know, analog into the eighth inch jack on the encoder, which, and this was all happening about two minutes before the show started. 

Andy Leviss: Always. 

Aram Piligian: Immediately, you know, the show begins and it is just a nightmare of audio. And of course, because there's about a 30 second delay, I'm just slowly riding down the level and then hoping that within 30 seconds, I'll be able to get to a point where I know that, you know, it's not going to clip anymore. Uh, and it's not gonna distort, but uh, yeah, you gotta check all that stuff and make sure that what's coming out is what you want it to be, and uh, what's going into all those devices is too. 

Sean Walker: One million 

Michael Curtis: a, I got a couple. Hopefully ProTips here, uh, if you're testing Zoom or Teams and you do a tone, even if you have original sound on, the tone won't come through. 

Andy Leviss: Also, voice denoise. The tone will dock by whatever your range is and it'll send you panicking for like 20 minutes trying to find out where you're losing gain till you realize. 

Michael Curtis: So I like doing like a drum loop that's like kick, snare, hat, and has peaks that's truly hitting the limiter. And so I know. And then number two, um, I stole this from Uleane. You can view the test stream on an iPhone. Then use that as an input device on a Mac and then actually record in the digitally passed audio into a DAW and then meter it there and actually see the end user loudness and look at peaks in the actual stream there. 

Aram Piligian: I actually grab, I have my um, I got one of the USB C AVIOs, and so whatever I want, and because I know, because it's USB C and because it's full scale Dante, I'm Uh, coming in, when I bring that back into the console, I know that, that number hasn't changed somewhere. As long as the computer volume's all the way up, YouTube volume's all the way up, whatever, that, um, what, what's coming out is exactly what it should be. 

Andy Leviss: see, now I'm going to need a second AVIO for that, because I, the other place I was going to suggest that is, is I have taken to using the Ulean iPad app on either a phone or an iPad mini with the USB C AVIO as a meter. So it's, it's because it packs a little flatter than the, uh, than the, um, TC Electronic Meter does. 

Brian Maddox: And, and just to, and just to jump in, my trick to do the exact same thing is a laptop, um, running whatever the destination of the stream is, be it, uh, if it's an in house stream or it's a YouTube stream, and I loop back into the Ulean meter. And so I have that sucker just running all the time. And that's giving me, this is end user. 

Digital to digital. This is exactly what the end result of what it is that I'm pushing in. And, you know, if you're going to multiple, um, places, maybe you're going to YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and whatever, you can also switch between windows and see the difference in what the processing in between what you send out is actually doing coming back the other way. 

And you can do it all within one device. I have like a 10 year old MacBook. Air that I just already have set up for this. So I just bring up a, uh, a web window and, you know, basically I'm just monitoring with Ulean meters right there, exactly what it is that's coming out of the stream. 

Sean Walker: Can you go into that a little deeper? What are the Ulean meters, you guys? 

Andy Leviss: so Ulean is a software app and there's both a plug in version and a stand alone for desktop and an iOS app. Um, there's a basic version that's free and then a pro version and I think the iOS version, Ulean Lite. And it's loudness metering, so it's doing that LUFS, LKFS metering, uh, short term, momentary, long term. 

Um, so similar if you know like the, the TC Electronic loudness meters, it's a very similar, similar to those just in software form. 

Sean Walker: Got it. I got it. I've been using the Waves, like you said, WLFS plus. That was the thing I was going to add is that that's the one plugin I do use. Typically I'm in Brian's camp where I'm all in the desk, but that's the one plugin I do use to make sure that we're getting the right levels to the records. 

But I'm going to check out that Ulean thing. Cause that being able to monitor that back after the stream is dope rather than just like listening to the stream going, Oh, it sounds good. And the meter says on the way in, it's fine. You know, that's, that's a way like third, fourth, triple check is, is great. 

And I'll, man, I will like 1, 000, 000 percent second, third, fourth, and fifth Aram's comment about like, check what you're hitting downstream. You know what I mean? Send it tone or level or something. You will be surprised how many times people that are in other departments besides audio, without throwing anybody under the bus too badly, are not video, are not aware of gain structure in audio. 

And so. The amount of times I've had to go sit in front of somebody's ATEM and say, Hey guys, maybe turn those inputs down. You know what you can do on this stereo thing I'm sending you? You could pan them left and right. That would be super sweet if it came actually panned and go and look at that. And like you said, just, I'm doing it simple. 

I'm just sending tone at, you know, minus 18 or whatever RMS and getting it, getting it happen. You know what I mean? So that what's coming out of my desk is what's showing up at the records. And like nine out of 10 times, it solves almost any problems we were having, you know, if you weren't already, but that hopefully gets done before show. 

So you're not like 

Aram Piligian: a lot of those devices have metering that is not the same as your metering, and you know, uh, um, 

Michael Curtis: But it's 

Aram Piligian: call, but it's red, and, 

Michael Curtis: it's red. 

Aram Piligian: I have had, you know, I've Webcast people, uh, will call them that, you know, I'm sending them a good, strong, healthy and controlled signal, uh, that has been calibrated. 

And then, but because it went red, not that they heard distortion, not that it is distorting, but because they saw red, it got turned down and then the end result of the stream is a lot quieter than it should be. And this is a, it's a thing that could have been prevented by the conversation of, hey, These are the steps I'm taking, uh, these are the things I'm doing, we have now calibrated this. If there is an audio problem, let me know before you change something. 

Sean Walker: No touchy touchy. 

Andy Leviss: kit, can I, can I hear what it's doing? And, and putting your own ears on it. Um, yeah, and uh, the, the two things that popped in mind just from like the last week or two for me are. Like, yeah, like, I've seen, uh, a certain, uh, infamous and broadly spread, uh, hotel in house provider, we'll say? Uh, I think you all know who I'm talking about. 

I've seen times where like, they don't have like a split 6 or even Y cable COYs, they've got like a little Switchcraft, uh, splitter that is mic level. And you can, they can pad it down to take line level, but you have to A, make sure that's happening, and B, still be aware of what that's doing, because then they're going to be gaining it back up on the other side. 

And, and that can wreak all sorts of havoc with the end product. The other thing on, on verifying chain, this is a thing that I was. Talking about, inquiring about, venting about on the Discord the other day is I just picked up, uh, one of the little Zoom, like, 32 bit float recorders because I like the idea of a recorder that I've got a backup and I don't have to pay too much attention to what the gain is as long as I know what I'm feeding, it isn't clipping, it's fine and I can deal with it later, uh, but while it is specced at a maximum input level of plus 24, uh, DBU, And, while the Yamaha console output is specced as a maximum output of plus 24 dBu, if you hit it with that, it will light up the warning constantly on the peaks, maximum input exceeded. 

I'm a little unclear on whether it's, again, is that a safety below where it's actually hitting maximum input, or are they just that slightly different in rounding errors that the Yamaha's version of plus 24 is slightly hotter than the Zoom's? And that's, that's a thing that surprised me, particularly on a, on a recorder that's the, in theory, yeah, you don't really have to worry about it, having to actually worry about it. 

Um, yeah, and, and I feel like I had another thing I was gonna, I was gonna throw in on that, but now I don't remember what it is, so. 

Sean Walker: think I'm probably the only person in the world that absolutely loves that in house provider you just spoke of. 

Andy Leviss: Oh yeah, because they get you lots of work on the repeat 

Sean Walker: sir. Yes, sir. They call us all the time and I freaking love them. Love them because they do basically all the. Convention centers and big ballrooms and all stuff. You know, they got all that stuff here. 

And so they're always like, Hey, did we have a band? We don't know what to do. Hey, we've got more than five channels to come. Hey, we've got this. And I'm like, yes, I will come. We are down there. Yep. Absolutely. We'll take your money. Yes, sir. We would love to come do that. Hey, we've got the 

Andy Leviss: also got one that admits that they don't or can't. That's a, not all of them do that, 

Sean Walker: Oh, totally dude. But we had one where like they called and they were like, so we got the new convention center and we have the whole ballroom upstairs. Um, and we don't own enough PA to do this. Can you come do it for us? And we were like, sure, totally. So we, you know, made our design or whatever. And it was like 48 boxes of our HDLs or whatever flown in this whole thing. 

And they were like, that's a lot of PA. I was like, it's a lot of room, bro. But yeah, they call us all the time. We, we love those guys, but it's exactly what you just described, which is why they call us all the time, because. It's like, they're like, well, can we provide our A two? Absolutely not. No, you cannot. 

Uh, no, no. We we're tired of teaching your A two how to calm or how to rf and then them not ing or calming and we have to do it anyway. So no, we'll bring our own A two, you know, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, I mean, getting us back onto the track of 

Sean Walker: sorry dog 

Andy Leviss: no, all good, all good, um, but back onto the track of, uh, streaming and recording stuff. So obviously, ideal world, somebody dedicated for that, whether mixing or at least, like, monitoring it. Reality world, particularly as we're streaming things that are glorified breakout rooms sometimes. 

We've been talking a little bit about strategies on the mix side of how to do that while also mixing. you know, for the room. Uh, what about the monitoring it? Uh, what are, what are you folks doing to, yeah, Aram just gave the look of what I was thinking. Um, but yeah, I'm curious what folks are doing to, cause I mean, I, like particularly this last gig, which was in like a small, like one of those, like the half ballroom kind of situations. 

And going back and forth between, like, sometimes Trusting the Meters, sometimes Cans, and sometimes Nearfields, which is where I, like, I kinda dammit andied myself, uh, on my day off in Vegas and went to the Vegas Guitar Center and got myself some adorable little Nearfields, just so I had an option, cause it turned out that, um, infamous AV provider didn't have something suitable that I could use, and I was like, you know what, F it, I'll just buy something so I have it. 

Um, which are these adorable IK Multimedia iLoud Micromonitors, which they're like on sale right now for like 300 bucks for a pair, the Ampson one. They're like deeper but like skinnier than like the little baby Genelecs, and like I'm not gonna ever like claim it sounds like a baby Genelec, but like particularly if I'm monitoring a stream that's being listened to on like earbuds or a laptop speaker. 

This is like perfectly at it and like they, they punch a lot more than, than you'd expect from looking at them or from what they cost. 

Sean Walker: bro. For 300 bucks a pair. They are smoking. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, so that, that's my new toy and had we done the coolest thing in Arms Reach, that's what I was going to bring out. Um, 

Sean Walker: time am I trading in the focales or ATCs for them, but they are smoking for $300 a pair. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, like for something you can throw in your backpack or like a Pelican or Nanuk to, to bring to monitor a stream, they're pretty, they're pretty tight. Um, but even without, like, having earphones there, it's like, when you're trying to do both, are you, like, spot checking the streamings? Are you keeping an ear on it the whole time? 

Obviously, there's a latency concern to keeping that, so I'm curious to kind of go around and hear what everybody else does. 

Michael Curtis: Um, I'll say if the console is able to do it, I'll by default route my stream feed to the cue bus out, as like if I'm not cuing anything, that's what's going there. Or I'll just always have the cue bus cued, or the stream feed cued, if it's out there already. Um, I'll do my best if I have time to be super nerdy and actually calibrate my headphones like run it through either an EQ that's similar to the offset curve in a Sonoworks or something like that just so my headphones sound better. 

Um, adding a little squawk box or Fostex or whatever just to queue things up is always helpful. Um, this is unrelated to that, but just so I can Uh, have to babysit and listen to less things at once, uh, I'm not sure what, I'd be curious to hear you guys workflow, uh, when working within A2s, you know, so we have eight presenters in this next thing, the A2 gets one mic'd up, they're gonna go on comm like, hey, presenter number one's mic'd up, can you PFL it? 

Make sure it's good. I've actually started using the second Cubus and having that to an analog out on their stage box into an inner pack, either wired or wireless. And then I basically with an iPad app, they can PFL their own channels. And so that's like something else that's kind of like off your plate because you have to listen to the stream, listen to the room, do all this stuff. 

Andy Leviss: Getting all theater up in here. 

Michael Curtis: Yeah, and so basically they might be old news to you, you theater guy Andy, but uh, that was a new workflow for me, 

Andy Leviss: no, it's an admittedly, I don't always get it on like corporate gigs either, but yeah, as both A1, like yeah, that's, that's how we do it in, in theater, like we'll do a mic check before the show with everything, the PA, but yeah, during the show, that's the A2s back there at a listening station, um, that's often, uh, what like, uh, WaveTool is commonly used for that on like the software side, there's hardware solutions for it. 

Or even a dedicated console, but yeah, like the iPad app and the second Cubus is a damn solid and expensive way to do that. I like it. 

Michael Curtis: Like to get scrappy around here 

Aram Piligian: it's so rare that I've seen people actually set it up, um, but I know for at least the Axion Digital stuff, you can set it up so that one headphone output It can actually cue any of the other things in the rack by routing some Dante around. 

Andy Leviss: it's a, it's a little tricky, but yeah, I have definitely done that, done that when I've been 18 and it, it is absolutely helpful to be able to just single button push. It's, yeah, it's a little if you, it's a little easier if you have a spare receiver and you use that spare as the one that you monitor anything on. 

It makes your life a little less complicated. Because moder switching between monitoring local and monitoring the Dante selection gets a little janky, so, so yeah, if you can use the spare receiver for that, I recommend it. Uh, but yeah, no, that's a solid, that's a solid reminder for folks that's there, and I can vouch that it does work well once you take the time to, to do it. 

Michael Curtis: What one more thing as far as I guess listening with my eyes is I always have a machine up with iZotope's Total Balance Control 2 on the modern curve and Dialogue I feels like if it's within that span if folks don't know what that is. It's basically a target curve with basically a 12 db plus 6 or minus 6 db. 

And it doesn't care about absolute level, it's only concerned with the relative level between its bands. And if that curve is floating in between there, I can usually trust that there's not this huge 500 honk that I haven't taken out of the lav or something like that. 

Brian Maddox: So my, uh, I, I'm a little bit old school when it comes to trying to monitor, uh, a stream and a live show at the same time, in that I really don't feel like I can do both things. At a level that I feel like I would be proud of. Um, so, so sometimes it comes down to what Andy said, which is, you know, what, what's, what's the priority? 

Is it the people in the, in the room or is it the people on the stream? And I always ask the question, and 90 percent of the time I get both as the answer, which is not an answer. Um, but there you go. Uh, I try to get a good balance between the microphones, the playback stuff, the, um, the ambient mics. During rehearsals, when I have the ability, you know, when I can throw some headphones on and listen to that stream, um, and then I, I mean, I'd say it, but I tend to kind of largely ignore the stream. 

Now, I have a TC Clarity meter that's always on that stream so that I, I'm looking at. Relative volume, you know, relative levels and making sure that my levels between my microphones and my playback and all that stuff are, are, are staying consistent. One of the, one of the tricks that you can use is if your ambient mics are in stereo, the little, um, the little triangle in the TC clarity meter that shows the width of the stereo field. 

We'll show you like when, like if there's just a single microphone, it's going to be a straight line, but as soon as your ambient mics become more prominent, more prominent, like people are clapping, that triangle is going to widen. And so it gives you a visual reference of the difference between the two. 

Um, so I'll rely on that a little bit. If I have a trusted A2, that's a big if, but if I have a trusted A2. Then, that's when I go to using the monitor A, monitor B bus, I give the monitor B bus to the A2, and I let my A2 be my QC for, yeah, QC the microphones when you, when you put them on presenters, and then QC my stream mix, um, because they can obviously cue the stream mix. 

To their in ears or to their headphones or whatever. And if there's a little tweak needed between, Oh, the ambient mics, the clapping is a little bit too loud, or there's a little bit too much room, then they can also kind of assist me in doing just, you know, very basic little, little tweaks in that, but. I find it just, at least for the shows that I do, because so many of the shows that I do are not well rehearsed, it's off the fly, there's so much I'm trying to keep track of, make sure I don't miss a cue, make sure I don't miss a thing, and I'd hate to be missing a thing. 

Concentrating on, do I have too much 500 Hertz in the stream and miss a mic cue? You know, it's like, that's, that's kind of where my, my brain is on it, but, uh, it's, it's challenging. It's very challenging to be able to try to monitor a stream and monitor a live show at the same time when you're really doing two completely different things. 

Michael Curtis: And I'll say there are ways to kind of help, help your, your streaming self out. Like for instance, I'll set up a separate bus that serves as a ducking input for my nap mics for video roles. Or, 

Brian Maddox: That is, it's funny, Michael. That was the one thing that I actually meant to say that I forgot. So I'm going to claim that that was my idea and 

Michael Curtis: it is totally your idea, Brian. You just through telemetry, send it to 

Andy Leviss: And, and that's, that's getting back into when we were talking about Dugans before, I said we were gonna circle back and talk about where that becomes useful with ambiance mics, which I think is the, is the same general idea whether you're doing it with a Ducker or a Dugan. So, yeah, I mean, do you want to dive into that a, a teeny bit more? 

Michael Curtis: Uh, I guess for me with the audience microphones, I don't do do again, cause I don't want to prioritize it. over something else. I'll just have, well, okay. So, sorry, two separate things, either. Alt my playbacks, that would be video roll or anything where I don't expect someone to talk and goes to a bus, and that bus feeds a Dugan input that would duck all my stage microphones. 

So if someone's walking off a stage that's cleaned up. And then vice versa, that same bus then goes to a ducker on the NAT microphone so when the video starts, but it's a very slow ducker because I don't want like, Applause coming out. Sorry, it's a slow attack, fairly quick release. So when there's, like, you know, big dramatic video that's 90 seconds long, bass drop, I don't want that to be, uh, all faded out and make sure that Ducker can rise naturally with applause out of a video. 

if that makes sense. Uh, but, uh, but it helps me not have to think about, I just had an eight lav panel, into a video and my NATS, like all that is just simply bring out lavs, either on a lav DCA, which I hardly use, usually just put my elbow on the desk and bring them down, uh, if we have to, and then bring, uh, uh, that's, that's, like, I've prayed to Dan Dugan more than I have my Lord Jesus Christ, uh, so, uh, 

Sean Walker: The two hand scramble to get them all off, to get them all down. 

Michael Curtis: yeah, uh, so, um, anyway, but 

Sean Walker: to Dan Dugan more than that. 

Andy Leviss: that's, I, I feel like we're, we're getting more ideas for the, for the merch store here. We'll get a little St. Dugan. Uh. 

Michael Curtis: We need dance, just say it, do it, say it, do it, say it, dance, I love it. 

Andy Leviss: I will say if you are going to use a Dugan on your ambient mics, that's where the weighting options in the Dugan become real important. Yeah, it's on default setting. Yeah, you're not gonna use it at all. But like, there are ways you can do it to wait so that your presenter might, um, and again, less for an audience response mic is for like a room vibe. 

So that basically when people are talking, those are the lav inputs are weighted more to pull those down a little bit, but let the room fill in in between. So it's almost a reverse 5045 at that point. 

Michael Curtis: got it, so it's less of a, let's capture the emotion of a moment, but just kind of fill in room tone when you need it. Got it, okay, that makes 

Andy Leviss: basically like if you're using the 5045 or DeNoise to get out too much, then adding it back in, like, I mean, I'll let people under the hood. In fact, I've been meaning to write this up for the Discord under the hood of the podcast. Because we're all in such different rooms, I've actually taken lately to, I get rid of as much of the room as I can with iZotope and a couple other things. 

And then I cheat a little fake room tone back in so that there's still room tone and not dead air. But it puts us all into the same room, 

Sean Walker: It's actually Times Square, it's not a room tone. He just went out to Times Square with his Zoom recorder and got some tones. It's got some guy yelling about fucking pizza and cabs and shit, but you can't really 

Andy Leviss: it's actually what's, what's hilarious is I couldn't find room tone that I wanted. So I used the iso, one of the isotope, like the, the tone matcher options on a 20 minute silence to put in a, what they actually have when they call podcast room tone and ran that on the silence to make the silence sound like room tone. 

And that gave me a 20 minute loop of like a nice, quiet, gentle background room tone Yeah. as sort of a comfort noise that bleeds in. And the other thing I've played with here on the podcast is a teeny tiny bit of a room reverb that we all go to to help put us in the same room. And I'm, I, that's one thing I'd love feedback from listeners on if you're digging that or not, or if it's too much. 

I know I had one person be like, yo dude, your room sounds like you got to put some treatment in your room. And I'm like, no, my room actually sounds totally dead. That's the fake room I'm putting us all into, but I can dial it back. And as I've, as I've traded out the plugins, it's changed how much of that I can use. 

Uh, a bit, but yeah, I'm curious, uh, if it's, if it's working for folks or not. Um, but that's also a thing we have to keep in mind with live streams and, and yeah, so veering us back onto the road that, yeah, like using, whether it's Ducker on like your ambient room mics is basically helping a little bit with the, I'm pulling enough of that out, or if I'm using cardioids and not getting enough room, and I don't want that echo when people are talking, but I want a little bit of the room to make it sound live afterwards. 

That's one way to accomplish that. 

Michael Curtis: I've shied away from plate, you know, like a typical ballroom, screens left and right. I used to do it left and right, but I used to feel like there was a giant hole in the middle, with those being, so I've done now more an X, Y off to one side of the room. Or if I get fancy pens, I can even do a mid side. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, like a VP88 or something. 

Michael Curtis: yeah, I don't get to do that too often, but if it's a simple show where I get to have fun and mess around, but, uh, but it's just a simpler run. It's one run, do the X, Y, and away you go. Cause no one's going to be like, this microphone, this stereo image is off the one side of the room. It's like, as long as you're capturing the entire room 

Aram Piligian: Well, and I also pull, pull back in the panning. It doesn't, you know, just because I have microphones left and right, that doesn't mean they have to be hard pan left and right. So I'll pull it back into, um, I guess in Yamaha world, each side is out of 63. So I'll pull it back into like 45. Um, on each side and that helps fill in that middle as well and you get, you get some of that kind of cross goodness, uh, going on there. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I mean, that's another big thing too. 

Brian Maddox: route in the route guide. 

Andy Leviss: We'll edit that out after, Brian. Let me make a note. Um, 

Michael Curtis: It's amazing. 

Sean Walker: alright, let me ask you guys this since we're like, you know, 12 hours deep into this thing. Uh, what is the one tool for you that is indispensable on a corporate gig? What is the one thing that if somebody's like, hey man, you gotta fly in to do this, you absolutely cannot fucking live without and will not show up without this one tool on site. 

Andy Leviss: I'm the one tool on site usually. 

Sean Walker: No, bro. I'm always the tool on site, but you take my job. You're the smart 

Andy Leviss: while everybody thinks of that answer, I was going to say the one thing I was about to say that y'all just brought to mind is when we're doing the reinforcement in the room, we're never thinking about panning even for presenter mics. But when you're doing a stream, if you've got the option to do a stereo stream, panning your panelists out when you've got a multi panelist helps so much with over talking. 

That's, and again, that's, that's something podcast listeners will have discovered new in 2024 is Andy remembered that he could do a podcast in stereo and decided, uh, I'm sorry, I'm going to take up twice your bandwidth on your phone. But as we get to these larger panel episodes. Doing some stereo panning. 

It makes anytime anybody overtalks, you can actually understand what they're both saying. Um, and I don't think enough of us doing streaming think of that. 

Sean Walker: I said I was sorry, 

Andy Leviss: it's a valuable tool to add back in. 

Sean Walker: I said I was sorry. 

Andy Leviss: Um, cool. Now I'll let y'all answer Sean's question 

Michael Curtis: I'm actually going to step in and go first, then I have to go parrot my, my three and one year old at this point, but, uh, I, I very much appreciate the time. I would say it would be. The ability to take my program out over Dante or whatever, sit on my computer and have that tonal balance control, especially when I'm in a room that I don't trust or a listening environment or you know, that one time that front house is in a terrible position. 

You mean actually all the time, 

Sean Walker: Just the one? 

Michael Curtis: yeah, yeah, just the one. Just so I'm not having to do so much with headphones and double checking whatever, that I can just do a quick glance and see. Again, I actually have forced myself to do several gigs without it, because I just found myself looking over there too much. 

I just see like, I can trust my ears, Michael. Darn it, like I could do it. But, uh, especially for streaming, if it's supposed to sound like a studio thing, I can really, um, trust that visual feedback. 

Andy Leviss: right on and we'll, we'll let you go, go do the dad thing. Thanks for joining us. 

Sean Walker: Thanks, dude, you rock! 

Michael Curtis: Y'all rock. 

Andy Leviss: right. And, uh, next, uh, Brian, what you got? 

Brian Maddox: the question because my car took over my Bluetooth, so ask me the question one more time. 

Sean Walker: The question was, what is the one tool, other than, you know, us, ourselves, what's the one tool you gotta have on a corporate gig to succeed? Will not show up without this one tool. Cannot do your show without this one tool. 

Brian Maddox: I think it's gonna have to be my TC clarity meter. I've really become addicted to it. Um, because, yeah, like, it's, well, that, that and my own, uh, personal ClearCom headset. 

Sean Walker: Which headset? 

Brian Maddox: I, I use a, um, a good old fashioned CC26 ClearCom lightweight headset, nothing fancy. 

Sean Walker: Classic. 

Brian Maddox: But I just, you know, I like, I like keeping my germs to myself and depending on, on the vendor, you know, sometimes they don't have lightweight headsets or they have PH88s, which I absolutely hate or, or, or whatever. So, 

Sean Walker: Hey, hey, it was one time. I said I was sorry, dude. God. Yeah, we're all, we're all PH 88s and I've been eyeballing those clear comms like, Oh, those are pretty nice, dude. I'm making some of those. 

Brian Maddox: they're honestly the biggest, the biggest thing with the ClearComs is that I've had is I've had the CC26 for, uh, At least a decade, I have absolutely abused it beyond, um, beyond anything and it's, I've been through like, you know, five or six, um, you know, windscreens and ear things and everything else and I can't kill it. 

I mean, for a lightweight headset, they're ludicrously robust, 

Sean Walker: Challenge accepted, bro. Challenge accepted. All right, Aram, where are you at, buddy? 

Aram Piligian: I mean, my first thought is just headphones, but I feel like that's, that's more of a general, every audio person should be bringing those kinds of things. Um, so my cheating answer is going to be my laptop. Um, the first, and it really has a lot less to do with mixing than you think, um, software wise, uh, Companion and a Stream Deck, let's say, but it's something where I can, make some macros, make a lot of things happen on a desk in a very short amount of time that my hands would not be able to do, uh, is something that's really invaluable to me and, um, especially controlling all kinds of different things at once. 

It's really 

Andy Leviss: a whole episode on Companion at some point. 

Brian Maddox: Can I change my answer? Because, 

Andy Leviss: Go for it. 

Brian Maddox: because actually Aram's right. It's like actually if you absolutely help, you know, strap my hands down, instead you can only have, gotta have, it has to be my computer, which is set up for my stuff, the way I want it, doing this, you know, yeah, I cannot imagine doing a corporate gig without my computer, like I could do without everything else, um, but yeah, I gotta have my, yeah, I My Macbook, um, M2 and it's gotta be set up. 

I, I literally just came off a gig where they had computers for everything for me and I pulled theirs out and put mine in. Because I'm like, they're not set up for me, they're not the right way. I need, I need, I need my comfort Mac. 

Sean Walker: With or without cheese? No, I was the only one. That's right. I said with or without cheese. He said I need my comfort Mac. 

Brian Maddox: Oh, well, actually, okay, then the second thing I want is the Mac with the cheese. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. Good catering. It's funny. All right. So for me, it's the same thing. Computer. And mostly for me, that's because of smart and then, you know, the, like the playback, whatever I got to, you know, the break music and the other, all the things we've curated over the years that you're like, no, no, this is, this is, it makes it easier. 

This does this. Cause like you said, that in house vendor may not have all the stuff you need, but that was absolutely my answer to was my computer because it would come with my smart rig and my fricking playback and all that stuff too. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's like I can get into the hardware of like, well, the RUIO, but like without the computer, that's useless. And without the computer, like, you know, in a pinch, you know, I got to be careful about what I'm using because there's more latency, but I can do it with virtual sound card. I don't have that bypass option and stuff, but The computer is useful without the interface, not the other way around. 

Uh, I mean, the other one, particularly doing gigs with like PA DuJour and, you know, hotel AV provider DuJour is a measurement mic. 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. 

Andy Leviss: That's, I will say, like, 95 percent of this gig last week, and the reason, I won't say that I was there, but somebody like me was there, was enough of a give a shit to like, ring stuff out and ring it out well to make sure the room sounded tight and clean and set us up both for a good in room sound and a good stream. 

Sean Walker: For sure. For sure. Totally. 

Brian Maddox: Oshizzle. 

Sean Walker: Well, thank you fellas for hanging out for damn near two hours. We're absolutely gonna have to cut this up into two episodes or shoot me in the face, trying to sit through two hours of us yapping about corporate stuff. 

Andy Leviss: No, no, I'm ha I'm happy to add another one to the, to the pool for, for save us from having to book a second episode. 

Sean Walker: I super duper appreciate you guys taking the time and hanging out and sharing your wisdom, man. Thank you guys so much for coming and rocking with us and thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for supporting us and making it happen. We appreciate all you guys and that's the pod. See you next week. 

Andy Leviss: See ya, everybody. 

Aram Piligian: See ya. 

Brian Maddox: See ya, thanks.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green