247. A Visit To RCF, Fun In Italy & The Importance Of Taking A Break

In Episode 247, the co-hosts catch up after Sean returns from his first vacation since starting his company. Sean fills Andy in on turning a trip to visit the RCF factory into a vacation for his entire family. He gives a recap of his awesome time visiting the factory and seeing how the loudspeakers he’s bought for his company are made and tested, plus an obligatory stop for fantastic Neapolitan pizza and other Italy must-sees. The discussion turns to acknowledging how important time off is, and how hard it is to realize that you’re overworking or burning out until you do finally take a break, intentionally or otherwise. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

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The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

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Episode 247 Transcript

Transcript

Episode 247 - Vacations and Vulnerability

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 episode of Signal to Noise. As always, you're stuck with me, your host, Andy Leviss, and with me, uh, back fresh from vacation, and we'll go with, uh, freshly rested, even though it's probably more like crazy jet lagged, uh, Sean Walker. What's up, which is it, dude? 

Sean Walker: It's both, both 

Andy Leviss: about, yeah, both, both, both is good. 

Sean Walker: jet lagged like a motherfucker. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, because that was, what, six hours, uh, well, six hours ahead of me, so what is that, nine hours ahead for you? 

Sean Walker: Yeah. It was nine hours ahead in Italy 

Andy Leviss: so let's see, it's two, so it's like 11 o'clock at night for your body right now. 

Sean Walker: yeah, dude. And I live on the opposite side of the world. So it was like, Nine hours and 20 minutes from Seattle to Heathrow. And then another four hour layover and then two hours to Milan. So the, the kids were troopers, dude, they're, they're six and nine, so they're young, but you know, we all made it and dude, it was, it was a lot of flying. 

It's a lot of time to be sitting in a small ass seat. I'm six two and those seats are not made for dudes my height, you know? 

Andy Leviss: Dude, I'm, I'm five, we'll go with five eight, that's what I claim on my license, and, and those seats are barely made for me these 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Oh man, I made the mistake on a flight recently of like, I normally do the window seat. I forgot that I was on one of those narrow ass commuter planes where the window seat, if you've shouldered than normal next to you, the window seat sucks because you're like bent over halfway. 

So, I've learned to be more thoughtful about When I choose to not take the window seat now. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, there you go. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, yeah, so we were, we, we took last week off, uh, just cause Sean was away and I was just going crazy with work and stuff and all over the place and a little under the weather. So, uh, now we're back. I still sound slightly congested cause it is the start of allergy season here in, uh, in the warmer climates, but, uh, we're going to do it and we're just going to catch up. 

Cause I know, uh, you know, I mean, so this trip was mostly, mostly for fun, right? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, sure. 

Andy Leviss: I don't think there's some business on that, but I don't know, was the business the reason for the trip and we tagged a vacation onto it or was 

Sean Walker: exactly it. Yeah. The business was the reason for the trip. And then we happened to tag a few extra days onto it to go run around and do a family vacation might, uh, you know, without getting too, too personal or too deep into it. We didn't, when my wife and I got married, we didn't have a honeymoon. 

I went right back to work. You know what I mean? Like I've been, I've been ripping for more than a decade trying to You know, build a company and ensure my kids could eat and such. And so we haven't really had any family vacations or anything. So we, you know, had the opportunity to marry a little bit of, uh, business, a little bit of pleasure and, and get our first family vacation in, which was dope. 

Andy Leviss: There you go. And 

Sean Walker: we went, 

Andy Leviss: and that's, you know, like we had that episode with Kenny a couple, a couple of weeks ago that, uh, that you should listen to for that divorce prevention plan. But, uh, that was a, that was a big thing. Kenny was behind is like, even when you're working, if you've got a work thing, you can bring the family along, fucking do it. 

Sean Walker: dude, totally. And, and I'm 

Andy Leviss: Although Kenny said it's slightly, slightly more PG rated than that. 

Sean Walker: I PG filter. My, my kids keep trying to do a good job. Cuspot. And I'm like, I'd be broke. I can't do it. Like, 

Andy Leviss: It's like, see this vacation? 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. 

Andy Leviss: This is the, 

Sean Walker: that cuspot out. Yeah. But it was. 

Andy Leviss: I was going to say like, what was, what was the work related thing? I'll pretend I don't know. So we can, we can talk about what it was, 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. The, the work related thing was I went to go visit the RCF factory. I've, I flew into Milan and then took a bullet train down to Gioia, where RCF is, and went and toured their factory, which was pretty fricking cool. Dude. I, I, uh, I, I had no idea that so much of it was handmade in Italy. 

I, I mistakenly thought there was more, uh, more, I'm gonna call it offshore. Uh, manufacturing then, then really was there. The majority of that product line or company or whatever is all basically handmade in Italy, which is frickin sweet. And the whole factory was full of women building all this stuff, which my wife thought was the coolest thing she'd ever seen in her life. 

You know, the kids could care less. They were like, take me out to the demo field so they could, you know, they wouldn't run around the demo field. Well, like, 

Andy Leviss: so you like took the whole family with you to the factory. 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, dude, totally. And they were, dude, they were so nice and kind and 

Andy Leviss: That's awesome. And I, I feel like, I feel like we should say up front, while RCF is a sponsor of the show, they did not put us up to this. Like, just Sean was telling me about the trip, and I was like, we gotta tell everybody about this. This is awesome. 

Sean Walker: Totally. And they did not pay for my trip. They, this is all out of my, out of my pocket and I wanted to go see what was, you know, what I'm buying into. Cause my, my company recently sold our, another manufacturer's PA and bought a bunch of RCF stuff. And it, it, uh, It works awesome for us. You know what I mean? 

I'm super happy with my purchase, but I wanted to know more about it and like, see where it comes from. And you know, I'm, I'm kind of on a, on a, uh, I don't know, man, kind of support people that are trying to do a good job kick as it were, whatever that, whatever that means, you know what I mean? And, and they really, they really give a shit, you know, they're trying to do a good job within the budget constraints they've got for their, Their product lines, you know what I mean? 

And, uh, so I wanted to go check it out, dude. And so Tarek at RCF was nice enough to set me up with some, you know, some cats down there and go run to the factory. And Antonio was nice enough to, to come pick us up at the train station and towed us around and, Give you the walkthrough of all the buildings. 

And they basically have a little city built there where it's multiple buildings in Reggio Emilia, Italy. And some of them are making the speaker boxes. Some of them are doing the high frequency drivers and the low frequency drivers and the testing and the boxing and the shipping and the, you know, blah, blah, blah. 

But it was cool to like, you know, I don't know, man, I've never manufactured anything. I don't know what that looks like. I've never worked in a factory, but to walk through the thing and see how like, first of all, how clean the whole place was, which was sweet, like inside and out, not just Not just the factory floor itself, but like the whole campus was, was like spotless clean, which was cool. 

Uh, different than if you're walking through Rome, by the way, which is not spotless clean. And, uh, then to see like everybody was In a good mood, having a good time. Like it, it, it wasn't like there are some manufacturers of, in a whole different, uh, category here where, when we're in working for them as our sound company, you know what I mean? 

They, they make a totally different kind of product, but when we're in work for them, everybody's not super excited. You know what I mean? And I think they're, it's a job, totally. I think their product is super cool. And everybody, everybody has been on their product. You know what I mean? So I don't want to like. 

I don't want to get myself in trouble. You know what I mean? But like they're not excited about their product. They're not excited about their company. And, and it was, it just, it's always, like, I'm, I'm stoked to go to the shows because the product is cool, but like the people are not excited to be there where this was the opposite, where the product is cool. 

And the people were all as stoked as you could be to have a factory job. You know what I mean? They were like passionate about making good speakers and doing a good job. And everybody had a smile on their face and was like, They were having a good time, which was cool and, and being, you know, precise. And so I got to see the, like the, the, you know, computer programs where they were like, Hey man, here's how many passes and here's how many failures for each particular component or each thing in the components or, you know what I mean? 

So as they're making the, like the high frequency drivers, you're like, here's how many we ran in this run and here's how many passed and here's how many failed. And it was cool to see that like, uh, you know, of let's say 700 and That they ran, there was two failures or something, right? You know what I mean? 

And in a batch and they're like, cool, those get pulled out and thrown away. We don't want those going to our customers. And they had one batch where it was like, Oh, well there was, you know, X, Y, or Z. And there was a higher number of failures. And they were like, this whole batch, we just yarded that motherfucker out and marketing. 

And they let that see the light of day because nobody needs to deal with that. You know what I mean? And so they do a bunch of that QC ahead of time, or they're like, Oh, we tried this new material and that's not working or something. So we're not going to You know, we're not going to Microsoft this and make everybody fix it with band aids later. 

We're going to get it done on the front end and make sure it works the right, the first time and not have a bunch of problems later, which I thought was super duper cool, dude. And I really appreciate that being a sound company owner, not having, not being their guinea pig, right? Not being the like test lab for them where out on a show, half my PA doesn't work because they didn't want to test it in the shop or they wanted to just ship more boxes. 

But when it shows up at my shop. It works. Or anybody's shop in the world, right? There's nothing particularly special about my shop when it comes to RCF other than, you know, we like them and they work well for us. But, uh, like, it, I was really inspired that they do a good job and they give a shit. You know what I mean? 

It was, it was very cool. And it was cool to like, be able to walk outside and hear them testing the new stuff. GTX 12 rig, and here the new firmware, because they were working on firmware updates and, and designs, because they've got a demo rig going up to the UK, and so Andy from the UK was down, and it was cool to see him again. 

I saw him at NAMM, and you know, just get to chat with the guys about what they're working on, what they're thinking, how it's going. It was, it was super cool. And I'm I'm sure there are other manufacturers that do similar things. I'm not 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: stretch of my imagination thinking RCF is the only company that that does this kind of stuff. 

I'm sure a lot of companies do. So everybody who's listening that works for other manufacturers, I'm sure you're doing a great job, too. I just happen to be through the RCF factory right now. And anybody at Meyer Adamson wants to go have us walk through, I'll say nice things about you too. If you're doing a good job, but I'm just I'm messing with you guys. 

But it was cool to like, you know, just be able to kind of see it all and see that like 

Andy Leviss: yeah, well, and I, I didn't realize they were quite so, like, vertically in here, because I knew, like, the back of my brain, I knew, I, I think they make drivers for other people too, right? 

Sean Walker: They do. They used to make drivers for a lot of other people, and now that they make their own speakers, they make less drivers for other people, and 

Andy Leviss: Gotcha. 

Sean Walker: they still have a couple of legacy clients, and I, they would not say legacy. I'm sorry, that was my words, not theirs. They still have a couple of clients that they make drivers for. 

in their own boxes, you know what I mean? But once they started making their own enclosures and their own, you know, actual speaker product lines, rather than raw drivers, let's say, their drivers for other manufacturers decreased significantly, which is, you know, understandable, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And again, understandable from both sides that either they'd be like, we're going to focus on ours. So we both have to prioritize ours and don't want to focus on theirs. And, and I assume the other manufacturers are being like, well, we don't want you competing with us and us being reliant on you. So we're going to go elsewhere. 

So I imagine it kind of goes both ways. I mean, that's, I almost feel like we could like spin off that into another direction of like where that fits into with like other aspects of our business too, uh, you know, with like. You know, when do you, when do you sub rent a thing versus start providing it yourself and how like that works with relationships. 

So, I mean, we can almost spend a whole episode off on that, but, 

Sean Walker: totally. 

Andy Leviss: um, 

Sean Walker: But, like, at some point, if you're making enough drivers for other people, it makes sense to stay there, or if you're making enough money selling your own speakers, and the drivers are slowing down for other people, that, you know, that makes sense. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, lean into it. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, I mean, 

Andy Leviss: So, and like the, the QC you were saying, like, so are they like, they're testing like the individual drivers and then testing the assembled boxes, like at every stage, or is it like they're building the box? 

Sean Walker: Correct. Every single component gets tested before it's completed as an enclosure, and then that entire enclosure gets tested. And signed off on and then shipped. So like every component of every speaker, let's say, right. Unfortunately, I'm talking about speakers. Every component of every speaker has been tested individually. 

And then as a unit before it gets boxed up and shipped off to the customer. So it's all known and working. And in all of the inventory that we have personally purchased for them, cause they have not sent me any free inventory. We've purchased it all. We have had zero failures. So I'm, I'm stoked on that. 

And I, I, it's only been a year, so I can't say like, Oh, and all these years, you know what I mean? But like, there weren't any dead out of the box. Like I've had with other manufacturers, right? We, we had another manufacturer in about the same price point doing powered speakers. Uh, and we had a couple that were dead out of the box from the factory. 

And I've not had that experience with RCF, which was cool. 

Andy Leviss: That was awesome. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally. Uh, 

Andy Leviss: I'm just picturing this, like, this, like Willy Wonka land of like, you know, little old Italian nanos, like cooking up speakers, which, you know, 

Sean Walker: yeah, dude. Totally. That, that's not far off. It did not look like Wonka. It looked like a factory. Right. But like, Yeah, I did. Absolutely. And it was all ages of, of people, you know what I mean? From young, from young to old, but I was absolutely astounded as to how many women were in there just kicking ass and having a great time and fricking rocking. 

It was great. And there was, you know, there were some, some dudes too, but, but that was my wife's first comment. When we were there, she was like, dude, look how many women are here and they're all happy and kicking ass. And I'm like, yeah, dude. How cool. You know? 

Andy Leviss: That's that, yeah, no, that's, that's super cool cause like, pretty, I feel like both audio and manufacturing industries where like, that's not always the case. So, 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. 

Andy Leviss: it's, it's awesome to call it out and I know, yeah, like, like a lot of the, like, I'm, I'm thinking through like a bunch of women over the years that like famously were like kick ass solders and kick ass like electronics assemblers and that's, it's, it's cool to see that tradition going. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: dude. Totally. But it was, it was cool to be able to stop there and I, you know, to like see what's up with it. We've, you know, I'm, I'm north of a hundred thousand dollars invested into, into this company at this point of products and product lines and stuff like that when we bought, you know, even though they're affordable and whatnot, you know, we needed a lot of speakers and subs and monitors and all kinds of stuff. 

So we bought a, for us, we're a small company, right? So for, you know, For us, that's a lot of fricking dough. You know what I mean? I, I, I weighed that carefully before I was like, yeah, no problem. Here's a hundo. You know what I mean? And I was very pleasantly surprised to walk through and go, man, this is great. 

You know? And I don't say that with any, like, anything other than just total appreciation for the, the company and the product line. You know what I mean? They just did a great job and we've been super excited about it. And, uh, I think that's, It was a cool stop on then what I was able to then tag a few more days on for family vacation and go to Milan for a couple of days and have some killer espresso and go to, uh, Florence for a, for a day and see some cool artwork and cathedrals and stuff. 

And, uh, we went to Naples and we got out of there as quick as we could. Cause that 

Andy Leviss: But did you at least have pizza in Naples? 

Sean Walker: shit. Yeah, we did, dude. Margarita pizza, because that's what was born, dude. After Queen, Queen Margarita. And it was delightful, but the city was a zoo. And, you know, like I said earlier, my kids are six and nine. So, you know, it was pretty rock and roll for having little kids with you. 

And we were like, yeah, we're gonna go. And, uh, so we bailed out to Pompeii, which is like 30 minutes south of of Naples or I don't know if it's South, but yeah, South ish of Naples. And then just totally fell 

Andy Leviss: And if it's not South, we'll just turn the map around 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just flip that boot around dog. That's, you know, that's cool. 

Somebody, you're the smart guy in the show. I'm just some fucking guy. Right. But, uh, that was fricking beautiful, dude. Pompeii was awesome because we got to like go check it out. It's a much smaller city, which is cool. And it's super clean. Like one of the things that we noticed about Italy, and we went to the big cities like Milan and Rome and stuff. 

So, you know, it's some of it's a lot of big city stuff, but like there was hella graffiti everywhere, hella. And I, you know, I live just outside of Seattle and you're in New York. So graffiti is not something that you're like, Oh, I've never seen that before in my life. You know what I mean? Like there's plenty of that, but it just seemed like an unusual amount of graffiti in my, in my opinion, you know, and Pompeii had none of that. 

It was super clean, almost like if you've ever been to Salt Lake City here in the United States, like. Where you're like extra clean. You're like, is this a city or is this like a museum in here? Like this, you 

Andy Leviss: Yes, it's both. 

Sean Walker: yeah, but, but super clean. Right. Pompeii was like that. And so we, you know, they had this cute little street to walk down. 

I had like, the kids could just run around and we weren't fearful. They were going to get fricking hit by a moving scooter. Cause that, that was the other thing is like, man, those scooter drivers be ripping. Through Italy, I didn't realize it, but like, somebody said driving in Italy is an adventure, and I was like, yo, man, driving in Italy is a fucking sport, dude, like, they, they, they got it down, there's unwritten rules that I would love to learn and, and get hip to it, because they, there was no accidents that I could see, there was no, like, extra traffic jams or problems, they were ripping. 

But they all knew the unwritten rules and it was not staying in your lane. Cause they were crossing lanes. They were like zigzagging out of cars that, you know, it like, it was just, it was, it seemed like chaos until we'd been there a few days. And I was like, Nope, this is organized chaos. And everybody knows the rules, but me, and I would love to learn the rules, you know, 

Andy Leviss: I've been on many job sites like that. 

Sean Walker: totally dude. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: I almost wonder if like in Pompeii, is it so clean? Cause just, do you think the parents go around and you're like, if you don't clean up, the volcano will erupt again. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Totally dude. Totally. But they built, basically built a city around the ruins, right? So you can go like, Have this cool vacation city that's super cute, and then go see the archaeological ruins, which was my wife's important part, that's what she wanted to see was the, she loves ancient ruins and stuff, and so we got it. 

You know, 

Andy Leviss: Explains why you two are together. I 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, 100%, bro, look at the gray in this beard, dude, I'm fuckin ancient, dog. I remember waking up one morning, yeah, yeah, same, same, like, did you, you know, and the rest of the, you know, there's other guys our age on there, you know, you wake up one morning, you're like, who is the fuckin old guy in the mirror with the gray hair, you know, like, I used to be young and handsome, and now, what's up with the gray hair and the beard, dude, 

Andy Leviss: think somewhere in my attic, there's a picture of me getting younger and prettier by the day. Sorry, apologies to family guy for stealing that bit. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. Uh, but it was cool to like, go see all the ruins and like, I don't know why in our culture, and I don't know if it's, you know, all of society or just us here, but like, I don't know why we're obsessed with death and why Pompeii is so attractive because they got leveled by a fucking volcano. 

But it was a cool experience to walk through and see those, see this whole city, dude, this whole like, Houses and buildings and stuff and like learn how they lived and be able to walk through the different houses. And like, here's the, you know, basically here's the elite or the upper class or the rich or whatever you want to call them. 

Right. And here's how their houses would have been built or constructed and walk through, you know, some that were totally not totally demolished, but pretty fricking demolished and some that were. well enough preserved that you could kind of like put it together and go, man, okay, I could see how this would be or, you know what I mean? 

And go like, yeah, 

Andy Leviss: I, I, I wonder if, like, I guess that's gotta be the thing, because, like, so many of the, like, historical sites we go to are, like, reconstructions off of drawings or we can piece together, and, like, there's parts of that that are literally, like, flash frozen in time. 

Sean Walker: dude, totally. And, and then like, dude, seeing some of this, you know, I gotta, I gotta admit to, I got educated on this tour, man, or not tour, but on this, this trip, you know, it was, it was pretty, 

how do I say this carefully? Not carefully. It 

Andy Leviss: I, I had thought about the Vespa joke I was gonna make before, but the option was to just not tell 

Sean Walker: Yeah, make the joke. Uh, this is one of, this was a, uh, one of my first times. In Europe, right? I've been to France once before. This is one of my first times in Europe. Here in America, we're a young country. A few hundred years of, you know, doing, yeah, thousand percent. 

Okay, I'm glad you said it and I didn't have to be that guy. But to go someplace that has thousands and thousands of years of not only like traditions, but history and artwork and cathedrals and buildings or whatever. Like it was pretty awe inspiring dude. And like, we went and we went and did the last supper tour. 

You know what I mean? And, and, uh, we are, we, you know, my wife and I are not terribly religious. So this was not a religious thing for us. And, and I, you know, I don't want to go down that road. We're not for, against, whatever. I'm not going to that. I'm just saying like, we didn't go going, Oh my God, the last supper. 

I can't wait to see this thing. It was like, We were stoked about Leonardo da Vinci, you know what I mean? And go to go learn about history or whatever, right? Walking into that room. that had a 500 plus year old, I don't even know what the math is, somebody will correct me, that's fine, but like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years old, that lived through world wars, that got bombed in World War II, and is still there, you can go look at it, just, like, it sent chills up our spine, dude, my wife and I just looked at each other like, holy shit, dude, like, you know what I mean? 

That's freaking incredible. It was cool. You know what I mean? And then to go like be able to stand in the arena at Pompeii, like you can walk into the arena on the arena floor and look around and see what they would have seen on the thing. And that, that was like, holy shit, dude. You know what I mean? We did not have time to go into the arena, into the Coliseum in Rome. 

We got to walk around it. And that thing is fucking massive, dude. That, that makes, you know, Safeco field here looks like a fricking child's play. But, uh, But I imagine the same kind of thing. You just walk, look and go, dude, holy crap. And this all got built before there was like, you know, excavators and bulldozers and cranes and shit. 

Like there was more rudimentary tools. I know they had stuff other than their, you know, they had some kind of tools, but it wasn't like we got now to like build a bunch of stuff. So A lot of these took a long time to make and it was just like, to be able to design and build something that massive before we had, you know, CAD and all this kind of stuff, like it was just cool to think about what that would have taken to, what an undertaking that was to get those accomplished, you know, it was pretty awe inspiring to, to see, you know, and it was cool to chat with some of the, some of the people there and go, Hey man, is this like, is this lost on you? 

Like you live here, you see this every day. Are you like, Eh, I'm over it. Or is it still pretty cool? And they were like, no, man, a little bit of both. Like when you see it every day, it like the newness wears off, right. Cause it was new for us. But like a lot of them still were like, no, man, we, we totally get how important this is, which is why we try to take care of it or whatever. 

You know, it was, it was just 

Andy Leviss: I don't know. 

Sean Walker: a, it was a really cool experience through and through. And the kids had a blast, you know, 

Andy Leviss: I've just got this like cartoon going in my head of a bunch of like old Roman engineers being, we didn't need measurements or computers. We built it the hard way. We used our eyes and our ears. 

Sean Walker: right. Totally. But it was, it was like. It was unbelievable, dude. You know what I mean? To walk into some of these churches or chapels or whatever and see the intricate details that were in the art and design and on the ceilings and stuff was just, it was freaking awe inspiring, dude. It was unfreaking believable, you know? 

And to think that those were done, like, some of those Took years to do right just like the ceilings or the paintings or if it took like four years six years ten years You know a long long time for some of these artists to do to just be laid on your back painting a ceiling for four Years, that's what you did You just went to freaking went to work built some scaffolding that you built because nobody else knew how to do it or whatever like you just figured out how to get Up there and started painting freehand all the way across this whole church ceiling like holy crap. 

What an undertaking, you know 

Andy Leviss: Although you wonder if it would have taken three years, except the last year DaVinci was sitting there doing whatever the painter was like, God dammit, my snare still socks. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, right. Totally. Totally. Just try not to be half crazy and half freaking out a genius, you know? But like, it was just cool, dude. It was just. It was just cool. And we, you know, it's funny, we met like some people when we were in Rome, uh, you know, we were chatting along and they were chatting, you know, you can't really sit that far apart. 

Everything's pretty close. You know what I mean? And so you're over here in everybody's conversation and, and they were like, you know, Hey, it's pretty cool that you, you know, you brought your kids, like. They, they seem, you know, little for traveling this far and trucking through the cities and blah, blah, blah. 

And I was like, you know, man, it, it was, it was a lot of extra dough to bring the kids. It was originally just gonna be my wife and I, you know, we thought, man, it'll be cool to bring the kids, but what a cool experience for them to do. And, and our thought really is like, It's real hard to, it's real hard to grow up and be an asshole if you can travel around the world and realize that people are just people, man, all doing people stuff. 

You know what I mean? It's, it's real easy to get caught up in whatever's happening in the news or whatever's happening online or whatever somebody's saying, you know, but when you're walking around, A totally different country of people that surprisingly do a good job of speaking, speaking a second language, right? 

Speaking our language. Cause there was a lot of Italian spoken, but man, I was impressed of how many people are not impressed. I was thankful for how many people spoke English that made our, made our getting around there really easy. You know, not, not, I shouldn't have said impressed, but thankful. And to just see that, like. 

Dude, everybody's just, people doing people stuff, man, you know, and it's cool that the kids can see that, and so, you know, when somebody says, Oh, this, that, the other thing about this, that, the other thing, and you're like, yeah, man, we've been there, we know, we know different, like, they're just frickin trying to, you know. 

Raise the kids and have a good life and do people stuff, you know? So it was cool to have a multifaceted trip. You know what I mean? That wasn't just like dad going to do some work stuff, you know what I mean? But the, the kids got to have a fun adventure and you know, get to go learn some worldly stuff, which was cool. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. That's, that's, that's cool. And also they get to see a little bit about like what goes into dad's work. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Yeah. And they had a blast running around the test field. That was, that was. Definitely like after being on a plane for so long, they were stoked to be like, it was a huge open grass field, like not quite football field size, but almost, you know what I mean? That had scaffolding at one end, they had the GTX 12 rig hung there. 

And so they were just like ripping all over the field, like being crazy kids. Cause you know, kids being cooped up in a plane for a damn near 24 hours. They had to let some steam out and they were, it was great. 

Andy Leviss: That was awesome. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, totally. 

Andy Leviss: well, and the shop didn't burn down while you were away. 

Sean Walker: Nah, man, the guys held it down here. I'm fortunate to have a good team. You know what I mean? 

We're, like I said, we're a small but mighty shop, as it were, of cats that everybody's working pretty closely together. And so I was able to just let them do their thing and didn't have to micromanage anybody. And I got to go take some days, which was great, dude. You know what I mean? The gigs 

Andy Leviss: Is this, have you like, have you taken like days away before and like let them run or was this like the first big time of like, yo, I'm going to be gone for a couple of weeks. 

Sean Walker: Oh, this is the first time I've taken time off, period. Yeah. Like, like I went, I went back to work on my wedding night, bro. I I've been fucking ripping for a decade and this is our first, first vacation period. You know what I mean? Other than to go see the 

Andy Leviss: understand the craze now. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally. And so we were, we were fricking just stoked, dude. 

We were stoked to go have a time. And I came back, you know, exhausted from the travel, but mentally refreshed and feeling a whole lot better. So, you know, while, while a lot of this is, you know, I've been chatting about RCF, it also ties into our, our mental health. episode last time that, you know, anybody that's hung out for more than two and a half seconds in the discord server or listen to our show knows that I'm not really like, know, super chatty about mental health stuff, but it was fucking good for me to go, dude. 

I was pretty, I was pretty burnt out and like, I've been going hard into the paint. Like, like I, I, like I'm, to be honest with you, like, I've never seen anybody else do in my life to ensure that my family did. Did not flounder, you know what I mean? To ensure that we had success. And, uh, and I don't say that to put anybody else down. 

Just that like, you know, fricking, I've been working my fricking ass off for a decade and it was cool to go have a vacation and have something to show for that rather than just a shop full of gear. You know what I mean? I'd be able 

Andy Leviss: That's important, man. 

Sean Walker: go do something with my children and my wife and have fun and laugh and You know, find my smile as it were, you know what I mean? 

Just have some fricking, have some cool time dude. And, and get some of that mental health back and not be so burnt out. Like, you know, I was, I was so burnt out before I left that I didn't realize I was burnt out. It was just the normal state. There was just my normal state of fucking, you know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Been there, been there. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. And I think a lot of people have, right? I'm, I'm, I'm not unique in that, man. I'm, I'm just some fucking dude doing, doing dude things, trying to try to raise some kids and support a family and stay on that divorce prevention program. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Well, and I mean, that's the, I mean, that's the big thing. And that's a little of what, you know, I was talking about Kenny when he came on the other week and the thing I'm dealing with now is, you know, like I knew I was like burning out at the one job and then, you know, like the back half of last year was like much happier with work, but just the schedule was relentless and then now trying to find that balance of like balancing enough freelance to like, keep the, keep paying the mortgage and keep paying all the things we need and doing the things we want and take care of the dogs, but also have time to breathe and like be home and, 

Sean Walker: totally, man. And it's, you know, like what a crazy business we've chosen. Just flat out. It's fucking crazy 

Andy Leviss: uh huh. 

Sean Walker: half of it, you know, and, and I don't know, I, I don't have a way to like keep on topic, so I'm just going to fucking ramble. But like half of it is like technical science, right? This will work this way. 

This is how this does half of it's fucking art. You know what I mean? If you're mixing a, we'll take something like mixing a concert, right? Mixing for a band or whatever. Half of that is technical. Let's say, and I don't know that it's half, but you know, just for fucking conversation sake, the, the angles on the PA have to be right. 

It has to be pointed in the right direction. It has to be tuned well. It has to be in polarity. It has to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? All the things that we've talked to that, half of that is artistic, right? The, the person at, at front of house, or it could be ears or whatever. How does it sound? Do I like it? 

Does the audience like, are they reacting to it? Well, right. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So there is a lot of like second guessing. There's room for second guessing yourself in there, right? There's room for like. Am I really good at this? Or am I, can I do this? Or blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? And you know, I'll speak for myself and I'm sure I'm not alone that like my clients keep hiring me. 

So it's got, it's gotta be good enough or they wouldn't keep hiring me. Right. I think my mixes sound great, but at the same time, Any one of our listeners who is a competent engineer would come in and go, I do it better. I can do it different. I would do it right. And that's just part of our job. And so that is taxing on a person. 

Right. 

Andy Leviss: hmm. 

Sean Walker: And so it's, it was nice to just go like, Okay, I'm gonna turn that part off and just go think about espresso and learn about frickin croissants and espresso because that was frickin Delightful and I have a whole new appreciation for coffee once I've gotten back and the French press ain't doing anymore. 

Damn it 

Andy Leviss: This one wasn't even my fault. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right no, nope, not your fault 

Andy Leviss: As I've been 

Sean Walker: not your fault but between you and Ryan I'm gonna be fucking broke at the end of this Conversation about coffee. I'm sure 

Andy Leviss: an espresso machine in my basement that's been waiting on a new gasket and like, half taken apart for a number of years and we've been talking about maybe trying to repair it and see if, trade the coffee machine in the kitchen out for that, cause there's only space for one, but like, like the missus has been on a latte kick lately, so, 

Sean Walker: Mm 

Andy Leviss: like maybe we do that. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, there you go. There you go 

But you know, like, but, but you know, back to the, like, you know, I'm not known for being a softy and being real introspective either in life or, you know, or in the community here. 

So I, I won't dwell on it too long. Cause nobody wants to hear me fricking going on and on about it. But, but it was cool, man. You know what I mean? And, and it. And I didn't realize until a lot of, you know, until the community kind of helped me as I was reading through different things, you know, maybe, maybe I did need a break. 

Maybe I did need some time away. And so that was kind of the inspiration of the trip to tie it all back together. That was kind of the inspiration of the trip, right? To come back to full circle here was like, I was just going to keep working, man. And, you know, Uh, I read some of the mental health posts and read some people and, you know, we did that episode with the guy that was like, hey man, you got a fucking life balancer. 

You might go berserk. And I was kind of feeling a little berserk in the, in the dome, dude. You know what I mean? I was just like, you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. You know what I'm saying? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, well, it's like the, it's, it's like the frog in the pot of boiling water, 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally. It was fully a rolling boil, bro. And I had no idea. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, for the, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, that's the, you know, you toss a pot and, uh, frog into a pot of boiling water, he's gonna hop right out because it's boiling, but you put a frog in a, Pot of room temperature water. 

And you slowly bring it up to a boil. It's going to be a while before that frog suddenly is like, fuck, is this, am I soup? I think I'm sick. Fuck. 

Sean Walker: I'm soup. I'm soup. Yeah, dude. And I was, you know, mentally I was feeling like soup and just couldn't figure it out, man. I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going on. And, uh, so it all just kind of came to fruition where like, We, you know, we did that episode about, about mental health and I was kind of going, man, I don't really, I don't really know, man. 

I, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't really get too into that kind of thing. And in a, in a unknown, you know, kind of tangent or whatever Tarek reached out and was like, well, if you ever want to go see the fricking factory, we, you know, would, you know, I could set up a tour. And I was like, yeah, dude, yes, I do want to go see the factory. 

Yes, I would like a tour. And by the way, after that's done, I'm going to tag on a few more days so that the family can go see some stuff and we're going to get out of here for a while. You know what I mean? And so, uh, you know, we got a little bit of, uh, work. We got a little work done, but it was pretty, pretty light duty, you know, work. 

It was a lot of like, Checking it out. Also, they have a cool demo room there to, side tangent back to work here. I'm sorry for just being scattered all over the place, but they got a cool demo room. So I was able to listen to a lot of their speakers, you know what I mean? A lot of the different models of speakers and like back and forth and back and forth real easily and seamlessly with the same tracks. 

And so I was able to 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Like something a little nicer than just a big echoey warehouse 

Sean Walker: yeah, it totally. And so it was cool to hear some of them and how like a lot of them have the same sonic signature across the family and find a few that I was like, okay, I'm not going to add those to inventory. You know what I mean? But after, but over like, oh, there's probably a hundred speakers in that room. 

There was like maybe two where I was like, okay, it was easy enough for me to remember. Like those are the ones that not evidentory and you know, the rest of them were all pretty cool. 

Andy Leviss: and not even necessarily that they're bad. They just don't 

Sean Walker: Nope. No, no, no. It just doesn't fit what I needed. None of them were bad. It was just like, oh man, I thought this was going to be a cool solution. 

And it's a tool intended for an entirely different use purpose, use case than I had. Right. It was not like, this is not good. It was like, oh man, I was thinking this is going to be perfect. And it is actually for an entirely different market segment or use case. And it's not going to work for one reason or another for me. 

Right. But after, you know, after that, to then be able to like, okay, cool. Work mode, done. You know what I mean? Phone off, emails forwarded to my project man, my production manager. You know what I mean, man? And I'm thankful because my production manager Garrett's just a fucking ripper dude. He's just a bad ass. 

So, you know, I can just be like, Hey dude, uh, it's on you for nine days. Good luck. Click, bite. And it was, you can all seamless and smooth, you know? Uh, but you know, to kind of come back to the, to the mental health thing, like to just then have a few days of vacation, I could not believe how just a couple days. 

I started to be like, less crabby at the kids, and more just like, everything's okay dude, nothing's You know, less tense and less like just wound tight. You know what I mean? And it was a good learning experience for me, not only just because of the fucking awesome scenery and stuff, but you know, there there's, there's a lot more to mental health than I had ever given credit for until I experienced it. 

Myself is basically what I'm saying. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: I gotcha. I dig it. And, and that's the thing. And like, I. I've been more vocal about it lately, the last couple of years, just as I've become aware of it myself. And also I think like the platform we have here, I think part of what you and I have to do here is to like pull out the things that we don't even necessarily think about and help like bring them to everybody else's attention too. 

Like, I, I think it's fair to say you and I are not experts on everything and that's not the point of us being here. Like, you know, we're, we're learning with everybody and like mental health is one of those big areas that our industry is. Been really shitty about, and like a lot of us get that way of like just plugging away and plugging away and 

Sean Walker: thousand percent, 

Andy Leviss: I mean, we went on vacation to Iceland in January and like, it was only like, it was only like four or five days. 

It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to just like, kind of hit reset and chill out and 

Sean Walker: totally, 

Andy Leviss: yeah, just come back refreshed and, and ready to go and show off. Cool pictures? Mm-Hmm. 

Sean Walker: totally dude, totally. And, and. You know, we're in an industry where, you know, you were saying, we're not good about mental health. We're in an industry where like, some of that is, is our fault or our industry's fault. And some of that is just the nature of the beast. Because I feel like no matter what we want to do or say about mental health, or this is too stressful or whatever, like, shows at eight, dude, I don't know if I can tell you, like, it's got to get done. 

You know what I mean? Like, if you look, if you're on show day and you're loading in, like, you know, Doors are at 7, shows at 8, or you know, whatever that collectively really is, but like, there is an event happening, whether you're feeling peachy about yourself or not, it is time to put on your big girl or big boy shorts and get her did today, you know what I mean? 

That is how it goes. Now, that doesn't mean that the next two days you can't be like, well, I'm going to veg out and play video games and frickin, frickin, don't call, don't write, you know what I mean? Send me a postcard if you 

Andy Leviss: I did, I did a, I did a crazy cool gig the other week that, like, we wrapped up well past midnight on show day and I got home and I disappeared for a chug of a day, just, not even I needed to hide, I was just fucking tired. 

Sean Walker: yeah dude, totally. 

Andy Leviss: But uh, yeah, that was the gig I did the other week that I needed secret service clearance for. 

Sean Walker: there you go, dude. Totally. But I, I've, I've never allowed myself that, that time, right? I've never allowed myself that. I've been, I've been doing 12 to 18 hour days for a decade and I have several 24 hour work days every single year. Right. And I don't mean like, Oh, I had one, one time and it was long. I mean, like I got two, two to four, 20 hour work days every single year. 

Every other day is 10 to 18 hours a day. Right. Just like a lot of us. And I, I, again, I don't say that, uh, that to be special. Cause I, I'm just some, just a fucking dude doing dude things, right. Trying to frickin feed my family. But I did not allow myself to have off days or downtime or whatever, because when I get home, I gotta go be dad. 

I gotta go, you know what I mean? Be a husband. Try to be a whole person to these people that have had their own lives and doing their own things. And so it was, it's been, it's been craziness, dude. And it was just, it was just wonderful to be able to like connect with my family and spend that time and go. 

And it was a learning experience in mental health and in relationships. And it was just, it was awesome, dude. It was awesome. 

Andy Leviss: that's really cool. And like, and I'm glad you had that chance too. And I, I, I know we all, we all missed you for a couple episodes here, but I'm glad you got to take the time off. And, and I mean, I'm, I'm going to do the same soon too. So, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally, dude. And, uh, you know, like, you, you gotta find that, you gotta find that balance, and I, I would say, you know, as somebody who has fuckin been way out of balance for years in that particular regard, uh, find it sooner rather than later. You know what I mean? And, and, like, You gotta, when, when you're first starting out, you know, cause we got a lot of people at all kinds of different skill levels and places in their career here in our, in our audience, but like when you're first starting out, you don't have a choice, man, you gotta be absolutely blindly obsessed with being, with getting good at this. 

There's so much to know and so much to learn. It's fucking overwhelming. And you gotta be just, just tunnel vision, unbelievably fucking obsessed. To get good fast enough to get hired enough to make enough money. You know what I mean? But the trick is going to be to figure out when you can like, all right, man, I don't need to have the turbo on and the nitrous kicked in at the same time to be going this fast. 

I can like let off the pedal enough just to be running freeway speed and learning, learning at a faster than normal pace, but not an obsessive pace or whatever. Right. To like, I'm going to take a day off and go hiking. I'm going to go fricking go to the beach or go surfing or just stare at a fucking wall for the day or whatever. 

You know what I mean? Whatever it is to like keep in a good spot, you know? 

Andy Leviss: that's, that's awesome. And no, no, 

Sean Walker: sorry, go ahead. 

Andy Leviss: no, I, 

Sean Walker: Uh, just like, I never thought about that balance. You know what I mean? I, I never, I never thought about my own like mental health or what I, what I needed. You know what I mean? And I just, I just needed a fricking break, dude. You know? And I know we didn't, we didn't plan to talk about that today or whatever, but like, And I didn't, you know, to be honest with you, I didn't even know I was going to talk about that until it just came out. 

Cause like. I didn't all like, it didn't all click until we just started chatting about it. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, no, I, I dig it. And, and I, and I, I think, and hope folks listening will dig it too, because it is an important thing and sometimes you realize it yourself in time and sometimes hearing somebody else realize it can, can kind of kick that off too. You know, I mean, I know we've actually, we've kind of had a heavy focus on like a lot of the non sound things lately, like some mental health, like talking with Kenny about relationships and Bailey about money, um, and I do want to assure people we are still an audio podcast and we've got some cool stuff coming up, you know, the next handful of episodes, 

Sean Walker: dude, we got some nerd shit coming down the pipe in the next few episodes. Andy's lined up some nerd shit. So if you're, you know, if you're here for that, hang on, here it comes. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: yeah, we got some, like, some people who mix, like, some, like, like, Symphonic shit live, we got, like, some, some top rock and roll folks, some old school cool, like, we're working on lining somebody up that one of our former guests recommended who is Y'all are gonna dig when you hear who this guy mixes, but, uh, till we have it booked and recorded, and I'm not gonna tell you, I'm just gonna tease you there, but, somebody with some like, awesome, awesome, uh, rock, uh, creds going back 30 something years and bands you have heard of that's gonna be cool, 

Sean Walker: Totally. But you know what, man? Like. I think it's okay. And I hope everybody else, I hope everybody else agrees too, but like, there's so much more to this industry than just the nerd audio shit. Like all people too, dude. You know what I mean? And I know that sounds weird coming from me. Cause I, I've, I'm not the most introspective of cats, but like a lot of this all ties together, you know what I mean? 

And that's really kind of, kind of what I wanted to say today was like, it's all, it's all tied together, right? Your technical ability, your creative ability, your can't believe I say it out loud more than once in this episode, but your mental health, you know what I mean? Like. It's all tied together cause you've got to be at your best at all times for your clients. 

And 

Andy Leviss: Mm hmm. 

Sean Walker: you know, fricking 

Andy Leviss: we're gonna see if the powers that be will let us title this episode, Sean Gets Touchy Feely. 

Sean Walker: nah, dog. 

Andy Leviss: Now, does that go against the restraining order? 

Sean Walker: Yeah. No, I don't have any restraining orders. I've, I've, I'm, I'm good. But, uh, but I can't go back to that one school that one time, you know, but 

Andy Leviss: We kid, we kid. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. A thousand percent. Um, no, dude, but it was just like, It was a learning, it was a learning week for me, which was cool, dude. And I learned a lot of things. I didn't even know I wanted to, needed to, or was going to learn. You know, I thought I was going to see some artwork with the wife and kids. And I came back a whole fucking refreshed new person, dude. 

It was pretty amazing. 

Andy Leviss: That rocks, and I mean, let's encourage everybody else to take some breaks, take some vacations, take the time you need to make sure you're doing well. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: when we burn out, our work pays too. 

Sean Walker: I think that'll be the point of this episode, dude, is like, Take, just go, go do you dude. You know what I mean? Like, or dudette, right? Dude or dudette. Go, go do you. Like, when you're at work, somebody one time, I, and I'm, I'm sure I'm going to misquote this, but that's okay. 

You're used to that for me by now. Like, work hard, play hard, don't alibi produce, right? It was like the, the Baba Black Sheep or somebody in World War II, some squadron in World War II, right? I had, I had the, I had the work hard, don't alibi, produce part going. I didn't have the play hard part going. You know what I mean? 

And, 

Andy Leviss: Yep, you gotta balance it out. 

Sean Walker: Rebalancing is going to be great for me. You know what I mean? So I, I, I highly 

Andy Leviss: forward to checking back in and seeing, seeing what we're doing and we'll, we'll keep us both honest and listeners will too, 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. Learn from my mistakes, dude. Go, go get that balance ahead of time. You know? 

Andy Leviss: right on. Um, cool. Well, I guess we'll wrap it there then. And we'll come back. Like I said, we're, we got a bunch of really cool episodes coming up with some cool, cool sound folks. Again, some other non sound stuff coming up too. We got. Uh, like a, a, a good friend of mine who's a, a historically accomplished, uh, Broadway, like Tony winning sound designer that we're going to talk to in, in the next few weeks. 

Some really cool shit coming, um, and we'll, we'll be back with that next week. Uh, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Thank you to Allen and Heath. Obviously, huge thanks to RCF for, you know, not only sponsoring the pod, but also like having me out to check out their zone and being so accommodating and stuff. We appreciate you guys huge. And uh, we'll see you guys next week. That's the pod. 

Andy Leviss: take care, everybody. 

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: What we do is a combination of physics and art. So we might call it, uh, 

Sean Walker: A fart? 

Andy Leviss: I mean, we are full of hot air. 

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