252. Elliot Carroll Of Show Imaging On The Business Side Of Audio

In Episode 252, the hosts are joined by Elliot Carroll, director of audio services for Show Imaging, who talks about the business side of audio — deciding what gear to buy (or, more importantly, not buy), when to say yes or no to a proposed project, training staff, keeping staff happy and healthy on job sites, and much more. Elliot’s spent the past 20 years specializing primarily in corporate audio, with stops along the way doing festivals in below freezing weather in Denver, and even running away with the circus for a stretch. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Episode Links:
Show Imaging
Elliot Carroll on LinkedIn
Episode 252 Transcript

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Episode 252 Transcript

Transcript

Signal To Noise, Episode 252: Elliot Carroll Of Show Imaging On The Business Side Of 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 another episode of Signal to Noise. As usual, I'm your host, Andy Levis, and as usual, right over there on the other side of your earphone is my buddy, Mr. Sean Walker. What's doing, Sean? 

Sean Walker: I'm, uh, out of my element this week, buddy, I gotta admit. I'm, uh, programming DSPs for an install, which is way out of my element and pretty much want to blow my brains out and end the whole thing at this point. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, you gotta be doing okay, cause you haven't, you haven't, you haven't sent out the phone a friend red flag yet that I know of, unless you're cheating on me with another DSP programming friend. 

Sean Walker: I mean, I mean, I totally am. I'm totally, totally, um, but it's not your, it's not your DSP. So it's something else. And I was just, man. Hats off to those who program DSPs for a living. You guys are a genius level that I, I have not unlocked that achievement yet. It's 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, they're, they're powerful things, but there's a thing to be said for buying, like Uh, a Galileo or a, or a Galaxy or a a lake where all of that part of it has been done for you 

Sean Walker: Oh my god, totally. I am super fast with a Galileo or Galaxy, and this is like, this is mind numbing, bro. Anybody that's like, hey, just use a FreeWire install DSP on a live show. Just punch him in the face, dude. Holy 

Andy Leviss: so Sean, for, for, for those who, who don't work in installs at all, do you wanna explain to folks quickly what, what a free wire DSP is? 

Sean Walker: Oh god, you're gonna make me explain that? Alright, it is literally a blank slate. So you fire this thing up, factor reset it, and it is staring at you with this grey screen of nothingness. So instead of like, opening up Lake or Galileo where you're like, here's your ins, outs, matrix, delay, EQ, all that stuff, you have to, you Individually populate every single thing you want and then tie it together like a patchbait from a recording studio. 

So you have to say, well, this thing goes to that thing and then that thing goes to this thing. And then this thing goes to that thing and you have to pick the right modules. Then if you pick the wrong module, you have to unattach them, take it out and then put the right fucking module in. And then once that's done, then you have to hit compile on the whole thing and hope to God you didn't fuck it up. 

And then cuss at it a little bit more and go back and fix the stuff you fucked up from the compilation and then go back and try it again. The whole time you have to make sure that you have the right firmware revision on the box and the thing you're talking to, and then the thing that makes the pretty iPad app. 

And once all those firmwares are all right, and then you've got it all talking to each other, after you figure out the network situation, then the thing works. And then you hit go and it starts the audio. It's not like already running audio at all times. 

Andy Leviss: So, 

Sean Walker: so now you've got this thing that kind of runs. 

And kind of works and is super clunky to deal with because, you know, I'm a live sound guy, not a, not an integrator for the most part. And then you have to wire up Phoenix connectors instead of just XLRs. And the whole thing makes you want to just eat a fucking bullet. If you're from the live sound world. 

Andy Leviss: so so our, our, our, our guest just sitting here on camera with this, just like cracking up right now. And I feel like I want to bring this around at some point to the what and why of how you ended up with this FreeWire DSP, which is right on topic of where we're going with this episode. So 

Sean Walker: or do you want to wait till later? 

Andy Leviss: We'll come back to it, I think. 

Um, but, cause, well, let's at least introduce him and get there. So, it's funny, this episode actually started kind of simultaneously in two separate ways, cause, you know, we'll periodically on the Discord, which if y'all aren't there, you should join and spend more time online with us, cause what 

Sean Walker: 1 900 AUDIO. 

Andy Leviss: Um, and, uh, listener and actually one of our moderators, Lucas Wasson, and I realize I don't know if I'm pronouncing your last name right, Lucas, so sorry if I'm not, um, had said, like, that he would be really interested in hearing about, like, from the business owner's side about, like, how to make choices and, like, buying gear, maintaining gear, that sort of thing, and literally about The same day or the next day, we got an email in the inbox, and we keep saying, if you're listening and you've got something cool you think would be worth talking about on the show to reach out to us. 

And, uh, Elliott Carroll, Director of Audio Services for Show Imaging, reached out to us and was like, hey guys, like, I've been doing this a long time and like, listening to the show and thought I, I might be able to come on and like, nerd out with Sean particularly about stuff like, what are you buying and why as a business owner? 

And how maintenance and repairs affect budgets and, you know, managing and training and, and keeping staff happy and healthy and all that. And light bulbs went off. I was like, that is literally exactly what another listener just suggested too. So I was like, let's do it. And a couple weeks later, here we are. 

So hey, Elliot, how you doing? 

Elliot Carroll: I'm well, guys. How are you? Well, 

Sean Walker: Awesome. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I mean, 

Elliot Carroll: I'm doing better than Sean. We're all doing better than Sean right now, yeah. 

Sean Walker: Here's the hard part. The hard part is I could not possibly really complain and expect you to listen. Cause it is first world fucking problems, bro. You know what I mean? Like these are my own first world problems brought upon myself. 

Andy Leviss: gonna say that it's all being camp of you said yes, dude. 

Sean Walker: A thousand percent, dude. A thousand percent. And I bit off more than I could chew and that's okay. 1 800 AUDIO. 

Andy Leviss: So yeah, I mean, I kind of gave the quick and dirty like one sentence, Elliot, but do you want to give us a little bit more about who you are and how you ended up where you are? 

Elliot Carroll: Sure, yeah. Um, probably like a lot of sound people, I was, uh, It all started back from being a musician, you know, from a young age. But, uh, yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna be a, I was gonna be playing a symphony someday. That was my life goal. And then, you know, that didn't happen for one reason or another. 

Andy Leviss: was your instrument? 

Elliot Carroll: I was a trumpet player. 

Pretty, pretty serious through, through high school about it. Um, yeah, I was going to do the conservatory route, was going to play in a symphony. That was what was going to happen. Um, and just kind of weirdly kind of hit an age and fell out of love with playing it a little bit. And, um, I opted to go to just a traditional, traditional university and, and get a, you know, a boring, like advertising major. 

Um, and a couple of years into that realized that that wasn't fun. And, uh, and then was home working with my dad on, on like a spring break trying to make some money and, uh, heard an advertisement for this recording art school, uh, and thought that sounds like fun and getting back into music. So. I went there, actually the, the, it's called the Sheffield Institute Recording Arts and Sciences, which is actually where former host Chris Leonard went to, and ironically, I think the same year, we just must have been in a different track. 

But, um, but yeah, so outside of Baltimore, went there and then, uh, You know, learned about recording, which, funny enough, around that time is when all the recording studios started going out of business. Because everyone with an inbox and a laptop became a home studio. So that, all of a sudden, studios were shutting down and I realized that was 

Sean Walker: Totally 

Elliot Carroll: not going to be a fruitful way to make a living, I think. 

Um, uh, so, so yeah, I took a, I interned there for a while. Uh, at the, at the, because it was still a commercial studio as well as a school. And they had a remote truck. At the time it was the, I think at the time it was like one of the first and biggest like mobile recording trucks in the country. A full, like a full 53 footer. 

Um, yeah, it probably still doesn't stand, but 25 years ago it was, I think. And would do some shows on the truck with them with like the Air Force Band in DC or recording shows at the 930 Club in DC. They used to like, I think it was that age of Incubus and Jimmy Eat World and all those bands, you know, recording down there live for DVD stuff. 

Um, but yeah, so did that for a while and then took a, a paying job, uh, which was, became, became handy, uh, with Feld Entertainment, which for people who don't know is all the Disney on Ice shows and the Ringling Brothers Circus. and all that. So I was on the circuits for about three years. Um, yeah, doing that, that touring route. 

Andy Leviss: So we could, we could probably trade a lot of, uh, of family show and arena stories for my Sesame Street days. 

Elliot Carroll: oh yeah. Oh, nice. 

Sean Walker: I was going to say I'm still in the circus, but it's just the kids. 

Elliot Carroll: It's just the kids now. Yeah, totally. Um, and that was fun. I mean, it was like, you know, it was easy. I mean, as far as touring goes, it was easy because you're there, you're in a city for a week or two, you know, so you're not loading in and out every day. It's not as much of a grind other than the amount of shows. 

It was like, you do like Broadway level shows where you do two on a Friday, three on a Saturday, two on a Sunday, then load out. Like, so the weekends were brutal, but, um, but it was, you know, it was fun. It was, I didn't know what to expect going into it, but. Was pleasantly surprised that it's like, Oh, it's like. 

Well, back then it was still like a PM 4k at like front of house and a 3500 of monitors And it was a live band and singers and vocalists and a big Meyer MSL rig at the time And you know, it was better than what I expected Or more more advanced than what I expected I guess Um, so you had three years and then realized it was time to get out of there and then wanted to move out west and ski essentially. 

So I found a company to work for in Colorado, a small kind of boutique kind of mom and pop place in the Aspen area, which was great for the skiing. Hard on the back because all the work out there was your humping gear in the back of snowcats or carrying up a flight of stairs because there are no elevators or, 

Sean Walker: brutal dude. 

Elliot Carroll: degrees in the winter. 

Yeah, it was, it was a good learning experience because you did everything the hard way just because you had to, there was no other way to do it. Um, so yeah, you find 

Andy Leviss: this week doing stuff the hard way because he chose to. 

Elliot Carroll: that's right, it's 

Sean Walker: I went full dipshit this week, bro. I'm sorry. 

Elliot Carroll: Oh, but you learn fun things out there. Like, you know, you do these like fancy weddings, like these high profile weddings and it's like, well, you can't be seen. So you learn how to like mix behind a piece of drape, 50 feet side stage or behind the stage, and this was before iPads, like you couldn't go out and you just had to get, find a reference and just wing it. 

And every once in a while you get like. Someone to walk out on the radio and go, eh, maybe a little bit more of this, maybe a little bit more of that. And that was, that was the best I got. Um, 

Andy Leviss: That's, oh man, I remember doing a, a Hamptons wedding years ago that I was the, uh, I was the string orchestra submixer, and so I actually got to build a studio with a DM 2000 in the, in the cabana for the pool, so I at least had like a nice room to listen in, and sent that out to the tiny little front of house position that they did allow to be sort of seen as long as you wore a nice enough suit. 

Elliot Carroll: Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's totally what it was. Yeah. We'd 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Elliot Carroll: full suit. Yeah. If we were like, even if we were like allowed to be side stage and seen it was, it was full suit for a 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and like the cocktail hour would have like every tiny speaker in the shop just hidden amongst the topiary. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Yeah. So many high end destination weddings and it's like some of it's super cool cause you're like, how do I nerd this? So nobody knows and some of it you're like, really? Really? August? Outside? In a suit? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: you, don't you know I need to go to the gym already? Not in a suit? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. The amount of times you get like. Well, this is great, but do they make it in white? Okay. No. Okay. Can we paint it? Well, yes, but here's the 

Sean Walker: a price for 

Elliot Carroll: it and then paint it back. Yeah. It's like, okay, well that's too expensive. Okay. Well, can we just wrap it in white fabric? Sure. If it's sheer enough, we'll get on board with that. 

That's probably the best option. Yeah. Or 

Sean Walker: If you move the decimal point far enough, I will do anything you want. 

Elliot Carroll: that's right. A hundred percent. There's always a way to get it done. Um, We had a, I mean, no one, no one from Prada listens to this podcast. So we did something for Prada out there in Aspen and they, you know, everything had to be black. So those speakers are easy. 

That black, the cable's black. That's great. Then they had a small jazz band playing and, um, they were like the keyboard was like a Nord, you know, they're like, Oh, well can we paint it black? No, we can't paint the keyboard black. Like, so sorry. 

Andy Leviss: And of course, they had to pick the one keyboard that's not black. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, like the drum kit was like maroon and they're like, oh, can we paint it? 

Can we paint, can we paint the cymbal stands black? Like, oh, sorry. I, I just, I'm sorry. No, we can't. So anyway. Oh. 

Sean Walker: Wah, wah. 

Elliot Carroll: allow it, we'll allow it. 

Sean Walker: Dad jokes, bro. 

Elliot Carroll: You're getting ready. That's good. Um, yeah, so, yeah, so anyway, it could be that. And then, you know, but fun things out there like, uh, like the, you know, the X Games are out there for, you know, so many years and, and doing support work for that and, and, um, you know, plenty of music in the summer, but 

Sean Walker: I bet that was cool. 

Elliot Carroll: It was. 

Sean Walker: Games like? 

Elliot Carroll: Well, we did, I mean, the early years we would provide support on site, um, for, God, I forget the company who did it at first, I don't think they're around anymore, uh, some company from California. But, um, Yeah, it was a lot of support work in the very first years. It was like, how do we do this in this now? 

Like they came to us and they're like, how do we do it? Okay, well, great. Never like, you know, one thing you learn of working in, you know, when you have overnight degrees, you know, overnight temps of, you know, under zero or even, you know, even in the, in the single digits, like never turn, you can't turn the speakers off. 

You have to run low level peak noise continuously overnight. Otherwise. The glue on the spider on that cone will absolutely pop. It'll just pop clean off, you know? Um, 

Andy Leviss: thought it because like coming originally from a lighting background, I think about like how you have to warm up or like glow the filaments back when we had filaments in instruments before the modern LED era. I never really thought about that with speakers. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. They, yeah, they do it on the lights there too, for all that. They're always, they're always on. But, uh, but yeah, speakers the same way. I mean, you could warm them up in the morning, but you'd have to come in hours early to warm them up with low level pink and keep kind of bumping it up. Cause we're just keeping them vibrating, kept the glue from, from totally freezing. 

Um, so I don't care what the manufacturers say, that stuff. That stuff pops at anything less than 10 degrees if it sits long enough, so. So you like that and like, you know, it's like, oh, are you bringing any W4 connectors that, you know, like rubber ends? Like, okay, bring hair dryers. Because you gotta heat the rubber up, otherwise you can't see it's a connector. 

So like these little weird things that you would never know unless you worked out there. So that was, it was fun, you know, that was, that was different, but it made the work very hard and like just physically like ruffling your body really. But, but anyway, but then we just started doing like the after parties. 

Um, a lot, a lot of the after parties for the X Games, which was fun, just late nights, but at least you were inside and you weren't out in the cold. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, 

Elliot Carroll: So, yeah. Yeah, so we're, anyway, so, sorry, getting long winded, but yeah, worked there for a while and then, and then, um, had a couple, we had some, like, like, uh, high end kind of corporate shows that would come out there and, and met a New York, uh, freelance engineer who was like, hey, if you ever want to leave here, you should go do corporate audio. 

I'm like, oh, cool. Um, and I, I don't know if you know him, John, John O. Williams. He's out in Long 

Andy Leviss: I am actually the, the gig I was telling you about before we recorded that I'm seing for upfront season. John is the A1 on 

Elliot Carroll: There you go. Yeah, so John, yeah, I've known John for a long, long time. So yeah, he kind of helped get me in the loop, uh, with some, some vendors doing corporate work. And, um, and then, yeah, did that for, you know, freelance corporate route for about 14 years, I guess. Um, Yeah, about 14 years before, before COVID and COVID and kids, and then opted like I need to take a full time job and travel once a month. 

I can't be gone 150 days a year anymore. And, um, and yeah, that's how I settled out where I am now. 

Sean Walker: So if you've got kids, you're still in the circus with me. You didn't actually get to leave the circus. 

Elliot Carroll: No, it's still there. It's a different circus. Yeah. This is a 

Sean Walker: Thousand percent. 

Andy Leviss: and it is your monkeys. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, yeah, yeah, an almost 

Sean Walker: are our monkeys. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, an almost five and an almost two, so we're still kind of in the thick of it, uh, in some 

Sean Walker: Ours are six and nine. So I'm with you. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, yeah, so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's different, it's a different type of exhausting, yeah, yeah. 

Sean Walker: Thousand percent. 

Andy Leviss: Um, cool. So and you so I apologize to listeners. If we're repeating this, I'm pretty sure this was before we started recording. We said so you're The company you work with is based out of San Diego and you're based out of Oregon? Is that 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So I'm uh, yeah, to where I am now. So yeah, so Show Imaging is the company that we're headquartered, kind of based out of San Diego. The bulk of the people are down there. Um, We have an office in, in Orlando, uh, as well. And then a, a, a small kind of outfit in Montana, actually, in, in, in the Flathead Valley to service a few clients that do events up there. 

Um, but primarily out of, out of San Diego, um, and in the show managing, we were, it's a unique, it's a very cool and unique company. Cause we are a full services. Really means full service. So like we were chatting before, so it's audio, video, lighting, staging, roof systems, uh, we have a fabrication scenic shop. 

Uh, we have a creative team that does. 2D and 3D graphics and animations. We have a software team that, you know, literally writes ticketing software and, you know, utilizes RFID scanners for some of the music festivals we do. We have event management people who like literally just do logistics for music festivals for our clients. 

Um, and kind of everything in between. So it's, it's a, it's a unique and kind of fun company to work for. It's always, it's always different, but. Audio is just a small part of it. Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting model, you know, so yeah, yeah. 

Andy Leviss: so 

Sean Walker: Now, what do you do there? 

Elliot Carroll: Oh, sorry. 

Sean Walker: do you do for him? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, so I'm the director of audio services. Sorry, I realized. Um, yeah, so, you know, what my job entails now and getting the business side of it is You know, probably half my job is, is, um, helping salespeople write accurate quotes and put the right stuff on, on the right gear on quotes and make sure it's priced at a point that makes sense. 

Sean Walker: Oh shit. You're hired, bro. 

Elliot Carroll: a bit, that's 

Sean Walker: hired. 

Elliot Carroll: that's, that's about, yeah, that ends up being about half of it. And then the other half is, you know, more audio driven where it's, you know, training for the staff, what gear are we buying? Why are we buying it? You know, setting budgets. What's, what's the priorities, um, you know, meeting with vendors and doing the, I try to not do too many trade shows, but try to go, you know, Spend time on the campuses of these manufacturers that we buy gear from and go meet with them personally because you just get a better experience. 

And, um, but doing all that, that type of work still, I'd still do system design. And, you know, when our techs are busy, they're like, you know, they still reach out to me and go, Hey, I'm just too busy to deal with this. Can you, you know, can you, you know, put this system in Vectorworks for me? Like, I just can't get to the drawing right now. 

Or so still, Still doing some of that, which I can do remotely from home, which is, which has been great. Um, so yeah, that's the bulk of what it is nowadays. 

Andy Leviss: and like working remotely was that was this like always a remote position or was that a shift as everybody's shifted more remote the last few years or somewhere in between just out of curiosity? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, no, I've been up here in Oregon for about 11 years now. So, um, that was kind of a prerequisite of like, well, I'd be happy to take this job, but I need to stay remote. Like I'm not, we're not moving my family to San Diego. Um, nothing against sunny San Diego, but, uh, just 

Andy Leviss: I hear they've got a cool zoo. 

Elliot Carroll: They have a great zoo. 

Yeah. We've taken the kids to it. Um, but, uh, but yeah, we, we have a fair amount of remote employees like myself, the, the, the, my lighting counterpart, um, the director of lighting's in Connecticut, um, and, uh, yeah, so we, we've a fair amount of salespeople are remote. So. And I find that it's, I mean, other than the social aspect of being around the, the, the staffers and, and, you know, being in the warehouse, it's, you know, most of my work is, could be remote anyway, even if I was down there. 

Um, um, so, you know, training, like, you know, talking about training, like most of everything, software basis, like, Yeah, just schedule a Zoom with me if you have questions. I can go over most of this stuff, you know, online. You know, I don't, we don't need to be, you know, touching the gear necessarily, um, to, to make it happen. 

So that's been, that's handy too. 

Andy Leviss: Nice. So, I mean, there's, we've got a couple threads we should pick apart and I feel like I, I kind of just need to let you two go and I'll, I'll occasionally pipe in to clarify, cause you two are much more in that side of things. I'm just, I'm, I'm just the guy who usually gets stuck with the decision. 

Somebody like one of you two makes. Um, but yeah, I mean, we started talking and I don't know if we want to go back to where Sean was with, uh, with, uh, what, what, what, and why did you put yourself in this position with the, with the, uh, The DSPs and kind of go from there on how you to make decisions on, uh, on buying gear and how you choose what or what not to 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. That sounds, that sounds great. Sean, do you want to go down the, the, your, how you got into all these DSPs? Cause it sounds like a fun story. One that I don't want to get involved in, but it sounds like a fun story for you to tell. 

Sean Walker: no. 

Elliot Carroll: Well, come on, you're a live sound company. And then how did, so how did you, what, what, what made you, you know, get yourself involved with, with, with a DSP like this? 

Sean Walker: Clients be doing clientee things. You know what I mean? Clients be doing clienty things. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Cause sometimes that's it. I mean, when this company, this company is only, the company I work for now is only 13 years old, 13 years old. Um, and you know, the owner said, I'll never buy gear. He just wanted to be like, you know, design stuff. He's like, I'll never buy gear. We have warehouses full of gear now. 

So you just end up not saying no to things. And then all, before you know it. Here you are, you're programming DSPs, 

Sean Walker: Dude, a thousand percent. We, we don't do installs. And then a client calls you and says, Hey, I got this client that, uh, needs this, that, the other thing. And you're like, I guess we do installs then. You know what I mean? Like we don't do installs, uh, until we do installs, you 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: And so a client called and they've got a little, you know, I'm going to say micro venue compared to what a lot of people are designing. 

And they had a super tight budget. And so we had to find a not 10, 000 a piece DSP. You know what I mean? Yeah. Cause those galaxies aren't cheap, right? Those things are, those things are spendy. So the free wires are way less expensive than that. And so it was either, you know, not do a gig or figure out how to program free wire DSPs. 

And now I'm deciding whether it was worth it or not. 

Elliot Carroll: well that's, that's always the hard, it's always the hard question, right? Because it's like, do you really want to get involved with this? What's, what's the, what's the downside? What's like the downstream version of this? Is it going to be a client that like, oh, maybe like they have the potential to, to do work that would involve us down the road, right? 

So it's like, how much of that is weighing into your decision of. Yeah, this might be a, this might be this thing that we don't really do now, but it could lead to X, Y, and Z. And that's why we'd need to say yes to this. You know, that's, that ends up being a lot of, of. Getting yourself in weird situations sometimes. 

Sean Walker: yeah, totally. Ultimately, our client that we've had for a decade has shifted what they are doing to more integration or installation type of work. And they. are not audio experts. And so they came to us who, you know, I didn't have the heart to tell them we were not integration experts at the time. And we're like, can you solve this problem? 

And I said, if you move that decimal point, I will solve that problem. And they said, ka ching, there's the decimal point. And I said, okay, problem solved. And everybody in the shop was like, no, I am not dealing with that. And I was like, I guess that falls on me then for opening my big mouth and saying, we'll do it. 

So here I am putting my, my time and money where my mouth was, as it were, wishing that I 

Andy Leviss: the check you wrote. 

Sean Walker: that's right. Totally. Yeah. Ego was writing checks. The body couldn't cash. And now the body's trying to figure out how to cash those checks. You know, 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. It ends up happening just to keep a, you know, to keep a client relationship and, and, you know, good graces for lack of a better term, but 

Sean Walker: that's exactly it. 

Elliot Carroll: a big part of it. I mean, we're kind of in a similar situation, ironically, where we. There's a venue down here in San Diego that we, you know, frequently would do concerts in, and then they opted to, uh, put in a permanent PA. 

And we're also not integrators, and we said we're not integrators. Um, so they, another company is doing the integration, um, but we're also providing the labor to do a fair amount of the integration. Um, and then, because we're going to be the one dealing with the venue once it's all said and done. Um, you know, they don't, this particular client doesn't really have anyone on staff who's technically cool that could, you know, manage it. 

So we're going to end up kind of managing it, I think, in the long run. So it was, it kind of behooved us to stay involved on some level, even though it was kind of, you know, you know, not a, it was, you know, a lateral move to make a, you know, to make a better move down the line in the future, just to stay and stay in the, uh, You know, stating the client's good graces. 

So 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Elliot Carroll: same, you know, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I guess that sort of leads me to the question and I feel like I, I find this as a freelancer, whether mixing or whatever hat I'm wearing on a given day too, is where does that decision come into balancing. This is a little out of the comfort realm, but I can probably do it and doing it will make the client happy versus knowing when to actually say I am not, or we are not the right people for that and you will be happier going with this other person or company I can recommend. 

Like how, how do you, how do you strike that balance? 

Elliot Carroll: it's a great, it's a, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's the great question, right? Um, I, I think the, because anything new you do, you have to, I think you kind of have to understand, like if we're just talking audio, like let's take the installer out, cause that's kind of the perfect one to talk about. It's like, okay, well, like, do we, do you have an appetite to actually. 

Scale this, or is this just a one off for the client? Like if you have an appetite to scale it, then you have to know, all right, this is going to take a real investment. Cause it's not like you do it once or twice and you're like, Oh, we're making money off this and we're efficient at it. Cause you're probably not, you know? 

So you're like, all of a sudden I have to hire an install guy. You know, to deal with this. An insult guy who really knows what they're doing, right? Insult person, sorry. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Cause those are two separate animals like live and install are two totally separate animals, even though they're both audio. 

Elliot Carroll: way separate, like not even the same ballpark, like not, not even, you know. Um, so like, do you have the appetite to scale it correctly? Like if you can scale it, do really do it, you know, if you're, if you're going to dive into it, which is a big, you know, that's just, it's just capital. It's just like, are you, are you willing to sink the money into it? 

Which, you know, can go one of two ways. Um, if it's, you know, the danger of, of, or the, you know, the danger of doing a one off for a client and like not really having that skill set is obviously, you know, hurting the relationship. Um, but, uh, but usually like in Sean's case too, like we're going to make, you're going to make it happen, right? 

You're not going to end up doing a bad job. You just might end of the day go, well, that was not worth our time, effort or money at all. And okay, great. Now we won't, well, we definitely won't ever do that again. You know? So it's sometimes you have to kind of grin and bear it and do it once. And great, that didn't work out. 

Let's never do that again to actually find out, 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Elliot Carroll: you know? 

Andy Leviss: And at a certain point, I mean, that's almost a valuable business expense in and of itself is, is the, we'll call it an educational expense. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: totally. In this particular case, the, the, you were, to directly answer your question, Andy, when do you, when do you try to figure it out? And when do you pull the ripcord and say, Nope, not for us? I would say, For me, that line is when I don't have enough lifelines to call, right? In this particular case, if I actually got really stuck, rather than just being frustrated because it's stupid to talk to this box, if I literally could not figure it out and had no lifelines to call, I would then, I would have, before I got into that, pulled the ripcord and been like, nope, that's so far out of what we can figure out, like, you got to call somebody else. 

But in this particular case, I'm just, I'm like, venting unnecessarily about the frustrations of programming through our DSP. Not that I haven't actually figured it out. Like it's, it's up and running. It's all fine. I just was like, this is dumb to deal with over like Lake or Galileo, where you're like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, done. 

This is like hours of futzing and plugging in. You know what I mean? So it was more time than I even could have possibly fathomed having to put into this stupid box, but ultimately it's working in the client stoked. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And I mean, that, that's, that's almost to like steer us onto a slightly different tangent. That's like a perfect case study in, oh, that's why those other ones cost so more because they're paying somebody to do this half of it. 

Sean Walker: A thousand percent, because as I look through the options in this particular FreeWire box, and it's a super, super popular FreeWire box, uh, and it's a good product, it's just not something I'm used to, right? So I'm not talking trash about the thing, I'm just, like, I am totally out of my element, right? It has all All of the tools you need to do Blake, Galleo, whatever. 

It doesn't make the same shape of filters that some of those do, because some of those make particular shapes in the filters, which is why people like them. But it's got all the other like, you know, input, EQ, delay, high low pass filters, all pass filters, routing matrix, right? Like you could do all that in it. 

It's just not fast and slick to use with the UI compared to the live boxes, right? The ones that are intended for touring or being the front end of a PA. So while technically it would work, like, you could make it function, the amount of fussing and clicking and mouse dragging to make it all work on a show site would just, like, in my opinion, be a freaking day record, dude. 

You know what I mean? Because it's not the tool intended for that, you know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Um, yeah. And I mean, that's, I mean, maybe we do, maybe this is a good time to zoom out a little bit and, and go back to that broader question of, as you two work in, you know, Shauna's owning your company and Elliot, you know, working in the position you do at yours, uh, how, how are you making those decisions on other tools and figuring it out? 

What is the right tool for the job or which and I I'm I'm sure even from the limited extent I'm involved in that that's often, you know, sometimes the the best tool and the right tool aren't necessarily the same thing So did you want to like pick that apart a little bit? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, yeah, sure. It's, uh, I mean, in our, you know, on the audio side of things, it's, it's generally come, you can, you can kind of cut it in half. It's. Are you doing shows to the level of like, you have to adhere to writer friendliness? Like on the music side, you have to adhere to writer friendliness, right? 

Are you doing the big enough ones where it's like, you know, you can't go buy a, buy a Pia that's not going to fly 50 percent of the time. You can't go buy a console that no one's going to take, right? It's just, you, you, it's unfortunate. Because a lot of the times that stuff will do the job just fine. You know, especially nowadays when all the gear is so good, like, uh, you know, it's hard to buy bad gear now. 

Um, so that's, it's, that's its own tangent of frustration, uh, and, and, you know, having the, having to buy a certain thing, if you want that certain show, um, you know, so I'd almost argue like on the music side of it, it's the, the shows you want to do are the shows that will take what you have and you can get a good dollar amount for it. 

Like. You know, let's just cause it just happened the past couple of weekends. Like let's take the Coachella example, like. You know, it's pretty, I mean, look, you know, the company has done that gig for a lot of years has done it for a lot of years and there's a certain expectation, but you know, if he, if he went and swapped the PAs for the entire venue, I, you know, I, I'm sure he wouldn't even be allowed to do it. 

You know, there'd just be like, no way you have to use this PA forever. Like it's, this is what it is. Um, you know, so doing the, the SL 260 festival, You know, in where, you know, that's, that's kind of the show you want as a business owner, because, you know, you could spend less money. You don't have to buy the greatest thing, um, and spend the most money. 

Um, and, and you can definitely, from a financial perspective, make your money back much sooner on something that's quote unquote mid grade. You know, compared to some other competitors and, um, and still, still run your business. So that's, I mean, I don't know, Sean, you, you have a lot of feelings on that one, but that's, that's how I would feel about it. 

Sean Walker: That is literally my business. 

Elliot Carroll: There you go. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: Camped, 

Elliot Carroll: isn't it 

Sean Walker: on, it's amazing, dude. Amazing. Basically camped on an SL between 100 and 320, right? And we've got an RCF HDL rig and QL5s and we just get to ripping all summer here in the Northwest. And you know, as I've said many times, just printing money. And every once in a while you get somebody who's like, here's, here's our rider, but we don't run into a bunch of Like, we get a lot of writers, but they're like, uh, Hey, we'd love to have plenty of cold beer in the break room and plenty of, like, sober guys on site and, you know what I mean? 

They don't really get to, like, command what they're gonna have. And all of them have, they're like, you know, We'll take V DOSC, or Jay, or this, and you're like, Hey man, you do know that this is a 500 person SL100 show, right? And that that box literally won't fly on this PA. So here's what you get. They're like, Oh, that's great. 

Wonderful. You know, so we don't have to have like SL or K series or, you know, whatever to, to do what we're doing. And the, let's say half a dozen actual riders we get a year. We just tell them a scenario like, Hey dude, you can have the PA on your rider and a paycheck. Or you can have this PA that we've got, I mean, the PA and your writer, and no paycheck, or the PA that we've got, and a paycheck. 

And every time they're like, man, the boss likes to get paid, so let's just take what you got, you know? 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's good. I mean, that, that's like, that's the, the, the, from a business owner perspective and from the money side, that's, that's the spot you want to be in. Cause I mean, I'm sure you have competitive aspects out there too, but you know, the, the, the higher you go, it seems like the, the competition seems to grow and, you know, like we're in Southern California, like we can't, Like we have two private, we have two, we're especially bought in the two speaker systems, one's French, one's from California. 

You can figure out which one's which. Um, 

Sean Walker: I'm hip on both those. 

Elliot Carroll: there you go. Yeah. So, you know, the French boxes, everyone will take all the time. No one will ever say no to it. And the, the, the, the California boxes, which are amazing and we love them. And we have between the three sizes, we have hundreds of them. It, you know, it's a harder sell and it's frustrating because it's a great box. 

And you know, it's a great box. I know it's a great box. Everyone knows it's a great box. Um, but it's just not, you know, on enough riders now and, you know, to not just be like that guy bashing artists and project, you know, production managers and front of house guys for artists. Like, I, you know, I get it. 

I've been on the other side of the coin. Like you want to upload a certain standard, you want to work in the same workflow. That you did your last three tours on, you want to walk in and know that you can dial in a system in half an hour and not spend three hours working on something you're not familiar with. 

Like, I totally get the argument, um, but yeah, as from just like the business side, it's like, ah, it'd be great to be able to spend 10 percent less on a PA and knowing it sounds just as good, it does the same stuff and you can get the same result, you know, um, 

Sean Walker: And, 

Elliot Carroll: fight the battle of the writer friendliness all the time. 

Cause it does, it does get a little tiring, you know? So, 

Sean Walker: totally, dude. And I, I, I, I'm in the same shoes you are. I absolutely understand. their perspective, they are hired to do a job and they are hired for their end result, right? Not only being a cool hang while you're on the bus and whatever, but like the sonic result they get being on tour for this artist, they're hired to get that result every time. 

And they want the tools. They need to do that job. I, I for sure understand that. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, 

Sean Walker: And we went from the same French manufacturer to the RCF, the Italian manufacturer we got now. And, Uh, your observation and statement is absolutely 1000 percent correct that there are plenty of tools for a fraction of the price that do just as good or better, but aren't as widely accepted on riders. 

You know what I mean? So we've found a, in our particular case, we've found a niche of must be real production But not quite, you know what I mean? Like, Fuzzy Boxes From Home won't do it. Must be real production. The writers don't get to be too demanding about exactly what they're gonna have, just that it's not all stupid when they get there, you know? 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, yeah, 

Sean Walker: And then pepper in a pile of corporate shows to actually pay the bills and, you know, it all works out to be peachy at the end. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah. And that's the, that's the, that's the thing. Like the, I mean, the, the, the two points, like the funny thing is like, you know, The top of the line manufacturers, we'll call them, you know, our friends in France and Germany. It's, the stuff like, I'll just say it, a JBL box, like an A12 is not that less expensive than a K2. 

It's 

Sean Walker: it's a slammin PA. 

Elliot Carroll: we have, we have both. It's, it's, it's a negligible dollar amount. So it's not like this stuff is way cheaper. Um, and it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a great box. Um, but anyway, to the, to the corporate side of it, that's where you can really hit a sweet spot. Um, for the most part, um, you know, for corporate shows, you're not getting like a spec. 

I mean, you are, I shouldn't say that. Um, but I found at least as, you know, a freelance A1, corporate A1 for 14, 15 years, like. You know, I was a, uh, I was a, you know, a Cara guy for a long time, cause it was a great corporate box. And, you know, then I heard other stuff and I'd take it pretty much anything, you know, for PA, if I got the console I wanted and we had, you know, good wireless, then, you know, But that's all, that's all we needed, you know, um, I wasn't too picky on PA. 

So that's, that's a nice thing about corporate as a business owner is it does pay the bills. It can be boring, but you know, it does, it does pay the bills and guess what? They don't really care what you bring the majority of the time. 

Sean Walker: nope, and they don't care what name's on the front of the box. 

Elliot Carroll: They do not care. Yeah. And, and that's, you know, um, and that's, that's the nice side of it. 

That if that affords you to buy all the concert stuff, uh, is doing all the corporate work. Oh. 

Sean Walker: thousand percent, dude. A thousand percent. And the cool thing is, and I'll, you know, I'll give away a little, little of the, our trade secret as it were, but the cool thing is that I can charge the same for HDL 26 as I can for Kara or Leopard or whatever in a corporate environment. Because they just want a raise. 

They don't care if it's K1, K2, Kara, Kiva, HDL, Meier, DMB. They don't really care. Does due job, is right quantity. Everybody can hear, no feedback, not fired. You know what I mean? Like it's. It's insane. And so from a business perspective, Andy, to answer your long ago question, after our long ramblings of how do you decide, I decided that if I can charge the same money to the client for a box that costs me literally a third without the amps, that's a fucking no brainer, dude. You know what I mean? It's a no freaking brainer. Each box of Kara is a used car to purchase, and then you got two used cars to buy the amp to go with it, or for, you know, a weekend trip, you can buy a box of HDL 26, right? So like, it's, and same probably for JBL A6 or other things. It's not just HDL. There's a lot of, Other manufacturers making excellent products that, you know, like Elliot was saying, will do the same thing. 

But it doesn't matter what badge is on the front, as long as it sounds good and does the thing, then go do it. If you can have your, you know, QLCL RIVAGE at front of house and your ULXD or AXIANT for your wireless and some free speakable aero, you're pretty much laughing at whatever shows up, dude. You know, it's a pretty, like, straightforward package, you know. 

Totally. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Totally. And it's, you know, then the second part of that is, you know, deciding what to buy is, you know, we always pre like we're, you know, we're, we're in the two major, we have other point source boxes and stuff like that, but you know, as far as arrays go, like, you know, buy into a system or two. 

You know, don't, I would say like, don't buy in the four different ecosystems. That's just ends up being a headache and you never have enough of one thing. Right. So like, we just, we, you know, we, we kinda, we just did a buy into A6 this last, uh, winter. And, you know, because we have a bunch of A8 already and we already A12, like for the corporate stuff, it's, it just made sense. 

It wouldn't make no sense. Like it w and it, it kind of can't matter that, you know, let's say, Another manufacturer comes out with the latest, greatest thing, and it's the best thing since sliced bread. If I can't go buy a hundred of them and then can't go find 50 to sub brand, if I need them right down the street, like there's no point in buying into it, it just doesn't make any sense, you know, so, so just, you know, picking an ecosystem or two and, and sticking with it, um, as much as you can, cause then, you know, the amps you can use everywhere, you know, but you can mix and match to your heart's content. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Elliot Carroll: In that regard. 

Sean Walker: Plus, in your particular case, A6 just won a tech award, so it's a slammin box already. 

Elliot Carroll: And you can, if you want to max it out and run them, you know, at the lowest recommended Ohm rating, like you can run 16 of them off a single amplifier, which we talk about amp density. You can go do a corporate gig now with. A V Rack, a single amp rack. I mean, you could do the same thing with like, you know, Kiva and others, but it's like, it's great to like, oh yeah, this whole corporate show, I could, one amp rack could do the whole, the whole show, which is great. 

I mean, a lot of manufacturers are moving that route, you know, like 

Sean Walker: And it's not 

Elliot Carroll: channel amp and, but amp density, amp density is becoming better and better. Um, 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. And from, like, a systems tuning standpoint, I have learned, thankfully, through this Discord and all the super smart people on it, that that's not, you know, the preferred way to do it, always, but That's not how, like, when theory meets the real world and gets smacked in the face, sometimes you're like, no man, all I can bill for is one frickin amp rack, and so we gotta make it happen, let's go. 

And I'd rather get paid than not have my one or two box zones, you know what I mean? So, like, you're totally right. Being able to send one rack for a whole corporate show, sometimes it's the difference between getting it and not getting it. Because the budgets, surprisingly, are not changing in our favor all the time. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah. And not only that, like, think about, say you own X amount of a thing, like, okay, well. If I have to send three AmpRacks to a show and I have 10 other shows that week, do I have to go sub rent an AmpRack? You know, like it's, it's, you know, cutting sub rentals down is, is, you know, a huge key to this business as well. 

It's working with the gear you have in inventory. And when you're on the corporate side, you can afford to do that. So you can like, you know, in every department, like, oh, hey, we're out of. Whatever this Chauvet Storm 2 Lite, like, can you swap it to this? Yeah, sure. It's corporate, like, it's fine. You know, like no one, you know, we're the LD. 

No one, we're good. No one cares, you know, so it's going to do the same job. So that's the beauty of, you know, some of the corporate work until you get to the higher tiers, you know, then it's, that's a whole nother ball of wax. Uh, but you know, that's the nice thing about a lot of this, this corporate work is that you can just swap in whatever will work, you know, so. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, as long as it works and the client is stoked and they got what they paid for, the particular model number or name on the 10 is less important than other times, which is pretty fricking sweet. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. The one other thing I was going to say is, you know, the working down to your text is like, as far as buying gear, it's like, okay, well, it can't be a giant pain in the butt to deploy or to use, or, you know, to transport, like, is it truck pack friendly? Is it, you know, all those other things where it's like, well, you don't want to make it a pain in the butt for your staff to go work with it every week. 

Right. So there's that fine line of like. Oh, I know this thing will do the job, but like, boy, you know, like, you know, you can send a QL1 on a show that, you know, what, you know, it's 32 channels, but Hey man, it's 16 channels of RF. So there's like, there's the whole layer. Like we should send them a bigger console. 

Like, yes, the QL1 can do it. But by the time you had other stuff, then he's flipping layers. Let's not make the guy flip layers. Right. So, you know, there's, there's that fine line of, you don't want your staff to hate you. 

Sean Walker: Absolutely, 

Andy Leviss: Look, man, I don't know. As the guy on site, I, I sure miss, uh, rigging the V DDoS 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, you have all your fingers? Can we do a finger check? All ten? 

Sean Walker: I, yeah, I got all my fingers. I got fingers. 

Andy Leviss: work box full of rigging plates. Yeah. 

Elliot Carroll: It's funny you brought that, I was thinking about that this morning, the, the VDOS, like, these kids nowadays, like, if you haven't done a max hang of VDOS, you haven't lived. Like, it's, it's an experience to see those, see that, those chain motors stretch and bounce. 

And just to like, you know, those rubber blocks. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's a different, these kids have it 

Andy Leviss: and even like DV still had the, like, the angle plates too, where it was like none of this like, oh, just set the pin in the right hole. It was like, uh, can we get away with two degrees? We're at a one degree plates 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, how many, how many red blocks, blue blocks do we have left? I don't know. We can't get that angle. We're just going to shove in whatever we have left. It's like, yeah, man, those are, those are different types. Or like, you know, humping, like, I don't know. I think about system engineers now. 

It's like, God, you guys have it so I think, I'm going to get off the tangent, but the, I, I don't know, Sean, if you notice this, but, and Andy, but I feel like there's a lot of younger kids who you kind of get put in the system engineer role, because the first thing you learn how to do is maybe like fly PA, right? 

And then you learn the software part of it and the amp control part of it. And then. I feel like a lot of guys in their mid twenties just don't, it's like, okay, great. You, you're, you've turned into a good, like, you understand the system, you know how it all works. Like, do you want to go step behind the console? 

And they go, eh, no, I just gonna, I like being a system engineer. It's like, oh, okay. And I think it's because they didn't have to double stack KF 850s on top of scaffolding and they didn't have to fly VDOS. And it's, if that was their experience, they'd go, oh, anything to get me behind the console and not have to do that anymore. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Now, now we're, now, now everybody's spoiled and you then get to faster to the realization. While there's the glamour and like the pride of like being the one touching the console, you're also the one in the firing line. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: man. I, I wish I had. Done more of that when I was coming up and I wish that I had learned to tune systems better to start with. I, I kind of had a really similar trajectory to you where, you know, musician, then recording studio, then live sound to pay the bills of the family kind of deal. Right. And so I went basically right to mixing and, Man, if I could have learned to sort out a PA before I learned to mix, I would've felt like a much better engineer for a lot longer. 

You know what I mean? It wasn't until I figured out how to sort out my pa, where I was like, oh man, I don't suck at this as bad as I thought, I don't need to put my console through a table saw anymore. You know what I mean? Because the rando pa I'm on is just fucked rather than me not being a good engineer. 

You know what I mean? 

Elliot Carroll: Totally. I mean, I, I did this, I did the same route, like where it's like, I had, I was very comfortable with my mixing chops at front house or monitors. And then. You know, every once I get called for like, Hey, can you come fly this rig? And I'm like, ah, like I can, but I'm not your guy. Like there's better people. 

Like, you don't, I mean, you know, is there anything else I can do? Do you have a front of house at Monarch guy? Do you need me to A2? Like, 

Sean Walker: Who needs coffee and snacks? I'm coffee and snacks. I can do coffee and snacks. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, it's like, I got my little scanner and my, I can, I can program comms. Like, what do you want me to do? 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Totally. 

Elliot Carroll: want me to be your SE. 

And now. Funny later in life, now I'm going back and I'm, I'm really digging deep in all that stuff. Cause then, you know, guys come to me with questions and it's like, Oh, Oh, right. Yeah. No, no, I need to, I need to know how to give them an answer. You know, so I find later now I've been the last few years, I've been really digging deep into the more of the SE stuff. 

Um, you know, but you know, line array theory is one thing, understanding why it works and how it works is, is fine in one thing, but you know, like guys ask me like P1 questions. I'm like, Oh, uh, give me a second. I'm just like looking at the manual, like, well, have you tried this, this, and you know, I have to go back and look, cause it's just, I'm not, that wasn't a muscle I ever worked really. 

It was the SE muscle. So. 

Sean Walker: That's uh. That is an interesting box, the P1. That is a very interesting box they have come up with there. Do you guys have a bunch and use them and like them? 

Elliot Carroll: We have a few, yeah, and we have some guys who are comfortable using them and some guys who don't bother, they just use smart. Um, I mean, you have to end up using both anyway, but, um, but it can be a really handy tool. Um, there's a few things that are, I don't love about it, but just because you don't really know what some of the stuff's doing, but, um, but you know, that being said, every time. 

I've heard rigs, you know, I've like going out into a show and the guys are tuning with it. I'm like, yeah, it sounds great. You know, like good job. So I don't have anything bad to say about it, but, um, but yeah, I think still at least, yeah, I think more people are still more comfortable just using smart just cause it's a workflow that's been around for 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Elliot Carroll: two, what, 14 years 

Andy Leviss: I've seen with all the manufacturers, like some of the like more advanced tools they've got to like take some of the work out of our plate. Like I'm both instinctively resistant to, but also more and more impressed with the results of like, um, one of the venues I work in has a DS 100 in DMB land and, and all the You know, um, Soundscape and all that. 

And, you know, I'm, when it comes to theater tuning, I'm a snot about tuning my underbelks and over, like, I'd been away for a couple months during which they got the DS 100, 100 implemented and like did like all the, like, we're going to, you know, laser confirm the measurements of like every single speaker and put it in and see what it does. 

And they did that and let it do all the delay times. And I'm like, there's, I don't really have any notes, man. It, it. Did a shockingly good job of, like, getting those undervalchs just, like, perfectly in there. 

Sean Walker: killer, 

Elliot Carroll: That's the thing. Yeah, like, you know, I'll use the SoundVision example. It's like, people say what they want about auto filter and not really knowing what it's doing, but I don't, I don't know, man. I mean, at least for like an outdoor show, if you get the humidity and the temperature pretty close, well, temperature more, humidity doesn't matter as much, but if you get that stuff pretty close and you're outside and you're not dealing with a lot of reflections and. 

You get a sound vision file looks good, and then you load it up. It usually sounds pretty darn good right out of the box. Like you're not doing a ton of work on site. So it's, there's something to be said for that for sure. Um, so I'd be surprised if all the manufacturers didn't end up with their own little box like that, eventually. 

Sean Walker: they will, dude, because ultimately, you know, not everybody uses tuning. Smart, right? Or whatever. And as a manufacturer, If you can make your rig sound better consistently worldwide, you will be called more often and sell more boxes, right? Which is basically how the people that are at the top right now took the top from the California company is it was a wild West cowboy status with the California company and you got DSP a whole lot better ecosystem. 

And so it was more consistent worldwide. And that was, that was that, right? So I don't see that, Trend changing. I do see those tools like P1 or, you know, the DMV version getting to be more widely used and better at what they do. I don't know that it could ever truly replace a killer systems engineer that knows what they're doing with a. 

Measurement rig and a whole bunch of knowledge. But for the other 90 percent of us that are just out trying to rip gigs and get a paycheck and get her, get her done. It's pretty close, dude. I had the same experience you did with P1 where like trying to dig into it. I was like, shoot me in the face. But you know, for the basic results of like put in sound vision, do your, do your drawing and then hit go. 

It was, it was pretty passable right out of the box, dude. You 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, yeah, it seems like all the tools now will get you 90 percent there. And then I think the difference, like when you go to a show and you're like, sounds good. That's like the 90%. And then the 10 percent difference to where it sounds like that sounded amazing is, I mean, someone that's luck in the venue where you are, but you know, the acoustics in the venue, but the other 10 percent is, and then you have an SE or a front of house guy, whoever, who, you Sorry, I keep doing that. 

Um, who, uh, you know, really knows how to use their ears and walk around the room and understand what they're hearing and know how to address it. And then that's the other 10%. And that goes back to, you know, yeah, we could loop this into some, like, you know, talking about training, but it's, it's, you know, training, you know, training your ears, there's a whole generation, the three of us are in that generation of like, smart didn't exist when I started doing, like there was. 

I was doing this for 10 years before smart existed, you know, so I never got used to using it. I know how to use it. I hardly ever did in my career. Um, I mean, it's an expectation. If you're a music festival SE, like you just, you have, you know, you have to know, cause you have to explain to the front house and your shows up what you've been hearing all day. 

But in corporate stuff, when, I'm the S E N, the front of house guy, and it's just me and, and, you know, if it sounds good to my ears, I don't care what a computer screen is using, but yeah, it was, you know, I did that for 10 years before it even existed. So, um, just the, just the tool, you just have to, you know, one of the things I talk about with, with our, our staffers is just, you know, just make sure you're using the, again, it's all the stuff's great, but make sure you're using these things that are attached to the side of your head. 

First, or at least to verify what you think you're doing on, on a, you know, smart screen or whatever. So, 

Sean Walker: Dude, a thousand percent. 

Elliot Carroll: cause it does not matter what you're, what a measurement Mike says. If you walk around the room and go, huh, something's not right. You know, like you need to better recognize that. So, 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude. And I'm with you. I follow the same pace, the same thing over my career. And I'm a new smart user over the last couple of years. And I'm pretty astounded as to how many different PAs sound so different at the same target curve. You know what I mean? And so you definitely have to like get it sorted out and then go, man, that is still too bright or still not this. 

Or, you know what I mean? It just futs by ear and go, well, that is not target, but it sounds a whole lot better, so we're going to let that run. You know what I mean? We're like, just slamming it to the target or the screen or whatever you want. And then going, well, that's what it says it does. Let's like, that's. 

That sucks. I've seen a couple of people do that and you're like, but it doesn't sound good. But I've also seen people that know way more than I do utilize that tool to some craziness to turn PA salad into something gold, you know? 

Elliot Carroll: to get in the, in the, in the training real quick, um, Sean, what are you doing in terms of, of your, your staff? Audio people. And, and in terms of, you know, are you, have you brought some manufacturer stuff into your, to your shop or are you sending people out, um, or a mix of both? And what have you found that's been, you're like, Oh, that was a great one. 

That was super useful. Cause some of them are not great to be honest, but 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. We, we've done a mix of both over the years. Um, I've found that the most successful ones are the ones that we can bring to our shop because we can then get the local crew here. You know what I mean? Uh, and when we do those, we open them up to all industry professionals, That want to come, right? 

So it's not just for our company. We do it for all the sound companies in town. Anybody wants to drive, fly, cab, carrier, pigeon, whatever can come. It's not like proprietary secret knowledge for us. So we've had, you know, we've had RCF out. We're working on getting some other people out so that they can learn the control systems, learn whatever we've had people come teach. 

Smart or Line Array Theory and RF both for free speak and wireless. And people learn a lot about that, which is cool. You know what I mean? We do trainings here. I'm super blessed to have a dude on my team that is just a fricking wizard of a technician. And so we'll teach lots of different subjects in one. 

If people want to know like, Hey, I just need a little of this and a little of that and a little of this, we kind of ask. Whatever he wants to learn. And then we have a few things like for us, man, tying into generators and festival patch are the two things that we find ourselves like. Over and over and over again going into with people because so many people do it differently. 

And in our particular case, we want it done a certain way. We want it in our way so that we're all speaking the same language. Um, so we have a lot of like festival patch trainings because I firmly believe that is the single most important fucking job onsite at a music festival. Cause you give somebody long enough at front of house and they're like, They can pretty much sort out a passable mix that's just fine. 

You know what I mean? Like, not to discount great front of house guys that are making ripping mixes, but like, your patch guy blows, your festival's destroyed. Your timeline's over. Things are screwed up. It doesn't matter how good your front of house guy is. If the inputs aren't showing up at all, or aren't showing up in the right place, it's a freaking mess. 

And that's a good way to get fired. So in our particular case, all of our dudes are, or dudettes, you know what I mean? to be good patch people and then also good monitor people and good front of house people So that they can do all the roles, right? So we try to keep it all happening and we pay the same for all the positions. 

So nobody's like, oh well I don't want to be the patch guy because so don't make as much money like they're getting a1 rates to go be patch So most of them don't really care. They're like, I don't really give a shit, man. I'm going to go, you know, scribble some festival binders and talk to some bands and eat some snacks and drink some coffee today. 

Rad. And next weekend I'm busting out all my fricking toys and going to mix in front of house while somebody else is eating snacks and patching. Sweet, dude. Let's go. You know what I mean? And so we're blessed to have people take more of a like long term view rather than gig to gig view of each particular position, you know, but, uh, that's, that's how we're doing trading is as many people that know what they're doing that are experts at their field. 

And if that happens to be the manufacturer suite, if not just picking people's brains, like, I I want to get Andy out here to teach RF and comms just so I can give him a hard time. But because like Andy has forgotten more about RF and comms than I'll probably ever know. And I'm a great corporate A2. You know what I mean? 

And I don't mean to toot my own horn. I just mean like I haven't gotten fired yet in a decade. You know what I mean? And I'm, I know all the basics. I'm doing a good job and it's all great. But, but Andy's like, dude, did you think about this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and I'm like, Nope. 

Didn't even know I did to think about those. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: And then meanwhile, I look down the block because I literally live around the corner from Henry Cohn, who, what he forgot yesterday is like the whole spectrum of everything I know. 

Sean Walker: Totally. But to have a people that are so far down the rabbit hole at one thing, come and teach your team is fucking awesome. And it just makes everybody better. You know what I mean? And we, we do it for all the sound companies around town because we all kind of use the same pool of freelancers. And I would love to have a great talent pool to pick from and not have to cherry pick quite so much as I do now. 

You know, 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, that's 

Sean Walker: you guys? What are you doing? 

Elliot Carroll: I was gonna, yeah. I mean, pretty much the same thing. I mean, kudos to you two for the, um, paying the positions the same. I think that's great. I always used to fight for that on corporate stuff too. It's like, look, I, I, what are you know, whether I'm pushing faders or doing RF and comms, like, you know, Or you're pinning mics on someone. 

We're all the same level of importance. I know no one's better at one thing than the other. Like it's, it just shouldn't be that, right? They're all, they're all important. Um, I mean, you're A2 in a, yeah, you're A2, 

Sean Walker: show critical positions. 

Elliot Carroll: Your A2 in the corporate world is like, they're like, they're putting their hands on people. 

Like they're, they, I mean, they have to be like the most hygienic, the friendliest, that they had the most personable, like that person's probably the most important part on an audio crew for a corporate gig is the A2, regardless if they're handling RF and comms or not. Even if 

Sean Walker: Don't tell Andy that, that'll go straight to his head, dude. God, that's it. I'm out of here. Can't even fit his head on the screen anymore, bro. 

Andy Leviss: mean, I mean, for the better or worse, I shuffle between all of the I, I mix, I do, I, and again, I will say that's like, some of the companies I work for do pay slightly different for each of those roles, and some pay the same because they're figuring like, I'm paying your rate to have you there, whatever I want you doing. 

I don't know. It's what you bring. And I get both sides. Like, I certainly, I mean, there's an argument to be made, like we were saying before, the reason some people don't want to mix is because you've got that target on your head when you're the person standing behind the mixer. So, like, I see an argument for basically hazard pay on both sides. 

But I, yeah, like, I can easily devil's advocate either side of that. But I certainly, as a freelancer, I certainly appreciate, this is my rate, tell me what I'm doing for the 

Sean Walker: that's exactly it. And I don't care about your devil's advocate. That's already built into your fee. You know what I mean? Like, you're the freelancer, pick your fee, pick your rate. That's your rate. No matter what you're doing. In my not so humble opinion, your rate is your rate, and here's the range of things you're willing to do for that rate, right? 

Whether that is A1 systems, RF comms, snacks, whatever, right? Like, I don't particularly care if you're paying my rate, I'm happy to go get you coffee, dawg. I don't care. You know what I mean? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. And like when you're a freelancer. Yeah, when you're a freelancer, that's what you're aiming for, right? It's like, doesn't matter if I'm doing a, doing a mix for 10, 000 people in an arena, or I'm, you know, doing two speakers on sticks for 80 people, or I'm doing RF, it doesn't matter. Like the rates, that's what you're aiming for as a freelancer. 

The rate's the rate. You're hiring me for my time and my expertise. What I'm doing is, it doesn't matter, right? And that's, that's the way it should be. If you're a full time staffer at somewhere, then, you know, those people are paying you per year. Where your skill set is at that point, right? And that's, that's the whole, that's the whole other game. 

Um, and it's not like if you're full time at a company and you're like, Oh, I'm mixing today, but I'm S ing tomorrow. Like, you know, you're not getting paid different rates. At least not for us. We don't do that. Um, you know, you, you 

Sean Walker: I think accounting would stab us, bro. 

Elliot Carroll: that'd be so difficult to 

Sean Walker: Accounting would frickin stab us to be like, this person has nine pay rates. You're like, what? No. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. So, so yeah, but no, at the training. Yeah, we're doing the same. Like when it's when no one has expertise in the, in the shop at it. You know, then yeah, we'll bring in manufacturers and the good thing about manufacturing training is you learn. There's a there's always a few ways to do something, but you learn the recommended way, which. 

says a lot because it's like, Hey, we built this to do it like this. And, you know, I understand you might want to do it like this, but if you do it like this, then you can do this, this, and this, like, there's a reason, right? So manufacturer training can be very helpful. Right, right off the bat. Um, and then, but yeah, like, you know, if you have people that are comfortable teaching classes, I I'm all for it, there's no way there's, you don't always need to have the expense of doing that and I love your idea of including other companies. 

Like we, we try to do that as well. And especially our normal freelancers or union try to include the union sometimes down here as well. And in some stuff when we can, um, cause it's always helpful to have, you know, union people, um, you know, really know what they're doing. 

Sean Walker: Totally. I like the manufacturer's trainings, uh, I, I liken them to like, Driver's Ed, you know what I mean? Where like, here is how This is technically supposed to go, and here is how this was designed. And then you're like, yeah, cool, man, that 10 and 2 thing is out. One hand at noon, one hand on the gear shift, tunes up to 11 windows down. 

Got it. I'm out of here. See ya. But you know where you're supposed to be, right? When you're like, okay, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I know how it was designed. Like you were saying, you know, and then you know where to break the rules or where you're like, I see how they thought that. That's not at all how we're going to use that, but it'll be fine. 

Rather than like, I don't know, you know? 

Elliot Carroll: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: Oh, no, I was, I was just gonna add on and say, yeah, there's that, that value in the, okay, this is how they said to use it. This is why they say that's the way to use it. We've all been here and we know that's never going to work in reality. So here's how to, here's how to get as close to that as you can. And there's, I think that's the mark of a good teacher is, is being able to translate that and understand how the end user is going to use it as well as how the manufacturer intended to use it. 

it to be used and to bridge that, which is, which is how that's like, you know, we recently interviewed Sam from Figure 53, who does all the QLab classes. And that's one of the things I've always admired about Sam is how great he is, even as a manufacturer during training of saying like, look, this is the way we designed it. 

This is why we designed it that way. But that ain't gonna work for what you're trying to do. So here, let's talk about what you want to do. And I'll figure out how to use it best for you. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, yeah. Uh, I, I, I, I'm curious too, Sean, um, with, I mean, I, without, we don't have to go into super specifics, but just as far as like, uh, I wanted to chat about just as far as, you know, the, the, Employ morale, you know, keeping spirits high, keeping, you know, having a good working environment and, and, um, and then, you know, ultimately it has to be discussive, like, you know, pay structure and everything, but have you, have you had any, like, um, have you had any issues with, I don't want to say morale, that's not quite the right word, but in terms of, you know, keeping people happy, like they, they like doing the work that they're doing, like, how do you, How do you keep in mind like advancement within the work that they're doing, um, and kind of balance that with like, okay, but this is the kind of the type of work we do. 

And, you know, if you want to do something else, like we don't really do that. And you might, you know, you might have to cross that bridge of like, well, maybe this isn't the right, you know, home for you, I guess. Um, cause that, that ends up being a constant kind of Discussion, I feel like in our 

Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Well, in our particular case, and I, that's actually, A fucking awesome question, dude, and I want to know how you do it too, but in our particular case I have, I have fucked that up. I have done a good job. I have fucked it up. I've done a good job, right? Like it's back and forth where it's never the same thing. 

It's a moving target at all times, right? So there are plenty of people that have, you know, worked for us that are, that don't any longer, or that would be like, yep, that was, you know, Too hard or not well put together or whatever as I was figuring it out over the years. So I certainly couldn't claim to be the expert, but what I have settled on in the last few years that has seemed to be working well is, uh, first, we are the highest paying sound company in the state, period. Uh, and I am surprised at what a motherfucker will do for a good ass paycheck. You know what I mean? Second of all, I try to be up front with people about what the expectations are right up front. You know what I mean? And I joke a lot on the podcast that we got gigs that pay day rates, but not that you want to put on Instagram. 

And it's exactly that, man. Like SL100 or SL260 out in the fricking sun in Seattle or whatever, where it's some artists that you may or may not have heard of. And we're paying top flight day rates because I want it done right. And I don't want phone calls from the client that something's wrong. Right. You know, at no time is, you know, A world class front of house guy taking pictures of this going, you got to see what I'm doing today. 

Right? Like if they were at Wembley or the Gorge or something, right? Uh, but that, like we talked about earlier, that show size is intentional, right? That's, that's where the profit. Margin, it lives in our industry that incorporate, right? Uh, so letting people know what they're getting ahead into ahead of time, and then also paying their day rate, whatever they've asked for. 

And I can decide, right? Is this a rate I can afford for this show or not? Right? Cause there's some people that you're like, Hey man, what's your rate? And they're like, XYZ. You're like, Lord, um, I'm gonna have to find another show for you. Like it won't work for this show, right? And other times you're like, yeah, okay, great. 

That's, that's expensive. But I, I'm basically hiring, I'm trying to hire high end engineers for middle and low end shows, which is basically a breeze for them to do, but it keeps the complaints from the customers to zero, right? Like I get basically zero complaints from customers and I've tried very hard to ask them what they need. 

And give them what they need to the best of my financial ability, right? Cause it's all about fricking money, right? It's just pour money at it until they, till people stop complaining, unfortunately, but like, how do you want the show to run? What microphones or cables or stands or whatever do you need? Or do you want, how do you want the truck to pack? 

Right? Like I've been super intentional with, uh, my closest team and also freelancers about how to do this. And I've basically built a company around how they want it done. So do you guys want. Like, down to the littlest things, like, do you want W1 or W2? Do you want CPC or Veeam connectors? Do you want 58s or Beta 58s? 

What mic stands do you like? What cable lengths make sense to you? Or what are stupid, right? And it seems arbitrary when I say that out loud, except that when my guys or gals show up on site, It's exactly the package they are expecting and the way they want it to be. And so they're like, yeah, man, I already know what I'm getting into. 

It's all fine. You know, we spend thousands of dollars on workboxes. And in our particular case, it's a little like EWI rolling four or five drawer, whatever the thing is, that's got turnarounds and adapters and gaff tape and batteries and net switches and fans and lights and extra cables, like. You know, instrument cables and net, uh, Cat5 cables, whatever. 

It's fricking thousands and thousands of dollars for something I don't bill a client for. Most of my freelancers, after a couple of gigs, they're bringing one Pelican instead of two, right? They got their laptop and their headphones and their ears and measurement gear or whatever they need, but they don't. 

Don't bring their oh shit toolkit anymore because they have to have nine turnarounds and four adapters And they don't have an iPod cable on site and whatever so after messing it up for a bunch of years I just started like getting people what they needed what they were asking for and Making sure that they had what they need on site. 

You know, I mean same with the cables and The stands and the links and the quantities, you know, I I Freaking bare knuckle brawled through trying to figure out how to do a sound company because I'm just a fucking studio guy at heart You know what I mean? And so it really was trial and error for years with different engineers, freelancers and Some some who don't work here any longer that were so influential for the positive that it was it's unbelievable Just getting people what they want, being clear about expectations And pan them like a motherfucker has been a recipe for success for us because we're basically doubling in size year after year, 

Elliot Carroll: wow. 

Sean Walker: which accounting is both impressed and pissed about. 

Elliot Carroll: sure. It's not, it's not always fun being in a constant state of growing pains. Like it's like, when does it get a little easier? You know? 

Sean Walker: Dude, tell me about it. We just finally got to take our first vacation in a decade and the wife was like, it's about time. Like you missed the honeymoon. You fricking almost missed the kid's birth. Like, are you ever coming home? You know, 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, yeah. 

Sean Walker: about you guys? What are you doing to, in this, To do that. 

Elliot Carroll: Well, I'm glad, I'm glad you, you, you, you brought up a good point about the, when you were mentioning the workboxes. It's, it's, Because, because I was a freelancer for so long and I feel like this is still ringing true is yes, you have to pay people, you know, living wages, you know, and that, that varies by location. 

Right. Um, you know, freelancers, we generally pay whatever they like. That's your day rate. Okay. That's what it is. Like we don't fight people on that. There's just no, there's no sense in creating that, that discord. Right. 

Sean Walker: A thousand percent. 

Elliot Carroll: And then, you know, full timers, there's definitely some, you know, there's some fair pay disparity in the, in the, in the company, but from the, you know, the newest audio person, you know, to the, to our best, but you know, that, that kind of has to be there because there's certain people you can put in any position at any time at a, at a moment's notice and you don't have to worry about the show and other people that aren't, aren't there yet. 

Um, but the, the Workbox thing too, like my, My whole thing is like, how do I make people's lives easier? At work, right? So, and the Workbox thing speaks to it because you can keep giving people more money, but I feel like that only lasts so long before they're like, well, I still hate my job. Like I still hate the job. 

Like the money is like, feels good for two months. At least with, you know, full time staff, it's like, oh, it feels good for two months, but now it's like, still the same show, still the same pain in the butt, still the same this, like that. So how do I make their lives easier? It's like, okay, well, you know, and it's lots of little things. 

It's like, how do I make this Rio Rack design in a way that's like, it's foolproof, like switches are pre configured, everything's labeled pretty, the cabling is nice. Like, you know, give them, so like every show, they're not like, ah, this thing's, I hate the way this is packaged or 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. And little things like recess the rails so you can pre patch splitsnake fans in your Rio racks rather than having to do it all on site. You know what I mean? 

Elliot Carroll: all those things. Yeah. It's like, how do I, from a, from an equipment perspective and how do we like, you know, we build racks and et cetera. It's like, you know, even how like. We're designing, you know, a new case for these speakers or something. Like, does it lift easy out of the case? Like, is it a pain? Like, okay, did I design this case right? 

Or did I screw this one up? Like, how do I make it easy to get the thing out of the case? Like, how does it, does it have wheels? Should it have wheels? Like, you know, all these, all these thoughts of like, just making their lives easier. I feel like it's been the number one thing, um, in terms of my, my approach to it. 

And then there's obviously the pay, which, you know, again, has to be there, right? Um, And, you know, you obviously have a limit with full timers, like, okay, well, like, we Yes, we want to keep you, but like, we just can't swing that dollar amount right now, because it's going to set, maybe it sets a bad precedent for the rest of the company, or puts it into an unattainable reach for the future. 

Um, it could, it could be a few things in that regard. Um, and the, the last thing is like, okay, well, how do I like, you know, with some of our, our senior people, it's like, Hey, I'm going to Infocom. You want to come with me? Like, or like, I'm going to go to this manufacturer. Like, you want to come with me? Like. 

Give them a cool experience. You know, that's been like the other thing that I've been trying to do with little to no success so far, just cause the scheduling has never worked out, but it's, I keep offering it of like, 

Sean Walker: But the invite's 

Elliot Carroll: want to come? Yeah. Like you want, you want to come with me to this thing? 

Like let's, let's go. Um, so, so yeah, that's, that's kind of been my, my approach to it. Um, but yeah, the making the life easy part, making the work easy, you know, cause there's things we can control and there's things we can't, like we can't control if we have kind of like a. Crazy last minute client, but they're a great client. 

It's a lot of business, but they're kind of crazy last minute. Like I can't fix that always. You know, I can't, I'm sorry. The information's always late. Like there's not, there's nothing we can do. Like, 

Sean Walker: Are there other types of clients than that? 

Elliot Carroll: but I can't. Right. So, um, but as far as like the gear packaging and everything else, it's like, you can, you can, you can help make that just, just make everything a few percentage points better. 

And it adds up, you know, over time. 

Sean Walker: A thousand percent. That is a much more eloquent way to say what I was trying to say that I was rambling about. We think about it the same way. Totally. And one of the things that was super helpful for us was when we decided that. Everything that this thing needs to work lives with this thing, right? So in our particular case, let's use wireless because everybody does that. 

In our wireless kits, they come in like a four channel, two and four channel combo kits, which has a handheld and a body pack. Also has the paddles, also has the low loss cables, also has the charger and the rechargeable batteries and the adapters and clips and lavaliers and everything is already in the kit that goes with it. 

So you're not like, okay, cool. The handhelds are in this box and the. Paddles are over in this workbox and then the kit is here with the, where's the rest of it? And who, where's the antennas? Where's the, you know what I mean? Like we've been on show sites for other companies where that was like. An hour of trying to just locate all the pieces for the wireless kit to put it together. 

And I was like, nope, not doing that shit. You know? So like you said, dude, it's little things where how do we make it easier for our guys every day? How do we make it better and less frustrating as much as possible? Cause we, we picked a hard business, dude. This, you know, you could sit at a desk and, and sell insurance if you wanted something easier to do. 

So yes, it's long hours and yes, it's going to be hot and sweaty if you're doing festivals outside and whatever, but how do we make it as little pain in the ass on our end as possible? We also like, you know, bring a ton of snacks and fans and pop up tents and just extra stuff. We call it a weatherproofing kit, right? 

But huge ice chest full of water and coffee and Red Bull and snacks and the Lasko fans so they can, you know, not die in the heat and stuff. Uh, but we keep asking them what they want, you know what I mean? Oh, you want this sparkly water? Great. Lime it is this week or whatever, right? To like, just try to have a little, little things on site that everybody likes. 

And I try to ask the people. Per gig. Look, it's not like a standard pack. Like, what do you want? Oh, you're a goldfish guy. Giant tub of goldfish. Copy that. You know what I mean? And I've found that goes a long way to keeping people super, they're as happy as they're going to be with, you know, the long brutal days that we've gotten to having a lot of times. 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, and I mean, I was starting to say before, like, as, as the freelancer side of it, like, you two have touched on so many of the points that, like, help me choose who I'd like to work with and who I don't. And also, some of the things that can balance out that rate question, like, you know, Sean, you were saying about how, ah, we can't really afford that rate on this, on, you know, on this gig. 

And I think, but from the freelancer side, you're often afraid to, State your rate, because you don't want to lose work from somebody, but also it's good to have that conversation. And, and like somebody like Sean says, you know, on this gig, I really can't afford that. Maybe I can see if I can find something else for you, but it's also worth saying that because I may come back and be like, you know what? 

As long as you understand that, like when you. Can't afford it? Like, this is the rate I want? I like working with you enough and you provide enough for me that it's It's not worth that extra little bit for like whoever else I might get for that week Like i'll make it work for you on this one You make it work for me on the next one and we'll figure it 

Sean Walker: Totally. And I would never not hire a freelancer based on their rate without telling them, Hey dude, that's too much for this show. I don't have it. Here's what I do have. Do do it or do you want to stay at home and we'll call you on the next one no problem and let them make that deciding factor because, you know, sometimes it ain't worth it. 

Other times, motherfucking needs a paycheck. Let's go to work. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: like if i've got a slow week coming up and somebody I really like working with and haven't for a while is like Hey, man, like look I can only afford half of what like I know you normally get paid It might be like yeah, fuck it. I'm around. I like you. I miss you. Let's do it 

Elliot Carroll: A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think that's why I take that approach with, with, with, uh, you know, now is, is that I, as a freelancer, it was when you first jump out, you say yes to everybody. You then you figure out like, Oh, don't like working here or for these people or, or whatever. Like I'll just stop picking up, you know, then you're always available to those people or unavailable to those people. 

Um. Yeah. But yeah, then, you know, it's the experience like, Oh, well it's less than what I normally take, but Oh, like we're doing the show in Beijing. Cool. Okay. Well, yeah, I'll take a trip to Beijing for, you know, Less money just cause it's, I get to go to China. I've never been to China before. You know, great, great gigs in Copenhagen. 

Awesome. Let's do it. Or it's just like, like you said, with like a bunch of people I like, it's like, Oh, I haven't seen him in three years. That happens all the time in freelance where it's like, you could do a show. Andy and I could do a show together. We could do three shows in two months and then I might not see him for three years. 

And you're like, and you show up on site and then, you know, there he is, you know, so it's, that happens all the time in the, especially in the corporate world. I'm sure it happens in rock and roll too, but 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, 

Elliot Carroll: all the time, you know, so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's all, you know, it's, it's the people that are around you, you know, that make, after time you stop chasing the, Oh, I want to do the biggest shows, you know, like for music people, they want to do the biggest festivals. 

They want to do the Lollapalooza and the Coachellas and the stage coaches and the, you know, yada, yada, yada. And that's great. I think that's. Good to be hungry for when you're younger and have the energy. And I think as everyone gets older, they realize, eh, man, I get paid the same to do this thing down the street and I get to go to my own bed and you know, I'm not out in a hundred degrees and who cares? 

Sean Walker: A thousand 

Elliot Carroll: at least I did. 

Sean Walker: A thousand percent. Coachella sounds like an amazing gig for Rat to do and at no time do I want to try to run down that show. 

Elliot Carroll: Nightmare. That'll be my nightmare. Heat. I'm, look at me, heat? I don't deal with heat. 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

Elliot Carroll: out of here. 

Sean Walker: I got, I got two shades, pasty and lobster, bro. Those are my options. You know what I mean? 

Elliot Carroll: I just, I just turned a darker, that's right, it's just a darker shade of pale for me, that's all. So yeah, give me a, give me a carpeted ballroom and air conditioning every time. 

Sean Walker: oh dude, a thousand percent where I'm mad cause it's the same fucking sandwich, but you know, really it's air conditioning and a sandwich. So why am I mad? Right? 

Elliot Carroll: Yep. 

Sean Walker: Well, plus dude, like another sound company nugget that you're super hip too, but I'll share to the listeners. Like it's not enough money. Like, the rental percentage per box at that scale sucks, right? Like, if K1 owners knew what I rented HDL26 for, they'd have a fucking heart attack. That they're damn near the same price. HDL26 on a corporate show and K1 on a rock show, right? Or Kara on a corporate show and K1 on a rock show, right? If you're in the LA ecosystem, right? It's, it's fucking bananas, dude. You know, and yes, it looks killer on the gram. Yes, those are cool shows. And man, I am so thankful somebody is going to do those because I've been to Coachella and that is an awesome festival to attend. That was a lot of fucking fun. And I would, I would go again, dude. It was great. But as a small sound company owner, looking down the barrel of like 2. 7 zillion to invest in infrastructure to go do something like that, and then what I can rent it for, nah man, that doesn't make sense to me, you know? 

Elliot Carroll: Yeah. It's that thing of like, you know, it's, it can be good for the, we'll be, you know, in our company, we call it, it's kind of good for our souls. So it's like, okay, we do enough kind of mindless, I don't want to call it mindless, we do enough corporate work or, you know, non, non fun, big music festival work during the year where it's like, okay, so when we do our. 

You know, six to seven huge music festivals a year. It's like, it's just, even though we're not making the margin on it, even though we're not, you know, the X, Y, and Z, it's hard work. Uh, it's, but like the crew, they want to go do it. They want to go do it. They know it's hard work, but they, they want to go, Oh yeah, this is great. 

Like this kind of filled my cup up. I'm like, saw a bunch of cool music, worked with a bunch of cool bands, saw how this artist came in and did it with their whole crew and I learned something new from them. And then that makes the next two months of doing smaller stuff, maybe tolerable for them, you know, it's, and that's. 

So that's what we kind of say around here. It's just kind of good for the soul doing some of that big hard, you know, music stuff 

Sean Walker: Dude, I feel like we're kindred spirits. We say the same thing, dude. Like, corporate pays the, fills the bank account, and rock and roll fills the soul, dude. You know what I 

Elliot Carroll: right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: like, dude, there is something about freaking slamming drums and big guitars hitting downbeats that just makes people happy. 

You know what I mean? 

Elliot Carroll: Well, that's why, I mean, you know, as sound engineers, it's like, look, you probably had two tracks getting into this. Either you, you know, grew up a theater kid and you want to do Broadway shows or you grew up playing a guitar or something and you want to go do music. No, no one, no one at 15 is like, God, I want to mix a panel of eight lav mics. 

Talking about healthcare. God, I want to do that. That's, no one has ever said that, so. 

Andy Leviss: That said, if you're out there listening and you exist, let us know, 

Sean Walker: you're hired, bro. Come on in. 

Elliot Carroll: send the mail. 

Sean Walker: yeah, anybody who gets 

Elliot Carroll: the hate mail to SeanWalker at, you know, 

Sean Walker: that's right, at your mom. com. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah, 

Sean Walker: who gets off mixing fricking panels, you sign me up. I'll send me your resume, dude. 

Elliot Carroll: yeah. But that's funny. Well, cause you don't even know that exists as a, you know, a young sound person. Like I didn't know corporate was a thing. I had no idea, you know, it's music or nothing, you know? So, um, so yeah, so getting back and, you know, doing some of that stuff is, yeah. I think that's why it fills the soul. 

It's, it's the reason we got into this in the first place. So, 

Andy Leviss: Well, looking at the clock, we should probably start wrapping this up, because we're hitting like the three dog walk level of episode length now. Um, and I think that might be a note to leave it on. I know there's a ton of stuff we wanted to get to that We haven't even made it. So I think, I mean, I, I think I speak for Sean and me that we'd love to have you back on again, Elliot, but also to, to do the plug of the discord that we, we should be better about doing. 

Um, I think maybe when we post this episode, we can kind of start a thread going in the, in the business channel we've got on the discord and maybe dig in with, with, you know, the other folks there on some of the stuff we were, we didn't quite make it to in terms of like maintenance and repairs and QC and that sort of thing. 

Um, so yeah, maybe we do that once this goes up, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, sure. 

Andy Leviss: but otherwise, yeah, Elliot, it's, it's been great having you here. Um, yeah, anybody else got any last thoughts to wrap up or, uh, should we let folks on their way? 

Elliot Carroll: Nah, just, just thanks for having me. This was, uh, super fun. It's nice to talk shop as I sit in my remote office in my backyard talking to no one but you guys, so this is great. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Andy Leviss: y'all got to see it. He's got very much bunker vibes going on 

Elliot Carroll: I did a black and white thing. The other half of the room's white, so it's a lot brighter, but Oh, 

Andy Leviss: need help, 

Sean Walker: Uh, Elliot, thank you for hanging out and rocking with us, dude. We appreciate you coming and hanging out with us. Thank you to Allen and Heath and RCF for sponsoring the pod, and thank you everybody to listening and hanging out with our ding dong asses again. That's the pod, y'all. See you next week. 

Andy Leviss: take care of everybody. Thanks.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green