Signal To Noise Podcast
The Signal to Noise podcast features conversations with people from all corners of the live sound industry, from FOH and monitor engineers, tour managers, Broadway sound designers, broadcast mixers, system engineers, and more.
Signal To Noise Podcast
259. Summer Concert & Event Fun From The Great (U.S.) Northwest
Summer concert and event season is in full swing, and Sean’s company (Audio Engineers Northwest) has been running full steam with some exciting gigs the last couple weeks. Two of his regular freelancers, Kyle Shaw and Matt Ratza, join the show this week to talk about what it took the last couple weeks to pull off a huge open air concert on a dockside barge with audience both landside and on boats, and then flip the same PA over in 24 hours to cover a 50,000-attendance Fourth of July fireworks show. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.
The episode also touches on the freelancer versus sound company relationship, and managing and handling negotiating rates and schedule conflicts and changes.
Matt Ratza is a FOH/monitor mixer and production manager with years of touring experience for bands covering a wide range of genres, ranging from TECH N9NE to The Stylistics to Dennis Edwards and the Temptations. He regularly freelances in the Seattle area when not on tour.
After graduating from the Blackbird Academy live program in 2017, Kyle Shaw worked in installs and as an A2 for professional sports venues before pivoting to freelance work in the corporate and rock and roll markets.
Episode Links:
Precision Audio Services Case Study: The PA Design For The Gas Works Park Fireworks Event
Episode 259 Transcript
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The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.
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Signal To Noise, Episode 259 Summer Concert & Event Fun From The Great (U.S.) Northwest
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. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me as usual, uh, back joining us, the Steely to my Dan, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?
Sean Walker: What's up, dude? How are you? What's up, y'all?
Andy Leviss: I'm good. Was that better than last time?
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. I love, I love the, the, uh, Changeable intros every time.
Andy Leviss: Right? Although when I got that SS, I was like, I was like, he's worried I'm gonna say Waffen, isn't he?
Sean Walker: Totally. Uh, no, man, I knew better. Come on, dude.
Andy Leviss: Um, cool. Well, we, we missed you last week, but it was cool to, cool to hang with, uh, my Nepo co host. Uh, I have, have Kate here for, for a day, but glad to have you back.
Sean Walker: Thanks, dude. Yeah, we were, uh, we were crazy pants, man. We were out ripping, as my buddy Matthew would say. And so, uh, we thought we'd drag those sons of bitches in here and flog them a little bit for some information about what it's like to get their ass handed to them on a small sound company gig.
Andy Leviss: right, because, uh, this, uh, you know, this week we'll call it the Signal to Noise presents the, the comedy roast of Sean Walker.
Sean Walker: Yeah, there you go, dude. Totally. Yeah, you brought the
Andy Leviss: quite, although we should totally, we should, we should totally, we should totally do a live episode that's a roast. We might have
Sean Walker: oh my god, let's do
Andy Leviss: later.
Sean Walker: Let's do it, dude. I'll frickin, I volunteer you as first guy to get his ass handed to him.
Andy Leviss: mean, I mean if, if I'm, if I'm willing to put it out there, I ought to be willing to take it too, so.
Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally. Totally.
Andy Leviss: cool, like little bit of housekeeping before we start and, and properly introduce the dudes. Um, you know, as always, if, if you're listening there, if you're listening in like Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any of those apps, uh, first of all, Hit the subscribe button if you don't already, that way you get every episode, you don't miss it, and it helps us know how many people are listening.
And, uh, while you're there, give us 5 stars, uh, you know, thumbs up, whatever it is in the app, give us a review, let us know what you think. If there's stuff you don't like, signal 2 noise, that's signal the number 2 noise, at, uh, prosoundweb. com, and hit us up in, in, Hit us with suggestions, complaints, compli I couldn't think of the word.
Compliments, you know, all that stuff.
Sean Walker: But only five star reviews. If you've got a one star review, you keep that shit to yourself or send it directly to Andy. Andy at Andy. com. Like, I don't, we don't need any of those one star reviews, dog.
Andy Leviss: Right on. And we actually, I just wanted to, I wanted to shout out in case somebody's out there, uh, we got, we got a review the other day from, from, uh, Mia, whose 18 year old son is, is going to school for audio engineering in the fall and has been listening and, you know, reached out and left us a really, really lovely review and I don't have a way to respond back to that on Apple to say hey, but if you're listening, Mia, we really appreciated that and also, I think it's so awesome that, like, You know, you're trying to like learn more about what your son wants to do and like listening to us.
Um, of course, I'm gonna be totally self conscious knowing there's moms listening to us now, but
Sean Walker: Oh Jesus. Well, that was it. It was nice knowing you guys. That's my last episode. Now that we've got to mind your P's and Q's, we'll find somebody with better, better P's and Q's than me. Totally. Sure.
Andy Leviss: but yeah, no, it's it's I we appreciate knowing you're out there. And like I said, I I love encouraging parents or like in turn trying to understand what their kids are doing, particularly when it's such a less common industry as ours. So, you know, thanks for that and on both on our behalf and on behalf of your son. And on, on, on that note, we should hit it. So, um, uh, Sean, why don't you introduce folks since, since these are your boys and, uh, let us know what's going on.
Sean Walker: Loaded an SL 100 onto an old ferry and then traveled that up to the islands and had a music festival in the middle of the islands, floating in the water. And then the very next week we had like a one day turnaround to go turn that rig around and add a whole bunch more to it and go do a 50, 000 person fireworks show.
Again, right on the water, uh, in a totally different city, which was a lot of fun. And I thought I'd just bring on a couple of the dudes that were involved in that. There were many people involved, but these are the two dudes that could make it work with the schedule and, and get her did so. They're, uh, they're here to give me a hard time about what it's like to, you know, work for a small sound company, do crazy ass gigs that are not your typical, like load into arena or loaded into a ballroom with air conditioning in the sandwich and, uh, you know, get abused for a few weeks in a row. Um, my buddy, Matt Ratza, which is where I got the term ripping in case you guys weren't sure. And then also, uh, my buddy, Kyle Shaw, both rocking ass engineers. And, uh, you know, they make me look good, dude. Well, I got to go. Hang out with the family and spend a little time barbecuing for the 4th of July.
These two dudes were kicking ass down at Gasworks Park and uh, you know, banging away on a PA system for fireworks.
Matt Ratza: It's not easy making
Andy Leviss: Nice. So, I mean,
Sean Walker: It's a tough job making me look good, dude. I mean, have you ever seen me? Look at this, look at this gray ass beard, dog. It's like a full ass time job. My stylist quit.
Andy Leviss: it from getting gray faster and not the guys causing the gray, we're fine.
Kyle Shaw: Right.
Sean Walker: dude.
Andy Leviss: Uh, I mean, do you guys, do you guys want to introduce yourselves a little bit? Give us a little bit of background on, uh, on, uh, what questionable life choices led you to hanging with Sean? I'm
Sean Walker: questionable life choices.
Matt Ratza: man. Let Kyle
Kyle Shaw: You want to start, Matt?
Matt Ratza: No, no. I insist. Age before
Kyle Shaw: Alright.
Matt Ratza: Wait a minute.
Kyle Shaw: Uh, I met Sean through, uh, his boy Garrett. Garrett called me up, uh, sometime last year for a last minute monitor gig. Um, he called me, he's like, dude, I got the plague. I need help. Please come cover this, uh, three day festival in a grungy little club, and, uh, It was, it was an absolute blast.
It was a lot of really crazy little bands, fast changeovers, really dark room, uh, super loud, but Sean was a really cool dude to hang out with. And, uh, he paid for lunch, man. So that, that hooked me right there. So it's been downhill since.
Sean Walker: 100 percent of the time it works every time.
Kyle Shaw: Yeah,
Andy Leviss: lunch.
Sean Walker: That's it,
Matt Ratza: that is a good
Sean Walker: Actually, uh, another sound company owner, friend of mine told me one time, he goes, Hey man, if you go to lunch with the boss and the boss doesn't buy lunch, the boss is an asshole. And I was like, fair enough, dude. Fair enough.
Matt Ratza: That's it, that same
Andy Leviss: lunch with the boss was always my solid move, both because you get that evaluator, and also, if you go to lunch with the boss, you're not going to be back late for lunch.
Sean Walker: That's it, right. Oh, that's right. No matter how late you actually are, you're never late if you're with the boss, right?
Matt Ratza: that was the same boss that
Andy Leviss: right, I had many a lunch when I was working for one of the rental shops for years that way.
Sean Walker: What were you saying, Matt?
Matt Ratza: that was the same boss that told me that any front of house worth, engineer worth his shit, pulls his own snakes. Um, I thought
Sean Walker: Yeah, right, totally.
Matt Ratza: I, uh,
Sean Walker: So do you pull your
Andy Leviss: opposed to As opposed to, I think I've talked before about, I forget Billy's last name, but he used to mix Kansas like 20 years ago, and I know he's moved on to other bands since then, but like, his whole deal was, he packed his console, he packed his mics, he packed everything, the only thing he didn't pack was the Snake, because they would do double bills, and if they were the first act, he wanted to be able to drop the tails and peace out before the changeover was done.
Matt Ratza: fair. Uh,
Andy Leviss: But, um, cool. Yeah, what about you, Matt? You're, you're up.
Matt Ratza: I'm at, uh, I started working for Sean because I worked for, I actually managed rentals in the warehouse for, uh, that said boss that Sean was just talking about. And uh, Sean watched me, uh, de evolute into eternal grumpiness, uh, and asked me if I wanted to start doing gigs. And I'd already given him my notice because I went out as a touring engineer a bunch and I just started doing gigs with Sean. That's
Sean Walker: Man, that was a really nice way to say that I stole your ass when you got extra time for not being on the road with Other artists. What a, what a pleasant way to say that. When he's not out touring, I'm like, yo dawg, what do you, uh, you wanna come, you wanna come do some stupid gigs? And he's like, fuck yeah, I love stupid gigs.
Matt Ratza: I love your stupid gigs.
Andy Leviss: What, what, what type of stuff are you torn, torn with, Matt?
Matt Ratza: I'm currently out with,
Andy Leviss: When you're torn?
Matt Ratza: I'm currently out with a rap artist, uh, Tech N9ne, and, uh, I just picked up I Love the 90s and Vanilla Ice. I actually fly out this week to do three kind of uh, Burner Dates. It's kind of cool how they do that show, because it's a variety show, and the same band just backs everybody, and they just change out the singers, and it just keeps moving.
Sean Walker: Dude, how cool. Is that kind of like having The Roots or somebody like that on, just rocking and then these artists come out and sing?
Matt Ratza: Yeah, man, it reminds me, I spent a lot of time out with the Stylistics, like, almost 10 years, and they use the same band, and, like, the singers from the Shy Lights would come out, then Heatwave, then the Emotions, then the Stylistics, you know?
Sean Walker: Dude, how fun.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, that's gotta make changeovers a lot easier. Like, I remember years ago doing, like, just, like, local mixing a thing with, like, uh, Mitch Ryder and Gary U. S. Bonds, and they were like, we can both play the same shit. Like, we don't need to double up bands. Like, we'll use one of our bands, a couple of my guys will sit in, we'll, we'll swap off the mic downstage and we'll be good.
Right?
Matt Ratza: Oh, man, I've done that Mitch Ryder show a bunch. That's a fun one.
Andy Leviss: That's, that dude is still rockin man. That's like, I remember like, I was young enough at the time that I was like, I, I sort of feel like I know the name, but I don't know who this is, and they were like, he's the guy that Bruce Springsteen looked up to, and I was like, oh, understood. Got it.
Sean Walker: Copy that.
Kyle Shaw: Yeah, man.
Andy Leviss: Uh, cool, well, do you guys wanna, you, I mean, should we go in chronological order and talk about, talk about, uh, being on a boat, on a boat. Uh, Firster.
Sean Walker: dude, let's do it.
Kyle Shaw: Sure. That was a fun one. It was kind of wild. Long days, directly in the sun.
Andy Leviss: So was this the, the audience was on the boat too, or the boat was just the stage offshore?
Kyle Shaw: There was a VIP section off a stage, right? Um, but most of the people were on the docks. About, what, Sean, about 35 feet away from the stage? Ha,
Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Like 35 to 75 feet of what the stage is like. Three 40 foot barges, like 40 foot by 40 foot barges. All squared together and then tied to the dock so you could walk from the dock to the barges and had like his VIP kind of area and then like wine barrels as tables and stuff so they had a place to sit or stand and then a little covered catered area for VIP and then literally an entire bay full of boats and yachts and dinghies and people just
Matt Ratza: You know, boats and hoes.
Sean Walker: and it was freaking awesome. That's right, literally.
Andy Leviss: Alright, so like, that's like a nice wide area you're trying to cover?
Sean Walker: It was a huge area, like literally a whole bay, like a whole marina.
Andy Leviss: So, so, what, why don't, why don't we get nerdy on it? Like what was, uh, how, how do you, how do you skin that?
Sean Walker: Like a cat. No, uh, it was, since we had reasonably limited trim height, because we had an SL100 on a ferry boat, so we had a little extra height with the ferry off the water, right? But an SL100 is not a lot of trim height. It's like 17 ish feet, 18 feet. We did 12 aside, HDL 26. And three aside of the 9, 006 subs in Cardioid, and then we flew a six box outfill of the same HTL 26 on stage right, because that's where the harbor was, and that, that was the jam.
We didn't need front fills because nobody was close enough, they were all in the throw of the PA, because there was a gap between the ferry itself and the first barge where the audience was. And if somebody wanted a boat between those two, fuck them. Like, like, sorry, dog. I'm not going to, I'm not going to just dangle some speakers so that one boat or once during the entire festival can like not have it a little dark for him.
You know what I mean?
Andy Leviss: I'm just trying to figure out what like, slap off the water must have been
Sean Walker: Nothing. It was awesome. It was like being in open air and it carried forever. Our director of operations, Garrett, who they mentioned earlier, went out in a boat and was like 400 feet away in a boat and said it was fricking banging and crystal clear.
Andy Leviss: Nice.
Sean Walker: Cause there's no, there's nothing to mess with. It just carries across the water.
I was like, man, I kind of want to go to one of these other islands and see what that sounds like.
Kyle Shaw: Right.
Sean Walker: you know, I, I didn't get a chance to go to another island, next year, dude, next year totes go to another island to check that shit out.
Andy Leviss: So, like, were you, like, what, tuning it, were you doing, like, any measurement just from, like, the Shure and those barges, or were you just like, yeah, it's on boats, we gotta just do it by ear? Like, how were you working that side of it?
Sean Walker: Um, I was able to bring a smart rig out for basically for front of house. That's the only place that I could really get a measurement microphone without jumping onto a boat and driving around, which was a little bit logistics prohibitive to do it. You know what I mean? So
Andy Leviss: been so fun, though!
Sean Walker: It would've been so fun. And we've got, uh, a wireless measurement rig.
You know, I've got some electro so we can do that, but I was just like, I don't want to send it into the drink accidentally for what it, you know, for what it is. And so I just, man, if I'm being real candid, I tuned the, the main PA and then the side hang, I just did half as much to it. 'cause it was half as much PA and it worked out fine, you know, and, uh. know, could it have been maybe a few percent better if I really got into it? Maybe. But was it worth the risk of me and the mic going in the drink? Probably not, dude.
Andy Leviss: No, like, plus if you're out on the water and you got like all that humidity, like wind shifting and all that, like, so much of what you're going to do is going to change every time you look at it sideways anyway, right?
Sean Walker: I mean, every part of it is rocking. The boat, the stage, the ferry, the clients, that thing. And I don't know what you guys know about boating, but it is very rarely dry, either in the water or the guests themselves. You know what I'm saying? Like, It was, it was a well lubricated event and the people were feeling no pain by the end of the event.
Matt Ratza: Yeah.
Andy Leviss: you go.
Sean Walker: So nobody was standing in outfield right going, man, I think it might be a little spicy in the, uh, 1. 5, 7, 5 niner area. You
Matt Ratza: Yeah, like one lady, like, we, somebody left,
Sean Walker: cold one and going, Murica!
Matt Ratza: some lady left their shoes on the boat, like, okay, you came here with shoes on, but now, now they're gone. Like, alright, cool. And just years of touring through clubs and everything
Kyle Shaw: we had a couple people jumping
Matt Ratza: then I realized these are like millionaires and billionaires, and they're like, oh no, we can walk barefoot anywhere we want because it's all spotless.
Andy Leviss: Right on. So, like, what was everybody's position on that, like, who did what there amongst y'all? I mean, Sean counted money and did the Scrooge McDuck swim.
Matt Ratza: Mm hmm.
Sean Walker: Matt
Kyle Shaw: I was mainstage monitors for those days.
Matt Ratza: I was the professional getting yelled atter.
Andy Leviss: What was that Matt?
Matt Ratza: I was the professional getting yelled atter. Um,
Andy Leviss: always gotta have one.
Matt Ratza: yeah, no, I was ancillary
Sean Walker: was the crew chief.
Matt Ratza: I might have been the crew chief. Uh, yeah, I got yelled at by everybody. It was, uh, it was fun. Even after the gig was done, because that was, that's right, you hand out cigars and pay me. Uh, they actually, like, The yelling didn't stop until the 4th of July started, because remember, we had to flip all that, which means all of our snakes and cablage went through saltwater, and all our cases were exposed to all that saltwater air, so like, wrangling the young men that worked for us at the shop to like, set up an assembly line and scrub everything was, then I started yelling instead of being, getting yelled at, and I'm sorry I yelled.
Sean Walker: I mean, there was actually no yelling, but I get your point.
Andy Leviss: I'm sorry for the things I said while I was salty.
Matt Ratza: Oh, that's a
Sean Walker: We did find one. Yeah, we did find one mic stand that didn't make it. Kyle brought it out at the next show because it was like, Dude, it was like two weeks of turning, burning, burning, turning, like, we're burnt to the ground, dude, to be honest with you. But he pulled it out and goes, dude, What happened to this thing?
And it was just like grimy with saltwater and already corroded as F. And I was like, well, it looks like that was donated to the fairy gods, dude.
Matt Ratza: That's pretty good though, if you only lost one.
Sean Walker: Right. Totally.
Andy Leviss: yeah, so like how much time did you have to do that flit?
Matt Ratza: One day.
Sean Walker: One day.
Andy Leviss: One day, and it but it but it did all get to come back to the shop and like kind of go through it real quick.
Sean Walker: Yeah. It, it, it got back to the shop on.
Matt Ratza: Late Monday night.
Sean Walker: No, I guess we had two days. It got back to the shop late Monday night. No, we had one day. Late Monday night it got back to the shop. Tuesday, we de prepped, de salt watered the best we could, and then re prepped and it loaded in on Wednesday. And uh, you know, Matt was joking about yelling. There was actually no yelling in the entirety of the thing, but there was definitely some like, yo man.
Now's the time to get it done. We don't have time to like shoot the breeze and hang out. Yeah, yeah, we got to go. You know, there was definitely some like intensity happening, but no, there was no actual yelling, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was a lot of work, dude. It was crazy. And, uh, I absolutely could not have fricking done it without a killer team.
And, and there was a lot more people involved than just the, the two rippers that are here, but man, it was fricking, it was insane. Insane
Andy Leviss: How many people do you have on it?
Sean Walker: There were 14 on the float fest. And there were what, six or eight on 4th of July, guys?
Matt Ratza: Yeah, it seems right.
Kyle Shaw: think, uh, yeah, about six of us, yeah.
Sean Walker: totally. And
Andy Leviss: So,
Sean Walker: it was, it was a lot of moving parts.
Andy Leviss: yeah, well, speaking of moving parts and float fest and the question I realized I haven't asked yet is I'm trying to get a full picture that I know if I don't ask somebody's gonna yell at me because they're gonna want to know is like was front of house was on the boat like near the stage or like how are you doing that?
Sean Walker: Front of house was on the VIP party barge. Like 80 feet away. It was, uh, maybe it was 100 feet away because it was like a 30 foot gap and then two 40 foot party barges.
Andy Leviss: So just like, sw swingin swingin molts or data lines across.
Kyle Shaw: We, uh,
Sean Walker: just pulled data around to
Kyle Shaw: we put some hooks in the dock and, uh, strung those across.
Andy Leviss: Nice.
Matt Ratza: Those are all the
Andy Leviss: uh, what was your console on that? Alright, QL5 rockin it. So yeah, so just some, some Dante, uh, data goin across.
Sean Walker: Yeah, man, I, uh, I've made this, don't, don't tell any of the awesome engineers that frequent here, but I made this Yamaha StageBox rack that I very much like. It's three TOs in a 12 space rack with net switches that makes me 48 I. O. And I rock that bad boy for everything I can. Don't tell anybody it's not Red Nets or Knee of Priests, because they'll freak the fuck out and think it's not going to sound good, but it works great.
Dude,
Andy Leviss: goes Sean's Parnelli.
Sean Walker: I know, dude, if I could see ya. Ha! Ha ha!
Andy Leviss: as long as you throw like a, uh, a Neve, uh, headphone amp on the console, you're back in Parnelli territory.
Sean Walker: Nice. Nice.
Andy Leviss: That's, y'all have seen, I forget, have we talked about before the, the Parnelli shit Instagram account?
Sean Walker: No.
Andy Leviss: Oh, hi there, it's hilarious, it's like all sorts of like shit taking out of like, Stuff like, man, I got my Neve headphone amp going.
We're like, we're rocking this tour and that kind of, it's, it's pretty great.
Sean Walker: Oh my God. I get all my funny Instagram stuff from Matt cause I don't social media very well. And, uh, so he just sends me funny things once in a while. He's like, dude, I'll get like late night. Cause you never know what time zone he's in. He's like, I'm fucking dying. My wife's like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
I was like, Matt, she's all, Oh God.
Matt Ratza: A lot of memes about hot dogs. I'm not gonna lie to anybody. I mean, it's the food of my people. Uh,
Sean Walker: Yeah. Right.
Andy Leviss: I feel like I both need to pick that apart and don't at all want to pick that apart right now.
Sean Walker: Leave it alone, dude. Leave it where it lies. Leave it where it lies.
Andy Leviss: step away slowly from the wiener.
Matt Ratza: I bought a small, tiny, portable pellet smoker, and for its trial run, I smoked hot dogs. Like, why am I gonna waste money on, like, brisket or something like that when I don't know how to use a machine
Andy Leviss: That is probably a safer. That is a safer start than the first time I smoked. My first smoke out, we're like, fuck it, we're going for a pulled pork butt.
Matt Ratza: oh, no.
Kyle Shaw: nice,
Andy Leviss: I'd say, I'd say rapidly turned into, fuck it, we're going for sliced, uh, pork shoulder, but it didn't really rapidly turn, it was very slowly to get to that point.
Eventually it was like, we're hungry, we're just slicing it, it's fine.
Sean Walker: It's fine. It's fine.
Andy Leviss: So I've, I've gotten much better in the two years since. Have like a nice nice rack of baby back ribs last week for July 4th was a pretty solid
Matt Ratza: nice.
Sean Walker: Nice. Nice.
Matt Ratza: hot
Andy Leviss: we get we get we can text later and like fall down that like that smoker rabbit hole
Matt Ratza: Yeah, man, I'm totally into that. If you got any good tips or tricks or websites, throw them
Sean Walker: Bro.
Andy Leviss: hey grill. Hey has been my dad and um, I mean meathead is the guy that like everybody goes to but hey grill Hey, I can't remember her name but she's like another solid source for like recipes and like that I made my own dry rub for the The ribs the other day and like based it off of one of her recipes and just like switched up.
I, Sean will not be surprised to hear this but I became that guy and the base of my dry rub was a bespoke homemade blend of chili pepper.
Sean Walker: Became?
Andy Leviss: I became that guy in terms of barbecue at least.
Sean Walker: Became?
Andy Leviss: Yeah, we've got like a solid, like, um, Latin
Sean Walker: wait, wait, I'm gonna stop you right there. I'm gonna stop you right there. For those of you that don't know and aren't hip to Andy's level of fuckin nerdery, he's got a temperature sensor on his smoker for the meat. That like updates him to his phone at all times about the temperature of the fucking meat.
So he can monitor that shit in real time. Like it's a goddamn NASA spacecraft taken off,
Matt Ratza: Bro, that's, yeah,
Sean Walker: probably means the meat's perfect every time, but
Kyle Shaw: I was going to say,
Andy Leviss: Well, it's, it's, it's less about monitoring it for me and more that it also controls a little fan in the bottom vent so that I don't have to fuck with it at all. I just tell it, like I give it a temperature range and as long as I've set the top vent properly and put like not too much coal in it and not too little coal, it just turns the fan on and off and ramps it up and down and pulses it and like nails it to within like about a 40, 50 degree window for like all day long. And it was game changing.
Kyle Shaw: that's pretty awesome.
Sean Walker: that's pretty
Matt Ratza: That's like, you know, tuning a PA using smart
Sean Walker: going to have to get one.
Matt Ratza: it's like tuning a PA using smart or just By ear.
Sean Walker: Yeah, totally.
Andy Leviss: Yep. You can do it either way, but it's going to be a lot more work and, and take you a while to get. Almost at the same spot.
Matt Ratza: Andy, I might have smoker envy.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so I kind of went, I went like cheap on the like grill smoker itself on like the entry level and then like just added all the extra shit to like make the end product a little more expensive but worked out well. Like it's one of those like it's the big green egg style but it's a, uh, what is it, uh, chargriller acorn it's called which is like a another brand of that style that's like much less expensive and they've got a steel one if you don't want to buck up for the ceramic and
Matt Ratza: on.
Andy Leviss: I figure when it rusts out then we'll look at upgrades. But, uh, yeah, you know, you managed to pull it back on topic to audio and then we swerved it right back off. Although I like barbecue and or tacos, I feel like are the two other allowable topic swerves in, uh, that's now if we talk about like a playlist to play while making barbecue tacos, I think we bring it all back together.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally.
Andy Leviss: Um, cool. Well, I mean that's, we, we talked a bit a bit about the boat thing. Like is there any other, like any other cool things about that, like challenges you didn't expect to run into that you did that are worth like throwing out there before we dig into? Taking that same system and throwing it in front of 50, 000 people?
Matt Ratza: Did Sean tell you about the crane action
Andy Leviss: No, tell us about the crane.
Matt Ratza: I, uh, I mean, they
Sean Walker: Go ahead, Matt. Tell him about the crane.
Matt Ratza: they had to crane the generator on. Uh, I don't know how Garrett grounded the crane or grounded the generator. Um, so that's interesting. I wish, uh, I would have thought to ask him about that. Um, But yeah, just like weird little stuff that you wouldn't think of is just everything.
Like, you know, a ground. How do you get a stage on? You crane it on. How do you get a generator on after the stage is on? You crane it on. Everything had to go on and off the boat a bunch of times as the stage got built so that the stage could, and the boat could balance each other out and everything.
There's just a lot of minute details that none of us thought about, I don't think, or We didn't think about them as hard until it happened. Right.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Cause not only do you have to level the stage, but you have to level the boat. It's got villages, right? So you gotta like, Builds the boat out to the boat's level and then you can level the stage and then once that done you have to check everything again to make sure that it's all still in level and just keep futzing that until the whole thing is Then level and then in the morning when you come in after loading day You've got to recheck all that to make sure that nothing changed overnight.
Kyle Shaw: Yeah, our staging company was there with the engineer constantly just standing there with a level checking it and making sure everything's still in balance. It's kind of a trip. Yeah. As far as the grounding goes, I think, uh, talking to Garrett, he said that he was grounding to the boat because the boat was attached to shoreline power.
So we were technically sharing that ground with the shoreline power.
Andy Leviss: Gotcha. Yeah, I was wondering if it was going to be that or if it was one of those like, well, we're just floating, so it's just GFCI and don't worry about the ground. Which is, as far as I know, is the other way to do a boat. But yeah, not, not necessarily what you want to do if you've got that shore tie.
Kyle Shaw: Right.
Sean Walker: Yeah, he tied into the boat ground because it was tied into shore power which gave him ground which was sweet So nobody got shocked or dead which was huge bonus to the insurance company
Andy Leviss: like no death.
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. That's a win for a gig. Totally.
Andy Leviss: prefer cake to death.
Kyle Shaw: Right.
Matt Ratza: Eddie is there.
Sean Walker: Kyle, any other interesting things about monitors or unique things about monitors on that particular gig over any other SL 100 gig other than the immense travel and logistics to get up and back?
Kyle Shaw: Right. As far as monitors go, I think the only thing that was a little different on that one for me is I ended up tuning the, the wedges to be pretty dark because, uh, I mean, the SL 100 has all that slap and then, uh, I think it was getting a lot of high end slap coming back from those canopies up at front of house and, uh, so, but once I had that high end tamed, It was pretty rippin so I don't think there was anything too crazy there.
Sean Walker: I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty inconsiderate person. Front of house mixer, to be honest with you. I was going to get mine and they can deal with the rest of it kind of vibe. So I was fucking getting it at front of house and Kyle was on calm like, Yo dawg, I'm dying back here. I was like, put on a helmet. No,
Andy Leviss: want to make a face like this surprises me, but
Sean Walker: no, sure. Doesn't sure
Andy Leviss: we've been doing this together for the better part of a year, Sean. This does not surprise me.
Sean Walker: No, but it had, you know, it had the stupid banners, right? Like the 70, 30 blow through banners. Cause it had to look all pretty, which is, which is cool. I'm into that. But that has a lot of reflections off that. So unfortunately the whole team was just getting lambasted with energy from the PA that they wouldn't otherwise be getting hit with. So
Kyle Shaw: fine though. We were pretty comfortable up there. Occasionally you'd get a good wave from the boats passing by and you'd forget that you were on a boat. Um, but it was pretty chill up there. It was a good time.
Sean Walker: it was a good time and it's not very hard for you to get like VIP catering literally six feet behind you. You can just turn around from front of house and like take two steps and go get freaking brisket or roast or uh, uh, uh, sliced meat, you know, beef. What's the freaking, what am I talking about right now?
Help me. Somebody save me. Yeah. Prime rib. Totally. And all the
Kyle Shaw: couple of shrimp cocktails brought to me.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally. It's great. Plus cigars all weekend, which was dope. Cause if you're out on the water, you're not pissing anybody off with the cigar smoke. Me, me and Matt sorted that out for sure. He's a. I don't know if he's, I don't know if he's allowed to tell you, but I'll, I'll break it anyway.
He's got one, one friend on one of the tours he's on who owns a cigar lounge. And so we're always going back and forth like, yo man, what about this one? What about that one? What about this one? And we're trying different ones. And we sent pictures to his friend. He was like, that's a good one. Or man, I thought we were friends or like, we'll get some funny responses back.
Andy Leviss: That's, that's like me with my friend who's the head bartender at the whiskey bar.
Sean Walker: Yeah, totally.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, just constant sending, sending photos like, uh, this one worth it? Or, uh, is this one to wait till I'm back at your place? He's like, no, that's a, that's a good price. Get that. Get that. Um. Cool. Well, so, like, that's the boat thing.
So yeah, we talked about, we kind of talked out of order and talked about flipping it over. Like, why don't you give us the, give us the rundown on, on, uh, on blowing things up in front of 50, 000 people.
Kyle Shaw: Totally.
Matt Ratza: it's pretty straightforward. Uh, we had a really talented, uh, systems engineer, like probably the best in the world. Um, really strong team, did the prep work the day before, was grabbing everything down. Uh, I like the way that Sean split up the crew to where guys came in and then they, they fucked off or they left after, um, After, you know, the build was done.
What's that? I can say that? Okay, good.
Sean Walker: You can say fucked off, bro. This
Matt Ratza: All right, I don't know what the, you know, the rules are. I don't know how, you know, I'm nervous. Anyway, um, but yeah, like,
Andy Leviss: And the rules are made up and the points don't matter
Sean Walker: Totally.
Andy Leviss: the other way around.
Matt Ratza: but Sean and I last year talked about it because we really got our asses kicked, right? And we came up with the best way to do this is to split the crew so that half the crew leaves as soon as, you know, the show is built and the other half comes back and they come back at the drag out. Um, that way you have some fresh legs for the guys that have been in the trenches for the last 12 hours, whatever.
And it went really smooth. It was really nice. I like the deployment. That little box just screams, man. Um, what do we have? Four hangs of eight HDL 26s and two of the, what, 9006s a side? Or a hang?
Sean Walker: Eddie Chang?
Matt Ratza: And, uh, so it worked well. It was nice. Had a weird little desk that I'd never played with, which led me to a lot of head scratching, button pushing, and then, you know, typical show caller not calling the show stuff.
Kyle Shaw: Yeah, well, we had a lot of last minute requests. Sorry, go ahead.
Matt Ratza: What were you saying, Andy?
Andy Leviss: Oh, I was just asking what the desk was.
Matt Ratza: Oh, it was DM3, which is a cool little desk, but it does things like patching is a little different on it. And you're like, I should be able to just push this right here and hello. But yeah, we were, we were sending to broadcast and then broadcast was sending back to us with a mix minus, uh, and wanted us to send stuff out over the PA and we're all like, no, this is a bad idea.
Uh, but it worked. We figured it out. Um, It was cool. We got there. And
Andy Leviss: So was it like, was it an all playback show or?
Sean Walker: I mean, it was scheduled from our client as a Spotify playlist, which is why we brought a DM3. So our job was hang Big P. A., play Spotify playlist,
Matt Ratza: But that's not what
Sean Walker: And then we
Kyle Shaw: turned into,
Sean Walker: Yeah. And that's not what happened. So that's why we brought a DM three. Like all we need is probably a playlist, a little console. Who cares?
So it's, you know, DM three hits a Galileo and tunes, you know, rocks a PA good talk. Well, once the got closer to the show, they were like, Hey, yo, Matt, can you do all this corporatey shit too? He's like, man, we should have brought a QL for this.
Matt Ratza: Absolutely. But we made it work.
Andy Leviss: Anytime they tell you nobody's going to speechify, four people are going to speechify.
Sean Walker: Right.
Matt Ratza: brother. That's, you know, that's what I learned. It was cool. It was loud. Everybody
Andy Leviss: So when
Kyle Shaw: Yeah, it got, it got real loud. Those boxes rip, man.
Matt Ratza: Michael Lawrence kept looking at me going, It's loud. And I'm like, I know, dude. That's how I do it. But, uh, I'm like, they're gonna want it
Sean Walker: me ripper
Kyle Shaw: can beat those boxes up. Don't worry about it.
Matt Ratza: I think I lived in. Limit the entire 24 minute show. Sorry, Sean. Love you.
Andy Leviss: we said rocking at old school, we didn't know that's what you meant.
Matt Ratza: Hey, nothing caught on fire.
Sean Walker: I mean, we are talking about four hangs of eight for 50, 000 fricking people,
Andy Leviss: Yeah. That's, that's a lot with a little.
Sean Walker: It is a lot with a little, and, you know, living in, living in limit, it was the first time any of us had seen limit on those boxes, but we literally could not get any more. Into the venue at that point, cause they're all on, uh, Sumner lifts, right?
So we couldn't like with the, with the angle of the venue, cause it's like down and then up and then up and then down, it didn't do us in prediction, didn't do us any more good to hang a bunch more PA plus, you know, clients and budgets and shit. Right.
Matt Ratza: Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Just like getting lost in the valleys.
Sean Walker: it totally. And it was, It was like just ever so slightly a little better to do 10 boxes instead of 8 but then we would have had to split carts and since it's all a gravel and grass like, it's a park right?
Gravel and grass everywhere with hills and slopes, we, I was like there's no way I'm asking dudes to split carts at PA 300 fucking feet apart in the gravel on a 90 degree day. Like no way dude. Like that's, it's either going to be 8 or it's going to be 12 because ours come in carts of 4. No, no way we're splitting carts.
So 8 it was. Next year it's going to be 12 because that's how it do.
Andy Leviss: you go. And I mean, that's, I mean, that's, I want to like put a pin in that for folks. Cause that's. That's one of those things like we can we Particularly many of us being as nerdy as we are what really of course um We we can get so lost and i'm like, oh I get that a little bit more if I put the extra box I'm like not think through the cost of it So I think I I appreciate that you you do have that sense to be like it's not It's not worth the diminishing returns there
Sean Walker: And the cost is not just money. It's also like morale. People's literally people's backs. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's a whole lot more burnout factor than that. And like, it just, it just wasn't worth it, man, to be splitting carts over two, two boxes to get another like DB of linearity across the whole thing.
It wasn't like if it was night and day, I'd have been like, fellas, like it's night and day. We got to sort it out. And they'd have been like, all right, but lunch is on you again. You know what I mean? But like, It was, it was a minuscule advantage for a ton of extra work. And we're like, I'm over it, not doing it.
Kyle Shaw: Totally.
Andy Leviss: that's that's that math that a lot of people forget so i'm glad we're bringing that up Um, like, so what was like, what was the, cause you said four hangs. Was it just like left, right hangs? Was it like curving around? Like what was the, what was the layout?
Matt Ratza: Oh, man, Sean, you should send him the sitemap. You know, the one on paper towel with crayons.
Sean Walker: Oh, oh, that's already up, dog.
Matt Ratza: Oh, it is? Okay,
Sean Walker: already up for sure. It it's so, oh yeah, that's, that's already up for everybody's viewing pleasure. Uh, and I already got a few comments about it. They're like, yo man, Vectorworks. I'm like, no shit, Sherlock. We're not making sight drawings in
Andy Leviss: Oh, was that, that was on the discord?
Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally, dude.
That was Garrett making
Andy Leviss: try and remember to link to it in the show notes.
Sean Walker: Uh, it, basically, Gasworks Park here in Seattle is a, like, I think it's like 19 acres or something, it's a big ass park. But in the center of it is this old gas plant that used to, like, you know, somehow process gas. And it's fenced off, because they don't want any people climbing on the old Stuff and getting hurt or whatever. basically in all four corners of that fence on the outside of the fence, we hung a, we had one of these tower pods, right? It had a pair of subs and an eight box hang and an IO drive system from us that my director of operations, Garrett, actually hand makes all these things for us, which are freaking sweet.
I'll send pictures. Andy, you're a nerd. Appreciate this. But, uh, and it wasn't exactly in each corner, you know what I mean? But basically the concept was. As close to all the corners as you can get or wherever we'll have the overlap, you need to have the even coverage on, on the two east and west sides are the biggest places to cover.
The north side had an SL 75 with somebody else's PA that was, you know, our client sorted that out. That was their situation and we'll leave it at that. Uh, and then the south side, which is where the, the lake was or the water with the fireworks was the VIP area. So we just had two boxes of NX 32 on tall stands to add a little clarity in there, but it didn't really need a ton because, uh, broadcast, the actual broadcasters themselves were on a deck there chatting and you don't want to, you know, blow a bunch of PA into them while they're trying to yap at people on TV.
Uh, And much of the other side was the broadcast truck and then food trucks. So we didn't have to cover that. Like broadcast doesn't need to be smashed with PA in their truck. Although that would be kind of fun to just turn it on. They'd be like, I can't hear what's going on. Get them, but
Matt Ratza: fucked.
Kyle Shaw: All
Sean Walker: get them. But, uh, you know, it was. It was pretty astounding. Uh, I wasn't, like I said, I wasn't there for the show. The, the team fricking crushed it so I could go finally spend a holiday with my family, which is the first time in a decade I've been able to do that. So thanks guys and gal. But, uh, when they were, when, when they were tuning, it was fricking unbelievable how well that little six inch box Carried 300 freaking feet up to the top of a hill to do, you know, playback and do this.
You absolutely could not do a heavy rock show like, you know, Foo Fighters and Nickelback or Death Punch or whoever, you know what I mean? That really has to kick ass. You couldn't do it with this little box, obviously, but like Spotify playback for fireworks. It was clear, loud, as full as you could ask it for.
It was, you know, Like, we ask way too much, like a sound company our size, and that's gonna be all sound companies, not just ours, ask way too much of our, all our gear, and our, and our people too, uh, so we ask this little dual six inch box to do things it was never intended to do, and it comes out with flying colors every time, we're always just, Fucking astounded, Andy, to be honest with you.
Like we're always like, Oh man, that's got to be a 12 side K2, or that's got to be a nine side Kara or whatever. And we're like, no, man, this little dual six box. Just it's angry, man. It's just an angry little fucking box
Matt Ratza: it is angry.
Sean Walker: says, yes. He's like, can you do this? Sure can. What about this? Yup. Got you too, dog. You
Andy Leviss: I gotta get my ears on them at some point. Um, I mean, I know like in a, in a week or so I get to come out and listen to some, what is it, some GTX with you, but I got to hit the HDLs at some point.
Sean Walker: there'll be front fills on that go. You can come up and go, yeah, man, those, those sound like front fills and move on with your life, you know?
Andy Leviss: So yeah, because it's for the first time in a couple years, uh, Sean and I are actually going to be in the same place in person in about a week for about a day and a half.
Sean Walker: Yeah. We're partying. We're
Kyle Shaw: Right on, man.
Andy Leviss: yeah, Sean's got a, got a little demo rig is some GTX, right?
Sean Walker: Yeah man, totally.
Matt Ratza: Oh, you're coming out for a rock the boat.
Andy Leviss: out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to come for the second day.
I ended up looking at the schedule. I couldn't make, uh, the, the, the rock day, uh, work, but I'm going to come out for the country day and hang out, uh, cause I have a gig that has me flying to Vancouver and all my connections were through Seattle. So I was like, wait a second. That's the day of Sean's thing.
I'll go a day earlier, you know, lay over on Sean's couch and, you know,
Sean Walker: He, he called, he, he called and he was like, hey man, what day are you mixing, and what day are the good dudes mixing? And I was like, I'm mixing Friday, and the pros are on Saturday. He's like, fuck, I'm not gonna be able to make Friday, dude, but Saturday sounds great.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, it was, it was a mix of that, and it's the, the, because I'm doing like an install thing on a cruise ship for a couple days, and, uh, it ends in Juneau, and there's like one flight a day out of Juneau, so like it ends up like that adds an extra day on the end just because I have to stay over to be able to get a flight, and like even though the ship on the way in in Vancouver is in port for like 12 hours.
Contractors have to be on by 11 a. m, even though they 5 p. m. So it's like I couldn't like fly that same as I got to stay over the day before too So it just became a thing and suddenly calendar was expanding in both ways So i'm like I really want to go hang in Seattle for two days. I really shouldn't
Sean Walker: you gotta stay on that divorce prevention program, dog. You know what I mean? Like, you can't be gone too long.
Andy Leviss: two pups baby on the way Like that's the the extra day and a half at home is definitely definitely going to be worthwhile and I would be glad to have it
Sean Walker: Absolutely. Cause when you were like, Cigars and coffee with the boys in another state. And she was like, not if you want the locks to be the same when you come home. You're like, yes, ma'am. Just kidding. Oh
Andy Leviss: But uh, so that I are either either both of you on that gig. Is that
Matt Ratza: Yeah, I'm on it.
Kyle Shaw: on the stage running monitors too, yeah.
Andy Leviss: Nice, I will, I will see you, and uh, since I'm not working it, y'all let me know what provisions you need me to go run for.
Matt Ratza: Nice.
Andy Leviss: Bring a bottle or a flask with me or whatever y'all need.
Sean Walker: There you go.
Kyle Shaw: Sean has a nice little secret drawer in our work boxes for all that goody stuff.
Sean Walker: There you go.
Andy Leviss: I still gotta find, I gotta get my workshop out of storage at the shop that's hanging onto it and finish building, did I tell you about the minibar I'm building in the back of my, my workbox?
Matt Ratza: Nice.
Andy Leviss: cause my, my work boxes are instead of doing a big full size one, I got a good price on two 14 space, you know, like pocket door fast packs and just like loaded them up with drawers and there's enough space in the back behind the drawers that I got like a, uh, 10 space, like vented panel and got like incandescent rope light on a dimmer so I can backlight and front light it and then you get like the little like wall, like cylinder holders, like you would use in like an RV or whatever.
So I can mount like three bottles of whiskey and then make a little glass holder in the bottom four. And then uh, name the rack Mullet because it's business in the front, party in the back.
Kyle Shaw: Love
Sean Walker: fellas, that's official. I'm hanging up my spurs. We're fucking this up and he's got it sorted as usual. And it's been nice knowing you Andy. Uh,
Matt Ratza: go to work for Andy. Sean
Kyle Shaw: Just say, I'll send my resume over.
Sean Walker: I'm going to work for
Andy Leviss: I mean, to be fair, I've been talking about doing that part of the rack for, uh, years, so I need to actually finish it. I've got most of the parts, I just need the time to do it, but that is definitely the project that keeps falling
Sean Walker: Oh, I see. It's idea time. I see where we're at now.
Matt Ratza: is your guy for idea time.
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Matt Ratza: He's got good ones.
Andy Leviss: That's why I thought I'm usually the bad idea bear.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Hey fellas, I got this great idea. They're like, Oh shit, not again.
Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, Ershon, you're the bad idea bear and I'm the expensive idea
Sean Walker: yeah. A thousand percent. A thousand percent. Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Mine are good ideas, they just, they just break the bank.
Sean Walker: problem is all my ideas start with, Hey guys, you want to do something dumb? And they're like, Oh God, yes. We're going to put a stage on a boat and float it up at what's the rate? Totally. We're going to put a stage on a boat. I'm going to float it up there and have a rock show in Harbor.
What the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's do it. Fuck it.
Matt Ratza: Matt, you wanna do something really stupid? Is it a day, right? Yeah. Alright, cool, I'm in.
Andy Leviss: I'm in.
Sean Walker: I'm in.
Andy Leviss: You son of a bitch, I'm in.
Sean Walker: right. You got me again, you son of a bitch.
Andy Leviss: Um, cool, well, I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll ask the question then, cause since y'all are there and I'm coming there in a week, I'm coming to Seattle in a week, where am I going to eat?
Sean Walker: More specifically, he's coming to Everett in a week. Yeah. Oh, he's right. We're going to Fisherman Jack's, bro. That's where we're going.
Matt Ratza: Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Alright,
Sean Walker: place in the water. Hope you like, hope you like Asian. It's like, uh, dim, dim sum and killer, killer Asian food. It's great,
Kyle Shaw: I'm about it.
Sean Walker: Yeah. We'll, we'll all go. I'll take the, I'll take the team after, uh, After the show.
Oh my god, better yet! Better yet! Nope. It's not gonna work. Just kidding. I had an idea forming it's not, it's not gonna work. I'll take the team after the show. It'd be great. So Friday night, we'll go, uh, go to dim sum, fellas.
Kyle Shaw: Hell yeah.
Andy Leviss: it.
Sean Walker: That'll be perfect. Cause Andy doesn't get into Saturday.
Matt Ratza: Ha ha.
Andy Leviss: Wow. Wow.
Matt Ratza: Sean's the cheap
Kyle Shaw: bring you
Andy Leviss: Yeah, wait a second. I just did the math in my head.
Sean Walker: Oh, dude. No, we'll, we'll go, we'll go get, we'll go to Fisherman Jackson. Get dinner on, on, after we're done. It'll be
Andy Leviss: Sounds
Matt Ratza: Sure, yeah, like, while we're loading out.
Sean Walker: I don't know. While you're loading out, Andy and I will go get dinner, dude.
Matt Ratza: Yeah, I know it, see? The cheap idea bear.
Sean Walker: Oh, man.
Matt Ratza: not.
Sean Walker: I've never let you starve yet, dawg.
Matt Ratza: No, you won't. You do, you do treat us well.
Andy Leviss: So, so, bringing this shit back around, as it were,
Matt Ratza: You're gonna want to bring your pellet smoker with you, uh, maybe that, that whiskey bar.
Andy Leviss: They don't, they don't let me, they don't let me check that.
Matt Ratza: Yeah, you're gonna
Andy Leviss: I was like, yo, Sean, you need any, you need an RF tech for this gig? Put me on payroll? He's like, no, RF on this one, man.
Matt Ratza: straight up rock and roll.
Sean Walker: yeah,
Andy Leviss: Yep, uh, it's all good, it's all good. I was like, but if I can make it a day rate, I'll make it a day rate.
Sean Walker: Totally. Yeah, man. We ain't got those New York day rates though, bro. Man, we ain't, we ain't getting those New York day rates, but
Andy Leviss: some days New York doesn't have the New York day
Sean Walker: Yeah. Fair
Matt Ratza: Yeah, right?
Sean Walker: Fair enough. Dude. It's pretty interesting having those, like, seeing what day rates are around the world though, man. And then the cost of living sometimes goes with it.
And sometimes it doesn't. There's a, there's been a few times where like people were talking about their cost of living and the day rate. And I was like, Oh no, those, those do not add up together. Oh no.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, like every once in a while we'll have like a thread like that on the Discord and folks and like particularly both, it's interesting both comparing like parts of the country here in the US and also comparing like us to like the UK or other parts of Europe and
Sean Walker: Totally
Andy Leviss: That's, yeah, like I've been dealing with that a little bit with this thing I'm doing next week is, is through a company based out of the UK and so like they were a little back and forth on rate and like he, you know, told me what their normal rate was and I basically said like, it's like, it's a little, like that's comparable to like what I would see for like a shop build here, like eight hours not from home, you know, like, If I were doing a corporate gig like flying, I would be here and like an install would be kind of anywhere in between like, you know, where, where can we fall?
And, and like he came back and was like, yeah, you know, we got a little more budget on this one. And I know like us rates are, you know, generally a little higher than here and your cost is higher. So here, how does this sound instead?
Matt Ratza: Oh, that's cool.
Andy Leviss: out quite worked out, you know, kind of happily for everybody, which was really cool.
Kyle Shaw: Yeah,
Matt Ratza: And it's cool you found,
Andy Leviss: seeing that like,
Matt Ratza: I was gonna say it's, it's cool that you've, you found somebody to actually open up and talk about finances or your rates. Like, that seems to be the huge thing that everything is negotiable. But nobody ever wants to talk about it. And you say, Hey man, here's my rate. And they just don't call you back. And I'm like, yo dude, it's negotiable.
Like we can figure something out. Like I might take a hit on this day, right. But if you're going to have me out for six months straight, I'm going to make it up. So like, let's, let's work something out. And I find that to be a really annoying thing about our industry is the fact that nobody is willing to actually negotiate.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like, you're always like afraid to say like, as, as the labor like coming in, it's always like, you're a little afraid to be like, quote a rate too high that you're worried they're going to say no to, but you don't want to undercut yourself. That's, we keep talking about trying to get somebody on to like, do an episode on negotiating tactics and I gotta, I gotta try and chase that down again.
And, and either see if the, if the guy I've been trying to get, if we can get him on or if I can find somebody else.
Sean Walker: Well, now that I know that your rate's negotiable, shit dog. I have
Matt Ratza: only goes up for you,
Sean Walker: meeting. Shit.
Andy Leviss: I mean, they're gonna be less negotiable come October, man.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally.
Kyle Shaw: Right,
Andy Leviss: lot of diapers, a lot of food coming.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Right.
Kyle Shaw: that ain't cheap.
Sean Walker: For sure. And here's the funny part, dude, that, that I'm sure you'll see too. But when I, when I first started having kids and, and building a family and then was in the early stages of, you know, Figuring out this crazy thing we do for audio. When I finally had to stick to my rate and I was less like, Oh, I don't know what he got or, Oh, it's going to be fine or, you know, it'll be fine.
And I was not like, yo man, here's the rate. I got a lot more traction with it actually, because people just want to know what the fucking number is. You know what I mean? Like how much dude? You know,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I will say, I've been like, pleasantly surprised with a lot of folks who come back and are like, hey, like, the, the most we can really budget on this one is this, like, will that work for you? And if not, we understand and we'll still call you for the next one, and And like that makes me a lot more willing to be like, you know what?
It's an empty spot on my schedule. Y'all are cool people. It sounds like a fun gig. I'll make it work. And that's, I, I know we've talked on the, on Discord about, I'm sure we've talked on here too. That's the other big tip I'll give for like the freelance folks on that is when you're doing stuff like that, always write your invoice for your full rate and then put a line item discounting it to what you agreed to.
So it's always there. There's always that reference of like, Oh, right. He's doing that for us. But like it, it makes it easier to reopen that conversation later.
Sean Walker: totally great.
Kyle Shaw: that's a great point. Yeah.
Sean Walker: Now, now I'm getting fricking 2 million invoices with 99 percent discounts from these two fucking fucks. Thanks, Andy. Well, I mean, you got two freelancers right here, Kyle, Matt, what do you guys do when you're trying to negotiate rates with, you know, people that aren't me?
Matt Ratza: Depends who it is.
Kyle Shaw: for me with, uh, some of my corporate clients, I've been just shoot high and then, uh, they'll come back and say, Hey, that's a little, that's a little steep for me. And then that's the negotiation process, right?
Matt Ratza: Yeah, I do kind
Sean Walker: There you go. Totally.
Matt Ratza: I work with one client who every hundred shows gives you a bump in pay, and I hate it. I'm like, dude, just pay me this rate. Just like, this is my rate.
Andy Leviss: yeah, I mean, that's a, I mean, what do you guys do as far as like, when, when you're calling out your own rate, are you, my rate is my rate, it doesn't matter what I'm doing, or do you charge a little differently depending on like, if you're mixing, or if you're just like, patch tech or something, or,
Kyle Shaw: Uh, for me, I'm a little more fresh in the freelance world. And so like a lot of my, my, um, paychecks are coming from different folks and I'm trying to just make sure that I'm not, uh, Overcharging them by any means. So I have a flat rate and then I ask them, you know, Hey, what are my responsibilities? Can I charge a little bit more for this?
Um, and then I'll move from there.
Andy Leviss: what about you Matt?
Matt Ratza: Uh, my rate's my rate, and we can go from there. I've tried to do the, the nice guy thing and everything, but it seems with, especially arena sized PA companies. Uh, they're always on a race to the bottom to handle that monthly nut, right? Like to pay off their lease or their loan or whatever. So it's just, Hey man, this is what I make.
I know you're going to be cheap anyway, and we've been friends for years and it never seems to go in, go in any direction in my favor. So it's, Hey man, this is what I make to go out. And if I can make it, I can make it. If I can't, I can't. Because like every other business, I have a life and
Andy Leviss: Mm hmm.
Matt Ratza: health problems and everything else like a normal human being.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I've been finding like I've definitely been, you know, ratcheting that way too of like, there was a while where it's like, yeah, no, if I'm like, you know, doing a more specialist thing or more in the line of fire, I'll charge a little more. And I've still got like, there's one company in particular I do a lot of work for that they, with few exceptions, these are our rates we pay You know, it's a range of plus or minus 50 bucks, de and, uh, uh, on the 10 hour day rate, depending on, uh, like, basically like general tech, uh, RF or comms or mixing, like each one ratchets up another 50 and it's there.
Standardize enough across everybody and generally pay decently enough and the gigs are decently enough that I, I, I don't like have that battle with them, but basically for everybody else, it's like, this is my rate. It's my rate. You're, you're paying for me and the knowledge I come with regardless of what I'm actually doing.
Like, even if I'm not mixing, my experience as a mixer is informing what I'm doing to make the mixer's job easier on a day.
Kyle Shaw: Absolutely.
Matt Ratza: And like, I'm seeing companies now that are paying their patch tax as A1s. Because, let's face it, on a lot of these large festivals, the monitor engineer is more of a D. A desk tech and RF wrangler, where the patch guy is the guy moving the whole time. Like he's got a lot of responsibility on his plate and he should be paid for it.
Kyle Shaw: Absolutely.
Matt Ratza: so I think rates should be like, this is your rate.
Sean Walker: and that's how we do it is a person's rate is their rate and. You know, and I try to be like you described before and you were like, Hey man, I don't, I don't have that on this show. Here's what I do have for this show. If that works great. If not, I'll call you next time. And, and I mean it, I don't mean like, Oh, but like, I get it, man.
You know, cause it's, it's a double edged sword and kind of what they're, what they're, you know, talking about and kind of talking around is sometimes the reality is this, the rate is the rate, but sometimes a motherfucker just needs to go to work. And so, if it's a little bit of discount on a few empty days and you got frickin rent to pay, like, maybe you'll take a discount for those days, but like you said, show that discount on your invoice, so you're like, yo man, my rate's usually X, you know, minus X, you know, Y percent to get to Z or whatever. You know, we, we don't pay differently based on A1, A2, you know, RF COM, we, I just tell them what the rate is, ask them what the rate is and pay them the rate, you know,
Matt Ratza: Yeah. And, and that makes life easier on you in the sense that now you don't have people stepping over each other or booking gigs and canceling them last second, because they got, Ooh, I got an A1 slot over at this company. That's going to pay me 50 or a hundred dollars more to go there where you're paying me, you know, you know, That much less to be, you know, a patch tech or a monitor person.
So like it, it alleviates all of that and gives you, uh, you know, a level playing field.
Sean Walker: yeah, man, and, and the, the other, there's two other parts to that, Matt, you're absolutely right. The first is Man, I don't want to deal with any drama. I don't want to deal with extra stuff. I don't want a bunch of extra workload. I hired somebody to do that job and because we're a small sound company, there's a lot of other jobs to be done also that's not just exactly in that lane of whatever you got hired for, right?
Like we are, there are, there is more case pushing and helping and stacking and moving and stuff than if you were just like straight up corporate A1 flown in from someplace, right? When you're doing small rock and roll gigs for a small company. And so, Getting people the rate they asked for is a whole lot less like, dude, I'm getting a deal and I'm getting extra work.
Like, no way. This sucks. You know what I mean? So I try to like, like, it's going to be a lot of work either way. I try to get people the rate they asked for. I try to pay them, you know, pay them well, pay them right. And then, you know, take good care of them with lunch and sparkly water and whatever else we can do to make them make it make sense.
But it's, you know, fricking working for a sound company is a hard gig.
Matt Ratza: Yeah, totally, man. You do it. You do good.
Sean Walker: selling insurance in a cubicle. Although some days I wish we were selling insurance in a cubicle, man.
Matt Ratza: It would smell a lot better.
Sean Walker: Totally. But the other part from the, from the business side is, uh, that I don't want those, once I've filled those holes in my calendar, crewing is one of the most time consuming things that a sound company has to do. Once that hole in the calendar is filled, I don't want it to get unfilled. Right? I don't want somebody calling me going like, like, you son of a bitch.
Matt Ratza: I'm bad about it this year.
Sean Walker: Somebody to call me and go, yo man, I got 25 bucks more someplace else. Or I got 50 bucks more someplace else. So I got to go, I'm taking it. Cause I tried to beat them up for 50 bucks on their day in this like, no, no shit. 50 is 50 any way you slice it, man. Like there's, it's, it's. It matters.
Every 50 matters. But at the same time, that is a super expensive 50 if they're like, Hey man, the other guy I have to pay my whole rate, so I gotta go. You know what I mean? Because it matters to everybody. So it's more of a pain, it's more costly to me to have to go recruit that position than it is to just pay a person their rate they asked for the first time and check that off the list of shit for me to worry about in a day.
And then also ensure that I don't have 50. Some ding dong on the show cuz I'm the only ding dong allowed to be on a show site I need guys that are better and smarter than me I'm trying to Henry Ford this motherfucker so that they make me look good cuz fuck it's all the help thing I'm like hopping around on crutches while they're frickin ripping around on on bikes.
You know, I mean, they're like Ah getting shit done and ripping and trying to make the old man look good, you know And I need I need Top flight dudes doing it, or dudettes, you know what I mean? And, and we got a fricking of cats that work for us, both men and women that are fricking awesome, totally ripping.
And it's a good team because we try to take good care of them, you know? And we got like every other sound company, some really fun gigs and some really dumb gigs and everything in between. And it kind of evens all out. And it's a lot easier to deal with the dumb gigs if you're getting paid right.
Matt Ratza: Absolutely.
Kyle Shaw: Totally.
Sean Walker: You know?
Andy Leviss: Yeah,
Sean Walker: And
Kyle Shaw: so we've all kind of been in the position too as freelancers where you are booked for like a one day or a two day thing and then you get that call for that week long run or whatever and it's kind of an awkward position because you're like, well, they're paying my corporate rates, maybe over my rock and roll rates, uh, how do I, do I oblige that, that verbal contract we've already made and just, you know, Suck it up and figure out how to make that show work.
Or do I say, Hey, I can't do this. And how do you like negotiate or find somebody else to fill that shoe or take care of that? You know, that's kind of a hard spot as a freelancer sometimes.
Andy Leviss: yeah, it can definitely be. And I was going to say, like, I've had, it's, it's a balancing act as the freelancer too. Like I've had gigs that I know the reason I keep getting calls from people is because I've been upfront with them and said, Hey man, I got offered another job that's going to pay better for this week, but if you really need me, I gave you my word.
So like, I'll stick to it and suck it up. And they're like, and sometimes they're like, it's all good. I can cover it. Or sometimes they're like, I really need you on this one. And I'm like, is that okay? And because I've said yes, they've thrown me so much more work because they know they can count on me to ask that question.
But on the flip side, there's also times where like, that money does make or break and, and yeah, it's figuring out that balancing act, you know, and figuring out when to ask and when not to and when to push.
Matt Ratza: Yeah.
Kyle Shaw: I find that's also a good opportunity for me to help throw other friends work too. If, if I have to, if I'm in that corner, I'd be like, Hey, I know this is kind of an awkward thing. I kind of got to go do this or whatever, even if it's a personal leave by any means, but I've got a few friends in my pocket that I can throw your way that are totally killer at what they do and can fill these shoes.
No problem. You know,
Matt Ratza: I'm upfront and
Andy Leviss: that's, that's the thing. And that's,
Matt Ratza: Oops. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off, man.
Andy Leviss: no, go for it. Go for it.
Matt Ratza: I'm just, uh, I was talking to, uh, kind of expanding on what Kyle was talking about is, um, I'm just upfront and honest about it with whoever my local company is that I'm working with regularly and go, Hey man, I make 40 grand a year off of this one client.
And there's times where they're like, Hey man, I got to pull you out for a week. And it'll be, I'll find out three days before I got to go out for a week. And. Like Sean has been really awesome to me about it. And like, Hey man, I got the call from boss man. And he's like, go make boss man happy. We'll figure it out.
So I, I, I just, I think that just being honest with whoever you're working with about all of it seems to, seems to really help
Kyle Shaw: totally.
Matt Ratza: and everybody's frozen.
Sean Walker: man. Absolutely. And, and, you know, when you get those calls, you got to, you know, both parties or both sides are balancing that. Like this has to get done. And, and there was a either verbal or written or however it came through contract. Right. But there was a, like a promise of I'll be there. I'll do the show.
I said, yes. Right. But at the same time, if one of, if one of my people can go make a week's rate instead of a day's rate, like kind of an a hole, does that make me if I can like easily cover their gig and just try to hold them to it for no reason, right? Like, yo man, you got a week's worth of work instead of the day you had for me and we can get it covered.
No problem. Go make your money. You know what I mean? Go make that money, bro. We'll send, send your homie. That's fine. You know what I mean? But like you said, every once in a while, and it's pretty rare, but every once in a while, it's like, yo man, I, I literally cannot do this without you at this point. I, like, I need you to be here.
And you know, it is, it's those relationships you've built with vendors or freelancers or the companies or however, you know, wherever side you are on this, because sometimes a lot of us are on multiple sides of this, of this, you know, paradigm or whatever, right? Uh, it's those relationships, right? And it goes back to basically everything in life is about the relationships you have.
So you can call this, this person and go, Hey man, here's the situation. And it can be a A candid conversation rather than like, you son of a bitch, you know what I mean? But like, dude, you, you can't be shorting somebody a week's worth of pay for a one day show if you don't have to, but every once in a while you gotta be like.
Yo Andy, yo Matt, yo Kyle, whatever, right? Like I literally cannot do this show without you at this point. You know what I mean? It's literally, you're the linchpin at this point that holds the whole thing together and they got to go, okay, cool. But then you got to make it up to them and go, yo man, I got this whole two weeks worth of work you didn't have before that I gotta, I gotta give to you.
Cause you just give this other week for me, right? You know, you try to make it make sense for everybody if you can, so that nobody's getting shafted on their money. Cause everybody's got to rent to pay or mortgage to pay, you know?
Kyle Shaw: hmm. Absolutely. Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Right. I mean, that feels like a solid place to wrap it up. And you're also giving me an idea, like we shouldn't, maybe Sean, at some point we should reach out to like, um, Elliot again or somebody and have a couple of y'all on and just do an episode on staffing.
Sean Walker: Dude, totally,
Andy Leviss: I feel like both like for the, for the company owners that listen in, like looking for tips and tricks and staffing and just, I feel like as a freelancer, it's sort of, there's, there's insight on that side that we don't get that helps us understand why, you Why decisions are made.
We gotta, I gotta scribble a note, note to myself to reach out and try and make that happen.
Sean Walker: Dude, staffing is one of the most time consuming parts of this. Do this job, dude. It's, it's a lot. And then trying to keep track of it. It's a lot, dude. But, uh, but you're right. It's a good place to stop. And we're, you know, just cracking over the hour mark. So let's just, uh, you know, let's call that the pod.
Thanks to Allen and Heath. Thanks to RCF for having us. Thanks Kyle and Matt for hanging out. Andy, thanks for running the whole gosh darn thing as always. And, uh, that's the pod y'all. See you next week.
Andy Leviss: Take care,
Matt Ratza: See you guys. Thanks.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
