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
268. First Anniversary Celebration!
Co-hosts Andy and Sean celebrate their first anniversary together on the podcast in Episode 268 with a look back on highlights from the past nearly 50 episodes as well as look forward to what the next year of the podcast has in store. They also discuss a momentous week in live sound news — the discontinuation of the ubiquitous Yamaha CL and QL console families and the reveal of Sennheiser’s exciting new Spectera wireless WMAS system.
Episode Links:
Sennheiser Unveils Spectera Wideband Bi-directional Digital Wireless Ecosystem
Notice Of Discontinuation Of Yamaha CL & QL Consoles
Episode 268 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 268 First Anniversary Celebration!
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, you're listening to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me, the Bart to my Milhouse, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?
Sean Walker: Hey buddy!
Andy Leviss: So, uh,
Sean Walker: You are getting ready, you are getting ready to have kids, dude, because I'll tell you, kids are like, it oscillates even every day between, excuse me, this is the best thing I've ever done with my life, and BART! You know?
Andy Leviss: I mean, with the parents this one has, odds are somewhere on the Lisa and Milhouse spectrum.
Sean Walker: right, all right, all right, yeah, yeah,
Andy Leviss: Our luck, because we're on the Lisa and Milhouse side of the spectrum, we're gonna end up with a Bart or...hopefully it's not a Nelson.
Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally. Totally.
Andy Leviss: But uh, yeah, no, uh, dearly beloved, we're gathered here without a guest today because I looked at the calendar and this week is kind of a thing. You know that, Sean?
Sean Walker: I, I didn't know that. I forgot the wife's... I forgot ours. Sorry, dog. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm in the doghouse.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, we look now it's it gets a little hand wavy figuring out what our anniversary is because we officially started as hosts a couple episodes apart, but there's a technicality. And if you know me, you know, I love me a technicality.
Sean Walker: Yeah, you do.
Andy Leviss: So the technicality is that my first episode is a guest as a host, you were the guest on.
And, you were such a cool hang with me and Katie that time that we were like, yo, we gotta just have Sean all the time. So, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna retcon that as our first episode together and call, that was episode 213 and holy Jesus, that was a year ago.
Sean Walker: Damn, dog. They haven't fired us yet? Shit.
Andy Leviss: I, I, you know what, I'll, I'll, I'll take the sympathy, uh, checks. I think it's the content keeps coming out and nobody has to think about it so they don't rely.
Sean Walker: Oh my god, totally.
Andy Leviss: we love you Keith and Julie and Sam and Kevin and everybody else at PSW.
Sean Walker: Thousand percent.
Andy Leviss: But no, I thought it would be cool, like, there's been, like, you just got back from vacation again, which you're making up for lost time, I'm like, you didn't vacation for years and now you're going on like multiple a
Sean Walker: Bro. Totally. Yeah, so we, like, I, I've been going hard as a paint for more than a decade trying to, you know, sort my life out and adult and shit. And, uh, this year was the first year where we could make time and then also afford to go on vacation. And so we went to Italy in the top of the year. I just got back from Hawaii.
We went to Kona for a week and that was super fun going like renting boats and snorkeling with dolphins and, you know, swimming around and just having a blast with the kids and
Andy Leviss: Dolphins are, I, I, when we went to Miami, I did, I did the swim with dolphins thing, they're,
Sean Walker: So cool,
Andy Leviss: They're smarter than us,
Sean Walker: So cool, dude. And yeah, we weren't like, Intentionally swimming with the dolphins. We were just swimming and they showed up and we're like, oh man, the rules say we got to go. And my son London, who's seven was like, dad, I'm going back in. Just plunges right back in. I was like, all right, buddy. So he's out there like swimming
Andy Leviss: Here we are.
Sean Walker: Totally. And, uh, I was like, should I be concerned? Is it, like, is it okay? You know what I mean? And, uh, it was all fine. It was, it was great. He had a blast, dude. We played a little ocean ball, which, you know, we made that up, so it's basically just catch with your boy and while you're all swimming in the ocean, which is frickin sweet, dude, so, you know, trademarked ocean ball.
Everybody get on that flop.
Andy Leviss: Similar rules to Calvin Ball, just the rules change every time.
Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just catch, bro. It's just catch, dude. Like, jump, jump in the ocean, play with your kids. You know what I mean? Be a, be a, be a parent. Be a dad or mom or whatever. It was great. My wife did it too. She was freaking playing ocean ball with the kids.
We had a blast, dude. It was awesome. And much needed vacation, dude. And I was, uh, pretty blessed that I got a fucking ripping team here to take care of it. Garrett and the freaking, and the team just held it down while I was gone and knocked the shows out of the park. So I, I'm just, I'm blessed, man. I'm just freaking blessed.
I
Andy Leviss: yeah, I saw Garrett posting about like a, a cool like corporate thing y'all did with like a whole, a whole baker's dozen and change of hangs or something
Sean Walker: Yeah, we did a, uh, well, not we, he, I was on vacation fucking swimming around in the ocean. He had a trade show and then a, you know, your, like, Bogstater corporate, you know, Awards ceremony kind of thing. But it was like 14 hangs of HDLs around the trade show floor in the, in the convention center. And then, uh, kind of like three on a pole sort of a thing for the award ceremony.
And then we did, they wanted to do like a Miami Vice style eighties nightclub. And we were like, well, that's fucking easy. So we stacked up three of the 9006s in cardioid and put an NXW 44 on top, which is like three 10s and a horn. So a classic ground stack, like lots of sub, you know, like we tuned it, but it's, it was definitely club, you know what I mean?
Sub heavy. And the client was just like all smiles over the moon. I got, I got pictures while I was there. And the guy was just like, Almost crying, happy, smile, like, like Joker status to his ears. He was like, I said nightclub and you guys brought it. It's one of the few corporate, few corporate shows where you're like, I am totally cool to sit through all the corporate y like nonsense.
Cause these guys want to rock at the end of it. You know what I mean? It's they're so fun. So
Andy Leviss: You just sit in there rubbing your hands at the back of the room waiting for it. I
Sean Walker: I mean, maybe him, not me. I was just like, I was just counting the money at the end of it. You're like, Oh my God, this is going to be great.
Andy Leviss: want to say about like, but like during the show, sitting there just like itching in your chair waiting
Sean Walker: Oh yeah, Waitin to Rock. Yeah, totally. Totally.
Andy Leviss: I'm just picturing you with like a giant lever going at the end.
Sean Walker: from Corporate to fuckin Club, ka chunk!
Andy Leviss: Nice.
Sean Walker: We've had a couple of those where like Either for our, our own company or sometimes Garrett and I freelance for the people around town because, uh, you know, man, I don't know about New York, man, but the, the, uh, engineer pool here in Seattle is, is pretty small.
So there's a few of us companies that all of the owners, CEOs, presidents, whatever, like production managers, we all kind of got each other on speed dial, like, yo, man, uh, wait, I got a hard one coming up. Can you and the boys all go? So it'd be like, Discreetly three or four fricking different sound companies of like presidents and owners all at the same site.
Like, yo dog, good to see you. Uh, and then you just knock it out of the park and go home, you know? Cause like, I don't know about, I don't know about in your part of the world, dude, but it's hard to find people that give a shit and find people that give a shit. Like the owner of another sound company is like, you're not going to find more give a shit usually. So it's, it's been great.
Andy Leviss: That's awesome. And it's awesome that like everybody gets along well enough that like nobody like it doesn't nobody's thinking about like, oh Well, if I only do it, okay, then I'll get the gig next year.
Sean Walker: Oh, totally dude. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's there's, there's plenty of work here and in like, you know, like a lot of places, like you don't have to, it doesn't have to be like. Swimming with the sharks to get work and like There's plenty of, plenty of like, rando companies doing a poor job that you don't have to like, you don't have to cut throat your friends to go get more work.
You can just be like, Oh man, you know that show that somebody F'd up last year? You know, we'll sort it out. And not F it up for you this year.
Andy Leviss: Yep.
Sean Walker: I know you picked, I know you picked the in house A. V. company, but we can fix it for you next year. Okay, great! You know what I mean? You don't have to step on your friends nuts to go.
Too late, it won't work, which is sweet.
Andy Leviss: Yep, I I just I I mean I had to turn down because it's right around our due date but I just got a call back for a job that like two years ago some other local company did and Allegedly, they knew they did a poor enough job on site that they didn't even bother invoicing for the balance
Sean Walker: Oh, shit.
Andy Leviss: So, that went to one of the companies I worked for last year and bless the TD on it, uh, You know, I get along with Will, and he was like, hey.
Andy works for you guys, right? Yeah? Can he do this one? And so we did that last year and it went well. It was the only corporate gig I've ever done where I got handed an envelope of cash as a tip at the end of the night.
Sean Walker: Yeah, that's awesome,
Andy Leviss: And so that, that just came back around, but I got a pass on it this year. So I was like, you know, let me know once you book somebody and put them in touch with me and I'll give them all the, all the little silly stuff.
Cause it's an easy gig with just a couple of potential gotchas.
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. Are you flying out here again this year for the one that you and the boys do? Nah.
Andy Leviss: uh, who knows? That's, There's so many of those, and like, some of them come my way, some don't, so, we'll see.
Sean Walker: Well, tell the boys you got a coffee date out here, bro. I gotta sort it out. And when it's not in the middle of festival season, it ain't 27 hours of frickin travel to try to get here.
Andy Leviss: Oh man. That was
Sean Walker: That was brutal, dude. You're a trooper. You're a trooper. I was cross eyed and didn't even know who I was at that point, and you were like, That's alright, man.
I'll still just, I'll be here. I'm a dude. I'll sort it out.
Andy Leviss: I mean, that's how I was three days later on a boat, but at least I got to chill on a boat afterwards.
Sean Walker: you go. How'd that go? Was that good?
Andy Leviss: It was good, yeah, it went smooth, you know, RF is there,
Sean Walker: How many channels of Accient did it end up actually being?
Andy Leviss: but it ended up being, it's like 20 or so, I want
Sean Walker: Okay, well that makes more sense. I was like, thankfully yo ass out for four channels of Axiom. Yeah,
Andy Leviss: yeah, no it wasn't 4 5 channels, it was 4 5 units,
Sean Walker: yeah. So 16 to 20 channels. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andy Leviss: yeah, like ripping the old ones out and then like doing a, doing some re coordination to basically, they were like any of the ones that still work we want to be able to use. Like to upgrade older shit in other spaces on the boat?
Sean Walker: Sure. What was coming out?
Andy Leviss: Internet signal wise?
Sean Walker: No, no. What was coming out? Was it ULXD or UHFR coming out?
Andy Leviss: one of the, I forget which, it was, it was one of those two. It might have been ULXD. I think it was ULXD,
Sean Walker: ask you a nerd question. Since you've forgotten more about RF in the last five minutes than I'll ever know, ULXD is still a pretty banging RF thing for the dough, right?
Andy Leviss: I think so, yeah. And so are they still selling it new,
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. Totally.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I mean if they're still selling it, like, they're not, they're not selling junk.
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah, we, I've used it a bunch and I, I gotta be honest, man, I can't tell the difference until you try to stuff a bunch of channels into a stupid space, like, I don't, I don't hear a sound quality difference
Andy Leviss: Yeah, like you get a little more flexibility, if I'm not totally smoking, the ULXD also have the high density mode, right?
Sean Walker: they do, yep.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so like that's, that's where shit started to change, and like, past that there's like nice quality of life stuff, and then until you get to like the ShowLink ones, which that shit is, I thought ShowLink was magical enough, which like, you know, you know the deal with ShowLink, right?
Right.
Sean Walker: I mean, I, I know what I've been told, but if you have a deep dive, let's, hit me.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I, so, so basically it's the, it's Shure's way of remote controlling some of the accident transmitters from the computer or from the receiver, so basically you have to retune the frequency, it'll speak to the pack over, like I think it's 2. 4 gig, and it'll send it a little control data and like almost instantaneously it'll retune the transmitter too, since that's already linked to the receiver.
Sean Walker: And are there like two versions of that? Like you need the ADX transmitters and you need that like 86, 000 thinger, but do you need something else where it does it automatically? Or was there something that auto checks? There was like another thing, right?
Andy Leviss: well, there, there's, there's like different layers of how much it can do. So there's, you need, you need the show link transmitter, which is like a little 2. 4 gig antenna transceiver that does the communication side. And you know, you put however many of those you need for coverage and for how many packs, and then you can do it all just through wireless workbench, or you can use the analyzer to do it all and automatically push frequencies for you.
Um, and then past that you can get into, depending on how. Much you care, like how much you care about redundancy, how much you need, how much money you have to throw at it. You can also put the receivers into like a dual frequency redundancy mode that they make certain of the handheld models have two radios in them.
So you can have two, like two frequencies transmitting at once and it'll either mix them together or pick between the one and if that takes a hit it'll switch over to the other one before it retunes the first one.
Sean Walker: Let me ask you this. When would you need something like that? Cause I feel like we talked to some cats that done like popes and presidents and as important as people get, and they're like, yeah, we did that shit with the old school stuff and it worked great.
Andy Leviss: I, I mean, it's when do you want belts and suspenders? It's do you ever need it? No, it's like, you know, like, there, you know, that might be one of the thing you do, like, you've got the one star vocal that you really just don't want to have to deal with having to like, have any risk of issues. So you do that.
Sean Walker: or you can, or you can sell it to the planner of like, hey, this will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go down, ever. She's like, okay, I'll pay for it,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and likewise, you can also pop those receivers into quadversity mode, which I'm not going to dig too much into because I haven't used it and don't fully understand, but basically it'll use, instead of using two antennas, it'll use four receivers and it basically turns a four channel receiver into a two channel receiver.
It's bouncing between four antennas instead of two, so you get that much more robust on the RF side. So Shure's, like, they're doing some wild shit with
Sean Walker: That, that sounds like some shit 10 people in the world need and my ass will never need, you know what I'm saying?
Andy Leviss: Yeah.
Sean Walker: I, we, we own Axiant because people ask for it, not because we need it, you know what I mean? Like,
Andy Leviss: So, but so the other cool thing is I've been playing with, uh, SoundBase, which we've talked about before. That's what I use for coordination. Uh, SoundBase Pro is, is their like the standalone version and they've been, they've got a beta in that of, uh, fuck, why am I blanking on what it's called right now?
Sean Walker: Does it run on Mac?
Andy Leviss: It does run on Mac and it's, I'm totally having a brain fart on what the feature is called.
But it will talk over the network to sennheiser w com or shore and do monitoring, pushing names and frequencies right from the coordination software. So I just did the, I did RF for the nine 11 Memorial commemoration
Sean Walker: dude, how was that?
Andy Leviss: It was, I mean, the gig went well. I'm not gonna say it was an awesome gig 'cause it's a, it's a somber gig obviously,
Sean Walker: Sure.
Andy Leviss: but yeah, it was, it's, there's
Sean Walker: Didn't you have like 19 presidents standing there?
Andy Leviss: we had, yeah, it was, it was high.
There was going down the line was like. Two mayors, one former president, one current president, two presidential candidates. So the one of those was also one of the former president, like it, everybody was there.
Sean Walker: Right. That was kind of like, you got to show up or you just don't even bother showing up. Like, you show up to this or don't show up to any political things ever again.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like they all, I mean, they all had like as busy as our mornings were, they all like made appearances there, then went to the one in Pennsylvania and to the one down at the Pentagon. So like they were running around like crazy that morning. You know, making sure they, they got to all of them so, you know, props to those folks and, and their security team securing all
Sean Walker: Dude, totally.
Andy Leviss: hard work. Um,
Sean Walker: But that was straightforward gig, tech
Andy Leviss: was, it was it. Yes and no. So the reason I was, I was starting to get into it is 'cause I use sound base for my coordination for that and with the, I'm, I'm gonna have to launch it in the background 'cause I'm just totally blanking on what the feature is. But I did an open wireless workbench once. I was able to do push frequencies, monitor every like, I did it all in SoundBase Pro.
I, like, discovered all the accident receivers and the PSMA neurotransmitters right in SoundBase Pro. Assigned, like, link transmitters up with the frequencies I had coordinated, pushed it out if I needed to re coordinate a frequency. I just hit go in SoundBase Pro and it pushed it right out to the receiver.
I did not have show link on that, but if I had had show link on that, it would have pushed right back out of the transmitter. I actually gave that a bit of a test on the ship because they did have show link going in on the ship. And it was great. I could, if I had a problem on a frequency, I'd hit re coordinate.
A little arrow would point up just telling me, hey, you've got changes. Do you want to push them to the hardware? As soon as I said yes, it just blipped it right out. Instantly blipped it over to the transmitter. I accidentally did that to a presenter who was literally in the process of walking on stage because I Was very overtired with doing the overnights on the cruise
Sean Walker: you, did you pull a ding dong?
Andy Leviss: I almost did, but ShowLink and SoundBase Pro saved my ass. Because literally, in the blink between words is enough for you to push a new frequency to the receiver and it to relay it over to ShowLink and retune the transmitter.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's sweet.
Andy Leviss: Fucking wild. Uh,
Sean Walker: Okay, so what does ShowLink do for me? Or, uh, not ShowLink. What does SoundBase Pro do for me that Workbench does not?
Andy Leviss: uh,
Sean Walker: I'm a, I'm an average RF tech, if that makes sense. Like, I, I can sort it out up to like, I don't know man, 30 or so channels, but after that somebody else gotta like, put their big boy pants on, you know what I mean?
Like, what, what is, in a normal, like, A2 corporate setting, what do I get in sound bass that I don't get in workbench?
Andy Leviss: Uh, a number of it, part of it depends on how much you're doing, because if you're mixing brands a lot, it has a much wider, like, Shure has some other brands in, I think it's a mix of, uh, What they, like, what they've got access to, what they're willing to get. I'm sure there are brands that just for competitive reasons, they're like, eh, you're gonna have to enter that one manually.
SoundSync, that's what the feature's called. Sorry, SoundSync. Um, so it's, it's the wider library of that. It gives you a little more visibility into the flexibility of Uh, similar to how is was the tool that everybody used before sound base was a thing and it gives you a lot more power. Like there's some stuff you can do to coax more frequencies out of wireless workbench, but only to a point, uh, sound base or, or I, or I presume easy rf, which is the other kind of new kid on the block in that market are, it's the, it's the Spider-Man thing.
The with great power comes great responsibility. There's a lot of stuff you can, if you know what you're doing, you can say, hey, don't test against that kind of interaction, because I know that's not going to be an issue for this particular event, because the stuff I'm, the two groups I'm coordinating are far enough apart from each other.
So, you know, you can get a little more granular with turning off interactions. The, uh, the other thing that, that messes with people's heads when they're from one to the other, is that Uh, they're all doing the same math under the hood, but Shure works on, I'm forgetting the terminology for it, but basically, Shure, you tell it how many frequencies you want it to find, and it will do its best job to try and churn out that many frequencies.
Whereas a program like IAS or SoundBase, you give it the parameters you need, and it will show you as many as it can do. And like, you can, and, because of how it works, and
Sean Walker: That's a, that's a great way to put that. That, that, uh, I understand a lot better.
Andy Leviss: yeah, so it's, and there are ways, and they, and Donnie and Matt into SoundBase have added tools to basically let you kind of work the Shure way, because people are used to that, so, they'll give you a way to put in like, 12 uncoordinated frequencies and then just recalculate them, which'll work, but it, when you're trying to eek stuff out, You can sometimes squeeze a little more doing it, doing it that other way.
Sean Walker: Like when you got two zillion random frequencies for upfronts and everybody's trying to coordinate it all together and you're like, shoot me in the face, we're all standing on top of each other?
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And there's in like one of the, it's, I mean, I, I don't know enough under the hood about wireless workbench if like, if it can't hit the number at first, if it keeps going and how many tries it does. Cause one of the things that kind of messes with people. with like the like heavier duty coordination programs is if you hit recalculate a couple times the number of frequencies it finds will jump around usually like plus or minus three sometimes you'll start at 15 and you'll hit it a couple times and suddenly 21 will pop up and it's always a little bit of a roulette because then you could hit it in 15 could come up the next time and you're waiting till you get back to that number but it's because it's randomly picking a frequency within the tuning range of the device you're tuning to start And then it randomly picks a second one, checks that against the first, and keeps going that way.
So every time it starts, it's starting from a different random seed, which is going to lead it to a different, we've run out of frequencies.
Sean Walker: that. I gotcha.
Andy Leviss: So yeah, so it's one of those like, it's more powerful, it's, it can be a little faster once you understand the workflow of that. SoundBase itself has a bunch of other cool stuff like You can do groups that are time of day.
So like if you've got a festival and you've got a morning band and an afternoon band, and you know, they're never going to overlap because they're on the same stage and their sound checks don't overlap, you can coordinate them independently and it'll let you reuse frequencies or let you use frequencies that would interfere with each other if they were at the same time, but because it, it's aware of time and day.
It'll not. And like, they're doing some new stuff past that to like make it even more powerful for festivals like coming later in the year. And we're, I was just talking with Donnie and Matt recently. We're going to have them on soon. Uh, just trying to sort out schedules. Cause they had, they were like one of the big pieces of audio news the last couple of weeks that Sennheiser threw a bunch of money at them,
Sean Walker: Yeah, wouldn't they be able to quit their jobs and just do sound bass full time now?
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so Donnie, yeah, because Donnie has been the head of, uh, PSW's New York office and, and Mask Productions, which are, like, overlapping, like, business aspects of Mask and PWS, um, who are part of the same company. Uh, and Matt, I, Matt actually used to be a Mask per, and, and Mask Production person as well, and then had gone to work for another software company, and, yeah.
Yeah, Sennheiser just invested a bunch of money in them, they don't own the company, the product is staying theirs, they're still, you know, gonna support all the brands that they do.
Sean Walker: That's sweet. Sennheiser must have just realized that they got a killer product and they bought all the Sennheiser stuff included tightly with that. You know what I mean? Like,
Andy Leviss: I think, I think so, and it's, I, yeah, again, it's like speculating, because I'm, we weren't in the room with any of them, but I have to imagine somebody there did the math and said, well, we can take the money that we've been sinking into, you know, developing WSM. Or, if we work with these guys to make their product better, even if it's supporting everybody else's stuff too, it's, I imagine the value for the dollar they're spending on it lets then Sennheiser focus that internal staff value on, on other stuff.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Make it more wireless, make it more wireless to sell. Right,
Andy Leviss: yeah, it seems win win for everybody, so,
Sean Walker: That's awesome.
Andy Leviss: yeah. And so we're, we're gonna have them on at some point soon to talk about that and, and talk about like how SoundBase came to be. Cause I know there's a lot of. Myth and misunderstanding and assumptions in part because Donnie works for PWS, although this is not a PWS product.
So there's a lot of info. In fact, I know I in the past had been misinformed about some of the history of it and spread some, some incorrect, uh, assumptions and hearsay on that. So we're going to get them on and Set the record straight and talk about what's coming and how they got there. And that'll be awesome.
Sean Walker: dude, sweet. That's awesome.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, I mean, there's, I mean, there's been like so much like wild news the last couple of weeks in, in pro audio. Like, I feel like we don't often do like the new show, but I feel like we could do a whole
Sean Walker: Go ahead.
Andy Leviss: hour today, like, well, well, the, the big one that I know Sean's going to shed some tears over. The CL1 was discontinued, or the CL, the whole CL line, actually.
Sean Walker: QL and CL bro.
Andy Leviss: Well, well, you know I love me a technicality. The CL is immediately discontinued and the QL is what we got to what we got and then it's discontinued.
Sean Walker: Which means it's discontinued,
Andy Leviss: Basically, it, it just, I think you can still, you can still get on the list to buy a QL new. There are no more CL news. I don't know, Sean. Why would you?
Sean Walker: I wouldn't. I wouldn't, but anybody out there that's got used QL1s and 5s that are in good shape, they want to sell cheap, you sign me up,
Andy Leviss: Sean at audioengineersnorthwest.
Sean Walker: dawg. Totally, dude, just send them shits over, dawg. I'll buy them cheap all day long.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so you don't have immediate plans to just get rid of them all and switch over to DMs or
Sean Walker: No, man, we're growing so fast, we just need more of everything. We'll get, we'll, we've got a bunch of DM3s, we're gonna get some DM7s and the 7Cs, but I just need more. So if the QL5s and 1s are a good frickin deal, they're still a totally, totally serviceable desk for another few years. www. sennheiser. com And, you know, if they're asking new prices, they can go pound sand, but for.
You know, for fire sale prices, I'm in. Just keep send, send emails.
Andy Leviss: And I'm
Sean Walker: Sean at buymyql5. com.
Andy Leviss: do you remember when the CL came out?
Sean Walker: I don't remember. It was like 9 or 10 years ago though, right?
Andy Leviss: it's gotta be, I think it's more than that. That's why I'm like, introduce, let's see, Yamaha introduces CL5, what does, will Google tell us? Officially discontinued a week ago, uh, it looks like, 2012, so yeah, about 12 years.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's a great run.
Andy Leviss: That's a, that's a solid run.
I mean, like, we were, uh, I don't think we said it on the air. If not, we're repeating ourselves because we're getting old. But, uh, I was saying before, the, the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, as last time I was in there, had a PM5D as their monitor desk, and I'm not 100 percent sure it's still there, but I think it is, because that was a rockin monitor desk.
Sean Walker: was. And probably still works. Probably will work to the end of time, dude.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, particularly, particularly in a place where, like, it's not moving at all.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Yeah, we just had our first, I will say we just had our first, uh, QL5 problem last week. Yeah. It got absolutely drenched. In the rain, like water pouring out of the console, pop up tents and tarps and fans trying to keep it all dry, just, it just got monsooned in the rain, and so now we have some buttons that are finicky, so we got to go through and sort those out, but years of freaking abuse, those things have been rock solid, dude.
We're, we're stoked to go get some,
Andy Leviss: let's did what? What? When we had, when we had Jess Paz on, did we tell you the story of how Jess and I managed to kill three Yamaha consoles with water in one summer?
Sean Walker: No, but I'm ready, hit me.
Andy Leviss: So literally 10 years to the day before the day that Jessica won her Tony Award,
Sean Walker: Okay?
Andy Leviss: like literally to the day there's the photo on Facebook.
I've got a photo of Jess in a DM 2000 with the lid cracked open. And like a hairdryer and a can of compressed air because I was, I was mixing an outdoor, an outdoor Shakespeare, you know, adapted to a musical for out in Connecticut. And it was just the summer of fiascos and the, the, there had been this like front of house surround for the mix position.
Like it's sort of like a little mini shed that like padlocked and had like a lid that went on it and kind of kept it protected from the elements overnight because everything lived out in the park. So production manager, done it a bunch of years. This was my first year. He. You know, showed me the housing, showed me how to close it up.
Did not tell me that it is decidedly not watertight, and you need to stretch a tarp over the top walls before you put the lid on, or water will get in when it rains. So I learned that the hard way. One day during Tech Wrestle, we came in, it was, it was soggy, we got it dried up, we got it to boot up. If it had been a brand new console, it probably would have worked fine, but the console was old and dirty enough that the water had just, like, there was Dirt which turned to mud and faders so like faders would go from like Negative 50 to suddenly they jumped to like plus three.
So, and that was DM2000s were getting long in the tooth already at that point, so that was the only one that rental shop had owned. So, they quickly made a call and sub rented one from one of the other shops in town. Got that to us the next day. We lost one day of rehearsal, although having a day off was kind of nice.
Got the new console in, got the show open. All was good in that first, you know, it was like a two city thing. So, we did the run in the first city, everything went fine. Lots of other rain happenings, causing positive tech, but nothing on the sound front. We move to the next city, everything's covered up, and we had like, because like it was so boxed in with the Tart now, we had started putting in like those damper aid packets to like absorb any humidity that got in them just because we were like super paranoid about condensation.
So, this box was built to prevent people from stealing the console. It was not really built, it was not really built to prevent people from. looking or poking at the console overnight. So the four walls surrounding the console up to about like my eye level or so were locked, but the lid just sat on the top.
And I guess they didn't pay for overnight security in the park that we were in. So apparently,
Sean Walker: so crackheads.
Andy Leviss: I think, I think some, I think some kids just like came in and were like, Oh, what's that? And lifted up the lid to look and like basically saw a tarp and then a console they didn't understand and couldn't do anything with it because the sides were all locked up.
And then just left it open and then it rained, which meant not only was it a wet console, but it was a wet console with a dissolved remains of a dampered pouch in it. And that was a day we had an audience of like about 1500 people that I had to send home because the console wouldn't boot up.
Sean Walker: shit, dude, that's lame.
Andy Leviss: And then we had to call the sound shop who had to call the other and say, hey, we did it again, who then had to call the shop they sub rented the second console from who was like, we only have one more.
No, we need that one. You got to call the final sound shop in town and they called the third one and got that console there. So I went through three DM 2000s that summer because of rain. So consoles getting wet are definitely a trigger for me.
Sean Walker: Right, dude? Oh my god. That's funny. We did one, our very first show on the QLs, we did Everclear and Tonic outside and it rained, so they got a little like, they got rained on, but they were, they were fine. And then the last show we did of the season, basically this summer, same thing. Not Tonic and Everclear, but just some other random bands and got a little rain and it was freaking, didn't, it didn't come back like it always does.
It's, you know, we, we try to like, You know, pop up tent, but it's the like shade tents, not the waterproof ones. You know, like the, the white 200 guys, not the 1, 100 jobbies. Right. Cause then things die, bro. Those pop up tents suck, man. They're like. They're good for a season and then the kids trash them, you know what I mean?
And
Andy Leviss: toss them in the truck.
Sean Walker: bro, seriously, like, I'm gonna start James Browning motherfuckers, like, oh you just destroyed the pop up tent? I'm gonna take that out of your check. Too bad that's not okay.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Yeah.
Sean Walker: But like, you know, like when, when like accidents happen, let me start there. I get it, dude. That's, that's my responsibility for owning a sound company. But when, when people just be like trash and stuff, cause they're grumpy or lazy or whatever, you're like, Oh man, that's fucked up. You know, we had one,
Andy Leviss: what point is the cost of the tent worth, like, having a tent czar on site?
Sean Walker: right? Totally. Like we had one tent last in one show. And I was like, one, we can't have a 200 a day tent fucking bill, dude. Oh, but anyway, you know, between tarps and fans and tents, we try to do the best we can, but. It's freaking brutal, dude. Just thank, I'm just thankful it, you know, it'll be something silly, it'll come back, no problem. And if it doesn't, some smaller sound company will love the shit out of this. Three fader bank QL.
Andy Leviss: Yikes.
Sean Walker: Some bar's gonna love the shit out of this desk.
Andy Leviss: I mean, they'll just spill a beer on it anyway,
Sean Walker: Right? Totally.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. This is where the beer goes, this bank.
Sean Walker: this bank. Ah, the faders still work, it's just the select, selecting Q buttons. But whatever, dude. We'll fix it, no problem.
Andy Leviss: I mean, that's just the one that you put all the channels that you pretend to EQ when somebody asks for a change and don't actually do anything. Problem solved.
Sean Walker: Totally. All the placebo channels. I can't hear my boyfriend! That's cool, he's on this one. Turn them up till it sounds better. Oh my god, so much better.
Andy Leviss: Yep. Trying to think. I, I know there was like a bunch of other, like wild, like, oh, oh yeah. Speaking of wireless, Sennheiser announced the, the Spectera, their W Mass, uh, product. Which is
Sean Walker: Alright, I heard some chatter. What is that? Is that, like, a product that goes both ways? It can be ears or mics, basically?
Andy Leviss: that is part of it. Like there, there's a bunch of holy shit stuff in it. Um, and we're
Sean Walker: me, tell me, tell me.
Andy Leviss: trying to put out some calls to find some 'cause, 'cause multiple companies are working on stuff using this technology or variance of it. So
Sean Walker: We should get some people on from those manufacturers and have
Andy Leviss: Yeah, yeah, and I want to see if we can do something that's a little manufacturer neutral on that, so I'm talking to some folks, um, but WMAS wireless multi channel, ah, I'm going to blather, you Google it, um, yeah, just, uh, but it's basically the idea is that WMAS is a technology, it's a broadband technology that, that it's The mic manufacturers got the FCC to approve here and, you know, the relevant, you know, similar agencies in the EU are, have, they actually approved it a little faster, that basically instead of tuning an individual frequency at a certain bandwidth, You take an entire six megahertz TV channel and they fit 32 channels into that,
Sean Walker: Dude, cool.
Andy Leviss: more than we can fit in like a typical, you know, channel.
But by getting those blocks, they've got technology that like, I don't know, I, there's white papers and I'm going to get angry emails explaining. I don't know whether it's like multiplexing or how exactly it's doing it. Cause I, I read a white paper and half understood it a year and a half ago. Um, but yeah, so 32 channels.
In six megahertz, just as one big chunk, all kind of coordinated within itself. Don't really have to worry about it too much.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's sweet.
Andy Leviss: that's the first chunk of it. But then what, what Sennheiser product is doing on top of that is the, yeah, the, the belt packs are bidirectional, so the belt packs are a mic transmitter and a stereo inner receiver in one pack and the one RU unit for it.
is 32 by 32.
Sean Walker: dude.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so to do that you need two 6 megahertz channels, but still you just allocate it to TV channels as long as you're in, you know, not in one of the four markets of the U. S. where you probably can't find two. Um, and yeah, and in one rack unit you have 32 in ears.
Sean Walker: Dude. Dude.
Andy Leviss: thing they're doing is the antennas for them are actually the transceiver hardware is in the antenna, not unlike Like a Bolero antenna or a FreeSpeak antenna, or that like, ShowLink antenna. So the link between that rack unit controller, like, I guess we'll call it a processor, and the antennas, is over a cat cable.
And it'll work with fiber transceivers too, so you don't need to get a fiber converter for antennas like you do now for big gigs. You just can slot in a, uh, I'm not 100 percent sure if it takes SFPs or if you need a format converter, but it's still, those format converters are much cheaper than the antenna ones. And all of it's happening there. So, So, yeah, the transmitter's right where the antenna is, you can run it over copper or fiber, you don't have to deal with like, you know, beefy ass 50 ohm cable anymore, it's pretty slick.
Sean Walker: Dude. So
Andy Leviss: I know, and I know like the day before they announced that, uh, Shure also announced not a specific product, but the, hey, we've had involvement.
In, in the FCC conversations over WMAS stuff, we do have WMAS stuff coming as well. So I, I'm sure there are some folks out in our community who know more than I do and are probably NDA'd to, you know, to know what exactly is coming. I don't know what exactly that is, but, uh, yeah, there's, there's going to be exciting stuff on that front coming from Shure.
I know folks have been starting to see Axii and InEars in the wild, which as far as I know are not. that thing. This is the what they're working on past that. So it's it's exciting times to be doing wireless, man.
Sean Walker: that's gonna be sweet. 32 channels in and out in one rack? Sign me
Andy Leviss: it's bonkers. And it's in the prices like it's expensive. But like when you if you max it out at that many channels, it's like Not really that expensive. It's like a couple grand a channel.
Sean Walker: Yeah, but it's like 70 grand or something, right? 60, 70, 80 grand or
Andy Leviss: Yeah, like when you, like, but, but again, that's 32 by 32 channels. So that's like, I think somebody did the math and said at the prices they were seeing online, if you did a full 32 by 32, it comes to like 2, 700 or so a channel.
Sean Walker: Right. Which is, you know, let's call it accent ish pricing ish. Heavy on the ish, right? Depending on your options and what you pick, but like, it's a, it's a bigger chunk to buy all at once, but it's, you know, like if you're just buying 4 channel kits. You just bought a bunch at once.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and it's like, it's super cool to be able to like, well, I've got 20 belt packs in inventory. Today I need 10 ears and 10, you know, 10 lavs, tomorrow I need 15 of one and five of the other. And then the day after that I need 20 that do both because it's everybody on headsets, you know, dancing.
Sean Walker: Dude, and the one pack does both? Or the one pack what?
Andy Leviss: Yeah, the one pack, if you're doing like a headset or a lav and an in ear, they can do that all in one pack. They've got a volume knob on it for the in ear, the mic plugs in. Mm hmm. You'll be your dance, yeah, you'll be your dancer and your backup singer's best friend.
Sean Walker: Oh my god, bro. That's killer. Dude, every theater in the world's gonna be just chomping those in. I mean, the good ones, the good ones. The cheap ones aren't gonna do it, but the good ones.
Andy Leviss: yeah, like I know like the Broadway folks are like, we're super excited to see like, of course, of course, in the way that we do, we're like, that's great, when are you coming out with smaller ones?
Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah! What can I have one that's half the size of a deck of cards?
Andy Leviss: Yeah, a little more Jameur,
Sean Walker: Yeah, right? It's like, here's the rock and roll size one. You're like, can I get it a quarter size, please?
Andy Leviss: yeah, I gotta put in, I gotta put in a wig,
Sean Walker: yeah, right? Totally. Oh my god. That's healthy. That much RF just blasted into somebody's skull.
Andy Leviss: totally fine.
Sean Walker: Totally.
Andy Leviss: Totally fine.
Sean Walker: Totally. Don't bring that up. It's fine. Don't bring that up.
Andy Leviss: I mean, look, if you already made the life choice to become an actor, something's not
Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally. Fair
Andy Leviss: say this because we've talked so much tech that I know my actor friends have not made it this far into the
Sean Walker: Yeah, perfect. Yeah, they're like, all right, I'm out. This is this low yield for me. Low
Andy Leviss: like there's, yeah, I mean, there's lots, I mean, there's other news we won't dig into, like this, this was the week there's, there's teasers or leaks on Reddit about some new, like, Behringer Wing stuff, but we're not going to dig into that. Um, I don't know, was there anything
Sean Walker: Alaska and Hawaiian airlines merged 1. 9 billion, 1. 9 billion. Alaska bought Hawaiian.
Andy Leviss: All right.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Well, we're just going to the news, dude. We just went full, full Walter Cronkite.
Andy Leviss: I'm like, that's, that's certainly a thing.
Sean Walker: Oh, funny.
Andy Leviss: Well, dude, like, we should, like, we should go through that, like, cause this list of, like, I'm looking again at, like, in, in our little chat we've got on the side, I pop the list of all the folks we've talked to in the last year of this, and I'm like, I don't know, like, looking down the list, like, you have any, any favorites or highlights?
Like,
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Top of the list. Sean Walker. That dude is fucking hysterical.
Andy Leviss: oh god, that guy started talking a year ago and he's just
Sean Walker: won't shut up.
Andy Leviss: fucking bunny.
Sean Walker: man.
Andy Leviss: Yeah,
Sean Walker: You know what, dude? There's been so many that are great. It's been cool that we got to check in with some later. Uh, we got to check back in with Evan, which was sweet. Cause see how he's doing. Uh, I need to get ahold of, uh, of Burton and checking with him because he's now actually done his million plus Madonna show and in Rio.
So I texted him, was like, yo, dude, how was it? He goes, Oh my God, he said,
Andy Leviss: we gotta, we gotta get him back on.
Sean Walker: Totally. It was sweet. But, uh, dude, it's, it's been a fricking whirlwind of cool, cool guests. And I, I learned a ton every time, which is. You know, astounding. I don't know that I have any more room in my noggin for more knowledge, but I keep trying to cram it in there.
Andy Leviss: That's why the head gets bigger, I thought it was just the attention from the podcast.
Sean Walker: what attention? I don't get any attention from the podcast. Nobody knows who I am. I'm just some fricking dude trying to make a living.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, no, like
Sean Walker: you get attention from the podcast?
Andy Leviss: every once in a while,
Sean Walker: I don't, nobody knows who I am, which
Andy Leviss: not good intention, but
Sean Walker: is just fine. No, man,
Andy Leviss: I will say like, we, I mean, we say it all the time. Like, we love hearing for you. We love hearing what's working and what's not. Um, especially like, I know I were audio nerds and I know I get into the weeds a little bit with, Tweaking like how I'm editing the show, how we're processing it.
Um, I think generally I've gotten feedback that like folks are happy with how it's sounding, but like, you know, feel free to reach out and, you know, let us know like if there's something you think we could be doing different, if there's something you're really liking, we, you know,
Sean Walker: If you've got five star feedback, please leave that on all the appropriate platforms. If you've got complaints, you can send it to nobody cares at nobody cares. com.
Andy Leviss: to, to shawn it now. Um, No, but generally, like, in all seriousness, like, uh, feedback, positive comments, uh, gentle, loving, affectionate criticism, uh, guest suggestions, anything, signal to noise at ProSoundWeb. com. That's signal, the number two, noise, at ProSoundWeb. com. Uh, let us know. I mean, like I've, like I said, I've been, I know I've been tweaking the sound and like the editing side of things.
Um, uh, yeah, and I'm curious to know what people think. Like, I keep, I keep threatening that at some point I'm gonna do a behind the scenes, like, this is how I edit it so that everybody can
Sean Walker: do it. Nobody wants to know how much you have to chop this thing up to make it sound good.
Andy Leviss: Less and less each time. Like, I That was actually, the reason I realized it was that anniversary was because the Facebook memory came up of the like, till two in the morning after tech rehearsals for a show I was doing out on Long Island, that I was up in like the rental house, they had me staying in at their like, kitchen table, like editing that last episode, and like, I remember, I remember looking at the end and being like, oh.
That blooper would be really fun after the credits. Should I put that in? I don't know if people are going to like it. I don't know if Katie's going to like it. Let me slip it in and see what happens. And everybody loves it. And I was like, okay, we might, we might be figuring out what we're doing here.
Sean Walker: Nice.
Andy Leviss: still haven't figured out what we're doing here though.
Sean Walker: What I would love actually to be on it since, since we're doing a rare serious moment here, what I, what I would be interested in is what do people want to hear? Like, who do we need to get on the show? What do they want to talk about? What kind of subjects, if you don't know who, I don't really care, but like.
What do you want to hear? Do you want to hear more touring, arenas, clubs, bar gigs, corporate, theater? What do you want to hear about, man? We'll go call some motherfuckers and get their ass on the show and tell them what's what. I mean, ask them what's what.
Andy Leviss: every once in a while I run into somebody who's like, you know, the show's great, but I wish, and I'm like, well, tell me! Don't wait till now to tell me, like, just, just reach out. We are, we, we love the feedback, we love knowing what's working, what's not, um, likewise, somebody was actually, I was in a conversation on Facebook the other day, where somebody was like saying like, hey, is there like a UK, like a UK version of this?
Or like, I'd love to hear like people like venues I know, or like, get restaurant recommendations for like restaurants I can actually go to. And I basically said, first of all, hey, if somebody wants to do like a UK centric, like kind of take on this, do it, man, we'll support you too. But also, we would love to get other people from other, the scheduling gets a little janky sometimes between the two time zones
Sean Walker: I'm not getting up any earlier, Andy. I'm not getting up any earlier. All
Andy Leviss: But like, we, but like, we've made it where like, we had Suzy on from the UK, we've had a few other folks, you know, before our time, there were a bunch of guests from the UK and Europe, like, we juggled schedules with Merlin, you know, a couple weeks ago, like, if
Sean Walker: so you guys know. No, I'm cutting you off right now. Just so you guys know, this motherfucker sends me a message and goes, Hey You want to get up at like 5 a. m. recording an episode so I can, you know, like have some breakfast and then
Andy Leviss: that like once.
Sean Walker: What about 6. 30? How's 7. 45? Eat a dick, Leviss, eat a dick.
Andy Leviss: Trust me, I don't, I don't want to, I don't, Dude, when it's 7am for you, it's 10am for me. That's still too early
Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally.
Andy Leviss: I only do it when there's somebody cool we want to get out. Like, we've got one that I'll, that we actually recorded this morning, but that you guys will hear in another week or two that was pretty cool.
Sean Walker: Yeah, totally.
Andy Leviss: like, it was, you know, somebody had a tight window and was like, I can do it this morning as long as we're done by this time. And I was like, I will take the latest thing that will be done at that time so that I don't have to drag Sean out even earlier.
Sean Walker: Totally. Cause all you guys are in that time zone for some reason. I don't understand.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, but, but yeah, if there's folks in other time zones that are way off from either of ours, like, let us know. Cause that's the thing is,
Sean Walker: Yo man, where's my, where's my people in Honolulu? They're gonna be late. They'll be like, yo dawg, can I log in at 9pm and get this done? Like, let's go as a late night. You know what I mean? We're on that rock and roll schedule, dude.
Andy Leviss: Or like, Australians, where like, it's early in the morning for them and it's like, party time for us.
Sean Walker: perfect. Where's my Aussies at, dude? Let's go. Totally.
Andy Leviss: uh, but yeah, like, reach out, cause that's the thing is, we've got somewhere from like 40 to 52 of these a year to, to book, and like, sometimes the reason that like, guests are the people we know in the circles there, cause like, when you gotta book that many episodes. Like. We're going to reach out to the people we know, so if there's people you want to hear that aren't the people we're bringing on, put us in touch.
We love meeting new people. We love having them on. It's just, we don't, we don't always know them. And like, I reach out to folks, you know, every week trying to get folks on, but even there, it's still, it's who I, it's, you know, like we learned a lot about networking from Mike the other week, but you know, that's, y'all are part of our network too, so please, if there's folks you want to hear on, or if you're somewhere else and like, you're doing cool stuff, reach out, man, or woman, or, or, you know, our non binary pals, like, you know, we want to hear from you.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they're doing cool stuff, like shots, bar gigs and shots, that's what I want to hear about. It's like, all I can do is put the vocal in the PA and the rest of it's already too loud and the bartender's pissed. Like, those are the shows I want to hear about. Let's go do it. Like combat audio.
You know what I mean? Like that's how, that's how most of us live anyway, bro.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, that's, that's been the fun thing too, is like hearing from like, I knew what I liked like when I was a listener, but like now that we're here, like, as people have reached out, it's really interesting seeing what, what people's favorites are. And I say like, I started a thread last week on the Facebook group and in the discord.
And if you're in it, it was like, should I mean like serious, I'm not just trying to like turn up like, you know, social media engagement or whatever. Like, I'm really curious. Like, what are people's favorites of like the last year that we've done?
Sean Walker: Totally.
Andy Leviss: it's been like so, like, I mean, we've had like Evan who's like, you know, building a small company up, Andy Peters, who, you know, is like involved in like, you know, so much seminal, you know, like punk and like that kind of stuff at Maxwell's and also a fucking, you know, rocket engineer, basically, he's not really a rocket engineer and he'd kill me for Paraphrasing it that way, but y'all know what I mean.
Um, I mean,
Sean Walker: did he pack his bags last night pre flight?
Andy Leviss: Wow. Wow. I mean, I mean,
Sean Walker: far, too soon?
Andy Leviss: uh, you know, depends how much fuel is in the rocket if it gets too far. I mean, yeah, we had like, I mean, we've had like modern engineers for like, A level bands. We've had John Malkovich impersonators.
Sean Walker: No, it was Malcolm Self, dude. Yeah,
Andy Leviss: Tomato, Tomata,
Sean Walker: yeah, same thing, same thing.
Andy Leviss: yeah, uh, yeah, like Drum and Bugle Chorus, we had Pat Brown, we had Suzy on to talk about mental health last year, and we've got,
Sean Walker: You know the cool thing about
Andy Leviss: yeah, oh, no, go ahead, go ahead.
Sean Walker: You know the cool thing about this list is,
Andy Leviss: What's that?
Sean Walker: this list looks, shows do for an engineer. There's people on here that are doing, like, club gigs, arenas. Biggest shows in the world, corporate, and back again, and that's literally like a week in the life of an A1, you know what I mean?
Where you're like, I remember one time, one week, we were like filled in for a buddy at a bar for like 200 people and half a blown up PA, the next day was an arena, and then we went to a corporate a few days later and you were like, Man, I, when you thought you made it, you're like, I'll never have to do bargains again.
Just kidding. Here I am. You know what I mean?
Andy Leviss: Yep.
Sean Walker: Nope. Here you do. And then you're looking back to different things. It's craziness, man. What a crazy life we live.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, yeah, and I mean, that's what makes it fun. Like, I don't know, like, I don't know if I could pick, like, one type of gig to, like, I like doing music, I like doing corporate stuff. You know, like if I never did theater again, I would be sad.
Sean Walker: Ooh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't miss it at all. No,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, don't kink shame, Sean.
Sean Walker: no, I'm not, I'm not shaving.
Andy Leviss: It's, it's, it's, it's my kink. Turns me on, I
Sean Walker: cool. That's cool, man. That's cool. You and your line by line, pokey, pokey, pokey, different, different snapshots for different microphone positions. That's cool, dog. Whatever makes you happy.
Andy Leviss: You know, gotta, gotta keep the challenge
Sean Walker: Reverb makes me happy.
Andy Leviss: Reverb mate.
Sean Walker: Reverb makes me happy. How many can I pile on? How much can I use? And get away with, that's what I'm talking about.
Andy Leviss: well, and conveniently coming up in a week or two, we're, we're gonna dive deep into the, into some reverb, verb, verb, verb. We got some cool stuff coming up for y'all.
Sean Walker: Bro. Totally.
Andy Leviss: It's so funny. We're so like seat of our pants on so many of these that it's nice when we've got these like we can actually tease people a little bit.
Sean Walker: bro, we went, we went balls deep about reverb on that one. I was like, he was like, how far down the rabbit hole you want to go? I was like, all the way. All the way to the end, dude. To the dark places where you can't see the light. And he was like, and we went and it was great.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, so we I'm not going to say who we're what it is, but it's we've got somebody who's who's a member of the like the Signal Noise Facebook group community for a long time. And so like we've kind of known and passing through there and I reached out and was like, dude, you're doing some fun shit. Like we should have you on the show and talk about it.
So yeah, we're on that episode. We're going to get deep into reverb, get deep into like. Some like fly rigs and like built in an LV 1 rig. Like there's, there's gonna be some cool stuff for everybody in that one. Uh, we got some software folks coming on in the, in the near future.
Sean Walker: Oh yeah, we do, don't we? That's sweet. Yeah, that's going to be super sweet. Try to line up a cool one that everybody's going to fricking love. As a matter of fact, I think she just got back, or back to you.
Andy Leviss: Yep. I, I saw that one. That's, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to look at calendars and email back when we finish recording
Sean Walker: Oh dude, that's going to be fucking sweet.
Andy Leviss: put in
Sean Walker: Oh, people are going to freak out. That's going to be all right. That's going to be great. Let's get everybody paid. That's what we're about. Everybody gets paid. Can we change the name of the podcast to Everybody Gets Paid?
Andy Leviss: a request to
Sean Walker: Ask Keith. Yeah. Ask Keith. Everybody gets paid to noise.
Everybody gets paid to noise.
Andy Leviss: I mean, I'm still working on stickers with the new logo, which was, we've been doing this long enough ago that, that. The logo's not new anymore.
Sean Walker: stickers?
Andy Leviss: The, no, the, there was the start of getting stickers and I gotta, I gotta poke and see where that fell off and remind folks. I think I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try and like, shake the, shake the sticker tree to make some stickers come out in time for NAMM,
Sean Walker: dude. Totally. Ooh, are you going to NAMM this year? Let's go to NAMM. Let's party, dude.
Andy Leviss: I'm, I'm gonna try, I think that'll be at the point with the baby that I probably can by then, cause it'll be like three or four
Sean Walker: Coffee and sparkly water. Let's do it.
Andy Leviss: yeah, um, I, I, I started sending out the emails, emails to, to upper management to, to see if we can make it happen,
Sean Walker: Yes.
Andy Leviss: I can, I will, I, I'm probably gonna miss AES this year, cause AES starts on our due date, so, apparently I need to be there for that.
Sean Walker: I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna tell you, going to a trade show on your baby's due date is not on the divorce prevention program.
Andy Leviss: I, I, oh, trust me, I, I literally, I emailed back to the, to the press con because, because that's the other thing I learned in the last year is podcast hosts are press. So, uh, so I got an offer to, a press pass to AAS and, and I said like, I will gladly see y'all next year, but this year I gotta go, I gotta go, uh, go, uh, bring a, help bring a baby into the world, so.
Sean Walker: Yeah. It's gonna be awesome, dude. You're gonna be a great
Andy Leviss: we'll miss that, but yeah, hoping I can, hoping I can make it out to NAMM. I definitely got the jokes already,
Sean Walker: Yes! Totally,
Andy Leviss: keep, Kate gave me a while ago a deck full of dad jokes here and I keep, every time I think of it I'm like, oh I should pull that out and that should be like the end of every episode, it's like just, draw a random dad joke out of the deck.
Sean Walker: Bro, you've been dropping dad jokes for a decade. You don't need any more help.
Andy Leviss: Yet still, there's new ones in here that I've never,
Sean Walker: Alright, hit me. Let me have one. Hit me right now. Pull out top one.
Andy Leviss: I used to have a job at a calendar factory, but I got the sack because I took a couple of days off.
Sean Walker: Alright, one more. One more.
Andy Leviss: Okay, oh, this one, this one's gonna be on point in a month or two. If a child refuses to sleep during nap time, are they guilty of resisting arrest?
Sean Walker: Nah. All right.
Andy Leviss: there's two of the hundred most cringey jokes according to the package on the deck, which even has a necktie.
Sean Walker: Oh my God. That's awesome.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, but um, well on that terrible joke now.
Sean Walker: No, just leave it there. Let's just end it right there, bro. Baddadjokes. com. Totally. All right. Well thank you for tuning in and letting us ramble and yap about audio and travel and nonsense. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us, uh, you know, do the damn thing. That's the pod y'all. See you next week.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
