276. Multifaceted Live Audio Professional Jason Waggoner

Seattle-based globe-trotting sound engineer Jason Waggoner joins the show in Episode 276 and talks about the many twists and turns of his career in live audio. From e-sport tournaments to Formula 1 racing, theatre to corporate events to concerts, mixing to systems engineering, and even helping to build the U.S. tech support and education branch of a major loudspeaker manufacturer, there’s not much in live audio Jason hasn’t done. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Jason’s also the founder of HOBER, an entertainment production company focused on immersive technologies for live experiences to enhance storytelling and audience impact. His 25 years in the entertainment industry include extensive experience in theatre, live, corporate, private, and experiential entertainment.

Episode Links:
HOBER
Jason On LinkedIn
Episode 276 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 276 - Jason Waggoner

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 and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years. Hear TT+ AUDIO's GTX 10 and GTX 12 line passive line array and the GTS 29 dual 19" passive subwoofer.... all powered by RCF's XPS 16k amplifier, live in the arena at Winter NAMM 2025. Many other RCF products will be demo'd in Hall A in room #17108. Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

RCF... the sound behind the experience.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green


Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me, the Beaker to my Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean? 

Sean Walker: me. Meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep. I'm good, man. How are you? 

Andy Leviss: I'm, I'm good. I'm, you know, I, I don't want to complain about the lack of sleep, because I'm the person in my household getting the most sleep out of the three humans in, Five dog or two dogs. Wow. Five dogs. That would be horrible. I can't, I apparently can't math right now, but out of the five creatures in my house, I'm probably getting the most sleep of any of the humans. 

The dogs are their own thing, but um, 

Sean Walker: alright. Giddy up. Dad life in full effect. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. But working, working data and podcasting. 

Sean Walker: There you go. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: you know, working on, working on some good stuff for, uh, for the podcast. We got, we're piecing together the first ever signal to noise holiday gift guide episode that we're going to drop around Thanksgiving. 

So that'll be fun. 

Sean Walker: Yeaaaaah. I'm gonna send some, I'm gonna send some naughty stuff, bro. I'm, I'm gonna be honest with you. 

Andy Leviss: I'm going to say I've got 

Sean Walker: not gonna be appropriate. 

Andy Leviss: I don't have, I don't have yours yet. So, 

Sean Walker: It's not, it's not gonna be appropriate, bro. I'll send it over. It'll be fine. It'll be some, it'll be some, uh, um, It'll be something my mutual friend of my, uh, of our guest and I, Our friend would love this kind of a thing and you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna go over well, so it'll be great. 

You'll know exactly which one's mine when it shows up. 

Andy Leviss: It's like, what did Sean and Andy get for uh, for Christmas? They got cancelled. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, man, I gotta be honest. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet with the fricking mouth I got on me. Jesus. 

Andy Leviss: That's like 80 percent of my editing. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, 100%. 100 percent of your editing is just going, Oh, he did not. No, come on, man. You can't say that in public anymore. What are you like a hundred? Oh man. We got our, we got our first stadium show as a company right now. We're loading into T Mobile park in Seattle 

Andy Leviss: Nice. 

Sean Walker: and uh, man, I didn't realize. I'm gonna get my steps in, holy crap, dude, like, you know, you go to arenas, you're like, oh, yeah, this is big time, blah, blah, blah, this is great, then you get into a stadium, you're like, Jesus, I'm too old for this, man, I need, like, a backiatomy, my neck hurts, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my, I need, can I get a cart, who's got an extra gator I could drive around in, this, holy shit, 

Andy Leviss: Apparently this gig comes with a bonus organ recital. 

Sean Walker: dude, Jesus, I'm gonna be skinny by the end of this thing, holy cow. 

Jason Waggoner: You need a scooter, man. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? I do need a scooter. You know what? I'm getting a scooter. I'm getting a scooter. That's it, dude. That's it. And since you're already here, man, why don't you guys welcome our homie Jason, man. Jason's, uh, you know, works, works for lots of people. 

Has worked for me. I've worked for him. We friggin hang out and he's a ripper, dude. Jason, how are you, buddy? 

Jason Waggoner: Hey, I'm pretty good. Sorry to interrupt the banter, but 

Sean Walker: Nah, dawg. Get in there. 

Jason Waggoner: it just 

Andy Leviss: good. It saves us from a clever segue. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, 

Jason Waggoner: there you go. 

Sean Walker: Get in there, buddy. 

Andy Leviss: but yeah, so this is, we got Jason Waggoner joining us who, this was a fun one a while ago to realize that Sean and I both know independently going back numbers of years and we're like, wait, you know, Jason, I know Jason. And actually the very first time I met Sean in person was either the same day, was the night before I last hung out with Jason. 

And I don't think they even knew that I was meeting up with each other because they didn't know that we knew each other yet. 

Sean Walker: That's so 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, that was a wild realization. 

Sean Walker: That's funny. It's like, it's like Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon, but Six Degrees of Separation for Jason Waggoner. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, dude. Well, I, uh, I used to work with a guy who said there's only nine people in this industry and we all know each other. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Jason Waggoner: it's, it's pretty true. 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's nine hexadecimal, not decimal, but yeah. 

Jason Waggoner: you know, but the, but the, 

Andy Leviss: Somebody's gonna write and explain to me that that's the same number. We'll find the nerdy members of the, the nerdier, nerdy, all of, all of you are beautifully nerdy. That's why we love, um, so, yeah, Jason, why don't you give us a little bit about, uh, who you are, uh, what you do for the folks who, unlike me and Sean, don't know you. Well, 

Jason Waggoner: Alright, yeah, sure. So, um, I've been doing live audio in some form or fashion for 25 years. I've been doing it professionally for 23 of those years. And, uh, I do a wide variety of things these days. So, uh, a lot of system teching, some A1 front of house. I do some technical producing for a local creative agency, which is similar to, they call it a technical producer. 

It's similar to a technical director. Uh, but when you mix broadcast and live, you got to be really careful with that title because it means different things to different people. But, uh, uh, I do a little bit of studio work, a little bit of post production work, mostly those are just for fun. Uh, my bread and butter and my focus for the last 20 plus years has been large scale, live sounds and live entertainment, 

Andy Leviss: well, I guess we'll, we'll start with the question that, like, we always start with, which is how do you end up in getting into that? 

Jason Waggoner: right? Yeah. I mean, uh, I think like most people, I sort of fell into it backwards. I've actually, uh, I've kind of thought for years now I'm doing my whole career backwards. So, uh, I, I didn't think I was going to 

Andy Leviss: Benjamin Button of live audio. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, almost, dude. Uh, I didn't think I was going to graduate from high school. I was, I was a really bad student in high school. 

And so when I did graduate, which was a shock to everyone, including my teachers, uh, I didn't really know what to do with myself. So Sean knows me. Right. So you can see this, right. It's 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah. A hundred 

Jason Waggoner: you're dumb, but, uh, I went to community college because I was like, I don't really know what else to do. 

Sean Walker: mean, welcome to the club, bro. 

Jason Waggoner: well, I mean, I think community college is one of our most underutilized resources just generally for education. 

But, I was there and, uh, through a connection that my dad had, I ended up taking a meeting or getting a meeting with, uh, the technical director of the theater at that college, who was trying to put together a sound focus for the theater, the technical theater track at the college. And so I was kind of the guinea pig. 

Because I thought I wanted to make records. Then I made a few records and I was like, I don't know about this. And, uh, so I started doing sound design for theater, um, spent the next 10 years or so kind of mixing between doing like small professional theaters. I worked for Disney for a couple of years. I went to school for a while. 

And then, um, After school, I was hired by D& B Audio Technic, uh, to start their support department in the U. S. alongside another gentleman named Christopher Kulesa. Uh, and did that for six years, moved over into their Western Regional, I became their Western Regional Manager, did that for four years. And that was really, D& B was kind of my step from small professional and, and like medium sized theaters into like, okay, now we're doing, you know, large scale production at a very high level. 

Uh, were failures. Even less of an option. And, uh, really, really enjoyed that. Uh, left D& B, uh, uh, gosh, in 2018, worked for a regional company here in Seattle, Carlson Audio Systems. Um, worked for them for two years. I'd known them forever, but I worked for them for two years, uh, directly. And then in the pandemic, um, I quote unquote decided to go freelance, aka was, was let go like many of us were. 

Um, which, which was the right choice to make, right? There was, it was right for most of those companies to let people go. Cause we've all, we all have to, you know, there's gotta be something to come back to. So I decided instead of, instead of going back to a company, I wanted to try freelance work and, uh, or at least go back to it. 

And that's what I do now. So, um, that's how I got to sort of where I'm at. Um, picking up connections along the way and lots of knowledge and, uh, making friends and hopefully doing okay work. 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. Yeah. You do, you do great work. Every time I call you, I'm like, Hey man, you available this day? You're like, Oh, I wish, cause you're right down the street, but I'm, uh, I'm doing something else like, you know, across the world. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: I'm in a stadium across the world and an arena across the world. 

I'm like, all right, well, have fun, man. Let me know when you get back. Let's get some 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, I find myself on the road a lot these days. So, 

Andy Leviss: So like for like any particular like genre or type of gig or like are you bouncing around between a lot of different. 

Jason Waggoner: so most of the gigs that I travel for these days, well it bounces around, um, for a long time it was esports, I did it for a long time, for several years it was esports, and that was dragging me all over the world, uh, that focus for me is shifting a little bit, um, there's still some esports stuff kind of on the horizon, but lots of corporate work. 

Kickin me all over the place, uh, throughout the US and a little bit globally. And, um, uh, I've been through Carlson Audio Systems. I've been doing F1 in Miami for a couple years. So that puts me on the road for a while. And, 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Dude. Race cars and audio. How cool is that, 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, man, it's super fun. 

Sean Walker: that like a mix of a giant distributed system around the track and then a big concert? Are there performances or is it just 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, there, There are performances, uh, that do have large concert PAs that are separate from what's called the circuit PA, which is what goes around the track. Um, Carlson's responsibility is the circuit PA, so, uh, they're building that out and I'm going in, I'm the A1, so I'm taking in signals from the broadcast truck, from the stadium, from, you know, a variety of sources, and, and mixing that out to the circuit PA based on whatever's happening at any given time. 

Sean Walker: Dude. Sweet. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, it's fun. Uh, it's interesting because you're doing it from like a concrete bunker underneath a stadium, you know, a half a mile from the track. But, um, but yeah, with some, with some good help on the ground, some good ears out there listening for you and some measurement mics and some good monitors, you can make it happen. 

Sean Walker: Nice, 

Andy Leviss: how much of that are you bringing in like for the event or how much of that is like permanently installed there? 

Jason Waggoner: Carlson brings in almost the entire system. Yeah. And it's, it's a massive, massive PA. It's several hundred, uh, M4s and a bunch of M8s and some T10s and, you know, DiGiCo and waves and blah, blah, blah, blah, all this, all the. Normal stuff at front of house. 

Sean Walker: Dude. Sweet. 

Jason Waggoner: that particular track is, it's, it's not permanently installed. 

Right. So they're bringing in most of it and it's a, it's a big operation for them. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. And is 

Jason Waggoner: Would be for anybody. 

Sean Walker: that like weeks of install to get that done or how long, how long does it take to come in? 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Uh, I want to say that they're out there for four ish weeks, maybe four and a half. 

Sean Walker: Before the race? Or just all in? 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, yeah. Before the race. Cause the race is just a weekend. Uh, and then, and then I'm out there for like 10 days. 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. It's fun. And I get to go to in like April, which yeah, after a long gray winter in Seattle, it's kind of nice. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. That's how I feel every year when 

Andy Leviss: long gray spring or summer or fall in Seattle? 

Jason Waggoner: Well, 

Sean Walker: no. Summer's beautiful in Seattle. 

Jason Waggoner: Shut the hell 

Andy Leviss: All three days of 

Jason Waggoner: people. 

Sean Walker: Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. It sucks here in Seattle. 

Jason Waggoner: not, you're not supposed to tell people 

Sean Walker: Yeah, it blows. 

Jason Waggoner: Stay away. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Actually, you know what? You should come in December and then make your judgment of Seattle. So that in the summertime, we have it back to ourselves. 

That'd be 

Jason Waggoner: That's actually, when I came to Seattle, it was in December and I like, I like cold, grainy weather, you know, like, so it worked for 

Andy Leviss: we won't 

Sean Walker: Oh, you're, oh, you're the one, huh? You're the one 

Jason Waggoner: I'm the one guy, I'm the one guy that was like, yes, hell yeah. 

Sean Walker: The different seasons is nice. You know what I mean? But like every time I go to NAMM, I land in Southern California in January and I go, Oh my God, this is so much better. Oh, same thing as 

Jason Waggoner: people live like this all the 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Like, holy shit, I should live here. Then I'm like, walk around for a while and I'm good, man. 

I have four seasons of suite, you know? Well, dude. That's pretty freaking cool. Are those, are those cars super loud in your mix? No, you're way, you're way away, so it doesn't bother you? 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, well it doesn't bother me, because I can't hear them where I'm at. And then, in terms of how you deal with it in the track PA, you just accept the fact that while the cars are going by, no one's going to hear the track PA. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, fair enough, dude. 

Jason Waggoner: you're not going to get over the cars and people still have a good time. 

Sean Walker: Dude, I went to NASCAR in Vegas a few, uh, in September and Those cars are so loud. It was visceral in the top of the stands. Like, a rock show means nothing. Like, visceral loud, where you're like, I don't know if I want to stay here all day. Earplugs in, headphones on, just like, holy moly. Is F1 that loud or not as loud as that? 

Jason Waggoner: F1's pretty loud. Uh, the Porsche cup. So Miami, because it takes place during the day, unlike the Vegas race, which takes place at night, um, the Miami race taking place during the day means that they can do all kinds of stuff. It's not just the F1 Formula One cars, right? They can do different races and different qualifiers. 

And they've got like, I think there's an electric Formula One race and there's a ladies Formula One race. And you know, but one of the things they do is, uh, the Porsche cup. Which is just a bunch of Porsche 911s that are like, they're not street legal cause they've got roll cages and stuff in them, but they're stock. 

They're factory stock. They don't, they don't soup them up. They don't, it's just like off the factory line, put in some safety features and race these cars. Those cars are insanely loud. Like I can hear those from my little bunker below the room and I can be. You know, several hundred feet away and feel them drive by. 

It is intense. 

Sean Walker: Dude. That's crazy. Yeah, that's what Formula One was, or I mean, uh, NASCAR was like, I was like, oh my god, that's so loud. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: It was like, every five years, but for the next two days, I just walked around going like, holy moly, I'm just rattled, dude. Like, it was a fun 

Jason Waggoner: think you make stuff loud and then you go to something like that and you're like, Jesus. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally, like, no, just kidding, man. 

I don't mix that loud, for sure. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. Dude, I love those, like, unique gigs like that, that aren't just, like, Left, right, PA, make loud, you know what I 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Me too. And that's like, I've kind of made an effort to make my whole career about those gigs, right? So, um, I like doing rock shows. Uh, I think like a lot of people in this industry, part of what I wanted, part of the reason I wanted to make records and then later part of the reason I wanted to do live sound is that I love music and I grew up loving music and it's, it's meant a lot to me throughout my life. 

And, and so I wanted to be involved with it. Um, I tried that as a musician, but I'm a shitty musician, so that 

Sean Walker: bro, me too. I used to sing for rock bands and I couldn't remember the lyrics to my own songs cause I was too drunk. 

Jason Waggoner: that's pretty good. That's 

Sean Walker: yeah, totally. But I had a lot of fun. 

Jason Waggoner: I played guitar in punk rock bands, which is easier to do, uh, often, but, um, yeah, I, I, I wasn't gonna make it as a musician, so I, I ended up in the technical world, and, um, I'll still happily do rock shows, uh, but, What really gets me going in the morning, what really gets me excited is waking up and thinking like, all right, I'm going to be in arena. 

We're going to be in the round. There's going to be some like, great, the content's going to be wild. We're trying to accomplish like really crazy things with how we utilize the audio and video systems. And like, how can I support that? And how can I take what could very easily just be like a left, right hang and turn it into something really interesting and really fun because, uh, you know, left, right hangs. 

Subarrays, you know, making stuff super loud, that works for rock and roll, and I understand why that works for rock and roll, and I'm not looking to change that, but when people have gigs and they're like, alright, we want to do this thing and it's fucking crazy, man, like it's off the wall and we don't know how we're going to accomplish it, that's when I get stoked. 

That's when I get really pumped. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Hey man, I got 10, 000 people in an airplane hangar. And we're gonna have an airplane at the end of it, and we're gonna have celebrities and presidents. And you're like, shit, yeah, let's go, dude. 

Jason Waggoner: Hey man, I'm for it. On four or like right now, I'm working on a show right now that, uh, it's a, it's a corporate show, but they have a lot of video content and they're like, well, we want to do five one with the video and I'm like, all right, that's cool. And they're like, but it's in the round. I'm like, Oh, uh, Hmm. 

Okay. Uh, so we're, we're, we're sort of figuring out how we can, I mean, obviously you can't do a true five one in the round because there's, there's going to be bleeds. Someone's left is going to be on someone's right and whatever, but, um, but we're figuring out ways that we can at least like, you know, Utilize parts of the PA to create the kind of space and the kind of like, immersion's not quite the right word in that instance, but the, the kind of experience that 5. 

1 gives you in terms of like how it draws you in and how it, um, you know, draws your attention, you know? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, totally. I was over here laughing at it. It's so good that we don't put these things on video, dude, because I was like, keeled over here, but, but it was, you were like, hey man, we're gonna do this 5 1 thing, it's gonna be an arena, and by the way, it's in the round, and I just, in my mind, because I do, because I know you, I just heard the coffee grinder start going, no problem, dude, I'll figure it 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're on it, man. 

Sean Walker: coffee grinder's going, you're like, I'll get it. 

Couple, couple of coffees, I'll figure it out, no big deal. 

Jason Waggoner: Absolutely. 

Andy Leviss: I feel like there's a whole hour long tangent here on like, translating like client and producer speak of like, you say five one, 

Jason Waggoner: Right. 

Andy Leviss: I think you just mean some sort of surround, right? 

Sean Walker: What you, what you really mean is, you want something to go whiz bang behind them. Good talk, right? Like 

Jason Waggoner: mean, a lot of it like in a situation like this, right? As I, as I talked to, um, I haven't talked to the direct client yet. I'm kind of being brought into the process a little bit late, but as I talked to the person who's bringing me in, I was like, well, you know, we're not gonna be able to do 5. 

1, but we can do something kind of like this and it'll, It'll create a really stark, like, aural difference or distinction between someone speaking on the stage and like, Oh, now a video's happening. And that'll be exciting, right? Not like, get up out of your chair and hoot and holler exciting, but like, Oh, shit, what's happening? 

I want to pay attention 

Sean Walker: But something unique and cool, right? 

Jason Waggoner: And they latched onto that. It's like, cool, that's what we're going for. We can, we can make that happen, that's totally fine. 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. super 

Andy Leviss: that's sort of like the whole thing, like we talk about when doing monitors to have like, like, knowing what you say and what you mean. And knowing that those aren't necessarily going to be the same thing. And my job is to translate the two and make it happen. Yeah. 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, I don't know man, I don't do monitors. 

Andy Leviss: That's a wise choice. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, friends don't let friends mix monitors, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: from the guy who goes near like deafening race cars, but you know. 

Sean Walker: right, totally. 

Jason Waggoner: it's not about, it's not about the level, that's not why I don't mix monitors. Exactly, 

Sean Walker: have to make one fricking mix, bro. I'm not trying to do 19 fucking mixes at the same time. That's for 

Andy Leviss: the difference between a monitor engineer and a proctologist? 

Sean Walker: I don't know. 

Andy Leviss: only has to deal with one asshole at a time. 

Sean Walker: Ah, 

Jason Waggoner: Front of house only has to deal with as many that are willing to come up and throw their beard, yeah, 

Sean Walker: right. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, I mean, like talking about interesting gigs, like you mentioned that for a long time you were doing e sports and I know like I've, and like, we've had people talk in the discord a little bit about bits and pieces of that, but I'd love to get a bigger picture of how that works. Cause I feel like those of us who aren't involved with it or haven't like seen any of those events live or like what it's like video games, I don't get it. 

So like, 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. And I didn't really get it at first either. Esports is some wild shit. So like a little bit on my background in Esports. Um, when I moved to Seattle in 2014, uh, a buddy of mine who at the time worked at Carlson Audio Systems was the audio lead for a show called The International, which is the Dota 2 Esports Championship. 

Um, and he, once I was in town, he kind of pulled me into the show, just kind of helping with some of the PA design stuff, I would do the tuning and timing on the system once it was installed, and at the time it was happening in KeyArena. Um, through a, an interesting mix of events that we can talk about another time, I ended up hiring him to work at D& B and then leaving D& B and going to Carlson and taking all of his old jobs. Not on, not on purpose, not on purpose, but it's the way it worked out. And so starting in 2018, I was the audio lead for that show. Um, and I was the audio lead on the show up until this last year, which they just had it in September. Uh, I was consulting on that show, but I wasn't the lead on it. So I spent whatever, four or five, six years, something like that, leading that show. 

And in the process ended up getting hooked into a bunch of other eSports shows. So I've, um, I've been the audio lead on a couple of like Counter Strike tournaments, um, and Apex Go tournament. And all of these are in arenas. And what's crazy about eSports, well there's a lot of things that are crazy about eSports, um, it is The community around esports built this entire thing on their own, right? 

It started with like Twitch streamers and sort of grew out from there, and so it's entirely like self made. Which is awesome because, um, the people involved with it often are sort of like learning as they go, or at least have been learning as they go until they got here. Uh, to where they're at now. And, um, that can be frustrating at times because it's, there's, there's things they do that are not normal within the greater production industry or not as common, but it's also rad because you can sort of do whatever you want. 

Like, you can kind of do anything. Um, yeah. And one of the big challenges with these sports is that very often, uh, what they call the casters, right, or the, or the shoutcasters, which we would call, you know, commentators, like play by play and color commentators, right, uh, but the people that are calling the action for the game are literally you. 

on a platform in the audience. And, and unlike other sporting events, right? Where the broadcast show and the live show are wholly separate and the two shall not meet. In an esports show, they're the same show. Like what I'm putting in the PA at an esports show is the same stuff that the broadcast engineer is putting on the stream for the mix. 

And so you can imagine, I mean, I don't care how cardioid your mics are. You put somebody on a microphone in the audience Yelling with a PA behind them that's, you know, 90 to 95 dB because we're just talking vocals here. It's not crazy loud, but it's loud enough. Uh, it, it, it presents some challenges for sure. 

Mostly not even with feedback, mostly just with like echo and, and, uh, double arrivals and stuff like that. Um, so, so that's always kind of an interesting thing, but, uh, But it's, it's a fun, it's a fun world to work in as long as you can sort of let go of what you think is supposed to happen and sort of roll with it, find creative solutions to, to the problems that arise and, uh, you know, present something that's fun for the audience, which by the way, is another thing I didn't understand, right? 

Cause I thought to myself, like, okay, we're just like, we're playing video games here. Right. And I'm not a big gamer, right. Just truth be told. Um, and so I don't understand. Fully, the, the joy that comes from watching people play video games, uh, because I don't play them, but, uh, man, these fans, they are insane, they are rabid, it is so much fun to work on these shows, um, the Dota 2 shows, the fans are, they can get super loud and super rowdy, but Counter Strike, that crowd, it's like going to a European football match, they are chanting, they're banging on drums, they're waving scarves around, they're doing everything. 

Call and response to each other across the arena. 

Sean Walker: that's awesome. 

Jason Waggoner: first time I did a Counter Strike tournament, like 20 or 30 of the fans found out like what hotel we were at. And these are big, these are big tournaments, right? So typically the production company that hired me, we would rent out literally the whole hotel. 

And there'd be security outside and you got to have your credentials to get in and all this stuff. They found out what hotel we were at and they showed up. This is after like a 10 or 11 hour broadcast day. Which is like a 14 hour day for the crew because we got to get there early and stay late and we get off the train at our hotel and they're outside our hotel banging their drums and chanting and like partying and having a good time. 

I mean, like these people get into it. They love it. And so it's fun for me who, um, you know, really finds a lot of, you know, The satisfaction I get from my job in knowing that I'm entertaining people and knowing that I'm giving people an escape and a release from their day to day lives. Uh, it's really entertaining for me to see them react that way. 

And I don't understand it, but that doesn't matter. They love it. That's what matters. And it's a lot of fun. It's a, it's definitely the wild west in a lot of ways in terms of production and how things are put together. 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome. At the moment, you're like, fuck, I just want to go to bed. You know what I mean? But like, how cool to be helping people, like you said, escape from their daily lives, dude. How rad is that? You know, 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, man. 

Sean Walker: I remember the first time I did an esports gig, it was like, right coming out of lockdowns, and we'd mix more teams meetings than had ever been mixed in their life. 

You know what I'm saying? Like, not, you know, thanks, thanks, teams. And It was kind of a similar experience. It was not an arena scale. It was in the convention center, but still it was, you know, first time to put something through a PA and they were fucking ripping, dude. It was like the biggest video wall I've ever seen in my life in the convention center. 

And they were just banging away, dude. It was awesome. And I was like, we're back, we're back. 

Jason Waggoner: Well, then most of them on the on the commentator side, most of them, you know, while the, while all of the like, I don't know what you would call it, expository play is happening, right? The not exciting stuff, like they're building their armies or they're farming or they're doing whatever, they're, they're, they're building up their characters. 

Everybody's sort of talking like this. It's very quiet. It's very casual. And then once something exciting happens, they're screaming at the top of their lungs. Like the, the shift, right? The dynamic range that they're hitting just on their microphones is insane. And you're like double and triple compressing things, right? 

Which, you know, it's wild. It's wild. Um, 

Sean Walker: You look at that kind of gain reduction and anything else. And you're like, Oh man, that's all broken. And then you go, you have, that's what I got to 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, well, and like, I don't mix these shows, right? So like, I'm the audio lead. I'm, I'm in the meetings. I'm putting the system together. I'm planning the logistics. I'm doing the engineering. I'm overseeing things on site. I'm doing the system tuning and alignment, but then there's someone else that's mixing the show, right? 

And, um, every time I've, I've worked with, Three different people, like, that I've brought in to mix these shows, or that, or that I've worked on a show with that was brought in by someone else to mix the show, and every single time you look at their, their, you know, plug in chain for the casters and you're like, that doesn't look right. 

And then, I, why are you doing that? And then you watch, you watch the meters on those plug ins moving while the stuff's going on, Oh, yeah, okay, it's because they're screaming at the top of their lungs into a microphone that's an inch off of their face, you 

Sean Walker: right. Totally. 

Jason Waggoner: Now I get it. 

Sean Walker: So, 

Andy Leviss: like lots of dynamics or like, what, like, what are we talking about? 

Jason Waggoner: I mean, all kinds of stuff, man. Uh, lots of dynamics, lots of dynamic EQ, right? Because you're going to sound different when you're yelling like that than you are when you're When you're talking, right? And so just trying to keep the tonal balance. And then, um, usually depending on where you're at, you know, front of house versus broadcast. 

Sometimes there's a little bit of noise reduction at front of house broadcast. Like, you know, I've seen broadcast engineers that run a seeder into a seeder to just to just to get all the echo and all the, you know, extra stuff out and then 

Andy Leviss: all the way down. 

Jason Waggoner: Oh my gosh, crazy stuff. You just see, you just see wild thing because we're, they're doing things that you don't normally do. 

So you see things that you don't normally see in terms of how those, uh, uh, processing chains work or how they're using equipment. And I don't know, it's exciting. It's fun. Right? I like the weird out of the box oddball stuff. 

Sean Walker: yeah, that's awesome. What is a, what is a PA? Sorry, go ahead, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: Oh no, go ahead. 

Sean Walker: What does a PA deployment look like for that? Is it, you know, kind of your standard arena PA, or is it in the round, or how does that work? Like your standard, like, 16 a side, large format, with some flown subs, or something different, or what? 

Jason Waggoner: Uh, I mean, it, it can take a lot of, it's just because each show is a little unique, right? So it can take a lot of different forms. Um, I like, uh, the first Counter Strike show I did was in Belgium. Um, And if you just looked at the stage, it looked like a big arena PA, right? It was, uh, well over 14 KSLs a side, I think, and then some big outfills and some delays, uh, but if you took a closer look at it, uh, we had to get kind of weird with it, right? 

Because we had it. Casters in the audience. And so the GSLs were pointed way too low because we didn't want it. We didn't want the casters in the main feed. And then the delays, like, uh, the majority of them were point sources, just hitting the upper ring of, of the arena, which, which was an old velodrome, right? 

So it's long and narrow, uh, but then two of the delays were line arrays to try to cover some of the areas where we weren't hitting with the mains because we because we're trying to duck, you know, the main energy under the casters and, you know, so that it looked like a typical system. It definitely was. 

Not crazy different, but a little different, um, and then a lot of the Dota 2 stuff that I did, a lot of the international shows, uh, were in the round, and so, um, I've done everything from like, you know, a left, left right on north south, east west, you know, uh, around the world. The stage with subs in the center to, um, PAs on the corners and PA in the middle. 

So you can do sort of like a center position with like a left, right for the games and all, all running through soundscape to do like crazy routing with different things. So everyone gets the correct image and stuff like that. Um, they, they can take a lot of different, um, Forms, right? And it just depends on what the show's trying to accomplish and, uh, what your budget is, really. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Fair 

Jason Waggoner: Um, one thing I've been trying to do for years, and I've never been able to make it work, mostly because of budget, is to Create something that is, uh, a little more soundscape y, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk in D& B terms because I'm a D& B guy, but, um, that's, I worked there forever, so that's kind of how I talk about sound, but, but this could apply to a lot of different products, but, um, I've wanted to find a way to create a distributed system, probably line arrays, maybe point sources, and um, the MIDI triggers and the game sounds from the developers, because usually when you do these shows, the developers are on site. 

And so, you know, lighting consoles are taking MIDI triggers from the game to do lighting cues based on the action that's happening in the game, and I'm like, man, could we take that and do something so like in the battles and someone throws a fireball, we could have the fireball, the audio of it track across the screen. 

Across the PA, the same way it tracks across the screen, and like, break some of those sounds out of the game a little bit, and put them, you know, More like kind of in the audience's lap, uh, to create something that's closer to what they hear in real life, right? Because when they play the game in real life, they've got headphones on most of the time. 

They're going to be hearing stuff binaurally. So they're going to get that audio imaging. And then we send them to an arena and it's like whatever stack they're closest to, you know, that's what they hear. Um, the, the breaking the, um, vocals out. Right, breaking the speech out and then having the left right game sounds, like I was talking about in one of my deployments before, helped with that, right, it helped kind of image things a little bit better, but to really do it right, I think, you know, the budget increase wouldn't be huge on the audio side, but I think it's hard to, these gaming studios, you know, I don't know that they have the headroom to, um, you know, send me a bunch of sounds and send me a bunch of midi and like work with me to develop that thing, but it would be so much fun. 

And, and I think it would really enhance the audience experience quite a bit, bring them something closer to what they normally hear when they're playing the game. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, that was going to be the question I was starting to ask before was, Sean picked the end, the opposite end of the signal chain, and I was going to start asking from the other end and be like, what did we, I mean, you mentioned having the casters. And like the game audio, I'm curious, like, what that, that input, like what, or, I guess input list more than input chain looks like, although I think you kind of answered that, at least 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. I mean, it's the, the actual input list. itself isn't, I mean, it's long, it gets long, you know what I mean? But at the end of the day, it's a handful of microphones and some left right game sounds and video playback sources and things like that. And, um, I know that's, that's oversimplifying it a bit, especially for shows like the international, but what's one of the things that's kind of interesting to me about doing e sports is it's not in the, in the way that it's set up and the productions I've been involved with. 

It's not terribly different from corporate audio in terms of like what your input list looks like, what your mix looks like day to day, what your day looks like day to day. It's not hugely different from corporate sound. Um, the content is very different 

Sean Walker: It's a lot louder than 

Jason Waggoner: it's a lot louder than corporate and the audience is a lot more excited than at least most, if not all of the corporate shows. 

Uh, 

Sean Walker: you're working for T Mobile. Those guys are excited. 

Jason Waggoner: those guys are excited. 

Andy Leviss: level marketing. 

Sean Walker: Yo, yeah, there you 

Jason Waggoner: MLM, they get pumped. Sure, sure, sure. But, um, but, you know, at the end of the day, you're looking at, you know, something like a dozen mics, and then maybe there's an entertainment act, and you've got game sounds, and you've got video playback sources, and that's, that's kind of that. 

Andy Leviss: So, and I mean, I know you're mostly on the PA side of it, I know the other thing I always hear about being interesting is, like, the intercom side of esports stuff, are you able to talk about that at all, or is that, somebody else deals with that and you don't worry 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, somebody else deals with it, and I don't worry about it. And that's, that's the way I like it. Those shows are big, and they're fun. And complex and the people that do it, uh, especially the people that have done it for us, for, for Dota. I mean, like just incredible at what they do. 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, you gotta hook us up with them and we gotta have them come on and talk about 

Jason Waggoner: happy to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Yeah. I'd be happy to make that introduction. 

Andy Leviss: That'd be, that'd be cool. Um, I don't know, Sean, do you have any more questions on, on like the esports thing? Or if not, should we, should we pivot in another direction? Uh, I mean, I don't know, is there, before we pivot on subjects, is there anything like that, that we do, that either Sean's asked so many times he's forgotten to ask or that I didn't know to ask about that's cool or have we kind of covered the, the most interesting parts of it? Stop 

Jason Waggoner: Um, I mean, I think that's most of it. Yeah. The other big challenge to overcome that, that I think. People don't always think about, especially if they're not in the gaming community, is that, you know, you're, you're putting these people on stage, right, these gamers, uh, usually teams of five, um, Apex Legends works a little differently, but the other stuff I've done, Counter Strike and Dota, that's teams of five, and you're having them play this game for anywhere from, you know, I've, I've worked on tournaments where the prize pool was a million dollars, I've worked on tournaments where the prize pool was 40 million dollars, and so they're, they're competing for real money, uh, And when, when you watch the stream or when you watch what's happening in the arena on the screens, when you watch the game on the screens, what you're seeing is, is what's called a watcher. 

And a watcher is somebody sitting backstage on the LAN network who is sort of, think of them as the camera person, right? They're deciding what you're seeing on the board as the players play. So what you're seeing is a watcher. Isn't necessarily what the other players are seeing, right? And, uh, the audio follows video in that situation, right? 

So whatever the watcher's looking at on the screen is what's coming out of the PA. Well, what that means is, I could be in one corner of the map, you know, farming and just trying to build up my character, and on the other corner of the map there's like a massive battle going on, right? And when the PA lights up and the big explosions happen and the rumbles come through and the crowds scream, it's gonna cue me. 

And to the fact that like, oh, I'm over here farming and like people are getting, you know, stomped on the other side of the map, I better go help them. And so, 

Andy Leviss: farming around. 

Jason Waggoner: right? So you've got to, um, 

Sean Walker: the dad jokes already? 

Jason Waggoner: you've got to, um, you've got to try to account for that, right? And try to, the way that you build your PA, the way that you do your stage design, not only are you trying to keep signal out of the microphones, of the people that you're putting onto the stream or into the arena, but you also are trying to keep signal away from the players, because you don't want to give somebody an unfair advantage. 

Like, oh, if they hadn't known that fight was going on, we would have won the fight, and it might have turned the game around. But they did know it was going on, and so they came, and they, they didn't lose the fight, and now we're way behind. And, and so, um, there's a lot of different ways people work to, to mitigate that. 

Um, I know for Dota, they often build, or they, they always build these, like, soundproof, booths that we build on stage, um, that the players have to play in. Sometimes it's, uh, earbuds inside of the headphone gaming sets that they wear, and the earbuds are delivering the team's communications, and the headsets are delivering white noise. 

But, uh, you've, that, that's another level of things that, like, we don't typically have to think about. In day to day production that in these tournament scenarios is, is critical to having like a clean tournament and a fair tournament. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I see. 

Sean Walker: I never would have thought about that, although that's a super good point. 

Jason Waggoner: Right. 

Andy Leviss: and that's why, that's why I like asking that what should I have asked you that I didn't know 

Jason Waggoner: right, right. Like, we always try to keep sound off the stage because we, you know, want to make it easier for the front of house engineer or the monitor engineer to, to do what they do without feedback and whatever. 

Andy Leviss: Screw that guy. 

Jason Waggoner: But, uh, but so you're still trying to keep energy off the stage, but the stakes are, I don't know if they're higher, but they're certainly different. 

And when somebody comes up and says, I wouldn't have lost that 2 million game. If the sound hadn't been bleeding through, uh, all of a sudden your ass is in a real hot 

Andy Leviss: Might actually be worse than having Eddie Van Halen throw a monitor wedge at you. 

Sean Walker: Right? 

Jason Waggoner: maybe that's, that's over in a second. 

Sean Walker: with 40, with 40 mil on the line, bro, that's a, that's a lot of weight to carry. You know what I mean? Cause I suddenly feel like I'm in the wrong industry and I should be playing video games instead of working this company thing. You know 

Jason Waggoner: yeah. Right. No doubt. 

Sean Walker: Cause I don't know what's happening around the world, but I'm not making any 40 million bucks a year. 

You know what I'm saying? 

Andy Leviss: As I say, we've got like, between this and our like, uh, pre show conference, Sean's got a whole list of, it's like, ah, should've gone into corporate real estate, should've gone into video games. 

Sean Walker: my God, dude. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: That's right, I might have to stop with the X to my Y as the opening game and just the, the opening, uh, intro for the show will be, what's Sean's dreamy career today? 

Sean Walker: Fucking choices were made, bro. Choices were made. 

Jason Waggoner: One of, 

Andy Leviss: said yes, dude. 

Jason Waggoner: I worked on a show in Shanghai years and years ago, and it was tough, man. Like it was, it was just a brutal show for a lot of reasons. And by the time it was done, the technical producer for the show was walking around asking people, so what are you going to do for your new career when you get home? My, my answer was bicycle mechanic, 

Sean Walker: All right. There you go. Nice. 

Andy Leviss: only, only fixies. 

Jason Waggoner: uh, I'll, I'll work on other stuff too. You know, I like it. Gears are complex and fun. Right? 

Andy Leviss: I'm just going for the lazy and leisurely. 

Jason Waggoner: Right. Exactly. Exactly. I got six gears dawg? Nah man, fuck that, I don't want to do that. 

Andy Leviss: So if, if we're going to dive into another subject, like, I feel like talking to you, the both with like, all the time you spent at DMB and then also working a lot as like an SE, like these days, I feel like that's like, Having both done it and taught lots of other people how to do it, I feel like you have some unique perspectives on, you know, just like, you know, there's lots of folks listening and learning to do that. 

And I'd love to dig into that a little bit. I know that's like a broad topic more than a specific question, but we can kind of, 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, I mean is there anywhere you want me to start, like how, learning how to do it, or, um, I don't know, where, like, I could start in a lot of, a lot of different places there, is there anywhere in particular you want me to talk about? 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I guess an interview, because since we do have a wide range of folks who do it, I think one of the, one of the Parts to see, particularly since you have so much time in education, maybe, is, like, is there, like, common, I don't even want to say necessarily mistakes, but common ways people, like, slow themselves down or, you know, like, like if you're walking into somebody who's got a little bit of experience in, like, an SE or system design role, like, what's the, like, what would you want to teach somebody or what do you find yourself commonly teaching somebody when you're in those roles to make their lives easier or better? 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, I think the biggest thing for me that I find, especially with younger SEs is, uh, there's the way that it works in books and there's the way that it works in the world. Right. And often the two are very similar. And I think, uh, knowing how it works in books is important. Um, you know, I, as somebody who's done a lot of educating and has been, um, you know, lucky enough to receive a lot of education, both formal and informal, uh, I think, Like I, I'm not one of these people that's like, Oh, just go figure it out and it'll be fine. 

Like, no, you should, you should learn how things work. You should learn how an amplifier works and you should learn how signal flow works. And it's going to make your life easier. It's going to make your systems better, especially when you're troubleshooting. It's going to come in really handy, but, but don't be so stuck on that. 

Right? That like, uh, you, you lose sight of what we're doing, which is like, we're doing this in the real world. And in the real world, it's not that it doesn't work that way. It's just that that way may not be always the best way to accomplish the mission. Right? So a practical example of that, right, is, um, I was doing a corporate show with a friend of mine and, He was measuring the PA, and I was listening to it, and we were walking around the room listening to the PA afterwards, and I was like, Hey, uh, like everything sounds great, tonality's good, timing's good, like everything's correct, but, uh, this show is going to be mostly spoken word, and the transition, when we play spoken word tracks, the transition from the mains to the front fills is, uh, a little, Jarring. 

It's like a little snappy. And I'm wondering how you did that. He goes, Oh, well, I have this program that shows me like the perfect place to put the microphone based on my distance from all these different things. And I took the measurement and I lined it up and it's, you know, it's lined up exactly where it should be. 

And I'm like, that's cool. Um, Why don't you go ahead and take like eight to 10 milliseconds off of the front fills? And, and he was like, why? And this particular person, he's a killer engineer. Um, uh, actually bring them out to a lot of gigs. I like them a lot, but he, he had not just the way that he had come up through the industry had not come across the Haas effect and system imaging the way that like a Broadway person or a theater person might. 

And so it's like, why don't you just take like eight to 10 mils off of the, Front fills and see what happens. And so he pops it out. And of course the front fills come really forward in the image and it smooths out that transition. Something you may not do at a rock show where you're trying to keep like super tight, super punchy, um, but for a spoken word show is, is going to make a big difference. 

And that was, it was so much about like, but you know, I've read all the things and I've taken all the measurements and I've done all, and this is, this is what it should be. And it's like, yeah, but we can, we can fudge 

Andy Leviss: looking at an analyzer. 

Jason Waggoner: Right. We can fudge that a little bit. Um, and so I think, you know, taking your, taking your practical experience and like really listening, not just it's so easy to walk around as a system engineer. 

Well, I say it's easy. It becomes very easy, I guess, to walk around as a system engineer and you're listening with a critical system engineer's ear and that's all good and well, but at some point you've got to stop and ask yourself, like, what's the audience actually expecting to hear? And what's their experience going to be as they move between these different zones, or if they're sitting in the front versus sitting in the back, and is that the experience I want them to have, and why is that the experience I want them to have? 

And then, be willing to change what you think should be for what your ears tell you. Actually should be happening, 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I don't, I've, I mean, that could be a whole episode in itself. I almost want to dig in practically in, in, in specifically on like the front fill question too, because I know that's, I've been doing this and working in the theater and corporate and music for a long time too. And I know that's still something like I always debate with myself is like, like, where, how loud should the front fills? 

Where, where do we do in balancing that? Like, are using the, to fill in the sound from the PA or using them to pull the image down to the stage and I think it sounds like, I think you're in agreement, tell me if I'm wrong, but the answer really is it depends on the show and depends on the content and neither is necessarily wrong. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now I'll say this. Um, I often tune rock and roll systems like their theater systems. Right. And I think some people might be screaming at their stereos or the headphones right now, but you know, I'm not afraid to use level and delay. On my front fills, on my delays, so that everything images back, right, versus everything lines up to some sort of absolute zero and then we push it back to the snare drum or whatever. 

Um, I like an imaged system and, and so that's the aesthetic that I go for. Uh, it doesn't mean that people who do it the other way are wrong. It's just a different approach, especially in rock and roll. It's just a different approach. 

Andy Leviss: and I mean, not, not that we're going to dig like too technically deep on that just because of time limits, but for, for the folks who are like mostly in that rock world and don't know what we mean by that, do you want to explain a little more about what do you 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, yeah. 

Andy Leviss: a theater system? 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. So, um, because I started in the theater, you know, like when you, when you tune a PA in the theater, uh, oftentimes what you're doing is you're, is you're trying to get the sound to appear like it's coming from where it looks like it's coming from. Right. And so, uh, In a, in a very broad sense, if I want it to sound, I want it, I want the sound to sound like it's coming from the singer. 

I don't want it to sound like it's coming from a PA. I don't want the audience members sitting there thinking about a speaker that's, that's hanging 20, 30 feet from them. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to take my mains. I'm going to take my front fills. I'm going to line them up. 

And then you're going to say, You can use level and delay to, uh, change the image of where that sound comes from, so it sounds like it's coming from the mains, and then if you push the, um, delays so that they're arriving earlier in time, your ear will start to image to those, because within a, within a Fairly strict parameters. 

Whatever the first thing is that hits your ears, that's what you, that's what you will image to, right? So if I pull my front fills forward a little bit, so that it hits my ears first, now it sounds, even though the mains are on, my ears image to the front fills. And then if I take my mains and my front fills and I bring them back, put, push delay on those to get them upstage of the vocalist, then it'll sound like it's coming from the vocalist. 

Um, so long as none of my sources are more than, you know, 8 to 10 dB louder than what I'm trying to image to, right? So in a rock and roll situation, that's not going to work because it's going to be 30 dB louder than what you're trying to image to. But in the theater, where you, especially a traditional musical type of scenario where you've got, you know, Bernadette Peters belt into the back of the room, you can make that happen. 

You can make a whole Audio system disappear sonically. It sounds like it's not even on, right? And sounds like everything's coming from the performer. So that's what I mean by an imaged system and in rock and roll, because I'm never going to image back to the performer. I don't really want to, but, um, I, I like the way An image system sounds in a rock and roll setting as you move between the zones. 

And I like the way that it pulls your focus, especially when you're in the far field and you're talking about delays relative to mains, you know, the way that, uh, if you just line everything up to zero, a lot of times to my ear, it sounds like, oh, I'm, I'm hearing the delays. And if you. Push those delays a little further back in time, assuming you're getting some sort of energy from the mains, if the mains are hitting you 8 10 mils ish ahead of time, as long as the delays aren't insanely louder, then you It'll sound like it's coming from the stage, but it'll have the clarity of the delays. 

And I like that. I like the way it's I think a lot about, like, when I'm sitting here and I'm listening to the system, what am I focused on? Like, what, where's it pulling my focus? Is it pulling my focus to the stage? Is it pulling my focus to whatever the closest loudspeaker is? Like, what is the system doing to train me to what is, like, train my eye to what's, what it's supposed to be looking at at any given point in time? 

Andy Leviss: And like in trying to bring that approach to a rock show, are you obviously, like you said, you're at. Transcribed Audio levels where you're not going to create that illusion that it's coming from the performer but you're still kind of timing everything back to where the performer is and just letting it be louder or like where, where are you timing it to? 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. So typically I'll time everything to this, just to the mains, right? The, the mains are kind of the, the king in that scenario. So I'll time everything to the mains and, and usually what I'll do is I'll time it all out. I will line it all up, you know, quote unquote, perfectly wherever my measurement spot is. 

I'll, I'll, I'll line it all so that it's all arriving at the same time. And then I'll walk to the different zones and I'll play with that timing to get it to image back to the main PA. And then depending on the show, um, Yeah. and the size of the room that I'm in and things like that. I may push the whole thing upstage a little bit so that it's all kind of in line with the snare drum because that's usually going to be the most, it's not always the loudest, although it often is, but it is definitely the thing you're going to image too, right? 

Because 

Andy Leviss: the tightest transient. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. So, um, you know, like I, I think it's less important to do that, like in an arena, but like if you're in a 2, Theater, you know, you might hear that snare drum, like you can push that thing upstage a little bit and just try to tighten up that, um, arrival between whatever's happening on stage, which also, as it turns out, if the amplifiers are on stage, they're probably lined up along the drum riser anyway. 

So that pushing back to the snare drum actually gets you lined up with the guitars and the bass and everything as well. Which is nice. 

Andy Leviss: Right on. Um, I guess like, I, I, since you're one of the smart guys about system measurement, like the other, 

Jason Waggoner: I don't know about that. 

Andy Leviss: getting results after measuring a system, is that a safer way to 

Jason Waggoner: Sure. Sure. 

Andy Leviss: I'm just curious if you have, like, work, because that's, I feel like that's a thing, like, that separates a lot of the really good, like, folks at sE and at, at System Tuning Design from folks who don't is, is that workflow efficiency and the, I, for lack of a better way to put it, how to avoid blasting everybody with noise for 40 minutes straight. 

And I'm wondering if, if you've got any tips or tricks along the, I mean, unless you are one of those people who blasts people with pig noise for 40 minutes straight, in which case I just stepped in it. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Right. No, I try not to 

Andy Leviss: yeah, but I'm curious if you have any, yeah, any, like, tips and tricks for folks, like, along those lines of how to, like, work more efficiently, both in terms of not annoying everybody else and also just getting the work done faster. 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, I mean, uh, I think a big thing. The big thing is really just to be considerate of the people around you, right? I mean, in terms of not annoying people, like, yeah, it's not, maybe not as annoying to you to listen to pink noise for three straight minutes while you very meticulously line up some phase traces or some, you know, whatever it is you're doing with your magnitude response and blah, blah, blah. 

But it's because you're focused on something and everyone else is focused on not that. So, you know, being able to take a measurement, turn off the noise and then. Understand what you're looking at, um, and then understand how affecting what you're looking at is, is going to affect what you actually hear, right? 

Because, you know, one of the things I talk with people about a lot is like the computer doesn't hear the way that we hear. Microphones don't hear the way that we hear. And so the analyzer is, uh, often a critical tool. Um, certainly an incredibly useful one, but understanding how like, oh, I'm looking at this thing on the screen. 

And how does that translate to what I actually hear in the room? Not just in terms of like, oh, I see a big bump in the low mids and the magnitude response, but like, oh, I'm looking at, uh, unbanded data and it's like crazy, you know, it looks like a weird EKG, like lots of peaks and troughs and whatever, versus I'm looking at like smooth data that's, you know, you know, one sixth octave or whatever, one twelfth octave and like. 

If I'm looking at unbanded data, like how, how am I going to treat that? And how am I going to, if I'm, if I'm talking about EQ and I'm talking about tonality, like how narrow am I going to get my cue and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like. Understanding those things and understanding how we hear, I think, is really critical in those steps. 

Because it's so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of like, Oh, I can take 12 EQ filters and make this thing look amazing. But then you turn it on and it's like, well, it sounds awful. You know? That's my approach anyway. Oh, but I can take four or three or two really broad filters and kind of, kind of like look at the overall, look at what's kind of happening, look at the trends of, of the magnitude response, and I'm going to get a much better result out of that. 

So that, I mean, in terms of speed, uh, is a huge part of it, right? Like what resolution do we actually hear at? Because we can measure at a much greater resolution than we technically hear, you know, so, you know, am I going to hear that 2dB dip at a super high Q really narrow in the HF? Nah man, I'm not going to hear that. 

I don't need to waste my time on that. But, but when I see like a whole range of frequencies that's like 6dB louder than the frequencies around it, I was like, oh, okay, I got an octave wide cue at, yeah, I've got an octave wide cue at 500, just zip, pull that out. So, um, I think, I think that's a big part of working fast, is like, can I take Four or five measurements across a particular listening surface, and can I average those together and get useful data out of it and, and kind of know where to spend my time and where to let go. 

The other thing I would say though is like, I think a huge part of being a good SE is, um, can I do those same things without an analyzer? Uh, certainly like when it comes to time alignment, analyzers can save you a lot of time. Um, but we've all been in situations where like, for one reason or another, Loden's behind by two hours and Downbeat's still at seven, Doors are still at six. 

Like, you know, we're, we got to get the show done and we've got 30 minutes to tune the PA. Can we get there? And I think with the tools that we have, uh, available to us as system engineers right now, the answer is like, yeah, absolutely. Um, almost every, if not every, uh, prediction. Program allows you to, to get pretty close with your delay timings ahead of the gig. 

And so that time that you're waiting on some other department or whatever it is that put you behind by two hours, man, be dropping those delay predictions into that file. Cause if you don't have time to tune a PA, pushing those through, taking a listen, making a few strokes on your Lake processor, whatever it is you're using R1, um, that, that can be the difference between starting on time. 

Or everybody mad at you for, you know, missing catering or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, because once you have things aligned, it's, it's much faster to, like, drop it and just, like, yeah, I can rough it in by a year. It'll be okay for today. Like, 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. I mean, uh, I, I love measuring systems and I love looking at the data that comes out of that. And I love making decisions on that and kind of seeing how that all, um, affects each other. I, I like that stuff a lot, but, um, I am, I am just as comfortable saying like, all right, just, you know, put on a couple of tracks that I know, I'm going to listen to the PA, it either sounds or doesn't sound the way that I think it would, I'm going to make some decisions and then I'm going to rough in some timings and we're going to have a rock show and it's going to be fine. 

You've got to be able to do both. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: like I've definitely had like one off, like particularly in like the corporate world too where it's like, I'll, I'll pack a measurement mic, pack an interface, maybe even pack a wireless transmitter if I got it and there's days where it's like, don't really have time for it and don't really need it. 

We're going to, we're going to ring these lavs out to make sure they're not going to feed back. We're going to play some music to make sure the music isn't going to sound lame and away we go. 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, 

Andy Leviss: And there's, I think like so many tools in the audio, um, and I, Sean could probably agree with this too, the, the biggest part of knowing how to use a tool. 

Whether it's measurement, whether it's a mic, whether it's a console, anything is knowing when not to use it. 

Jason Waggoner: yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's, that's a great point. And, um, I think that it's really easy because, because we're all interested in this subject and audio and live sound and live production and, and because we're all nerds, right? It's really easy to open up your analyzer and get really lost in a lot of minutiae. 

And, at the end of the day, like I was, um, I was in a smart class recently, and Jamie was saying like, set up your analyzer, have it ready to go, even, you know, long before it's system tuning time, so that when you do get that, 30 minute window or whatever it is. You can just like zip, zip, zip, take a couple of measurements and then you've got the data you need and you can move on. 

And it got me thinking about it. And I was like, yeah, you know, realistically, I bring out all these microphones and I bring out my analyzer and my wireless kit, my whole thing. And it takes, you know, whatever it takes 30, 45 minutes to set up and get calibrated and whatever. But a lot of times. I'm using it for 15 minutes, you know, uh, to take measurements. 

And then, yeah, I mean, I might run an RTA during the show or whatever, but in terms of using it to tune a PA as a system engineer, you know, I might be, I might be measuring a system for 15 minutes, even though I want to be measuring it for two hours. Right. Because you can find a bunch of things that are interesting to look at, interesting to measure, but, um, but we don't have that kind of time, you know, so knowing when to use it and when not to use it. 

And like, when am I getting stuck in the weeds? on something that isn't going to make a difference to the show versus like, you know, when am I practically getting like good work done that, that is going to, um, to make the mix engineer's life easier or the audience experience better. Like understanding those two things is, is really, really critical and having the discipline to step away when, when you realize, okay, I'm, I'm getting too far down this rabbit hole and I need to pivot and go in another direction. 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. And to start with the big things that will make the biggest difference to the most people in the audience, you know what I mean, just make sure your mains are sorted basically, and the rest of you can kind of move in if you have to. If you're super short on time, I'm 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: not suggesting we take shortcuts, what I'm just saying like, in this scenario where you're like, I got four fricking minutes to sort this out, 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: get your one, 

Jason Waggoner: I was I was doing a show, this was a couple years ago. We were at the gorge and the band that was loading in, I wasn't on stage. I was at, I was at front of house, but the band that was loading in was, was really struggling. They had a very, very complex stage input plot. And, and their patch was, was kind of wild. 

And, um, and, and it was, it was big and it was kind of unwieldy. And this was for a festival style show, right. So they, they, they didn't have, you know, a whole morning to load in the show. This was one of the, one of the openers and. They, they had a tough time getting up and running. And afterwards, uh, I was sitting with the deck audio person and the A2 and the, some of the representatives from the band come up and they're like, how can we make this easier? 

And what the deck audio guy said, which was awesome. He was like, look at every input that you're sending us and ask yourself, Can I have a show without this input? And if I can have a show without this input, be willing to just not use it when time gets tight. And I think you can extrapolate that to a lot of what we do. 

Like, are we gonna have a show if I don't, I don't know, like super duper precisely dial in the delays? Yeah, man, we're gonna have a show. It's gonna be fine. Like, I gotta get them close that I'm not hearing the snare drum three times, but we can have a show, right? Um, so, Obviously, if you can get really precise I love Dialing in delays for front fills and for delay stacks is actually one of my favorite things in life, so I will sit there for 30 minutes and dial in delays, because I like it. 

Andy Leviss: I'm with you, because we are fucking nerds. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, dude. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, but you're not going to have a show if main left doesn't work. You know what I mean? 

Jason Waggoner: Exactly. 

Sean Walker: main left, main left has to be working and sounding great before you worry about your fucking delay on your, on your delays, 

Andy Leviss: but if I got time to throw on Rosanna or Human Nature and get those hi hats and the front fills and delays. Perfect. I'ma do it. 

Jason Waggoner: Oh yeah, 100%. But if, if you spend 30 minutes dialing in your front fills and then your mix engineer walks up to the console and puts on a track and pans left and right and goes, Hey bro, your, uh, your left and right don't sound the same. It's like, no one's going to care about the delays on those front 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Jason Waggoner: So knowing what's show critical is, is super crucial and, and just being able to step away from anything that isn't as much as we may want to get really tweaky with it. 

Sean Walker: Everything works. Left is left. Right is right. They both sound the same. That's a real good start, bud. 

Jason Waggoner: even better. Oh, they, they sound the same, but left is right and right is left. Ah, shit. 

Sean Walker: no. 

Andy Leviss: I'm in lesser evil. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: Still evil though. Um, uh, I, I mean, I don't want to get this late. I, I've got a couple of questions I want to ask that like would take us on like way tangents and I don't want to keep you too, too long. Um, I'm, uh, I mean, I know recently you, you like dropped into a gig, like covering for somebody in a, in a bit of an emergency situation. 

I'm curious, as opposed to like having a gig that you started, like what, What's it like dropping into like an SE role, like in an ongoing, it's just a cover and like, how do you find your feet fast and like get up and running with that? And like, how much help do you have from afar with that? Or I'm curious how that worked, if you can talk about that. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Yeah. No problem. So, um, so yeah, there was a system engineer on a tour recently who, uh, they, they lived in Asheville, North Carolina, and they needed to jump off the tour because of the storm that hit there and they needed to go take care of their friends and their family and their, their loved ones. 

And so, um, I was happy to step in and help them do that. Uh. There were a couple things that were sort of going in my favor from the get go on that show. Um, the primary one being that when they reached out to local people kind of asking like, Hey, who do you know in town that might be able to do this? One of the requirements was, you know, we have a DNBPA and it uses array processing. 

So whoever comes in, like, that's one of the things that we really need them to know because around the rest of the audio crew, we can kind of cover a lot of the other stuff, but that's, that's a kind of a show critical piece for us. And so. Um, obviously my history with D& B, uh, as an employee and, you know, them being the primary system I use when I'm out in the world. 

Sean Walker: And if you ask anybody in Seattle about DMV, who's the DMV guy in Seattle? Everybody says you. So it's pretty easy, 

Jason Waggoner: there's a couple of others now that work for the company that live in Seattle, but yeah, like as a, as a freelancer, um, you know, I've, I've got a lot of experience there. So, um, so really it was, it was a matter of, you know, of just kind of learning how their package goes together, right? Because every touring package, the, the way the cable looms are run and the way that the amplifier, um, racks work and everything, it's all a little different, but it's all made for repeatability. 

Um, that, that tour, I only did three stops on that tour. Um, the crew was incredibly kind. That made a huge difference. The crew was super pro, really, really nice, grateful that I was there. Um, you know, willing to answer my questions when I was like, uh, Hey, I know you told me this, but I'm getting a lot of info today. 

And I kind of forgot like, where does this thing go or where can I find that thing? Uh, and that, that made a big difference. But I think a lot of it is if you're going to step into a situation where you're integrating yourself into a crew, that's been on the road together for months or years. Right? And they've got a system that they've been deploying every single day for weeks, months, years. 

And all the cables are labeled and all the looms are run and everything is tight. Everything is like really under control. Um, if you're contemplating stepping into that situation, you've got to really think about like, okay, do, do I have confidence in my knowledge of the equipment I know they have to, to step into this and, uh, and tackle it? 

Or, you know, if. If I just said like, oh yeah, I know d& b array processing, and I didn't, right, because I wanted to jump on a tour, I figured like, I'll figure it out, or it won't be that big a deal, you know, I would have been really, really underwater, because, because you're not going to understand how the system goes together, much less how their particular system goes together, so I think it's, you know, If you understand the, you know, they, they tell you what equipment they're using. 

If you know the equipment, you're familiar with the equipment. Um, just kind of like keeping your nerves under control and going like, all right, all I really got to figure out at the end of the day, it's all input and output. So I just got to figure out how their input output cabling. goes together. And once I know that, everything else is a cakewalk, because I know how to use smart and I know how to use array processing. 

And I know how to, like I was mixing the opening acts, like I know how to mix on a DiGiCo, you know, SDU12, I think it was. Um, and so, uh, uh, having that confidence, having that experience, and then like really being honest with yourself about what you know, and what you don't know. And I think also once you get integrated with that crew, or as you get integrated with that crew, Being really honest with them about what you know and what you don't know, right? 

Like I've got lots of stories about times that I was on a crew, uh, like leading a crew, people tell a person to do something, they go do it, they come back and it's done totally wrong. And it's like, man, why didn't you tell me you didn't know how to do this? It's, there's no shame in it. We all have to learn. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Jason Waggoner: and so, you know, when you're stepping into that situation, like, especially when you're walking into a tour, that's maybe at the end of a run and everybody is super confident because they've been doing it every day for months and everybody is, uh, in a hurry and maybe a little burnt if it's the end of the tour, you know, maybe a little crispy. 

Um, but having the confidence in yourself to say like, you know, I can tell this person, I don't know how this thing works and still believe that I'm good at my job. So yeah, I'm going to say like, Hey man, I don't really understand this piece of equipment. Can you help me understand this piece of equipment so that I can do what I need to do to make your life easier tomorrow and the next day, um, is a huge part of it, right? 

Knowing what you don't know and having the confidence to admit you don't know it is, is massive when you're stepping into any situation, but especially a situation like that. Cause everyone else knows exactly what they're doing. Cause it's what they've been doing for so 

Andy Leviss: I mean, in a, in a very different gig, but I've been like living that a lot the last few weeks as I'm covering somebody else's leave right now, like a basically a broadcast comms gig. 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: a lot of time in Rideau world. Like, lots of time in ClearCom world and being broadcast, this is RTS. 

And I was very upfront coming into it. Like, I've done RTS. I'm not as fluent in it and as up to speed as I am in these other things. And so there's been lots of times where I've like leaned on the other folks and they've asked me to do something. And I'm like, do you know where exactly that is? Cause I'm like, I'm, this is getting into the corners of RTS land that I'm not really good at. 

And like, I could sit there and be like, yeah, no problem and shove them out of the room and like fuck around for 20 minutes and try and figure it out. But. It's gonna be easier and like, they're gonna know I'm fucking around for 20 minutes trying to figure it out. It's a lot easier to just be like I'm happy to do it. 

I'm not a hundred percent sure how to do that here. Like, can you help? And they're happy to. 

Jason Waggoner: Can you help or can you give me time to figure it out? I think having been on the other side of that, having been the person that walked up to a task and realized that the human I asked to do it didn't know how to, it's like, well, okay, now we have to undo everything you did and redo it. You know, um, I'd 

Sean Walker: been so much easier if you just said, Can you show me how? I don't know how to do it. Can you show me how? And not waste a minute of your time 

Jason Waggoner: Even, even if you think it's a simple task, Hey man, uh, I know how to pack a truck, but I've never packed a truck for your company. And I want to make sure I understand how your cases work so that I can, because some people have, you know, third packs or quarter packs or half packs or, you know, how does this, you know, like, what do I need to know so that I can pack the truck efficiently? 

You know, that's a simple thing. We've all packed trucks or most of us have packed trucks. And so be willing to step up and say like, Hey, I don't know this thing. If you explain it to me for five minutes, we don't have to, you know, diddle around for two hours on doing the thing that I fucked up. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. Especially at the end of the night if it's packing the truck when you're exhausted anyway and you're like, I don't want to do this twice. 

Jason Waggoner: Right. Right. Oh, now we have to stack twice as much stuff because you don't know what you're doing. Like, Damn it! 

Sean Walker: Don't call that guy again. Should have just said no. Yeah, yeah, 

Jason Waggoner: I mean, it's an easy way to lose a gig. But like, if you It's a dumb way to lose a gig. Because if you just say, like, I'm not sure about this. No one's gonna be like, we'll never hire that guy again. You know? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, or it's something easy like a truck pack. You're like, cool, man, somebody called the truck pack and I'm happy to push boxes and stack shit 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. 

Sean Walker: that works here, call, call that truck back. Right. Or, Hey, 

Andy Leviss: sucks. It sucks to be so afraid of losing a gig that you end up losing the gig, trying to not lose the 

Jason Waggoner: Trying to not lose the 

Andy Leviss: When you, if yeah, when you wouldn't have to begin with, if you had just been upfront about 

Jason Waggoner: And like, and we've all been there, man. Like, you know, early in my career, I can remember being nervous. Like, Oh, I don't want it. I don't want them to know. I don't understand this thing or that thing or whatever. Uh, 

Sean Walker: what? They know, dude, 

Jason Waggoner: they know. 

Sean Walker: now that we're, now that we're on this side of our careers and you see those people showing up, you're like, no, they know, dude. So just be upfront about it. And then, and then you're like, okay, now we can have an adult conversation about it and go, okay, cool, man. Let me show you how to pull this cable or 

Jason Waggoner: there was always, we've all had a time when we didn't know that 

Sean Walker: Absolutely, 

Jason Waggoner: and we all had to learn it. And if 

Sean Walker: And it's okay, 

Jason Waggoner: if someone's an asshole to you about it, don't work for them again, 

Sean Walker: Absolutely. Cause, cause the rest of us are still hiring. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So when you don't want to work for Sean anymore, 

Sean Walker: Jeez. Tell me about it, dude. 

Andy Leviss: um, I, 

Sean Walker: That's why he's here. Jason's actually tired of tired of hanging out with me. He wants to come hang out with you, Andy. 

Jason Waggoner: That's why I was in Manhattan two 

Sean Walker: That's it. 

He's over coffee. He's ready for cocktails. 

Andy Leviss: That was my favorite moment, was sending Sean a selfie of me and Jason hanging out at a bar the other day. Surprise! 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Andy Leviss: while we were all in the middle of texting about trying to make this recording happen 

Jason Waggoner: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 

Sean Walker: I was like, my dudes! What's up dudes? 

Andy Leviss: Well, um, Jason, I know because we keep getting shit for like forgetting to ask this question or a variant of it. 

And I feel like we've covered Seattle to the death in terms of where to go eat in Seattle. And you've traveled to a bunch of cool places. So I'm going to open it up a little wider. You got it. And anywhere you've traveled, is there a particular highlight of, of, like, somewhere you've eaten that, that you think folks should check out? 

Jason Waggoner: Man, that's a, that's a tough question on 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I can narrow it back down to Seattle if that makes it easier. 

Jason Waggoner: I've gone a lot of places. Um, so, uh, okay. Uh, a couple years ago, I was in Amsterdam. And we had a day off, which was uncommon for this particular gig. And me and the two guys that I was traveling with, uh, this was, most of the crew was from another country. 

So there's me, they hired me and I hired these two guys and we all went to Amsterdam, did this show. Sorry, not Amsterdam, uh, Antwerp, Antwerp. Um, we're in Belgium and we were walking around sort of like the old town, right? Like the old part of town and, uh, and parts of it are touristy and parts of it are not, but we found like in the middle of it was this fish shack. 

Right, which I would not have expected, but it was like this fish shack, it was painted like neon blue, right, in the middle of the old, you know, town square. Um, it was two stories, I don't remember the name of it, but it was two stories, you ordered on the first floor, and then you went up to the second floor and they brought you your food, and it was unbelievable. 

It was so, so 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Jason Waggoner: but like most of the places I like to eat, honestly, I like to find the like super dirty, hyper local, off the beaten path, you know? Um, when I was in 2019, I was in Shanghai and the first night I got in, I took a ferry across the river and to the old part of town. And I just went into like, I just, I walked down the street until I found a spot that was like, That looks like their version of like a shitty diner. 

That's where I want to eat. And what I like about that, especially when you're traveling in foreign countries, is oftentimes the people there don't speak the language and oftentimes don't speak our language. Anyway, we don't speak theirs. They don't speak ours. Um, And oftentimes the menus are not in English either. 

And so you just sort of have to go like, uh, I mean, you can use Google translate to get you close, but a lot of times you're just like pointing and like, I don't know, man, bring me that. And some of the best meals I've ever had, uh, are, are in those scenarios where, you know, I just, I found a place that just looked like a local divey spot. 

And. I pointed to the menu and food showed up and I don't, I'm not a hundred percent sure what it is, but it's tasty. So I would encourage people rather than say like, go to this place or that place, be adventurous with your eating, right? When you're, when you're on the road, um, you can find some wild, you know, Singapore, you can find cow lung satay. 

It's crazy stuff, man. Uh, the stuff you can find in China is pretty wild. If, if, if you're okay eating like Ophel and stuff like that, um, and, and that stuff can be like, uh, uh, I think really good and really fun and the, the kind of stuff like you can get a good meal anywhere. You're probably only going to find cow anus. 

In China, 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Jason Waggoner: know, at least in my experience. And by the way, it's very tasty. 

Sean Walker: There you go. 

Jason Waggoner: So, so yeah, be, go outside the box, try stuff you wouldn't normally try and, and try to find the, like the very local, the places that don't speak English, you know, the, get the, get the local experience. It's going to be good. It's going to be something you'll never get anywhere else. 

Sean Walker: That's my favorite part of dim sum restaurants. It's like just watching the carts come by and pointing at it going, Oh, I want those. And I don't know, that looks good. And let's try one of those. And you know what I mean? You get it? You're like, Oh dude, this is amazing. You know what I mean? Totally. That's awesome. Great. Well, Jason, thank you so much for taking the time and hanging out with us, man. I know it was a lot of coordinating between the three of us to make it all line up and hang out because we're busy, but thanks for coming out and partying. Thank you to RCF and Allen and Heath for letting us yap about audio and that's the pod y'all. 

See you next week. 

Jason Waggoner: Awesome. Thanks guys.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green