277. 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

In a bonus Episode 277, the Signal To Noise community presents it’s first-ever holiday gift guide. Join hosts Sean and Andy as well as a parade of past guests, friends, and listeners with gift suggestions for your favorite sound engineer/production tech to meet every budget, from $10s to $1000s. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

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Article With Links: The Signal To Noise Podcast 2024 Holiday Gift Guide
Episode 277 Transcript

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Transcript

Signal To Noise, Episode 277 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

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, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Levis, and with me, the secret to my Santa, Mr. Sean Walker. 

What's up, Sean? 

Sean Walker: What's up, dude? How are 

Andy Leviss: know, I'm, I'm good, you know? It's, it's, it's hard to believe it's another holiday season already. It feels like we've been doing this forever. 

Sean Walker: And now you got a little buddy to hang out with. 

Andy Leviss: do, I do. Little dude is doing well. It's, 

Sean Walker: Have you slept yet? 

Andy Leviss: I have. Again, I've been, I've been catching the most sleep in the house outside of the dogs. So. 

Inside of the dogs, it's a little cozy. 

Sean Walker: All right. Fair enough. Just a big cuddle puddle with the dogs. 

Andy Leviss: Was that Mark Twain who said, Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: it was Mark Twain. That sounds like a thing Mark Twain would have said. 

Sean Walker: I certainly wouldn't know. I gotta be honest with you. 

Andy Leviss: Um, no, but you know, it's, it's, it's season for, uh, for traditions. And, uh, we were half joking on the discord that we should start a new tradition. 

That's an old tradition for like every tech website and do a holiday gift guide. And as you and I are apt to do, we said, yeah, fuck it. Let's do it. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. That sounds like us. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, that, that sounds like a thing we would do and then 

Sean Walker: And then, we didn't plan for shit, and we were like, yeah, we'll just wing it, that's fine, no problem. 

Andy Leviss: No, wait, 

Sean Walker: a little, you 

Andy Leviss: I planned a little bit. I, I, you know, we made some. We made some posts on, well, that was somewhat by intention, I figured we'd surprise you and just get your reaction to things, because that's just more fun that way. 

Sean Walker: Oh, shit. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, um, but we reached out to everybody in the discord and the Facebook group and a couple other groups. 

Um, I also, you know, texted some friends and said, Hey, we're looking for suggestions of gifts for sound engineers, stuff you want or stuff you would give people. Uh, and we kinda, we tried to not make it an episode full of dammit Andes. I don't want All four and five figure items, so we try to encourage folks to give us a range of like, some stocking stuffery things, some like kinda medium range, like you know, fifty to a hundred dollar things, and then, okay, if you're gonna splurge on somebody. 

Where do we go from there? And yeah, yeah, um, we just gotta get those on stickers. Um, but yeah, and we got a bunch of folks, um, sent us some stuff and we told folks that, uh, if, if they sent them in as text, uh, one of us would do a dramatic reading of them, which it seems like I've been elected because Sean's going to just offer a commentary on these. 

And, um, we also had some folks send us some, some of their own audio recordings. So we'll play those in and see what they suggest. Um, but why don't we start going through? So on, I'll and I'll start because people expect me to start with the expensive ones. I'm going to start with some of the cheaper ones So for those doing corporate 

Sean Walker: What a letdown. What a 

Andy Leviss: we gotta we gotta build up I mean, we're gonna we're gonna splurge by the time it's done. 

Like come on. I've got my list at the end You know, that's gonna start cranking up there, 

Sean Walker: Alright, well I got my credit card ready for your 

Andy Leviss: right? I I mean folks in the discord were starting to just like well What about like a q338 and I'm like slow down cowboy 

Sean Walker: Man, I love, I love my team. I'm not buying any Q338. For their personal kit 

Andy Leviss: He's like, I'm not buying one for the, for the company kit. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally 

Andy Leviss: Um, but so, uh, the, the first contribution we got from somebody was, uh, Rob Gerwitowski, who's, uh, somebody who I worked with on, uh, on one of the shows, uh, during upfront season. And he had a cool suggestion for the folks doing corporate events that I had actually never heard of called Dapper Dots, which these are, these are, I 

Sean Walker: than dapper, Dan. 

Andy Leviss: Different than Dapper Dan, sounds dirty, it's not, um, these are like, you know how like on the award shows there's always like the, like the special like, tape they use to like tape dresses so they're not, you know, having, you know, uh, wardrobe malfunctions on TV, similar, similar idea, but they're sold for like menswear for like keeping the pocket handkerchief perfectly in place, or the tie perfectly placed, they're little clear round double sided like sticky dots, you can get them on Amazon, they're about, And they were like somewhere around like 12 to 15 bucks for a little, like, not quite, like smaller than an Altoids tin of a few sheets of them. 

And Rob said they're like great for helping like keep ties in place, kind of dressing mic cables without having to like stick gaff tape to the back of somebody's tie. 

Sean Walker: Oh, dude. That's 

Andy Leviss: yeah, like I thought that was a pretty cool little, little thing and 

Sean Walker: A2 shit right there, dude. 

Andy Leviss: right? And it's like, I mean, they're expendable, so you're going to go through them, but like, you know, 10, 15 bucks a box, like that's a pretty solid start for a good stocking stuffer item. 

Cool. And I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna go, like, steppin out of order on the list a little bit, because a few folks, including, um, my good friend Rob "Killa" Killenberger, uh, reached out, and he suggested, uh, either the, um, the lav bullet or the mic drop, which, uh, both of, they're two different, uh, Like, basically designs of the same thing. 

They're little, like, stainless steel weights for lav mics that either come with a connector machined into them or threaded so you can change out the connector on them. And when you're trying to snake a lav cable down somebody's shirt or jacket or dress or whatever on a show, you can attach it to this little weight. 

So that it drops right down the, right down under the shirt and just pops out the bottom where they can grab it and hand it to you. So it came out of the film industry. It was originally called the lav bullet, because the little weight literally looks like a rifle bullet, you know, with the threading on the back. 

I think it was made by film folks who don't ever have to do fly dates. 

Sean Walker: Hmm. 

Andy Leviss: And eventually somebody was like, this is really cool, the TSA does not like when I fly with this, or, like, I've done gigs lately with the Secret Service, they do not like when they find that in your kit when they're doing their sweep the night before the event. 

So, they came out with a mic drop, same idea, but it looks almost like a little miniature like pendant of an SM58, but the same little weighted slug threaded on the back, and those are in the like, somewhere in the like 40 to like 60 ish price range, so again, like kind of in the stocking stuffer for somebody who's stocking you really want to stu wait, no, we shouldn't, we shouldn't phrase it that way. 

Um, but I, like have you, 

Sean Walker: at you right now. Andy shaking 

Andy Leviss: he is, he's tisking. When I get the tisk from Sean, you know we're in trouble. Um, I don't know, have you, have you seen those or used those at all? 

Sean Walker: I've seen them, but I've not used them. 

Andy Leviss: Okay, so what you're saying 

Sean Walker: do very little corporate aing. I gotta be, can I gotta be real candid. I hire people for that and they do a better job than I do. 

Andy Leviss: fair enough. Well, if you're looking for a gift to get those, those folks, that's I can vouch, I keep a couple in my kit all the I've actually got the lav bullets and as I'm doing more and more fly dates I'm gonna end up replacing them with mic drops eventually. 

Sean Walker: will do. I, uh, I'm pretty surprised though, like we, we end up working with people that have done it a bunch. You know what I mean? Like c c-suites. They've done it a bunch. And half of them are fricking half undressed by the time I get to you. There are, they already know what they're doing. They're like, yo, just put it. 

I don't, come on, hurry. You know what I mean? They're like, I got shit to do today. It's the ones that like, it's their first time. You're like, and we're going to put this gentle thing down the back of your shirt. They're like, uh, okay. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: yeah, well, I'm trying to remember who it was. I think it was, uh, Lucas, uh, who's, you know, in the Discord and on the Facebook group, who was telling me the other day that he had a presenter come up to him and be like, what, you don't have one of those bullet things? 

Sean Walker: Oh, 

Andy Leviss: And he was like, I, he's like, I guess I will tomorrow. 

Sean Walker: Right. I guess. Good talk. See you 

Andy Leviss: So, so apparently they've, they've, they've started making the rounds of the A list presenters enough that like some of the VVIPs come in and know about them. 

Sean Walker: You don't have one of those bold things? Nah, man. Cold hands, cold hands. Get ready. One, two, three. 

Andy Leviss: Um, right. And on the subject of other things named bullets that, uh, that keep coming up. Everybody we talked, like Mark Olson, Andy Peters, it's on my list, uh, Tim Verhoeven, all the Cinect SoundBullet, which, you know, we've had David on talking about the history of that, um, and that kind of stepping up a notch into the, like, the few hundred, but, you know, there's that, um, R. 

J. Givens also suggested the AES QBox, uh, similar tester that does both analog and AES. Um, we'll see, I think a little, oh, we're gonna play an audio clip in a little bit, uh, where somebody talks about the DB box, which, again, same idea, any of those task gear, but if there's somebody, like, enough to go into, like, the three digit on GIFs, like, SoundBullet, AASQ box, DB box are kind of in there. 

Um, I'm trying to, I'm trying to look through and see if we can, we can kind of go in price order and kind of step up to folks, uh, Or, or if, or if we should go through like individual people and see how they stepped it up. Uh, you know what, actually, why don't we throw this one to one of our, one of our guest contributions? 

Uh, we've got friend of the podcast, Michael Curtis, uh, sent us in a little clip. So let's take a listen and see what Mike had to suggest. 

Michael Curtis: All right, folks, Michael Curtis here. Got some things you can stick in your audio friend's stockings. I got three ideas for you. The first is the GEMRED digital angle gauge. It's 25 bucks. It's the cutest little inclinometer you've ever seen. So it's magnetic, so you could stick it wherever. So on an array frame, uh, the side of a handrail, if you're trying to get the angle of an audience playing in the stands or whatever, it's great. 

It's accurate, fits my Pelican super easy. It's been thrown around, thrown around by TSA a thousand times and is still working really affordable and handy little tool. Second is the lav magnet. I got these about a year ago and useful for working with shirts or just outfits that aren't very friendly for mounting a lav where you don't have much to clip on. 

So it could go on a t shirt. Um, it can go on at like a thinner dress and really not. Uh, really be incognito. I like them. They're 49 bucks. And lastly here, stepping up to the GL iNet Slate Plus mini router. And so you can use and spin up a nice portable control network. Cause you know, sometimes you don't have wifi or internet or something's up right away, and you would love to be able to control your desk from a hundred feet away and you can't. 

So this guy is again, super small, super cute. Can throw it in your Pelican and it is 79. So the GEMRED digital angle gauge, the lav magnet, and the cutest router you ever saw, the GL 

Andy Leviss: cranking the, cranking the nerd level up with that last one, 

Sean Walker: Dude. Those are all excellent. Excellent suggestions. 

Andy Leviss: why, like if, if Mike Curtis ever decides he wants to take our job, we're hosed. No, he's doing, he's doing awesome work over on his 

Sean Walker: Thank God he's too busy. 

Andy Leviss: that's where we get it. And folks, that's. Check out and like he's got a couple new programs too, so I know he's got like a Sunday mix session like subscription thing He just announced that if you're looking for like a nice little like 29. 

99 gift for sound engineering in your life Check that one out, too. But uh, yeah, I mean those are some solid suggestions right there I keep I'm not sure if it's the same brand but one of those little magnet inclinometers in my in my nanic case all the time or Pelican for those of you who are traditionalists. 

Um, yeah, the lav magnet. Like, we'll, I'll link to the episode we had with Mark Russe who invented the lav magnet, telling the story of that a while ago in the show notes. And, you know, if you listen to that episode, you know, he, he builds those by hand, uh, out in his garage in Vegas. Um, and yeah, I, I own six of them. 

and use and bring them on. That's one of those we had that I think we were talking the other week about about how much stuff to bring on on jobs where it's not my job but I know I have stuff that will make somebody else's life easier to make my life easier and the law of magnets are one of those things that like I don't necessarily bring a half dozen if I'm A1ing but I usually will bring one or two so if nothing else I can be like here just take this 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. 

Andy Leviss: uh 

Sean Walker: And that's something that you're, I'm going to say, never going to be able to bill for, but just makes your fricking job so much easier when you're like, you're the keynote and you wore that dress, huh? You wore that shirt, huh? Or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, great. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and like I think we said on the episode when we had Marc on and I know I've said in conversations like everybody always looks at it and they're like, oh, this thing is so huge. Why is it so big? But the day you need that stabilizer stick on it to keep a big floppy blouse or shirt or whatever, or a scarf from doing that, it will save the day and you will absolutely immediately understand why it's the size and shape it is. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. Totally. remember one time we had a, speaking of frickin like, that's the one you chose, right? We had a keynote that came in, and my A2, just dead Penn, stared at it when he showed up. And he looked at, he looked at him, he looked at me, looked at him, looked at me, and he goes, Oh, it's my first rodeo. 

Damn it. Sorry, guys. Just, he just had like nothing to pin a lav to. 

Andy Leviss: Oh man, at 

Sean Walker: that like, what the fuck look on our face? And he was like, knew instantly. He's like, Oh no, dude. Sorry, fellas. 

Andy Leviss: least he copped to it, that's half 

Sean Walker: yeah, totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, 

Sean Walker: So, you know, we figured it out, but the lav bag was fricking perfect. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, now those things will save the day. I mean, I'm sure somebody someday will come up with something that even those can't solve the problem, at which point it's like, cool, here's a necklace. There's some tie line. 

Sean Walker: Totally. You don't need a tie line. DPA makes a killer necklace. 

Andy Leviss: they do. It's expensive though. That's it. That's a damn it, Sean, right there. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, it is. You know what the best part about that is? You bill a motherfucker 

Andy Leviss: I was going to say that one you 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: Billable hour. Not hours, but billable. 

Sean Walker: remember we were doing one show and I, I, I got a friend in town that has one. We don't own any of those, but somebody was like, yeah, I don't know what they're going to wear. 

They're not really like this, you know, they're not, they don't really think about that kind of stuff. And I was like, we should just get one of these. It's going to be 2. 7 trillion for the day, but you're going to need it. And they were like, oh, we don't, we don't want to pay for that. It'll be fine. So we brought it anyway. 

It was not fine. We used it. And I was like, here's your sign, dude. AKA here's your invoice. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Yep. I've, I've. 

Sean Walker: all those tricks to save the day are so handy to have. I'm glad that people are coming up with all the corporate things. Cause like, as you do it, you just, you know, obviously everybody who's done it knows that you're like, you just get your tush handed to you all the time. 

You know, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, so I'm glad to hear you've used those, those necklace things. Cause I've, I've seen them and used about like occasionally again, that, that might be worth one. Tucked away in my bag just for like, cause that's a thing that like nobody ever has on site but the one time it comes in really handy, it's gonna be worth it and I probably can bill somebody for it. 

Sean Walker: it's, uh, it's worth having a friend in town that has one to get 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: That's the, 

Andy Leviss: That's a good way to put it. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. 

Andy Leviss: in enough things 

Sean Walker: you know what I mean? DPA necklaces are like speedboats. The best time is when your friend owns one, you know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: I'm trying to think of a version of the, of the, of the, what's, what's the definition of a boat? A hole in the money ocean you throw money 

Sean Walker: Break out another thousand. 

Andy Leviss: audio equivalent of that is. I think it's a DiGiCo. I mean, yeah, 

Sean Walker: I was gonna say a sound company, but that's fine. 

Andy Leviss: I say 

Sean Walker: out another million, bud, no big 

Andy Leviss: friends that do, of course, now I remember that I owe an email back to a friend at DiGiCo to come on the show. So I, I know, I love you. I'm teasing. I tease because I love. also not the most expensive. 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, Alright, what's next on the list? Uh, going, here, let's, we'll go down, so, RJ Givens, a good friend of mine based out of California, uh, he, uh, former theater person turned kind of concert and venue person, he's out at the, at the Rattyshell out there, I hope I'm right, Rady, Ratty, I'm not sure. Uh, RJ sent us a, a few great suggestions, on the low end he said, Stocking stuffer, is like a box of sharpies, a box of double A batteries. 

You'll never not need them. You know, yeah, sharpies were, were a real, real popular one. Uh, Taddei actually suggested going as far as getting personalized sharpies made, which I did a little bit of digging. They're not horrendously expensive. They're like, in the like, 10 range. Dollar to 2 range. You got to order 200. 

So like you're going to drop a little bit of cash on them in the box, but it sure is nice advertising to like have a bunch of people with your name on it and your website. 

Sean Walker: What if we just put, like, obscene pictures on the side of it so every time they bust out their Sharpie, they go, Oh, no! 

Andy Leviss: I mean, you do you, I mean, that's one way to theft protect it. I usually put like a yellow or blue cap on my black Sharpie so that nobody wants to steal it. But yeah, putting naughty pictures on it would probably do the trick too. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, word. Okay, great. 

Andy Leviss: actually a friend of the podcast too, we're going to come back to in a second. 

Uh, Jim VanBurgen, JVB actually has. A box of, uh, personalized Sharpies with his name and his venue name on them that he gives out to everybody the first day they work for him in the venue. So, all through New York City you can see JVB, uh, personalized black Sharpies kicking around. 

Sean Walker: Just stolen from this venue. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. I mean, he gives them away, so it's, it's not, it's, it's not technically stealing. 

Um, but yeah, so that was RJ's budget pick, was a box of Sharpies and batteries, and then like I said, Todd A added in, uh, batteries. Personalized Sharpies, which is a super cool splurge if you can do it. Uh, moving up the cost list, um, again, one that came, like, the cool thing about these is a lot of the things people suggested came in over and over again. 

Uh, like RJ suggested the Rat Sniffer Sender Cable Testers, 

Sean Walker: Those things are sweet when you don't have to bring the cables together. Like, we carry rotary testers everywhere and a few of us have those. Those things are dope. Especially when you're doing installs. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I was gonna, uh, do you, do you wanna, for the, for like, the three people out there who have never seen them, you wanna explain what it is? 

Sean Walker: Sure, it's just a cable tester, like XLR or NL4 cable tester, but you Instead of like the rotary tester where you have to bring the two ends of the cable together and plug it into the thing and then twist the rotary thing. It's just a battery powered pair of basically XLR ends. You plug in both ends of the cable and it tells you if it's, you know, in polarity or all good or something's miswired or whatever. 

Which is super handy if the cable is already strung hundreds of feet apart and you can't like bring the ends together, you know. And they're little. They're like the size of an XLR end so they're easy to just tuck in a pally or 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and that's, like, that's a Dave Ratt invention from years ago. He's, like, really refined the design over the years. Like, it used to have a little slidey switch that would come on and burn out the little weird 12 volt car alarm battery 

Sean Walker: Yeah, no, they're, they're great now. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, now they've got, like, a little screw thing so they can't turn on accidentally. 

And again, like, like I said, that's one that like RJ suggested that as one of his picks, uh, Lucas Wasson also suggested the Rat Sniffer Sender, like that one keeps popping up time and again. 

Sean Walker: I already gave that to all my guys. I got, I need a new, need a new idea. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, we, we got you covered as we go down the list. Um, 

Sean Walker: We're, we're a, we're a sound tools dealer. So I just started handing out fricking center sniffers to everybody that shows up. Oh, you don't have one? Boom. You get one too. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And they also, they now have, they have an NL4 version too, which is, which is kind of handy. 

Like I keep, I don't use it nearly as much as the XLR one, but every once in a while it's turned out real handy. 

Sean Walker: Be sweet if they can make an ethercon one. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Although again, that gets us into the whole, like, continuity only tells you so much with ethernet. So 

Sean Walker: Yeah, fair 

Andy Leviss: it'll tell you it's definitely broken. It won't tell you, it'll definitely work. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, 

Andy Leviss: Um, which reminds me, we got a, a guest on some networking stuff. 

I gotta chase back down 'cause it's been a year of like, yeah, maybe next month. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. I'm trying to get learned here, Andy. The whole reason I'm doing this is so I can get smarter. Can you get some guests to teach me something, please? 

Andy Leviss: But if you get too smart, then, then, then who then that's gonna make me the dumb one. 

Sean Walker: Oh shit. 

Andy Leviss: I, I didn't just call you the dumb one. 

Sean Walker: Well, I mean, you know, it's not, you know, 

Andy Leviss: Uh, I, I mean, I think if, if I actually just called you the dumb one on the air, that technically makes me the dumb one. Maybe the dumb ones were the friends we made along the way. Wait, no. 

Sean Walker: You are who your friends are, is that what you're saying? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, something like that. Um, on that note, why don't, why don't we toss it over to, since we were talking about, uh, JVB, let's, uh, let's bring him back. 

Um, you know, we had him on last year talking about, uh, a bunch of stuff. In fact, he is out in the cold today getting ready for the Thanksgiving parade. So if you watch the Macy's parade in a few days, you'll see Jim's work again. And, uh, here, here's, uh, I think he was actually coming to us live from a loadout in progress at that he was supervising his venue, uh, when he sent this to me late the other night, but uh, here's what Jim had to throw out there. 

Jim van Bergen: Hey, this is JVB with my stocking stuffer for suggestions for the Signal to Noise podcast. My favorite tools these years for suggestions include The CTP Systems DB Box 2, which is my favorite tester that does analog and AES in two different flavors. Uh, I use this all the time in sussing out systems. A little less expensive than that is a video tool that I use called the Lumentech EZ SHV Plus Scaler. 

It's a one and a half inch by three inch video screen, takes an SDI in, passes an SDI out, and also has an HDMI out. I use it in testing video signals constantly. On the less expensive end, dropping down from there, are Grado headphones. My favorite open back headphones that sound really, really good. They start at about 80 bucks and go as high as 2, 500. 

There's lots of levels, but even their entry level headphones are a huge step up from what your people are probably using right now. Uh, it's a lot cleaner than a pair of 7506s or Sennheiser. Um, even a very high quality, close to the buyers. But I have to say, it's open back, so whoever's near you is going to hear what you're hearing. 

So, just be warned. Um, on the lower end of the scale, more of the stocking stuffer line, the Camvate Crab Clamp is an articulated quarter, uh, mini ball head for microphones. I'm using this all the time these days, uh, hiding stuff on mic stands and other locations. Um In the app realm, the SPL and FFT app is something that I use on a regular basis to track what's going on in my shows and how loud I'm getting. 

Um, I've compared this to my multi thousand dollar dB meter and it's surprisingly close, within a dB and a half. So, more than close enough for rock and roll. All right my friends, that's what I've 

Andy Leviss: I think he was actually waiting for the logo to start when he recorded that for us. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, that was awesome. Thanks, dude. 

Andy Leviss: yeah. So that's just, yeah, that's some cool, some, some video stuff for like, particularly, I know not everybody who listens does video, um, particularly in the corporate world. We split that out a lot, but for the theater folks and some of the venue folks, we're kind of often doing both. 

So, uh, yeah. So that'll come in real handy. And yeah, I didn't tell you, it was a rule I gave that everybody who sent in something recorded had to have something roughly matchbox sized in there. So the inclinometer, the, the video scaler, um, yeah. Headphones. Yeah. I mean, headphones, 

Sean Walker: I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, it right, frickin Mac truck right over top of you right now. 

Andy Leviss: no, go 

Sean Walker: How many of us do more than just audio? Cause I have avoided it like the frickin plague. But like, are a lot of our audience doing video or lighting too? I mean not just like, you know, video on the side, like we're not gonna talk about that, but like, How many people have to be a jack of all trades, not just a one, you know, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I think it, I think it depends on market because like any of the, any of our listeners working in theater, video is weird. Video, if it's video 

Sean Walker: shit, Sherlock. 

Andy Leviss: video in theater is weird. Okay, that doesn't narrow it down either, 

Sean Walker: Why? Okay. While we're on video is weird. Why doesn't any of it fucking truck pack? Like, why is it all weird? And how come none spite? How come none of it goes in Iraq? Why is it all in fucking Pelicans? Like how many Pelicans you need, bro? 

Andy Leviss: You know the shortest, you know the shortest distance between, the shortest distance between two points, Sean? 

Sean Walker: I don't know what 

Andy Leviss: A video cable? 

Sean Walker: Jesus. 

Andy Leviss: Am I wrong? 

Sean Walker: Oh, probably not. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, but yeah, in the theater world, like, basically, like, projection and, like, that side of stuff is usually the electrics department, sometimes sound does it, sometimes there's overlap, it depends on the venue. But then, like, any, any, like, closed circuit, like, monitoring for theater, so, like, a stage manager can see shit from other angles, or if they're in a booth, they can see, like, the overhead view of the stage. 

That all because reasons falls to the sound department. I think it's it's like in in IOTSE sound is technically still considered an assistant electrician. Like there's usually a head position but it's not officially a head in most contracts because unions are great at many things. I love my union. 

Unions move slow. and and then at that point once sound became part of the electrics department then video came along and and the electricians were basically like We've got the big electrons. You guys are good at the little electrons. These are little electrons you deal with it 

Sean Walker: I'm not sure what it's like in your part of the world, Andy, but over here where we're at, they still call it anything that's multi pair. The malt cable, they just had the one from the fifties or sixties and that's, that's what they learned to use. That's just the malt cable. So you're like cat, cat snake, the molt cable. 48 Channel Split Snake, the Moult Cable, Soca, the Moult Cable, like there's, they don't care, just anything 

Andy Leviss: DT12 it's a moult. 

Sean Walker: the Moult Cable. I was like, oh man. you're billing us how much for this? Sweet dog, nailed 

Andy Leviss: the way, can I get a feed? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Could you 

Andy Leviss: I was browsing, I was browsing Reddit as I accidentally do every once in a while earlier and somebody was asking, it's like, is it normal for a video person to come up to you like in the middle of the first act of the show asking for a feed? I was like, it's not, not. Normal, unfortunately. Alright, going back to the 

Sean Walker: Shows at 8, 835. Can I get a feed from audio? Fuck! 

Andy Leviss: yeah, nope. So, 

Sean Walker: no? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, of course I'll figure it out, but. 

Andy Leviss: going back to the list of stuff folks sent in, uh, we talked about Lucas Wasson, who's a good friend. He's one of our moderators on the Discord and on the Facebook group. He, he had also seconded the vote for the Ratsniffer Sender. He also said he's been starting to carry around a lot, uh, a small, like a RadioPro AV2 DI box, like one of the ones that can kind of take stereo from just about anything. 

Sean Walker: Alright, 

Andy Leviss: said like carrying one of those around has kind of saved his butt more than once or twice. Um, and, and like those 18 inch DIs are like, it's a whole, there's an ecosystem there these days, and those kind of kept popping up. Like on my list, I, my list may have modified this morning. My, coming into today, I was going to say the Whirlwind IsoPod, which I think I've talked about before. 

It's a little black plastic 18 inch jack on one end, or 3. 5mm for the metric oriented, single XLR on the other. And that's pretty much it. 

Sean Walker: phantom power? Nope. 

Andy Leviss: Exactly. And, and it's nice and I, I carried one of those around and still do for years because it's stupid lightweight and because it's an eighth inch in, you can swap the cable out. 

So if you've got a headphone jack, you just pop an eighth to eighth on it. If you've got a phone with a lightning port, you swap, push a lightning to eighth into it. You can do a USB C to eighth and kind of cover all your bases. 

Sean Walker: Oh, that's sweet. 

Andy Leviss: as we know, like we had David from Synecton last year, we've already talked about the SoundBullet, they've got the SoundWire, it's like on the pricey side, but it's a similar idea, but stereo and USB C in, uh, and, you 

Sean Walker: They now have an 8th 

Andy Leviss: the laptop. 

What's that? 

Sean Walker: They now have an 8th engine one, right? 

Andy Leviss: I was getting there, that's this morning, just in time for Black Friday, they dropped the SoundWire Mini. That is, it's 99 bucks with an asterisk. Because 99 bucks gets you the cable, so there's no USB C chip in it, it is literally just an eighth inch plug to the dual XLR, and folks are like, oh my god, 99 bucks for like, Hossa sells that for 15, but again, it's got those transformers in the ends to protect that headphone jack from phantom power, so you don't fry somebody's phone or iPad or laptop with it. 

And I'm Arguably like, well, well, and, and also to isolate some buzz. And we'll like the USBC is nice. Cause you know, you've got like a known quantity converter there. The problem on a lot of corporate gigs is a lot of laptops are locked the fuck down. So either. Won't even let you attach a USB C device, they just won't enable it. 

Or they'll enable it, but then they're like locked out so they can't get to the settings in like Windows or Mac or whatever to change their output to that USB device. So, David and the folks at Cenect heard that and made one with an eighth inch. So I say it's 99 with an asterisk because 99 bucks just gets you the cable. 

They'll sell you the same little You know, cool like neoprene clip pouch that the regular Soundwire comes in in a kit with it that I think is like 1. 29. So it's like 30 bucks gets you that extra like durable carrying case to protect it in your bag. But it's got the same the little Yeah, and it's got, it comes with the same little like built in cable tie around it and that all. 

So yeah, that was like a last minute addition literally as I was, I was, I was riding the train and reading Facebook this morning. Um, so yeah, 

Sean Walker: Now I got that song stuck in my head. Thanks a lot, Andy. Come on, ride the train and ride it. 

Andy Leviss: so yeah, I'm sitting here, my baby takes the morning train. We're gonna have a sing off for which of us is the worst 

Sean Walker: do it. Don't do it. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: This is why we hide on the side of the console, we do. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, so yeah, Lucas suggested again the Radio Pro EV2, like I know folks that carry around a PCDI, there's the Whirlwind IsoPod, or the Soundwire, or now the Soundwire Mini. Lots of options in there across a couple different price points, but solid suggestion. 

And then Lucas said, if you're going to splurge, he's going to, he's going to engage his inner dammit Andy and say, having like a nice, like 40. or two in your bag for that, like, I need something really clean and nice to throw in. He's like, if I'm going to splurge on myself, he's like, One or two nice microphones might be the way to go. 

Sean Walker: All right. All right. 

Andy Leviss: So 

Sean Walker: those choices would be based on what kind of shows you're doing, right? Like, 

Andy Leviss: for sure. Yeah. I think like the 40. 99 for like, that's like, I mean, I I'll actually throw out there. Even before you get the 4099, having a kit of all the weird little adapters for the 4099, 

Sean Walker: dude, the clamps for sure, 

Andy Leviss: clamps and the little, the little Velcro one. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Andy Leviss: That's the one that nobody ever has that like, not only is it like, it's the only way to like attach one of those to a flute, but there's so many other things that it's like, how am I gonna, I can just Velcro it around this. 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Um, but I, at this point, I think I've got the full, I think I've even got a set of the accordion attachments like tucked away in, 

Sean Walker: why wouldn't 

Andy Leviss: backpack somewhere. 

Cause again, every once in a while. But yeah, like, there's some kind of nice, like, I know folks who, like, you know, are particular to a nice vocal mic and carry a, you know, upgrade vocal mic option around just for when they need the problem solver. Like, I don't think anybody's coming around to a gig with, like, a 58 in their backpack at this point unless they're particularly attached to one, but Like some, sometimes as if, if you like your earthworks or your DPA or Neuman or, or even a V seven, they're like cheap enough. 

But like not everybody has 'em. So if you're particularly prone to them, certainly an easy thing to throw in the bag so you have it if you need it. 

Uh, what else? Going down the list? Should we go to another audio? Uh. 

Sean Walker: Sure, let's do it. 

Andy Leviss: let's go. So this is Cobi, who, uh, Cobi, C O B I, who, uh, is a regular on the Discord, and I don't think I had actually clocked, uh, that, that Cobi was, was, uh, from the UK, uh, so I learned that listening to this clip, so let's see what Cobi threw in. 

Cobi Isidore: Alrighty, so coming off my little, like, gift idea wishlist. Start off with the, the small gifts for the low cash. I'd go with, honestly, like, a, like small mic packages, like maybe a, a D6 or a 91 or even a couple of 904s, always nice, handy to take onto the road. Um, coming in a bit more expensive. is some rack cases, you know, uh, like I personally would love a little, uh, two banger rack case fit my, um, MacBook, my Mac minis in and draw to fit my, my screens in just for the travel in there. 

You know, probably around like four or 500. Um, they're always good. I think you can always find, like, if you have a 3RU or a 4RU, I think someone will always find something to put in them. Uh, and then I guess, like, the more expensive, I guess, like, on the more, like, cash expensive side, I mean, maybe this is a bit personal, this is a more personal one, but I'm hunting a, I'm hunting a CTI 1500 or a C1500 Surface to pair with my, um, Uh, my DMZero. 

So yeah, fuckin ideally, that'd be nice. And then, for the like, super expensive... 

Andy Leviss: I think he cut off, he cut off there, he timed out of the recording. So, although, although it's funny, because it's interesting seeing what different people's scales for, like, cheap versus super expensive is, because Sean's making that, like, I don't know, that CTI was pretty super expensive. 

Sean Walker: I mean, you know, he's on the same page I am, I guess. That's, that's expensive for a lot of people. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and so clearly like Cobi sounds like he's doing like more like fly dates and that kind of like music mixing So like I'm digging those and well Cobi,  didn't realize till just now that like the message truncated before you got to your last selection. So definitely pop in the discord at least and let us know what your splurge was! 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Good ideas, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, uh, let's see going down the list. 

Uh, so we had, we got a couple things thrown in from Eric, uh, better known to folks on the Discord as Cable Evangelist. Uh, if you ever want to get into a deep, uh, explanation of why StarQuad is a fucking nightmare, Eric is your dude. 

Sean Walker: I do. Can you, can you tell me, can you enlighten me right now? 

Andy Leviss: I mean the, 

Sean Walker: Can you give me the short version? 

Andy Leviss: I mean the short version is that, so StarQuad for those that don't know, it's, it's got quad four, there's four conductors instead of two conductors in the cable and basically each conductor is itself a twisted pair that are then twisted around each other and it's, if it's in perfect working order, You get a little bit of extra noise reduction, although because of that, those extra cables and twists, they basically become a capacitor, so the longer the cable gets, you can start having capacitance issues, fucking with your tone a little bit. 

You've got to get really long for that to be an issue, but it's still a thing to be aware of. The other issue that Eric points out all the time when it comes up on the Discord is that if one of those two conductors on like pin breaks, Your cable checker is still going to show that cable is good, but your noise rejection has now gone totally to shit, because the way noise rejection works is that you've got the same impedance, the same resistance on pins 2 and 3, opposite, signal moving opposite directions, so when the noise hits the cable, it goes the same amount into both of those cables, When they get added back together, signal is opposite polarity, so signal stays big, noise is the same polarity, add them together inverted, noise cancels out. 

So, in a starquad, one of those cables breaks, suddenly the impedance of that side is half roughly of what the other side is. And suddenly it's not offering that noise rejection anymore and it's worse than a regular cable. And there's no way to know other than, fuck, where is that noise coming from? 

Because you can't test it unless you're, like, measuring the impedance of every cable, which none of us are doing. 

Sean Walker: No. 

Andy Leviss: And really none of us ought to be doing that. Like, some rental 

Sean Walker: testing all to make sure they're good, but that doesn't help in that scenario, you said. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, yeah, because it's still, like, the other, the other conductor is still Like, conducting. So, yeah, your continuity test, your Rat Sniffer, your Swiss Army, whatever, is still going to show you that it's good. 

Not so good. 

Sean Walker: Not so good. All 

Andy Leviss: but yeah, so that's where Eric has gotten the nickname on the Discord of Cable Evangelist. Um, 

Sean Walker: Copy that. 

Andy Leviss: and Eric suggested, I didn't know this, um, uh, Wera, the, the company that makes like fancy screwdrivers and, and wrenches and stuff, they teamed up with Sennheiser and offer a Sennheiser branded, uh, like, you know, multi bit screwdriver set. 

The Sennheiser 581036 Kartform Kompakt 28 screwdriver set. 

Sean Walker: That sounds like Sennheiser shit. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's some very German sounding. I mean, the Germans make good screws. I was going to say 

Sean Walker: Ze will be no mistakes. That's 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's like a six in one or eight in one screwdriver set. Um, it, and it's got the Sennheiser logo on it, which is pretty cool. Um, the one that I, yeah, I carry around running from Wiha, which is a similar sounding often confused. 

Precision German Screwdriver Company, and they make one, the 14 piece UltraDriver 26 in 1 Technician Bit Holder Set, which again, it's like, these are 

Sean Walker: Damn, that's a mouthful. 

Andy Leviss: it is, that's what she said. Um, it's a 

Sean Walker: believe you're the one that went there. 

Andy Leviss: I, you know, every once in a while. Um, so, 

Sean Walker: thought I'd be the one getting us fired for something like 

Andy Leviss: yeah, you know, it's, it's, we gotta, we gotta balance out the HR scale every once in a while. 

Sean Walker: Like it. 

Andy Leviss: Um, so, but I mean, and these are both like versions of that, like the, you know, the multi bit, like with a bunch of bits in the handle or whatever that you can swap into the screwdriver, like most people know the Klein, like 10 uh, the WeHow one that I like, it's 20, it's 26 different bit sizes. So it's a, it's a 14 piece. 

One piece is the screwdriver and then 13 bits. And it's got a little, like you pop the handle and a little like double to your carousel pops out of the top of the handle with all the bits in it. Like, and you pull out the bit you want, swap it in the tip. So that's the one I've been through a bunch over the years and that's the one I've settled on. 

Like I said, there's a little smaller, lighter would be that Sennheiser one from Eric, doesn't have quite as many bits, but same idea. Um, and then while we're on the subject of screwdriver shaped tools, uh, Cameron Trasek, I think I'm pronouncing that right, yell at me on Discord if I'm not Cameron, uh, our, our friend from up north in Canada, uh, BNC extraction tool, which are, are you familiar with these Sean? 

Sean Walker: Cause I don't do fucking video, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: But, eh, some, well, and you don't, you don't do DiGiCo and you don't do much with WordClock. 

Sean Walker: I mean, I do a lot with word clock in the studio, but not, not live. And I, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't have to mess with the Maddy snakes too much, which is, which is nice, but that would be handy. Get your little, you don't have to get your fingers in between all the little Maddy connections on a, on a Maddy snake. 

That'd be super handy if you were, you know, messing with that sort of thing. Although didn't they all go to, uh, well, I guess they didn't all go to cat now. Right. But DiGiCo's now got their cat Maddy over cat solution. So you, you can not have to get your fingers in all the little Maddy snakes. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, they've all been, they've all been finally starting that way, but it's still kicking around, there's still, like, I've, I've definitely, I'm trying to think if I've, I know I've used BNC on a, on a gig, well, I mean, yeah, there's still enough of the, enough of the, like, SDs and stuff that, that use them. 

Anyway, 

Sean Walker: There was a few, I don't know if anybody else like, you know, sits on a reverb and thumbs like they probably shouldn't and spends too much money there, but there's been a few of those SD racks that are like Maddie only that are cheap now, and I was like, oh man, you know, like that wouldn't be, that wouldn't be half bad, like one of those little, little service to go with it, like you can get them pretty, pretty fairly priced, you 

Andy Leviss: yeah, and the, I mean, there's still some, like, Uh, like there's still like some, uh, like SoundCraft VIs kicking around in various places and those use a lot of MADI. Um, 

Sean Walker: those of you still on profiles, 

Andy Leviss: yeah, or like the, um, the RME DigiFace Dante is, acts as a Dante to MADI converter and that's the trick with that to getting, like doubling the channel count of Dante into your computer is you have one of them connected up to the computer and the other one you just power off a USB wall wart and connect them together with a pair of BNCs and And, it'll like, when it powers up not connected to a computer, it automatically comes up in converter mode. 

And we'll convert 64 channels of Dante to Matty and 64 channels of Matty back to Dante. So, 

Sean Walker: sweet, 

Andy Leviss: when you've got those, and when you've got, uh, whether for video or Matty or whatever, BNC stuck in a tight spot on a rack, BNC extraction tools are like a 10 or 20 thing, you can get them on Monoprice, Amazon, wherever. 

Looks like a screwdriver with like a really long shaft on it and the end is a little C shaped collar that literally you just pop it over the cable and you stick the thing in and it grabs the back of the BNC connector and you can twist it. And pull it back out. So you don't have to sit there trying to get like two little tiny fingers into the back of a rack. 

Sean Walker: that seems like required tools for all DiGiCo users. 

Andy Leviss: Oh yeah. I actually, I have one in, in my go box that a, a friend made, uh, I was touring through Chicago and it's a, it's a running gag that in, in the Chicago IOTC venues, the house head is always named Mike, there's a Mike Kras, Mike Mix, uh, Mike Hack. Um, and, uh, and when I played the Cadillac Palace there a bunch of years ago, uh, Mike Kras was there. 

It was the house head. We were there for like two or three weeks and he took great care of me and at one point I was like just cursing up a storm trying to like deal with BNCs in the back of our SD7 and I finally was like, I wish I could just get a BNC tool that would actually fit in this doghouse without opening the door, like in the little like seven inches of space you have there. 

And Kras was like, well, how long does it need to be and can you get a longer one here in the next couple of days? And I said, yeah, he's like, yeah. I got a little wood shop in my office I'll take care of you and he made me this like walnut pistol grip BNC extractor tool that is exactly the right size to fit in a closed SD7 doghouse with enough wiggle room. 

to get a connector on or off. 

Sean Walker: That's frickin awesome. What a champion, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, that is, that is one of my favorite gifts I've ever gotten from a house local. 

Sean Walker: So obviously you bought him a bottle of something nice. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, they took good care of us. That was also where I learned the lesson that when you've got a dozen things on a show you've taken over that you wanna fix and you've got one 4 hour work call to do some stuff on it, the best thing you can do as a touring crew is go to your locals and say, Hey. 

You loaded this in a week ago. We've got four hours to fix one or two things that would make your life easier. You can see how long my list is. Which things would have made your life easier for us to prioritize? And they will love you forever. And they will fix the shit out of it. 

Sean Walker: All right. 

Andy Leviss: what those guys in Chicago did. 

Sean Walker: All right. There you go. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, okay. Going back down the lists. Um, we've got one more audio contribution, but I'm saving that one for the end. Uh, Eric, Screwdrivers, Cameron, uh, Tim Verhoeven, who also on Discord reached out. Um, like I said, he was another one who mentioned the SoundBullet and the SoundWire. Uh, he also threw out the SE V7 push to talk model, which came out this year. 

So some people love the SE V7 as a vocal mic, some hate it. Um, one thing folks really like about it is it does make a solid quiet talkback mic, similar, like the Sennheiser 835 is the other one that's got a nice little quiet switch, because bless the SM58 switch's heart, it goes every time you turn the damn thing on. Am I wrong? 

Sean Walker: No, not at all. No, I don't think it sounds like a fuckin truck hit it. You go, 

Andy Leviss: So, yeah, so a couple brands have sorted that out and sE, finally, like, enough people asked that they started making one that instead of having a slidey switch has a push to talk on the side of it, which is a pretty solid. 

Sean Walker: Dammit. 

Andy Leviss: And then the other, you know, 

Sean Walker: microphone for years, but a push to talk might make it make 

Andy Leviss: Right, right. And then the other, the other suggestion Tim had, which was awesome, going down to like stocking, stocking stuffer level. Wow. 

Sean Walker: Backup. Mulligan. Mulligan. 

Andy Leviss: Stocking stuffer level is, is one or two pairs of good work gloves, uh, both like the fine work kind of mechanic ones that like have like the thumb and index finger have, you know, the fingers like, Cut off or they're manufactured without them so you can still twiddle a knob but have the rest of your hand protected as well as like a beefier pair for when you're pushing boxes. 

Um, I had asked if he had any particular brands he suggested 

Sean Walker: White. 

Andy Leviss: or white gloves if that's, if you're Sean. Look, it's, it's good to be the king. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Ooh, I don't know if I'd go that far, but don't know if I'd go that far. 

Andy Leviss: the clown prince. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, there you go. Right? Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, 

Sean Walker: that's what I'm gonna let everybody believe until I take over the world. 

Andy Leviss: um, oh, you're one of those. Um, all throughout, I don't know if they're an international brand. US, I've lately gone over to Mechanics where they seem to be like a solid brand of like, they're well designed. They've got like the little like knuckle buster protector things on the back, but they're not horrendously expensive. 

You can find them online. You can often find them in like auto parts stores because they are sold to Mechanics. Like they're pretty to get their hands on. Um, But yeah, Tim was like, like didn't have a particular brand other than like mechanics, uh, gloves in general. Um, and then, and then we get to the Damon Handy section of the list. Uh, 

Sean Walker: all day, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, well, we already, we already talked about the Whirlwind Isopod or the Sandwire Mini, which is literally hot off the presses this morning, um, getting up into like the couple hundred dollar range, there's a bunch, if you're doing RF, we've talked before, the Tiny SA Ultra is the jammy for a little RF analyzer. 

Sean Walker: I got that. You turned me on to that. That thing is fucking awesome. 

Andy Leviss: Right? And it's like, I think it's even cheaper than the RF Explorer is, and it's better. 

Sean Walker: And it has customer service. 

Andy Leviss: Crazy talk. 

Sean Walker: Full stop. 

Andy Leviss: You mean not just a Google group with, with varying degrees of cranky people? 

Sean Walker: Dude, those guys are within 30 miles of me and they, you can't get the fucking time of day. 

Andy Leviss: Nice. Nice. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: storm down there and kick in the door and be like, Listen here, motherfuckers. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: We're gonna get some customer service whether you like it or not, or you can keep this fucking 

Andy Leviss: I mean, to its credit, the RF Explorer was like the first like affordable tool that did kind of part of what we need. It's, it's technology and pricing has come past that now. And it was developed by a guy who had knew it. He wasn't in our industry at all. It was like a hobbyist thing for people who did like all sorts of shit with RF and like RF planes and stuff. 

And I don't think he ever saw it being, you know, Falling into the R market that he did. 

Sean Walker: No, the device works okay. It's if you want to try to tie it into your freaking computer and have any kind of software support and actually utilize the thing that it's just a nightmare. The RF Explorer itself works fine ish. 

Andy Leviss: it's the ish. It depends on the model, because some of the models tend to like, they can, they can overload a little easily and desensitize and you have no idea of knowing that's happening until you just get hit by something that you didn't see. 

Sean Walker: True. But if you were the other 85 percent of people listening to this, that's a shitload better than nothing. 

Andy Leviss: It is absolutely better than nothing. It's definitely, but at this point with the tiny essay around, like, it's just, there's no, there's no, Yeah, there's no contest there. Um, uh, 

Sean Walker: TinySA integrate with that, uh, software platform that you're digging right now? 

Andy Leviss: SoundBase. Yes, it does. And we're actually, I'm circling back. They're finally at Matt and Donny are at a point we're going to have them on the show soon, finally. Um, and, and dig 

Sean Walker: God. Finally, somebody can explain to me how to use it so I can, you know, use it. 

Andy Leviss: I quoted you my day rate. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah. Totally. I was like, Oh man, I can't afford that. 

Andy Leviss: Um, 

Sean Walker: afford those rates. 

Andy Leviss: um, yeah, it's, you can, with the free version online, you can, you can save them either, like, directly off the thing on the SD card, or there's a couple of open source, like, Windows and Mac software that'll convert it to a pretty CSV for you a little easier that you can import, or if you're coughing up the bucks for SoundBase Pro, which is the offline and has live scans, that is the currently supported solution for live scans in it. 

is the TinySA, TinySA Ultra. 

Sean Walker: How much is the pro version? 

Andy Leviss: it's, I'm trying to remember, it's, it's not cheap right now. It's an annual subscription. 

Sean Walker: Is it like a hundred bucks or 500 bucks or a thousand 

Andy Leviss: to say it's around 300 or 500. Hold on, let me, let me pull it up. We're, we've got the internet here in real time. Let's go to sound base 

Sean Walker: I mean, if we're going full, damn it, Andy, dude, let's just go, damn 

Andy Leviss: mean, upgrade your account. 

Uh, 3. 99 a year right now for individuals. Uh, and if you reach out to them, they'll quote for businesses where they can like, you can have multiple users and kind of say, Hey, this is my crew working today. Here's, here's a license for you to use for this gig and that sort of thing. I know they've said, and we'll talk to them about it when we have them on. 

They're talking about doing a shorter term, like where if you only need it for a month or whatever, you can do it for cheaper. They just right now. Again, they'll, they can explain it a little better, but I think the idea was they want to be able to offer these tools to the pros who really need it, but they, they kind of intentionally started with the most expensive options so that like the folks who like don't necessarily need it don't like while they're, while they're working 

Sean Walker: not drowning in support for people that don't really need it before they're up and running with all the people that really need it. 

Andy Leviss: Exactly, and that way they make sure, and like they've been so great about like adding in features and stuff for people on the way that it kind of, it's, the price acts as a little bit of a, sort of a gate right now to, to, yeah, to keep the floodgates from coming to open, but they know that that is cost prohibitive for some folks and it's, it's definitely on the roadmap to have some, some less expensive or less all inclusive options for it and we'll talk to them about that hopefully in a few weeks. 

Sean Walker: Nice. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, yeah, so TinySA, yeah, oh, go ahead. 

Sean Walker: No, that was it. I was going to say, what's next? 

Andy Leviss: Uh, What's Next, I'll tell you what, that is a reference that nobody but like certain people at a certain period of New York will get. But if there's anybody here who got the What's Next, I'll tell you what's next. I, I love you and, and message me and I'll, I'll text you. Send you like a lav bullet or something. 

Um, so yeah, now that we're like in that kind of like 200, 300 ish price range. So it's Black Friday. I'm always going to say Nanuk cases always go on sale around now. They're like both directly from them through Amazon. If. If you're okay with B& H, B& H, um, these, and for those who aren't familiar, they're a Canadian brand of Pelican style cases that a number of us have switched to because out of the box, they have slightly better wheels than a Pelican. 

Uh, they 

Sean Walker: That's not a high bar. 

Andy Leviss: uh, yeah, yeah. 

Sean Walker: I fricking love my Peli, but that's not a high bar, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Well, dude, I mean, next time I come, I'll at least, like, I'll show you, I'll send you the parts to order to upgrade them to like inline skate. There we go. That's a, if you 

Sean Walker: Inline skate wheels for your Peli. Done. 

Andy Leviss: there we go. That, that is the, it 

Sean Walker: Put it in the show notes, put 

Andy Leviss: 10 or 20 bucks. It's the first time you do it, it'll take about 15 minutes to do, and once you've done it, it's like 5 or 6 minutes to swap them out on a 

Sean Walker: Nope, that's going in the show notes. That's the link. 

Andy Leviss: It is the 

Sean Walker: The parts to turn your 1510 into freaking roller skate, roller blade wheels. I want the ones that light up so I can like, have my 

Andy Leviss: the little 

Sean Walker: while I'm driving. Just the whole way. 

Andy Leviss: Um, because the stickers don't get you enough attention in the airport. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Um, the, the, the other, 

Sean Walker: flying through the airport with a U87 one time going to cut vocals. 

They were like, what is that? I was like, it's a microphone. They're like, can you show me how it works? Nope. Sure. Can't. Like, okay. 

Andy Leviss: try an Earthworks. They look like mini missiles 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: and the new ones just have fence on the side that doesn't make it any better. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. 

Andy Leviss: Um, actually no, the new design actually does look slightly less like a weapon. So I appreciate that. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. And they sound good. They're dope. Oh, 

Andy Leviss: yeah, no, they're, they're solid. Um, but the other things about Nanuk cases that I like, which are the reason I've gone from the Pelican 935 is they have these claw style latches that won't break if you check them as luggage. 

Sean Walker: snap. 

Andy Leviss: Because I think we've, we've talked about that. I mean, one of our first episodes, we, we talked about the, you know, if you have a Pelican 1510, it's not a matter of if the latches are going to break, it's a matter of everybody's had it happen. We all learned to zip tie the latches on those. 

Sean Walker: correct. Until the TSA cuts them up and then you're fucked anyway. 

Andy Leviss: I always put, yeah, back when I had a 1510, I would always put a bunch of them brightly colored with a really nice note to please replace the zip tie after you open it, and nine times out of ten it worked. 

Um, but yeah, the Nanuk 

Sean Walker: where it's scattered all across LaGuardia and you're like, Son of a bitch! 

Andy Leviss: which was weird because I flew out of JFK that time, but 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

Andy Leviss: but the Nanuk latches are fucking awesome. Um, the other thing, 

Sean Walker: are on sale? So I gotta go buy a dozen of those fucking things? Thanks a lot, dude. Now 

Andy Leviss: they're all, 

Sean Walker: Hey, where's the 935s, bud? 

Andy Leviss: yeah, the other pro tip I'll say is always, even if you want them empty, look at the different options, because every once in a while on like Amazon or B& H or wherever, like, the one with foam will end up on sale cheaper than the empty one, like just try all the options, try all the colors, it's, even when they're all on sale, every once in a while there's a combination that's like 30 bucks cheaper than all the other ones, and like grab it and recycle the foam. Um, And the other thing I love about the Nattox is the telescoping handle, it's got a little thumb release on the handle, so you can, pfft, it out one handed instead of having to sit there with the stupid tab on the, 

Sean Walker: I don't know if tab the thinger. 

Andy Leviss: And it locks 

Sean Walker: be a pro finger tabber, bro. Pro finger tabber. I don't have to do that anymore. 

Andy Leviss: what do you do in your own time? 

Sean Walker: Finger tabber. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The old finger tabber, bro. 

Andy Leviss: that's how he has 

Sean Walker: out of the 1510. Okay. Are you trying to convert me right now? Am I getting converted? 

Andy Leviss: I mean, 

Sean Walker: we just become best friends? 

What's happening right now? 

Andy Leviss: and, and it, it, it also locks halfway as a, and fully, which is nice. Cause like if you've got two of them, you can extend one halfway and kind of piggyback it on top of the other one, which is nice. 

Sean Walker: bro. 

Andy Leviss: I sometimes half measures are good. 

Sean Walker: full mast only 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, okay. Go and download. Let's fire down the list. Cause we're, we're, I was like, Oh, how are we going to fill half an hour? We're suddenly like fully on an hour here. Um, Uh, going down the list, um, if you do in ears at all and you've already got a measurement mic, uh, the Mimi adapter to measure in ears, it's like 2. 

90 bucks, uh, from, uh, our good friend Denny Miller, MillerAI. com, um, that's a handy little, little inexpensive way to measure in ears with that. While you're there, Denny seems to be the one person right now who has iSemcom SC1 calibrators in stock. If you're not calibrating your measurement mic and you're measuring SPL, you're not really measuring SPL. 

Sean Walker: We're 

Andy Leviss: Um, and the sE one seems to be like the sweet spot of budget and reliability, but they're really hard at like Rational is sold out of them right now. Um, I've looked literally right before we recorded this and Denny's got the quarter inch, uh, Converter version, uh, which is what fits the iSemcom microphones. 

He's got in stock the other sizes. He doesn't right now, but, um, there's that. Um, let's see. Also in that 200 range, 

Sean Walker: his ass. Like, yo, man, I'm gonna do this. 

Andy Leviss: um, in that same like mid 200 range, uh, if you need a new labeler, P Touch, um, the E550W is the cool one that I've talked about before that does like the half cutting into a shrink tube. They've actually upgraded the models now. So it's the E510VP. And the E560BT are the two models. Um, one of them is like 210. 

One's 240. As far as I can tell, the key difference is one of them having Bluetooth. So you can print from like the app on your phone to it. And one, you can only print directly or over USB. Um, 

Sean Walker: I will say If you want to be a fucking gangster, A2, bring a label maker. 

Andy Leviss: yeah. And if, if you get one, and one of those ones that can connect with USB to the computer, There are some like cool tricks you can do to like pull in a spreadsheet or like a list of like all your presenters and just spit out a string of nicely formatted labels with that. We've talked about it in the Discord. 

I'll try and find a link to my little like proof of concept I did, um, 

Sean Walker: want to come work for me and you want a 50 bump in your day rate, bring a fucking label maker, a lav bullet and a fricking lav magnet. And you're in 

Andy Leviss: Sold. 

Sean Walker: fucking pro as shit. No, no more like E tape scribbles, Sharpie strips on the packs and the handles, like, you know what I mean? You're looking pro as shit. 

You get a fricking bump in your rate and called at the top of the list. 

Andy Leviss: right on. Um, and then the last, the splurging one I'll do for the SEs out there. It has been a long time coming through almost the entire pandemic. My Pro Wireless are back in stock at Rational, 

Sean Walker: Whoop whoop. 

Andy Leviss: which, uh, for those that don't know, they're, they're inexpensive, uh, wireless mics that are like plug on transmitters and like quad receivers that are solidly flat for, uh, measurement use. They're, look, if you want the best of the best, buy Electrosonics, made in America. Very expensive, rock fricking solid. 

But if you're just trying to put together like a multi channel measurement rig quick and cheap, my pro is like a solid way to look. They've got, uh, you know, like a, a regular like UHF model line, that's, that's pretty solid. They also have a 2. 8 gigahertz line or sorry, a 5. 8 gigahertz line that. Like, the range, depending on which antennas you have on it, isn't quite the same range as UHF, but the real nice thing is you don't have to coordinate them with the RF. 

So if you're the SE, somebody else is dealing with RF, if you've got that like 5. 8 gig one and it'll cover the range you need. You can like pop four channels and you don't have to bother the RF folks at all, they don't care. Which, that's what I have in my measurement kit, cause 

Sean Walker: handy, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, because I've been on both sides of that coin and I like not having to worry about it when I don't have to worry about it. 

And like you get, you got a couple of like high gain boost antennas on there and they're pretty solid and it's like, it's not cheap. Like you're looking for like a four channel setup. You're talking like probably about 3000 or so, but that's close to what you would pay for like one channel of electrosonics. 

So, 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, um, the UHF, the one thing, 

Sean Walker: an upgrade. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, and the one thing the UHF version has that the 5. 8 gig version doesn't is the UHF version is Dante out, which is an extra little nice thing there. Yeah, it's, it's a hard call which one to buy of those two. Um, right? That's, I know how to turn you on. Um, the, the other note I had on, on my note before we go to the last audio contribution is, uh, if there's any plugins you want anywhere, every plugin in the fucking world is on sale because it's Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. 

Andy Leviss: So, I mean, we're, 

Sean Walker: Okay. For us, old motherfuckers, what is Cyber Monday? It's like a carryover of Black Friday for those that just have software. Just like, yo dog, we didn't get enough 

Andy Leviss: like, or like online sales. Yeah, yeah, I mean, then it turns into two weeks. It's all, it's all made up. It's, it's, the who's line isn't anywhere of sales titles. 

Sean Walker: So basically the second half of November, all the way through December is I'm going to get that money. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, it's the holiday grab. Um, but yeah, I guess if, if you've got a sound engineer friend who you don't know what to buy, like, get them a Plugin Alliance, uh, gift certificate and let them go to town on the, on the Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, and then last but not least, we've got, this is actually a multi part contribution from good friend and very recent podcast guest, Brian Maddox. 

So, uh, we'll, we'll start it off. 

Brian Maddox (singing and playing guitar to the tune of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"):

I'm dreaming of a sound bullet. 

I think my cue box has to go. 

Cause I won't need a cable. 

The tone stays stable, 

Although the speaker's kinda low 

Andy Leviss: I wish you could all see Sean's face right now 

Sean Walker: I'm dying, dude, this is awesome. 

Brian Maddox (continues singing):

And maybe add a Sound Wire

to match that perfect shade of blue 

Sean Walker: this Brian singing? 

Andy Leviss: And playing! 

Sean Walker: Fuckin good job, Brian! 

Andy Leviss: He even mixed it with a beautiful little reverb on that! 

Brian Maddox (singing):

Yes I know it's pricey, 

But cheap gets dicey, 

And QLab will always hit the Q. 

Sean Walker: performance and 

Brian Maddox (speaking): So all kidding aside, I really love SONICT, I love what they stand for, I love the quality of their products, I like the attention to detail, um, I like that it's a small company focused exclusively on our industry and trying to just make great products for our industry, uh, so yeah, I have a SoundBullet, I have the SoundWire, I got them both Pretty much right when they came out. 

Um, I love them. I use them all the time. I highly recommend them. They're fantastic audio tools. Uh, if that's a little bit rich for your holiday gift buying list, for your favorite audio human, uh, another thing I recommend is the sE Electronics, uh, V7 Switched Microphone, uh, great for a VOG mic, for corporates, great for a shout mic, if you do entertainment or all kinds of just general vocal microphone needs, the switch is quiet, it's got a good handle and good feel to it, um, the windscreen is designed such that it won't roll off a table when you're not looking. 

It's just a, it's just a really good, inexpensive, solid switched microphone. Um, I also have a couple other recommendations for things that I use a lot when I'm traveling. Not really strictly audio things, but one is I've got a little plastic USB powered fan, probably four or five inches square, um, and it really has saved the day for me on countless options. 

opportunities, you know, hotel rooms that, that are warm or, you know, if you have a bus bunk and it's too warm or, you know, even if your workspace, wherever it is you're working is, you know, a little warm or a little stuff, there's stuffy, there's nothing like having just a little bit of moving air on your face to really Really make things a lot more comfortable. 

And usually, I mean, finding the USB power just is easy to find just about anywhere, even if you just had a USB power brick that you carry around. And then my other recommend is, uh, a travel heating pad. And before you say, well, that's cause 

Sean Walker: best gift idea so far. 

Brian Maddox: yes, that's part of it, but. But mostly it's sort of the other end of the spectrum. 

If you are, find yourself in a cold ballroom working long hours or you find yourself, you know, outside in a cold gig, nothing can turn a really miserable day into a very tolerable day quicker than just having a source of heat that you can sit on or put on your back or, you know. Cool. To warm you up a little bit when things are cold. 

Again, probably 15, 20 online, easy to find, nothing special. I'm still running the same one that I think I bought almost 10 years ago. So those are my gift ideas for your favorite audio human on this holiday season. I wish you happy holidays and a happy 

Andy Leviss: most Brian Maddox set of answers I've ever heard, I don't know what is. 

Sean Walker: First, great fuckin performance, Brian, cool voice. Holy shit, 

Andy Leviss: Right. He sent me like three files and I was like, I don't, what? And then I listened to it. I'm just like, this is amazing. I love you, Brian. 

Sean Walker: that's frickin awesome, dude. Also, give me great recommendations, as always. That's cool too, but holy shit, bro! Cool voice! 

Andy Leviss: Right? So, yeah, some great suggestions from Brian to wrap it up, and I mean, if there's one thing I've learned in a year and change of doing this podcast, it's if you can let Brian Maddox wrap up the show, that's never, never a terrible plan. But that said, do you have anything else you want to offer up, Sean, before we, uh, before we send it out? 

Sean Walker: No, man, I just gave everybody raises in a box of Cuban cigars. 

Andy Leviss: There you go. Are we allowed to import Cuban cigars now? 

Sean Walker: Oh, man. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: Cuban, Cuban esque cigar. No, 

Sean Walker: Canadian cigars. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: rectangular. They're 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, box press, box press, box press, yeah, yeah. Well, on that frickin Brian Maddox wonderful performance, We're gonna thank Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio shit for the, this week, and uh, that's the pod, y'all. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Andy Leviss: And then I'm going to let Brian play us out with a bonus 

Sean Walker: Oh, Jesus, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: Absolutely. 

Brian Maddox (singing and playing guitar to the tune of "Silent Night"): 

Silent mic, VOG mic

Yes, sE, you sold me.

That special windscreen that won't let it roll

The red is weird, but perhaps that's the goal. 

My V7 is great, so great

Goodbye to switched 58

Goodbye to my switched 58