305. End Of The Summer Wrap-Up

In Episode 305, Andy and Sean present an end of summer wrap-up, touching on a wide variety of subjects as concert season for a lot of small to mid-size sound companies wind down and corporate season picks up! Andy shares some big news on his new “day gig,” having left the freelance life to work full time doing tech support for a major manufacturer, and he also talks about visiting with Tal from Dark Matter and hearing their DMA-8 in-ear monitors for the first time. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Meanwhile, Sean delivers more great advice on how to make yourself indispensable to local sound companies when trying to get work as a freelancer, including what the hardest role for most sound companies to fill is versus the hardest role to get hired as. Finally, the boys do a quick rundown of some of the latest new and exciting product news from Wisycom, OnStage, Sound Devices, Shure, RTS, and Meyer!

Episode Links:
Movo MIC’D Lav/IEM Mic Weight
Wisycom RF-over-Fiber Box & MTP61 XL Transmitter
On-Stage MS7300 Mic Stand With Flat Base
Sound Devices 8-Series Mixer/Recorders & Astral Wireless
Shure DCA901 Planar Array Microphone
RTS NOMAD Wireless Intercom System
Meyer Sound GEN-1 Technology For Networked Loudspeaker
Episode 305 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 305 - End of Summer Wrap-up

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, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com

RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years.  Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss. With me, as always, the Solid State to my Logic, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, dude?

[00:01:06] Sean Walker: What's up dude?

How are things? How

[00:01:09] Andy Leviss: just, hang in, hanging, um, you know, doing, doing the, the new gig, which I realized we've told folks about on Discord and on Facebook, but we haven't had a chance to mention on the podcast yet,

[00:01:19] Sean Walker: Dude. Tell us about your new gig, bro.

[00:01:21] Andy Leviss: have a new full-time gig, so you know, listeners will know I was, I was, uh, even pimping on here a little bit that I was, you know, with, with the little guy at home was trying to find something a little more steady during the weeks and not do the freelance hustle. 'cause with, you know, a nearly 1-year-old at home dropping things and being like.

Hey honey. Hey, hey dude. Like I'm going to, I'm gonna disappear for five days in a week. Uh, is that okay? You know, kind of sucks. So I was looking to, to study that ad and I'm still doing gigs on like the weekends and like some weekdays and stuff like that. But, uh, I am now, instead of being a certain circle of my friend's, uh, phone a friend for Ravage and other Yamaha consoles, I am now everybody hearing this is phone a friend for Yamaha consoles.

Uh, I'm doing tech support full-time for Yamaha.

[00:02:09] Sean Walker: Dude. Awesome.

[00:02:10] Andy Leviss: Yeah, so

[00:02:11] Sean Walker: That's six. so it's not just me blowing you up on the phone anymore. It's everybody in the

[00:02:14] Andy Leviss: No, it's all the people. Um, yeah, no, I started the end of August and I've been settling in. Um, if any of y'all have reached it, reached out before, you may know, uh, Jeremy or Jonathan and the support team there. So I'm like, alongside the two of them who are.

Awesome, awesome dudes. Uh, and then we've got Ty and Des who are like the first level support folks. I mean, Ty's been there. I was just searching in emails. I have emails as a customer with Ty going back literally to 2006, saved him like I have. I have emails to Ty that no longer exist in Yamaha's support email archives 'cause they changed systems at some point.

Um, so he's awesome. Deza is awesome. And, uh, yeah, then it's, uh, Jonathan, Jeremy and me, you know, hanging out, taking phone calls, emails, uh, dunno exactly what it's gonna look like yet, but we've been talking about and working towards at some point offering a little more like in-person support. So like here in the New York area, if there's folks building shows at shops that maybe need, you know, a little help, uh, sorting out some wrinkles or like if they're used to working on a different branded console, switching to Yamaha.

They could potentially give us a shout and I'll be able to come over and help them. Or like if there's larger shows that, you know, like festival shows where there's artists coming in and you know, not everybody knows the consoles, then you might be able to say like, Hey, can you send Andy? Or like, I imagine Jonathan might do that too.

So like, can you send Jonathan and you know, can they hang with us for the show just to make sure everything goes smoothly? So that'll be cool.

[00:03:40] Sean Walker: Nice dude.

[00:03:42] Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, it's been a great place. Like I'm really happy they're so far a month in, uh, the people are awesome. Um, and, and to that note, actually, folks who are Eagle Eye might have noticed the last couple episodes, a new voice doing the advertiser reads at the top of the episode.

Uh, so we should give a shout out to our man, Sam Clark, who, uh, is part of the. The, eh, publishing ProSoundWeb family. Um, he's not actually new to the podcast. He's the one who does a lot of the publishing end of, uh, things, getting the episodes out and puts together all the show graphics for a while, and he kindly jumped into takeover doing those ad reads for us.

So thanks for that, Sam. We appreciate it.

[00:04:18] Sean Walker: Go, Sam. Go, Sam.

Go. Go. Sam. Go. Sam, go.

[00:04:22] Andy Leviss: Uh, yes. I've been keeping busy with that little bit of vacation. Did you know a little bit of a, a beach trip? And actually I had my first week of work at Yamaha Remote, uh, from a beach house, like right on the Massachusetts, uh, coast, which was kind of cool.

[00:04:36] Sean Walker: It's a rough life. You got there.

Rough

[00:04:37] Andy Leviss: Oh yeah, it was, it was hard coming back, hard coming back to like my regular home office.

[00:04:42] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally.

[00:04:43] Andy Leviss: Um, and then I did, this was my second year doing RF coordination for the, the nine 11 memorial at the, at World Trade Center. So like the big one where they read all the names of everybody and you know, all the speeches and stuff like that.

So did that again this year for Firehouse, which was, I dunno, I'm not gonna say it was like an awesome gig. It's a very somber gig, but you know, it's a good bunch of people working on it. It was good to be back.

[00:05:09] Sean Walker: Totally dude.

[00:05:10] Andy Leviss: and we will see that, you know, that may have been one of my last large freelance gigs for a while, but, you know, like I said, still filling some stuff, uh, in between, uh, the YAMA thing, but it's nice waking up, dropping the kiddo off at daycare and then having a 10 foot commute across the hallway from my bedroom to my office.

[00:05:27] Sean Walker: Nice.

There you go. That's

[00:05:30] Andy Leviss: what have you been up to?

[00:05:31] Sean Walker: Taking over the world brain. What else are we gonna do?

[00:05:33] Andy Leviss: Yeah,

[00:05:37] Sean Walker: Uh, I've been working on buying more companies and, uh, rocking them what we got, dude,

it's been fricking awesome. Yeah, dude. Totally. And uh, you know, it's kind of nice to have something else to obsess on rather than just, you know, whether you snare to him sucks or not, you know what I mean?

[00:05:52] Andy Leviss: It, it does, it does,

[00:05:53] Sean Walker: Yeah,

[00:05:54] Andy Leviss: always does.

[00:05:55] Sean Walker: Totally, dude.

[00:05:56] Andy Leviss: There's like few immutable rules in life. Everybody lies courtesy of dock. Your house, your snare room always sucks.

[00:06:02] Sean Walker: right.

[00:06:03] Andy Leviss: Um, and inevitably, rather than writing to tech support, somebody will post a question online on a Facebook group and get eight wrong answers in the time they could have gotten one correct answer by writing to tech support.

Sorry, that's been my thing. I've been beating, beating the drum on this

[00:06:19] Sean Walker: Except that not all tech support is created equal.

[00:06:23] Andy Leviss: That is fair.

[00:06:23] Sean Walker: If, if you are a, um, you are a user of the world's most popular DAW, you are used to sending to tech support, getting an invoice. Then 10 years later getting solutions that may or may not work for your problem. So

it's, it's not al it's it's not always as like, Hey dude, here's your, here's your dude and here's your answer in four minutes flat.

You know what I mean?

[00:06:50] Andy Leviss: Yeah. No, that, that's fair. That's fair. But, um, there's a, there's a lot like, I mean, obviously I can speak directly to Yamaha and used to work for figure 53 doing key lab support. Um, like our friends at Rational Acoustics was smart or like awesome with tech support. And it was a couple of those. It was a couple, I saw a couple posts online about Yamaha stuff that, like, I reached out to folks and I was like, Hey, shoot us an email.

We'll take care of you right away. Um, and, and somebody on like one of the rational forums who had posted with a weird problem and immediately somebody from support was like, Hey, reach out to us, we can help with this. And then, you know, and he was asking like, oh, is anybody else having this problem? And like three days later nobody else had commented on it except for support saying, Hey, reach out to us, we can help.

And then he just like passive aggressively responded back, oh, I guess it's just me. Then I'll just uninstall it and reinstall it myself. 'cause I'm sure that's the only thing support could tell me to do. And it was like, well, or you could reach out to them and see what they say. So that, that kinda started my little, my little, let me get out my drum and go boom, boom, boom to everybody all weekend.

[00:07:56] Sean Walker: All right. Making

the boom boom again. I see. All right. Cool. Yeah. All

[00:08:00] Andy Leviss: boom, boom room. Wait, that's a different thing. Uh,

[00:08:04] Sean Walker: one of those in New York, right?

[00:08:06] Andy Leviss: I probably, I have no idea.

[00:08:08] Sean Walker: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:12] Andy Leviss: Um,

[00:08:13] Sean Walker: Miss, since Mrs. Leviss listens to this show, we won't,

[00:08:16] Andy Leviss: Ooh, MI Ms. Foretek, that's sweet up.

[00:08:19] Sean Walker: Oh, sorry, dog.

Sorry, ma'am.

[00:08:21] Andy Leviss: All good. Um. Uh, I don't, you know what we should do? We haven't done it in a long time. It says we're doing just so for folks who haven't caught on, we're just kind of hanging without a guest today. We figured it was a good chance to do a like kind of end of summer or start a fall wrap up and just catch up with folks and hit a little grab bag of topics.

So on that note, maybe it's time for a round of what's the coolest thing in arm's reach or ears reach if you prefer.

[00:08:49] Sean Walker: I would say a box of Log Ale. 1936 box press cigars is the closest thing

within arm's

[00:08:55] Andy Leviss: See, I thought, I thought you were gonna go for these. I

[00:08:58] Sean Walker: Oh, those are on. I guess those are, I guess those are on, dude, I got the DMA

sixes on. They're sick,

[00:09:03] Andy Leviss: Sean got his in ears back in. He had, he'd had to send him out for repair

[00:09:07] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Literally the best setting thing I've ever put in my ears. Holy crap.

[00:09:12] Andy Leviss: I

[00:09:13] Sean Walker: and.

you got to test the eights, right? How were

[00:09:16] Andy Leviss: I did. So I actually, um, tall who we had on the show was, was in the area, uh, the last week. Uh, 'cause he's out on tour with Roseanne Cash right now.

[00:09:25] Sean Walker: cool.

[00:09:25] Andy Leviss: And, uh, and, uh, yeah, we, we caught a quick bite together over the weekend while I was working in the city and he had a demo kit, so the, the DMA eights, the eight driver ones that they had not had demos of when we first, when they first launched at Nam.

'cause they had focused on the other three models. Uh, I got to listen to those, which was pretty cool. The, they are, so basically take these and just double up the base drivers, so you have, uh, I guess four instead of two. And he said, he's said in reality, the way they're tuned, it's about a, I think tall side.

It's about a three DB base boost at the low end. So a little more haystack. Um, and they're, they got some punch, man. They are, they're fun to listen to. That's the way I say if I were buying just for like the fun of listening. I would probably buy those 'cause they just rock a little more in that low end.

Like there's some of the, like I have a separate system check, uh, playlist I use. That's just stuff that I know has a lot of sub base from what I really wanna see what the subs are doing. And like, it did really well on some of those tracks that like, I don't expect years to do super well on, particularly ones without dynamic drivers.

Um, it is, it's definitely a little too basey to be mixing on, like the sixes are the way to go, I think for like most of us. But for like a bassist or a drummer, they'd be. Slamming.

[00:10:43] Sean Walker: Dope, dude.

Dope. I, I got mine. Finally get to listen to music and I freaked out, bro. I just sat here and listened to record after record after record. Like these things

are stunning. Stunning, bro.

[00:10:56] Andy Leviss: Yeah, no, I'm, I'm really happy. And we're not just saying that 'cause they're now friends, like they're, they're friends because we loved what they made. When we heard 'em it we're like, dude, you guys are doing cool shit.

[00:11:05] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, if the product wasn't good, I'd have blown his ass off

fucking months ago.

[00:11:09] Andy Leviss: Um.

[00:11:10] Sean Walker: I've just kidding, buddy. I'm just kidding.

[00:11:12] Andy Leviss: Yeah, well on the inner front, I was gonna say the coolest thing I have in arm's reach is this little mo, mic D micd, MIC, apostrophe D uh, weight. So those of you who do corporate gigs may know the lo bullet, not to be confused with a sound bullet. The lo bullet is a little bullet shaped thing with an adapter on the back that clips to the end of microphone cable, so that when you have to drop it down somebody's shirt, there's a weight to.

Connector right down so that you're not sitting there and having to like, reach up the back of somebody's sugar jacket. Um, those are awesome. They were shaped like a bullet because A, they thought it was cool and B, the pointy bit on the end makes it go through, you know, layers of clothing a little easier.

They then realized that.

[00:11:51] Sean Walker: TSA has a field there with that.

[00:11:53] Andy Leviss: Exactly. They're like, well, the film folks that don't have to travel think it's great. But those of us who do corporate events and use them, we're like, could you make something that doesn't make four TSA guys suddenly surround me at the airport every time I go through.

So they came out with what they call the mic drop, which almost looks like a little pendant of a SM 58 or something with the thing, the same adapter on the back. Um, but then this is a third party, one that works a little different. Um, it's a little, it's, it looks tiny, but it like, it's like an. Inch and a quarter inch and a half long.

Um, and it's pretty hefty, but this is made to not only work with LOBs, it'll also work with in ears. So it's just got like a little, like you guys can't see at home, but Chung can see. It's got a little slot, like a channel in it,

[00:12:32] Sean Walker: it, is like a half a double a battery with a slot in the side.

[00:12:35] Andy Leviss: And then there's like a, a thing on the side. So it goes in and it'll catch on the back of the connector and you can drop it down.

And we all, we collectively found this in the Discord, or somebody pointed out a while ago, 'cause I wanna say it was Nate was, uh, was looking for something to like help drop his in ears down or help his artists get their inners threaded under their shirt and. In theory you could, I think there's an eighth inch adapter or used with like Sennheiser or whatever for the, the la of bullet or the mic drop.

But it's, it's a little, little shaky, especially on like a right angle connector. And this like pops on the back of the right angle connector on most inners really easily. So it's been living in my, in my inner case over here lately and it's like a $14 little handy thing to have around anytime you're using it in ears.

[00:13:19] Sean Walker: That's dope, dude.

[00:13:21] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I am gonna make a big obnoxiously bright post-it note to add that to the show notes. Add a link to that.

[00:13:26] Sean Walker: Heck yeah,

[00:13:27] Andy Leviss: Uh,

[00:13:28] Sean Walker: Is it, is it too early to mention that? I've actually never looked at the show notes to follow those links to get all the cool shit you link in there.

[00:13:34] Andy Leviss: Uh,

[00:13:35] Sean Walker: for other people. I don't.

[00:13:36] Andy Leviss: yeah, when, when I remembered it, there's somewhere I gotta make a list of all the stuff I said I was gonna put in show notes and then realized after we published it that I forgot to actually put in the show notes.

[00:13:47] Sean Walker: I wonder, I.

wonder each week, how many people go to the show notes and just go, Andy, you son of a bitch.

[00:13:51] Andy Leviss: I mean, nobody emails, so they clearly, they're not that angry. If you do catch something I said I was gonna link, or that I should have linked in the show notes, by the way, and I don't put them in Andy at ProSoundWeb dot com, let me know. I am happy to, to send folks links that I forget. We can update show notes.

That gets a little, if you've already downloaded it, you'd have to redownload it to get the new notes. But you know, we're, we're always happy to do that. Um. I add another note on that front, but I can't think of what it was. Um, but what else? Have you been updated? So I, I was talking, I did nine 11 and all that stuff.

Uh, what, what's, what's new in strong world other than trying to take over the world?

[00:14:28] Sean Walker: We, uh, you know, we did our, our boats on boats, on boats gigs. We had like, you know. Boat gigs on boats, gigs called boats. You know, I don't know. I dunno. I dunno why we're the boat company, but you know, it is. And that was cool, man. We had our, we had our homie Ryan out come rock that with us

this year. That was super fun. Yeah, dude, it's good to, good to hang and rock a show and you know, client stoked. We're stoked. We're stoked. We had fun. Talked some nonsense, had some coffee. You know how you do.

[00:14:55] Andy Leviss: Yeah,

[00:14:56] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, it was good.

It was super

[00:14:58] Andy Leviss: awesome.

[00:14:59] Sean Walker: Yeah,

[00:14:59] Andy Leviss: you're doing well enough if you can afford Ryan, so

[00:15:02] Sean Walker: There you go. See?

Sweet. Yeehaw

go. Me.

[00:15:06] Andy Leviss: the, you get the friends and family rate from Ryan.

[00:15:09] Sean Walker: No, no. I, I mean, no, no, I don't, I don't, I don't roll like that.

I try to pay people what

they're worth and, and you know, if you're gonna fly somebody across the country, you just pay 'em what they're worth and sort it out. You know what I mean?

[00:15:21] Andy Leviss: Yeah. I mean, at least we're not on the days of like the Concord, so you couldn't, you didn't have to at least fly him in the Concord anymore.

[00:15:28] Sean Walker: Bro, I would though

man, having, we, we, we went on vacation to Hawaii this year.

Having, having that five and a half hours back would be dope. Like

where's the one hour of like

I'll pay for

[00:15:38] Andy Leviss: pinned me to the back of my chair.

[00:15:40] Sean Walker: Yeah. Just straight max l guy. Me for

an hour and I'll can see you there dog.

[00:15:43] Andy Leviss: yep. Yeah, totally, totally.

[00:15:49] Sean Walker: Like, why did that, uh, why did that go defunct? I don't even know why that, was it too expensive or too loud, or was it

like

[00:15:54] Andy Leviss: think it was

[00:15:55] Sean Walker: sonic boom was, pissing people off.

[00:15:57] Andy Leviss: yeah, I think it was the like, eh, it's a little dangerous. And also the noise is really pissing people off and we can only fly at certain times in certain places.

[00:16:06] Sean Walker: Yeah. You know, fuck 'em. Like, like we, we did that back, bro. We did the concord back or something like it where we could

just

[00:16:15] Andy Leviss: mean, just any airplane where, well, I guess, I guess depending on the catering on the airplane, it, it is already hanging to your butts just for a different reason.

[00:16:22] Sean Walker: dude, have you, have you seen some of the pictures of air travel from years ago? It was like luxurious and like table claws and it was comfortable. You know what I mean? Now it's

[00:16:31] Andy Leviss: I wanna say your knees didn't hurt after 20 minutes.

[00:16:34] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. Totally.

[00:16:37] Andy Leviss: Oh, man. Um,

[00:16:39] Sean Walker: Uh, brutal, but

[00:16:40] Andy Leviss: and exciting? Uh, I was actually going through, uh, some of the stuff on, on ProSoundWeb dot com, some of the news things and seeing what kind of cool new products we've been missing. There's, there's some, some neat little, um, so we had sound devices on recently, uh, and as in fact as we were going through the episode, you may remember naming for all their stuff.

Got a little, there's, there's Astro and Super Nexus and all these different names for all the different like sub products up. Well, they, they, uh, apparently just announced they are streamlining the nomenclature to use the technical term right out of the, right out of the announcement. Uh, to kind of make it a little clearer was what, so now what used to be the A 20 Super Nexus is now the Astral ARX 32.

The A 20 Nexus is now the a X 16 and the A 20 Nexus go is now the ARX eight, which seems great 'cause I can tell from those model numbers exactly how many channels each one has.

[00:17:37] Sean Walker: Totally, dude.

[00:17:38] Andy Leviss: don't have to be a terribly smart human to know like, oh, hey, it's the 32, the 16, or the eight. Awesome. So that's, that's a cool move.

Uh, some news they announced, um, there's also like firmware updates for some of their, uh, other stuff, but that's really only, only of interest to our friends who do location recording. Uh,

[00:17:59] Sean Walker: When does the bolt-on transmitter show up for wireless measurement? That's what we all want to know.

[00:18:07] Andy Leviss: I mean, yeah, I mean we, we asked Cody about that when he was on and, and, uh, and he said for now, like they, for now they're sticking with the, the boom adapter kit. And if I'm remembering correctly, part of the reason they are reluctant to do the plug on is because for most of the uses, they see that for the plug on that can get used and that doesn't give you that extra added weight over the other side of the stand that can make things get a little wonky.

Um. I think that particularly for the, the boom corus is definitely a more important thing. But I definitely have seen times in measurement where like having that plug on transmitter on the back can be a little bit of, so having that centered over the pole is certainly a benefit. It's, it's a trade off.

Um, I don't think they've out. Said no though, and I'm sure Cody or Gary, if they hear this, will, will come and, you know, flag me down if, if I'm speaking, if I'm speaking crazy. I, I think it's certainly something they're considering, um, but not anything they've announced yet.

[00:19:05] Sean Walker: if you're considering fellas, just do it. It's what we want.

[00:19:10] Andy Leviss: They got a lot of stuff. I mean, they also, I think we talked about earlier, they, they, they just bought JH, uh, in ear. So, uh, clearly, uh, I think we can assume they have an in ear product coming at some point in the future. 'cause otherwise

[00:19:22] Sean Walker: Why?

[00:19:23] Andy Leviss: be a weird purchase to have made.

[00:19:24] Sean Walker: Yep. A hundred percent. A

hundred percent.

[00:19:26] Andy Leviss: Also super interested in seeing what that does for the, in your market.

'cause you know, like, uh, JH for a while was like the, it was like, I think it was going through some bankruptcy production. Nobody was quite sure what was gonna happen. So now audio tonics and sound devices buying it is, is definitely an interesting shake up to the, to the board in the in-ear game. Um, so we'll, we'll see where that goes.

Uh, what else is, um, so it's, it's, IBC was. Either last week or is this coming week in Europe, which is, it's the International Broadcasting Conference. So sort of take NAB but make it a lot bigger and a lot more European, um, that's going on. So this is the other time of year

[00:20:06] Sean Walker: So better coffee?

[00:20:08] Andy Leviss: Oh, of course.

Yeah, man, don't start me on trade, show coffee and cater. I've, I've done this rant before. Like the US sucks to do trade shows 'cause very few trade shows will let you like, have your own food and catering

[00:20:21] Sean Walker: What is that? What is that thing that the kids call it now when you just like spark somebody as gaslighting? I'm, I'm gonna gaslight for this little thing. Go, go get your rant going

and get your rant going.

[00:20:33] Andy Leviss: gas lighting's a very different

[00:20:34] Sean Walker: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. See, I'm too old to know these things. I don't spend enough time on the, on the interwebs, bro.

I

don't, I

[00:20:38] Andy Leviss: I know. Ga gaslighting is when, like, you tell me like to, you know, I mean, this is a terrible example, but like, you're, you keep hearing a buzz in my mic and I'm like, no, it's gotta be just you man. There's no buzz. You're, you're just going insane.

[00:20:49] Sean Walker: Ah, got it. All right. See, see,

that's why they don't let me on the internet,

[00:20:52] Andy Leviss: convince somebody like they're the problem, not you or

[00:20:54] Sean Walker: Ah, got it. Got it.

[00:20:56] Andy Leviss: yeah. Um,

[00:20:58] Sean Walker: on then? This point?

[00:20:58] Andy Leviss: yeah. Yeah. That'll work. That'll work. I'm sure that's what the kids are calling it.

[00:21:02] Sean Walker: Sure. I don't know, my

kids aren't old enough to call it anything.

[00:21:04] Andy Leviss: now what else? Uh, so Shore launched a cool new microphone last week that isn't super useful to those of us doing live music, but for our friends to do sports broadcast. Uh, did, did you see this thing?

[00:21:17] Sean Walker: I saw the, I got the email.

It looks pretty fricking sick, except that I don't.

[00:21:22] Andy Leviss: nine oh one planer array microphone. It's, so those of you who do like installs know they've been doing these like steerable array speakers for like walls and tables and ceilings for a while, and this is one that's designed specifically for sports broadcast. So it's got, like, you can digitally steer the lobes of the microphone.

So instead of having somebody out there with like a parabolic or shotgun going f, f, F, you know, following the action all around. You can steer it. And they're apparently even like partnering with, uh, what's the, uh, startup called, uh, called Edge Sound Research has a virtual sound engine that will work with the microphone and actually like, adapt in real time to follow players, referees, or the ball depending on what you want the microphone to follow.

So you can just mount this thing program and tell it, like, just keep picking up wherever the ball is and it'll steer its pickup pattern to follow the ball, which is pretty

[00:22:12] Sean Walker: Dude, that's pretty sick, dude.

That's

[00:22:14] Andy Leviss: So that's, yeah. What else is going on in the, um, I'm trying to remember when we Elliot on, talked about stuff at, uh, at Infocom.

Did we talk about the Gen one stuff that, uh, that Meyer is doing?

[00:22:26] Sean Walker: No. What is Gen one?

[00:22:28] Andy Leviss: Gen one is a new module they're putting, which it's first in the Astria one 40, which is their ridiculously like gigantic, uh, cinema speaker, but it's gonna come to more of the speakers that basically takes an a s 67 receiver. And for all intents and purposes, a channel of like galaxy processing right into the speaker.

[00:22:50] Sean Walker: Sick,

[00:22:50] Andy Leviss: every speaker's got its own onboard, DSP with like all the same, you know, eq, uh, EQ functions and stuff like that,

[00:22:59] Sean Walker: like basically a channel strip out of a Galileo in the thing,

[00:23:02] Andy Leviss: Yep. And like they did like the, when they were like they were sneak peeking it at, uh, at Infocom and when they were talking about it, they were showing like the racks and racks for the Metallica rig.

And basically saying that with like gen one and all the speakers, it would go down to like three processors instead of like three or four racks full of processors. 'cause everything else would be in the speaker.

[00:23:22] Sean Walker: And is that a module they're gonna put into like Panther and something else? Or is that a

new line of speakers

[00:23:27] Andy Leviss: to which speakers it's gonna go into. But it's, they're working, they started with the Astria, which is the new speaker that was built around it. And then yeah, their, their, their official word, at least at Infocom was then they're evaluating which other speakers they can put it in.

Um, and, but yeah, do intend to add it or make it as an option for a number of their speakers. And I assume pretty much anything new going forward. Um, yeah, so it's got, it, it receives an a a s 67 audio stream and does a full onboard processing, including delay, eq u shaping, and all the like, product integration tools.

So it's, yeah, it's uh, single Galileo Galaxy Channel, right on the loud speaker.

[00:24:10] Sean Walker: It is about time, fellas.

It's about time. That's dope.

[00:24:14] Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, like controlled over, uh, Nera. They're, you know, they're Nera Nera. They're, uh, their control and monitoring project and like they

[00:24:23] Sean Walker: I'm not fancy enough people use that stuff, bro.

[00:24:25] Andy Leviss: Yeah, now they did a, a demo at Infocom with that and it's like, it's pretty sick.

'cause like you have a bunch of speakers on the network, it all comes up. You find it right in in Nira, like name it, populate it, put it all into groups and just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's all going. It like, it all discovers itself. It's, it's pretty slick.

[00:24:41] Sean Walker: That's dope,

dude.

[00:24:43] Andy Leviss: what else is going on? I'm trying to see if there's anything else.

Cool. We should, okay. This is silly, but cool. Apparently. On stage who are, who make all the speaker and mic stands just released a flat base mic stand. Uh, about a week ago, the MS 7,300, it's a mic stand with a rectangular base, like, and the stand comes outta the side of it. So you can, like, if you're trying to put a, like for a talking head thing, if you're trying to put a mic stand next to a chair or a table, or if you're trying to put a mic like underneath a speaker stand, you know, say for like.

You know, a shotgun, like for an audience, you can just slide the little flat plate under it and it's like super duper discreet. And so I was like, I saw the, I saw the picture of this one. I was like, that's silly. Actually, that's not silly. I can actually see a bunch of places that would be really handy for just like, you know, so that you're not

[00:25:32] Sean Walker: That's dope.

[00:25:32] Andy Leviss: under a music stand or something.

[00:25:34] Sean Walker: That's dope. I'm gonna order one of those right now for my

freaking podcasting setup so I can get this tripod outta my office.

[00:25:39] Andy Leviss: Right.

[00:25:40] Sean Walker: That's sick.

[00:25:41] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, but what else? Anything else?

[00:25:44] Sean Walker: I mean, and for $37 retail bro, like, come

[00:25:47] Andy Leviss: Oh dude, that's, that's cheaper. I didn't even look

[00:25:48] Sean Walker: it's a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer, bro.

[00:25:51] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Uh, other cool stuff. Uh, Cedar just announced a new version of the, of their DNS processor. 'cause they've always had the DNS eight D, which is the Dante one.

They have the eight s, which is an a s one. So for consoles that aren't rocking and Dante world or like situations where you need that, it's also because it doesn't have the Dante chip in it. It, I believe will be a little bit less expensive 'cause that is not an inexpensive piece of hardware.

[00:26:15] Sean Walker: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:16] Andy Leviss: what else?

Um, RTS has a new wireless compact out the nomad system, which, uh, does look a little, a little slicker than their, uh, Romeos their, uh, current, uh, solution. Um, 128. Yeah. So that's a cool thing. It's, it's, uh, it'll have the same speakerphone function that, uh, that, uh, Rito RA has, which is kind of handy, like put it into like walkie-talkie mode if you don't have a headset on,

[00:26:42] Sean Walker: Dope.

[00:26:42] Andy Leviss: is very useful during load D, but also has the potential to be really annoying if somebody misuses it.

Um, trying to think if there's anything else, like cool new in the world, like products we have. I don't know. Have you, have you seen anything new or exciting? Uh, lately?

[00:26:57] Sean Walker: Man, the new and exciting thing is I've seen our people this week. Not, not

stuff.

[00:27:01] Andy Leviss: about that.

[00:27:02] Sean Walker: Yeah, man. I, I got to, I got to go have dinner with, uh, Tyler Davis, who was here for a corporate show, which was rad. It was good to see him and hang out and have some delicious hand rolls, catch up that was sick. And then, uh. The next day I got to go hang with our bro Ben Ivy and see the Warren Zider show,

which was

[00:27:21] Andy Leviss: nice. How was that?

[00:27:22] Sean Walker: It was dope dude. Ben's mix was slamming.

The system engineer was dope. They had an a 12 rig out, which was banging, bro. It sounded great. And uh, it was Killer man, little arena show. And

they had a killer vibe, dude.

They had like carpets and like lamps that would make like a living room in front of house. It was dope, dude. It was so

good.

[00:27:40] Andy Leviss: So is that, uh, so Warren, is that Warren's headline tour now?

[00:27:44] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, totally.

[00:27:45] Andy Leviss: Nice. Because when, when we were talking, Ben, they, they were opening up for, I think it was Jelly Roll, they were opening up for Right.

[00:27:50] Sean Walker: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:51] Andy Leviss: Yeah,

[00:27:51] Sean Walker: Oh, I, I don't, I don't remember. I was, I was hung along with you. I, I thought

[00:27:54] Andy Leviss: gotcha. Yeah, no, I think it was like we were talking about when he was at the gardener, which was awesome.

So I'm glad to see them headlining and I was like, 'cause like couches and shit in front of house is some solid headliner energy.

[00:28:03] Sean Walker: There was no couch yet, but I, he was like, they were working on it, you know what I

[00:28:06] Andy Leviss: Okay.

[00:28:07] Sean Walker: it was killer dude. It was good. Good to see the fellow, good to see him, and then the team, and hang out and

see the show, which was, sounded great and looked great. It was cool,

man. It was super

[00:28:17] Andy Leviss: I gotta get a, I, it's been a bit since I've been to a, like the last show was like the last show I went to as an audience member I think was almost a year ago. 'cause it was right before the little guy came. So

[00:28:26] Sean Walker: Yeah,

[00:28:27] Andy Leviss: work towards like more babysitter time and

[00:28:30] Sean Walker: totally.

Totally. I will, I will say though that my, uh, totally squirrel. Speaking of babysitter time, my coffee game is slacking, bro. Slacking.

[00:28:41] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:28:42] Sean Walker: Yeah. I ordered the, uh. A new espresso maker that never showed up, and

so I had to get a refund. And so I'm just like rocking the, you know, baby's

first espresso maker listening to you guys nerd about espresso.

I'm getting jealous, bud.

[00:28:55] Andy Leviss: Although, dude, you were sending me photos, like you're starting to like get, like, get like a little bit of like latte arc kind of going.

[00:29:01] Sean Walker: You know, latte splotches, bro.

[00:29:03] Andy Leviss: I mean that's, I still have days that it's just like, well, I meant to pour a heart and I poured something I can't post a photo of in my work chat.

[00:29:12] Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. But I still get those messages. Right.

[00:29:17] Andy Leviss: Yeah, of course, of course. Um, yeah, that's, I was actually, I I forgot the, where you, I dropped it into the Discord or not, but I know I was texting with Ryan, 'cause Ryan and I both get the subscriptions from Tim Webo, the, the company in, uh, Denmark that we like

[00:29:31] Sean Walker: and.

it was like tripled or something. Price

[00:29:34] Andy Leviss: Well, the, the price went up 'cause of tariffs and all that.

Um, it's not too bad. It's like, I think I get like three bags a month or I get six bags a month. So three coffees, two bags each. And um, and I think that went up like eight or it was enough to like, think about for a second, but not enough to be like, Nope. Um, but they had one that came out the, the one that I'm actually currently drinking that like.

It took me like one or two shots to like dial that espresso in when I first opened it up and like that second shot was like straight fire. One of the like best shots of espresso I've ever had in my life. Not even that I've made. And of course because like, because all that shit changes with humidity and temperature and stuff and, 'cause I live in New York and like, you know, the modern era of climate change.

I have not made that same shot since in like the week and a half that I've had this every day. It's like a little bit of a, I keep, I'm like, no, let me get it back there. But like, 'cause like as it gets colder or hotter, like you gotta change the grind size if you're being, like, if you're trying to keep it like totally on point.

[00:30:33] Sean Walker: Bro, I wouldn't even know where to start with that shit.

[00:30:34] Andy Leviss: but it's that first, that like first one after I nailed it was just like, oh my God, this is good. And it's, it's, it's not been bad, but it's not been quite as good back there. Uh, let's see what else is new. Um, so you, uh, so like boat shows, I know you were, you, uh, you had that show come back around that we talked about last year, right?

Doing the, doing the show on the boat?

[00:30:59] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We already mentioned that

we had, we'd, uh, you know, boats and people, and we raised my, we raised a million bucks for cancer, which

was killer dude.

[00:31:08] Andy Leviss: I didn't realize it was a charity thing. That's

[00:31:10] Sean Walker: it is, dude. It is. We, we do a lot of, uh, we do a moderate amount of charity things, uh, which is, which is cool. You know what I mean?

But, uh, yeah, man, that was, that was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And, uh, let's see, what else do we have coming up that's. Fun charity stuff. I don't think we have any, any charity stuff on the on the horizon. I think we got that out all out of our system now. It's just corporate.

Just the for-profit

[00:31:35] Andy Leviss: money. Money printing

[00:31:36] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Totally,

[00:31:40] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:31:41] Sean Walker: Hey, speaking of that,

[00:31:42] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:31:44] Sean Walker: speaking of that,

I don't know about you.

I get a lot of questions about how to get more work.

you get a question about how to get more work?

[00:31:51] Andy Leviss: I, I, I think we all do and we've definitely, we've dedicated a, a couple episodes to it, which, uh, we can refer for

[00:31:57] Sean Walker: I'm gonna, I'm gonna just fricking squirrel off for a second

[00:32:00] Andy Leviss: Yeah, no, do it. Do it.

[00:32:01] Sean Walker: my 3:30 AM caffeinated ass had a long rant about on Discord today,

[00:32:06] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Do it.

[00:32:07] Sean Walker: but like for those of you that don't already have it put together and you're trying to figure out how to get more work or get into a new shop or get on tour or whatever it is, like just reach out to people. Be cool. You know what I mean? Don't, don't blow people up like an angry ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, you know what I mean? And solve our problems. Like I, I don't need another resume. I don't I don't even want your resume, dude. I don't care. I don't, I don't need it. Half of half of that's inflated anyway. You walked down the hall by some rock star one time at a gig.

You were the house guy at it, and I don't care. You know what I mean? What I, what I do care is that you call me and speak human. Like we're all, we're all fricking audio nerds, dude. Call me and speak human. You know, we'll all know in five minutes. And I don't mean everybody needs to call me. I just say when you're calling somebody, right, you're calling a company owner. Speak human to 'em, dude. Not corporate. Fricking resume speak unless you're going for a corporate gig, in which case, you know, maybe a little more corporate. But

a lot of people are asking

[00:33:14] Andy Leviss: curve for me a couple months ago was, was actually doing corporate resumes.

[00:33:19] Sean Walker: Right. Totally.

Uh, but like, you know, you, you know how we all talk in the shop. You know, you know, just be who you are, right?

Be cool

and and find the places to like sneak in that you know what time it is without trying to like brag about, you know, what time it is, right? Like if you're talking about a music show. And you guys are just chatting. You're, let's say you're at the shop, right? Let's say you call somebody this, yeah.

Dude, come and hang out or whatever, right? You're at the shop and you're not like, well, I know this and I know that, and I know this and I do this. Like, nobody cares. Nobody wants to have lunch with that guy. Right? But while you're talking about mixing music, if you start asking about maybe things that aren't a huge deal, but that would lend him, like, let's, let's say we're talking about mixing music.

You just go, like, as you're talking through things like, dude, what, what polarity do you prefer your drums in? Or How do you do that? You know, blah, blah, blah. I like to do it like this or that, or then they'll know that you're, that you know what's up, dude? Rather than like, well, I'm certified in Dante level three or whatever. You're like, yeah, man, but you've never configured a switch in your life, so you're not cer Dante, you're not certified for shit, bro. You know what I mean? So where I'm going in my squirrel caffeinated ramble is I need you to solve my problems. Like I don't need another tech. I don't need another resume. Like our problems are, my best guy is already out on a show, or my best gal is already out on a show. Or maybe I got 10 shows this week and I need 10 more Best people. Like be that. Show me your that. Right? So like you already know the ecosystem we're in, whether you're in RD net for RCF or you know, sound Vision or L net or R one and array calc for DMB.

Like, you know what's up. You know how to use a lake or a Galileo or whatever the gig is going to require. You already know how to do that stuff and you're hip to it, not like, yeah, I saw a lake one time in my life. You know what I mean? Like I, I'm not a lake user, so I wouldn't go, oh yeah, I know how to use Lake.

I mean, I've seen a bunch of lakes, I've rented lakes, I've deployed lakes, I've gotten lakes for people. I am circling Lake at all times, but I've never used a lake, so I could, I wouldn't say that, right? I'd have to go get hip to it. So don't put, don't say that you know how to do lake if you've circled Lake for your life, but dunno how to

use it.

Or same with Galileo or Prodigy or whatever, right? But like, go get hip. Go find a shop, buy you that will let you in. Plug around on the laptop and figure out how to use a link so that, and then ask their guy, how are you guys deploying that? Or, you know what I mean?

[00:35:35] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:36] Sean Walker: They will think you are awesome. Like we, we don't judge you based solely on what you know now.

We judge you based on how much you wanna know by the time it's showtime. You know what I mean? So if you were

like, Hey man, I'm a totally competent, like. Se, but I'm a late guy. I've never used a Galaxy or Galileo, whatever. Can you hit me to how you guys use that you know best? What's your go-to, you know, setup for that and how do you drive so I can be prepared to freaking crush this for you? Dude, we're in love. We're already fricking proposing in marriage and shit at

[00:36:08] Andy Leviss: Right. Like, is is, is there a good way for somebody coming into you to say like, Hey. What's the hardest spot for you to fill? Or like what? What are you hurting for people on?

[00:36:18] Sean Walker: The hardest spot to fill is always the systems engineer. Always. I got a desk full of everybody thinks they're the best front of house mixer in the whole wide world,

and they've got the most fire mix that's ever, ever to ever. But they don't know how to put together the pa,

Right as a, as a shop, right? If you're, if you're just like on tours, the A one that's important. If you're gonna work for a sound company or want to go get on tour with a sound company, you're, they're not just gonna be like, oh man, thanks for the resume. Here's the foo fighters,

you know what I mean? Or whatever, right?

Like, they're gonna be like, Hey man, thanks. Here's some shop work. And then, by the way, oh, we got this van tour, or we got this bandwagon tour, right?

Like, like, so just fricking be cool dude, and don't be so uptight. And find a way to help and solve people's problems. Talk in outcomes, not in technical specifications,

right?

[00:37:18] Andy Leviss: I mean that's, that's a thing you've flagged before, like for as a business owner, marketing to clients too. And I think that translates here too, of the go to folks and say, Hey, what problems are you struggling to solve? I can see if I can help you with that.

[00:37:31] Sean Walker: yes. Totally. Totally. dude. And, and being able to. Make sure that the PA is sorted, because a lot of people can't do that. You know what I mean? I, I couldn't do it before I started listening to this podcast and got learnt, like, you know what I mean? And I, at that point, I'd owned a company and mixed tens of thousands of shows. I'd owned a company for a decade, you know what I mean? I, I could do it, but not like, not super well, right? Like

obviously you gotta do a show and it gets put together, but. Like figure out how to sort that. And so it, it sounds dope. And that inspires confidence in people, right? If you start asking people what their target curve is and have 'em send it to you, Hey man, what's the target you like at tuned to send it over?

And I'll, I'll make sure, you know, I'll make sure we get there. And I'm not suggesting that every show needs to get slammed to a target. So before you freak out and start sending Andy angry emails, 'cause I'm not gonna give you my email address. That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting

[00:38:27] Andy Leviss: One 800. Call Sean.

[00:38:29] Sean Walker: Yeah, one 800, click, click. What I'm suggesting is if you're in a shop or talking to somebody and ask 'em what their target curve is, we instantly know, you know what time it is. No random dingdong is asking about target curves unless you know how to use it. Right. You better know how to use it, by the way. But like download the one that's floating around at discord. Have something to start with whether you like that curve or not have something to start with or make another one and ask us about that. And we're already like, oh, this person's hired. Know what I mean? Hey, here's how we're rocking Lake, or here's how we're rocking Galaxy or Prodigy, or whatever your thing is.

You know what I mean? A HM, whatever, you know, whatever you're hot, hot to, you'll get freaking more work than you know what to do with dude. You know what I mean? And if you can work like a local, all the better. And if you can't, well okay, fine. But like that, that's, that's really it. Speaking outcomes like, Hey man, what do you do when you're, uh. When your top guys are out and you got another gig that shows up, I'd love to be the, the first call for that. You know, like, I'm not trying to take somebody else's job. I'm trying to take the extra jobs. You know what I mean?

People will think, people will think that's sick, dude. Right? Because like

[00:39:33] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:39:34] Sean Walker: the reality is every time you call a sound company, you're basically asking for somebody else's job. Right. Just tell 'em,

I don't want, I don't want number one and number two's job, right? I want the number, job, number three, that you're outta people for. And you're like, oh shit, who do I call? Right? Oh, I'm. Call dude, bro, guy, or you know,

whatever that's, that's the way to our heart, dude. And then when you show, excuse me, then when you show up to the shop, bring fucking good coffee and be cool, dude. Be freaking cool. Every one of us is ripping every one of us in our, we're on, in our own little world, not paying attention. And we don't have, we're not thinking about you. And I don't mean that to be rude, I just mean like we, everybody in the world has got life happening behind the scenes. You know what I mean? We're not stopping the shop today to talk to you about your needs. You know what I mean? So like, come in, bring coffee, be cool. And if you see that the shop is ripping and. You're de prepping. Maybe you showed up on a Monday and it's festival weekend that just came back and there's just cases everywhere and speakers everywhere and trucks flying around.

It looks like a fricking Amazon warehouse. You know what I mean? Ask to jump in, say, Hey dude, how can I help you guys? It looks like you're fricking craziness. You need an extra hand, you know what I mean?

And just do it and don't like, where's my W nine and how do I sign up and what do we do? Just go do it, dude.

They will sort you out. Nobody's gonna be like. Hey man, thanks for fricking busting your butt all day and bringing great coffee and doing an awesome job. And by the way, kick rocks, like everybody's gonna be like, dude, this person rips. Hey man, step into my office before you leave so we can get you sorted.

You know what I mean?

But like, just be frictionless. Make it easy, and you'll have more work than you know what to do with.

[00:41:13] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like, like you said, like se is a great set of tools to have. 'cause it's, it's one that's everybody needs. Even the people who don't know they need it, need it. So you can often like sell it to them

[00:41:25] Sean Walker: They need it more than they they need it. more than anybody else. 'cause they don't even

know. Right. I've said it a zillion times. I wish I learned to se before I learned to mix. I wouldn't have thought I was such a shitty mixer for so many years because of the horrible PAs I was on, because I didn't know how to deal with 'em.

Right. Like, play music, make it sound fine ish. Okay, fine. Well, it doesn't sound fine ish. And you know what I mean? Like,

you know, we're, we're, we're chasing my tail the whole time. You know what I

[00:41:49] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like any of those, like ancillary jet, like if you're in a place that like does lots of corporate, like everybody wants to a one, like if you can be a really solid corporate, a two I. You are not only really marketable, but then that gets people to like you, to then when a one jobs do open up. But you also may find out that you love, like if you're great at interacting with people, that's an awesome fucking spot to be in.

[00:42:10] Sean Walker: And the gig pays the same. So go to work like.

[00:42:14] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:42:15] Sean Walker: You know what I mean? And for most companies, and Andy and Firehouse aside, for most regional production companies, the A two gig is the easiest fricking gig that has ever been a gig. You've got eight to 12 channels of RF to coordinate and maybe fricking five or 10 channels of free speak.

Like this

is not rocket science dude.

You could get away with this show. You should, you should know what you're doing. You could get away with hitting fricking search all in, in, uh, it's been so long to stay with my fricking laptop to do that. I don't even know Workbench, right? Like, just find all the frequencies, deploy all frequencies, and do it till nothing blinks.

Like it could be that simple and get away with it, and nobody would be the wiser Now. Go get a tiny essay, ultra plus whatever the new fancy thing Andy says is Learn how to use cord. That all that's important. I'm not saying it's not important. I'm not

trying to belittle it.

What I'm saying is you could fake the funk, get your full day rate.

As long as there's no dropouts or problems in wireless world and you know what I mean? Those things are free to download. Workbench is

[00:43:20] Andy Leviss: And we should, we should, I should get a couple other, like, you know, like heavy hitter corporate, a two friends on, and we should do an episode on like some of the like tips and tricks of like the, because the hardest thing in that job is the, like the interaction part of it with other people, both with clients and making clients feel comfortable fast so that you can drop a microphone down the back of their shirt without making them skied out

[00:43:41] Sean Walker: Take a shower.

Brush your teeth, have mints. Don't

be a dick. Collect your check. Good talk.

[00:43:47] Andy Leviss: And a ask before you do. Don't say, Hey, I'm gonna drop this mic down the back of your shirt. Say, Hey, is it all right if I drop this mic down the back of your shirt? You know, do you wanna do it yourself? Like what works for you? Like, make them feel comfortable. Um, but also there's the interaction side of it, like dealing with your crew.

Like I, you know, I did a show a while back and because I do a lot of corporate a one stuff. I know how I want information given because you can plot out the microphones for a corporate event like immaculately. It will change in the middle of the show, and the most important thing there is how you communicate that to the A one so that they know what to throw up when they need to, when things are.

Coming fast and furious at them, plus all the playback cues they're doing and the other shit that you're not dealing with. So like what I'll usually do in that situation, particularly if I, if you're going through the course of a show, you know, you're usually micing up the panels like one or two panels in advance.

So as soon as I know a change is coming because like, oh shit, there's like a back to back swap, that's just not gonna happen in time. We gotta change what we said. I'll get on comm to the A one and say, Hey, let me know when you have the bandwidth for me to give you a couple updates on stuff coming up.

And they may say, give it to me. Now. They may be like, cool, I'll give you a shout in two minutes. And then I'll give them the update when they say, and then when that panel is coming back on two panels later, I'll again say, Hey, just reminding you, we've got such and such change on this next panel coming up that's different from your paperwork.

And I've like, I've had a ones I work with who are like the crankiest son of bitches I've ever worked with.

[00:45:15] Sean Walker: I said I was Sorry, Andy. It was one fucking time.

[00:45:17] Andy Leviss: And, but as soon as you start doing that and making sure you're doing it in a way that they get the information and that they're not getting it when they can't handle it, like that ice melts and they're just like, they're just like the warmest, like, oh shit, you got my back.

[00:45:30] Sean Walker: Hundred percent. Dude,

you're driving.

[00:45:31] Andy Leviss: a, yeah. And it's stuff like that that's like. I'm not gonna say you can't teach it, but it's it. People don't teach it. So I wanna mention that for folks doing that, likewise, like being like a monitor front of house tech is like a, it's not as glamorous as mixing the show, but you need to be able to mix the show.

You need to be able to anticipate the needs of the mixer and it's a great way to learn the way different people work too. And also often then you end up with that one act that come, like that opening act that comes in and doesn't have an engineer and is like, oh yeah, no, you're mixing it. So it's a great way to kinda.

Do a little bit without necessarily trying to shoot for the glory right away.

[00:46:04] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, that's a great, actually, that's a great spot for people that are, let's say, good.

Maybe not, not great, but good and, and you know, we all know where we're at, right? Like we,

most of us aren't too delusional about where we're at, but that's a good place to be standing next to greats

and getting paid for it and getting learnt while

getting paid for it, right? And then you can see in real time why, what, how, when, you know, you could ask questions after the show or, you know, whatever's appropriate. Again, like

you were saying with the A one. When it's appropriate, when they're fricking focused on what's going on, is not the time to go. What about this? What about that?

What are you doing here? What about this? Like,

they're fricking they're rocking, dude. Leave them. Leave them.

But

[00:46:43] Andy Leviss: Yeah. But like when there's a breaker after the set, like say, Hey, can I ask you questions?

[00:46:47] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Hey, I

[00:46:49] Andy Leviss: it also, and it also gives you the chance and.

[00:46:51] Sean Walker: sorry.

go

[00:46:53] Andy Leviss: go ahead.

[00:46:53] Sean Walker: and, and don't pelt them with a zillion questions. Like, pick your

top three or five, or I would say maybe top three. Like, Hey dude. was freaking awesome Tonight. I got a zillion questions, but can I ask three questions and then let you go? You know what I mean?

Rather than like, I got questions, I got questions, and you're like, oh God, I want to go home. How many questions you got? Right?

Like, can I just ask you three questions and pick the most important?

Like, how did you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why did you, blah, blah, whatever it was, right?

I saw you doing something super interesting that I hadn't thought of, and I, I interested as to why. You know what I mean?

Whatever, blah, blah, blah. I still do that today.

[00:47:32] Andy Leviss: Oh yeah.

[00:47:33] Sean Walker: Be curious. Ooh, that's one top oop. Number one, be curious, right? Like when, when

[00:47:40] Andy Leviss: of the cool tricks I teach other people. I stole from somebody that way the day before.

[00:47:44] Sean Walker: a thousand percent dude, we're all just a amalgamation of all the different tricks from all

the different people and figuring out what works for you. You know what I mean?

But, but yeah, front of house or Monotech is a good, a good place to be, right? Like trying to. Trying to jump straight into the hot seat from an unknown to whatever.

There's a lot of trust, right? Because I

think, was it, you, me and Maddox were talking about that. Like, all we're selling is trust here,

man. You know what I mean? Like given enough time, a lot of people could figure out how to make a passable sound in front of house mix. You know what I mean?

[00:48:13] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:15] Sean Walker: I, I dunno about great, but at least passable, right?

But like what we're selling as freelancers is trust. Like, I trust that if I pay you and send you to the show, you're not gonna make me look like a jackass.

You know what I mean? That's what I trusted.

[00:48:31] Andy Leviss: And if you have somebody who has a attack a bunch of times and they prove themselves like you'll know pretty quickly, like, oh, I could probably throw this, I could probably, you know, throw her in anything and she'll do fine.

[00:48:40] Sean Walker: totally, dude. Totally. Yeah, dude, we had, we had one of those, uh, she was, uh, like a bar sound grill that, that Garrett and I met a number of years ago. She showed up and worked for us and now she's one of the like, top call fricking girls in

town for for work. And she's got a steady gig at one of the, one of the big venues here. Just totally ripping dude.

You know what I mean? It's 'cause she was just like, I, I am humble and ready to learn and work and blah, blah, blah. So dude,

we, we freaking just rocked for years with her and then she got this killer offer and awesome High five. Good for her. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's the way curious and humble dude that'll, that'll do it.

And like something that I need to work on, but like, Hey dude,

[00:49:30] Andy Leviss: I.

[00:49:30] Sean Walker: are you, or Dot would you want to hang with you? You know what I mean? Like, if, if it's always somebody else's fault, if there's never enough fricking money, if there's always a bunch of drama, if it's always woe is me, like nobody wants to hang with fucking IOR for 10 or 12 hours a day, sort your attitude out. Bring the fricking sunshine and roses. You know what I'm saying? We all have life happening in the background. We all have stuff going on. It's not like everybody's just always sunshine and roses. But can I be really honest? Can I overshare right now? Nobody cares, dude.

Nobody. Nobody wants to hear about your problems. Tell your mom or your therapist. Everybody else at work just wants to say, yep, it's an awesome day. Let's get to it. You know what I mean? Because everybody else is full of their own stuff they're doing too, you know?

[00:50:13] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, and you j you just brought up a good point that I wanna flag too, and tell me if I'm crazy.

[00:50:17] Sean Walker: Ooh. Yes. You're crazy.

[00:50:18] Andy Leviss: well,

[00:50:19] Sean Walker: what are we talking

[00:50:19] Andy Leviss: me if I'm crazy on this specific

[00:50:21] Sean Walker: Oh,

[00:50:22] Andy Leviss: is I know like if I'm hiring somebody on a crew or if I'm, if I'm supervising a crew, even for somebody else, like Yeah, like coming in and being, and making like all sorts of excuse.

Like, oh man, the console was just acting out this or that. Or the PA sucked, like is terrible. Like also not admitting to a mistake is terrible. But if you come in and you're like, and I'm like, Hey man, what happened? And you're like. Look, man, I fucked up. I, I did a stupid, like this is what it was. This is why it's not gonna happen again.

Like that will get you so far in my

[00:50:51] Sean Walker: Oh totally,

[00:50:52] Andy Leviss: cop to it. And then as long as you don't make the same mistake again, like the fact that you can admit it, that you know what the mistake was and you can fix it for the next time, is like, even if it's a mistake that is like, look man, I can't send you back out with that client at least for a while 'cause of that mistake.

But I know it's good. I know you learned from it. I'm happy to keep sending it out to other folks and just prove to me that it was a one time thing and we'll be good. Like copping to it is, is always gonna go in your favor.

[00:51:21] Sean Walker: we will find out.

[00:51:23] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Oh, you don't even have to

[00:51:24] Sean Walker: It's like parents, dude. We already know.

[00:51:26] Andy Leviss: pointing the finger every other way, you know.

[00:51:28] Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. We already, we already know, dude. We already

[00:51:30] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I mean, I've done gigs as like local, you know, system tech or front of Aztec where like, you know, the, the artist engineer starts coming in just left and right, talking about how screwed he got by the promoter the night before. And it's almost always, you know, it wasn't anybody but himself. And usually they end up proving it to you before Showtime.

[00:51:49] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally, totally. So I, I would say own it, right?

Be honest with your abilities and your skillset. Like brutally honest, I don't, I

don't mean imposter syndrome, honest. I mean, I mean actually, like, be honest, if you're, if you're good. At

monitors, but not good at front of house. Say that if you prefer front of house and you don't speak monitors

say that, right?

Like I don't speak monitors, man. I can, I can,

mix monitors on

a mid-tier festival stage or whatever,

but I don't speak monitors, right? Like some

people I know, they're monitor engineers,

full stop. You know what I mean? They've forgotten more about monitors in the last five fricking minutes than I'll ever know my whole fricking career.

You know what I

mean? And, and get in those places. Right. If that's you, be there, own

that. And, and that's great. You know what I mean? Hey, I'm a monitor

guy. I can obviously make a passable front of house mix. 'cause like if you're a ripping monitor guy, you, you can make one mix if you can make 15 mixes.

Right? Uh, but it's a different style.

Right? It's a different style of mix. It's, it's, it's different. Right. So it'll be a

[00:52:56] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Different end goal.

[00:52:57] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally. But that's okay. 'cause. We are all trying to figure out how to plug the holes, right? That's what we're

doing in our schedule. We got holes in our schedule.

We're trying to plug 'em full of the right people and tools for the right jobs and scenarios. We want

to set you up for success. Help us set you up for success, right?

[00:53:16] Andy Leviss: Totally and I'll, I mean even like where I am in my career, which like I, you know, I mean, and there are people who are far better at things than I'm, there are people who are far worse at things than I am, but like I've had points where somebody calls me for something and is like, Hey, can you do X? And I will outright say, I.

I've done it, it's been like three or four years since I've used that particular like comm system or whatever. Like if you can't find anybody else, and I can have a day in the shop to like kind of, you know, oil, the, the, the rusty bits in my brain, I can probably do fine. But like if you need somebody who can just drop in real quick and like make it work, like call somebody else and call me next time, and

[00:53:51] Sean Walker: And they will

[00:53:53] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:53:53] Sean Walker: they fricking will 'cause

[00:53:54] Andy Leviss: Or they'll say like, oh yeah, no problem. Like, I, I had a couple years ago, like when I started getting back into doing Reddle stuff, you know, a, a good friend of mine was like, he's like, I'll be there the first day. I'll walk you through our rig. 'cause it's set up differently than, you know, the next guy's rig anyway.

You'll be fine as long as you've got like that basic familiarity. And he, you know, got me up to speed 'cause he had the time to do it. And like from there on out it was like, okay, yeah, this is all coming back to me now I'm great. You know, or like, or somebody's like, Hey, can you do a corporate gig? I'm like, you know, this certain console, I'm, you know, somebody's be like, uh, you know, how big is the gig?

I'm like, I'm more comfortable on this one, this one or that one. But like, if I need to be comfortable on that one, I know it well enough to find my way around. I'm just not gonna be as fast.

[00:54:33] Sean Walker: Sure dude. Totally. And like we all understand, if you have, let's say, a day in the shop, you can figure out the console, right? If you're

a Digi Co guy and you're on an SXL or a Ravage or whatever, if you're like, Hey man, I, I'm a DiGiCo guy, but. I'm, I'm sure I could figure out that Ravage, can I have a day in the shop to build a file, poke around, learn it, you know what I mean?

Run some multi-tracks or whatever everybody will say Yes.

[00:54:58] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Or they may be like, oh, if you'd rather have a digit go, we got one of those too. We'll just swap it out. We like you enough, we want you on the show.

[00:55:04] Sean Walker: totally. Absolutely, dude. Absolutely. So be, be real candid and, and kind about it, right? Just

say, Hey, I, I'm in, I'd love to do that. Fair warning. I, I speak digi co. I I don't

really speak Yamaha or, or vice versa. I speak Yamaha. For me it would be, I

speak Yamaha. I don't speak Digi Co. How do I, you know what I mean?

And I just went and did a show a couple weeks ago at, had a local club. They had a 2, 2 5 there, which is a cool little desk by the way. And, uh, I just asked the house guy who, thankfully I, I knew pretty well, but I was like, dude, how do I talk to this thing? And he was like, oh man, you just do this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

And he kind of, you know, had write the file laid out. I was like, okay, great. And I just asked a few questions and it was, you know, it was fine. It's a desk. They all kind of, they do the, the same thing if you figure out how to talk to 'em, right? So like,

get some time in the shop. Same with the comms, same with the drive, same with RF or whatever, right?

Like all you're selling is trust.

[00:55:57] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:57] Sean Walker: Show me, I can trust you by asking good questions, coming to the shop to prep. You know what I mean?

And, and don't be like.

[00:56:07] Andy Leviss: Don't try and bullshit.

[00:56:09] Sean Walker: Uh, do not try to bullshit ever. 'cause we'll know.

We'll know. The client will know. Everybody will know. Right. You'll get your shot, dude. I promise you'll get

your shot.

[00:56:18] Andy Leviss: Like I'm not, I'm not gonna bore everybody with my Blue power con story again for my first tour, but like we've told stories like this before of just like, it's not always about if you know a particular thing, it's about if you're willing to be honest about what you don't know.

[00:56:33] Sean Walker: dude. Totally, totally. I. And, you know, you, you follow some of those caffeinated scattered guidelines and you'll, you'll have a ton of work, dude. You'll have a ton of work. And if you live someplace that does not have a ton of work, get someplace that has a ton of work, whether you, whether you just travel there or move there or whatever.

Like, just get someplace that has the work you wanna do. You know what I mean? If, if you live here in Seattle and your dream is to be a ripping world touring engineer. Man, you better start flying to Nashville, LA Lit. Its,

you know, someplace that's sending tours out. And that's not to say that you can't live here and go on tour, but like

tho those, It's a lot harder.

dude.

It's a lot harder tho until you're established. Like once you're

established and you're on somebody's call list, it doesn't matter where in the world you

live, it's al it's a plane flight to get wherever you're going. So it doesn't matter if you live there or not, right? But if you're just starting out trying to get in, like start taking trips, man.

Start taking week two week trips to

[00:57:32] Andy Leviss: a lot of these places, and a lot of these places aren't cheap places to live, but like, yeah, like I would not have the career I have if I didn't end up landing in New York. Like if, you know, I've, I've lucked into one tour in the Broadway world and like that's its own weird particular world and it is.

In certain places a little easier to get in just because of how that world goes through people at the entry level and moves them up the ladder. There's often entry level spots on like those, you know, harder, faster tours to get into. But that aside, like, yeah, after I did that for a couple years, landing in New York is like, it's just, it's so much easier to find opportunities and events in corporate, in music to a degree in theater.

Um.

[00:58:14] Sean Walker: The universe is just swirling stuff around in busy places,

and if you're there with the busy places, the universe will attach things to you. I don't wanna get too woo woo, but like if there's just, if there's a lot of shit happening, New York, la, Nashville here. If you're here in the United States. a lot easier to find work if you're there and the work is just happening.

'cause somebody's like, oh dude, I met this new guy, Andy. He seemed to know what time it was and we're super short set. Lemme call that guy real

quick and you, you know, or, Hey here, you know what I mean? So and so, lemme call her real quick. Or Hey, blah, blah, blah. Right? Because you just, you top of mind. Right?

Just stay top of mind

without being annoying. Right? Yeah. Top of mind without being annoying.

[00:58:53] Andy Leviss: Yeah, be persistent, but don't be a stalker.

[00:58:56] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. That seems like enough rambling from us for the week. What do you think?

[00:58:59] Andy Leviss: I, I was, you know, I, I had a, I it's so, so enough that I had a great segue and we went far enough away from the segway that I can't get us back into the segway to ever wrap the episode up.

[00:59:09] Sean Walker: Totally, dude,

[00:59:10] Andy Leviss: But you know, we, we were, we were talking lots about knowing what time it is and I think Sean knows exactly what time it is

[00:59:15] Sean Walker: it's time to wrap this up. Dude, y'all are bored of us already. Hey, thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio for another week, and uh, thanks for hanging out. Andy, it was good to catching up with you. Thanks

to the audience. We, we love you guys man and gals. Thanks for, thanks for partying with us. That's the pod y'all.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

00:59:36] Andy Leviss: Man, I almost forget how to do this thing. It's been, it's been a little bit, gotta give us some bloopers every once in a while. Um, hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Livet. Let, I can't pronounce my own name today. Wow. And...scene.