307. Dave Hatmaker On His Versatile Career In Pro Audio

Dave Hatmaker joins Sean and Andy in Episode 307 for a wide-ranging conversation about working in theme parks, helping test and develop new audio products, and some hard-hitting practical tips and tricks for mixing corporate events.

Dave has mixed astronauts to vice presidents, and almost everything in between. He’s also been a sound designer for the Walt Disney Company, helping to create many memorable in-park entertainment shows, spectaculars and guest experiences, including Beauty and the Beast (before going to Broadway), Spirit of Pocahontas, and Hunchback of Notre Dame: Festival of Fools.

In addition, he’s worked with various international audio companies as a research and development team member (most recently Yamaha) creating new technologies, and he was awarded an international patent in 2021 for a new creative new use of audio technology. And, he’s been a featured panelist and moderator at international audio and music industry trade shows, including NAMM, AES, MusikMesse, ProLight & Sound, InfoComm, SCSBOA, and Jazz Educators, in addition to being a guest on several podcasts for MxU and AVIXA.

Dave holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Long Beach, with an emphasis in percussion performance. He has created and delivered audio seminars to high school and college bands, music educators and sound technicians.

His goal in the audio business? ”Every day he wants to make life a bit better for musicians by having better, easier, smarter, better sounding products! And to make them FUN to use!!

Episode Links:
Dave Hatmaker.com
Dave Hatmaker On LinkedIn
Episode 307 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 307 - Dave Hatmaker

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!

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Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss with me. Zoe The Wilbur, to my Orville, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?

[00:01:09] Sean Walker: Hey buddy, how are you?

[00:01:10] Andy Leviss: Good. That, that was, that was a, a, a flight reference, a Wright Brothers reference for those not following along, which you'll understand in a minute or two. But, um, so I, I mean, I feel like, like there's no point in, in me and our guest even playing, but I feel like we have to do a round of, uh, what's the coolest thing in Arm's Reach today?

[00:01:29] Sean Walker: For me, it's an SR 71 Blackbird.

[00:01:31] Andy Leviss: yeah, because, because tell folks where you are.

[00:01:33] Sean Walker: I'm loading into the Museum of flight today for a corporate event in Seattle.

[00:01:39] Andy Leviss: Yeah. So, so Sean wins, like, there's no point even even playing, uh, playing along at this point. Um, I was gonna be all like, oh, I got the new, like, I got the prototype of the client, uh, little like XLR turnaround, uh. For comm headsets they made for me that goes the opposite direction from the one they used to make, which made me feel really cool till I saw where you were in that SR 71.

And now it's like, well,

[00:02:02] Sean Walker: Yeah. Cool story, bro. Anyway, so spy ships and airplanes.

[00:02:08] Dave Hatmaker: That's the winner.

[00:02:09] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. Dude. Totally. How's your weekend? Good.

[00:02:14] Andy Leviss: yeah. You know, just, just hanging out, spending some, some time with the, with the little guy and, uh, and the family. And, uh, it's, uh, hard to believe I have a 1-year-old now.

[00:02:24] Sean Walker: Nice,

[00:02:26] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Which is, which is wild. Um, but yeah, so had a, had a nice weekend off to, to do some stuff, uh, stuff around that and, uh, then back at it.

[00:02:35] Sean Walker: Brad. How cool.

[00:02:37] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, I think we should hit the ground running, um, since, since you're coming to us remote, uh, Kurt, courtesy of your cell phone from the museum. And we should introduce our guest. Uh, Dave, you wanna introduce yourself a little bit?

[00:02:50] Dave Hatmaker: Hello guys. Thanks for having me. I'm Dave Hatmaker. I've been doing this a long time. I love me some podcasts. Let's, let's chat about some fun, cool things.

[00:03:03] Andy Leviss: So, yeah, so Dave, Dave came to us by way of a friend of the podcast in, in recurring, uh, guest in un indebted Copi and Mike Diaz. And, uh, he introduced us to Dave a while back, and it, uh, took me the better part of a year to actually sync back up with Dave and make it happen. But here we are, and I mean, Dave, you've got like such a cool, varied like career, just like looking down like the brief.

You sent us to use for the episode, like you've, like, you've mixed like astronauts to vice presidents. You've been a sound designer for Walt Disney. You worked on r and d at, uh, Yamaha, uh, like panelists, like at conventions, corporate audio, like a little bit of everything. Um, how, I guess we should wind that back and how, how did that all start?

How did you get into audio?

[00:03:51] Dave Hatmaker: That is a crazy question, but your first question was what's within arm's reach? And maybe I'm not as cool as having an

[00:03:57] Andy Leviss: yeah.

[00:03:57] Dave Hatmaker: in the background, but I do have, 'cause I'm a geek and I love these crazy things. I have a Yamaha MZ 2 0 4 Lin, uh, they called it a drum mic, so it was a kick drum mic. It works great on my snare.

I have it on my snare at, uh, for in my, my, uh, studio here for my drums. And then, uh, I'll take it out sometime and kind of blows people's minds that that was available then. Um, I guess they don't make bilin capsules anymore, but that's what kind of geek I am. But it's, it's a fabulous microphone.

[00:04:35] Sean Walker: When was then.

[00:04:36] Dave Hatmaker: Uh, I think it was. 89, 91 in the nineties maybe. And I, they, they had just gotten rid of 'em. They had just stopped, um, uh, selling them globally when I entered r and d in 2006 for Yamaha. So how did I get started in this business? I think the way a lot of people do. I was a drummer and sound guy at my church and I went to school to, um, thought I was gonna be a rock and roll drummer.

I have a degree in percussion performance, which is funny. My parents never thought I'd make it with that degree, but I've feel like I've had two or three careers now of pretty good things that have come towards me. Um, I was at Long Beach State in college, I found out that I was a better sound guy than a drummer.

I graduated again with the percussion degree and went to a local theme park here called Knottsberry Farm. Um. After Knots, uh, I'd heard that Disneyland was hiring. And so in 1987 I joined the Walt Disney Company. And uh, man, where that took me was just crazy amount of gigs, crazy amount of shows. You know, when you're mixing five shows a day, you know, in my week would be five days a week.

Um, you get pretty good at things. So, um, and, and with the Walt Disney Company there were so many experimental things that, um, manufacturers would contact us or we would contact manufacturers. And there were many things at the time that I was on non-disclosure of, like we'd have the first say oh one V 96 and we had the first, um, crest, CKV amplifiers and we had the first Sure.

U fours and like on and on and on. We had the first of a lot of things 'cause we were a pretty good acid testing site there in, uh, either Disneyland or Orlando. So, um. Great, great people of, um, great corporate alliances and Sennheiser insurer and Yamaha and JBL and EAW and, um, you know, meeting a bunch of people.

Um, I was headhunted from Disney to go to Yamaha where I was an r and d guy, um, creating like really crazy, fun next gen products. And so in my 17 years there, my thumbprints were on C-L-Q-L-T-F pm, uh, all the

[00:07:09] Andy Leviss: lots of listeners have stuff to thank you for

[00:07:12] Dave Hatmaker: I, I,

[00:07:13] Sean Walker: you're the one to blame

[00:07:14] Andy Leviss: or, or curse you for.

[00:07:15] Dave Hatmaker: Hey, now let's talk about tf. Um, so, um, and, and as you, as you say that, as you say that, the customer, I always felt like I was the first customer, you know, I always wanted to go, well, if I would see Andy or Sean, you know, what would I tell you guys was cool?

What would I tell you guys? And, and hopefully not hang my head too low in some things of tf uh, uh, that maybe would disappoint you or, you know, those, those kind of things. I, I always try to make it better for, you know, the, the common user or the power user, or Garth Brooks, or, you know, whoever's gonna take it out.

I hope you're happy with it. Um, that was a pretty great legacy from, you know, drums and pianos to, to, you know, their motorcycles and, and, uh. Consoles and speakers and, and you know, it would, it would just make me happy that I would go into a church and maybe they would have a CL or ql or a TF or, and, and it was coming out of one of our powered speakers and, you know, it's amplifying the pastor, you know, that was pretty humbling.

That was pretty fun. And now I'm, um, freelancing again, um, doing crazy corporate things. Um, uh, interesting. If we wanna chat about that too. I've been, um. Uh, approached by a company called BoxCast, which is doing live streaming. And, uh, they have a new thing called Remote Mix, so you can remote mix across the internet.

It's pretty cool. Um, more about that later, but they'll have a booth at Nam. So, yeah, I'm, I'm staying busy. Um, fun stuff. Um, not near as busy as Andy, probably with a 1-year-old, but being an r and d guy, when I had a five-year-old and a 3-year-old and I was traveling around the world and they were home, you know, it was all I could do to want to get back home, you know?

[00:09:02] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:03] Sean Walker: I do a hundred percent dude. A hundred percent.

[00:09:06] Andy Leviss: Yeah. It's switch Switching to like a, a steady day gig has been just, it's. It's definitely a perspective shift and a vibe shift, but it's, yeah, it's, it makes a lot of things of like family life a lot easier and I mean, it's, it's something I like to share with listeners too. 'cause it's, it's, you know, I, I'd like to remind folks that, you know, there are so many different career paths one can have within or related to live audio.

And just because either one isn't fitting where you are in life or like you're burning out on one doesn't mean you have to pivot to a totally different In industry, there's like so many different ways to make it work, you know, and, and kind of stay wholly or partially in this world, which I love.

[00:09:46] Dave Hatmaker: It is, and maybe being on the little, you know, older side of life, more seasoned or wiser sage or whatever, um, is, you know, smell the roses now and then, you know, don't, you know, we love our gigs and, and we could easily all become workaholics in the 20 hour days and all that, but you know, you're.

[00:10:05] Sean Walker: I feel so. Now

[00:10:07] Dave Hatmaker: Your kids, your kids really want you to be there, you know, and you want to be there.

And, um, I had a pretty hectic, uh, travel schedule. My, my younger son's senior year, and he was in jazz band and he had a lot of concerts and whatever, and I think out of the, his whole senior year, I missed one. So I would, I would, I would come rocking in from Japan. I would, uh, put pedal to the metal as soon as I picked up my luggage, and I'd be at the jazz concert at, you know, afternoon.

You know, so

[00:10:40] Andy Leviss: Oh, that's awesome.

[00:10:41] Dave Hatmaker: try to really fit that in, in your crazy career path. You know, the kids, the kids matter most,

[00:10:48] Andy Leviss: Yep.

[00:10:49] Sean Walker: a hundred percent. Dude, I just did that this weekend. Flew to LA with a SE 7:00 AM flight on Friday, mixed a show Friday night, 7:00 AM flight Saturday morning, so I could be at volleyball and soccer for my

[00:11:00] Dave Hatmaker: right? Soccer games, man. Yeah. Woo,

[00:11:03] Sean Walker: Totally. And they won. Woo.

[00:11:06] Dave Hatmaker: Oh, good times.

[00:11:06] Andy Leviss: There you go.

[00:11:07] Dave Hatmaker: awesome.

[00:11:08] Sean Walker: So it's worth it. Yep. I'm, I'm with you a hundred percent, man.

[00:11:12] Dave Hatmaker: And it doesn't change either as they, as they, uh, grow older. You know, I'm pretty proud of my, my two, uh, kids. My older son is a lighting designer for the Rams and the Chargers at SoFi Stadium. That's pretty cool. He did a stint through the Walt Disney Company and that, and then my younger son's in a doctorate program for mechanical engineering at Baylor in, uh, Texas.

I don't know how he gets the math. I, I was terrible at math. I was not at, you know, I could, I could mix a corporate and do that easy stuff, but doing math is like, no, I have a calculator for that. So, yeah, pretty cool. And then my wife is so supportive of everything that I do and she even said this morning, you know, Hey, you know, I hope the podcast goes great.

You know, so we're just a big, happy, love, joy, family.

[00:12:01] Andy Leviss: Love it.

[00:12:01] Sean Walker: Winning. That's awesome, dude.

[00:12:04] Andy Leviss: like I.

[00:12:04] Sean Walker: That's right there.

[00:12:07] Andy Leviss: Yep. A hundred percent. A thousand percent. That's how that works, right? Yeah. I, I,

[00:12:12] Dave Hatmaker: I do feel like, yeah. Okay. And now my third career, besides being a podcast guest, um, is I'm, uh, now playing drums in a country band with a singer songwriter, upstart guy. Um, that's just, that's just the most fun thing ever. Like you call it work. Okay. I'm still, you know, it's a gig, um, and loading up the drums and whatever, but, oh man, the shows we do, it's just awesome.

It's just awesome.

[00:12:41] Sean Walker: Nice.

[00:12:44] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah, man.

[00:12:46] Andy Leviss: When you're doing that, do

[00:12:46] Dave Hatmaker: fun, don't do it. You know?

[00:12:48] Andy Leviss: right, when you're doing that, do you have a, do you have to make a conscious effort to turn the, to take the sound engineer hat off and, and like chill and go into musician mode? Or do you find they feed into each other? Well.

[00:12:58] Dave Hatmaker: You know, that's funny 'cause I have a buddy that kinda wound up talking me into, well, you know, you should, you're, you're the PA guy. Why don't you bring the PA and be the drummer? Okay. So I started out just as the drummer, then went through the being the PA guy and I could do it and I'd have the iPad right near the high hat, you know,

[00:13:18] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:18] Dave Hatmaker: and I was probably better than most, even at a front of house thing, but I just wound up being, I just couldn't do it.

You know, the, maybe not the music was suffering, but I couldn't, I couldn't do both excellently, so let me just play drums. And so that epiphany was pretty cool in that if there's a sound guy, I tell him my thing, Hey, we're a country band no gates, you know, let's just try to make it easy and, and we'll mix ourselves.

I just need Sean and the vocal Sean and Sean's vocal and Sean's guitar in my drum mix. And that's it. We'll mix ourselves. It'll be great. And uh. We are a five piece country, legit band. That should be like 1973 Bakersfield. I mean, he's definitely got a sound, he has a color. Um, and we do that and we do that three hours a night, no problems.

And the sound guy will often come up after song, you know, the first break and go, that's the easiest sound check I've ever done. Yeah. 'cause the, everybody sounds good. The drums sound good. The guys sound good, Sean Sounds good. You know, we're easygoing. Boom. You

[00:14:22] Andy Leviss: That's.

[00:14:22] Dave Hatmaker: so, yeah, I, I did, I did try to do the two guy sound guy hat, and now I just go, I take my hat off and, and, and I'm just the drummer,

[00:14:31] Andy Leviss: That, that sounds awesome. And, and it sounds like one of those gigs I've described before is like they were like, as the person mixing it, all you're doing is making sure that you're not messing it up.

[00:14:40] Dave Hatmaker: uh, don't, don't screw us up. I ask him, I go, you know, please just don't mess us up. And then when you asked about. You know, will you, will you ever put the sound guy hat on? Is there sometimes that I'll, I'll come out and, and, uh, it's, it's a recent ad, but this sounds like crazy thing, but it's a funny little story is, um, sorry, it's a weird thing.

We can go onto episode two. But, um, uh, the, we're we're this legit country band. And then Sean will do a couple of songs in Spanish, like really legit. Um, um, you know, everybody knows 'em Spanish Tunes. And so I added bongos to this thing and I'll bring a bongos with a gooseneck mic and a, and a switch 58.

And I'll tell the sound guy, just, just put it up on the, you know, put the volume up and I'll, I'll click it on for those two songs that have it. Don't, you don't need to gate it or anything, and we'll just go about it. And this one guy looks at me like I had like three heads and he goes, A 58 on bongos. And I go, well, what else would you put on that?

And he goes, it has to be a 57. And then I just wince and Sean like tries to steer the story a different way. It's like, oh dude, really? If you can't, if you can't get it done with a 58, you better start over. So yeah, why don't you put all 50 eights on everything and we will, you know, have a, probably a successful show, you know, podium or whatever, bongos For sure.

You know? Anyway, that was a, that was a way too long story for a funny story,

[00:16:13] Sean Walker: But you're like, Hey bud. The important part was the switch, not the fricking capsule. Like

[00:16:19] Dave Hatmaker: right? just, it makes your life so much easier. I'm taking it out of your hands. You don't have to go. Oh, is that the song with the bongo and, no, just turn it up. I'm good. You know,

[00:16:29] Sean Walker: totally.

[00:16:31] Andy Leviss: Okay.

[00:16:32] Dave Hatmaker: both sides of the microphone, man.

[00:16:34] Sean Walker: Right. Totally. That's funny.

[00:16:36] Andy Leviss: So, so like when, when you were at Disney, you were, so you started as a sound engineer and then kinda moved into designing for them

[00:16:44] Dave Hatmaker: Yes, sir. Uh. They, they had, um, about eight stages when I started. There was 37 techs to cover all that. And we weren't open seven days a week at that time. So maybe we were closed on a Tuesday or whatever.

[00:17:03] Andy Leviss: mm-hmm.

[00:17:03] Dave Hatmaker: and that's when we would do maintenance and whatever. Um, but mixing a rock band five shows a day, um, really gets you to focus on either make it be the same or make it be the same good between this player or that player, or that band, or this band, or, you know, let them all have their same style, but let it all kind of fit into the Disney filter.

[00:17:33] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Dave Hatmaker: And then you can do that for so long and then, and then, you know, maybe you move up or you move into management or, you know, there was other things of, of system designing and then, and then, you know, building buildings and, and all that. And that's just how my path was. I was inquisitive and I, I loved talking to, uh, the show directors and the producers and, you know, how can, how can we make this better?

How can we push the envelope? And, um, companies like Myers was, was with us on those journeys and, uh, EAW making custom boxes for us. And JBL made custom boxes for the Walt Disney Company. And, uh, as that went on, uh, then digital consoles came out and we could do more with them. And we, uh,

[00:18:22] Andy Leviss: I say that's gonna, that's gonna make.

[00:18:25] Dave Hatmaker: We theatrically pushed forward, forward, forward. And before there was actually Disney theatrical, uh, we were doing, you know, theater style musicals on stage in, in, um, in Anaheim. And they were doing, you know, different shows but theatrical kind of style shows in, uh, in, uh, Florida. And that then Begot, um, beauty and the Beast we did at in Anaheim.

And that same team of, uh, director and producer went on to Broadway and formed, uh, Walt Disney theatrics, which I didn't have any part of that. They, they went on their separate ways, like, you know, cruise ships and that they went on their separate way. Um, but yeah, those were fun and building buildings and putting PAs in them.

Uh, the, the last building that I did when I was there was the Hyperion Theater. It was a 2000 seat theater with it. It should have been koic. There was, there was no RT 60 measurable in the room. Um, it was dead as a doornail, it was fantastic to mix in there. It felt like you were mixing outside, you know?

Uh, so that was a, a super fun project. And knowing that that project was coming out, I was chatting with the guys in Buena Park saying, Hey, I, I really need a console bigger than say M seven. And they were like, well, there's something coming. There's something coming, there's something coming. They finally put me on NDA and they said, here's what it is.

I want one of those. And so I, I had the first 2:00 PM one Ds ever on Planet Earth, and one of 'em was in there and one got changed out into the Hyperion Theater. So, yeah, that was pretty cool. That was fun watching that happen and then watching the, um. The Yamaha techs would, would come by every so often.

Well, there was, there was a guy from Buena Park that would come in and, and take our notes every day and then send those overnight to Japan, and maybe on Friday there'd be a firmware update into the console

[00:20:26] Andy Leviss: wow.

[00:20:27] Dave Hatmaker: to, to put those, those things in. Yeah, it was pretty neat.

[00:20:33] Sean Walker: That's awesome, dude. What, real quick, what is the Disney filter?

[00:20:41] Dave Hatmaker: Uh, that's a good one. So the Disney filter shows have, well the theme park starts where when the BGM and, and stuff when you're walking through the park is about 70 db so it's, there's something always going on, crowd noise or whatever. So if you were to think of a show. Double piano of your orchestra show starts at maybe 76 db.

Then they have a pretty hard limit on the top. It's, it's, it's about a hundred, 103 C 97 a, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty tight. So you have a 30 DB dynamic range window to fit a rock band in, or a theatrical show, or a banjo player and a vocal, or a Dixieland trio or whatever. That's, that is, that's the first filter is level.

And then the next filter is you have to make it so that whatever flavor you produce is accurate. And there's a whole music department that will go around and kind of fact check you all the time. So there's a, there's a faction of, uh. Music department and technical, uh, department. And, and you know, I, when I was a, when I, I became a td while I was there, also a technical director.

And one of the things was one day a week I would just go out and watch every show. So if I didn't see it, if I didn't see every show that I could see on, say Monday, next Monday, I would see the other shows. So the, the commitment to, uh, the brand and how that that filter is deployed was pretty tight. Um, if the music department thought, um, oh, the, the, the, the clarinet in the jazz trio was too bright, you know, it, there'd be, it'd hit a show report somewhere.

So it was, it was pretty, um, it was pretty tight how that went. The, the what they expect and sound quality and, and whatever. And, uh,

[00:22:48] Sean Walker: you're not, you're not quite left to your own devices at front of house to mix. You've got a, a big set of parameters that you've gotta mix within, or you are left to your own devices, but as long as it fits within this.

[00:23:00] Dave Hatmaker: you have, you have latitude, but, but it's not, it's not like, oh, as I look at the screen and I see Andy may mix it this way and Sean May mix it that way. Um, no, you're gonna kind of mix it how it was, it was baked, how it was intended, how the, because um, once upon a time when I still worked there, I did a, I did a, um, kind of a thought balloon of, of who has to buy off on this.

And it was like the VP of entertainment, the producer, the show director, the maintenance choreographer, the maintenance, uh, music director, the music director, the, um, talent booking audio guy. Right? So you, you had to have 13 people that still. Gave it the thumbs up so you couldn't go out and go, uh, we're gonna make the country band sound like a, like a Prague rock band.

Right. And you, you wouldn't want the Prague rock band to sound like jazz trio. Right. So you kind of had to, to live in the genre. But there was, there was certainly a, a bar of what Disneyland expected.

[00:24:15] Sean Walker: Sure. Totally. That makes sense. How could, how could some, uh, other entities like smaller sound companies, you know, we've got a bunch of listeners that are maybe one man armies or one girl armies, or they've got a couple, a couple people they're doing shows. How could they apply some of those same theories or practices without giving away any of the.

You know, stuff that you can't give away necessarily, but how, how could you frame that in a, in a bigger picture to say, here are some cool things you could do, or here's some ideas to think about. Well try to maintain that quality as, as they're going from show to show and they're hiring other people and, and getting more people to, to have more consistent shows for their brand as well.

[00:24:59] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah, that's a, that's a really great question. And, and that would come up not, not asked so succinctly as that. That was a, that was a really great question. Um, I think, I think mixers will often get buried into the tech. I have to have this, I have to have that tech, tech, tech, tech, tech. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, tech, tech, tech, plugin, plugin, plugin tech, tech tech.

And we kinda lose track of the song or we lose track of the show. And so, um, I think it comes down to vocal clarity. That's the first one. And if I was tuning a pa, I still tune it the same way I would tune theatrically. So I'm a, I don't, I don't do the tilt. I'm kind of a, a run the line zero plus or minus three ish from about one 50 to 10 K.

And then the rest of it is kind of salt and pepper to taste on that. But I think what is is happening, and it's probably been easily 15 years, is, is just simply the subwoofers are too loud. I want to hear the pitch of the base, not just do you know when I, when I'm seeing the, the bass player move his fingers up and down the fretboard and I can't tell a pitch.

I think there's too much sub, but I'm, I'm, I'm preaching to a, to a very minute segment of life because. People like subwoofers. I love subwoofers and I love subwoofers when they're deployed, right? But I also love subwoofers when, uh, the bass player, I look up there and I go, oh, great. They're in the key of E or the key of D and I can hear that it's actually a D and then I can hear that it's a F and a G, you know?

Um, so that's what I think it would, which should be, is vocal clarity, vocal clarity, vocal clarity, vocal clarity. Did I mention vocal clarity? And then I think once we've got the vocal clarity, then we can, we can get into the rest of the song. And I'm guilty and I was guilty of it forever. Amen. Thank you for playing.

Here's the sound check kick drum, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay. So I've changed my paradigm quite a bit and, and it's, and it's become because of digital mixing. And we're gonna kind of jump into where we were kind of pre chatting about a corporate event is I put my, my production elements, my like mc mic and my, and my, uh, podiums and my, anything, anything that's, that's, um, pre-show or, or will work with the show.

I put those on like young numbers, like one through 12 because often one through 12 is the on, on Yamaha consoles is the one that has the dugans on it. So you kinda auto mix on those, whatever. And then I put say the vocals next. 'cause really on a corporate event or a, a, a rock and roll show that's actually paying, they're gonna want to hear the vocals.

And then sadly, me, the drummer, I put the drums last and sadly the bass player I put dead last I. A and it's a hard paradigm to swallow, but once I embraced myself of thinking that it just works. 'cause the bass player, bass player on stage is usually fine. We get the drummer going, they're good. Then it's, it's wrap the junk around them.

And here's my vocals always here. Oh, by the way, the MCs coming out and he's the CEO and he wants to announce the band. I'm there. I'm, I'm really fast at getting that, that, uh, uh, whoever's talking up, up, up, up, up, up. You know that, that's just me though,

[00:28:55] Andy Leviss: That's, I, I mean, if, if I had to give through one secret for like corporate events, that is the secret right there is, is keeping track of when the important person's about to surprise you.

[00:29:06] Dave Hatmaker: right?

[00:29:06] Sean Walker: They're.

[00:29:08] Dave Hatmaker: And they're always about to surprise you. And so let's go down that rabbit hole a little bit. Mutes or volume controls, mutes or faders. I'm never a mute guy. I am never a mute guy.

[00:29:20] Andy Leviss: See, I'm a, I'm a theater guy, so Yeah. It's, I'm, yeah. Even delay, like, I, I, it's been, it's been a year or two since this came up, but I remember commenting at one point that like, I don't under, maybe it wasn't on the Pou, it might've been in the, in the Discord server that like, I don't understand people who can do like, delay throws on, on like pop or rock music with a mute button.

I just like, I'm not scoffing at anybody who does, but I'm like, I can't do it. Like I gotta throw it with a fader.

[00:29:46] Dave Hatmaker: I, yeah, I can't, I can't do it. It's just not me. I've seen guys do it and I, I'll say that I've tried them and I go, I just don't like it. I don't like it.

[00:29:55] Sean Walker: One of, one of my favorite things is to see something I would never do executed successfully and go, fuck, I wish I could do that. You know what I mean? Like, like the, like you're saying, delay throws with mutes or whatever, where you're like, I can't do it, but I've seen people knock it outta the park. You like at the skill I don't have, you know what I mean?

[00:30:12] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah.

[00:30:13] Sean Walker: but I, I'm, I'm, I'm both actually. If I, if I'm gonna be candid, I am, uh, definitely fader heavy, but there are, there are a few times where like CEO's got a lab or a headset or something on, and he's got 20 minutes till he speaks. He just came to get early, like nobody needs to know what he's saying in the John or to the CFO or, you know what I mean?

Like he's muted and fader down until I can see him. You know, until I can see him wandering around closer to the stage. But if he's off, you know what I mean, in the back of the ballroom or whatever, like, I'm just, I'm, there's no way anything's sneaking through. You know what I mean?

[00:30:52] Andy Leviss: belt and suspenders.

[00:30:54] Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. Totally, dude.

[00:30:56] Dave Hatmaker: Have you ever done this in that case and I, I've done this 'cause there was, there was the case of a, of a CEO doing that. I didn't know where he was going. And then I did, I did, as you said. I, I, uh, I did mute him and then I put a piece of, um, white paper tape over that Fader, and I just write, remove. Right. So,

[00:31:20] Sean Walker: remove before flight.

[00:31:21] Dave Hatmaker: right. I just know that I'm not gonna get bit with that. Right. So these are the things I, I just like to remain employed. Is, is, is a big one. You know, I just, I just hate here. Here's my two worst days of, of any of the years that I have worked in this crazy business. Here's my worst day. Listen to this.

Yeah. Silence is awful. And here's my other one. Because no matter where I am on planet Earth, if I'm mixing a show and I get feedback, my wife's gonna text me and go, did you hear that? She is like, super. Uber feedback focused, you know, and she'll, we'll be at a, we'll be at a concert or whatever and she'll like, do you hear that?

I do, but I can't do anything about it. So I'm just sitting here in the seat, you know? Yeah, I hear, I hear the feedback too. You, nothing I can do. I can also, also, so here, this, this, this was what, what, what, you know? Yeah. That's, they need that delay echo thing that you were saying. Mute the delay. Anyway, So that's the, that's a, that's a weird one. Remain employed is a, is a big one.

[00:32:29] Andy Leviss: It's, it's, it's a fundamental,

[00:32:33] Sean Walker: Interesting. process. Remain employed. Alright. Alright. I like it. I can get on board with that.

[00:32:39] Andy Leviss: I mean, Sean, Sean just became his own boss, so that, that's how he solved that problem.

[00:32:44] Dave Hatmaker: Oh, good. I like that.

[00:32:46] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:32:47] Sean Walker: I mean, I, I still have to answer to clients, right? I still gotta remain employed with the clients, which can candidly is more stressful. 'cause you see the bigger numbers than just your day rate. And so you're like, oh man, I, I cannot mess this up. I got all kinds of people and families and kids counting on me to pay their mortgages.

I gotta make sure that the client's happy, you know?

[00:33:08] Dave Hatmaker: Right. So you're the big guy and, and you're keeping the client happy. And I come in and I work for you, and I make something sound like how you would not expect it. We're out. You're, you're at a gig today, you're setting up, and I, and I come in and I'm the new hotshot guy, and I, I do things and I, I make the point song like this, the point song like this.

What do you do in that situation? How do you, how do you manage that through, how do you, what, what do you do? What do you do to, you've got client support, but you're paying me a lot of money. You know what, what do you do?

[00:33:49] Sean Walker: Uh, that would be situational candidly, right? It would, it would depend on the, how much time do we have, what the, what the, you know, room is. Does the room just sound horrible? And there's nothing you could do. And the whole thing, no matter what you put to that pa just goes like, sometimes we just have those rooms where like, as much as I'd love to bust you chops about it, you know.

None of us are gonna make this a, a super clear win today. We're just gonna get through it. Other times, if you're like, Hey man, this is obviously a you problem and not a room or a pa or whatever problem, I might let you work through your situation and, and then, you know, say, Hey man, when you're, when you're ready for some, some notes, let me know and just give you a minute to work through it.

'cause if I jump all over you while you're at the beginning stages of tuning your PA or rigging at your lab or podium or whatever, that's just a dick move. Like, nobody wants to work with that guy. You know what I mean? But if you're like, Hey, I'm feeling like I'm show ready and it sounds like you're fricking underwater, like, Hey man, can we clear up the, that mic a bit?

Or whatever, you know? And if you're a, if you're a hot shot, maybe you had a long flight and your ears haven't popped yet or something, and you're just like, oh dude, I didn't even realize I'm, everything sounds like it's underwater. Like, can you help me out? Or whatever I find most. I have been blessed. Most people I hire are excellent teammates, right?

And the people that I hire again and again and again, are excellent teammates, and we all have ego. That's why, that's how we operate. And you cannot make 2 million decisions a fricking second to mix a show if you don't have a little bit of ego and bravado about you. But don't let that get in your way, right?

And so if the boss comes to you and says, Hey man, can we clear up that podium? The only answer is, hell yes, we can. Lemme see what I can do, right? Uh, because that's what the client has asked for. Or I expect, or that's the Disney filter, right? That's the, the, the audio engineer's Northwest Filter or the Claire Filter, or whatever it is that you're, whatever brand you're trying to build, right?

Like, that's, that's what, that's what is important to you, right? And so if you want to, you know, like you said, stay employed, right? Like of course you'll work on that. And if. If you can't get there, then I would be happy to kindly help you get there. If you're like, I, I'm doing, I don't know what else to do.

Right. But I, I don't really run into that much, thankfully. Like most, most people can, can fit foe, you know, they can figure it out. And, uh, most people I think are naturally, like, vocal clarity is important because it's hard to connect if it sounds like they're underwater or, you know, talking through a pillow.

Like it's, whether that's music or corporate or theater, it's just like, it just sounds wrong and we all know it sounds wrong, right? Like, what does a kick drum sound like? Oh, who fucking knows, man? Nobody's agreed on that for, nobody's agreed on that for two decades. Right? But like, if the voice sounds weird, literally every person audio or not in the room knows, right?

Every fricking. Attendee, every client, every lighting designer, every video person, every stage, hand, every, you know, everybody's looking at you going, what's up with the fricking pillow guy on stage? You know what I mean? So

[00:37:10] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah.

[00:37:11] Sean Walker: like, you know, I I I would just say like, just gently like, Hey dude, how you, you, you y'all good over there?

Or how can I help? How can we clear this up a little bit? And most people figure it out, man, you know, um, I've only ever had, in one time in my career had to like, boot somebody off a console and, and take over. And I, I was, I just felt like a total jerk. But like, it was the middle of a show with, you know, thousands of fricking people.

He had way oversold what he could do, and it's like feeding back, it sounded like garbage. And the clients literally put smashing on my shoulder, fix it. What's going on, what's wrong? And I was just like, okay, dude. Like, you gotta, you gotta go. And in, you know, a very short order was able to right the ship and get it going.

But I, it was. It's rare. It is rare that I have those moments, thankfully, that, that somebody has to like step in and not, not be able to sort it out. You know? What, what would you, what would you expect? What would you like if it wasn't sounding good or maybe if it was different than what you thought was good but also was just fine, but that was somebody's preference.

How would you take that or what, how would you like that feedback? What would be a great way to approach that feedback on the other end?

[00:38:30] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah, I think, I think we as techs, like I said a while ago, is that, you know, we are tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, you know, and you had, you'd made a, a, a thing a little earlier saying, is it bandwidth or q? Um, that's a funny one. Uh, I think if, if they have an analyzer running, you can point to, here's what I'm hearing.

I'm confirming it over here, but if the analyzer's not running, hey, I think you could pull out about six DB at 200 and it wouldn't hurt my feelings is is usually the way that I say it. Hey, I don't know what you're hearing, but I'm really hearing you could probably take six DB out at 200 and you can make it a pretty wide filter and let's see what happens with that.

[00:39:20] Sean Walker: Sure.

[00:39:20] Dave Hatmaker: I would get right to the, I think I'd get right to the tech of it

[00:39:24] Sean Walker: Okay.

[00:39:27] Dave Hatmaker: and again, if somebody came up to me, uh, that I respected the company owner, I don't know that for sure. If any CEO would say something, I would say, yes, sir. And I would look him in the eye and say, as soon as I can get to that, I got it. Even if he was wrong. Yep, I'm on it. Thank you very much for that feedback.

I'm, I'm on it. But if it's a, if it's the production manager or the, the, the owner and they said, you know, I'm hearing, I'm hearing 800. Oh, really? Okay. Let me, let me, let me look into that. And then, yeah, you'd, you'd crank up 800 and find it and notch it out and you know, just to, if you're doing something and I mean, not like, how's that, how's that, how's that while your hand on the knob?

I mean you make it, you bark it. Um, funny story, there was a guy, his name's Bull, he's the monitor guy, was the monitor guy for the Rolling Stones for a long time and Bull said sometimes Mick would look at him and he'd be looking at him and he knew that it was a Clair Brothers Monitor rig and he was downstage and Mick's like asking for more.

And sometimes you just got bark it just to let him know that you're working. You know. Yeah. That's the time. You're okay. I'm on err. You know, you sometimes you sometimes help 'em out by, by, I'm at the end of the road here, man. Uh, so yeah, I think it's, it is funny that you said it's situational or contextual.

Yeah. I guess at that point you kind of go right to the tech.

[00:41:15] Sean Walker: I

[00:41:15] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, it, it feels like that that takes the, the emotion or, or some of the subjective out of it.

[00:41:23] Dave Hatmaker: Yeah. Hey, here's a weird one in, um, as you're on the corporate side, you're doing a corporate gig. Today is, um, when I go into a corporate. Uh, I know, like kind of what I want. I've, I've asked for specific speakers and I've asked for a specific console and whatever. And then the, the hire company sends, I ask for 10 inch, two-way powered speakers, Meyers or, or Yamaha, or EAW.

And when I arrive there, it's JBL 15 inch speakers for a lab gig. Can't change 'em. So no matter what, I do the same thing. I'm, I'm very rote and very, um, uh, precise every single time I do one of these things. And so I go, well, those don't sound very good. So what do I do to repair them? You know, so we're, I, do I try to make it be the same thing?

Same thing. And, and oftentimes, hmm, let's say more times than not, I don't have the, the time. To use the smart system. I don't have time to to, to do that. So it's all with my ears. And so I'll try to get the pa sounding as good as I can make it sound with some song. And I've even changed that paradigm 'cause I'm in the room with florists and the, and the, the people that are serving dinner and the mare Ds and the, the people that are doing the, the soft goods.

And there's always something on a corporate event where it's not audio and to come in and go or you know, come in and play nine inch nails or whatever. That's a, a little offensive. So I've

[00:43:10] Sean Walker: Have you been watching my tuning process? I've just been rocking the new mammoth song as loud as it could go, and everybody's looking at me like I'm crazy, and I'm just like, I don't even care. No,

[00:43:21] Dave Hatmaker: right.

[00:43:21] Sean Walker: kidding, dude. I'm just, I'm just being a smart ass.

[00:43:27] Dave Hatmaker: No, but we've all been that guy once upon a time, we go, oh my gosh, that's. That's the coolest thing ever. You know, you walk in and it's a, and it's a pretty good pa and you go, well, let's see what it'll do, you know? So

[00:43:38] Sean Walker: Absolutely.

[00:43:40] Dave Hatmaker: yeah, I was doing a heart association gig and I, the band was playing that night, was a, a bunch of guys from Kansas and whatever, and the room was just, it was just a flurry of, there was a gajillion people in there and the, the CEO was in there.

Like, everybody's in there and you're going, okay, the last thing I can do is have a high powered soundcheck right now. So I turn on the smooth jazz and you know, I see people snapping their fingers and I'm getting as much as I can get done, done. And I'll ramp it up, kind of takes a minute or two, ramp it up, okay, I know where the limiters are, okay, pull it back.

Okay, let's do this. And then maybe this is a sage wisdom, whatever I've gotten used to, I put on a book on tape, I have a books on tape, and I just start playing dialogue. And if I can get the dialogue right, then the rest is easy. The rest is easy. So I'll do that. I'll, I'll get the, I'll get the pa right.

And then it, it never, uh, it's, it's never a stretch to go, oh, there's a, there's two guys on a lab and one guy on a headset and one guy in a podium. Oh. And I think the guy, the

[00:44:51] Sean Walker: I just admit right now to the world that that is fucking genius. I had never thought of that. And that is a free genius nugget for anybody else. Like I was just talking about how the vocals, the one we all know, if it's messed up, dude, just play a book on tape a, an appropriate book on tape, right?

We're not firing up the comma suture here, but you know, like

[00:45:16] Andy Leviss: I have a story about that.

[00:45:17] Sean Walker: don't do it. Don't do it. I don't know this. This is the Pou, this is the wrong podcast, Andy. But that's genius, man. That's genius. 'cause like. Like you said, everything else a high and low shelf filter on your matrix outputs, sorts out a lot of things real fast, but it doesn't sort out the vocal.

Oh my God. Okay. Carry on. That's awesome.

[00:45:34] Dave Hatmaker: And it'll, and it'll also get you close to where, where should the front fills a level be, right? So if you, if you just get that you're employed, but here's the crazy part, is the, the, the CEO will say, oh, and my wife's gonna come up and do an introduction to blah, blah, blah, whatever. So you got, you got two lavs, a headset, a podium mic, and a, and a, and a, a, a handheld.

The, so the podium always sounds, Hmm, pretty good. The headset sound great, the handheld sounds great, and the lavs all sound like, right. So even, even me, and I'm pretty dang good at it. I'm really, I'm really quite good at getting a lab to sound really good. But shouldn't we make all those dissimilar things sound similar?

So I, I, I call it defying. So I take whatever the, whatever the thing is that I can get to be the best. Let's take a lab, I'll get the lab as good as I can, make the lab sound, and I try to make everything else sound like that. So my handheld mic doesn't sound like, oh, that's a really great sounding handheld mic.

No, I'm high passing it at maybe 180, 200. I'm, I'm taking the low end out. So when they're having an interaction with the guy on the lab, at least they sound similar because I think our brain hates distractions. Our brain, we want to hear what the human is saying and conveying. We, we wanna, we want to get to a hundred percent articulation of what, what can we consume and what, and can we hear every word?

And I don't think we like things that are. Different in color. So when I find one color that I like, I'll try to make all the rest of them sound that color. Maybe that's me. I watch too much tv. But that's what happens on tv. You never know if it's the boom mic or a lav mic or a, or a, a close mic or you know, you, you don't ever know.

They just sound natural through every take. The camera's taking the camera's. Cutting. We don't know where it is, but you know, we're, we're watching Survivor or whatever, and they're all on lavs and they all sound great. And, you know, I, I just wanna make them all kind of sound congruent, right as I hate it.

Me as the consumer, oh, the podium sounds pretty good. I'm good. And the guy talks to his wife and the wife comes out with the handheld and she's screechy as heck. And like, all sorts of like, proximity, low end PP pee popping, p fuck P It's like, 'cause they're not, they're not public speakers. That guy was running a company, you know, and his wife maybe has a, has a firm or whatever and she's like, they're trying to fundraise.

[00:48:22] Sean Walker: She's running him. He's running a company. Yeah. I got it.

[00:48:24] Dave Hatmaker: right? And so you do whatever you can to make them sound like when the husband's talking on the, on the podium that she sounds clear and it, and you want to listen to her, you know, DS her or whatever. And um, and they can have a conversation without it sounding too distracting.

[00:48:44] Sean Walker: Totally. I like that. That's a good philosophy. You're hired.

[00:48:50] Dave Hatmaker: Thank you very much. Don't fire me. Can I pick the speakers? Can I pick the speakers? Can I not pick 15 inch two ways on a lab gig?

[00:48:59] Sean Walker: Hey, by the way, everybody listening, if somebody asks for something specific, call them. If you can't provide it, don't just show up with something that different. Like you may call and say, Hey, I, I don't have, you know, X forties or X twelves or whatever, but I do have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, give him a heads up.

Don't, don't like say, yeah, we can sort out X forties and then show up with eons. That's not fair, dude. That's not fair at all. And that's not a good way to get hired. Again, you're not gonna like sneak that past somebody and then think it's gonna be okay, you know?

[00:49:39] Dave Hatmaker: I a thousand percent agree. 'cause when I'm on the airplane, at least I'm knowing tomorrow when I walk into the venue and it's, and it's 15 inch, two ways, I, I know I've gotta do something a little different than I would do with 10 inch two ways.

[00:49:55] Sean Walker: And maybe you're like, okay, tomorrow I must make time for Smart,

[00:50:00] Dave Hatmaker: Right, right, right, right. I'm gonna break the analyzer out. Uhhuh.

[00:50:02] Sean Walker: you'll reprioritize your day. So you're like, okay, I've got, I've got 15 inch eons today. Great. And I'm not flagging on, on

[00:50:12] Dave Hatmaker: No, no, no, no, no. And, and these were fantastic speakers by the way. It was, it was great.

[00:50:16] Sean Walker: But you're like, Hey man, this is a different tool.

I'm gonna really need to dig into the analyzer day to get what I need out of it, rather than I'm gonna play some, some music and some speech and it'll be fine because they already show up close enough to what I'm going to need for the day. Right?

[00:50:30] Dave Hatmaker: Right. Hey, and one more thing on getting a corporate gig and keeping the corporate gig is, um, again, we oftentimes as tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, we, we still have to trust, we have to trust our techno. So when, when we're ready and the CEO is walking out and we're playing the, the Walkon music, and he's coming out, you should already know, here's the Walkon music.

Here's the podium or here's the walk on music and here's the, the CEO's lab, right? So don't be looking down at the console. Look at him, look at, look at them. Whether you're at the side of a, this, it's like really vogue now to put the mixer on the side of the stage, which is terrible, just awful. But if you're at front of house and, and you can at least look up and you can catch eyes with that guy as he's walking up the stage, he's just gonna have a much more confident opening.

He's gonna be, he's gonna be ready to speak and he's not gonna be burdened with am on. Yep. I say, good. Oh, I'm on now. Okay, thanks. You know, you just gotta give them the confidence. And if you're, if you're looking down to where your hand is with the fader, it's a glance down. And then get your head up and be looking at him.

I've had so many things that are just better that way. You go, man, I hope he comes out the thing. We should already have him PFL in your headphones. And you already know it's the right mic and it's that right thing. And then your eyes still don't have to come off him and the stage. And they go, ladies, gentlemen, CEO, Bob.

And you go, I'm up. Good. CEO. Bob's gonna talk. Great.

[00:52:10] Sean Walker: totally. Ladies and gentlemen, CEO, Bob, the freaking ballyhoo, the freaking fireworks, the, you know what I mean? Whatever ac DC you're playing, and then boom. Microphone.

[00:52:22] Dave Hatmaker: Absolutely. While your eyes are on CEO, Bob,

[00:52:26] Sean Walker: hundred percent. A hundred.

[00:52:28] Andy Leviss: that like that comes back to the whole, we're a customer service industry. Like, we'd like to think we're in the audio industry, but we're a customer service industry. That audio is our tool.

[00:52:36] Dave Hatmaker: right?

[00:52:37] Sean Walker: A hundred trillion percent.

[00:52:40] Dave Hatmaker: Write that down. And there's your, there's your on your corporate website there. That's it. You

[00:52:46] Sean Walker: My, my dad told me when I started my first company, which was many companies ago, he said, I don't care what business you think you're in, you're in customer service. And I said, yes, sir. And I've followed that ever since. It's worked out well. That's great. Great advice, Andy. Like

[00:53:00] Dave Hatmaker: is killer

[00:53:01] Sean Walker: you could, you can rent gear anywhere, dude.

You know what I mean? But you can't get customer service anywhere unfortunately.

[00:53:08] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm. And I mean.

[00:53:09] Dave Hatmaker: At the end of the day, I, I go out and I, I do a, a mike seminar also, and we talk about microphones and we talk about, you know, 58 versus beta 58, and then we talk about a, you know, what, 4 21 and we go through the, the whole thing. And I also have, in that seminar, I have a. A list of, um, I have a, a, a piece of paper that says, uh, your set list and I have a hammer.

And we talk about everything. I never talk about the hammer, but I put the hammer in because, because some, a type introvert is gonna fixate on that hammer. And at the end of the thing we say, you know what, what's the hammer for dude? It's just a tool. It's like another microphone. It's just a tool man. It's like whatever.

And the, and this piece of paper is the set list. And it might be way more important than the kick drum just saying, right? So you, we have a bunch of tools and doesn't mean we need to use every tool in the, in the, in the, the, the tool chest, you know? But we need to use the right tool in the right place.

And again, having a set list and knowing, oh, it's the ac DC walkon music and not the Yani Walkon music. Is that right? We have to make sure that we've got the right uh, Q Lab file playing. Right, and, and we need a hammer now and then,

[00:54:30] Sean Walker: Yeah, if you go AC DC and Valley Hoop for the accountant, you're in trouble,

[00:54:34] Dave Hatmaker: right? There's no

[00:54:36] Sean Walker: blow the CEO's entrance for the accountant.

[00:54:38] Dave Hatmaker: right, there's no thelman Louise moment here. We can't send it off the cliff again.

[00:54:42] Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally.

[00:54:48] Dave Hatmaker: No. The accountant gets yoni. Do you get that? Like,

[00:54:51] Sean Walker: right. Right. Totally.

[00:54:53] Dave Hatmaker: or something like, I'm all right by Kenny Loggins or something, you know,

[00:54:56] Sean Walker: Yeah. There you go.

[00:54:58] Dave Hatmaker: not sweet Little lies or, you know, I.

[00:55:02] Sean Walker: Wow.

[00:55:03] Andy Leviss: like, on, on the practical front, if we want to maybe to give like one more bit of practical advice to folks listening, I know as we've been talking about like laws and lecterns and stuff, and before we started recording we were talking about how like often like lecterns seem like they should be straightforward and are one of the harder things to do.

Like, do you have any thing, like when you're doing corporate events that any tricks or tips to make your life easier with Lecterns that, that you wanna share with folks?

[00:55:29] Dave Hatmaker: I do. And again, because it's rote and I, I own, I only own probably 10 lectern mics and I have the, the countrymen and the Sure. And the, uh, I think a Sennheiser and whatever. And, uh, I think Earthworks has one. Um, I, as a rule, and, and whatever the client will supply, ultimately I'll probably be okay with it.

Just the way, the what, the way that I do EQ and, and what, and that, I don't know that that's secret sauce, but it's just what I've come up with. I don't do it any different than probably anybody else does, but maybe my filter choices are, are better. Never use a graphic. Can I say never use a graphic? Did I mention you should never use a graphic?

I don't think that you should ever use a graphic on anything. That's my. My other free bit of advice. Why are you using a graphic? It's just so antiquated anyway. Um, I, as a rule, do card, um, mics just because most of the other things like a 58 is card. I like card I, it's predictable. I know where it is. Um, there's some reasons for hyper, but a lot of times the CEO will walk out of the pattern and I hate that.

So my, my typical go-to is two of the Sure. Um, 18 inch gooseneck cardio. The number is out of my head right this second. But, um,

[00:56:57] Sean Walker: Is that the 4 12 4?

[00:56:59] Dave Hatmaker: sure. Four 18. Four 18. Uh, and I'll do two of 'em, but only one is on, um, just 'cause that's what has happened with the Walt Disney Company. They're, you always redundant. And when I'm, even if it's a podium gig.

It's so funny that we're gonna go, even if it's just a podium gig, there's two podiums. There's usually two handhelds just in case. There's usually a 58 underneath the stage just in case. And there's Q lab playback and there's BGM playback and there's probably an off stage announce mic. So what did we run up to?

12 mics. 16 mics for just a podium gig. And that's, that's the minimum of a podium gig, right? So that's a funny, when you go, oh, it's just a mic. No, it's, it turns out to be like 14 inputs just to do a podium gig. Um, I, I like cardio just 'cause it's predictable. Um, you don't get something for nothing on a SuperCard or a HyperCard.

There's always something coming off the back and it's usually into a wooden or a plexi, uh, um, um, lectern and it's just not as easy. So that's, that's my. Thing. There're, there're, you know, lots of tools in the shed and, um, I've had success with SuperCard and, and HyperCard, but just as a rule, I go, I go cardio and I've, I, I, I won't say that I've, no, I'm gonna, I've never had an issue where I've not had the correct game before.

Feedback of A CEO speaking on a cardio podium mic.

[00:58:42] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I always feel like that's the catch 22 with a tighter pattern is that while it rejects more, when they're on axis, when you have to start fighting for them off axis, you're throwing all that benefit away.

[00:58:55] Dave Hatmaker: Right. And I've shown that in these, um, in these MIC seminars is what's the difference between a SuperCard and a cardio is it's, it's about 15 degrees. Well, if that guy turns to turns his head at all, um. Again, the clarity changes and the color changes, and I just don't like that. So I'd like to get, get them in a kind of a, just a nice envelope where they can, they can move a little to the left.

They can move a little to the right. They can read the prompter on the right, they can read the prompter on the left. Um, uh, it's, it's, it's, it makes it easier for me, but then again, my finger never comes off the fader. If it's a CEO, I'm doing everything else. And they might as well be Garth Brooks or Barbara Streisand.

My hand never leaves the fader.

[00:59:45] Andy Leviss: That's, that's, I mean, that's really the ticket. Um, I mean, I, I feel like we're, we're getting on about an hour here, so I mean, there's so much more like we wanted to talk to you about that we haven't hit. Although I think everything we've hit has been great, but I mean, maybe at some point we bring you back on and I'd love to give folks a picture of like that r and d side and like give folks an idea of what goes into developing a product if you're up for that another

[01:00:07] Dave Hatmaker: Oh, totally.

[01:00:09] Sean Walker: Nice.

[01:00:10] Dave Hatmaker: be able to talk about some, some more fun next gen things that are up and coming. Let's, fingers crossed. Right.

[01:00:17] Andy Leviss: Yep. Uhhuh Uhhuh. Um, well thanks, thanks so much for, uh, for joining us and, and again, if, if you're listening out there, Mike, thanks for introducing us to Dave. Um, it's been really cool. Um, and I

[01:00:30] Dave Hatmaker: Thanks a lot dudes, for having me. That has been, I can't even believe an hour has passed. Wow.

[01:00:36] Sean Walker: Dude, it goes by so fast. We're always like, oh, we can't fill up an hour. Then like an hour and a half later we're like, alright, shut up and stop talking, and like, holy crap, they're over us already. You know what I mean? It's, it's crazy how fast it goes. You're just yapping and having a good time nerding on stuff, you know?

[01:00:50] Dave Hatmaker: Right. And if anybody has like questions after, if they, I'm gonna just do a quick little pimping of my thing is dave hatmaker.com, or you can reach me at dave@davehatmaker.com if you wanna, if you like, oh my gosh, what you said was crazy, I'm gonna call you out on your craziness. Or maybe you, maybe you agree or I don't know, send me a, send me an email.

[01:01:12] Sean Walker: Oh, I'm a hundred percent sending naughty pictures at this point. Like, you're, you're, you're, you're gonna regret giving away your email, Dave.

[01:01:18] Dave Hatmaker: No, it'll be a picture of a, of an EQ knob. You know, here's your, here's your EQ knob porn for today. You know.

[01:01:27] Sean Walker: Just sending graphic EQ pictures to you

[01:01:29] Dave Hatmaker: Oh, no, no, no. Oh, these are white cut only, so that must make it way good. Right.

[01:01:37] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally, totally.

[01:01:39] Dave Hatmaker: Super geeks. We are super geeks, man. Geek, geek, geek.

[01:01:44] Sean Walker: We appreciate you coming on dude. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio for another week. We'll see you next week...that's the pod!