A Barking Dog

As the Summer 2k7 ABD winds to a close, (actually this started about two months ago) this being the final post of the Summer 2k7 season (which at this point is now Fall), much has happened in this last several months. We went from having a technically deficient show in terms of sound systems and design to one of the most elaborate designs and implementations not only on this block but in the in the biz as a whole. Even after a year, I’m still amazed, but no longer perplexed by the scale of what we do. No longer am I overwelmed with a gigantic performance space that encompasses several thousand square feet over six stories and more than a million gallons of water.

But it’s not come at some expense. The compressed time frame of our recent “enhancement”, (sound is awesome, but a reported 6 mil worth of lights looked like shit to me) unmanagable colleagues and demands from upper management make the technical nirvanna secondardy to the petty politics, greed, arrogance, incompetence and ignorance that seem to permeate my existence on the gig at this point. Just like with touring, it became not fun to come in everyday inspite of having one the best gigs in the biz using some the most advanced tools available. The horseshit factor outweighed any enjoyment that might be derived from such a job. It’s not like I didn’t like those with which I work, as I do. It’s just that I have a different veiw of Varisty than some of them did. Or at least in my mind, I think that I do. I do enjoy the genre of the modern circus style Las Vegas production show in the terms of scale, scope and artistic endevor. You’d never find me doing some of the things the performers do. Ever. Well, except perhaps imbibing on a favorite spirit at the Artisan or Peppermill.

It’s a bittersweet time, full of angst and indecision. As Ed says, “but I know that I know I don’t want to stay”. So I left. About six weeks ago I put in my notice, much to the “disgust” of English John, our leader. I don’t know that disgust was the word he was looking for. I’ve only voluntarily left one gig before, work of Sid for the “riders that go for great distance”, or the “riders that are very tall”, as Jordy would say. I did mention that after nearly a couple of decades, I did run into Jordy in Spain again? I mentioned that in the Euro 2k6 season when we were doing the castle tour. Still have some great castle gig video. I should post that one of these days. I should also not cuss, bathe regularly, brush my teeth and not be such a crusty old fuck. But that’s not likely to happen either.

Much like an infant in a shit laden diaper, it was time for a change. Not that I didn’t like the show or the people I was working with, I did. But the challenges were few and a couple of the personalities I had to deal with made the gig less than fun. I told the powers that be that I left the gig to pursue greater opportunities. That’s partially right. But I also didn’t have any shirts with a rainbow picture of the sun with French writing. Well, Quebecious anyway. I figured that if I was going to spend the back nine of my career doing this kind of show (with an outstanding benefits and good compensasion package) I might as well be doing it with the people that are considered to be the top of the class. Even if they are based in Canada, err, I mean Quebec.

So if this is such a good move, why is it bittersweet? Other than the fact that Fuel record is on Dave’s iTunes now? I had (and still have it) it pretty good. I was instrumental in redesigning and programming a big ass monitor rig on one of the most complex shows on the planet. I was working with (mostly) some pretty cool people. But after a year and a half I was going nowhere. I need to be the lead dog on the sled team. I can’t stand looking up the other dogs butts on the sled, particularly when I think I can be faster than them. On tour it was easy. Cut the mustard, be good at your gig or your ass gets shipped out. In LV Strip world, don’t work like that. If you’re kind of good enough to do the gig, don’t piss anyone off too badly and don’t invite any lawsuits, they’ll keep your ass around no matter how much you know or don’t know about doing mission critical pro audio. To me, that ain’t right. Know your shit, do it well or get the fuck out. It’s really that easy.

As wistful as I am for the touring days, it would take a call for a long term gig where Rog and Dave brought the inflatable pig and styrofoam bricks for the wall to get me out of retirement. And somehow I don’t think I would be on the short list for the call.

So what did I do? I started over. Again. Shit. Part of this is having to work my way back up from my former life of being the big swinging dick on the desk to being the guy on deck that makes sure that all the IFBs, ear mons and mics are working. About a hundred packs at this point. No, really. That’s an assload of batteries. And not counting wireless com. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forward. Of course, the trick is to know when the time is right and see the payoff at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise you’re just going backwards. And that’s the bittersweet part. Knowing that you can do the heavy lifting but being relagated to what one might consider crap work. That, my friend, is what separates the men from the boys, the Varisty from the Jr Varisty.

Based on a post on the theater sound list I decided to undertake a bit of an experiement, though hardly scientific. Which is my point in my response. Many times, if not the majority of the time what we do is more a factor of the application rather than the science we use to do this sound thing. While we need to have a good understanding of the mechanics of audio, we really need to know how they fit into the big picture.

The discussion was regarding the parallel spliting of microphones with regards to sound reinforcment applications. Jim Brown and Bill Whitlock presented AES 118 in Barcelona “A better approach to passive microphone splitting” (paper 6338) Full text is available at http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/AESPaperSplittersASGWeb.pdf

While the research presents compelling arguments and data for reasons not to Y split mics it fails to address practical and business concerns and offer a comparison of real world parameters aside from what is very comprehensive test data. In other words, plugging a mic in and using it in an app without all the test gear and using perhaps the most important audio test gear, human ears. My point is that even with the science, in a real world SR application one will be challenged to tell in the majority of cases which mic is Y split and which mic is transformer split. The paper does an excellent job of explaining the phenomenon though it doesn’t address the use of lower cost transformers when used degrade or change the audio more than a Y split would, particularly on the low end with high amplitude apps. To me that’s been much more noticable than Y spliting. Also, the current breed of active mic splitters add thier own signature to the sound, offsetting many times the subtle differences in esoteric mic pre amps. In practice I’ve found the results of using active mic spllitters and inexpensive transformers to impact my app more than the results of Y split mics. Given the same level of other equipment, talent, environment, etc.

I had hoped to make a more comprehensive comparison but due to time and other restrictions, I won’t be able to at this point. This weekend I trade my polyester blend polo shirts from the swanky dive on the Strip for some tee shirts with a picture of a yellow sun at another dive down the street where they do the same sort of thing. This time, though, instead of flying 90lb french chicks through the air then dunking them in water, we’ll turn the beach into a forrest and then into a mountain and fly 90lb asian chicks through the air but with no real water to dunk them into.

Here’s what I did for the mic split comparison. Using a PM1D V2 with the new mic preamp cards, supposedly based on the XL4, the LMY4-MLF or as we call them, the MILF cards. I used a Neuman KMS-104 with 100′ cable and split it with a standard Y into two channels of the PM1D. I routed the preamp out (pre HPF) of each channel out of a DIO MY4-AT (Lightpipe) into a Digidesign 192 I/O feeding a Pro Tools HD2 system @ 24 bit/44.1kHz. One file is the direct, unsplit sound of the mic. On the second pass two mono tracks recorded the indentical source concurrently in real time and the mic in the second track is used. The most difficult thing for me was keeping the mic technique consistent between tests.

I’ve uploaded the files at http://roaddog.com/video/split_test/file1.wav and http://roaddog.com/video/split_test/file2.wav . I’ll leave it to our gentle readers to decide which is which or even if so inclined to run a transfer function test to see any differences or if that test matches the differences in what one preceives between the two files.

EDIT: I’ve opened comments for a while so if you have anything to say, post it.

Dave