A Barking Dog

In a few hours we head back to the States. We’ll be about 30 hours short of six weeks. We’ve had a pretty good time, though there were some rough spots scheduling wise. I’d reckon I’ll have some more pics or random thoughts. Thanks BTW for the good comments from several of you.

I’ve got about a week until we do a short run in the States with a touring package show. I’ll be mixing all three acts and setting up my own rig. At least I’ve got my own rig, PM5D, 16 12AMs and R4s for sides. Got a day off in LA in about a week. We’re at the Hollywood Bowl, ping me if you want to hook up on the 23rd. During the week off I’ll pack for the move to Vegas. By mid Sept I should be settled in down there.

A few nights ago met Werner Bayer, AKA “4″ of d&b Audiotechnik at a gig in Esslingen at Burg. We were the maiden voyage of the new mid size line array from d&b. The working name is the d&b Blah Blah. That’s what 4 told us anyway. I’d bet the marketing guys make him change it. It’s 12″s, 10″s and 2″s biamped with passive third way. I’ve got a bit of a rant penned regarding the new breed of passive crossovers from the likes of d&b, Nexo and Radian. That’s for another time, though.

The new, yet not really named line array hangs pretty quickly. Has integrated rigging. Sounds great. During the day 4 and I discussed directionality, pattern control and other like theories. This product will launch in January. There is also some work being done on steerable cardiod subwoofers. Basically you stack the bins and steer the individual drivers as needed. Fancy stuff.

A few other tidbits…

New wedges, basically half of what an M2 is. The M2 is big. Too damn big for some acts. The C6 (or 602) is great sounding, but not quite loud enough for mega loud. This new wedge should bridge that gap.

Powered speakers from d&b? Well, 4 says “never”. I would never say never to that. There are some great applications for self powered speakers. If you look at it objectively, d&b stacks are basically self powered as they required the integrated amp and controller card. The only difference is that it’s in a rack, not the speaker box. You’re more than halfway there guys. Might as well stick the amp and controller in the box and get over it.

The new rig is pretty good, excellent in fact. It will give Milo, Kudo and the middle Vertec a run for the money. If not more.

I was wrong, we weren’t flying into Geneve, we were Zurich bound. Good thing I’m not the tour manager. We had what we refer to as a “quality work day” for the first time in several shows. Probably since Umbria.

There were a few heinous dates. Straubing in particular where the FOH tech for the festival PA company decided to check the config with Ramstein on a 24 module X-Line rig at full tilt during line check. We never quite recovered and during the set The Jazz Singer was a bit miffed. It seems that “Straubing Guy” as we now call that particular tech, decided to point the front fills (a couple of those Dynacord self powered boxes from the previous post) basically across the stage, at the downstage foot of the sidefills. The sidefills get Jazz Singer vocal and high hat. Sax during the solos downstage. That’s it. Nothing else. Ever. Or you’ll be sorry. From where The Jazz Singer was standing, it sounded like a full mix was coming from the fills. I was instructed to “take the motherfucking keyboards” out of the fills. There are no keys in the fills, motherfucking or otherwise. I did the gig for two years before this leg, not too much as changed. Particularly nothing in the fills except vocal and hat. Ever.

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Why do people buy US$80k control surfaces only to hook them together with MI quality infrastructure? Why do they not purchase the proper desk lamps for them? Why do people buy expensive sound systems only to have them exposed to the elements and not properly maintain or clean them? Perhaps more on this later.

As reported elsewhere, rock icon Lemmy was “in hospital” as they say over here. Word from a crew member is that all the summer dates are off and it’s perhaps a bit more serious than simple dehydration. No word of this yet that I’ve read over here but my source is pretty good.

Back up to Switzerland for a couple of days then we’ll pop back down to Spain.

I’ve got a few entries in various stages I may post as soon as I make them into more coherent ramblings. The schedule has been much more compact than I initially thought. On non show days we’re traveling either by day or by air and that’s cutting my on ‘net time quite a bit. For wayward english speaking types (real english, not what those Brits speak) there is a bright side in late night TV viewing land. Daily Show International with Jon Stewart is on CNN International Sunday nights and Leno and Conan are on CNBC Europe nightly as well as US CNBC with the ever lovely “Money Honey” Maria Bartiromo. Then the local staples, Everbody Loves Raymond dubbed in German or Full House dubbed in Italian. We did kill some time on the bus through the Austrian Alps by watching the Brit box version of Python, specifically the Holy Grail. The extras are great, location tours with Jones and Palin. Except for The Castle Arrrghh, they used a single castle in Scotland as the set for all the other castles. And made the film for about 150k Brit Pounds at the time, nearly 30 years ago.

Luggage call in a bit, time to rush out and start a four show run and a pretty intense schedule for the rest of the week. Next week I’ll have a couple of days to kill in Haugesound, Norway. If anyone has any ideas on what to do up there, let me know. I sure hope we have broadband or 3G access.

Posting has been slow, there are some issues with my Cingular quad band and getting on Euro GPRS networks. Apparently Cingular has flashed in some software that makes if difficult if not impossible to use non Cingular GPRS networks with other SIMs. Voice and texting work fine, using the phone to moblog pics and check email doesn’t. Bummer. For me.

A bit earlier this evening I was ready to call in a missle strike on Burnsville. I’ve mellowed a bit, perhaps due to the Toprol and Lisinopril, perhaps due to old age, possibly both. The German part of the deal sponsors a high end jazz fest on the Danau (that’s Danube for the Yanks and other heathens). Nice gig for the most part. Great catering (by BMW no less), nice assortment of gear, that is, except for the wedges. Actually, calling the EV Plasma series wedges would be an insult. To real wedges.

Geez, where to start…

Tonality. They need some. Flat with a 58 into a Heritage 3k they sounded like warmed over monkey piss. Lumpy lows and harsh highs. It basically appears to be a rebadged Dynacord self powered box. It was sold to me as a high powered high fidelity self powered wedge. I didn’t think so and for a few hours this evening not only did they make my pityful existance fraught with peril, they probably got my BP back into the danger zone. The equalizers look like the remnants of a 9.0 quake just to get a modicum of tonality and forget about any serious level.

You guys can do a lot better than this. If these are meant to be your high end powered wedges, I’m afraid you’re going to want to start again.

It’s time to head back out and introduce the next installment of A Dog’s Tale. Previous segments have included the Mexico and Spanish tours of 2003 and “The Glamor of Show Business” short feature from one of three European legs I did last year. I had originally intended the short to be something different than it was. I knew next to nothing about video or filmmaking, I just picked up a camera and started to shoot and pumped the results into Final Cut. Around 1500 people have downloaded it so far (between 6000 and nearly 10,000 visit APD every month but only about 3500 or so are regulars) and most seemed to enjoy it, but it was nothing like I intended to do and mostly what I didn’t want to do. I’ll have the DV cam again but with better audio and lighting gear and a better understanding of how to use it and the workflow of managing what I shoot and putting it together. I shot way too much gear and not enough people and this time I’d like to focus more on the people and if some are willing, some short interviews to show people what it’s like on tour.

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