Day 2 London before train to Knebworth

Well here I am

Well alrighty then. Off to gig site after an acclimation day in London. I really appreciate the train systems throughout Europe. It just makes me so happy to so easily be free to travel between cities without the worry of car rentals, parking, getting gas as all that crap. Hop train, bye bye, hello new city yay! And off Knebworth to connect up with the tour humans and gear.

Sound Thought of the Day

Microphones do not hear sound the same as our ears. Unlike microphones, our ears/brain have the ability to to hear frequency response and also the direction sound is coming from. Microphones hear frequency response but not the direction from which sound originates. This difference is significant. Once captured by a conventional recording system the directional information is lost. A recording of a mic in a room sounds much more distant  and reverberant than the sound of actually being in the room as the reverberation is merged with the direct sound and can no longer be perceived as radiating from differing direction.

And then we use those same mics that give us only a portion of what we perceive, to measure systems and tell us what they will sound like? Ahh, but it is so tempting to rely upon technology and establish repeatable and storable snapshots. I guess for lack of a better way, we depend upon these flawed listening devices and yes they can give us useful information when kept in perspective but never forget that our current measuring systems do not paint the full picture.

Oh, back on the home front

Had a short but eventful 9 days at home between tour legs or so. Sammy has taken to archery so we went to the  http://pergsonsarchery.com/  up in Ojai where she got a free lesson and new supplies. Like everything, there is a heck of a lot more to it than ya think.

And while we are shooting, may as well take the daughters to go play with guns.  I love that they just hand us guns and ammo and send us off to shoot.  Shooting ranges are fun and it is surprising to see little kids, soccer moms and military bad asses all hanging out shooting shit. If ya never been, do go, I highly recommend it!

Maddie and M15

And that diagonal pile behind the target is all lead slugs!

Sammy and Glock!

Check out the Rat Skateboards from One11! Just for fun we made 25 custom black on black on black Rat Sound boards.

Oh, and thank you for the surprise "now I am 50" party Kim, very cool and a total surprise!

Ok, time to sprint and make the train!

Bye Bye US and Hello Euro Stadiums

Well, the first three US legs are done and we say goodbye to the Rat crew and US vendors and headed to Europe for 3 legs over there.  We keep the consoles, FOH drive and monitor rig from RAT and will be using several European sound vendors to cover a wide variety of gig sizes. Chili Peppers will be a giant vacuum sucking up masses of K! gear where ever we go.

Bonnaroo

Our last US date was Bonnarroo. Doing a festival tour can be fun. Doing a full production tour can be fun. Doing a festival gig in while on a full production tour is nearly always a culture shock of incompatible time frames and varying levels of yuck until show time. I really don't have much to personally complain about but that does not dispel the compassion for my compatriots who did a 3am load in till 9am with the buses off site till mid day. Then off to the roadside smoking room motel for a nap till noon and back again to the dusty shower-less gig just in time to arrive for 9 hours  before show time. At least the buses were kept offsite till noon.

Hey, every need a great way to mic a gourd instrument? Well here is how I dealt with mic'ing the Berimbau that Mauro, Peppers percussionist plays during Give It Away. 

I used a C-Ducer and the results are stunning.  I have incredible gain before feedback and can get the sound on top even for a fully rocking song and exactly the sound I am looking for.

So home for a week and yay, surfing with the gals 

And out of posterity, check this crew photo out from Soundgarden tour June of last year.

Off to Knebworth to start up a stadium run.  See ya out there.