Dave Rat Blog - Hot and Fast

 Okey dokey Sydney was super fun but way too short of a stay. We all stayed out near Circle Quay which I never have before, kinda cool being near the Ferry terminal and got to see the Opera house up close too. Kim and I took a ferry ride to Manly Beach for a swim and a wander about

Then next stop was Sydney Seminar, thank you Simon, Tony and all. 

 Dinner with my super good friends Cat, Ady and new shorties, as time warp steps in. Tour life is like living a series of short movies all jumbled and spaced apart on a random playlist. And "oh, I so forgot how much I love this" keeps coming round.

Happy Birthday Kim!

And after few too many beers and fun night out how about we do

 a rock show in an oven!

Stupid hot and crazy humid, its all about moving in slow motion

Oh, and while wandering, I spotted these ants.  Check out how fast they are! It's just crazy and they were non stop sprinting in every direction

Speaking of fast, they should always have toys at gigs backstage!

Some sort of weird cool plywood I have not seen before being used as utility decking.  I'm guesing its a down under version of chipboard

Checked out the Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Hey, no overheads looks cool!

A robot band plays between sets

And the Peppers were super fun!

And when all is said an done, we're off to Goldcoast

Oh, and does the water really spin the other way south of the equator? 

Well, not sure, I forgot to videotape which way it spins before I left but here is what the water does down here.

And off to breakfast and hello Goldcoast

Dave Rat Blog - Boats and Rubberbands

Show #2 Auckland, Vector Arena tonight.  Ah yes, it all comes back to me and I remember the place well now. I will say it does sound much more manageable than when we were here in '07 and the first full blown gig in the venue. Looks like they removed quite a bit of glass and added a bunch of sound absorbing layers. Still has the super slick floor and I am a bit ashamed to say I find myself smiling as I watch multiple beer slipping punters drop over the course of the eve. Long as they don't get hurt,its really funny!

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

May as well start out with a bit of sound nerdery.  Today's topic is room resonance. Properly dealing with room resonance is critical and is one of the most important aspects sound engineers must master in order to deal with larger venues. When mixing clubs and smaller venues, the room resonance tends to be fairly high, over 200 hz, and tends not to linger for long periods of time. As the venue size increases, the venues resonate at a lower frequency. As a rough estimate, 5000 to 8000 capacity venues are up in the 160 to 200hz range.  8000 to 15000 tend to be in the 125 to 160hz range and over 15000 tend to be in the 125hz and below range.

Room resonance is a non linearity in the "what goes in, comes out" equation. If we reproduce from the loud speaker system music that is tonally balanced, room resonance will accentuate certain frequencies. Put another way, at room resonance, a little bit of sound makes a lot of noise.  Since the sound is bouncing around at the resonant frequency, it is not only louder in that range but also the quality of the sound in that range tends to be blurry, poor quality and low intelligibility.

So, the rule of thumb with room resonance, get rid of it.  Kill it, EQ the crap out of it, make it go away, it is your sonic enemy. You may find that you need 15 or 20 db of cut in a particularly resonant venue, dont be shy, say bye bye to sending frequency that set off the room resonance.  It is better to have a hole in that frequency range than to have a pile of crappy sound at the proper tonally balanced volume in that range.

I wont go into all the causes but will say that a curved roof and concrete flat floor do set up a pretty good scenario for resonance.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

More adventures! So a road trip out to Piha, no surfing though, will have to try and do that when we get to Australia. So dreamy pretty though!

Hey hey Auckland Seminar crew! great to meet you all and hang out! Cathal, Me, Olli, Ben, Johnny, David and Ben, rockin!

Found a new drink holder

And a pic on the wall from last time Peppers were here. If ya look close you can see the mix tigers!

So Peppers crew went on an Americas Cup sail boat adventure, sooo fun and highly recommend it!

Some sail boat rides go better than others.

Next stop, Bungy Jumping off the Harbor Bridge, YAY! And look, it aint that far, just a tiny hop.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Thank you Devon and Leighton and all at AJ Hackett Bunjy Soooo fun!



And very important info - Do not ride bike without front tire!

And now, off to mix a rock show!