Euro Peppers Adventures Continue

So before I continue the Euro adventure updates, a brief pause to reminisce about a few highlights of the US I have left behind.

While touring east of the Mississippi how excited was I to catch one of the final performances of the T-Bone steak tour of Waffle Houses! 

In my beautiful home town Oxnard Shores (not just s pretty name), there is a guy who lives down the street from that makes boomerangs in his garage.  Whilst driving home a few weeks ago, Mmy daughter and I spotted this sign. Looks like he is bumping up his game from just making them to offering lessons as well. Clearly his entrepreneurial genius is shining through. My biggest concern is that the huge crowds of people flocking to master this new skill will crowd the streets and overwhelm the neighborhood. Especially being that he failed to put his street address or any form of indication of where he lives several blocks away. 

So meanwhile, I am rocking out on a European Peppers tour. Sunderland, show 2 at the Stadium of Light

Which turned out to be a bit of wishful naming.

The glory of tour sometimes seem to be endless. Hey look! Someone bought the crew dafter show dinner Yay, free sandwiches! Gosh, feeling loved right now!

Oooh, and wine too! Well, actually Scott and I just peeled the stickers off the sandwiches and stuck them on the wine as well to cheer every one up a bit more.

Sunderland show went well and was wet, wild and fun and next up, a bus and ferry ride to Dublin

And Dublin wanders

Oooh, waveform interference patterns from omni-directional duck sources

So far so good

Building the rock show and I had not noticed seeing the cable wrap method of creating cable looms before

Fantastic seminar in Dublin! Thank you all for joining!

Uh oh! Hmmm.  I deal with sound limits quite a bit but this one is especially concerning and in retrospect I wish I had flat out ignored it. Combined with the wind gusts it as it definitely left me with a much lower sound quality in some area than I ever wish to offer. 

Ahhh, but the sadness and dismay I felt was quickly melted away once I cast mine eyes upon the  glorious after show feast bestowed upon us.

Check out the trash truck in Amsterdam with the remote control arm that grabs the trash and huge underground container

And remote controller guy.

Sound Ponder of the Day

So imagine some scenarios in a free field with minimal reflections

1) Take a high fidelity musical signal split it into two signals delay one of them 3ms and then electronically re-sum them back together. What would that sound like? 

2) Take the same high fidelity musical signal split it into two signals, delay one of them 3ms and run them into side by side speakers.

3) The same as #2 but move the speakers 10 feet apart.

Now place a mic in each of the 3 scenarios such that the mic hears a 3ms offset between the speakers.  In the first two scenarios the mic would be centered and in the third, slightly off center.

Now take measurements of the split and electronically/acoustically 3ms offset recombined signals 

Finally listen to all three scenarios.

Which scenario sounds best? Which sounds worst?  Which measures best? Measures worst?

Now add in 1 more scenario:

4) The same signal into a single speaker, no delay, no split, no recombining.

Which sounds better to our ears, scenario 3 or scenario 4? Which measures 'better with test gear, 3 or 4?

Now compare scenario 2 and 3 by moving side to side several feet, bot measurement wise and by listening, which is more consistent? Which sounds better as you move around, 3 or 4?

Hint:

Home stereo speaker placement has evolved to optimize the way our ears enjoy to hear by spacing the sound sources (speakers). Measurement microphones are blind to the direction sound radiates from, our ears are not.  Our minds calculate direction sound originates. Our ears factor out comb filtering issues from spaced sources, microphones do not.

Day 4 Sunderland and Show 2 of Peppers Euro Stadiums

Ah the thrill of setting eyes upon the glorious destination after an arduous journey. Bypassing the airport arrival hotel and opting for a few days in London, a train ride to Stevenage, UK finds here.  Just an endless fence away from what is hopefully as beautiful inside at the outside presents.

Never did make it to downtown old town but the nearby shopping area was hopping.

And I love experiencing something new everyday, turns out that in order to take food off of the Holiday Inn hotel premises one has to sign a release waiver so the hotel is not liable in the event that I am idiot enough to leave the food to rot, then eat it, then get sick, then am smart enough to determine the hotel food was responsible for making me sick and convincing enough to persuade someone to help me try and sue them. 

But all is not lost as we head to the show site

And the wires get wired, see here, Radek, Jim and Ulf performing a a three tech console patch

And oh the fans did come!

Got to hang with Lars for a few

As the glorious English weather adorned us with attention

And though setup went well, leaving was a bit more of a challenge.  Wet muddy gear trapped for hours, getting FOH and the delay clusters out was just the production challenges, turns out the punters got jammed up a bit as well

I don't mind the rain though caution is wise when wet is around.

And there are things that are important to mind

So after an overnight to Sunderland where now I sit eagerly awaiting show #2 I gaze upon the glory of a beautiful stage!

Ahhh, but no complaints as look at all that K1 system!  Including delays, 96! plus 54 SB28's and another bunch O KARA and K1 SB that I have not counted yet. Big toys are fun and I have a stellar sound sound crew.  Ok, off to wander and see the support bands.

Oh and finally, check out Leif's time lapse from the Peppers US Arena tour.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7nbJCv_T9EYSTVHTGdPU0hKa0k/edit?pli=1#

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.

Dave Rat Blog - Virginia

Oh my the days blur together into the fog of tour. This is the part where we settle into a groove. Everyone knows their gig well enough to become comfortable yet not smooth enough to be harmonious. The shows are smooth and rocking and sometimes I feel like I am stuck on a merry go round. Oh, I can of course jump ship from the tour and hack my way from city to city or shack up on bus rides into parking lots waiting for hotel rooms. But hey, I have never really been one to find compatibility with patterns, rules and structure. I crave a bit of chaos and unexpected in my life. Ha, tour life becomes predictable.

I do really enjoy doing the seminars. Everything except the final moment. Blah blah I rap and chat for 4 or so hours about a wide variety of all things sound and then ok, that's it. And every time there is this awkward silence. At first it shocked me, then I started trying to lighten things up. Best I can figure it feels like a watching a show and the band stops mid set ore something. Mental note, must work on the end o seminar.

How much does it hurt our hearts to say goodbye to MCA? Oh man, such sad news and yet he left us with so many musical memories we love to remember. I met Adam back in 1994 on Lollapalooza when I was mixing L7. Spent some nights wander various cities and hanging a bit.

And thinking back a bit after reading the news today and seeing this article http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/05/boy-on-a-bike-becomes-moscows-tianamen-image/

I reminisced about 1999 MTV gig when Chili Peppers played in Red Square Moscow, the police presence and the excitement of the fans.

Chris Warren signing autographs!

The Russian police form arm linked human barricades that split open so riot shielded special teams can zoom in and extract people before beating them with rubber clubs.

Ok, off to Virginia - DC Seminar.

Rock on!