Though his last name is also part of his company's name, Carlson Audio Systems co-owner Mark Carlson is always quick to point out that his Seattle-based concern has always represented a collaboration with his partner Jonathan Myers – and also currently thrives with the invaluable help of a dozen other full-time employees and four times that many independent contractors who have helped turn Carlson Audio into the biggest sound company in the Pacific Northwest.
It's just that Carlson had already been running a fledgling sound business under his name as a sideline for a couple of years when he and Myers joined forces in 1988. At that point, both were working for another sound company but decided to take the plunge together and see if they could use some of the contacts Carlson had developed to really launch Carlson Audio. You could say the gamble paid off.
Post Grunge
Seattle is considered a second-tier market for touring bands, though the majority of acts that hit the West Coast view it as an essential stop. However, the area has also always proven to be a solid market for other events with SR needs. The club scene has had its ups and downs through the years but has supported the rise of many, many acts – both before and after the late 1980s/early 1990s heyday of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. The city and surrounding area is home to numerous large corporations (from Boeing to Amazon to Starbucks), several colleges and universities, NFL and MLB sports teams, and has long had a thriving arts scene outside of the rock world. There are literally hundreds of venues of every size – from small clubs to Indian gaming casinos to the 25,000-seat Gorge Amphitheatre outside of town – as well as numerous big and small street fairs and festivals; the most notable of the latter being the famed (and enormous) annual Bumbershoot. Carlson Audio has worked in just about all of these environments at one time or another, and many are regular clients year after year.
In the beginning, Carlson and Myers set their sights on smaller venues the duo felt were not being well-served by other local SR companies. Over the course of the next decade, they built a reputation for dependability and value, and slowly but surely increased their inventory of equipment so they were able to meet the needs of a broader range of clients. As Carlson says, "It's been a steady incline over the last 20 years or so, but in the last 10 we've put a lot more emphasis into more upscale systems and upscale packaging." Today, they still serve smaller Northwest vendors of every variety, but they have increasingly spread their wings in other directions, too, as with their national tour with Pearl Jam and an extensive 11-month world tour providing audio support for R.E.M.
"We do a lot of small events, and actually, we're looking to do more of them," Carlson says. "The truth of the matter is we've captured our market in the Northwest; we've pretty much topped out, and there isn't much left. But what is left are the smaller events. This week alone, for instance, we have 17 shows [which took place between Sept. 22-26, 2010]. We haven't gone a week in the last month and a half without at least 15 shows a weekend between Thursday and Sunday. It's been really good. Our trucking supplier is very happy with us," he laughs.
Fair Weather
When we spoke, Carlson had just completed a crazy weekend dealing with the 17-day Puyallup Fair (south of Seattle), the largest fair of its kind in the state. It included sound reinforcement for a 10,000-seat venue; for a football game at the University of Washington's Husky Stadium; and also for a concert by Train at the 5,000-capacity shed in Marymoor Park. That, by the way, was the final show of the year at Marymoor; as fall and winter approach, the weather gets risky.
"Weather is always going to be an issue in this area," Carlson says. "It definitely rains less in the summer, but it will still rain. It rained over the weekend. We've taken some big weather hits through the years, but you know what? We live in the Northwest. We have to deal with it. We work in it all the time, so we're sort of used to the inclement weather, and we carry tarps and the usual stuff, and you can't get too attached to the gear. You can sit there and cry about it or realize that's the way it is, and we lose relatively small amounts of gear over time. Our power systems are all up to code and we keep an eye on everything. But for the most part we're under cover."
Working so many different types of gigs means that Carlson Audio has to carry a huge equipment inventory, from modest AV setups for meetings to the most sophisticated digital consoles and loudspeaker arrays for giant concerts. On the upper end are d&b audiotechnik (Q1, Q10, Q7, C4) and EAW (KF760, 761, 750, 755 and NTL720) line arrays; a host of main speakers by the same two companies; Avid Venue Profile, Yamaha PM5D and M7CL digital consoles; analog workhorses including Yamaha PM4000 and 52-channel Midas Heritage 3000 and Midas XL-4 consoles; Clair, d&b and EAW monitor speakers; d&b and EAW subs; Sennheiser and Shure in-ear systems; d&b and QSC amplifiers; a wide range of mics by Shure, AKG, Audix, Sennheiser and others; and scads of dynamic and effects processing from the usual suspects: Eventide, Lexicon, TC Electronic, Yamaha, BSS, dmx, Drawmer, Empirical Labs, Manley Labs, Summit Audio and others.
Moving To 1s and 0s
As with so many sound companies, Carlson Audio clients have been asking more and more for digital equipment the last few years, though not exclusively. "We have virtually stopped buying analog consoles," Carlson says. "We sold off pretty much everything except for our large Midas desks – an XL4 and a Heritage – and they still get asked for all the time, so I won't get rid of those. They're both in pristine shape."
Does the advent of digital consoles mean that a lot of the analog outboard gear is sitting around unused these days? "Yes, but we haven't sold off much of it yet; maybe we should. I'll quote one of my fond competitors here in town who says he's ‘lovingly assembled' his gear. Well, so have we. You put a little favor to certain pieces of gear that you buy, and it's hard to get rid of it. Plus, even with people using digital consoles and turning more to plug-ins, probably six out of 10 riders want certain pieces of gear you can't get on the digital consoles, like the Eventide Harmonizer. Everybody's got a copy that's sort of like it, but they don't have the Eventide. More and more, now, too, I'm seeing things like mic-pre's being asked for, which I don't really understand. I guess everybody's trying to embellish the sound as much as possible."
Carlson Audio handled digital console installs in a couple of popular local clubs – the Crocodile Café and the Showbox SODO – and Carlson comments, "It's great for the club guys coming up who are learning the craft – they get a chance to touch some of this newer technology that's in there. In general, the younger guys are more hip to new things than the old ‘road dogs.' They are more apt to go out there and download the programs and try to view their console settings on a laptop sitting on top of console. I think that's great. The club guys are digging it. Plus, eventually it gives us an opportunity to take some of the cream of the crop of the club guys and they already have some valuable experience and we can bring them into the family so to speak."