As I write this, 2014 is coming to a close and I am slowly but steadily re-acclimating to life off the road. This long but extremely rewarding touring year extended all the way to Christmas, concluding with a long flight home from Moscow on Dec. 23. On that same day, my son drove down from Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, CA, and completed our holiday family reunion. Usually, I go through a “Don’t talk to me!” phase for a couple of days upon returning from a tour, but this year’s travel schedule thrust me straight into holiday cheer. Thankfully, we had a very laid back, simple celebration with friends and family coming to our house, allowing both my readjustment from road mentality and recovery from jet lag to be gentle, pleasant experiences.
This past year — 2014 — began with a Mariah Carey New Year’s Eve show in London and culminated with a Seal performance at a private event in Moscow. In between, there were several additional one-offs with Mariah, Seal and Five For Fighting. May through December was filled entirely by this year’s James Taylor tour. It’s been a very good year in every respect. At this time, I don’t expect to leave home for any extended period until the end of February when James Taylor returns to Europe. In the interim, I plan to put my off-the-road time to good use.
Off the Road Check-Off List
The first items on the off-the-road to-do list are several bookkeeping chores. As an independent contractor, it’s extremely important that all my financial paperwork is well organized and easily accessed. This requires a detailed filing system and a few hours of busywork getting all the information in the right places in order to assemble the documents I will need to present to my tax accountant. Years ago, I created an Excel spreadsheet that greatly simplifies this rather tedious chore. It lists all the various categories of cash outflow that are allowed deductible expenses as defined by the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board.
The bite of federal and state taxes is huge on a self-employed person, and I need to claim every legitimate deduction. In addition to completing the paperwork filing tasks for 2014, I will need to label and array all the necessary physical files for 2015. Finally, I will need to go through my stored records to find all tax-related paperwork that’s over ten years old. I will keep only the documents that are necessary for insurance records, property records, taxes and IRA’s, while shredding those that are not. Over the years, I have found watching January football games to be an ideal diversion activity while performing repetitive organizational tasks. Three to five seconds of game action followed by 35 seconds or more of nothing is a good pace for accomplishing these other more important tasks.
My second project will be to carefully identify and save the information contained in each subsection within the DiGiCo SD5 console setup that I used for the 2014 James Taylor tour. While the saved session structure and show files will instantaneously recall each variable of the desk, the data these files contain is only recallable as a complete console setup. I want to establish a more explicit digital library that includes separate, discrete settings data for each of the individual input and output channel strips as well as specific settings data for the head amps, equalizers, dynamic processors and plug-ins contained within those channels. The DiGiCo SD software provides separate libraries into which these various details can be stored. This saved data is not only the information that I will use to backup the James Taylor show, it will become the initial building blocks that I will then use to assemble a Seal show on the DiGiCo SD5 platform.
Also this month, I hope to schedule two or three days of hands-on time with a SD5 console. After documenting the James Taylor show in previously described intricate detail, next up I will build the Seal show based on the band personnel who participated in our final show in 2014. There have been three different band configurations utilized for Seal’s various performances this year. The band structure that Seal assembled for our final two shows in December represents the best starting point for the foreseeable future. That configuration will be the template from which I will construct the show on the DiGiCo console. I used many of the same Waves plug-ins on the James Taylor show that I will employ in the Seal setup, so the individual parameter settings for similar uses will translate well.
During this time at home, I am also hoping to apply my energy to a pending Shure microphone project for which I have been serving as a consultant and beta-tester. My relationship with Shure Inc. in a consulting capacity began in the 1980s. The association has been mutually beneficial and has resulted in developing products that have enhanced my performance as a mixing engineer. The microphone that is currently being designed is a project for which I have been a strong advocate over the last two or three years. I hope to carry a couple of working prototypes with me for field-testing when we fly over to Europe in February to recommence the James Taylor tour. If the mic meets or exceeds our expectations in show conditions and Shure decides to move forward into production, I will have much more to say about this new unit in the coming months.
Paying Forward
Off-time is also a good opportunity for giving a little back to our community of audio engineers. When NAMM rolls around this month, I’ll be participating in an interesting workshop moderated by Ken Freeman from JBL Professional that will present a dialog between Dave Rat from Rat Sound and myself about our particular approaches to mixing FOH sound. Considering the significant differences in style, equipment choices and clientele, this forum should generate a very compelling discussion. Dave Rat is both an innovative artist and respected entrepreneur whose many contributions to the live sound industry have kept him in the forefront of the fraternity of live sound engineers. It will be a privilege and a pleasure to participate in this event. Dave has tremendous energy and an infectious personality. If you are attending NAMM this year, I strongly recommend that you attend this workshop.
I also like to channel my off-road energy into growing our audio community by volunteering as a guest lecturer for classes taught at the University of Southern California by my good friend, Ken Lopez. I first met “Professor Lopez” while he was vice-president and national sales manager for JBL Professional. In the early 1980s, Ken and our mutual friend, Mark Gander, were instrumental in helping Dirk Schubert and me build Schubert Systems into a competitive, full-service audio rental company. Ken is also a heck of a good guitar player. He and I have been friends for over 30 years now and we have developed a great rapport while presenting various topics of specific interest to the students.
In Ken’s music production or business classes, we most often discuss broad, career-oriented themes. Using a series of sequential photographs derived from the many tours in which I have participated, we present the various aspects of touring life, talk about the day-to-day realities of being part of a modern road crew, and explore potential career paths and how to best pursue jobs in the live music field. I enjoy connecting with the students and I try to infuse the conversation with the vast enthusiasm that has kept me on the road for these past 40 years. I always get back as much energy from the students as they seem to receive from me. Because I find this to be such a greatly rewarding experience, I try to get to USC for at least one day each semester if I my touring schedule allows.
We also get far more specific with Ken’s sound reinforcement classes. I most enjoy doing microphone clinics in which we designate a specific instrument (vocal, piano, acoustic guitar, etc.) and then perform listening tests with several different microphones (dynamic, condenser, ribbon, boundary, etc.) from various manufacturers. I encourage the students to keep an open mind and to try any miking technique they believe may work. We then discuss what they heard and what about each microphone’s specific properties may have produced the resultant output. Presenting real world conditions that produce learn-by-doing experiences always creates the best teaching environment. Ken and I always find that two hours spent in these sessions seem to fly by far too quickly.
Happy New Year to all! Safe travels!
