This multi-million dollar corporation, whose client roster spans all the way up to the President of the U.S., is a bit of an anonymous anomaly – and that's just the way owner Chip Self likes it. "We fly under the radar, as almost everything we do is as a subcontractor," Self says. "We're the people in the background. The way I look at it is that, if anybody notices us, we didn't do it right. Our whole job is to be invisible."
Nestled in an industrial park in St. Louis County, the company has grown to fit the needs of its many corporate and special event clients. Festivals from Kansas City to Columbus to Charlotte call on him frequently, as do presidential candidates.
The Gigs You Want…
Self sits at his desk, leans back, and recalls something his grandfather used to say: "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have." How that translates for him is to stock gear for the gigs he wants, not the ones he currently does.
He's successfully pulled that off, and that's how he's able to take a call from a presidential candidate that involves putting in enough audio gear for 200,000 people to hear at the foot of St. Louis' Gateway Arch with less than 48 hours notice. "If there's ever an opportunity, we show up ready to do it."
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama's team called him for a gig that was as large in size as it was short on time. "That's a good example of being ready for the opportunity. Now we didn't know that was coming, but we've structured the company to be ready for something like that." And they weren't just twiddling their thumbs, but had several other gigs lined up that day.
The rally under the Gateway Arch was one of the campaign's highlights, and it came with an unusual request: "They didn't want to see any speakers, and that was the challenge." He points to an image where the angle is just over Obama's shoulder and through the arch legs to the lawn of the riverfront. "This was the money shot," he says.
Not having time to wait for official drawings, Self downloaded a picture of the area from Google Earth and started mapping it out. "I just took the camera shot and drew lines, and we knew we couldn't put speakers within those lines." Cranes were brought in and hidden behind the arch legs. The heavy lifting was done with four towers of NEXO, supplemented with some D.A.S. gear and Electro-Voice X-Arrays. One of the smaller arrays was discreetly placed out of view, but provided audio to the very front and the press area.
"All the reviews of the event were great – even people so far away they couldn't see him could hear him perfectly."
A Go-To Company
Logic Systems is the go-to company for several important festivals, too, including a pair of the Midwest's largest festivals, Rockfest in Kansas City, Pointfest in St. Louis and Rock on the Range in Columbus, OH.
At last year's Rock on the Range, Logic Systems put together one of their largest line arrays ever – 36 cabinets of NEXOs. "It was unholy," Self smiles. "We had delays in place, but they were totally unnecessary. You literally couldn't tell if they were on or off. From right in front to 640 feet back, it was same volume. I've had a number of audio engineers say it was the best system they ever worked on."
Most recently, Logic Systems was called in for the Carolina Rebellion Festival. Usually festivals start small and grow, but this first-ever event seemed to enshrine the "go big or go home" mantra. More than 35,000 hard rock fans flocked to two side-by-side stages for this event on May 7 to hear 18 bands, including Avenged Sevenfold, Godsmack and Seether.
For the Carolina Rebellion Festival, Logic Systems provided the main PA, which consisted of a 96-box NEXO GEO T line away setup, 36 NEXO CD18s in six clusters of six and 12 NEXO PS8s for front fills. Self says the day was scheduled so that one band was playing on one stage while the other band set up on the other. He had his crew divided into two teams to keep it all on schedule.
25 Years Strong
Self is celebrating Logic Systems' 25th year in the business, though it all began typically enough. By the time Self was in high school, he was so enamored by audio he was already working in bars long before he could legally get a drink. He worked for bands, then starting collecting his own equipment.
"This was back when there were a lot of products you couldn't buy, even if you had the money," Self notes. "You had to make them."
The company evolved organically. Asked when his company was in fact a company with a capital "C," Self pauses. "It probably happened when I got big enough to hire a second person, but you don't just wake up and say, ‘today I have a sound company.'"
Since those humble beginnings, Logic Systems' growth has been impressive – they've outgrown five warehouses. In 2007, Self bought the building he's currently in and, with the declarative "Moving Sucks!" as his mantra, he bought four times more space than he needed.
Today, Self rents out some of the 63,000 square feet to other tenants – including a friend who conveniently rents backline gear. "I know I never have to move again!"
The facility includes an area dedicated to repairing amps and lighting. During the tour, he stands amongst the Fender amps and an old Rhodes keyboard that has its guts spilling out on a workbench and confesses that the shop doesn't really bring in enough income to make it profitable in and by itself. "But the advantage of having, when we need, our own equipment fixed is great. In those cases, rather than send it out somewhere for days or longer, we get if fixed immediately, and that's important."
Doing Your Homework
When pushed, Self admits that his idea of "buying for the gigs you want" is easier said than done, and is, in fact, fraught with peril.
"You have to do your homework. You can't just buy something because the rep says its cool." It's been eight years since he invested in the NEXO system, and he says he literally spent a year shopping for it. "If you're buying something you can't really afford, it has to appreciate longer – my gear has to last 10 or 12 years. I think a lot of people buy equipment for the wrong reasons – buying what's hot just this minute instead of taking the approach that he or she will be ‘stuck' with it for years."
The Logic Systems warehouse has an assortment of audio boards suited to handle the vast majority of the riders out there. Self says his personal preference is for analog boards, as in, "You'll have to pry analog out of my cold, dead hands."
As the company expanded into lights and video, he had to diversify as much as possible. Fortunately, this helped him through the economic downturn. But more importantly, it's been better for him and his team on a technical level. "If you have all these disciplines, have a lot of different challenges, it makes you more well-rounded. Even with today's rock and roll gigs, it pays to have an intelligent business discussion in a way you would with a corporate client. It's good to understand how the corporate world works. It leads to being able to have intelligent conversations with all types clients."
Self is aware of the traps of business growth – how someone can have a passion for something that is so fierce, he or she has to start their own business, only to wake up 20 years later and find themselves not doing the things they love because they are running a business. "I got to that point a few years ago and recognized that I needed to adjust the business. So now the cool thing is, I can pick the projects I want to work on. Of course, the trick is, you have to have good people working for you."
Reflecting back, Self says its not been one or two big lucky breaks, but 1,000 little ones, ones he's been able to make the most of. "The bigger the company gets, the more complex it gets," he adds, noting that today the organization employs around 20. "But, yeah, I didn't get into this business to be an accountant."
