Tag Archives: Preparation

Mercenary Maxims: Part 3

A LOT can go wrong – and you can still survive – if you have backups.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version. Original photo is a CC0 found at Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/aircraft-military-thunderbolt-a-10-1008284/

Close Air Support Covereth A Multitude Of Sins

Do you know why some folks stay very, very calm when a show is beset by multiple failures?

There are many possible reasons, some of them involving good internal psychology: An ability to put things into perspective and not panic is very important. At the same time, real fallback options, both physical and those based in planning, are critical when your bacon requires saving. I’ll even go so far as to say that the planning part takes the crown. Not everyone can have a whole pile of spare mics, extra cables, or even a whole console left over in case of an emergency – but everyone can take the time to think through what might go wrong.

Some production crafts-humans only ever think about what it takes for a show to happen the right way, and don’t bother to ponder the failure points. Those folks have a much steeper hill to climb when it comes to maintaining control in a tough situation, because they have no mental preparation. In contrast, the audio and lighting people who have stopped to ponder “what do we do if [insert piece of gear] fails?” have a big lead. They’ve already been to the failure point in their head. They’ve seen the mountain! So, if a problem occurs, they’re not in completely unfamiliar territory.

Thus, ask yourself: What are the critical pieces for the show? Where can you yank bits and pieces from in case one of the critical pieces fails? What if you lose half your inputs – how do you keep going? If FOH dies and there’s no spare, how would you go about creating an FOH mix from monitor world? How about the other way around? How do you rearrange things if you lose a wedge 10 minutes in? How would you repurpose a subwoofer amp to drive a pair of monitors if another amp died? If one of your lights quits all of a sudden, what other light can you quickly take “offline” to keep things symmetrical? What in your rig is the most likely thing to misbehave at a critical point?

Having thought some things through, have an internal checklist that you can run through. You want a procedure, even if only roughly outlined, that you can go through without thinking too much. This protects against panic and keeps your fixes moving at the highest speed possible.

…and know your gear! Know what extra inputs and outputs you have. Think about what you could adapt to feed something else, even if it’s not the standard method. There all kinds of unorthodox ways to survive disasters of various magnitudes, and if you’re familiar with what your equipment can do you can dream up some pretty interesting solutions.

I encourage you to have all the backups you can afford, and are able to bring with you. That includes the backups that are “merely” contingency plans sitting in your head. One the day when you encounter a failure, you will have a much better chance at being the calm and cool one in the bunch.


Mercenary Maxims: Part 1

The order you do things in matters.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version. Original photo is a CC0 found at Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/geometry-mathematics-cube-1922743/

I’m a longtime fan of Schlock Mercenary, a comic about a spaceborne military unit for hire. One of the features of the story is The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, a collection of proverbs regarding mercenary life.

A funny thing that I noticed was how you can apply those proverbs to the live music world as well.

Thus, I am today embarking on a series that looks at how some of the Maxims relate to being an effective audio human. I’m not sure exactly how long the series will run, or if it will be “on again, off again.” We’ll all have to find that out together. It’s an adventure! You like adventures, right?

Pillage, Then Burn

When working on shows, I’ve noticed that taking actions out of an established order can cause problems:

“Hey…why isn’t [this or that] working? Where’d [this or that] go?”

It’s all because workflow has a real impact on getting things done quickly and effectively. When you’re running on a tight workflow, one that’s well-defined, “ticking all the boxes” is much easier because you don’t have to stop to think about which boxes have full or partial checkmarks in them. You don’t complicate the work by having to keep in mind the organization of the work. Things are much less likely to be forgotten.

Now, the point here is not that any particular kind of work organization is the right one. For instance, I like to wrangle tasks in blocks when I can – get all the power sources and drops figured out, then place everything, then plug everything into a power supply, then run signal, etc. You might prefer a one unit at a time approach. Either way works. The key is trying not to have something interrupted midstream, like getting halfway done with plugging power and then running off to manage a signal run to FOH. An hour later, you’re wondering why half your powered wedges don’t work – and then you realize that they never got electricity connected.

The above is a “macro scale” application. Another way in which order of operations matters is accessibility for connection and configuration, which is a “micro scale” consideration. Through long experience, I’ve learned that sometimes you DON’T want to lift or hoist everything to its final trim height at the same time. Running signal between loudspeakers or light trees? Connect the power and input signal, and ALSO connect the output signal drop. Don’t complete the output run – just get a pigtail ready that will be easily accessible once its source connection is in the sky. Check all your switches, and flip the power on if that would be hard to do later. Then, lift whatever you’ve just been fiddling with to its working height. Do any final cable dressing for that piece of the system.

What you end up with is a piece of your setup that’s in the air, with everything pertaining to it connected so that you don’t have to try to work on it while it’s out of reach. With an output drop connected and dressed, you also know whether you’ll need to extend the drop (or not) to have enough allowance of slack for lifting the next piece.

Getting this wrong means dropping hangs/ lifts back in to work on things, or trying to find a ladder, chair, or stepstool at an inconvenient moment. (Ask me how I know this…)

Doing the work in the right order is important at all scales. It helps ensure success by way of The Law Of Conservation Of Effort: You get to put almost all your effort into doing the work, and very little has to be expended on ad-hoc project management.


An Open Letter To Event Planners

We need to be more clear with each other about what it takes to do things the right way.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Dear Event Planners,

My name is Danny Maland, and I’m what would commonly be called “a sound guy.” A/V. An audio human. Show crew. That kind of thing. I’d like to take a moment to address an issue that has caused me some problems over the years. I don’t know if it’s trending towards worse or better, but as a person with an engineering mindset, I usually pick “assume the worst” and go with it.

Now, before you mentally check out, please be assured that I’m going to stay away from snarky finger-pointing here. We’re all on the same team, and actually, I think that production has not always been good at being on the same team with you. My feeling is that we spend lots of time failing to explain our needs to you, and so assumptions get built that lead to poor outcomes. With that on the table, let me lay out the crux or nexus of this whole thing:

When it comes to the spacetime continuum, production needs a lot of it. A lot of all of it – both space and time.

There’s a significant amount of pressure out there to compress both schedules and square footage. Time is money, space is money, and both together are a lot more money. Clients like to save money, and so do I, but value-engineering live music is not something I can recommend. Any show, even one that is a repeat performance, is itself a singular event that can never be repeated. All of us have exactly one chance to get it right, and squeezing anything that supplies the endeavor (space, time, electrical power, etc.) increases the chance of a trainwreck.

You don’t want that, and neither do we.

As an event planner, I’m going to guess that you like specifics. So here are some for you to consider about space and time.

1) If you’re going to have a full band with pro-production at an event, please consider a 20 foot wide by 20 foot deep area (or about 37 square meters total) to be the bare minimum space for it all to happen inside. I know that some people will say, “That’s overkill!” but I really do mean this. Bands that are forced to be right on top of each other don’t perform to their full potential, and close quarters makes for mic-to-mic bleed that hampers a good mix. Feedback also becomes a real pain when the performers are in very close proximity to the PA system. Yes, some permanent venues have a smaller area to work with, but remember that we may be bringing everything with us. We don’t have the ability to do a fully maximized and tweaked install at the drop of a hat. We need cushion, especially when we’ve just loaded in and everything is spread out.

2) For scheduling, please have any production that’s self-contained with the music set to arrive a minimum of four hours prior to soundcheck. If you’re in a situation with no real loading dock, add another hour or two. We need lots of time to set and tune, especially when the space is one we’ve never been in before. You might think you want us to “throw and go,” but that’s not going to get you great results. I’ve gotten lucky on plenty of throw and goes, but not so lucky on others. I don’t think you want your event to be a luck-based mission. That’s too much uncertainty with too much money and reputation on the line.

The client may push on these things. The event space may try to get you to cut down. Please stand firm! We need your help to get this right.

So, that’s it. Let’s be sure to uncompress everything and work towards better results. Like I said, we’re all in this together. Our success is your success, so let’s work as a team to produce amazing things.

Best regards,

Danny


Gig Log: Samba Fogo – Ouca (April 24 – 28, 2018)

Fire, dancing, and a swanky theater. Can you beat that?

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Job Type: Recurring, multi-day, single facility.

Venue: The Jeanne Wagner Theater at The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, a high-dollar facility that is VERY classy. The stage is cavernously huge, with a full fly-system and a ceiling height to match. The new toy this year was an automated raise/ drop controller for the grand drape. I didn’t get to play with it, but it was cool just being around it.

Load-in: I got in the van to leave, and the danged thing wouldn’t start! Fortunately, my dad has one of those “tiny package, huge current” jumpstart kits, and that got me on the road. Once you get let into the facility, the load-in is actually pretty posh; These folks have big doors that a cargo van can definitely wiggle into. I got the gear indoors, then clambered back into the van to park it, and…click. Nothing. (I had, of course, swiped Dad’s jumpstarter, so I impressed the technical director and one of his assistants by giving myself a jolt and going on my way.) Even with all the drama, I managed to be early.

Load-out: I love the Rose Wagner, but I hate where they put it. Or maybe I hate where they put the things around it? They’re right behind a large, popular nightclub, and that means the back alley – which is already a bit tight – can get even more constricted with VIPs who park there. With Samba Fogo, the approaching end of the show run means that I start silently reciting things like the Serenity Prayer (sometimes with more or less cursing), readying myself to “just deal” with whatever situation crops up in the back. Of course, the last time around was pretty darn okay, as was this iteration, and I had plenty of help getting everything buttoned up and loaded. I’m pretty sure we actually set a record for the elapsed time to pack up and go back home this year. That’s even including my standard, 800-point turn to get the “cargo ship” turned around in the confines of the alley. I got help with that at the end too, which was very nice. Maybe it was only a 600-point turn this time. (Seriously, the van feels very unwieldy in downtown Salt Lake…)

What Went Well

  • It’s Samba Fogo!: Who wouldn’t want to work with high-energy Brazilian dance? There’s fire involved, such that the local authorities have to come out and approve the action. There’s a big ol’ drumline that can make a TON of noise without any help from electronic doodads. There are performers in the finale who (I think) are 7+ feet tall in heels and headdresses. Folks are happy to be there. It’s a complete package.
  • SC48 Automation: I have mixed feelings about the Avid SC48, but if I’m going to do snapshot automation it’s a great choice. The snapshot system is generally easy to understand, has crossfading available for many parameters, and also features a “scoping system” (defining what is or is not automated at any given point) which is both easy AND very flexible.
  • It’s A Snap(shot): I also have mixed feelings about snapshot automation, especially because my style of mixing lends itself to working on the fly. At the same time, snapshots allow the console to keep track of piece-to-piece changes for you, which is very helpful when you’re doing something like working blind: This year, a midstage curtain was closed for certain pieces, meaning I didn’t have visual cues as to what was being played or not. In such a situation, I say, “Let the console do the remembering.”
  • Hooray For The ACS: I don’t find the SC48 control surface to be all that great – mostly because I just don’t prefer physical surfaces anymore – but it does have a big, beautiful display called the ACS. The ACS puts a lot of power and information right in front of you, with an intuitive, mouse-driven interface that’s great for getting things done in a hurry. (I will admit to liking the fact that the physical surface is large and impressive-looking, but that only goes so far.)
  • Uncompression: Samba Fogo gets the whole prep-time thing absolutely right. We have a full-on tech day for sorting out audio and lighting issues, then another night for a dress rehearsal, and THEN we do the shows. We have time to pick at things and sort them out, instead of trying to just throw it all together at the last moment. I have a very soft spot for people who refrain from compressing a show schedule, because it makes my life so much happier – and helps me to do the best job possible.

What Could Have Been Better

  • I Miss MY Console: It might seem heretical to show partiality to a $2000 mixing desk versus a $30,000+ unit, but familiarity is a big deal. I’m unashamed to say that I definitely prefer an X32 to an SC48 when it comes to “features in common,” again, mostly because familiarity stops me from having to go hunting around for things. Oh, and honest-to-goodness remote capability is a big deal for me. Especially in a large facility, I really, really miss having stupid-easy remote control over the mixer. (Troubleshooting gets tiring when you have to run back and forth between the stage and booth.) And yes, the Avid runs plugins, but all I need them for is to engage functionality – like parametric output EQ – that an X32 simply has available as a built-in feature.
  • Did You Ask For Directions?: On our tech day, I wasted a whole bunch of time by not asking for help. I was 100% sure that I was running console outputs directly to the patchbay – but I wasn’t! I erroneously assumed that the snake I was running from was connected to the console…when it had nothing to do with the console at all. I would have been told that in 10 seconds if I had asked a house tech, but did I? Nope. I eventually yanked a couple of console outputs, jammed in a pair of short XLR cables, and then ran adapters to the bay. It was an incredibly roundabout way to do something that would have been easy if I just used the patch as intended. The upside is that I’ll probably remember that little misadventure forever, so it wasn’t a total loss. One of my strengths is that I WILL find a creative way to get things done. My weakness is sometimes going that route inappropriately.

Conclusion

Samba Fogo is a high-class gig that I lucked into, and I’m hoping to keep it.


Gig Log: USIC Fundraiser (March 10, 2018)

Acoustic-o-rama.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

I’ve been asked if I can start writing up gig-logs. Thoughts about shows can be a bit of a touchy subject; When things don’t go well, folks can think they’re getting the blame. At the same time, treated carefully, there’s likely to be a wealth of teachable moments packed into any retrospective of a production.

So, yeah – let’s give this a try!

What Went Well

  • Advance information was key: I knew beforehand that I would have a healthy number of inputs and monitor mixes to contend with – AND that most of the heavy lifting would be done with instrument mics. Not having to figure things out at the last minute made life much smoother.
  • Lessons learned from others’ experiences are helpful: One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gleaned regarding “instrument mic” shows is that you should be very, very wary of making monitor world too loud right out of the gate. Start quiet, and then add on as needed. I’m pretty sure this concept saved my butt later. (I think this concept is true for every kind of show, actually, but shows with a lot of mics will kill you much faster if you forget.)
  • Build the show file at home: As per my usual, I walked into the space with a USB stick that had basic FOH and monitor-world console configurations preloaded. As soon as I was ready, I called up my scenes. I was then in a place where I could make “grab-n-go” tweaks without having to look at every parameter on everything. Having your routing, scribble strips, high-pass filters, channel compressor ratio/ timing parameters, and basic monitor-bus EQs in place will save you a LOT of time at the show.
  • Save your back: Putting the digital stagebox on a chair was one of the best ideas ever. I didn’t have to bend all the way down to interact with it, which was a lot faster and a lot more comfortable than the alternative.

What Could Have Been Better

  • Perishable skills are perishable: It took me a minute to get my head re-wrapped around thinking about two separate consoles that have to be recalled individually. I haven’t had to do that since the summer, so I’m out of practice and a little slow. I also tend to forget that acoustic instruments have solid output, but also tend to be farther from a mic than a “rock” vocal. Consequently, you have to be willing to get on the gas a bit more if folks really want to hear the monitors. If you haven’t done this kind of work in a while, you might be a bit surprised.
  • Scheduling is hard: I gave myself four hours to load-in, power, set, and line-check an 18 input show with five monitor mixes, a “double-hung” PA, and two light trees driven with DMX. I just barely got to “soundcheck ready” in time. I need to spec more of a setup buffer when I’m flying solo.
  • Almost but not quite: I’m used to being able to grab a direct-input instrument and put it confidently front and center when a solo comes up. With miced instruments, I have to be more ginger. Certain lead parts didn’t pop out in quite the way I had hoped.
  • That wall, though: The room is actually pretty okay, but I can’t say I’m a fan of the big, blank, flat wall right behind the stage as an acoustical feature.

Conclusion

The show came off well, with an appreciative crowd and musicians who seemed pretty happy when it was all said and done. I call that a win!


Regarding Electronic Drums

Electronic drums can be great, if you take the time to make them great.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

A question I was asked recently was about electronic instruments – “E Drums” in particular. The query was about how to do them well in a live setup. I’ve worked with bands that make use of electronic percussion, sometimes as an add-on, and sometimes as a core instrument. In either situation, there are a number of particulars that come together to make the sonics an effective part of the ensemble, and a workable element in the sound reinforcement equation.

Tell The Sound People What’s Coming

As usual, homework and communication are key. I’ve always had decent experiences with electronic drums/ sample pads/ whatever when everybody did their advance work: People told me what was coming, how many inputs were needed, what kinds of sounds to look out for, and brought both working gear AND a working knowledge of that gear to the gig. More difficult situations have arisen when musicians have surprised me with extra needs: “Well, yeah, we need two lines for the trigger pads, but we’ve also got this other unit that needs two more DIs, so…” Particularly a multi-band or full-on festival situation, information about those additional inputs would have been really good to have before we were setting up. It’s also tough when a piece of equipment has chronic problems, but it’s brought along to a mission-critical situation anyway in hopes that “It’ll hold together.” (Often, it doesn’t hold together and we waste time scrambling. Or it fails at a critical moment and really embarrasses you.)

Carefully Integrate Your Proportions

I know I say this a lot, but I’m going to say it again. If it sounded right in rehearsal, it has a fighting chance of sounding right at the show. If not – who knows?

Especially when it comes to blending triggered sounds with acoustic drums, getting the balance correct during practice is crucial. Even more crucial is being sure that the balance can be recreated live. An important example is found in the case of bands that want to blend an earth-shattering synth kick with loud, traditional drums. That’s a very difficult thing to do, unless you have a truly enormous PA system available. Anybody who has heard real drums in a real room knows that they can make as much noise as an entire small-venue PA rig, given a little effort on the part of the drummer. Drowning that special accent in a tidal wave of other racket is very easy. The folks who learn to play so that the accent has the room to actually do something are the successful ones. The people who expect a normal-sized audio system to somehow make 130+ dB at 35 Hz are the disappointed ones.

Corollary: If you want your electronic drums to sound massive, you need to figure out how “big” they can reasonably be, and make everything else significantly “smaller” than that. Meditate upon this.

If It Won’t Work Without [x], Bring [x]

You should always be able to be fully self-contained with electronic percussion. That is, if a certain amount and character of sound is absolutely necessary for your e-drums to work out, you need to have the option of providing that support yourself. This is another important reason to carefully advance the show; If you don’t, you may get a nasty surprise when the provided PA can’t do the job.

If The Blend Is Mission-Critical, Do It Yourself

With e-drums, I do like to be able to get separate outputs for kick, snare, a submix of toms, and a submix of cymbals/ FX/ and other percussion sounds. Just like with regular drums, its handy to be able to make some decisions about what’s right for the room. At the same time, I’m 100% onboard with getting a premix of everything, especially if you need a very specific balance. In the case of a lot of diverse sounds, where they don’t necessarily come together to function as one large instrument, it’s far better for you to build your own mix and hand it off to me. With a complicated blend, it doesn’t make sense to input a ton of lines and then struggle to put it all back together.

None of this information is really world-changing, but that’s the reality: There’s no shortcut, and no mystical knob of mix perfecting. Good communication and “gettin’ it right at home” are what pay the dividends.


Livestreaming Is The New Taping – Here Are Some Helpful Hints For The Audio

An article for Schwilly Family Musicians.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

“The thing with taping or livestreaming is that the physics and logistics have not really changed. Sure, the delivery endpoints are different, especially with livestreaming being a whole bunch of intangible data being fired over the Internet, but how you get usable material is still the same. As such, here are some hints from the production-staff side for maximum effectiveness, at least as far as the sound is concerned…”


The rest is here. You can read it for free!


Entering Flatland

I encourage live-audio humans to spend lots of time listening to studio monitors.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Do you work in live-audio? Are you new to the field? An old hand? Somewhere in between?

I want to encourage you to do something.

I want you to get yourself a pair of basically decent studio monitors. They shouldn’t be huge, or expensive. They just have to be basically flat in terms of their magnitude response. Do NOT add a subwoofer. You don’t need LF drivers bigger than 8″ – anything advertised to play down to about 40 Hz or 50 Hz is probably fine.

I want you to run them as “flat” as possible. I want you to do as much listening with them as possible. Play your favorite music through them. Watch YouTube videos with them passing the audio. When you play computer games, let the monitors make all the noises.

I want you to get used to how they sound.

Oh, and try to tune your car stereo to sound like your studio monitors. If you can only do so coarsely, still do so.

Why?

Because I think it’s very helpful to “calibrate” yourself to un-hyped audio.

A real problem in live music is the tendency to try to make everything “super enhanced.” It’s the idea that loud, deep bass and razor-sharp HF information are the keys to good sound. There’s a problem, though. The extreme ends of the audible spectrum actually aren’t that helpful in concert audio. They are nice to have available, of course. The very best systems can reproduce all (or almost all) of the audible range at high volume, with very low distortion. The issue is over-emphasis. The sacrifice of the absolutely critical midrange – where almost all the musical information actually lives – on the altar of being impressive for 10 seconds.

I’m convinced that part of what drives a tendency to dial up “hyped” audio in a live situation is audio humans listening to similar tonalities when they’re off-duty. They build a recreational system that produces booming bass and slashing treble, yank the midrange down, and get used to that as being “right.” Then, when they’re louderizing noises for a real band in a real room, they try to get the same effect at large scale. This eats power at an incredible rate (especially the low-end), and greatly reduces the ability of the different musical parts to take their appointed place in the mix. If everything gets homogenized into a collection of crispy thuds, the chance of distinctly hearing everything drops like a bag of rocks tied to an even bigger rock that’s been thrown off a cliff made of other rocks.

But it does sound cool!

At first.

A few minutes in, especially at high volume, and the coolness gives way to fatigue.

In my mind, it’s a far better approach to try to get the midrange, or about 100 Hz to 5 kHz, really worked out as well as possible first. Then, you can start thinking about where you are with the four octaves on the top and bottom, and what’s appropriate to do there.

In my opinion, “natural” is actually much more impressive than “impressive,” especially when you don’t have massive reserves of output available. Getting a handle on what’s truly natural is much easier when that kind of sonic experience is what you’ve trained yourself to think of as normal and correct.

So get yourself some studio monitors, and make them your new reference point for what everything is supposed to sound like. I can’t guarantee that it will make you better at mixing bands, but I think there’s a real chance of it.


It’s Gonna Take A Minute

The secret to better shows is practice. Practice requires time.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

The Video

The Summary

We should strive to do our best work. The best work possible on the first try is usually not as good as the best work possible on subsequent tries – and we need to be okay with that.


Bring ‘Em If Ya Got ‘Em

It’s a Schwilly guest-post!

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

“If you have some sort of device that you can use to tweak the sound of your instrument, even if that’s just a bit of extra volume, you should definitely have that handy.”


Want to know why? Read the whole thing here, for free.