296. Garrett Doran On How To Get Hired As A Freelancer

In episode 296, Sean and Andy are joined by Garrett Doran, Sean’s director of operations at Audio Engineers Northwest, to get more perspective on how to get hired as a freelancer in the live audio industry. Garrett shares what he looks for in a resume and/or interview, how to impress a sound company you’re new to, and – just as importantly – what sorts of things are immediate red flags for a company like theirs!

They also dig into strategies for keeping the small to medium size festival gigs that are the summer bread-and-butter for many audio providers running smoothly, from keeping lines of comm open to running a smooth and fast sound check, as well as why the patch tech should be the best mixer on your team!

Episode Links:
Episode 241 – Richard Cadena, Electricity for the Entertainment Electrician & Technician
Episode 296 Transcript

Connect with the community on the Signal To Noise Facebook Group and Discord Server. Both are spaces for listeners to create to generate conversations around the people and topics covered in the podcast — we want your questions and comments!

Also please check out and support The Roadie Clinic, Their mission is simple. “We exist to empower & heal roadies and their families by providing resources & services tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle.”

The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

Want to be a part of the show? If you have a quick tip to share, or a question for the hosts, past or future guests, or listeners at home, we’d love to include it in a future episode. You can send it to us one of two ways:

1) If you want to send it in as text and have us read it, or record your own short audio file, send it to signal2noise@prosoundweb.com with the subject “Tips” or “Questions”

2) If you want a quick easy way to do a short (90s or less) audio recording, go to https://www.speakpipe.com/S2N and leave us a voicemail there

Transcript

Episode 296 - Garrett Doran

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com

RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years.  Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:54] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me as always, the nutter to my butter, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?

[00:01:03] Sean Walker: What's up every fucking time with it.

[00:01:08] Andy Leviss: And like, sometimes I, sometimes I nail him and sometimes he is like, nah, man, nah, that one it, that one he looked like I nailed it.

[00:01:16] Sean Walker: Got me. You got me? Yeah. You got me

[00:01:18] Andy Leviss: And sometimes I hold onto them for a little while.

[00:01:21] Sean Walker: right?

[00:01:21] Andy Leviss: Although at that point there's the 50 50 shot of when we actually hit record. If I remember, if my mind just goes and, yeah, just like flashy thing for men in black. Just like there nothing there. Nothing there. Barely remember what's shown doing. It's like Welcome to Live stand bootcamp.

No, wait.

[00:01:36] Sean Walker: Wait, wrong show, wrong guy.

[00:01:38] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um,

[00:01:40] Garrett Doran: I've got a lot of nicknames for Sean. Most of which, most of which I'm, I'm not gonna utter here, you know.

[00:01:46] Andy Leviss: Well, well then we're canceling the episode. That was the whole reason we.

[00:01:50] Garrett Doran: just gonna be an hour of me and you just calling Sean names.

[00:01:55] Andy Leviss: The worst part is it was his idea.

[00:01:57] Sean Walker: Right? What else is new? Well, since, uh, since I've been on a m and a kick recently and looking at buying other companies and, you know, working on my business instead of in my business, I thought, uh, we'd continue our education series with my director of Operations, Garrett Doran.

'cause he's working in the business and he's the one that's actually doing the fucking work. These days I'm mostly just smoking cigars and drinking sparkly water and talking nonsense on the internet. So, uh, we wanted, we keep getting the same questions over and over and over again. How do I get more work from freelancers?

How do I get more work? How do I do my resume? How do I, how, you know, stand out in the crowd of a zillion freaking people? So I thought it would be cool to bring Garrett on 'cause he does the crewing for our company and, and gets all the resumes and does the hiring and he sees all this stuff. And just chat with him about what are some of the things that he's looking for in engineers when they apply to our company.

And, and that would apply to any company. 'cause you know, it's not, we're nothing unique as far as hiring people necessarily. We need the same skills every other sound company in the world's gonna need. So, Garrett, what are some of the things that you're looking for first? Hi Garrett.

[00:03:04] Garrett Doran: Hi.

[00:03:05] Andy Leviss: Hey dude. Could just see it.

[00:03:06] Sean Walker: What are some of the things you're looking for in engineers when they're, you know, sending in resumes and, and calling up on the phone going, Hey man, gimme a job. Like, what are some of the things you, you want those people to have or to say or to do, or, you know, that kind of a thing.

[00:03:19] Garrett Doran: uh, you know, some of it is like, uh, keyword shit. If somebody says, uh, you know, I'm really good at, you know, tuning a PA system, I'm like, cool. Like, can you, can you define that for me? And if they're using words like, you know, throw ratio and low variance and line length and words like that, I'm like, okay.

This person probably does know some things about what they claim they know about. Um, whereas if they say, oh yeah, I make it banging. I'm like, well, uh, you know, that's not a real scientific term there. Uh, so I, you know, in any like, facet of what we do, whether it's pa design, tuning, mixing, whatever, like I look for those kinds of keywords.

Um, and you know, PA design's a great example 'cause it's a thing that a lot of people don't have a very good understanding of. Uh, but that applies to a lot of other things too. Um,

[00:04:11] Andy Leviss: Fuck, man. I just say check 1, 2, 3 or 58, like 20 times in a row, and I'm there.

[00:04:16] Garrett Doran: there. Yeah.

[00:04:18] Sean Walker: Sold

[00:04:19] Andy Leviss: Who, who, who, who, who, who? Ha ha.

[00:04:22] Garrett Doran: yeah. Um. Or, you know, uh, describing, uh, skill sets and like our experience level. If somebody says to me, Hey man, I'm, I'm really good at mixing. I'm like, okay, uh, in what kind of environment? They go, well, I've got, you know, a home studio or like, I've put together some great mixes, and I go, okay, that's cool.

How long does that take you? Oh, man. Like, put hours or days into this mix or that mix. I'm like, cool, man. On this show, you get about three minutes and if you can't figure it out in three minutes, then this isn't the job for you. And if

[00:04:55] Andy Leviss: Also, there's 500 people watching.

[00:04:57] Garrett Doran: oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you got three minutes. There's potentially a couple thousand people watching, and at least a few of them are heckling you while also drinking a beer and leaning over your desk asking if you know what all those knobs do, et cetera.

[00:05:08] Sean Walker: dude. Totally. And And if you're the dj, are you the dj? Can you play my favorite song?

[00:05:13] Garrett Doran: Mm-hmm. No, I cannot

[00:05:15] Andy Leviss: You know, my boyfriend's singing. I can't hear him.

[00:05:17] Garrett Doran: Yeah, exactly. Or you know, somebody yelling at you. I can't hear the singer. Well, cool. You're standing behind the PA, ma'am. Like, you're not, you're not gonna hear what's coming outta the pa. So getting heckled by people and under high pressure and you get a couple of minutes.

And I was mentioning to Sean earlier, I did a, uh, this stream thing a couple years ago in a studio and we were trying to get the band up and going. And he's a studio engineer and he normally records a thing or two at a time, and that's fine. And. He goes, you know, how much time do we have? And I go, well, the stream goes live in an hour.

And he says, well, I need at least that amount of time just to get my like vocal signal chain put together. And I go, cool. Well, the stream goes live in one hour. Uh, so like your studio experience where you get hours to play around with this little nuance of this preamp versus that preamp and that mic versus the other mic for your vocal chain does not apply here whatsoever.

It's a 58, it's a plus 28, and we have a two minute line check, and you better have a mix sorted out by halfway through the second song, and you better have the lead vocal on top when they come outta the gate and say, you know, how, how the hell you do in Seattle? Uh,

[00:06:28] Sean Walker: We're awesome. Wow.

[00:06:29] Garrett Doran: yeah, the pressure's a lot different.

And the, you know, the, the priorities and the order of operations are a lot different.

[00:06:34] Sean Walker: Can we, can we just fucking squirrel and talk about line check right now because we, uh, we, we, we would love more people to understand how to do a festival line check. And this applies to small, medium, and large festivals, I think. But.

[00:06:49] Garrett Doran: So particularly in the case of like a small to medium local festival where you've got, you know, a couple hundred to a couple thousand people, uh, in attendance and

[00:06:59] Andy Leviss: is why he is smart, Sean, because he answered the question I was about to ask before I.

[00:07:04] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Size reference, right? Um,

[00:07:08] Sean Walker: Size matters.

[00:07:09] Garrett Doran: the, yeah, that range, like that range size is really important, uh, for us for a lot of reasons. And, you know, has a, a huge impact on who we do. We don't choose to put on a show, but anyway, so, uh, if you have a bunch of, uh, you know, call it artists who Matter, I would say they all matter.

But, uh. Artists who are gonna show up with a writer that have enough pull to say, you're gonna meet this writer, or we're not gonna show up either. A bunch of different guys are showing up with their consoles, their show files, doing virtual soundcheck, yada yada, blah, blah, blah. And at changeover, we're just disconnecting this multi pair and connecting that multi-pair and stomping down these wheel, uh, wheel locks on that riser and rolling that one away, et cetera.

And your, your changeover takes two minutes and sound check's already done. Cool. But in a like small to medium sized local festival where there's a couple hundred to a couple thousand people, you don't get any of that. You're starting from scratch every 45 minutes or so, and you get, if you're lucky, 20 to 20, 30 minutes to do a changeover.

But a lot of the times it's 15 or 20 minutes.

[00:08:11] Sean Walker: I was gonna say, I like your optimism, but.

[00:08:13] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the times it's 15, 20 minutes. So, uh, you know, it starts with just having a conversation with the band and defining what the goal is and how much time you have to do it. So. If I meet a band backstage and I'm monitors, or I'm patch, or I'm both, 'cause that's just the nature of the festival and maybe I'm monitors and patch and front of house and designated, you know, drunk audio guy all at the same time.

Who knows? I can wear many hats. So I meet a band and I'm like, yo dudes, we're gonna have a really tight change over time. And I've told the last band that when their song ends they say thank you. They pick up their shit and they walk away. And if they don't do that, you guys gotta help me heckle them and get them off the fucking stage to get you guys on the stage.

'cause I, I don't know if you've noticed, there's no stage manager. I can't do all the heckling myself. So like we gotta help each other out here. Uh,

[00:09:02] Andy Leviss: a little boat, Pete Cane over there. Grab. Happen if you need it.

[00:09:05] Garrett Doran: yeah.

[00:09:05] Sean Walker: Right.

[00:09:07] Garrett Doran: um, and tell 'em when we're up there, get your shit plugged in and standby like as fast as you can. You don't, no, you don't have 45 minutes to dial in your Marshall Stack.

You should plug it in and it should work dog. Like that's. Sorry, I need to avoid that tangent today. Um, so get up there

[00:09:29] Andy Leviss: player hurt you.

[00:09:30] Garrett Doran: yeah. Everywhere, uh, in my soul. So, so I'm always telling 'em like, Hey, when we get up there, eh, part of one, get up there and be like, we're gonna start at the top of the input list and I'm gonna start calling out instruments and I want like corner notes on all the drums.

I'm gonna ask you to play like eight bars. And as we go through every line, like if you want that in your wedge, you better throw your hand in the air or signal me that you want that in your wedge and give me an up run down. And if you don't do that, you're gonna get skipped over. And if we're at the end of line check and you've been busy taking selfies for Instagram and you missed half the band inputs, like that's on you dog.

So you gotta like really clearly define to the band what your expectations are and what the goal is and how you're gonna get there. 'cause you get a couple minutes to get everybody's shit off the stage, a couple minutes to get the next band on, a couple minutes to get through a line check. And at the end of that line check, which is two to five minutes long, all of your mixes are built.

They can get adjusted later, but they're already built, which means you're not starting from flat channels and you know, zero gain and let me start working on gain and let me start working on dynamics and let me start working on eq. If that's not already done, you're screwed.

[00:10:40] Sean Walker: Totally.

[00:10:41] Garrett Doran: And then your 15 minute changeover turns into a 40 minute changeover and then somebody's mad and debating like, you know, how do we make up this time?

Are we cutting bands? Are we telling everyone they're actually getting cut in half? Like, you know, what do you do with that? And also on a small to mid-size festival. Like it's up to us because we're often just the only people there to keep the whole ship running. And if we don't do it, then we're just shit outta luck.

And speaking of, it's probably a 14 hour day, and if you don't turn a couple of those 15 minute changeovers into a 10 minute changeovers, you might not get a bathroom break.

[00:11:17] Sean Walker: Totally. Totally. And while, you know, front of house only has one mix to make in that time, you know, they should be following along. But monitors is calling that,

[00:11:29] Garrett Doran: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:29] Sean Walker: that, that line check, right? They go kick snare, blah, blah, blah.

[00:11:33] Garrett Doran: Absolutely.

[00:11:34] Sean Walker: And if your front of house guy is not keeping up like they should, they should be kicked in the shins.

Right? They need to be keeping up because they only got one mix to make.

[00:11:42] Garrett Doran: Yeah. If your front of house engineer can't figure out one mix and the time that the monitor engineer figures out, you know, four or six or 12 or 20, uh, then again, they're probably not suited to that position.

[00:11:54] Sean Walker: Right. Totally. But what are the some, so for some of the people out here that have, you know, there's a lot of people listening that this is, they're rolling their eyes and this is old news, but there's also a lot of people that are listening that have never done this before and are trying to like get out of a club gig, like a small club gig or a bar gig into a sound company and want to go do some more, you know, I'm gonna say bigger shows, but bigger in that context.

Right. What are some of the things that they need to know going, switching environments like that, going from. Doing a bar gig where they've got, you know, a cover band or a couple of bands a night to having dedicated front of house and monitor consoles and doing a line check and setting up comms. Like, can we talk about fricking setting up comms for a second?

Like where does that come in the order of things and what is that

[00:12:42] Garrett Doran: Yeah, that's like one of the first steps also. Hi little buddy. I see you buddy.

[00:12:47] Andy Leviss: Yep. My little dude has the hiccups.

[00:12:50] Sean Walker: little buddy? All right. So talk to me about, about rock and roll comms phones and flashers, Garrett

[00:12:55] Garrett Doran: So, uh, boy, that often turns into a point of contention on a show site, uh,

[00:13:03] Sean Walker: two XLR connections. That's pretty, it's pretty intense, bro.

[00:13:06] Garrett Doran: Boy, it sure is. Um, yeah. Half the time that I am on a festival and you know, I go visit B stage ac, c stage or whatever, uh, I get out there and you know, there's something wrong.

We're trying to troubleshoot this side or the other, and I go, okay, cool. Like, where's your comm at? So I can like talk to monitors or Where's your comms at? So I can talk to front of house and I kind of get this deer in the headlight stair and they go, well what comms? And I open up the top drawer of the work box and I see a pile of comms.

And I say, those comms,

[00:13:39] Sean Walker: That are clearly, that are clearly labeled on tape on the top of the work box that you already had your snacks out of.

[00:13:45] Garrett Doran: Yeah,

[00:13:45] Andy Leviss: That's what those are.

[00:13:47] Garrett Doran: yeah, you had to dig through the phones and flashers to get to the snacks you were eating, and it was in the show email and labeled on everything. And like, there's a, there's a, there's a snake channel dedicated for it.

Like, holy hell guys, this is important. And I've had that conversation with a bunch of different techs over the years where I go, uh, the comms between front of house monitors are absolutely so critical. 'cause if you're trying to troubleshoot something and you can't talk to the guy at the other end of the snake, you're screwed.

Or if this band needs to start five minutes late because the, you know, the basis is still puking out last night's whiskey behind the stage, like we really need the mc to not announce, welcome to the stage such and such, and only half the band is there. And if front of house monitors can't talk to each other, then you're screwed.

And trying to do that on a cell phone doesn't really work. Um, and depending on the show, that could be, you know, a thousand people behind between front of house and monitors, or there might not physically be a path between front of house monitors. So, um, and I was showing some of the guys just the other day, uh, we had phones and flashers set up and the those little clear calm flashers, the beep on 'em is just, it's just aggressive.

Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a polite way of putting it. So all of our, uh, the beepers have a piece of gaff over 'em and I'm like, Hey man, like this thing beeps when you're in show. You need to be able to hear it. So as the show gets louder, like peel this gaff off so that no matter how loud the fucking show gets, you can still hear your, your flasher going off so that when there's a problem, you can talk to the guy at the other end and sort it out.

Um, and I've had a show a few years ago where the, um, the monitor tech put the, uh, had the phones and flashers sitting on the doghouse of his console, and every time he needed to do something with his console, he would take the phones and flashers off and put 'em on the floor. And then we're at front of house, like desperately trying to get ahold of this guy.

I'm holding down the call button and I'm looking across the venue and dude's just standing there and I'm like stomping back and forth between front of house monitors. And every time I went over there, the phones and flashers are like sitting on the floor and I go, dude, this is show fucking critical.

We've been trying to call you for five minutes. 'cause there's, there's something broken that we need to sort out and we're five minutes late to show. Like this is show critical.

[00:16:05] Andy Leviss: So you guys tend to do like bell packs and phones, you know, more than like shout boxes.

[00:16:09] Garrett Doran: Uh, we do shop boxes on occasion. Usually we have phones and flashers for most of our little rock and roll stuff. Uh, 'cause those just live in the split snake. So if a split snake is going to a show, there's just already a phone and flasher comm rig there. And it's already patched. It's already labeled. Uh, we do have little shop boxes we can bring.

We just don't use them very often.

[00:16:31] Andy Leviss: Copy. And I suppose, should we zoom out for, for folks who might be new and explain what both of those things are?

[00:16:37] Garrett Doran: Yeah. So phones and flashers. Uh. You know, you pick up a phone and you hold a button down and the guy at the other end can pick up their phone and hold the button down and you can talk to each other.

[00:16:49] Sean Walker: It's literally the bat phone dude.

[00:16:51] Garrett Doran: Yeah. Like big light goes off. And depending on the flash you have, it might look like, you know, the light that they'd stick to the roof of their car when they're like detectives in an old mover or something.

Like, stick the light to the roof of the car and it goes woo woo as they go down the road. It's like just big flashing fricking strobe light just in the middle of your tent on your desk. And every time it goes off you go, ah. And you jump. 'cause this thing's fucking scary 'cause it's loud and it's bright.

Um, so you press a call button,

[00:17:17] Andy Leviss: calls theirs the The Blaze on, which is one of the more accurately named products I've ever seen.

[00:17:22] Garrett Doran: right? Yeah. So you press a button and the flashers go off at both ends. And that's how the people at both ends know that they're being called. You pick up your phone and you hold the button down and you talk and it's that easy. Um. We, you know, we tell people that it's important because it is important and we tell people it's show critical and often it just gets overlooked.

Uh, 'cause a lot of people coming out of like bar and club scenes, uh, here, oh yeah, we have a phone and flasher comm system. Like, I don't know what that is. I've never needed that, so I'm not gonna set it up. And then I show up and I'm like, Hey, why are we struggling to troubleshoot this simple thing? And where's the goddamn phone?

Why can't I talk to somebody?

[00:18:03] Sean Walker: Totally. So for those of you that are, you know, in that situation, figure out what that is in just a power supply. Uh, you know, a lot of companies like ours and others are using vintage clear calm, like 5 0 1, 6 0 1, 7 oh ones to just a single channel, you know, party line kind of thing. And, uh, HS six, is that right?

Is that what the handset thing is called? And, uh, and a little flasher?

[00:18:28] Andy Leviss: that both of us know that, but yes.

[00:18:30] Sean Walker: Yeah. Right, totally. It's literally just two belt packs, two handsets instead of a calm headset, you get a little, looks like a telephone handset and, uh, a little flasher that it all just loops together via XLR. Super duper easy. You can go on on, uh, the old web search and see how that does, but that would be a good thing to lead off with if you're calling sound companies going, Hey man.

I'm a good audio engineer and also I realized that setting up comms is show critical. Let's do that to step one. As we get going, as we got power up, that'll that'll let people know that you know what time it is rather than like, oh yeah, I make good mix. You know what I mean?

[00:19:04] Garrett Doran: Yeah, shout boxes are also cool. Um, shout box would just be like a little powered speaker that you plug a mic into, so you'd have one at front of house and one at monitors so your front of house engineer can pick up a microphone and talk and it will come out a speaker facing monitors and vice versa. Um, it is technically, well, it is better in some ways.

Uh,

[00:19:26] Andy Leviss: not gonna move it behind the console and not see the flasher go off and have to pick up. Of the

[00:19:30] Sean Walker: But you can't, but you can't have a private conversation like you can with

[00:19:34] Garrett Doran: have a private conversation. And also in the case of a phone and flasher, like if I leave the beeper fully exposed and turned on and the light turned on, like I can see and hear that thing from pretty much anywhere in the venue if I need to. Um,

[00:19:47] Sean Walker: Totally.

[00:19:48] Andy Leviss: for better and for

[00:19:50] Sean Walker: Right. Totally.

[00:19:50] Garrett Doran: or worse. But, you know, everyone around front of house like get startled and we have a successful show, or oh, they don't get startled.

And also no one knows why we're half an hour behind right now. Uh, we default to phones and flashers for most things. Uh, we don't default to phones and flashers on the corporate show. Um, 'cause that would, that would not be

[00:20:12] Sean Walker: no, that, that gets, that gets free. Free speaking. Regular calm. But okay, so we're, we're on, we're off of phones and flashes. Let's go to like, what does a line check look like and something like that, you know what I mean? Some people are like, Hey man, I just went and, you know, I saw that everything is getting there.

You know, I went, oh the, I'm seeing the kick. I'm seeing these things. Some people are dialing in just their gains. Some people have their whole channel strip ready to rip. Some people are whole channel strip ready to rip. And, uh, a basic, you know, let's assume we're on wedges 'cause we're doing small to mid-size festivals.

They got the kind of basic wedge mix going with a vocal on top and people kind of got what they need roughed in like. What's your feeling on where that level needs to be and what people should get accomplished in a, in your standard, like small to medium sized festival line? Check in just a few minutes.

[00:20:57] Garrett Doran: most of the work should already be done before you show up on site. Um, you already know that every vocalist is gonna need to hear their own voice. You already know. Uh, pretty give or take a little bit where all your high passes and low passes and such need to be. So all those things are already done.

Every singer is gonna want to hear their own voice, and for the most part, they're gonna wanna hear everybody else's voice as well, a little bit lower than their own. So 90% of the time, if I'm doing festivals and somebody steps up to that mic. And I say, Hey, step up to that mic and gimme a check one, two, and let me know what you need.

They step up to it, they say, check one, two. And they go, oh, actually that's great. And as we go down the line, they'll ask for a little more or less and there's always one member of the band that they sing a little on the mic and every other band member turns their head and looks at me and just like, gives me the cut look.

And like, we don't, we don't need that one. You, you can take him out of our mixes. And I'm like, okay. But you know, for the rest of 'em, if I've got five or six vocal mics and five or six wedges, they're paired up one-to-one. They all need to hear themselves and they all need to hear each other a little bit.

So like that aspect of the work is already done before you leave the shop. You already know it's needed. So why would you wait until you're there in the middle of a line check when you only have a couple minutes to start doing an hour of work that you could have done before you left the warehouse?

[00:22:12] Sean Walker: So, so instead of just making sure that's already done, they need to come in the day before and prep their consult if they're gonna come do a show, is what you're saying?

[00:22:20] Garrett Doran: Uh, yeah, I mean that's, you know, that's ideal. Um, some people, uh, want to do that. Some people don't wanna do that. Some people are like, I wanna come in for an hour on my own time and just make sure my console will work when I plug it in. I'm like, okay. And some people are like, Hey man, I, I really wanna make sure this is cool.

Can I just like hang out and watch during shop prep so I know what the hell is happening? And some people are like, Hey, this seems like a big deal, like we should have a real prep day. And I'm like, well, come on in and like, spend a whole freaking day here and like, make a shop rate for the day and like, make more money and also have an easier and better show.

Like

[00:22:56] Sean Walker: Totally, totally.

[00:22:56] Garrett Doran: across the map. And it really varies by the scale and the need of the show. Uh, if it's like a little evening width thing, like I don't really, if it's an evening width and we have a two hour sound check block, I don't really care how pre-programmed your desk is. But if you've got five bands, right?

But if you've got five bands and loading is two hours before the first one goes on, like you better have all your shit dialed to the best of your abilities before you walk on site, or you're setting yourself and your show up for failure.

[00:23:27] Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Totally.

[00:23:30] Garrett Doran: So yeah, you get through the end of a, a, you know, three to five minute line check. And at the end of that, like as you've gone through every line, everyone in the band is throwing their hand up or down or giving me the, oh God, I don't want to hear that guy. Look. Uh, and you just go line to line, boom, boom, boom.

You like, you hear a line, you look down, you like, my game looks fine. It doesn't sound all fucked in my key wedge. Then you look up. You look at all the hands pointing up or down, you make some quick changes. Once all the hands are down, then you move on to the next input. And you know, half the things on that stage they don't want in their wedges.

So most of the time you're looking up and go, oh great. Nobody wants, you know, nobody wants Tom two in their wedge

[00:24:11] Sean Walker: Right? Totally. And in front of house you're chasing, right? So as as they're going through with the, with the line check it monitors in front of house, we're chasing, right? We've got our ears in or our headphones on. 'cause usually either there's. Playback music happen or whatever. You don't wanna just have this obnoxious sound check going while people are trying to listen to another stage, whatever.

So you got your headphones on, you're just queuing away and listening, building your kind of your mix going, making sure it all sounds good. There's no buzzes. There's no nothing. And that happens super quickly because monitors has got way more mixes and people to please than we do. So we're just kind of hanging out and, and chilling.

Right.

[00:24:45] Garrett Doran: yeah, if you're at front of house, like if I am, if I'm running monitors and I've got like some 12 piece band that just went on. And we're almost done with the drums. And I hear front of house call and say, wait, I need to hear Tom two for a while. More like, I'm probably gonna say no. Uh, 'cause we don't have fucking time for that because I don't know about you.

But I'm halfway through an 18 hour workday and I would like to be allowed to poop today, which means no, I'm not gonna let you listen to Tom two for another five minutes.

[00:25:14] Andy Leviss: No poop for you.

[00:25:15] Garrett Doran: Yeah. 'cause we have other things to do with our time that are way more important because we haven't even heard, we haven't even gotten to half the inputs yet.

And frankly, you have overheads and Tom two will be heard no matter what. But if that third vocalist Mike, like isn't working, we're screwed. And I would much rather try to fix like. You know, a Tom Mike in the middle of a show. Then start out a show missing entire inputs or entire performers because the front of house guy really wanted to listen to what it sounds like to put the entire PA in limit with nothing but Tom two for five minutes straight,

[00:25:53] Andy Leviss: Look man, my snare almost doesn't suck.

[00:25:55] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah,

[00:25:56] Andy Leviss: I need just another minute.

[00:25:58] Garrett Doran: It, and that's, that is where that scale tops out, Andy. It almost doesn't suck

[00:26:02] Sean Walker: Right.

[00:26:02] Garrett Doran: that's the end of the scale.

[00:26:04] Andy Leviss: I'll tell you, I got, I got weirded out one 'cause I had a very good modern engineer on a show I was front of house on, but who was like, Hey, you're front of house, you should drive soundcheck. And I was like, no, no, I should not. There is no world in which I should be driving soundcheck right now. I appreciate it.

I love you. You take the wheel.

[00:26:21] Garrett Doran: Yeah, I, uh, I regularly chat with people about, you know, what do you think the hardest or most important job is on a, on a small festival show

[00:26:30] Sean Walker: Patch guy.

[00:26:31] Garrett Doran: Yeah, the go-to answer is like, oh yeah, the guy at front of house. I'm like, no, man. Like if I hire some engineer that I've never worked with, I am way more likely to put them at front of house than anywhere else because any old monkey can figure out which mic is the fucking lead vocal mic.

And to getting a passing grade at front of house means they have identified that microphone and gotten it on top ish. So it's audible getting a passing grade at monitors. Your patch is way more intense than that

[00:27:01] Sean Walker: Wait, you want a passing grade?

[00:27:03] Garrett Doran: sometimes.

[00:27:07] Andy Leviss: You didn't say an a plus. We're going pass fail here.

[00:27:09] Sean Walker: Right,

[00:27:09] Garrett Doran: Yeah, I think, I think that means a d plus now, and I'm okay with that.

[00:27:13] Sean Walker: right. All right, so we've talked about comms a little bit. We've talked about monitor line check and how that's gonna go. What are some of the other things that somebody needs to know if, if they wanna work for a sound company rather than, you know, doing their bar gig or their, or, or maybe they got hella experience.

Maybe this person is hella experienced in tour or on the road and they wanna come get off the road and work for a sound company and stay home, rather than being on the road all the time. What are some of the things they're gonna need to know or some of the, like, maybe the tools that they didn't need when they were doing that, but they will need for this, like power or whatever else comes to mind.

You know, driving a truck, whatever.

[00:27:51] Garrett Doran: yeah, the, uh, in a, in a small to mid-size festival, like we're talking about a couple hundred to a couple thousand, uh, you know, if you're going into an arena, there's gonna be. A design ahead of time that is approved by rigging, where like you say, Hey, here's where I wanna p put my pa, here's how much it's gonna weigh.

And then the lead rigger is gonna get back to you and say, haha, no. Uh, but I can put it six feet over that way. And you say, well, I guess that's where that's gonna go. Then, uh, on a little festival, like, there's not a lead rigor. It's up to you. And if you don't know what is or is not safe to build your gear, then you're screwed.

[00:28:31] Andy Leviss: If you're lucky, the two 50 came with the hoist. They told you it was gonna come with

[00:28:35] Garrett Doran: oh, oh man. Or when the, uh.

[00:28:38] Sean Walker: Wait. You get stages that have hoists. We have to bring our own dog.

[00:28:42] Garrett Doran: Yeah. Or when the

[00:28:43] Andy Leviss: Yeah. About that.

[00:28:44] Garrett Doran: yeah, when the stage line provider tells you, oh, you don't need to bring any chain hoist. 'cause I have someone, they travel with the stage and then you get there and his chain hoist turned out to be 10 foot lift and an SL two 60 is like 26 foot trim height or something.

And they pick it up and go, oh, the chains don't reach the ground. We're gonna bring the roof back in and then reconnect the PA and send the PA out like at the end of the chain and hope it can get low enough. Which is an actual scenario I was in a few years ago.

[00:29:14] Sean Walker: Not at our shop.

[00:29:15] Andy Leviss: that 10 feet. We had to dead hang at three in the morning when the truck was two hours late or when the stage was two hours late.

[00:29:23] Garrett Doran: Yeah, I uh, I got to this thing as a guest engineer and I walked in and I was like, Hey, we need to like move the PA up or down or whatever it was. And the, the PA provider said, well, you can do that. But the thing is you're gonna have to like teeter on top of a 12 foot ladder to reach the hand chain of the chain fall to be able to adjust it.

'cause the entire thing is up above the PA frame. And I was like, I. What it's what now? Why would it be that way? Wo So, you know, having an understanding of the, the rigging that goes into all things pa uh, and what is or is not safe. And every a PA manufacturer has guides on that. Like every PA that can be flown has some kind of rigging certification, user manual, rigging manual that you can look at.

And usually they're real simple. Usually there's a few pictures and a big circle around it with either a red line through it or a green check mark next to it. And like, cool, here's things. Yeah, exactly. Here's things I should not do, and here's things that are totally fine. Uh, and you can get a pretty good sense for a lot of it doing that.

Um, you don't necessarily have to like go take courses on rigging and get certified and trained and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you should know if I'm hanging my PA on the stick of trust. What is or is not safe If I am hanging my PA on a chain, fall off a mobile stage, what is or is not safe. And any legitimate manufacturer has published specifications out there that you need to adhere to.

So every mobile stage, every trust manufacturer, et cetera, and every PA manufacturer, and you look at 'em and you go, cool, like this, this Tru arch is rated for 500 pounds. Maybe I shouldn't try to hang 5,000 pounds on it. Um, and it can be really simple, but when you're in that smaller festival market, like there's no fallback.

There's nobody else who's gonna be there to be the adult and the voice of reason. And it's kind of up to you to have a general understanding of how that shit works. And the same goes for power. Uh, hang on.

[00:31:38] Sean Walker: Totally. So what, what about power are they gonna need to know to go do that kind of a thing?

[00:31:45] Garrett Doran: Uh, a couple things after I send a quick text message,

[00:31:48] Andy Leviss: I'll, I'll go into story time if we want. I, I teased Sean and Garrett with a story earlier that we've circled back to Borders of leading into it before, which was many, many years ago. I, when I was working regularly in a shop in New York, we get the engineer for like this small festival kind of thing we're doing, comes in and he is been touring with like an up and coming artist, and he is off tour right now and working for us.

And he is like, seems super cool, super chill. He is like, oh, I wanted to check out my console, like, check it out. You know, he is like, you know, and you know, I'm, I'm happy to hang and help like, you know, put it together if you guys want. Like, you know, that way I know what's going. And we're like, great. This is awesome.

And he is like, and this will tell you how long ago it was. He is like, what's the console? We're like, oh. It's a heritage 3000. He's like, ah, my favorite consult. Love it. Awesome. Like, yeah, it's over there. You're, you know, we've got your outboard process, your rack, like DBX is and okay. And all that. He is like, uh, why don't you patch it how you want it?

Then you know, there's tails on top of the rack. Have fun, go to town. So he wanders over and we're watching him and we're seeing him look at some tails and look back at the console and look at some tails and kind of get squinty eyed back and forth a bunch of times. And he is just struggling. And finally he flags one of us over and is like, Hey man, I just, where, where are the insert connectors on this thing?

And our shop foreman looks at him and he is like, dude, you said this was your favorite console. Like, what the fuck? And he dead ass looks him in the face and says, well, yeah, it's, but it's usually set up by the time I get there.

[00:33:15] Garrett Doran: Yep.

[00:33:15] Andy Leviss: Yep. And that's how that day went.

[00:33:18] Garrett Doran: Yeah, we get that all the time.

[00:33:19] Andy Leviss: yeah. And to be fair, for those who remember our heritage, like the answers, jacks were not where you expected them to be.

And were hard to find. For, for the mixes, but it was, yeah, that was that, that was a precursor of how the rest of the weekend was gonna go.

[00:33:34] Sean Walker: We often get asked to rent desks. For people that don't know how to use the desk, they ask us to rent for them.

[00:33:40] Garrett Doran: All the time.

[00:33:42] Sean Walker: They

[00:33:43] Garrett Doran: also get,

[00:33:43] Sean Walker: like we had, we had one where the artist would not fucking show up if we did not go get this particular desk for them. They would not take any desk with this. They would not have any, any substitutions will not show up without this desk.

We're like, okay, cool. So we went and got this desk made, made a huge fricking, you know, outta the way run, go get this. 'cause it wasn't just like right down the street, you know what I mean? And we got there and they were like, uh, thought you were gonna tech this for me. Like, how are you gonna do? I was like, I don't own this desk, man.

You asked for this desk, you need to know how it works. And they're like, oh no man. I, I don't, I don't know how to do that. Like, I didn't, I, no, they were just like, I just know how to push the faders. Like, oh my god, bro.

[00:34:23] Garrett Doran: Yeah, I've run, we've run into that a number of time with, uh, Dante, where we ask people, Hey, do you, are you familiar with Dante? And like, oh yeah. Like, you know, I've got all the software and I work on, you know, a CL five every day or whatever the case is, um, and it's all Dante based and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And like, we have controller open. I'm like, okay, cool. So like, you're comfortable setting up Dante? Oh yeah, I'm certified. Like I've got this certificate or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool. And they show up and I immediately get a phone call. It's like, Hey man, like these things aren't talking. And I'm like, okay, well, uh, how do you have 'em patch?

They're plugged in this that way and the other, I'm like, okay, is it set to, you know, uh, parallel or redundant or daisy chain or redundant and like, oh, it's set to this. I'm like, cool. So you've got it like programmed one way, but physically patched another way. I'm like, this is why we had a whole conversation about whether or not you know how to use Dante before I booked you for this thing.

And they go, well, yeah, but you know, I've, I've never had to set it up. I'm like, okay, well if you don't know how to

[00:35:21] Andy Leviss: you know how to click a patch grid.

[00:35:22] Garrett Doran: Yeah. Like if you, if you've never actually set it up before then maybe don't tell me that you use Dante all day every day and are super familiar with it and are totally cool with doing it.

'cause there's a difference between showing up to a venue and pushing a fader up and down versus building that venue from scratch every day.

[00:35:38] Andy Leviss: and frankly coming out and saying, you know, I'm real good at patching it, but I've never like set it up from the ground up. Won't necessarily lose you a gig and may even get you a gig. We've talked about this before for being honest about your limitations. Like as long as you're not pretending to be something you're not.

[00:35:54] Sean Walker: Absolutely, dude. And you know what? If you say that, come to the shop and set it up, man. Just come to the shop on your prep day when you're building your file and we'll show you how to set it up. Like, Hey man, I've used Controller a bunch, but I've actually never patched together a Dante network physically.

It's always been sorted when I got there, but I, but I, I get the concepts like, dude, cool man. Come spend fricking 15 minutes the shop. We'll show you what's up. And you'll be like, oh, piece of cake. Okay, great.

[00:36:17] Garrett Doran: Yep. And

[00:36:17] Sean Walker: no big, no big deal.

[00:36:19] Garrett Doran: like for us, whenever, if I'm sending Dante out, like I physically patch the console and the Dante racks together and make them talk before they leave the warehouse so that when they show up on site, you plug them in and they work. 'cause again, why would you spend hours on site dicking around with something that you knew you would have to do that could have just been done in the shop.

So if you're doing a show for us and it has Dante, like I'm gonna be building it in the days leading up to the show, just come stop by the shop and learn dog. Like, it's not like you don't have to try to impress me telling me, you know, things you don't, and then fall on your face.

[00:36:55] Sean Walker: we've got cigars and sparkly water. Come hang out, dude. You know,

[00:36:59] Andy Leviss: Like that's that, that conversation we were all having in the Discord the other day, that like you, you want to get hands on time on a piece of gear. Like go to a shop nearby. Go to a shop you work with, go to a shop you wanna work with and be like, Hey, do you guys have a, you know, whatever it is, you know, if it's sitting around for day, can I come dick around with it and maybe ask you a couple questions?

[00:37:17] Sean Walker: you can.

[00:37:18] Garrett Doran: Yeah.

[00:37:19] Sean Walker: Of course you can, and we'll help you, dude. We'd be happy to tip a desk and show you how to do a networking, even if you're not working for us. Even if you're like, Hey man, I'm on this. I flew in outta town. I'm on this over for somebody else, but I'm told you guys are the ones that have the whatever, the blah, blah, blah.

Right? In our case, it would be Yamaha and Dante, but it could be Digi Co or Avid for somebody else. Any shop owner, any company owner can be like, absolutely. You can come in and tip a desk and make a file or patch a thing or learn how this works or whatever. You know, maybe you're flying in and you're on a platform you're not used to, and it was delegated to you like, Hey man, this show's on, you know, avid and you're a digi co guy.

Like, or you know, it's on Yamaha and you're an avid guy or whatever. Like any sh any shop worth their salt, well absolutely tip a desk and help you get through that. And it's not it, we wouldn't view it as, uh, a hole in your game. We would view it as your platform of choice is something else, and here's how to do the same thing on this platform, right?

What's just like at the discord where we have those. The tips and tricks for D Live or Digi O or Ravage, it's not because people don't aren't good engineers. It's because people are like, yo man, how do I make Digi O workflow work on a ravage? How do I make my Ravage workflow work on an avid? How do I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

'cause they're used to speaking in one language. How do I transfer that to another language? 'cause all the desks speak a different language. Dude, we're all happy to have that. Plus you get to learn and meet a bunch of new engineers that are probably smoking, right? If you're asking to come to the desk and make a file, we already know, you know what time it is to a certain degree.

Otherwise, you wouldn't have the wherewithal to ask us to come make a file, right?

[00:38:48] Garrett Doran: Yep. Yeah. We've all had those times in our careers where somebody says to us, Hey, can you come do this, that, or the other? Like, can you come mix an orchestra in surround sound next week? I'm like, hell yeah, I can do that. And then you agree to the gig and then you start frantically calling your homies going, Hey man, uh, I may have over committed myself and I might need some help.

Can you please talk me through doing this, that, or the other? Um,

[00:39:11] Sean Walker: I don't ever do that to Ryan and Andy ever.

[00:39:14] Garrett Doran: never Mr. I'm a podcast host now. Uh, so then, you know, the, one of the issues that I've had in these last

[00:39:24] Andy Leviss: hosting, you just talking to the microphone, dude.

[00:39:26] Garrett Doran: right? One of,

[00:39:27] Andy Leviss: got the easy gig.

[00:39:29] Garrett Doran: uh, one of the issues I've had these last couple years is have people like, you know, do the same thing I've done except and not follow through. I'm like, okay, this guy says that they can do this, that, or the other.

I. And they're committed to this gig now. And they clearly did not call their homies to ask how to get through what they've committed to themselves to. And now they're here on my job site, falling on their face and I'm having to get involved and fix it. Uh, 'cause they overstated their skillset and then didn't plug that hole in their game before they showed up to the job site.

[00:40:03] Sean Walker: Totally. Yeah. And, and at my company, if I'm on the job site doing anything but making bad jokes, you fucked up.

[00:40:12] Garrett Doran: Somebody did.

[00:40:14] Andy Leviss: I think the technical term is schmoozing.

[00:40:16] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

[00:40:16] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah,

[00:40:17] Sean Walker: Totally

[00:40:18] Garrett Doran: yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:19] Sean Walker: schmoozing, totally

[00:40:22] Garrett Doran: Anyways, what else was there? Uh, we talked about, uh, you know, rigging stuff. Oh, power stuff. Oh yeah. Uh, power is interesting. Um, I do a lot of power stuff. Um. On a large ER show, I usually generate some kind of power map where I have a chart that shows every speaker on the job site and which leg of the power it's going to be connected to via which port of which IO rack.

Um, 'cause we only really have one thing that draws real power and that subwoofers. And if you put all of them on one leg of power, well you're, you're gonna trip a breaker or you're gonna beat the shit outta your generator. Um, and you know, if you're on site and somebody says, Hey, there's like black smoke coming outta the generator, and it's kind of like hopping slowly in a circle every time the subs hit, well maybe, maybe you should have put the same number of subs on every leg of power.

[00:41:13] Sean Walker: How would somebody go about doing that? If, if somebody's never done that before, where would they go to web search that or figure that out, or what, what are some tips you could give 'em to figure out how to, how to balance the power on a single phase or a three phase service? I.

[00:41:24] Garrett Doran: Um, so a single phase is, you know, pretty easy if it's something like a, uh, um, a spider rack or a breakout box or whatever the case may be. Um, if you got four subwoofers on a single phase service, you've got two legs of power and try to put two subs on each leg of power. What you don't wanna do, and this is something that happened a couple years ago, so we had a little p putt generator on a job site, and it was a two 40 service splitting out via a little like L 14 breakout box.

So there was, you know, a circuit for the, uh, you know, line phase one or line one, however you wanna say that nomenclature's different by industry. Um. And then there was, you know, a leg for line two. So the guys on site said, well, I'm gonna put all the front of house on this leg and all of monitors on that leg.

That seems reasonable. The result of which was all the subwoofers went on one leg of power. Instead of saying, cool, this breakout box has, you know, two circuits coming out of it. I'm gonna put half a front of house on each one and then half of monitors on each one. 'cause if you go, I'm putting all the front of house on this leg of power and all of monitors on the other leg of power, that means all my subwoofers are on one leg.

And what happens then is every time there was a big SubPac, the generator would go and it sounded awful. And there was a huge voltage drop. And they were like, man, these subs sound shitty. Yeah, these subs sound terrible. And like all the indicator lights are kind of like blinking and flashing and s strobing.

Like, I don't know what's going on. And I was like, well, it kind of sounds like you managed to put all the subs on one leg of power instead of both. Uh, in the case of three-phase power. Um, most power distros are, uh, labeled and or color coded. Uh, if you have L 21 power supplies in racks, it's really easy 'cause you have three legs of power in three circuits.

If you don't, if you have something like an L 21 doghouse or like the, the motion lavs or lex little like breakout boxes, like you got L 21 in and you got three circuits on there, split your shit up evenly across all three circuits. That means that you are evenly splitting it across all three legs of power.

And it's the same deal.

[00:43:41] Andy Leviss: So, and for folks who really want to get their power and nerd on, I will link to our episode we did a long, long time ago with Rich Cena that like nerds the fuck out

[00:43:49] Garrett Doran: Mm-hmm. Is that the one where he discussed like, running into six phase power, like somewhere in Europe at some old venue or some

[00:43:56] Andy Leviss: That sounds right. Yeah. That would've been that. That would've been a rich thing for sure. I.

[00:44:00] Garrett Doran: Yeah. That stuff's cool.

[00:44:03] Sean Walker: Six phase power is beyond my pay grade. I gotta be honest with you.

[00:44:07] Garrett Doran: So it was three phase, but it doesn't stop you.

[00:44:09] Sean Walker: right. Yeah. That's why I make other people do it.

[00:44:12] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:14] Sean Walker: All right, so we got comms, we got line check, we got power. What are some other things that

[00:44:20] Garrett Doran: let's talk about stage layout.

[00:44:21] Sean Walker: All right. Cool man. Stage layout.

[00:44:23] Garrett Doran: Yeah. If you're talking about a festival show, uh, and a small to mid-size thing and you've got, you know, a 30, a 24 or 32 or 40 channel festival patch, whatever the case may be, and you've got half a dozen wedges and half a dozen vocal mics across the front of the stage, you often have mixes one through four.

Do them all one through four from the same perspective where you have vocal mics one through four are sitting in front of monitor mixes one through four that correspond to guitar inputs one through four that correspond to di inputs one through four. And if someone steps up to a vocal mic anywhere on stage and says, I'm gonna stand here and sing and I need to plug this guitar in.

Uh, they're gonna be plugged into guitar. If they're step up to vocal mic three, it means they're gonna be in mix three and Vocal three and guitar or DI three. So everything is one-to-one because organization is huge. If you only have a couple of minutes to sort out a mix, uh, you can't afford to be like cool.

Vocal Three is also playing guitar two and is on DI six for his keyboard that he plays on occasion. And he's standing in front of Monitor Wedge seven. Like, cool. There's no way to organize that. Like you get a 12 piece band of Randall's up there that you've never met in your life. If you are not pre-organized, you will not be successful.

And if you don't preemptively set yourself up for success, then you're not gonna, 'cause nobody else is

[00:45:46] Sean Walker: And you gotta herd the cats when, when they're going on stage. 'cause bands are chaos muppets, man. So when they're, when they're going on stage, you gotta herd the cats and be like, Hey man, where do you stand on stage? Great. Here's your, here's your mic and your wedge and, you know, get 'em cozy. You're not like, quite delegating, but you're like, cool man.

You're gonna be guitar here and buck here, and here's how we're gonna set you up and blah, blah, blah. And you're real polite about it, but you're directing 'em to where they're gonna go so that they're, they're staying organized for you, right.

[00:46:13] Garrett Doran: Yeah. And there's been a number of times when I had, you know, someone who's going to sing and play guitar, step up to a mic, and they have their guitar cab and they, you know, see a guitar mic on a stand and they stick it in front of their cab and they go, cool, yeah, I just put that mic in front of my cab.

And they go, that's cool. Uh, but no, I'm not gonna use that one. I'm gonna move it and I'm gonna use this other one. That way, since you're singing into mic four, you're gonna be, you know, playing on guitar four, not two, and keep everything as one-to-one as you possibly can. So that for both engineers, but especially for monitors, when you see somebody in the band throw their hand up and they're standing in front of, you know, mix two.

They're asking for more of their own guitar or more of their own microphone or more if they're on keyboard or whatever the case is. Like you have absolutely no idea where that is. If somebody hasn't kept it one-to-one, which is really the job of the patch guy. Um, if the show can afford a patch guy, which, you know, we can dream.

[00:47:09] Andy Leviss: See now you're just giving me crazy ideas for those shows. When I have like time to actually do custom layers and shit to just make a more me layer. That's just like mic one, to mix one, mic two, to mix two.

[00:47:20] Garrett Doran: Yeah.

[00:47:21] Andy Leviss: I feel like there are very few consoles that could do that, but I feel like an S six L probably could, 'cause that's the kind of wacky shit, Ryan, would it come up with?

[00:47:28] Garrett Doran: yeah. I think it can do whatever you want.

[00:47:32] Sean Walker: The other nice part about that is if you're standing out in front of house and somebody is standing, you know, in front of mic one, you can pretty much assume they're also guitar one, if they're playing guitar, you don't have to guess or fire off, overcome a whole bunch of like conversations about who's doing what and where they're, and blah, blah, blah.

You know what I mean? If you're, in our particular case, we laid out so that it's house left to right one through four, let's say. So if I'm standing in front of house, I know that the, the house left monitor is one, vocal is one, guitar is one, and it just goes left to right for me. And that's the what we have adopted.

I, Andy, is that common for you or do you go the other way or what have you seen?

[00:48:09] Andy Leviss: no, I, I dig that. I feel like I haven't seen that enough and I, I, I was gonna joke that conversation is, is a very polite word for what often is like, guys, what fucking guitar is that?

[00:48:19] Garrett Doran: Yeah.

[00:48:20] Andy Leviss: Or Simply Overs? Shout what? Guitar. Guitar number, number, number.

[00:48:23] Sean Walker: The, the nice part about, uh, owning a company is that it gets to work however you decide it's going to work. And this is how we've decided it's going to work for us. And so this is how it will work for people that work for us. And that way everybody's talking the same language, right? So, uh, it's easy to just all be on the same page and then all your guys all know what they're doing, right?

They're not, they're not all doing it differently and it helps to kind of keep it all making sense, right? You know, when you go to Starbucks to make coffee, everybody knows how to make coffee the same way. And that doesn't mean that Starbucks and Seattle's Best and whoever else are all making it the same way.

But at least you're like, Hey man, if you're in a Starbucks store, you're making coffee. This way we know what we're doing, right? So. Same kind of thing for us. It's house left to right, one through four, one through six, or however many wedges are on stage. Right. We're, we're just picturing like an SL two 60 kind of size stage here for the scope of what we're talking about, but it, you know, as the wedges grow across the front, that number keeps going down.

Right. But that keeps everybody speaking the same language so you don't have a bunch of unnecessary conversations and you can be talking about cigars and sparkly water rather than which guitar are they plugged into. You know

[00:49:30] Garrett Doran: Yeah, and I, uh, I enforce it. I'm like, this is the layout. And this is how it will be. And everything has a default starting point. And you know, eventually the lines end up blurring a little bit just by necessity. Where it's like, well this guy's all the way over here and it's gonna get plugged in. Wherever the fuck, I can find a spot to plug it in 'cause we're outta time.

So, you know, everything is one-to-one except for that guy over there. Um,

[00:49:55] Sean Walker: little guy, I wouldn't worry about that little

[00:49:56] Garrett Doran: yeah, exactly.

[00:50:00] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally.

[00:50:01] Garrett Doran: Um, but that organization also is something that you have to kind of impose on, uh, bands at times when, uh, we get stage plots and it shows they're like mixed positions and an input patch list and it's like, cool input one is three vocals and input two is the drum kit. And I'm like, cool. That's not how inputs work.

First of all. Um, if there's multiple instruments, it's not an input. So they send you their 12 input, uh, their patch sheet and input list that lists 12 inputs and you're like, cool. One of those is the drums. And the drums has more than 12 all by itself. So that's not I. That's not really accurate. And then they show up and have, you know, two kicks and five Toms and you go, cool.

I, I, I wish you'd told me that. Like why did you send me a stage plot and an input list and didn't tell me what was going to be on your stage or what your inputs were. But they'll also do funky things with their layout where it's like, cool, you know, the drums or Mix one and this downstage center mixes two.

And then you have like, over to the right, you've got mix three, and then over on the left you've got, you know, mix four and five is a stereo mix. And you're like, cool, I'm not doing any of that. That stereo mix is gonna be downstage, right? How's left is gonna be stereo mix one, two, and it's gonna, you know, cascade down from there.

Um, which is why we tend to just put little labels on every single monitor mix that has a number on it. So when a performer is standing in front of the wedge and they go, I need more, such and such in mix. And they look and there's just a number on it and they're like, oh, mix five. Regardless of what their silly stage plot said.

Where none, where, where they just like scattered numbers all over a page. Here we're gonna have order your mixes, your, your monitor wedge is gonna have a number on it that they can call out and it won't make sense.

[00:51:41] Andy Leviss: And frankly, even if they're used to a different number, if they look down and see a big white gaff tape three on the speaker, they're usually gonna catch on

[00:51:50] Garrett Doran: Yeah, usually. Uh, and that's also part of that conversation that I'll have with bands as like, before they go up, it's like, Hey man, like you're gonna be here, you're gonna be on Vocal one, and your mix is also number one, and your guitar input is also number one. So that makes it really easy for all of us to just speak the same language.

[00:52:06] Andy Leviss: oh dude, man. Awesome. Love it. Thanks.

[00:52:09] Sean Walker: Dude. Totally.

[00:52:11] Andy Leviss: And, and you know, it's like this, this feels like also a good moment to point out, like, look, when you're doing your own shows, like you can do whatever input order you want. Like, you know, if you're like Ryan and you want your high hat over by the symbols, like I get it.

That makes sense. That works. But you know what, you're dropping into a festival with 10 x and like 10 minute sound check. You're doing Kick snare hat Tom Tom to like, we all know the input list

[00:52:32] Sean Walker: Yeah. We do old school dog. We know how it go.

[00:52:34] Garrett Doran: Yeah. He can be wrong on his own time.

[00:52:36] Sean Walker: It starts with the kick ends with the vocals. You know what I mean?

[00:52:41] Garrett Doran: Uh

[00:52:43] Sean Walker: All right. What are some other things that, that you wish people knew when they were applying or wish that they knew? When they told us what badass engineers they were.

[00:52:51] Garrett Doran: uh, yeah. So a lot of people that, uh, you know, consider themselves badass engineers, uh, might be in a certain context, uh, and not in others. Some might be great everywhere. Um, but if you walk onto site and. You, the first thing you do is damage a piece of gear and then say, oh, normally I have people who just do this thing for me.

My response is gonna be, Ooh, that guy's at the bottom of the call list. Like you, you don't do that if you're gonna be on a a site, for the most part, we're a small self-contained team. Anything that you've ever assumed someone else will do for you, you better assume you have to do yourself. Especially on a small local festival, like they can have bands without lighting and video wall and big stages, but there's always gonna be an audio team there.

And maybe there's a lighting package, maybe there's a video, maybe there's two park hands. So the band isn't in the dark when you, you know, have a funk jam till three in the morning. But there's always gonna be an audio team there. And usually it's just a couple of us. And you have to assume that you're on your own, like.

If you take it for granted that there's gonna be a fire extinguisher in a first aid kit, are, are you bringing that? Did, did you ask if someone's bringing that? Like, what whatcha you gonna do? Like you gotta be an adult. You can't just show up and expect that everything is gonna be done for you and you can just sit at a cons and white glove it when it's just you and one of the guy and the other guy is towing a towing a trailer and you drove a box truck full of gear and you've got two or three people trying to build an entire festival in a couple hours.

You don't get to just sit down in front of house and wait. Uh, and there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of just like, man lack of life skills. You might have to edit that part out. Andy, I'm sorry. Uh, there's a lot of situations where it's like, Hey man, like Right, why isn't this, that or the other done? Oh, we weren't sure.

Or, oh, I thought maybe somebody else. You're like, no, man. Like. You're on a break right now and there's work not done. The stage isn't reset, the next band hasn't been prepped. We don't have a patch sheet going. Like we still have some weird cross patch left over from the last band. You haven't reset any of your mixes back to their like starting point.

Like this is not break time. Like you gotta get all those things done fast and then have a break. Otherwise, when the next band comes up and you're like, oh shit, I actually have like 10 minutes more prep work to do. Like, all right, well now, now, now the next band is 10 minutes late. Thanks bud. So there's a lot of just like situational awareness.

Like just 'cause there's a, not an actively a band playing doesn't mean that there's no work to be done. There's a shit ton of work to be done.

[00:55:38] Sean Walker: Totally. And, and, and that's not to say that the sound company doesn't provide a lot of those things like a first aid kit or a fire extinguishers or whatever, but like. Those are things that if you work on huge shows, you would take for granted or there someplace, right? There's, there's EMS or there's something like that, right?

As, as the shows shrink in scope, right? There's this window and, and that's where we live, right? That that's what we're, we're talking about today. There's this window of like, it, it must be correct, like the production matters, but you're not at Red Rocks or the Gorge, right? Like you're, you're doing one, one to 5,000 person events and, uh, it, it's gotta be right?

It, it can't be like, you know, Bob's fuzzy speaker box is doing the best they can and whatever happens, happens, right? But it, it's also not, you know, the Foo fighters and T Swift at, at a stadium kind of a thing. So a lot of the, a lot of the balances quite aren't, aren't, aren't quite there. And you just gotta know that going in, right?

That's the, the nature of working for a regional sound company where a lot of people are employed candidly. Right? That's a lot of work that people are doing and, and it's not. Always, you know, Instagram worthy or whatever, but it, but it pays day rates. And a lot of people have called asking how to get off the road or how to go from clubs to, you know, sound company work or how to get on tour.

I would say, you know, a lot of what you've been talking about today is just good knowledge to be a good well-rounded tech to go do that. 'cause if you call somebody that's looking for somebody on tour and you're like, yeah, man, I know how to, I know how to do power. I know how to do rf. I know how to do several different console platforms.

I can do monitors in front of house. I prefer whatever it is, right? I, I speak monitors, I'm monitors or whatever. Or I'm front of house. I speak front of house, but I can do monitors at a, at a good level, you're a much better candidate than somebody that's just like, I'm the best. Whatever. That's whatever, right?

I'm the best front of house guy that's ever done, but I don't know how to deal with my own desk. Right. Or I don't, if

[00:57:40] Garrett Doran: Unstack gear.

[00:57:41] Sean Walker: if something goes wrong, I can't, I can't deal, right? So. Those things are like, they're like survival skills. You know what I mean? And you almost certainly need to know how to be able to drive a 16 or 26 foot truck and not crash it and load and unload the truck and load and unload the gear and know how to build and unbuild the gear yourself.

And those are all gonna be things

[00:58:01] Andy Leviss: sardine candidate coming out of the parking lot to booth of, uh, six Flags.

[00:58:06] Sean Walker: Say what? Say what?

[00:58:10] Andy Leviss: there's a reason Andy doesn't often drive

[00:58:12] Sean Walker: Yeah. There you go. All right, cool.

[00:58:13] Andy Leviss: some trauma there.

[00:58:14] Sean Walker: All right. All right. Uh, but those, all of those skills make you a more valuable candidate to regional sound companies, right? Our size, bigger, whatever. I would say, you know, maybe our size up to like a solo tech kind of size where. Solo tech has a lot bigger shows and a lot more crew and stuff, but in between us and them that all of these skills are gonna apply, right?

You're gonna, you're gonna need to figure out how to tech a gen. You're gonna need to figure out how to run three phase power and how to troubleshoot that. How to load balance your subs across both, or all three lakes of power, depending on what your show is. How to set up rock and roll comms, whether that's a shout system or phones and flashers, right?

How to, how to operate a patch system. How do you do a split snake and the subs, snakes? How does that work? And each company does it differently. There's not only one way to do it, there are many ways to do it, but it would, all of those are questions you can ask during your interview process, because let's be candid, an interview is a two-way street, right?

We're interviewing you and you're interviewing us to see if it's a good fit and if you're a good match for what we're doing, our shows, our personality, what we're gonna ask of somebody, and you're not, it's like dating man. You're not always a good fit, and that's okay, right? Because that's okay. Because you can go find a good fit for you someplace else or whatnot, you know?

[00:59:29] Andy Leviss: Yeah, and it's just like, I mean like in dating sometimes you'll go out with somebody and they'll be like, you know, we're not gonna work out. But I know somebody you'd get along with. Well, and that can happen in like the business side too. Like I could come to you guys and you could be like, Hey, you know, you seem like you're really good at like, you know, a certain type of corporate thing we don't do, but like we know a guy who's looking, you know, let me put you in touch with him.

[00:59:51] Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Yeah. And, and most of, most, you know, regional sound companies, speaking of corporate, it's super helpful if you know how to corporate and rock and roll, right? Because in the winter times, often we're doing corporate work, so RF comms, you know, dugans and lavs is your jam. And in the summertime we're doing rock and roll because if you have to listen to one more motherfucker talk about EBITDA on stage, you might blow your brains out.

You just need to kick drum and big guitars hitting downbeats to make everybody happy. Like, you know, you go get your fricking rock and roll on. It's cool to be able to do both. And you can stay busy all year round. Right? But if you're. Only doing one or the other. And you need to be busy all year round.

You need to fill in those gaps of like, you know how to mix a concert, right? Because if you're a smoke in corporate a one and you're like, dude, I need to go do some, I wanna go do some bands, man, you're gonna need to get hip to, you know, mic polarity and sweating balls in the middle of the fucking summer 'cause it's not in a air conditioned ballroom anymore.

And bring in snacks and know where the cooler is 'cause it's got the water in it and the ice

[01:00:52] Garrett Doran: Yeah. And the skillsets, uh, or the, the approach oftentimes don't translate well between the two, you know, doing corporate versus rock and roll work. Um, so the more well-rounded somebody is, the easier they are to hire. 'cause there's certain dudes that I'm like, I can hire this person to do any job that this company has ever billed for on any type of show I can have.

I have these few people that. I can call them and I know it will just get done and I don't have to worry about it.

[01:01:21] Sean Walker: and the clients will be stoked.

[01:01:23] Garrett Doran: yeah, and then there's others who are like, this person is only good at this, or only good at that, or only good at the other. I'm like, cool. Well, in an ideal scenario on like a small festival, I would love to have three guys, front house monitors and patch and ideally the patch person would have a basic understanding of how to run front of house or monitors so that we can take turns tapping out and having breaks during the day, like get the bands up and going.

And then have somebody who can sit in a front of house and sit in at monitors and take turns, which means that really the person that I want doing Patch is the most skilled and well-rounded person on the entire job site. 'cause they're keeping the entire show running and they need to be able to operate any piece of gear on site competently and quickly and efficiently so that everybody else can have a fricking meal break in the 12 hour long show day that the client is scheduled that doesn't have a break in anywhere in the middle.

[01:02:12] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Absolutely. You know, Andy, your thoughts, you, you're over there looking.

[01:02:20] Andy Leviss: Oh no, that's, I'm, I'm bouncing in an increasingly restless small human.

[01:02:25] Sean Walker: buddy. Hi, little buddy. Awesome. Garrett, anything else that we didn't ask you that you wish people that were applying for jobs new, for regional sound companies, we're trying to help people get as much work and make as much money as they can this summer and over the next few years. So what else can they, what, what would make somebody stand out at the top of the pile?

The resumes that come across your desk?

[01:02:48] Garrett Doran: Oh man.

[01:02:49] Andy Leviss: Not saying full sail on it.

[01:02:51] Garrett Doran: Well, okay. I, I don't judge. Um,

[01:02:59] Andy Leviss: You, he judges you. Sean,

[01:03:01] Garrett Doran: it is true, but I've got all the rest of the day to do that. I don't have to do it here.

[01:03:05] Sean Walker: That, that was my who farted face when he says, I don't judge. I was like, what?

[01:03:10] Garrett Doran: I probably judge Sean more than almost anyone else on the earth.

[01:03:14] Andy Leviss: I'll fight

[01:03:15] Sean Walker: what would help people stand out at the top of the pile? Dude? What are the things that, that you're

[01:03:18] Garrett Doran: if, uh, when I have a conversation with somebody and I say, Hey, you know, you want to come do gigs with us? I'm like, cool, what's your skillset? What do you, what do you like and dislike? And what are you like really good at or really not fucking good at at all? Um, if they

[01:03:33] Sean Walker: I expect the truth.

[01:03:34] Garrett Doran: yeah. If they specifically call out a couple things like, Hey, I, I'm, I'm good at these couple things and here's like two or three things that I'm absolutely terrible at, but can I like come into the shop and learn and say, absolutely, please do Jesus Christ, get in here and learn some shit,

[01:03:50] Sean Walker: Yeah. Some, some self-awareness. Some self-awareness is huge. Right? When you're like, Hey man, I'm a bang in front of house engineer, but I don't know anything about free speak. You're like, yo, dog. But can I come in and learn about free speak? Yeah, of course you can. Come on in.

[01:04:01] Garrett Doran: Yeah. And that's kind of a callback to, you know, some of our earlier conversation about, you know, don't commit, like not committing to things that you don't know how to do. When I. You can say, Hey man, I don't know how to do that. And they go, cool. Well, do you wanna come in this week and learn? And if the answer is yes, then yeah, you can come in and learn and next week you'll get paid to go and do that.

[01:04:20] Sean Walker: Totally, dude. And then you'll know how to do it. And then in the future when you get called, you'll know how to do it.

[01:04:23] Garrett Doran: yeah. One of the things that I, uh, see a lot in the, like, uh, the quote unquote up and coming, you know, audio engineer, uh, community is uh, a lot of people who are a big fish in a little pond and they get in their little comfort zone where they're really, really good at this venue or in that venue, or with the one band, they mix all day every day.

And as soon as they have to step outside that they kind of fall on their face. And if you don't learn how to be a big fish in any size of pond, then you're just gonna like end, end up being plateaued in that spot forever. Like, you're not gonna learn how to run an SXL if you work in a club that has, uh, you know, an X 32.

Like talking about doing those gigs is never gonna get you the gig. But what will get you the gig is going into the shop that owns that console and learning it. Uh, and the same is true of any piece of gear or any, you know, aspect of what we do. You're not gonna learn it by sitting around in one club complaining about the fact that you don't have this gig or that gig.

Call up. The companies that do those things go into their shop and learn how that shit works. And what I often see is people saying, Hey, I'm good at this, that, or the other, and I want to do this, that, and the other on shows. I'm like, cool, well you're gonna have to come in and learn. Um, 'cause I can't just put you as like a, a patch tech on a giant corporate show with a shit ton of Dante networks and fiber systems happening site unseen because I know that you push faders up and down in a, in a venue where yes, under the hood it's getting to your console via Dante.

[01:05:57] Sean Walker: But they're, but in that case, they're unwilling to come learn. As you put the rig together, then they're not a good fit. Right? Like, if you haven't done that before then, but you're like, Hey man, I'll come. In, well, you're building the rig and I'd love to know. And then you get there and they're like, okay, and it all makes sense and they understand what's going on.

Of course they can go do that, but not if they're not willing to come prep. Right.

[01:06:17] Garrett Doran: yeah. And sometimes it's a willingness and sometimes it's like you can see when people are getting outside of their comfort zone and starting to kind of back off from the conversation when you're like, Hey, can you do all of these things? And if not, do you wanna come in and learn? And like there are certain types of people who, their big fish, little pond situation is being threatened and, and they're not gonna call back.

Or there's other people that are like, Hey, like it's kind of embarrassing, but I don't know this side or the other. I'm like, get over here to the shop and you'll learn. And they're like, oh sweet. That's awesome. 'cause they're like, expect to be judged for not knowing shit. And I'm like, just come, just, just show up.

That's all it is. Like, show up to the shop, like you wanna learn this console? Great. I'll tip one in the corner and you can play with it for however many days you want. And when you're done, we'll put it away.

[01:07:01] Sean Walker: Yeah, we got a lot of people that stop by and work, work with the gear, work on the gear, figure out the wireless, the comms, the com, you know, the desks, the whatever. And we're never like, oh, you had to come back and do this. Like, we're always stoked to do that. We have lots of training happening at the shop and we're always looking for people to do it, and we're stoked when they come in to do that.

So don't, don't think, because you need to ask how to do something that you're immediately disqualified, is the point I'm trying to make,

[01:07:25] Garrett Doran: Yeah, I would much rather somebody like come in three different times to the shop to try to learn the same piece of gear than get three different tech support phone calls from three consecutive shows from the same guy who can't figure it out. And I'm like, again, black buddy. You, you, you could have just done that in the shop, but now I'm getting phone calls from you, your client, the other sound company, some guy getting calls from another sound company being asked to

[01:07:51] Andy Leviss: you don't ever want the call from

[01:07:53] Garrett Doran: don't, I don't want any of those calls from anybody like ever.

[01:07:56] Sean Walker: bro, we get calls from techs that are on jobs with other sound companies to figure out how to tech their fricking networks or consoles or wireless all the time, dude. All the time. We're like, dude, you could have just come into our shop and tech teched it and then gone and done it for somebody else.

Bro, I, I would rather just, I would rather bought you lunch and come text it at our shop and we could have been chill rather than trying to do this on my day off with my family and talk to you over the phone while you're on site for somebody else. Like, just come to the shop and tech this thing. Please, please, you know what I mean?

[01:08:31] Garrett Doran: Yeah. And that's the other thing is like, I, you know, nothing that we do is a trade secret. Like when I see a, like a front of house engineer on a corporate show who's like, oh yeah. I'm like, I have to wipe this desk before I leave. Like, I, I can't be leaving this file. I'm like, buddy, like everyone knows about the 50 45 and the Dugan.

Like, it's not a trade secret. Okay. Like. Like, it's fine. I'm gonna wipe the desk at the shop regardless. Um, but there's a, you know, and I've been talking about, you know, up and coming engineers a fair amount and some of their shortcomings. There's also like a lot of shortcomings at the other end of that spectrum where you get a fuels hangers on who are like, I'm gonna protect my trade secrets.

I don't want to teach anyone this, that, or the other, because I don't want them to be able to threaten my job security. And all of those people are the same people who are constantly complaining that they can't find competent work to help them do their job. So you

[01:09:23] Andy Leviss: secrets are always the same three. It's like, yeah, dude, we know you're using a couple reverbs layered

[01:09:27] Garrett Doran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're using two reverbs. Wow. Never seen that trick before. Um, for me, like any, like absolutely anything that I know how to do, I will happily share. Um, uh, and, and the only caveats to that would be like, Hey man, I'm not going to teach you an unsafe practice. Um, because I also deal with a lot of power and rigging and trucking and trailering and sometimes barges and cranes and, and shit that, uh, you know, some people don't necessarily need to be getting any, getting into right off the bat.

Uh, but as far as like audio stuff and everything adjacent to it, like if I have a piece of knowledge that will help you, great, I will share that because the more people who know how to set up free speak, the better. The more people who can do a PA design, the better. The more people who can get a PA design to a target curve, more or less, the better.

We are all better off for that if we just share all that information.

[01:10:28] Sean Walker: Totally.

[01:10:29] Andy Leviss: I mean, shit, I just sent a, a mutual friend of ours, a console file from a show I did a year ago. 'cause he is going out on like that con that console family for the first time. I was like, Hey, can I take a look? And I was like, yeah. I mean, I don't know that I would do anything I did on any other gig for that.

But if it gives you an idea, it makes you ask questions, go

[01:10:50] Sean Walker: Totally, dude.

[01:10:51] Garrett Doran: Yep.

[01:10:51] Andy Leviss: I can't promise that a year later I would do it the same way. But yeah, like I got nothing to hide. Like, look at the stupid shit. I did

[01:10:57] Sean Walker: For sure,

[01:10:58] Andy Leviss: ask me why, ask me why I did that. I might be like, you know, that was fucking stupid. Don't do it

[01:11:02] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Like I was too far down the rabbit hole. I couldn't unwind at that point, like

[01:11:06] Garrett Doran: Yep. Why does it sound like you have 19 million layers of processing on that vocal and it's completely degraded and sounds like shit, and take a step back and you go, oh no,

[01:11:17] Sean Walker: right.

[01:11:18] Garrett Doran: to like Ctrl Z the last four hours of programming I did and get out of the weeds here.

[01:11:24] Sean Walker: Right. Totally. Well, and, and by and large what we're talking about is, you know, that's why a lot of the friends of the podcast that we talk to a lot or talk about a lot or talk with a lot are friends of the podcast. 'cause they've got the same mindset. They'll share all their knowledge, right? They're top of their game and, and we'll share their knowledge.

It's why we keep having, uh, you know, uh, a circle of homies that are just trying to make everybody better and, you know, rise in the tides and ships as it were. So, uh, that seems like a good place to fricking call it since we're just over an hour right now. But, uh, I hope this was helpful and if there's more stuff you need to know or wanna know, we're happy to keep yapping about how to get people paid.

Thank you to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us Yap. About audio. Thanks to Garrett for coming on. Thanks, Andy for, you know, doing Andy stuff. That's the pod y'all. See you next week.

[01:12:12] Garrett Doran: Let's get some lunch!

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green