Audio Technology - Issue 24

Dumb things I've done so you don't have to I have had one hellavu week. Tell me, which do you think is stranger: The fact that some guy I don't know has sent me a collector's pewter beer mug made for the release of my car in 1964; or the fact that I opened the carton it came in with a mint-condition 1964 AKG sales conference letter opener that I got this week; or the unsettling realisation that the letter opener was thrown in on a deal I did when I bought a mint condition 1964 tube Geiger counter...???

Actually, don't bother answering that, because I am well-pleased with this week - Geiger counter 'n' all. Yeah, you read that right; I just bought myself a vintage nuke-o-meter! 50 fire-sale bucks-worth of 'Rick you have just hit a new level of... I don't know what...' It doesn't matter if I never use it; it doesn't matter that I don't know how to use it; it doesn't matter how cool it looks or what it does; it doesn't even matter that my new wife just kinda smiled and gave me that look that makes me wonder why she married me... none of that really matters. The worst thing is, I actually know another guy with one. So without any compelling isotopic reasoning I had to go and get myself into a club of two people: The Society of Sydney's Geiger Counter Dweebs. Who's the other guy? Well, I haven't checked his current membership but about 15 years ago Mike Stavrou told me he had a Geiger counter ("just in case"). At the time I thought this guy must be quite mad. So there you have it - me and Stav, a club of two... hmm.
 
This week is also in the middle of the Festive Season, the season of giving. I've been on the receiving end (that pewter '64 Futura mug) so I figure I should give away something myself. So in the spirit of a guy that just bought a Geiger counter, here is my first, annual 'Dumb Things I Have Done So You Don't Have To' list. Warning: some of this stuff is not just dumb, it's really dangerous.

One time when I was fixing a guitar amplifier I forgot to turn the power off before I poked around under the bonnet. I touched a live wire, which gave me a hell of a shock. Before I realised that I'd just been electrocuted, I touched it again because I couldn't believe it was alive - ouch times two.

Speaking of guitar amplifiers, once when I was an assistant, the guitarist was going through a series of guitar amps and cabinets to find his sound'. Well, you know how they tell you never to run a tube amplifier without its speakers connected or it might blow up? The truth is they don't blow up... well, not until the guitarist plays a chord, then the full output of the vacuum tubes discharges down your arm into the speaker cabinet plug that you are holding. It tries to use you s a 4x12 Celestion speaker box, the tubes explode, the transformer incinerates and it hurts much more than just being electrocuted... much, much more. I have done this... you don't have to.
 
Actually, while we're talking about power: you know those tube microphones we all lust after? Ever wonder what happens if you have the power switched on as you plug the lead into the microphone to connect it or disconnect it? Well it's the same as with a guitar amp but not quite as bad. I have done this with both a U47 and a C12 - doesn't seem to happen on a U67, maybe I've been lucky so far - don't try and find out.
 
I remember one time I was cutting a record for a very prat-ish, newly-signed pop star Throughout the session he kept saying, "do you think the voice (his voice) sounds a bit thin?". I would try some stuff, and he would murmur, "maybe, but the vocal's still a bit thin". This went on for about eight hours (on one song). Eventually he asked me one last time, "why does the vocal sound so thin?". I said, "because your voice is thin..." Don't try this at home, it won't work out well.
 
Early one morning I was 10km out of Bathurst (country NSW) and I got pulled over for speeding. The cop comes up, I get out of the car and say, "is this going to take long? I'm in a hurry, I'm going goldmining..." That's right... I never got to the river that day.
 
When I was 19 I had two models from Los Angeles rent a room in the house I shared in Annandale with a bunch of mates. One of these girls was the best looking girl any of us had seen at that point in our lives. I did all the cool stuff: I showed them the studio, I took them out drinking for the first time (the legal drinking age in California is 21), I took them to a really cool industry record launch, got our names on the door, free drinks, front row seats... In a fit of juvenile, puerile what-the-hell-was-I-thinking stupidity, I confidently asked the girls, "would you like to go back stage and meet the band?". Backstage, it was rock star chaos - the whole '80s thing... coke and all. Aside from the band, there were a couple of members of U2, a couple of the guys from INXS, plus a bunch of wiseguys who could clearly see that an 18 year old, drunk supermodel had better things to do than hang around with little ol' me. It seems so obvious to me now - if you're onto a good thing, don't ask stupid questions.
 
I remember coming home with the 'flu one night and throwing up until 2am. The last thing I recall was it was 2:30am. At six o'clock I woke up with a shudder - the sun was setting and I had slept through the entire day. It was a major drama because a band was flying up from Melbourne that day with no chance to reschedule. To my horror I had knocked the phone off the hook in the night so my studio couldn't contact me. I called the studio... there was no answer. I raced into work... there was no one there - no note, nothing, everybody had gone home. I flew next door into the cassette plant where they worked 24 hours a day The cassette technician looked at me kinda strange. I asked if anyone had been looking for me or if I was going to get fired? He just had a glazed look of confusion on his face. A growing sense of horror exploded in the back of my head... slowly I asked him: "is it 6:30 at night or 6:30 in the morning?". AM and PM are very important concepts when you work in a studio, try not to get them mixed up. Anyway, at 11am when I got back into work everybody looked at me weirdly -a bit like my wife did when I showed her the Geiger counter. I'm not entirely sure you need this look in your life.
 
When I first moved out of home, my one-bedroom flat cost $140 per week. Festival was paying me $104 per week. I was never real good at maths so it took me quite some time to figure this one out -being a sound engineer is a great way to learn about credit card debt.
 
Sometimes I can't believe what I get myself into for no reason. I can't help myself. I dismantle everything I own. I'm not sure why, but the amount of hours it takes me to put a brand new thing back together again is directly proportional to the respect I have for the designer. Take it from me, never pull apart anything made by Zoom, Sony or Shimano, they must have Nobel Prize-winning puzzle-makers at their factories.
 
Actually, triple the pain-factor for Shimano - if your fishing reel is new and it works... leave it alone.
 
Did you hear about the engineer who has security bars on his house and lost his keys while he was inside? I've locked myself in my house and been late for a session at least three times. I'm sure there is a lesson here for somebody.
 
What about the guy who bought the first generation digital converter/hard disk recorder or first generation anything you care to mention? Stay away from this game, it costs heaps and hurts more then that guitar amp 'experiment' I mentioned earlier.
 
Did you hear about the guy that got told to 'mind' George Martin for a few hours? Instead of asking all those 'dumb Beatles questions', he made idle chit chat because he didn't want to be rude - take it from me, being locked up with GM is a once in a lifetime gig, next time... erm, actually I don't think they give you a next time.
 
What about being on the phone to your loved one and telling her the session will finish in about half an hour and you'll be home soon? Oh... you've already done this one? Cool...

I remember thinking one Summer when the air conditioning broke down that I would do the session anyway I figured, 'what's the worst that could happen?'. That one day cost me six grand's worth of repairs and two weeks of blown sessions.
 
One time I had a job to do in a hurry. The client rang up and asked if all was well. I said, "yeah it sounds good". Two hours later when I actually started the job, the damn tape was blank. I ate some humble pie that night I can assure you.
 
I'm not sure if you play guitar, but never take the paint off a vintage one just because you don't like the colour. It definitely won't work out, trust me. While we're at it, whatever colour your Neumanns or Neves are... leave them that way.
 
And, finally: do not, I repeat, do not buy an old car to restore. As my father keeps telling me: there are two good days with a secondhand car - the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

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