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The future swallows the past

I would so love to share some in depth observation or revelation of usefulness that would leave all that read these words with a smile. Hopefully by the time time I finish writing this entry, I will stumble upon something down those lines but in the mean time I will offer a brief update on my wanderings.

Though no one like a quitter, I did take a small break from my break from mixing bands. Actually, it does not really count because I'm not against mixing, just trying to see if I can both survive and not tour at the same time. Anyway, off to Santa Monica to fill in for my good friend Craig Overbay who mixes Weezer.

The morning radio shoot was not a major enough of an event to fly Craig down from Seattle so I got the honors to fill in and actually quite enjoyed it. Here is a live video from the radio show:

Cool how the Rat made it in, not so cool that the camera has trouble finding a focus. For those of you who may not be familiar with Weezer's actual Pork and Beans video, it is really cool! They went and found the people that did the most popular YouTube videos, flew them all out to the same place and filmed a Weezer video based on the YouTube videos. This site has a link to the Weezer video and then links to the original video from which Weezer built it. It is worth a watch as some of them are really funny!

http://valleywag.com/392972/weezer-undestands-how-to-work-youtube

And while roaming the world of web, check this out:

http://www.metafilter.com/74482/Rat-Sound-the-original-punk-rock-sound-company

I received an email asking Rat was ok with a post on MetaFilter and to be honest, I had not heard of it before. Anyway, I guess I am in the minority there cause after the post went up, I got a bunch of emails from people who saw it.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

What else, oh! I went to see Radiohead at the Santa Barbara Bowl and they were touring with the new L'Acoustics K1 system.

Here you can see 4 K1 subs per side at the top of the array, 8 K1's per side, 3 dV-Dosc per side and 3 clusters four SB 28's configured 3 forward and 1 facing backward in each. Also there are some assorted deck fills. As expected, the system was clean, clear and impressive, nothing surprising other than how darn great it sounded! I want one! This is destined to be the sound system by which all others will be judged.

While in the sound side of things and in web cruising video mode, check out this video EAW made covering the MicroWedge features. Love to hear comments on it.

On a less cheery note Dolby has announced that their state of the art processors http://www.dolby.com/professional/live_sound/Products/lake_processor.html

will be discontinued and users have less than 30 days to place all orders for any units that they will ever need for ever and ever.

Since its introduction, the Dolby Lake Processor has helped the world’s top touring sound companies and performing arts centers to improve the performance of their systems and has been widely recognized as the state of the art:


As Dolby looked to the future, we observed an accelerating shift toward integrated speaker processing, equalization, and digital audio networking into amplifiers and powered speakers. As a result of these observations, Dolby and Lab.gruppen developed a program to take advantage of this trend by creating an amplifier that integrated DLP technology. So the Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management system with “DLP inside” was launched to great success—and we understand that more models will be introduced soon.

With the success of the Lab.gruppen project, and to align Dolby with our future corporate strategies, we have decided to exit the Live Sound business. As a result, we are announcing the final production run of the DLP, after which we will discontinue its manufacture. We have allowed the next 30 days (through September 30, 2008) for you to calculate your needs and to place final orders. This final production run will be set to fill the open orders we have as of the close of business on that date. Delivery schedules may vary from our previous norms, so please plan accordingly.

Dolby is committed to supporting both the DLP and Lab.gruppen’s efforts for the future. We will provide our standard warranty coverage and one-year of software maintenance on this last run of DLPs (see the attached Warranty Statement and End User License Agreement for these details). Dolby is no longer developing new features for DLP or Lake Controller software after release 5.1.

We would like to thank you for your support and hard work as we built this business. Your dedication and enthusiasm for the Dolby and Lake brands was a key component of the success we achieved. We are gratified to know that DLP technology will live on through our partnership with Lab.gruppen and we wish each of you much success in the future.


All I can say is Yikes! So glad that Rat Sound went with XTA processors, and my heart goes out to the companies that are mind crunching the decision of whether to stock up or liquidate their DLP inventory.

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, as drastic as this notice seems, it does highlight something interesting. Just as the Line Array caused a monumental shift in pro audio, I believe we are at the doorstep of another massive shift and the days of the "dumb amp" in cutting edge audio is over. These new generation of smart amps are incredible. Things like being able to sense the impedance profile of the speakers connected to it and tell you if the system is wired wrong and what type and how many of each speaker type is connected to the amp is just the beginning! Exciting stuff so perhaps rather than loose too much sleep over last years processor, may as well start diving into next years Procamplifier.

And for the smaller companies? Well, expect a lot of cool used amps and processors to show up over the next few years as we audiots make this painfully expensive step forward into yet another new realm.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Other news and such, I had the pleasure of seeing Jack Johnson

and Bob Dylan as well, as I got out and about and I really need to figure out a new system to remind me to bring my camera. The whole "attach it to the Peppers laminate plan just does not work well anymore.

 

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Greg Cameron on :

I did check out the MW Youtube video a last week. I was wondering if the place they shot it was a former EAW manufacturing facility in the aftermath of them shipping the work off to China... On another note, any details on the Rat Super Sub? Greg

Dave Rat on :

Not sure what that was but that area is just a small fraction of the empty space in the huge complex that EAW occupies and shares with some other busineses. That is the same area that I first demo'd the Microwedges for EAW over three years ago and also did the selection of the coax.

João Santos on :

the sound from the video is from LR feed of the mixer? sounds very good!

Greg Cameron on :

P.S. I like the Rat boxes under the ARCS. Did that Make it into the video? ;-) Greg

Mikey B. on :

Hard to tell. are those 12"s or 15" Micros for S.F.. Also that Crower motor in your last post is really cool. It came to him in a dream! Wow I could see the commercial transport aspect of that taking off.

Brad on :

The K1 rig looks very impressive. I'm curious though - is the dV-DOSC Downfill a temporary solution because I heard that Kudo will be the actual down-fill box.. Also I'm interested in how the K1 Sub is crossed over - is it a mid-bass box and the SB28 acts as a sub?

dave rat on :

The K1 sub is run in parallel with the 15" K1 lows. They allow improved Lf line array control in flown clusters and can be flown behind a K1. Cluster to create a cardioid LF. Yes, the dv under k1 is not finished plan.

mr. rez. on :

hmmm...... I agree dsp in amps is a nice thing to have... own several of the crown I-Tech's and aforementioned impedence sensing has saved me hella time on occasion diagnosing problems, and the in-built dsp has come in usefull loads of times too... BUT.... when you consider something like the Dolby Lake processor and how much it costs.... do you really need to add that level of expense to EVERY amplifier you buy? Considering you will often have multiple amps amplfying signals from the same processor surely this is just not cost effective? I don't know anyway... fingers crossed I'll be able to pick up a Dolby Lake for like 200 euro or something soon hehe...

Anonymous on :

I think we will find that prices of anplifier based digi processors will drop pretty quickly. There are so many advatages to having smart amps. You save a bunch of cable and you gain control over so much. It has been in the works for a while but with L'Acoustics and D & B embracing the concept plus the Lab Gruppens and the existence of 4 channel amps that will soon be 6 and 8 channel, I think the imbedded processor will become the norm.

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