Chris Mock // Tourblog

Ich habe mal ein paar Links zusammengestellt, in denen über das Urheberrecht, erhoffte Änderungen und gegen eben diese geschrieben oder geredet wird. Wer weitere gute Links zu diesem Thema hat, soll sie in die Kommentare posten oder mir schicken damit ich sie in den Post einpflegen kann.

Wer etwas Zeit hat sollte sich diesen Podcast von Tim Pritlove (im Gespräch mit Matthias Spielkamp) anhören. Eine sehr gute Einführung: http://cre.fm/cre164

Angefangen hat ja alles hiermit: http://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zuendfunk/regener_interview100.html

Ein Interessanter Artikel, der erklärt warum und welche Veränderungen nötig sind: http://www.freitag.de/kultur/1219-schneiden-wir-den-kuchen-neu-an

Und direkt hinterher ein offener Brief von 51 Tatort-Autoren, die die Gegenseite vertreten: http://www.drehbuchautoren.de/nachrichten/2012/03/offener-brief-von-51-tatort-autoren-0

Wer unterschreiben möchte… Hier –> http://wir-sind-die-buerger.de/ oder hier –> http://wir-sind-die-urheber.de/

Ich habe mal ein paar Links zusammengestellt, in denen über das Urheberrecht, erhoffte Änderungen und gegen eben diese geschrieben oder geredet wird. Wer weitere gute Links zu diesem Thema hat,...

So, after a pretty big hangover in Prague, we arrived at the SO36 in Berlin. Nice weather and well know neighbourhood. I went to a core tex store to buy some new socks and then we started loading. The show was nice and we had a nice little after show party at the bar across the street until the sun showed up and the bus left to Copenhagen.

So, Denmark, hm? Since they shut down one of the best venues in Copenhagen, the Rock, there are not many clubs left to play. We were at the Vega, and like in every venue, there is a sound limit. It’s 103db in average of 15 minutes. That’s all right, but sometimes hard to keep. To the question, what would happen if I go over the limit, the engineer from the venue told me, they keep all the money the band would get and I have to pay a fee. Well… that keeps your eyes on the SPL Meter during the whole show, for sure!

On the way back to Germany we took another ferry and not like on the first ride, a couple of us stayed in bed during the ride. In Hamburg we arrived at the Knust again, where we played an almost sold out show. I really like the venue and the people who work there. And of course we hit the Lunacy after the show and as always on sundays, there is this crazy heavy metal DJ playing tons of good music, we had Mexikaner shots and played fussball. Monday = Hangover.

Cologne was a sold out show too and I saw a lot of people I know and met some good friends. The show was alright but after all, the whole day was really exhausting.

After playing in Holland we found out, that good local crews look shitty and good looking stagehands are useless. I don’t wanna say, anybody looked ugly, but we think sometimes you can see the quality of people working on a stage by their look

Cheers

So, after a pretty big hangover in Prague, we arrived at the SO36 in Berlin. Nice weather and well know neighbourhood. I went to a core tex store to buy...

They have no toilet seats. Nowhere. Except maybe in Hotels. But not in venues. I think this part of the tour was the hardest so far. The streets allowed us only to sleep for a few hours a night, the food was not really as good as you usually would expect it in Italy. Of course, we came from France, where we had the best food so far. But still… in Italy it seems, like they don’t care so much about the quality of things. Cars have a lot of scratches, the streets are full of holes, toilets stink, cables, desks and mic-stands are in a bad shape… I’m sure it’s not everywhere like this. But if you are touring through this country just have all this in mind. It might help you to be prepared.

Anyway, we had nice shows down there, the cage in Livorno is a very nice venue. It sounds a bit roomy cause it’s a very hight ceiling. But with a bunch of people insight, it’s quit nice. The best part of the venue is the outside area under the trees, it must be the perfect place to hang out in summer. Perfect!

The show in Switzerland was amazing. One of the best shows so far. The Plaza in Zürich is a very nice venue, in best shape, with lots of nice people. They have a small Soundcraft Vi1 and you do monitors from the front of house. It’s really a nice place, they have huge birds painted on the wall, it looks beautiful.

Still, it’s good to be back in Germany right now, Italy was not my favorite country to tour in. I still don’t get the point in having no toilet seats. Whatever. The tour is going on, we have a lot of fun and tomorrow we drive to Vienna.

See you soon.

They have no toilet seats. Nowhere. Except maybe in Hotels. But not in venues. I think this part of the tour was the hardest so far. The streets allowed us...

The last couple of days were pretty easy going. The show in Barcelona was great, the Apolo is a nice place with different venues, a diner and a couple of bars next door. During the day I was walking through the city with Richard to find a guitar shop. But we had no luck… Siesta! No chance. Nobody is working during the afternoon… don’t understand how this economy is working out. Is it? So we went for a breakfast in the sun. Everybody at the venue took good care of us. They party hard and wouldn’t let us go until the very last minute before bus call. Perfect day! Including a major headache and bruises everywhere. By the way, the show was packed and working with the Yamaha M7CL was easy.

Better than the LS9 I had to use in Hondarribia. This desk is just a pain in the ass! If I could, I would destroy them all. There is just no way to work fast and ergonomically with this desk. Seriously, dear engineers, stop buying this desk for your venue! Anyway, the show was good. Sold out, hot and sweaty and I was almost mixing in the pit, which was a lot of fun.

Yesterday we did the last show before driving to Lyon where we have a day off. It was at “La Nef” in Angouleme. This venue is almost perfect. They got everything what you need, nice backstage area, best food on this tour so far and also the whole team takes great care of everything. The Midas Desk at the front of house is in best condition, almost looks new. The sound limit is easy to handle (105db average in 10 minutes). They have a nice compressor for the mix if you want to use it and the PA fits the room perfectly. But still, the food was the best thing to happen that day!

Next stop – Lyon.

Cheers

The last couple of days were pretty easy going. The show in Barcelona was great, the Apolo is a nice place with different venues, a diner and a couple of...

After a relaxed day off in Madrid we arrived at the Venue “Caracol” which also looks like a nice rock’n'roll venue. The backstage room is pretty small, it barely fits eight people. There are only a couple of chairs and a table for food. The toilet / shower is actually in the same room only separated by a thin wall and a door, but you can hear and smell everything. It’s good to have some matches with you!

At the front of house you work with an old Midas XL3 which has a couple of faders and buttons that make noises and some channels don’t work… this desk is an old lady and she has seen a lot of shows. Maybe they should give her a inspection for her birthday…

The venue was pretty packed and sounded nice. The PA System (6x Meyer S. MSL4 + 2x SPA Duxson SW218) was not really prepared for this room, or if it was, they could have done it better. Anyway, there was a lot of tweaking going on to make it sound nice. The front of house is also located at the back of venue in front of a wall in a small booth, which sound absolutely different than somewhere else in the room. I was walking a lot.

The guys who worked there were very nice and tried to help all the time, but only until the show was finished. As we started breaking down everything, they just collected their mic stands and cables and that was it. But the guys from Fighting With Wire, our support band on this tour, helped us out so the load out was a fast and easy thing. Thanks again guys!

One short side notice: The food in the restaurant right on the other side of the street was the worst on the tour so far! A bloody peace of meat that was like a piece of rubber and some fries that looked and felt already kinda wet… I would prefer a buyout next time!

Cheers - Chris

After a relaxed day off in Madrid we arrived at the Venue “Caracol” which also looks like a nice rock’n'roll venue. The backstage room is pretty small, it barely fits...

Hard Club, Porto

What a great venue! This was the kind of rock’n'roll venue I really like. They were planing for years before they build it in an old building which belongs to the city and was an old traditional market. They did a lot to enhance the acoustic of the venue, they have a couple of backstage rooms with showers, they have two Soundcraft vi4 at the big hall and a vi1 for the small venue in the basement. All the technical gear is in a good condition and the guys who work there are very kind and help wherever they can.

After setting up everything (I did my first drum tech job and set up the drums) and a nice soundcheck without any trouble we had dinner, and Richard and me had a traditional meal which is a pretty dark looking sausage with rise and spinach which we enjoyed very much.

During the changeover, suddenly the power for the whole front of house went off because one of the guys who were responsible for the light, switched it off by accident. But after rebooting the desk and connection the local rack again, the show started and was a blast. Finally the sound was almost like we wanted it, there were a lot of people which made the acoustic even better in the room.

After the show I saw a little something of Porto, very beautiful old buildings and an irish pub where we had a couple of beers. Later we met the guys from the venue again and hung out with them for a while before we went to bed.

Now we’re on our way to Madrid where we have our first day off.

See you soon.

Chris

Hard Club, Porto What a great venue! This was the kind of rock’n'roll venue I really like. They were planing for years before they build it in an old building...

First show is over. And almost everything went ok. But let’s start at the beginning.

I arrived on sunday in Lisbon, which is a very beautiful city. After I checked in at the hotel I took a walk to explore the center of the city. Later that night I realized, I was walking around for four hours, watching at all the buildings, musicians on the street, beautiful girls and a lot of drug dealers. I guess, I could get anything if I just said yes. Later that evening I met all the guys from Helmet for the first time and we went out for diner and a couple of drinks. And you can imagine how this ended… it was a long night…

First show was in Lisbon at the TMN a VIVO, which is absolutely not a rock’n'roll venue. The good thing is, everything is very clean, all the technical gear is in perfect condition and the people who work there are very kind and try to help wherever they might be needed.

The room is a bit tricky to handle, it has a lot of reflecting surfaces which gives you a pretty annoying amount of hi-end frequencies. Plus, the front of house is up on a balcony and you have to walk a long way to get to the stage or in front of the stage. They had a Digidesign Venue Desk but no monitor desk. 110db is the limit when it comes to sound levels. They guys at the venue might not exactly look at it all the time. But be aware, since Portugal is in a financial crisis, the police is trying to get money out of everything they can. It might happen to you, that you see a guy standing in the venues with a dB meter, so keep your eyes open. Or just don’t go over 110db, which is already a lot cause you are sitting on this balcony upstairs. You can easily add a couple of dBs in front of the stage.

We had some troubles with one of our guitar signals, which was changing its volume in the monitors. It could be possible, that there was some phasing problem, cause we used the signals from both of the miss in the monitors. Tomorrow we will only mic one speaker with two microphones and see what happens.

The first night in the Mini-Nightliner we’re traveling in, was very good. We left the venue at 8 am, so there was plenty of sleep for me before the terrible street conditions of Lisbon woke me up. But there is enough space to sleep well, on the highway you can’t tell a difference between this bus and a real night liner. It might be a little louder, but not much.

That’s about it. Right now we’re on our way to the Hard Club in Porto. I hope this is more a rock’n'roll venue. The third day is a off day already, so I probably will write another post when we have some time off.

You’ll find some more pictures on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/mocksounddesign

Cheers

Chris

First show is over. And almost everything went ok. But let’s start at the beginning. I arrived on sunday in Lisbon, which is a very beautiful city. After I checked...

So, this is actually the first post I write in my new tourblog. It’s only 5 days until the tour with Helmet starts. I’m getting ready for it, do a lot of laundry and get my things together. Today I’ll drive to Marburg where I bring all my gear to the company which rents us a backline, so our bus can pick it up the next day and take it down to Lisabon. I try to pack all my things very carefully and space-saving, cause I don’t know how much space we will actually have in our trailer. I got a small tool case and a small 19″ siderack with 2 reverbs (an old Lexicon Alex Reverb, and one TC M-One) and 1 SPL Channel One. In the back of the case there is just enough space to put in all the cables and the microphones I have with me. Here’s a list of all the mics, but I’m not sure if I use them all or just some of them.

• Audio Technica 3x ATM 650, 2x ATM 450
• 1x Audix D6
• 1x Shure Beta 91a, 2x SM 57
• 3x Sennheiser 604 and 2x 606
• 2x Rhode NT-5
• 1x Micw i436 (measurement mic for iPad)

That’s about it. I don’t know yet if I really use this iPad mic with an analyzer but I’ll try to find out if this stuff really works out. Might be a nice way to find some frequencies, but on the other hand it usually works fine with my ears.

So, I got my gear, now I’ll try to get my cloths together, hope I got enough socks and shirts for the next 5 weeks. I’m really excited to meet the guys I’ll be on tour with for the next 5 weeks all over europe. Here’s a link to Helmet’s website where you find all the tourdates: www.helmetmusic.com/tour

So, the flight is on sunday and as soon as I have more to say I’ll post a couple of lines here. Your free to write comments, ask questions or just forward this blog to anyone who might be interested in it.

Chris

So, this is actually the first post I write in my new tourblog. It’s only 5 days until the tour with Helmet starts. I’m getting ready for it, do a...

This whole project started with the idea of some kind of reference book for live sound engineers, so they could find information about the venues they are going to on their tours. I didn’t take long to find out, that this wouldn’t be possible to do alone. On the other hand it would not contain proper information if it would be some kind of open wiki, where everybody can post articles.

So I though I just start to write about my experiences on tour, about venues, sound and maybe the people I’m working with. Every post will have some tags so it’s easy to search for something you are looking for, whether for venues, microphones or maybe mixing desks.

Maybe I will also post articles written by other engineers sometimes, if somebody wants to share his/her experiences with me.

So, this is my new project, starting in 2012. You are welcome to be part of it by writing comments, sharing it or just reading it.

Cheers // Chris

This whole project started with the idea of some kind of reference book for live sound engineers, so they could find information about the venues they are going to on...