Dave Rat about his sound engineering for the Red Hot Chili Peppers live tour 2016

Analog is still amazing.

There's a keep away gate on console
and masking tape on approx 32
faders but I hear him.

I've never met Dave Rat but I feel like I know this guy already. I could listen to him talk about this stuff for hours. It's nice to see genuine people who know their craft and are passionate in this world.

Bro that is ridiculous 😂 “a guitar player can play without looking at the guitar, i can mix without looking at the mixer” holy snap thats wild.

I do believe he is the highest commitment ever to sound gigs.

Temperature has nothing to do with sound in these concert environments...

The Chili Peppers are fortunate to have you on their team. You don't last that many years unless you get along with people. A sign of your skills and character. Hope to see the 'Rat' name on a set of concert speakers in the future.

As a drummer, I always thought the PFL button meant pretty fucking loud!

The Cowboy Hat is utterly appropriate. He spends more time talking to Women crowding FOH than actually focusing on the mix.

i agree with him , getting lost in the digital maze can be very distracting

Alot like me 👍

Maybe it's time to upgrade to a more modern desk. Maybe a Yamaha PM10 or the Avid S6l.

All I use is analog too,

It would be fantastic to hear about your Woodstock ‘99 experience🥸😎🤟

I totally get what he is saying about the issues of using a mono sub-woofer bus, but wouldn't this depend on how your subs are physically configured? I would think having subs all the way across the front of the stage would be much different to having two (or possibly more) sub stacks that you can treat as pseudo point sources. All of this gets extremely physics-sy - how far apart are sub stacks? How are they aligned? How are the subs designed to transmit pressure waves? I'm not sure this is something you can generalize. And what do you do if you don't have multiple sources for a particular low frequency instrument? So many questions...

I DON'T LABEL THE CHANNELS,.......I REMEMBER EVERYTHING! 2 sec later , I don't remember what th ose are and PROBLABLY I have 38 input......

I wonder if they are still using analogue now.

"I don't need to look at the chart, i wrote the mic chart, i know where everything is."
5 Minutes later:
"I forgot what those guys are"

Dave is the rare sound engineer who admittedly isn’t there to “make” you sound “good”. Rather, he’s trying to disappear from the process both audibly and even visually. I love everything about his approach, focused on, as he said, connecting the band to the audience. When I saw one Lexicon and one Eventide, I knew this was my kind of sound guy. It’s a shame this approach is rare; most live engineers seem to want to hype everything and are in love with their gear, especially their subs. The result is often smeared and wooly.

Now it's 2022 - do you still feel the same about digital vs analog?

What do u tour with regarding backup analog gear???

His details about venues, stage bass cancelling, temperature and time delays are fascinating.

Temperature in a room on my gosh!!!! I just did a corporate event per se that from Friday set up to Saturday event the heat was not able to keep up with the cold temperatures, the pipes froze in the lower bathroom, we had a brief power outage due to somebody plugging a space heater onto my circuit with my 20A space heater (UPS baby!!!) and thankfully it was on a break. but the temperature in the room was never constant I kept playing with EQ all day.

"Issues with low end is pretty much an issue on every band I work with"..... Hmmmmmm🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Still trying to wrap my head around Oxford ( 🤭AUX ) subs never really made sense, excellent explanation. I always preferred the set ups with a stereo mix and crossover over the mono and AUX it just seems like you'd be messing with the time alignment and levels having it separate when I could just add more bass guitar from the source.

Finally getting around to watching this video. It would be interesting to do a follow up commentary like oh my gosh why did I do that, why didn't I do that now, etc. Like 2016 what is a 3-D printer?

I have a PCM 60, and don't use it anymore. This video makes me want to get it out, dust it off, and give it another chance at live a live sound setup. What setting are you using for vocal/drum reverb?

This is lit 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

It took me sometime to get used to his style of explaining his thought process, but now I do like his approach very much and am gaining insight from his knowledge

"I don't put labels on things, i will remember them" ---- one minute later --- "ahhh, I don't know what these do"

If a guitar player can play without looking at their hands, I can play without looking at the board right?
Shxt I love this guy. I dont care what they call you, this is your instrument and you sir are a true musician!

I recall being surprised that the CP10 even existed. I can’t think of any other manufacturer making a parametric system EQ. It lives up to the surprise, being a very easy and effective equalizer, curves being just perfect.

The Chili Pepper's are honestly good people: They are corporate whores who sued their fans ruined Woodstock blatantly promote heroine use and of course have the same vocal register in everysong

Impressive!
As I see it he is a member of the band playing his instrument.

Brilliant as ever. Thank you

I setup a karaoke machine to my surround sound so I can def relate to this guy.

Garage-Arena. So you are used to suckie sounding venues. The worst concert sound I ever heard was Dave Mathews at the Bon Secours Arena in Greenville SC. It is a hockey rink. The RT60 time was in triple digits. It was like being inside the snare.

He has a lot to say about subs. I can't tell if he has trouble with bass.
I disagree with the concept of not labeling. He forgot things three times through the interview. Labels aren't just there for you but anyone that may have to come in behind you. Suppose you get ill or something. This is the engine room and a mission critical piece of equipment. To not label is just irresponsible at this level.

He's like a pilot today. He gets the plane in the air and quickly switches on auto pilot.

Explains that he likes to have everything ready, accessible and easily visible like in a car Proceeds to tour his rack several meters away where he has forgotten what is routed where

Joking asside, I hold absolutely no candle to Dave and his wisdom is beyond what I will fathom, but some of his concepts are really far from what I've ever known audio engineering to be. It becomes very apparent that he basically sets and forgets everything but his tuning. I struggle to see how this setup could deliver for a lot of acts today.

Also, comparing fader layout to instrument layouts is a reaaaaally stretched analogy

Hi! Greetings Dave.. I have seen your videos for a long time, I love to learn from you all the time! I have mixed famous Mexican/Latin bands for some years now, and I can tell they have a different experience with me, because I wanted to bring the studio quality sound to the live shows, where the band sounds better then the CD, or the original Recorded mix! That is always my goal, I could never go back to analog, but sometimes I just mix a small 4-8 channel mixer and that is not how I started in this business!! I wanted to learn how to record my drums and a band, but I always loved audio(SPEAKERS) more then playing drums! And fixing computers was my job at the time, and I had to learn how to use all the ins and outs of the audio interfaces at the time, and most important how to use a VST properly! but I started Recording analog RCA out to LR in to a PC, I could already set up a full PA by my self, at that time as well, learning tones, and keys and harmonics, sub low and all kinds of frequencies, and that is what I ended up Mastering in any situation! its how to make it sound sonically and make that spiritual connection with music! Thanks for the video! I am happy to see this kind of content!

After over 40 years doing FOH I've learned that when you do your job GREAT then the band is awesome. If the FOH guy doesn't capture the energy and transfer/elevate that energy to the audience, then the FOH guy SUCKS! (We never win) Ha!

that's great but he's high as fuck lol

Unfortunately ... Peppers in openair switzerland some years ago, the sound was so aweful, the people left after 30 minutes ... the sound was so thin, i left as well.

Dave Rat is so accessible to recognize his workflow and passion for creativity. I love it.

mis respetos para este ingeniero, esa consola esta muy perra y los dinamicos, pero ya hoy en dia prefiero las consolas digitales, todos los dinamicos y procesadores que el maneja de manera fisica los encuentras en la digital y sin tener que desplasarte desde la consola a los racks para algunos ajustes a la hora del evento

I really loved his explanation but i dont like how he just guesses at some of the equipment and acts like it's nothing

I respect his decision to stay analog, it’s almost artistic in itself

太棒了