The Return of Joe Atanacio!

Joe of course joined us on our special Veteran’s Day 2021 episode a few weeks ago, talking about his experiences as a member of the U.S. Air Force. Now, Joe is back to talk more about his time after the service working for large productions like Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil, the early days of the pandemic, and why he feels like he wasted those first several weeks during the shutdown. But despite those challenges, Joe is still working as a freelancer and even had the opportunity to work at the Super Bowl in Tampa last year!

About Joe Atanacio

Joe Atanacio is a freelance audio engineer based just outside of Orlando, FL. Joe's journey in audio engineering began at a young age when he ran sound at his 7th-grade talent show and continued as he took on roles in various bands. A retired USAF Audio Engineer, Joe has worked as the former Cirque Du Soleil Lead Audio Tech at the Cirque show KA in Las Vegas and as the former Audio Supervisor at Blue Man Group Orlando. Throughout his military career, Joe freelanced with various companies and clubs, gaining experience in music and corporate work. Outside of work, Joe enjoys spending time with his family, dogs, and cars. He is most proud of his military career, where he learned valuable skills in equipment logistics, crew management, and micing and mixing various types of musical ensembles. Connect with Joe on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-atanacio/ or search 'Joesoundguy' on a search engine to find him.

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Hi, this is Clinton Muntean with Mainline and this is another episode of Sound Connections. Today we've got Joe. He was a guest on our Veteran’s Day episode and we brought him back because we both had a lot more to talk about. So hey, Joe.

Joe

Hey, what's going on? Pleasure to be here.

Clinton

I'm glad you could come. So this time we're actually—instead of the noisy lobby at the Infocom show, we're at our studio here in Winter Park. And so, you know, thanks for coming.

Joe

Yeah, this is beautiful here, what you've got set up. You got all the toys.

Clinton

Yeah, we do. We like our toys, including the Galaga game. That's our newest, which has nothing to do with what we do for a living.

Joe

Sure it is. It's got audio in it. We could attach it to a Q-Sys rig and make it do tricks. We could set up Galaga and surround.

Clinton

Yeah, we could do that.

Joe

It would be fun. It's probably programmed in mono, right? Yeah. So think of all the engineering and problem solving we'd have to go through just to make that work. Sounds like fun. It'd be fun.

Clinton

That would be fun. So you know, you've been in the industry a long time and you're doing some freelance work. You know, you're a freelancer, I guess, but you're not from Florida, right?

Joe

No, no.

Clinton

So you're living here now, but how long have you been here?

Joe

We came in October 2019 so not quite two years. Yeah. Or is it two years?

Clinton

It is two years. No, it is two years.

Joe

Holy cow. It's already November. It is November. Yeah, I should know that.

Clinton

No worries.

Joe

Yeah.

Clinton

So it's already November. And so two years and a few weeks, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, what brought you here?

Joe

Well, I don't know if I mentioned the last podcast, but I came out here to be the audio supervisor for Blue Man Group, Universal Orlando, to take that flag, and you know, operate the show and then do all the maintenance and run, mix the shows and work with the Blue Man Company to kind of keep that creative thing alive and entertaining and energetic. And it was a great, great team to be a part of. I'm really sorry it went away, or at least the Orlando show.

Clinton

Yeah, it is a shame. I only ever saw it once and I really enjoyed it and always thought I'd get back.

Joe

Yeah, that's a fantastic company. Yeah, I really, I really appreciate the work they do. They are focused on the art and the craft and keeping those people happy and engaged in their seats. Above all, it is, yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan of the product that they put out there. It's really good stuff. Great people.

Clinton

So what was next for you? So once you got that news, you know, where—what would you do?

Joe

Well for a minute there? I don't know that I used my time. Initially, I used my time very well. I'd look back. I'm a little frustrated. I probably sat around because we were told it would just be a number of weeks. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, it wasn't going to be long anyway. So I took it as an opportunity to finish spinning up on the specs of the room I was in, finish spinning up on other ideas I planned on putting forward. I had a center fill, or I should say these two mixes in the center that was operating as both a center filled in the rock and roll contents and a center in a surround content context. And I was trying to think of a way to manipulate the mix in the Blue Man Show to take advantage of both of those. And I thought I had just skinned that cat. And I was, well, all right, that should work. And looking at all my firmware and software and things where I could just chart the next two or three months when I get back in the chair, this is what I'm going to be able to do with the PA. And then there's all of the ancillary stuff that comes with a gig like that. Hey, we're going to go out and do events out in town. We're going to do a little short tours and corporate events. There's an entire series of cases and boxes and infrastructure that need to be optimized for that. And I thought I had something to bring to that. So I was redesigning racks and cases and stuff. So I burned a couple of two or three months because we were expecting—and six weeks or something we'd be back. Yeah, maybe two months.

Clinton

I don't think anybody knew that the pandemic would be this long.

Joe

So you know, all of a sudden, three, four months go by. It's like, hey, guys, it's getting real. And then I think it was July. We were formally terminated. Right?

Clinton

Where whatever you had set up with insurance and everything that was being at the yeah, we went from furloughed to fired or something. Yeah, in fact.

Joe

That was kind of a bummer. I was up with the grandkids at that time. And yeah, that was a rough call. Yeah, you know, it wasn't—I was fired. It was the company. Yeah, everybody. Well, everybody was let go.

Clinton

Yeah, they terminated the show in Orlando, right?

Joe

Well, and back in July, I think everybody was let go, or at least most of the performers across the country. And hats off to Circus. That's a really tough thing for them to manage. Just an understanding that you've got people there under your employment, who are only in this country because you're employing them. And the minute they're not employed.

Clinton

Oh, I didn't even think about that. Right?

Joe

Anybody who's here on a work visa. If you don't have work, you don't have a visa.

Clinton

Yeah. And then getting back during a pandemic might have been a challenge. So right, where your home is.

Joe

I'm the sound guy, bro. I'm not thinking about those things. I'm thinking about, you know, the mic choices and the cable paths, and the truck back.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

And when we started to just chat about it amongst ourselves, what a problem to solve. So that I've seen some Cirque shows and been in touch with some blue man folks, you know, throughout this time, that they have come out of it alive, hats off to them, because it could have done some serious damage. You know, and it seems like they're coming out of it. Okay.

Clinton

Good. I really hope they are. So after you got that news, is that when you started freelancing?

Joe

Oh, yeah. I kind of went back to school a little bit. Not formal school school. I said, “Well, you know, I never was as sharp on the entire product line of this thing or that thing.” Yeah. So I did the webinars, started to dive a little deeper into the SD10, into the digital product line, kind of went back to school on the Yamaha product line, always been a Yamaha guy. But I had my hands on the newest PM10, PM7. So you know, I must have spent weeks learning it the way I did back in the day before we really had all of this YouTube and internet stuff.

Clinton

Right.

Joe

You know, it's kind of busted the manuals and you kind of go through scenarios and how would I patch this? How would I route that? It's like, okay, what do you mean the matrix will…? And but you know, just fumbling through to make it work. I spent a couple of months doing that, which is great, because I was getting ready to go somewhere.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

And on the freelance side, I knew that the freelance world tends to bring a fair amount of chaos to the party that you show up with Plan A. And you don't—you're not you don't end with planning.

Clinton

Right? Yeah.

Joe

The client turns around and your panel of four, the VP is decided, he wants to have a big round table discussion. Not that we have a round table, but we're putting eight more chairs up there. Your RFs are on the dock, they should…. And we got doors in three hours. You've run your room out, you've set everything up and you've just changed the plan. That sort of thing. What about the voiceovers? Oh, we're gonna do some of these on the fly. What about the walk ups? Well, we've got an internet connection. We're gonna do it on Spotify or something. Wow. Okay. So I've got half the show programmed. I don't have the other half. That's fun. When you're in that hot seat and producers and your clients are just asking you to provide solutions. That's a lot of fun.

Clinton

Yeah, I bet.

Joe

You try to plan out as well as you can, you know, knocked out all the bumps and all the friction.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

But sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Clinton

So how does one get freelance work? So who did you call or who called you? Like, how did that work? So, you know, of course, I'm guessing it's a relationship thing. Like if you're new to the industry, you can't just jump into freelance, right? You've got to kind of like a who you know thing.

Joe

That's the way I've seen it. My experience since I worked with—I mean, back in my military time, it was about trying to stay sharp on the technology and the gear and using it well, which led me into some of the manufacturers seminars. And those reps would point me to the vendors who are obviously doing shows. And eventually, those relationships were turned into, well, what are you doing this weekend? Come out and help me hang boxes for the show. Since you know the gear, which would turn into what are you doing next weekend? Can you do moderns at that festival? And I was like, sure, I can do that. Which, you know, we wanted to use system tech for this gig. I did an Independence Day gig, a Fourth of July gig once upon a time, where that's exactly what it did. I finished an Air Force gig that went from way too many hours, got in the car and drove out, took a nap, dumped a Meyer PA into a space and tuned it up. Did Kid Rock for a couple of days. You know, this is back in Alabama, back in 2000—long time ago. You know, that sort of thing where look, here's your sim. Here's your break. Here's your console. Artist will be here, you know, 9 am or something. Go. And doing those sorts of events with various vendors. And sometimes the reps would point me to the vendors, because, you know, not all of us have $10,000 to go buy a bunch of accident stuff and bring it home to play with. Where do you get your hands on it? And that the reps and the vendors were cool enough to say, Yeah, you're right. There is no replacing seat time, or hands on time.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

With the Air Force stuff, I had a warehouse of equipment.

Clinton

Yeah.

Clinton

Where I could stand up a console and patch it and read and reconfigure and do that all the hard way. Look at the manual and yell at the gods and say they wrote that wrong. It doesn't do that actually, that sort of thing.

Clinton

Right.

Joe

You don't want to be doing that in the event.You don't want to be doing that in your prep time. And since I came out of this wonderful land of the military where I had the toys, to this place where I don't really have the toys, I'm really relying on the vendors and, and the other guys bringing the gear to the events. I'd work in the warehouses, take a weekend, you know, restock, repack. And you know, in trade off, yeah, we'll stand up the console for you, you can play around with it for the afternoon. You know, some of the guys I know here in town, I could call them up if they've got one on the shelf, a wireless unit, a comm system, or a console, if they've got one just standing around, they're kind enough in some cases, yeah, we can stand it up for you. And you can throw a show in it and bring your own little Pro Tools tracks and patch in it and patch out of it and make it do things.

Clinton

Right.

Joe

If you've got a good relationship with them, usually they're okay with that. Some of them are. Now during the busy season, that's not going to happen. Yeah. You know, to harken back, what a gift it was. So I'll drop some serious props here. Back in the day, back to the Air Force time, Clare Brothers did that for us. When I arrived at the band in Georgia back in ‘99 they had had a bunch of 12AMs. And I think it was the Carver AMs at the time. I think it was 16 boxes and amps. And I couldn't get them to sound the same because what had happened over the years is they had been patching these things with band aids and bubblegum and duct tape to keep them alive. Aftermarket speakers and such. I called up Clare Brothers. I got Barry Clare on the phone and the dude was like, “Well, look, we're, we're slow. Um, in the middle of December before Christmas, why don't you and one of your guys just bring the rig up to Littitz, Pennsylvania. We'll recondition it with you and send you on your way. And then I know we'll call it a couple of grand to charge up a maintenance fee or something like that.” So I turn around to my boss in the Air Force and he's like, “Wow. So I get to send two of my techs. All I have to do as the supervisor, right, as for the Air Force, is pay the per diem and hotel and then pay for the maintenance on the 16 boxes of 12AMs, something like two grand at the manufacturer.” So it's done right. And the corporate knowledge and the inside inside baseball knowledge that my techs get from that is immeasurable because no matter what happens on that next gig next month, I've got guys who are really dug deep into the gear. So the manager was all about spending money at the time. So starting these relationships and that was such a great thing that, you know, Clare gave to me and some of the Air Force guys back in 2002, 2003. And I think that that rig is still in Texas. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So have you tracked it down?

Clinton

So you know, so after leaving the Air Force and you know, doing your other study gigs and you know, or even while you're doing your study gigs as a freelancer, have you done work for you worked with Clare on it?

Joe

No, actually, the relationship with Clare, I'm sorry to say, we just haven't had the opportunity to come back together since I left the Air Force, which is fine. You know, there was no, there's nothing negative there. It just went different ways. A lot of a lot of time with Meyer. But again, it's with the Meyer vendors, the guys who are selling the product or dealers.

Clinton

I think you might call them.

Joe

Yeah. And you know, those guys often run production houses. Yeah, you know, I worked. We had a company in Alabama back in the day, Muse, which was run by Robert Hawthorne. A long time ago, I think he sold that off. Not long after I went to Japan, I was helping him keep that up—Thunder Audio out of Atlanta, I did a few events with them. EDG also out of Atlanta when I was there, Dave Lowell was running that place at the time, or working with I don't know what his position was at the time. But the guy had called me for the events. You know, and you get that call. What am I doing on the fifth? I can do something. What do you need me to do for you? Audio. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Clinton

Very vague.

Joe

And in fairness, it's because the clients are being cagey. And you don't know if they're bringing a front of house guy or they're not. And even if they are, do I need my guy to manage the opening opener act? Or am I just going to relegate myself back to system tech? I've been on events where, well, we do need somebody to do monitors. Yeah. So why don't you handle that? Oh, sure. Right. Okay. So sometimes they were loosey goosey. And sometimes they're a little more structured. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Tell you that. And to this day, most of the events—like I got called to do is to work a side stage at the Super Bowl.

Clinton

Okay.

Joe

That was fantastic.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

Yeah, I hadn't—

Clinton

So this past Super Bowl?

Joe

Yeah, I went to Tampa. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was like the most awesome thing ever. If you haven't worked one of these events, what I quickly discovered, you don't want to work inside the stadium, at least if you want to participate in the game. Not like throw passes, but if you want to watch the game—

Clinton

Right.

Joe

And like, really enjoy it, you want to be outside the stadium. I kind of lucked into this. They had a side stage for VIPs. And we were doing DJ, a mic or two for public address and hey, y'all go go bucks. And the event ended at something like three or five o'clock in the afternoon. And the rule of the day was you turn it off, and you bag it, because now we're going into pregame and then game and nothing moves because the world has moved into the stadium.

Clinton

Right.

Joe

What about our stuff? Just bag it up. You'll get it tomorrow. Have a nice day. Well, I've got credentials to get into the damn stadium. I'm going into the game. I'm gonna watch the game. But you don't really have seats.

Clinton

Right.

Joe

But my credentials got me. So sure, you know, we got to see a little bit of the game.

Clinton

So it sounds like you just like the excitement and being on Yeah. It's a challenge. The adrenaline.

Joe

I look at it like a kid going into a football game. You know, you study your playbook and you know, your workout, and you plan on it, and you look at what's gonna happen in which way they're gonna come at me.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

So there's definitely some enthusiasm there. Yeah. Still, at the middle of this part of my career, and I've been at it a minute. So I kind of got to wonder, how many more years do you have in you? Oh, gosh, we don't like to think of it that way. Yeah. But I'm over 50.

Clinton

Yeah, me too.

Joe

But I don’t wanna—do I have 30 more years?

Clinton

I don't know what—who knows. I’d like to think I…. But 30 years is a long time. Yeah.

Joe

Yeah. So let me ask you this. Is there an aspect of the industry of what you do that you used to be on fire about? And now you’re kinda over it?

Clinton

I don't know.

Joe

Other than splicing tape.

Clinton

Yeah, other than splicing tape, you know, well, you know, I've told this story, I think I told it when I was sitting in that seat in this podcast. But for me, you know, I went to school and wanted to record bands and ended up doing sound effects because I thought that that was even better.

Joe

You mean like Foley?

Clinton

No. Sound design.

Joe

Oh, I see. Yeah.

Clinton

Well, not Foley. Digital, right? Sound libraries, you know, yeah, for theme parks or movies or whatever television. So I thought that's what I wanted to do. Because I enjoyed it. I have a very creative side of me that enjoyed that work. But then when I was—I ended up getting a great gig with a very well-known post production studio and interned, got the gig, first person they hired in a long time. They liked my work. It was all rainbows and unicorns until about a year into it when I realized that I really didn't enjoy doing it as a job, sitting in a dark room by myself for ten hours a day, you know, staring at computer screens. And I joke because now I stare at computer screens 20 years later, or more than 20 years later. And I kind of came to a realization that I needed to be out talking to people. And there used to be a guy that’d come into our studio and show us how to use the gear. You know, he worked for Abbott or Digit Design back then. And he would come in and show us all the latest and greatest toys. And I'm like, man, I want his job. What a cool job, right? Luckily, I figured that out. Like somehow, I figured out that I can't be in a dark room by myself all day. It doesn't bring me energy. You know, talking to people brings me energy, right? So that's how I ended up in the rep business. I guess I'm not over it, but I was over me doing it. Like, it was a big dream and I had all these expectations and thoughts of what it'd be like. And so I guess I'm not over that part of the industry because I certainly enjoy the work that other people produce to make my experience when I watch a film that much more incredible. You know, outside of that, I don't know, like maybe consolidation. I'm over, everybody's buying everybody else, right?

Joe

Yeah, that’s always happening. But isn't that good?

Clinton

That's one thing I'm over, which is a temporary problem, hopefully, is back orders, shipping delays, supply chain issues, chip shortages.

Joe

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Give me some new amp modules for these things. Well, four to six months.

Clinton

Yeah, exactly. I think we’re all hopeful. That's a temporary setback.

Joe

It is.

Clinton

For our industry. But yeah, I think we're those of us that are affected by that, which is a good amount of us are over that. Yeah. So definitely overhearing, you know, six months lead times and, you know, surcharges for freight and things like that.

Joe

So yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I'm definitely over packing trucks.

Clinton

Yes. I wouldn't want to do that.

Joe

I don’t miss that.

Clinton

Don't I wouldn't want to do that.

Joe

But there is a joy in playing Tetris.

Clinton

Yes.

Joe

And somebody throws that that oddball.

Clinton

No, when I go on vacation. I can pack a truck.

Joe

Yeah. I remember when I moved across the country. I went on my apartment floor, and I laid down some board tape and, you know, had my pad out and so many inches by so many inches and how big is this box and I tried the whole thing out the hard way. Still, because yeah, now we got apps for that.

Clinton

Yeah, I'm visual. So I can see the space and I can see what I've got. I can make it work most of the time. Yeah.

Joe

So yeah, it's crazy how, you know, the industry just keeps morphing.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

And it's going to keep morphing.

Clinton

And truck packs are gonna get smaller.

Joe

Truck packs are getting smaller. Smaller, because gas is getting expensive. So we need, you know, and that's that a lot of the margin. You know, this a lot of the margin is in the fuel.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

You know, and the fuel goes up by 15% or 20%. And that's probably, not wrong. You know, and it starts to eat that margin up and it's going to hurt the tours. I hope we can get some good tours out there. Gosh. Is it too much to say the way it was? Yeah. Gosh, I feel so old.

Clinton

I mean, what I'd like to think is they're going to get better. So I think the, the tours, whether it's the, the, our end of it or, or the, the experience part of it, you know, what we're experiencing on these, on these at these shows or, or even the way we put on these shows, I think we've all learned a lot in the way we put them together and the way people want to experience them and new ways to experience them that I think they're going to be better. I think they're going to be better, like, you know, streaming, streaming you know, having you know, activity from outside that stadium or outside that venue that's being piped in or just so many new things are going to come out of the pandemic, and make our shows better. Yeah.

Joe

I hope so. I mean, the technology is making shows better. I mean, what we have in a digital board, we remember this from, you know, the old One V. Wow. I have compressors on every channel. Oh my goodness. You know how much space that saves me?

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

Whatever the first consoles were, that was a big deal. And we might bicker and argue about the quality of this reverb or that compressor. And if you have a few money channels, hey, you know, it's just bring a little case of those special effects you really got to have.

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Clinton

We're going to wrap this up, but I'm going to mention one other thing. Like when you talk about that, so many of the consoles now can model those favorite compressors that you liked, you know, in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s. And I just got a new guitar and, you know, somebody gave me a little amplifier. It's this little thing called a, I think it's a Spark 40. And you can use an app and say, let's just say you want to sound like a certain song on a Metallica album. You can put that song in, and it'll show the amp on your lap. It'll show the amp they used, a Marshall, whatever it was, and all the pedals, and your little amp will sound like theirs. And you can turn those pedals on and off.

Joe

So you can have, like.

Clinton

Is it quite as good as that?

Joe

Well, it’s never quite the same.

Clinton

But still, uh, really cool. The technology's come a long way, especially for somebody like me that, you know, is really just, uh, I'm playing around and, you know.

Joe

I still play bass as a hobby, and I've got a little TC bass amp, uh, BG two or whatever, and there are patches and all of the TC pedals and TC sound effects and stuff. All that are in a phone app.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

And I hold the phone and I hold it to the damn pickup. It sounds like a modem, you know, and poof, there's two channels of effects built into the app. So I can have that TC chorus who doesn't love that. And maybe an active device if I want it.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

Uh, so it's not a pedal board. They're not quite the same, but still it's a $300 amp. It weighs nothing. Yeah. It sounds really decent.

Clinton

And then, and who knows, maybe young people, that's, that's where music is going and it'll all be apps and, you know, uh, who knows? We'll see.

Joe

But there's definitely more stuff being put in the hands. It's become more accessible to more people.

Clinton

Yes, and that’s important.

Joe

It's definitely a lower barrier of entry. Well, like with music, right? This lower barrier of entry, it's a double edged sword. There's also more noise out there.

Clinton

Yes.

Joe

I think I, like when I was at the club, I call, I referred to kids who are angry at their parents.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

You know, we've all seen that band.

Clinton

Yes.

Joe

It's like, okay guys, I get it. You don't want to go to college. Uh, but that doesn't rule out that there are up and artists who have access to tools, you know, to.

Clinton

So to record an album years 30 ago or 20 years ago and make it sound good—was really difficult. And you had to pay a lot of money and go to a studio where now you can get great sound. I mean, look at this little studio. So we have this particular, I mean, we have sound treatment in here, but this particular area, there's only a couple of clouds we've got, you know, we've got glass behind me, wall in front of me, air conditioning that I can hear. Yeah. But hopefully when our listeners hear it, it'll sound much better than I'm painting right here.

Joe

Yeah. I'll bring it into my, into my, uh, listening space at the house. See if I can't hear anything on it. Let you know.

Clinton

So, and then for those of you listening, you know, I heard the doorbell ring or not ring, but I heard somebody come in the front door. Yeah. You know, but we made the right, hopefully made the right mic choices and, uh, got a setup to where we've compensated for all that and create a great recording that, you know, maybe many years ago would have been much tougher to do.

Joe

Much tougher, even with the knowledge. Yeah. Right. Cause if I take the knowledge I have today, and you drop me back into the early eighties with the equipment back then, I could get it done, but boy, it would be hard. Yeah. Now the kids coming up, they don't have the experience, right? Cause they, they're the kids coming up. They're getting that experience. They're going through those thick books or they're not going through the books. I'm, you know, the Yamaha sound reinforcement handbook anymore.

Clinton

I don’t know. Maybe. Cause the fundamentals are the same.

Joe

The fundamentals are the same, but they access them differently. Yeah. Control F try that on the book. Yeah. You know, it's like I'm looking for polarity.

Clinton

It's all YouTube. YouTube is your friend.

Joe

There's a lot of good data out there. So yeah, now I think you can get spun up pretty quick on, on some of the basic do's and don'ts.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

That was one of the things about Synodcon I liked.

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

They brought things into such a tangible thing. Here's what the speaker's doing. And if you put it next to a wall, that's your obvious result. So here's the money shot. Can you put it somewhere else?

Clinton

Yeah.

Joe

What? You know, we don't buy a different speaker, right? It's like, no, this is what it's doing. This is why it's doing what it's doing. Your first best answer is not to put it there. Oh yeah. I guess so. Yeah. Well, or it's, since it's put there, what's, what's that going to cost you? And then all of a sudden you get into other high level questions. Where are the money seats? Oh, the CEO is sitting here. We're good. He's sitting there. Huh? Okay. We need to have a conversation because, because of all of these other parameters, that's not going to sound really good. And maybe the answers deal with it. He doesn't care. He's deaf in one ear or maybe that's not, not acceptable.

Clinton

Yeah. He's an audiophile and cares a lot. Yeah.

Joe

Right. You know, you don't know who you're dealing with. Or one event back, back in Vegas, it was one of the first 4K LED walls. And it was took up—this was in the MGM Grand garden—took up the whole space. And they won at the time. Corporate event. Billy Walsh, who's a monster and a killer engineer. The answer was, well, all right, the PA is in the way of the screen and the screen is kind of the star of the show. And they asked me to move it. So we dropped the PA, and we hung it and we put it back up. It was one of the few events where the PA went up and down a few times. This is two days before the show. And it just got smaller and smaller. And h— such a pro the guy is—he's managing that relationship, explaining, “Guys, this is going to hurt your audio a little bit,” but I get it. It's not a problem. I can put some front fills up, which are second and third best answers. The hang we had was the best answer. And everyone’s starting to understand that. And you get to this environment where the drive is, yeah, but we need to see that new thing. We need to see that screen. And being the pro he is, he doesn't fight that. He explains there's a cost benefit here. He's facilitating their event.

Clinton

Right. So the next thing, you know, solution for that would be transparent speakers, right?

Joe

Yeah. I guess we got to get to work. I remember the carbon fiber speaker phase that went on for like 10 minutes.

Clinton

I don't see those anymore.

Joe

But transparent speakers.

Clinton

Yeah. That'd be good. Or just like to somehow move air, you know, with, I don't know.

Joe

I guess I gotta get on that.

Clinton

All right. Well, Joe, thank you very much for coming.

Joe

Thanks for having me.

Clinton

You know, and I'm glad that we got to talk more about your story, you know, and, you know, make some more connections.

Joe

Sound connections.

Clinton

Yeah. Sound connections. That's exactly what we're doing, right? So, so there's going to be people out there that are going to connect with you that may or may not know you, and you know, hopefully some of what we talked about, you know, I don't know, makes them want to reach out to you or just gives them, they got a little bit, piece of advice out of it, whatever it might be. So that's what this podcast is about.

Joe

Yeah. It's really great. And then I'm listening to all your back catalog stuff. Really liked listening to the podcast. There's a lot of smart people dropping some really good knowledge bombs. It's an honor to be a part of it in any way. Clinton; The next one is a really good one. I think Jason Waufle. So, you know, by the time people hear this one though, he would have already aired, but that's a good one. You know, he's a RF guy, works for Shure. So he was here and visited and we got him in. So yeah, I look forward to getting more, more. Yeah.

Joe

Those RF guys, you know, cause I've done some coordination. That's a rough world, man. Yeah. You're going from hero to zero and it's because of that one guy, he's the new guy. He's three rooms over.

Clinton

Or somebody came in that you didn't know was coming in.

Joe

That's exactly what I mean. It's yeah,

Clinton

That's we talk about some of that. So that's a good episode.

Joe

I'll be listening in for that. Because, you know, it's always more to learn.

Clinton

Well, thanks for coming in. Thanks, and thank you everyone for listening to our episode of Sound Connections. Hope you tune in for the next one.