The MxU Podcast

The MxU Podcast Episode 136
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Jeff Sandstrom: [00:00:00] You are now entering the M X U podcast. No credentials required.

Well, hey everybody. Welcome to episode 1 36 of the M X U podcast. I'm Jeff Sandstrom, and I'm here with my co-host today, Jay Desai. How you doing buddy? Man, I'm doing good.

So that's a little cup of your morning coffee because we're not in the same time zone. Because you are a little bit out west. Tell everybody where you are today. Well, I'm on

Jay Desai: this little peninsula on the edge of it, in Mexico doing the Lord's work and drinking a Triple Es express espresso. I almost said espresso.

I hate it when people . Espresso. Espresso. There's

Jeff Sandstrom: no X in espresso, especially when you're in Cabo.

Jay Desai: Yeah, man. There's just no need for that, you know? I'm looking at a pretty, uh, pretty beautiful thing. There's a boat in the cove sandwich [00:01:00] between some mountains. The sun's out. What a life.

Jeff Sandstrom: It's amazing. Just serving the Lord.

I mean, you know

Jay Desai: what? Someone's gotta turn up that Sure. Accident fade. We, we flew with accident down here, by the

Jeff Sandstrom: way. Oh, that's amazing. So what's the event who you're working with?

Jay Desai: Uh, we're doing a fundraising event for a nonprofit and. Last time we were down here, we didn't have good wireless, so we just packed some, um, I did find this out by the way.

We all, we all traveled with some pelicans, but the, the trick is one pelican, one rolling luggage and they don't really check you. But a colleague of ours had, um, two pelicans and they didn't care what was in it, except two laptops are an issue. Ah, and, uh, we looked at the, uh, the paperwork and. Sure. As it says right there, two laptops.

Jeff Sandstrom: So why is that a red flag? I wonder they think you're gonna bring 'em in to sell 'em [00:02:00] or something. I don't

Jay Desai: know. I mean, guess I don't know. But either way, the Federalities didn't get me this time. I just ran this time. . Yeah. I've been known to get, been gotten by the Federalis. But I will tell you this, I had, I had such a, The crew, a couple of the guys.

I'm with Ryan and Chris at D P A V and some of those, uh, we've built some rapport with the local, uh, production company here. And seeing them once a year, once or twice a year for some of these events has been really great. Feels like we really turned a corner. They served us so well and we joked like to offer them jobs back in the US cuz they just work hard and they're just so.

That's very cool. And then I was like, no, absolutely not. That'll make me have to work harder. So I don't wanna do that . But it was great. But I, I gave, uh, David, my friend David here, my sinec sound bullet cuz he liked it so much. And, uh, he had one of [00:03:00] those, uh, beringer like cable testers. So the, that sound bullet tester thing just blew his mind, which was awesome.

I take stupid stuff like that for granted.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah. Yeah. Well, while we're given a shout out to sound bullet, why don't you describe what it is for people who've never heard of it, because it's actually a great tool that I think every live production person should have access to. So talk everybody through what it is.

Jay Desai: Don't worry it on your hip. That's not cool. Um, let's, let's start wearing less stuff on our hips, I think,

Jeff Sandstrom: or fewer carabiners.

Jay Desai: Yeah, yeah, let's go full combat mode and then just strap up on everything. Um, it is a cable tester, much like the Q Box, and it's designed, uh, by these European, uh, guys that have made it very compacted.

We've all carried a q uh, whirlwind Q Box or the Beringer cable tester and some of these other great, uh, testers around, [00:04:00] but they've basically, Made it real compact. It almost looks like, uh, one of those ridiculous vape things that people use. You know, like, first off, if you vape, stop, it's not good. You can't make smoke without fire.

I'd rather you just smoke something with fire than, than you use fake science. Sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to condone any of this stuff, but No vaping. Cool. Everyone stopped

Jeff Sandstrom: vaping? No. Vaping for sure. Yeah. We don't know what it. Yeah, the sound bullet though, does look like an extra large vape device.

Yeah, that's funny. But it's got, it's got a ton of connectors in it though. Ton

of

Jay Desai: connectors That's rechargeable, which is super awesome. Um, the little speaker in it is great. I, uh, the nice thing is with some of those other cable testers used to have to carry around like a, a six inch or 12 inch. xlr, so you can get, but this goes straight into snakes.

You can send tone. Um, it's got oscillator little speaker. It's, it's got a quarter inch connector. It's got a little pouch that goes in. [00:05:00] Anyways, it's a great tool. I would never want to carry one of the bigger guys like in my backpack, but this one you can throw in your backpack and you always got it. And it's, it's priced just like all the others.

I'm not knocking any of those. It's great actually. The, I will say straight up the whirl. Q Box I think has two more connectors or does it has TT for studio guys and patch bays and has one other feature that some bullet didn't have, but this sound bullet. Um, and I think Rational Acoustics is selling it now and the US and I know Rat is selling it in the US and it's most stuff.

So anyways, if you need a cable tester, uh, go ahead and buy two and go ahead and bless. With another one. Yeah. How about that? Let's, there you go. Let's spend money. It's, let's just turn our budgets upside down. The beginning of the year,

Jeff Sandstrom: you're like, um, the Tom's shoes of cable testers. You could, uh, , you know, like a one to one

One to one. Yeah. One for one. That's funny. Oh, that's so good. So lessons from [00:06:00] Jay today. One, buy a sound bullet and two, no vaping. I think those are pretty good tips. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of, speaking of healthy tips, I think, um, you know, we need to talk about the MX U 75 a little bit. So we are officially on day 11 today.

So we've, we've come through our first 10 days and a lot of people are doing great. A lot of people are like, okay, this is kind of, kind of easy. So far, it hasn't been very demanding, but it's funny, I got a picture of a guy from our MSU team. He said, well, when it's minus 14 outside and you still have to do your walk, then this is what happens.

And he sends me a picture of him in snowshoes getting ready to go out for his 15 minute walk in a blizzard, and I'm like, this guy. Has got it together. I don't know if I have that amount of determination in me, but he's going for [00:07:00] it. I'm like, bro, kudos to you. I'd, I'd be doing

prison

Jay Desai: laps in the house.

Jeff Sandstrom: just strolling around the kitchen. actually,

Jay Desai: uh, during, during the great shutdown, um, my sister would send me videos of my dad cuz we grounded my dad cause he's a socialite and retired. Thinks he can do whatever he wants. So I took his car keys so he couldn't go anywhere, and then she would send me videos of him doing laps in the backyard.

That's amazing. Like he was an inmate. It was, it was kind of perfect. Um, I will tell you this, this year, what has actually helped me, I will admit that I haven't kept up with exactly how many ounces of waters I'm drinking, but I have this 32 ounce. You know, whatever you put water in. Yeah. From that company water bottle, they, yeah, I dunno.

Jeff Sandstrom: It's, they call it a water

Jay Desai: bottle. It's weird. I dunno what they call it in Mexico. Um, uh, but from mi, m i I r or I don't know [00:08:00] how you say it, but it's this 32 ounce water bottle and it keeps my water cold all day, which has been awesome. And I'm, I'm about drinking about one and a half of those, so I feel like I'm right in the 50 ounce of.

Jeff Sandstrom: There you go. So one and a half, one and a half of 32 is about 50 ounces. So that's 48 ounce. Look at

Jay Desai: that. Mathematics. Um, yeah, the no snacking is hard for me cuz I like protein bars. But yeah, it's been, it's been good. I did like, I had to skip breakfast the other day cause it's something here. Like we were busy and so I had a protein bar for breakfast, which felt fine.

Um, the walking honestly is, it's really easy to go for a walking cabo. Let's, to be honest with ourselves.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah, beach walking is, uh, pretty, pretty stellar. Yeah.

Jay Desai: Even the property of this, um, super nice place I'm at is fun to walk around in. It's a little cold, I think, back home when I get home. Um, so that might be a little harder, but

Jeff Sandstrom: yeah, it'll be in the forties when you get home, which, you know, [00:09:00] you know, you can always put on more clothes.

I feel like, well, for this stuff bad bro. I

Jay Desai: already got, I

Jeff Sandstrom: already got an extra layer. Well, I feel like the walking piece, honestly, it's been something that a lot of people have kind of gotten some, I don't know, they've learned something new about themselves or they've gotten a little bit of a revelation about how.

Much of a benefit. Just walking is not just physically, but mentally, just to, to decompress and to just take a breath and to just think about things and to be alone. It's like, you know, if you can walk with somebody, that's great too. But the whole contemplative nature of just going out for a walk has been a game changer for a ton of people, and I think it's huge.

Well, I'd always, I'd

Jay Desai: always kind of like. You know, clearly I don't have to, uh, tell y'all 40 year old single man here. Um, but like, you know, couples would go for a walk all the time, or like, you see, I see the same couple in my neighborhood every day going for a walk. [00:10:00] Yeah. And it wasn't until I, I, two years ago, and I needed to dive into healthy ways to deal with some mental health stuff.

Walking side by side actually has a, I don't, I'm not smart enough to remember all the things, but it communicate. Things silently between two humans. It's that you're arm and arm, you know, you're in it together. So I think it's real cool if you can go for a walk with somebody. I think it's good. And it's really hard to argue when you're side by

Jeff Sandstrom: side, like this is true.

Jay Desai: Like you kind of, you would have to stop and face each other to, to take a jab at one another or, or, which is fine too. But when you're kind of side by side walking, you're breathing. It's better. You're thinking a little different. And so I think it's great. Go for a walk with somebody.

Jeff Sandstrom: Um, that's good.

You're literally in step with someone. I like that.

Jay Desai: Yeah. Um, I'll, I'll need to look up, uh, what all the benefits are again, and refresh myself, but that was one of the big, the, the big things were get out [00:11:00] of the house, especially if you have low ceilings. I'm super, uh, um, hashtag blessed to have 20 foot ceilings and so, and big windows, which I don't know if I could ever live.

Without tall

Jeff Sandstrom: ceilings. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Natural light helps so much, especially this time of year. Yeah. So get out

Jay Desai: of the house and go for walks. Were two big things, and so I think that's, uh, good. I, when I do the solo walk, would consider it part of my study, prayer of meditation, because I think, uh, the, my, my prayer style opposed to a lot of, Is in my subconscious always.

Mm-hmm. , I feel like, mm-hmm. , God gets my, my crazy brain. 10, 15, 30 second prayers, you know? Um, and then I have friends though that make these incredible lists and can sit down and pray for 20, 30 minutes. And that's, [00:12:00] for me, that only happens alongside music. I've figured out that's the best way for me to be in that sort of contemplative, prayerful state.

When I'm walking, I feel like I'm always throwing things God's way. So anyways, the 75 this year is a little different for me cuz it feels, and it may be the season I'm in, I don't really know, but it feels like I'm feeling it a little more and, and I'm not really doing it. Uh, well communally, cuz I've been traveling a bunch, right?

And so I'm excited about jumping in with a few people back home. But, It has really helped my insides more than it's probably helped, uh, on the physical side so far.

Jeff Sandstrom: Couple days, you know. That's great. Well, you know, we're, we're 10 days in, so your, your physical side still has plenty of time to catch up, and I think it will, I mean, I think starting in day 20 to 25 is when some of the physical stuff starts to ramp up, especially as we add the exercise c.[00:13:00]

In a more intensive way that starts day 25 or so. And so I think for people who don't know what we're talking about, you gotta go to get msu.com/msu 75 and figure out how to jump in. It's not too late. You can join anytime. Um, right now we're on day 11, so days 11 through 15 are a certain rubric of what you're supposed to do.

And then starting on day 16 to 20, we do more things and basically we stack a habit every five. To get to, uh, on the 75th day, which is Easter weekend, to be able to say, Hey, here's a list of things that we've accomplished over the last several months that are gonna just make us better phys physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in community.

So thanks for joining us in on that. Um, Jay, I feel like you need to head home though because aren't you supposed to be working? Our M X U live event for this year.

Jay Desai: Well, Jeff, I'm kind of like the [00:14:00] Holy Spirit. I'm everywhere. I can do what I need to do wherever I am, . Um, I'm gonna need someone to second and third that motion.

So don't get hit by lightning. Uh, wherever you are, give me an amen. Um, I am working on it. I'm working on it. We've got some fun stuff I think, uh, that is gonna be awesome. So gimme a little bit, keep asking. I like the pressure. Also, I'm trying to figure out how. You know, travel a little bit too. So I wanna see people.

So if you see that I'm in your city, hit me up. I will totally meet you for a non-VA hang.

Jeff Sandstrom: So we can't let too many details out of the bag yet because we're still finalizing a bunch. So Jay, I appreciate your work on that. And as soon as we have those details, we're gonna get tickets on sale. We're gonna give you all the low down.

But let me just say that we're gonna have a combination of events this year. We're gonna. Um, workshop type events at M X U hq and we're also gonna have a tour type event, uh, similar to what we've done in the past. That is going to [00:15:00] blow your mind. So details will be coming soon and we can't wait to share those with you.

So in the meantime, what you got coming up, Jay? I am actually working

Jay Desai: on a tour right now for Mr. Bob Goff, my legal team. Oh, good. Um, in March we are gonna be traveling, ar traveling around a little bit actually. Um, Tomlin was here at this event, and let me just tell you, it was just as acoustic and vocal and it was great and I used F six and the API 25.

on both and it was magic. My man, my man can sing so that helps. He can sing. Yeah. And uh, and then the one h verb for both, I threw 'em both into one h verb. I pre-mixed his ears cuz we didn't get a soundcheck and all he asked me for was a tad more acoustic winning. I'm [00:16:00] winning with Mr. Tomlin. Last

Jeff Sandstrom: time. I mixed ears for hash.

Hashtag winning. Yeah,

Jay Desai: which, I mean, he, he was actually in the room next to me, but he left this morning. Um, his ears aren't easy, so it doesn't matter if there's one input or a full band

Jeff Sandstrom: mixing ears for Chris. Yeah, he's got some, some specific preferences which are, um, not standard all the time, but speaking of, uh, senior Tomlin, um, I actually got the call from the bullpen.

To help out with them on their spring tour. So our friend Steven Bailey, who mixes for Chris, um, on the regular, um, has some family obligations and so I'm gonna fill in for him for the first part of the tour and I am super excited. Um, for those of you who aren't familiar with what Chris is doing this spring, he's doing basically an evening.

Type concert, um, not in arenas, but in churches. And so go to chris tomlin.com [00:17:00] and check out the schedule because if he's coming to you in your town, you're not gonna want to miss what this, what this evening is gonna be. I'm, I'm excited. I've seen the set list, I've seen some of the plans and it's gonna be super cool.

Basically him telling the stories behind some of the. Playing big versions of the songs like you would hear at a big conference or concert in arena. But then also some of the songs will be super broken down and you'll kind of get an inside look into the stories behind the song and a more intimate portrayal of what these songs can be.

So it's gonna be really fun, really meaningful, and a great night of worship. So check it out for sure. Come see me and say hi, cuz. I will love to hang out with you and let you check out what's going. That's awesome.

Jay Desai: That's gonna be fun. Boards will be glad to have you back.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah, I'm excited about it. So I think we need to get to our interview today.

I had a great conversation, um, I don't know, a little bit ago with [00:18:00] um, Kevin Madden from Alan and Heath. So for those of you who use Alan and Heath consoles, he's gonna give you a sort of inside look into the company and their history and also some of the capabilities of their. And, uh, can't wait for you to hear the combo, so let's get to it.

Well, I'm really excited to be joined today by Kevin Madden from Allen and Heath, and we've been here at MX U HQ today talking about some of their consoles. And so as we were talking, there were a lot of things that came up that I thought would be good. To sort of fill you in on and let you know about, for those of you who listen to the podcast.

So we've been looking at some of the D Live and SQ and Avanti consoles, and we're gonna be recording content for the M X U platform. On those desks and doing some training around their workflows and best practices and layout and all this stuff. So that, for those of you who use Alan and Heath and who've been asking us for Alan and Heath content for a long time, [00:19:00] will actually have access to.

But um, when we were talking, I thought, man, this would be great to sort of let Kevin give our podcast listeners just an inside view into Alan and Heath. So Kevin, thanks for being. Thanks for your time today around the consoles. It was great. I look forward to digging in and getting my hands all over those desks because they are really powerful and

Kevin Madden: really cool.

Did you want me to recant the last four hours of comprehensive data dive here, for the listening

Jeff Sandstrom: public? We probably don't need that because we, first of all, you've, you used, you used all of your words during that time. I did lose use money. Yeah. Um, but, um, Some of the early history, some of the origin stories, some of the stuff about Alan and Heath that not a lot of people know, I think is where we need to start.

Yeah. Cause it was actually a pretty innovative company from way back in the day. Yeah. So tell us some of that early history from the early days of rock and roll in England. Like what was going on

Kevin Madden: early days. Um, first of all, thanks for having me out here and we did spend quite a day, um, doing a deep dive [00:20:00] and.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys put together here. Um, I know you have a lot of good stuff going on, and we're glad to be a part of it. Um, so Alan Heath, uh, I'm gonna, Give the sort of a, sort of a thumbnail sketch of our history here with, I'm gonna claim 70 to 80% accuracy. Okay. So I may be , I may be slightly off from how things were described to me by various old timers in the company,

Jeff Sandstrom: but, but if you're talking about the early days of rock and roll, it's probably only 60% accurate anyway.

That's correct. To get to 80%. You're doing

Kevin Madden: great. . Um, Alan Heath, uh, goes back to 1969. I may be incorrect, but I think we're probably one of the longest, or if not the longest standing uninterrupted console brand, uh, that's been around. Um, again, I may be wrong, but you know, when the three guys who started this company, um, Put it together.

It was 1969. We were literally, what, two years from Woodstock being mixed on [00:21:00] bake light knobs. Mm-hmm. and these fellas, um, I, I won't bore you with the total specifics, but they were, um, very smart electronics people. One of them, I'm. Believe is rumored to have been somebody who wired cockpits in British fighter jets.

Oh, cool. In the sixties. Yeah. Um, and these three fellows were handmaking small consoles. Um, I think they were called Wizard Wizzy Mixers or something. Um, and they were low-cost desktop consoles. Um, kind of, you know, what we look at today is little, you know, podcast. Ironically, uh, little consoles for broadcast in small event spaces and whatnot, and they started to get big enough to become a company, as in they were doing the numbers that mandated or, you know, justified becoming a, a, a British version of an S Corp or an L l C.

But

Jeff Sandstrom: you told me something interesting about British corporate law at the time. Yeah. Where it was really expensive and a whole lot of paperwork to go and form a. That's right. So [00:22:00] this is where part of the Alan and Heath name comes from. That's right. So, so tell

Kevin Madden: us that story. None of the three founders have Alan nor Heath in their names

Um, the, these three guys were going through the business of, you know, forming a corporation in England. And it takes a lot of paperwork and a lot of fees and a lot of waiting and something that is, um, I. Some people that are a also, uh, part of the commonwealths concur that like in India and and other places, British civil codes allow you to retain or access the name of, um, a company that's been out of business for a number of years, and just reregister it in your own name for one fee for one application.

Basically these guys were cheap and, you know, we're looking for a fast way to get into business. And rumor has it, um, Glenn Rogers kind of told me a version of this story. The, the three of these guys are sitting outside of a, a pub having pints of beer and kind of considering what they should call themselves or, you know, they looked down the road and they saw [00:23:00] this old decrepit building called Alan and Heath Brunelle Limited.

Um, and it was apparently somewhat of a ball bearing or a sheet metal. Fabrication plant that probably went out of business in the late fifties and um, you know, just up went the pints and Right. Alan and Hay, then , you know, we'll go with that. And that's where the name comes from, literally.

Jeff Sandstrom: So they took their business name and attached it to their application for a license.

And the rest is history. Just cause That's, that's hilarious. That's awesome. So they started making consoles and grew and Yeah. All of a sudden Pink Floyd started. Yeah, understanding what Alan

Kevin Madden: Heath was building. Well, Alan Parsons was pretty tight with these guys. And, um, at the time, and, and again, this is where I get to like 70% accuracy.

I may somebody at the. Factory with legacy knowledge may correct me here, but, um, Alan Parsons and the founders of Alan Heath were pretty tight and at this time, dark side of the moon was being recorded and it had yet [00:24:00] to be issued. Um, the Alan Parsons wanted to record. Pink Floyd in the Pompe Amphitheater, uh, which is a movie that they eventually put out, sort of an early version of a music video of them p playing in basically Greek ruins, um, hits that were yet to be l released on, um, dark Side of the Moon and some earlier stuff from Metal and some of those other albums, and they wanted to print it in Quadraphonic.

He collaborated with the Alan and Heath guys to make a quadraphonic mixing console, and it had two, uh, appendage joysticks that, you know, could crisscross and zigzag because a lot of people don't realize that 5.1 actually had its roots in the sixties in. Quadraphonic. Yeah. But the reason Quadraphonic never really took off is cuz we don't have four ears and there was no center channel.

Right. I even have an old Doors album that has a, you know, quadraphonic vinyl. But, so they came up with this movie called Live at Pompe and around the same time, dark [00:25:00] Side of the Moon was released. Um, unfortunately overshadowing the movie. It was not really a box office success, although you can find it out there.

Um, and they decided to take this quadraphonic mixing console. Take it live and back in the day, if you were a kid that saw Pink Floyd in the seventies, you know, touring dark side of the moon, animals, wish you were here, there was a turbo sound pa with front and rear mains. And you can imagine if you know these albums, all the cool little pig winkings and helicopter sounds crisscrossing and zigzagging around the arena cuz the sound guy was playing with a joystick.

That's amazing. It was probably killer. And other acts like Genesis and the Who, um, also use these early quadraphonic boards. Very noisy by today's standards, but um, you know, cutting age and we were a big boy arena touring brand back in the day.

Jeff Sandstrom: So fast forward through a lot of iterations of analog console.

You know, a lot of churches had analog Allen Heath back in the day. Um, [00:26:00] what's your history with the company? When did you get to Allen Heath and what's the, like, what's, what's your sort of music industry history? Well,

Kevin Madden: my short story is I was, uh, a wannabe Stevie Ray Vaughn emulator, . I was in a blues band in the early nineties in la and, uh, I ended up working at a rehearsal facility because our drummer could never book the time where we were supposed to rehearse.

We'd show up and the rooms were empty. So I found this drummers huge. I know, gosh, they call themselves musicians. Um, I found this huge place that was, um, literally a sound stage that would book acts for weeks at a time. And we started rehearsing there and you know, we'd always have to have a sound guy come in.

I think there were like 32 0 8 s. 32 0 4 Yamaha monitor mixing consoles back in the day and it was always terrible and I would bug the owner about, you know, To do sound because you know, the guy who dialed us [00:27:00] in walked away and never came back and it was awful. And after not taking me seriously for months, he finally said, well, do you want a job painting?

I said, what? And he goes, yeah, we're gonna be painting the lobbies in the next week. You know? How about you come by on Saturdays or after work? And uh, yeah, we'll kind of show you how PAs work and. Sure enough, the first day I was there up on a scaffold, Motley Crew was loading in beneath me , you know, no kidding.

Through the lobby. And that, uh, that was the genesis of a truncated live sound career, which ended a few years later. But I was a sound guy in the Hollywood nightclubs. I worked at the Roxy. Have mixed at the troubador and whiskey and other lesser known places. You know, kind of that era when glam rock was kind of going down and grunge rock was coming up.

So how did I get to Alan and Heath is a story of me ending up working, um, for different manufacturers. So I was also a speaker recount. Okay. Lovingly referred to as the garbage man of the pro audio [00:28:00] business, you know, a glue sniffer. And, uh, JBL borrowed me from the shop that I worked at and I was. Pairing speakers and they offered me a job to be a customer service administrator and I ended up doing tech support.

And next thing I knew, a couple years later they've decided to split up some of the Harmon brands. If anybody knows this history, they'll, they'll know that A K G B S S and Soundcraft all relocated from Southern California to Nashville. Yeah. And that was in 96. So, Several years at a kg. Worked my way up to being a regional sales manager, hopped through a couple of other companies, finally landing at a company called Innova.

Mm-hmm. , which some people derived, but in the evolution of digital mixing, they're actually an in incredibly important contributor to where we are today. Um, it was a nightmare. , I like to say, I, I got on that ship. You know, ankle deep in water. And by the time it ended, I was neck high and about to drown. But, um, it, it was [00:29:00] innovative, but they got steamrolled.

Yeah. And, uh, outta nowhere I. Hobnob with some industry people at the NA show, and I ran into Lynn Martin, who was the founder of American Music and Sound, and we ended up coming to an arrangement where I worked for Alan and Heath in 2014. I'm one of their longer employees. And at that time there were things brewing that we didn't know about yet.

Gotcha. So I was essentially told to not worry about the older

Jeff Sandstrom: products. Okay. Which, which we can cover a little bit if you Well, that Yeah. That brings us to sort of the history of some of our audience's impression of Allen Heath and the digital domain. That's right. Because a lot of

Kevin Madden: everything

Jeff Sandstrom: was about to change.

A lot of people, you mentioned Alan and Heath and Digital, and they think, eh, eh, I had a bad experience. I mixed on ILI and it was terrible. Or I had a console and it was buggy. Buggy, not functional, whatever. So definitely in pro [00:30:00] touring circles. So some of those is not appreciated. Yes. Some of that bumpy road caused a bit of a reputational ding that obviously the new products are and have corrected.

So let's talk 11 corrected. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about sort of Alan and Heath today.

Kevin Madden: So when I came on board, that was in fact really the parting of the waters, so to speak, for what was about to happen at Alan Heath. And of course it had nothing to do with me, but , um, the Eye Live, uh, which is what we're talking about, was at the end of its life.

It, it ran about 10, 11 years, I think, and it, it initially was a very competent 64 by 32 bus machine. It just hit the ground on its knees. Had very minimal engineering resources behind it, and the ability to fix problems was sluggish early in the day. I think there were three D s P, actually three engineers in total that were responsible for the ILI and for, for reasons I won't go into it was kind of pushed out to market a little earlier than it [00:31:00] should have, which.

Skinned the knees of the brand and Yeah. You know, the touring folks, everybody who looked at this machine and said, okay, 42 or $45,000, I can get a 62, 64, 32 bus machine with eight effect engines. I'll take one. Cuz what else was out in 2006? Right? You're spending 70, 80, a hundred grand. Yeah. To get into a real digital board.

Um, the ILI had a long run. Was eventually successful, repaired, came out in lower cost versions, which ironically did best in church markets. Mm. Um, touring, barely touched it. Handful of people. It, it was just derided.

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, because touring is all about reliability. Yeah. And being able to ride down the road on a truck and open it up the next day and have it work and.

That, you know, there were only a few brands at the time who could withstand the rigors of the road. Sure. And so people were, you know, understandably leery of something, especially if you've had a problem with it in the past. Why should I try something new? Because it might be the same old, same old. [00:32:00] So, um, but then D Live has, has come out and it's hit the market and you guys are crushing it.

So we're doing pretty well. Yeah. So it's, it's a, it's definitely. You know, exponentially better in terms of not only reliability and connectivity and all that, but features and opera ability and all that stuff is just it. It's been a bit of a game changer, and we have a lot of people listening who use DLI and SQ and sort of in the ecosystem of the, the new version of Alan and Heath.

So for those who don't, let's just talk for a few minutes about, um, capabilities. Uh, functionality and some of the features that you would highlight as, Hey, this, this is something that makes Alan and Heath worth considering.

Kevin Madden: So at the, the common thread between these three products that we are working on today and, and what we're talking about is an F P G A processor that we developed.

Um, At the retirement of ILI [00:33:00] and it basically became a double capable

Jeff Sandstrom: platform. So can you talk for a minute for people who don't know? Yeah. F fda. What's the difference between F P G A and D S P?

Kevin Madden: Yeah, and I'll say this from a layman's perspective cuz I'm not a D S P, PhD T engineer, like the guy who runs our company, Dr.

Rob. Um, D S P, in simple terms, Fixed, basically fixed resource chips that have a number of gins to a number of gaz outs. And there's a limited amount of programming that you can do within the confines of that chip. So for example, compressor flavors and EQ flavors and the operation of a gate. And, um, but the more channels you need, the more chips you need.

And do you want to go from 48 K to 96? Well, you're gonna double the amount of chips and. What pushed us into a new domain, um, called F P G A processing. So F P G A stands for Field Programmable Gatorade. This is super geeky and we'll get off this real quick, but it is kind of important. [00:34:00] Um, it's a giant open source processor that you program into existence for what you want it to be.

They're not just use audio and video like DSP chips. They're used at Facebook meta, you know, The campus that runs all the processing for, um, you know, a lot of social media. They're very specific purpose built processors. They're using robotics, manufacturing and animation, film animation. You know, when you see 10,000 strands of hair in a Pixar film, for example, moving, that's an not a MacBook doing that math.

There are programmed, purpose-built, very narrow function processors. And that's what we did. Um, we followed another company who's our sister company. Say who are Kindrid are. Sure. So DiGiCo came out with the first programmed F P G A when the SD eight came out. Yep. Right. Kind of leading to the retirement of the D one three s and five s.

Um, a lot of people think DiGiCo programmed our F P G A or because we're sister companies, um, you know, that there was an [00:35:00] influence. We actually developed it, um, long before and essentially, Taking a, like I said, an open source chip and programming, programming it into existence for what you want it to be.

In our case, it took 50,000 coding hour hours, um, something like two years, and the DLI was born and it doubled the capacity of ILI 1 28 by 64 is the, uh, and that's a fluid bus count. You can tell it whatever it to be. And primarily what's why this is. Important for Avantis and SQ is once all that work was done and we're talking a machine that will pass audio and 0.68 milli milliseconds, guaranteed phase locked, that means nothing you do under the hood of that console will cause channels to drift out of time or out of phase within their own, um, pass through the desk.

So, um, 96 k phase, coherent, um, 0.68 milliseconds. So I like to call it fast, clean and on time.

Jeff Sandstrom: So even if you're doing. [00:36:00] Internal bus to bus processing or nothing can change the latency. Um, parallel compression Yep. Or anything like that. Crush groups. Crush groups. Yeah. It's in time, the whole time. Correct.

And another, just in terms of features for dli, um, you know, the fact that it's 96 K native, the fact that you have parallel processing on every channel, you know, there, there are a lot of things about it that make it a. Good tool and a choice to be considered, especially for the price point. Um, and the plugins, the, the internal effects.

Yep. The. The stuff that's not just the onboard EQ and compression is stunning. The em, the emulations are

Kevin Madden: really good. We have a whole te little corner of our engineering department that just does plug-ins, emulations, and have for a long time. And, uh, Dr. Rob Clark, who now is the managing director of our company, was the head of engineering and was the head of the Emulations team.

Um, when we do, [00:37:00] uh, a model of a compressor, There's a little 15 minute story about each version. I mean, you can see a familiar cartoon picture, you know? Yeah. In the software or if you go look 'em up online. But they are in fact modeled, um, scrupulously, uh, with integrity. Um, it's not just a pretty picture of some 40 year old thing.

It's, well, it's funny you were sh

Jeff Sandstrom: it's the real deal you were showing me. One of the emulations is a very familiar, um, opto compressor. Oh, right. And there's a little button on. on the interface that says burn. Well, nobody knows what that is, but back in the day, back in the day, you know, for those who know how an opto compressor works, there is a light bulb inside.

Yep. That basically, you know, T4 B. Yes. And basically when, when stuff reflects off that light bulb, it engages gain reduction. Correct. For limiting. Yep. Well, as those bulbs would dim over time Yep. Or literally burn. They would have different characteristics. [00:38:00] Yep. Throughout their life cycle of the actual bulb.

So if you hit burn, it's actually, it's emulating. Emulating

Kevin Madden: the bulb. A worn out. Burning out. Yeah. And, and the whole story behind that is, you know, the. The broadcast radio and TV folks, um, had line leveling amplifiers like LA two ass and LA four s, and when those bulbs would drift outta spec, they immediately had to get rid of 'em.

And their counterparts in the recording world quickly realized that these oddball, you know, kind of wearing out optical devices all would have a s. Kind of a unique characteristic and they would gather 'em up and put 'em into compressors and let's, you know, let's measure and label what all these things sound like.

So the burn button is an example of, like you said, grabbing a, a worn out bulb from a broadcast facility and sticking it in a recording studio compressor and having a unique thing. Old, old meat's new,

Jeff Sandstrom: new meats old all the time. Yep. That's great. So, um, what are some other things like obviously, you know, you talked.[00:39:00]

The timing internally, the sound of, its the sound of the preempts themselves, like it's super clean, really high quality conversions. Um, what are other features that you would say, especially for a house of worship, uh, considering a new console purchase? Like why

Kevin Madden: Allen Heath? At the heart of it, I would say it's, all of our stuff are good calculators, right?

Especially with the newer F P G A stuff. So you, you know, a sound is a subjective thing. Um, Alan and Heath would say that they are, you know, some people would. I don't wanna throw brand names around, you know, willy-nilly, but you know, like the Midas XL four had a very colored sound or you know, the Capricorns and Neves had a certain sound, whereas ssl, and I'm talking kind of, you know, other contemporary things.

Yeah. SSL would be very flat. Alan and Heath would strive to be somewhat the ssl and that's not an endorsement of them or an association. Although we are sister [00:40:00] companies, um, we are want to have a very flat, broad, dynamic range. And very low noise. Even input prepl amplifier going through as transparent a deck as money will allow.

Yeah. Um, so at the begin, at the end of the day, the calculator is solid. I hope you would think that the. Console is translucent or invisible as it's trans receiving audio through it. Um, so that's a good starting point for all of our consoles. The other kind of totally different direction, but once you get a tutorial on, on a basic walkup, okay, you're a guest engineer, um, you gotta, you gotta drive this show with your band or you're being asked to fill in.

Properly schooled. I could probably get anybody a varying skill set up on an Allen and Heath console in about 10 to 15 minutes where I could walk away and they'd be okay. Yeah, very few button presses to get your things done. You know, everything is sort of up top and [00:41:00] available, but. Again, you know, all digital consoles are different.

You have somebody who's schooled and they have a mindset of mixing the last five years on Brand A and they come over here to brand a h Oh my gosh, this is foreign. Hmm. Younger generations don't have a problem the way us old timers did. Interesting. Yeah. It's so very approachable,

Jeff Sandstrom: I would say. Yeah, it is, and I think, I think the way it's laid out, just the general ergonomics are very intuitive.

But then the programmability is another thing. Like you can, you bend the pretzel, you can bend the pretzel in any number of different ways, and really to be able to have fater layouts that are cus totally customizable to your desired workflow is a huge, you know, it's, it's, it's available on most desks, but in terms of the way Alan and Heath does it, it seems to be one of the more.

Kevin Madden: Platforms. And there's al almost an irony in this because, you know, I like to say we're in the fourth [00:42:00] generation of digital consoles. Right? Um, back in 2006 when I was. With a NOVA on. It was a 100% fluid programmable surface. And ILI came out shortly after that and was a 100% fluid controllable surface and everybody hated that.

Mm-hmm. I want a master section. I wanna know where my 12 OGs groups are. My 12 cents or DCA should be here. Everything should be there. And you know, the last generation of seasoned professional sound operators who lived their life on. Absolutely rejected the idea of fluid programmability. Now we're in a era where, you know, the people doing the work, maybe under 33rd, Like, holy cow.

Absolutely. You know, I can put this here, I can have that there. I can swipe this off the desk. No need for this. You know, you can kind of trim and kid up what you want in front of you.

Jeff Sandstrom: Any fader can be anything at any time. And it's just, and now it's like one of

Kevin Madden: the most desirable features. . Yeah. Because you know, people will live on an ano, uh, sorry, uh, neath for a while, and [00:43:00] then they'll go over to another desk and go, what?

I can't do this. What? I can't do that. Why does that have to be there? You know? So, . That is a biggie. Yeah. You can really personalize the machine to yourself, which speaks to a lot of church's needs that are completely unique from one another, depending on the skill of the operator or the complexity and number of

Jeff Sandstrom: inputs and buses.

Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. One of the other things that kind of made my head spin when you were giving me the overall sort of lay of the land is expandability and the whole hub and spoke model of the way the, the way the infrastructure works. So for people who are in a, a scenario, Multiple rooms in their facility and maybe multiple places for IO to live and all that.

Just talk for a few minutes just about, without giving us a whole diagram of Yeah, , here's the example. But you almost have to have a whiteboard . Yeah, exactly. But just, you know, in terms of flexibility and capability cuz it's, it's

Kevin Madden: pretty astounding. Yeah, you're not buying a product that's just a console [00:44:00] with all its stuff where the manufacturer puts it and, and I would arguably say more so than any brand around now, or even in the past, we have the most.

Combinations and ways of deploying smaller boxes or various sized input and output things in different ways than anyone else. Um, you know, you can have, first of all, a, a DLI requires a surface and engine pair and 99% of common sense applications. If I want to have IO boxes scattered all across a facility, I have multiple different transmission.

Formats like 96 or 48 k uh, options. I have the option to get into a Dante world where I can go third party and toss my stuff into a network and then capture at the other end with a Dante version Alan and Heath Box, you know, um, the, the hub and spoken ness can govern [00:45:00] IO points, uh, sitting at 800 by 800 crosspoints Wow.

In, in a DLI in Avanti. 400 and by 400 and in an SQ you could have connected live about 300 by 300 things in various IO sizes. , that's a lot. You need a slide deck or a whiteboard to kind of draw this out. . But you are gonna be doing a training on this, so maybe we'll have some graphics. Maybe we'll get into that.

Yeah. It can be hair brain, crazy. Yeah. How many ways. Toss audio out in

Jeff Sandstrom: different ways and in terms of cards and things that are maybe a third party like Waves or Dante, you have a lot of those options as well. Oh, for sure.

Kevin Madden: Yeah. And our Dante cards are not using, so people. Who are familiar with Dante, may have heard the term, the Brooklyn module or the Brooklyn two.

Um, and we used to use a Brooklyn module on our older cards. It was 64 channel 48 K, um, when we developed the Dante cards. And they come in two flavors, 64 and 128 channel. Depending on [00:46:00] licensing, you know how much you wanna pay. We actually abandoned using. Uh, pre-purchase Brooklyn module from a eight, and we programmed our own F P G A onto a card, which will allow you to have 96 or 48 k saving the channel count.

So, Brooklyn modules, if you want to run it 96 k, you can only get 32 channels. Right. Your channel count gets cut in half. That's right. Yeah. Now, I'm not sure the brand new Brooklyn three, how that works, but manufacturers can buy that and put it into their hardware. We've been making our own Dante cards, um, with our own F PGAs, uh, different than the DLI F P G A, but they do have an F P G A.

Um, Five, six years now. So yeah. That's very cool. And waves and Maddie and

Jeff Sandstrom: dot, dot, dot. Yeah. That's cool. So expandability, you know, inoperability in terms of networking, you know, the, the other thing that I love is no matter the form factor of the desk, [00:47:00] the software is the same. So if you have a small format, you're talking about D Live.

Yeah. Yep. So a, a small format, DLI console. Maybe minimal Faders is the same software as you would find in the highest fader count, flagship, quote unquote console that you might have in your auditor. All the same

Kevin Madden: thing under the hood. Yeah. The little 1500 or c t i, the titanium version of a 12 Fader DLI is becoming very popular.

Um, for smaller, you know, maneuverable bands that need to maybe get on an airplane. The thing is 26 pounds, I mean, you can fly with it. Um, but you can take that show file and walk up. Big S 7,000 with its biggest mix engine, you know, move your fader placement around where you want 'em to, and you're up and running.

I mean, all the same resources under the hood. There are seven surfaces and seven engines and everything is identical in all of them with regards to software and feature set.

Jeff Sandstrom: So if you train a volunteer on one and they need to quote, grow up through the ecosystem, [00:48:00] they're gonna. Operating the same software the whole time.

Kevin Madden: And that's actually true of our, you know, our sister product series too. Even the old ili, if you lived on one for years in a church and they were popular in churches, the way you drive a DLI or an Elans or an SQ is virtually the same now. Internal programming under the hood, it's absolutely, completely different experience, but, you know, pushing buttons and pushing faders, you know, all of our products work the same, which is again, something that's beneficial for, uh, semi knowledgeable operators, particularly in larger, um, church complexes that may have youth rooms with smaller, you know, more affordable desks.

And then the big sanctuary, if you're trained on one, you can hop through. You know, it's, you know, our little three, four, $5,000 products essentially drive the same as our 50, 60, $70,000 stuff. Yeah. You know, and which again is not, I don't think any other brand really offers.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah. And the other thing about your [00:49:00] product line is that the flagship model is still relatively affordable compared to other similar.

Brands f I have to say mid premium is mid premium. That's a good, that's a good way to say it. I mean,

Kevin Madden: we're not looking at $200,000 here, but we could go up against some of those big ticket consoles in a lot of ways. Yeah, and we've, you know, people have opted to go ahead and get a dli, you know, 128 channels, 64 bus dli over the thing that cost a hundred thousand dollars more.

You couldn't push past the financial committee. Maybe they settled for a dli, but it actually ticks 70 to 80% of the boxes that they needed anyway, and they're still getting a great product. Good. And

Jeff Sandstrom: it's a good calculator. That's awesome.

Kevin Madden: Good, good. Computation

Jeff Sandstrom: device, . So anything we missed? Anything we need to talk about that you feel like our audience needs to know?

Kevin Madden: Um, Alan Heath is, uh, in a ren. [00:50:00] As I said earlier, you know the little story about our, our origins. You know, we were a big boy arena touring, best of the best console brand 50 years ago, and the last deli launched, I'm gonna, I think about six, seven years. Seven years ago it was 2015, gosh time's gone. Um, But we are a completely different brand.

If you knew Alan and Heath 10 years ago and you know, didn't care for 'em, or they were not near the top of your list, It would be unfair not to reconsider us today. You know, the workflow is familiar. The guts under the hood are a completely different thing. Our engineering department started out with three people, and now it's about 50, you know, two dozen of which are just coding engineers.

So we are a computer science, a very sophisticated, uh, computer science outfit that. Has a passion for audio. That's awesome. And as do the heads of our company. Yeah. You know, Dr. Rob comes from the business. He is [00:51:00] not an MBA who just got assigned to run the company. He's a lifer with us. In fact, he was a, a way high up engineer with the bbc.

So, you know, from us in the US who were representing the band in sales management and um, product management to all the folks in the UK we're all users or we were. Yeah. Or, or we're at least

Jeff Sandstrom: musicians . So that's great. Well, thank you for sharing the story with us. Thank you for your training with me today, and I'm really looking forward to getting these videos in our subscriber's hands because I know for people who use Alan and Heath products, It's gonna be super helpful.

So thank you guys for your partnership and um, we're just looking forward to what's

Kevin Madden: next. Rock on. Let's keep doing it. Every day is a good day.

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, that's good. Kevin is a super smart guy, and I'm telling you that company is onto something. We have more and more churches who are using their products, whether it's from the SQ series all the way through the biggest DLI systems. You know, it's, it's a great [00:52:00] value. I mean, the more I've messed with it, the more I appreciate, you know, 96 K out of the box.

Um, really good channel processing, really good internal plugins. Um, the, it is a

Jay Desai: great console in that price range.

Jeff Sandstrom: Like, great. Yeah, as he said, the, the timing things between channels in terms of latency and all that. Industry leading. Um, so yeah, for the price point, it's, it's a pretty incredible product. So I'd encourage you to check it out.

Well, as always, Jay, it's been a great pleasure to hang out for a minute. Um, I hope you have a good trip back and I hope, um, are you wearing a Lewis Barbecue hat? Have I am wearing a Lewis Barbecue hat. They brought their second location to green. And it is stunning. You need to come up here and join me for some Louis barbecue in green.

That is a cool looking hat

Jay Desai: cause that's what I'm more

Jeff Sandstrom: interested in. Little corduroy. Yeah, it's, it's pretty [00:53:00] cool. Thank you. Yeah, the bar, the

Jay Desai: barbecue only lasts a few hours, you know, comes in processes and leaves

Jeff Sandstrom: the hats for, yeah. Yeah. Oh, corduroy.

Kevin Madden: Look at Chi and corduroy's in right now. Jeff, I'm, I'm

Jeff Sandstrom: proud of you.

Hey, I may be old, but I'm old .

Jay Desai: That's great. All right. Love you, bro. .

Jeff Sandstrom: All right. We'll see you soon. Have a great week.