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In this episode of Sound Design Live I talk with principle teacher at Synergetic Audio Concepts and a co-author of Sound System Engineering, Pat Brown. We discuss the motivation of mistakes, finding clients through retail work, investing in high quality tools, practicing at home, and the biggest mistakes in sound system design and optimization.

I ask:

• What was the first record you ever bought with your own money?
• How did you get your first job in audio?
• Looking back on your career so far, what’s one of the best decisions you made to get more of the work that you really love?
• What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making who are new to sound system design?
• If you could wave a magic wand and make it so, what is one concept that you wish all sound system designers understood better?
• Tell us about the biggest or maybe most painful mistake you’ve made on the job and how you recovered.
• What software do you us in your seminars?
• What’s in your work bag?
• What is one book that has been immensely helpful to you?

If the FCC prosecuted sound system designers for poor array design, like you would for a for RF antenna design, they’d be putting us in jail for how we spew energy into rooms.

Pat Brown

Notes

1. All music in this podcast by Nataly.
2. Course 50: How Sound Systems Work
3. Software: GratisVolver, CATT-Acoustic, ReflPhinder, SketchUp, FIR Capture
4. Books: Handbook for Sound Engineers, Sound Systems: Design and Optimization
5. Workbag: impedance meter, polarity tester
6. Quotes
   1. I had just screwed up a system really bad. I wanted to know what I did wrong and was glad to find out I had done everything wrong.
   2. The key is to do it enough times to where you don’t have to think about the steps each time.
   3. Everyone should have to do retail for a while.
   4. The music store makes a great front end for a contracting business.
   5. I get that call all the time: OK Pat, I’m out in the room, I’m got my mic up, I’ve got my USB card hooked up. Now what? And I always say, “Pack it all back up. Go home. Lock yourself in your living room. Get a couple of little sound speakers and learn how to drive the thing.”
   6. If the FCC prosecuted sound system designers for poor array design, like you would for a for RF antenna design, they’d be putting us in jail for how we spew energy into rooms.
   7. You have to minimize the excitation of the room because you are creating your own interference if you are not thinking about that.
   8. I’ve never been impressed by market share. Just because something is the most popular thing out there for doing something; that’s never been a good enough reason for me to use it.
   9. The thing about acoustic modeling programs is that you can be way off. It’s always necessary, if possible, as a sanity check, to compare it to measured data in the room.