Dale West has a passion for the intricacies of live sound. As part of Flag Systems, a regional Southern California sound company, he deftly performs multiple roles ranging from front of house engineer to crew chief to monitor engineer to systems tech for a variety of artists and events.
At the age of 14, Dale began his career at West Works Live, where three generations of the West family provided sound services at fairs, flea markets and car shows, and at concerts featuring his grandmother’s band. A few years later, Dale veered into tour sound, but soon discovered he preferred staying closer to home. He spent a few years freelancing and working as the A1 at a performing arts center before joining Flag Systems on a full-time basis nine years ago.
I recently had the pleasure of talking to Dale about his work, particularly delving into his systems tech process and the steps he takes to set up a venue for the front of house mixer.
[MM] What kinds of events do you typically work on?
[Dale] Flag Systems does shows all over the region, but our mainstay is one-off events for major clients like LiveNation, AEG Live and myriad other independent promoters and concert venues. We do a lot of jazz festivals, rock festivals and radio shows, as well as corporate and private events. With LiveNation, we have residencies at the Hollywood Palladium and The Wiltern Theater. We also did a number of shows at the Greek Theater this year.
[MM] Do you have a preference for which role you take at a show?
[Dale] Personally, I enjoy mixing. But, at the level of shows we usually do, bands bring their own engineers, so I don’t get much of an opportunity to mix.
Instead, I’ve really dived into tuning, designing and the science of systems optimization. At this point, I’ve completed a lot of education and gained the experience to make sure that when I hand over a system to a guest engineer, it’s as linear and coherent as possible.
At Flag, we have an “it takes a village” approach. None of us exclusively work front of house or monitors or anything else. Sometimes you may handle the patch work on the stage, sometimes you’re at front of house, sometimes monitors and sometimes you’re crew chief. Certain people do certain jobs more frequently than others. I often work as crew chief or at front of house—either as mixer, PA systems tech or both.
[MM] You regularly work as both the system designer and systems tech for a show. Can you tell me about your process?
[Dale] It starts ahead of time with a design. A few days before the event, or even a few weeks, depending on the size, I begin working with the JBL Line Array Calculator (LAC) and JBL Performance Manager. When it comes to venues we frequently work at, like the Honda Center in Anaheim and the Forum in Inglewood, we have a database of LAC files I can modify if the system configuration has changed or, if the last time I deployed a system there, it needed improvement. We can all access that database, where we share our LAC files and show notes. Right on our phones, we can take pictures, log whether next time we’ll need to change PA angles or consider a different hang point, things like that, to circumvent certain problems.
Once the design is done, and I feel like I’m set up for success in terms of prep, I’m done with that phase. When we get to the venue, the system is hung, all speakers are in place and verified and Performance Manager is running, I do a series of steps using Rational Acoustic’s Smaart Live, an FFT analyzer that helps to analyze and optimize the system.
The human ear is a very poor tool in terms of determining why something sounds the way it does. Using our ears, we can have an opinion about what we hear, but we’re not able to discern if one source is a few milliseconds sooner than another or detect the phase at a given frequency. Our ears don’t have that kind of granularity in diagnosing problems, so you need an analyzing tool to give you that kind of data. Then I can make decisions, based on the data, to get all of the zones and elements to behave as a cohesive unit with the end goal of making sure every seat sounds as close to the same as possible.
[MM] Can you explain what kind of data you get from Smaart Live and how you use it?
[Dale] The comedic answer is that it just gives you a bunch of squiggly lines. One of its main functions is to take the signal you’re feeding the sound system and compare it with what the microphone hears. The difference is a combination of the room reflections, how the PA is behaving and myriad other things that impact sound once it leaves the console. Smaart Live displays the data in terms of magnitude, time and frequency, and it is extremely useful for getting into the nitty-gritty alignment of multiple sound sources.
[MM] What happens after you make adjustments based on the data?
[Dale] Smaart’s analysis is about objectivity. It’s just science, it’s not about opinions. Once I have the desired response from the PA, I switch to music and a microphone at the front of house position and make subjective decisions based on what I hear. At that point, I treat the system as one cohesive unit and tune the system as a whole.
If I’m tuning for a jazz show, as opposed to a hip-hop show, I’m going to want the system to sound different and I’ll make different decisions. I will make broad tonal choices to make the system lend itself to different music types. As a tech, primarily my job is to make sure every seat gets the same show.
[MM] Is that really possible?
[Dale] No [laughter], not at all, but that’s where the challenge comes in. That’s where the passion for the job and striving for perfection happens. If I can get a spatial average that’s within 3 dB, it’s a very good day. Anything more than 6 dB, and I really start to sweat. Live events present the additional challenge of getting things as close to perfect as possible in a very short time period.
[MM] How much time do you typically have onsite to get the job done?
[Dale] At a large show, once the PA is deployed, operational and verified that it’s all working, I’ll usually have about an hour to use Smaart Live, measure and tune. If it’s a multi-day show, or we have a load-in day, maybe I’ll have three or four hours. I can use as much time as is available to get more and more granular. With only an hour, I’m limited in what decisions I can make and which problems I can go after.
All I can do is take on the biggest issue, and once that has been resolved as well as possible, move to the next. I work down the list until I’m out of time. Sometimes I see or hear a problem that’s only affecting a dozen seats in an arena, and I have to let it go. Unfortunately, there’s rarely enough time to fix a 12-seat problem.
Some issues can’t be fixed electronically. If it’s an acoustics problem on a one-day event, the proper solution is typically out of the question. Nobody is bringing in an acoustic treatment to help with a reflection from a specific wall. Sometimes fixing an acoustic issue due to unforeseen circumstances would entail bringing the PA down and changing the splay angles or aim of the line array. If the crash barricade has already been laid out, I may not be able to land the PA, so that’s not an option.
[MM] An hour sounds like a very short time to configure a large venue.
[Dale] It is. What makes this job particularly fun is that there isn’t a lot of time or options for trying something again. You have to make good decisions the first time around. It’s difficult, but it’s something you learn through experience, how to judge which problems to try and solve and which to live with and hopefully find a solution for next time. There is also the reality that solving one problem often creates a new one. Systems design and optimization is often a game of compromise. Luckily, I can use democracy to help as a tiebreaker—whatever has the greatest impact in the most seats wins.
[MM] Once the front of house engineer shows up and you hand over the system, how does your role change?
[Dale] After introductions and small talk, we’ll have a short conversation regarding what I’ve learned about the venue. It may be something like, “You’re going to experience a 3dB bump in this frequency range because of the back wall, so be sure to step out and listen to get a better feel of what’s going on.”
Generally, I tune the system to a target curve, and then they put their own taste on the PA. If I’ve done my job well, they’ll bring up their tuning music or speak through their microphone, whatever their process is, make a few minor adjustments and then head off to catering until soundcheck. If they feel like something is amiss, we’ll talk about what they’re experiencing and I’ll adjust what I can. After that, it’s kind of in their hands; it’s their artistic world.
I think of it this way; the art portion happens on the stage and in the mixing console. Once the signal leaves the mixing console, it’s no longer art, it’s science. My job is to use science to allow that artistic expression to reach the audience unimpeded.
[MM] Can you describe your role during the show?
[Dale] Throughout the show, I’m making small modifications. If we’re at an outdoor event, temperature and humidity affect the speed of sound and become huge factors in how a system sounds. If I have delays or other distributed fills, I have to modify them during the evening to make sure the system behaves.
In an arena, once the place fills up, it sounds very different, so I still have work to do. I’ve got to make sure everybody’s hearing the same show. The only way I know that’s happening is to walk around, in all seating levels, listen, and make small adjustments to make sure everything is doing what it needs to do and that it sounds the way the artist and engineer intended. If a theater balcony sounds dramatically different than the orchestra level, it’s a systems problem and my job, not the engineer’s, to fix.
[MM] Flag Systems has had a lengthy relationship with HARMAN Professional Solutions, how have we been able to support your work?
[Dale] We’ve always been a JBL and HARMAN house, and through the years, we have developed a great relationship with the people there. We really appreciate HARMAN’s support, and whenever we need something, JBL has been great at making sure things are right.
Flag has been a loyal HARMAN user pretty much from the beginning. Looking back 40 years, when the company was making speaker enclosures, they were primarily all JBL components.
We were the first regional sound company in Southern California to purchase a JBL VerTec Series rig in 2001. We were a power user of VerTec. At one point, our inventory included 72 VT4889s. In 2009, we installed 24 VT4889s in the Hollywood Palladium and, in 2011, we converted all our amplification to Crown I-Tech 12000HDs. Then, when the JBL VTX Series was released, we were the first sound company on the West Coast to own a system. We bought it right away and now we’re up to 56 JBL V25-IIs. We also have a growing inventory of V20s, VTX M22 monitors and VTX S28 subwoofers, as well as a large inventory of other JBL product lines. We know we can count on it to provide great sound for our clients.
Many thanks to Dale for sharing his insights on his concert and event work! Are you a systems tech? Share your tips and tricks for troubleshooting a venue in the comments.
