All things sound, travel and tech

I am an audio engineer, acoustic consultant and educator. I travel by motorcycles and love food.

[rahulsamuel]

Audio-Technica ATH M50 User Review (Anniversary Edition) (Updated)

I got the Audio-Technica ATH-M50s/LE 50th Anniversary Edition about a year ago when it was time retire my old Sennheiser cans which I reviewed here. The Audio-Technica M50’s have been around for a long time and people swear by them. This is a straight cable 50th Anniversary Edition which is in a metallic silver-blue finish instead of the regular black-grey. In all other ways, it is exactly like…

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[rahulsamuel]

How Not To Piss Your Sound Engineer Off

What are the two worst things a band can do to piss off the sound Engineer? 1. Don’t show up for sound check. 2. Show up for the sound check unprepared. A very common mistake bands make is to show up unprepared and make for a messy sound check/ gig. Congrats! You have just won yourself a crappy show! Even the best sound engineer, thrown off their game by petty issues can ruin your show for you.…

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[rahulsamuel]

Webinar: Roskilde Festival This a four part video where we dive into the Audio Systems we deployed at Roskilde Festival.

[rahulsamuel]

Meyer Sound Webinar – Case Study: IntelligentDC A webinar hosted by Meyer Sound where I talk about IntelligentDC as a robust technology for distributed audio system. We pick interesting AV projects installed in the Middle East deploying IntelligentDC in very different applications.

[rahulsamuel]

The Ultimate Live Sound Engineers Kit

The Ultimate Live Sound Engineers Kit

This is a forever changing list. We sound guys are never satisfied with what we have! Now that I have given you the base of this post I am going to list out things that my current gig bag contains. I had a post earlier that included my gig bag, a quick run through will tell you how much it has evolved. Tool Kit (more…)

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[rahulsamuel]

My Everyday Carry got featured! This doesn't happen everyday, so I'm really excited that my EDC pocket dump got featured on a  site that I really look up to.

[rahulsamuel]

Do Smartphones Really Make You Productive?

Do Smartphones Really Make You Productive?

This post is a breakaway from my usual audio-related topics. I have been toying with the idea of taking up one of those challenges where you switch to a dumb-phone for a fixed period, usually a week. Imagine what it would be like to not receive a notification for hours at a stretch! I carry a basic Nokia phone as my backup device buy never used it as my primary phone. So the quest began. Choosing…

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[rahulsamuel]

Make the most of Sound Check for a Chorale or Acapella

Make the most of Sound Check for a Chorale or Acapella

A reader asked me about sound check for a choir and acapella performances after seeing my blog post on sound check for bands. Because sound reinforcement for choral music works very differently, I realized the topic requires a separate blog post. I have worked with numerous gospel choirs and acapella groups and here are my observations on what usually goes wrong. A few pointers before I dive in…

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[rahulsamuel]

Audio Workshop Announcement

Audio workshop in Trivandrum, Kerala, India on the 25th June 2016

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[rahulsamuel]

How to Avoid Feedback

How to Avoid Feedback

Rock guitarists are known to use feedback as an effect but for most of us, it’s almost always considered undesirable. What is feedback? Also known as Audio Feedback, Acoustic Feedback or Larsen Effect. It is a positive feedback loop that exists between audio input and audio output of a PA system. By now, we have all experienced that the easiest way to cause feedback is to point a microphone…

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[rahulsamuel]

Clean Audio Signal for the Best Mixes

Clean Audio Signal for the Best Mixes

I believe in a very simple way of mixing an audio signal – Frequency Isolation. There’s something we tend to forget as a result of all the technology we have at our disposal. Digital consoles give us the flexibility to use equalizers, gates, compressor, filters, and other effects on each channel on the board. Because of this luxury, we tend to drift away from the basics. However, if you want a…

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[rahulsamuel]

How to make the perfect tech rider for your band

How to make the perfect tech rider for your band

Being a live sound engineer has taught me many life lessons; one of those is ‘not having a tech rider is better than a bad tech rider’. If you came looking for this post, I don’t have to tell you what a tech rider is. It’s your band’s technical profile/requirement for the organizers, sound vendor and engineer to be prepared with stuff you need on stage. Do you need one? If you want to put a gig…

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[rahulsamuel]

The Big Banyan Tree. This is just one tiny part of the this massive 400 year old tree near #Bangalore. It is the worlds 4th oldest #banyantree. Was saddened to see names etched all over its ageing roots and trunk. #Heritage #trees #old #hoticulture #travelblogger #motorcycle #RoadTrip

[bellusverus]

[blackrosetheatre]

[social-illness]

U2 at Olympic Studios in London.

[humansofnewyork]

“I’ve been so lucky to have two wonderful men in my life. My first husband died when I was 55. For six months, I did nothing but work, come home, feed the cats, and go to sleep. It got to the point where I realized that I was either going to rejoin the living, or I was going to crawl in a hole and die. I mentioned to a friend that I was about ready to ‘get out there’ again, and she told me about a friend named Ted that she wanted me to meet. He was also a widower. I never thought I’d fall in love again. Certainly not that quickly. But Ted and I got along so well that two months later we were engaged. Ted has never felt threatened by my love for my first husband. On the ten-year anniversary of his death, Ted helped me organize a memorial. And that meant so much to me. But he doesn’t come to Mets’ games with me. He’s a Yankees fan.”