How the Business Has Transformed - and Why Analog May Be In Again
JIM FLYNN: The Jim Flynn Rentals philosophy is that to survive in this marketplace, you speak a multitude of languages. I came from a music background, supplying gear to recording studios. But about 15 years ago I decided that if I didn’t start diversifying I would be left in the dust. So I started working on getting into movies, television, theater, and worship technology. But I concentrated a lot on the movie business and, as analog equipment started to disappear, that was a key interest of mine.
The digital transition had the same effect on live sound and concert recording. Putting Pro Tools together with mic pres and a splitter and overlaying for live sound became very prevalent as time went on. People felt they were not obligated to have a truck. We were supplying a lot of ancillary equipment that made stereo broadcasts sound better – for the first time, people were hearing television in stereo! That migrated into 5.1, and the engineers who graduated to the TV side of the market took what they knew and integrated that into their mixing. The result is shows like Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon, Conan, the new Jay Leno, Letterman – all these shows are mixed by people who cut their teeth in recording studios and are now premier television mixers.
Well, the broadcast studios are usually set up with a proper console and proper splits, one going to the production mix for television, and one going to the music mix for mixing the house band or the guest band and integrating back into the production mix. So a lot of that stays the same. We come in when somebody says, “Oh, we have to have the newest JBL 5.1 system.” Or, “We need Genelec 5.1s.” Or, on a rider basis, somebody wants to have their vocals processed through an [Antares Audio Technologies] Auto-Tune. So we’re a giant supplier to shows like the CBS Morning Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Fox & Friends, bringing in rider or specialty equipment that overlays static installations.
On the concert side, we try to be really greedy and take first split from the production. That means we take the main split, go to the mic pres and then to Pro Tools or any source they’re recording to and we record the whole show start to finish. The rest of the show comes from our splitter ‘ they get second and third position for front-of-house and TD [technical director]. We take a majority of the responsibility for making the show a keeper.
Our delivery is usually a FireWire hard drive. That’s the de facto standard. And that’s where our responsibility ends. We verify the drives at the end of the show and, if somebody wants a backup, we’ll run a backup as well. Our failure rate, knock on wood, is relatively minimal.
Flynn poses with Snoop Dogg’s custom mic
But you’re tasked with providing a wide array of mics, for example.
We’re a full-service company. We’ve done [Andrea] Bocelli with 50 Schoeps mics. Along with Pro Media/Ultrasound in California, we are the only companies that have that kind of inventory of Schoeps mics. I used to say that the two things I didn’t want to get into were computers and microphones, and here we are with 15 Pro Tools systems and over 400 mics. We’ll get a phone call. “You know the mic they used ‘ Lou Reed likes that mic. It looks like an egg.” And I’ll go, “Oh, is it the Coles Electroacoustics ribbon mic?” Or I’ll get a call about telegenic microphones. “I need something that would be used on a spaceship.” And we’ll go to Blue Microphones, which are retro, very technical-looking microphones. They were used in Star Trek – in the scene set in the senate chambers, they have Blue Microphones.
You were talking about how much the technology has changed, but at the same time, isn’t it true that the principles of good sound stay constant, even if the technology for recording it has changed?
The principles were very well ingrained in me by watching every aspect of the business, whether I worked at Ampex or for Ham Brosious at Audio Techniques, or for Martin Audio, or watching Jack Weisberg, one of the pioneers of larger concert sound, or Dave Andrews at Andrews Audio, who was the Meyer Sound rep. The disciplines don’t change. The basics of signal flow, of actually getting content on some sort of format, don’t change. The words have changed, but it all refers back to sound, microphone, cable, capture source, playback. It’s the deep-rooted principles that you have to go through.
How much responsibility do you have to keep a broad inventory of more esoteric items?
Oh, I’m the last stop on the chain. If I don’t have it, nobody does. Why have I been doing this so long? Because I’m challenged every day. I get a call. “I’m looking for the Bob Barker mic from The Price is Right.” OK, I know that’s a Superscope. I’m one of those guys who remembers everyone from grammar school and high school, and what they wore on the first day. If you told me, “Look into the Bob Barker mic,” I’d know that’s the Superscope mic. I’m saying to myself, “You don’t want to sound like Rain Man.” But I can say, “Oh yeah, it’s the Superscope mic that telescopes.” And then you say, “OK. Find it.” The Internet has made me smarter. I use Google as my reference library, and I have enough sources – and I’m crafty enough – that I can find things.
Buying things means making a calculation. When we did Enya on Live with Regis and Kelly, they needed 24 DPA 4061 mics for violin. I’m not a stock-market player. I’m a futurist, saying, “What’s my return on investment?” I’d rather take a chance on this than playing black or red at the roulette table. So I made the purchase. It benefits me over and over to be asked the question, take the calculator, and use my vendor sources to buy it. I have relationships where I can go, “OK, I need these for tomorrow.” And it’s all taken care of. [Jon Haber’s] Alto Music up in Middletown [NY] is a tremendous source. He does all the legwork, and the next morning they show up at my door.
I’m rarely stumped. Sometimes I’m surprised. Good Morning America wanted to mic an innertube to get the bass sound for Stomp. We came up with a solution of C-ducers that you’re able to tape onto the innertube to pick up the low frequency. That’s the challenge every day. You get the call that says, “Find me the Bob Barker mic.” And you say, “OK, I’ll call you back in a half an hour.”
But part of what you do, also, is helping set up the room.
We’re not road warriors. But everything gets checked in and put together by me or someone else who knows what I demand. Everything has to have a pop filter. Everything has to have a suspension mount. Everything is a black-on-black cable for television.
In a lot of situations, we’ll overlay. We take a situation, be it a bare room like we did for Jazz at Lincoln Center at the Kennedy Center [in Washington, DC] for the [Obama] inaugural, which was basically a 16×22 empty, and put in everything: the mic-pre route for the remotes, the playback, the 5.1 system, the wiring, and overlaying all the multi-peer cable. We did West Side Story and basically overlaid everything on top at Clinton Studio [in New York]. They were running Pro Tools using the [Neve] 8078 console as a mic-pre and mix position because the console has a jukebox, but we were providing everything that laid on top ‘ a console for cue system, amplifiers, Pro Tools, a C|24 for control of the Pro Tools, mic pres, 70 positions of headphone and 40 positions of cue boxes. We overlay at One Life to Live, which is one of the longest-running soap operas and has musical guests. Last year, Snoop Dogg came in. We did Snoop Dogg, Nelly Furtado, Plain White Ts, Puddle of Mudd. Recently we did Pussycat Dolls. Paul Glass, the musical director [for One Life], calls up and says, “Jim, Monday morning we have the Pussycat Dolls. I need the stuff delivered at 7.” We get there at 7 a.m.. We do an 8:00 load-in, there’s a 10:00 sound check, an 11:30 dress, and a 1:00 shoot for the show.
That’s heavy-duty responsibility. If there’s one kink in our system, it slows down a running, contracted show. And we’re out by 4:00. So we come in for the day, do the overlay, and move out the same day. We don’t have the luxury of a next-day load out. We usually build it in the shop, test it in the shop, and then deliver on site and leave one person there all day to supervise requests. Somebody will say, “You must be scared.” It never enters my mind. It’s what we do.
Talk about some of the film projects you do.
I work with Eliot Goldenthal and Julie Taymor through Teese Gohl, who’s their coordinator. We’ve done every Taymor or Goldenthal movie for the last 12 or 14 years: Titus, Heat, Sphere, Across the Universe – which was a very aggressive project, re-creating the Beatle Sound. The movie business is very flexible, because we’re asked to provide complementary equipment to what people have had in California. We just finished a Mel Gibson movie at Soundtrack Film & Television. We also participated in Mamma Mia! through Sound One. We’re on the radar to do systems for dialogue, editing, ambiance, music mixing – just the tidbits. A lot of these people have their own production equipment. They’ll have nine stations set up, but they may need three more sound editors to come in because of a time crunch or extra needs. We’ll supply those three systems running Pro Tools. We don’t touch anything on the production side – even though we are testing two Final Cut Pro systems to possibly get into that part of the business. You could do dailies, pop them into Final Cut, do some rough mixing and integrate sound on a day-to-day basis.
Can you give me examples of pieces of gear that are becoming real workhorses, or that are used in an unusual way?
They’re used the way they’re supposed to be used. I think any of the 500-series products coming out now, where you can get four different product types within one API 4x frame for the power supply, are going to be heavily used in the future. But any of the equipment here has had to survive the demand versus usage test. It’s like buying stocks or collecting coins – you look for something that has a higher resale value.
Following the digital revolution, are people more likely to buy their own equipment rather than going to a provider like you?
We’ve gone through a couple generations of gear. Some people who were knob-turners way back made their way forward by adapting to digital technology. You don’t have to grab a knob. There have been, probably, two generations of people who have never touched a knob. They’ve never reached back behind them to grab an EQ or a compressor. “Oh, I need to get a compressor, let me go wank on the [Universal Audio Teletronix] LA-2A.” But now we’re back to it being more tactile. We have people who like to turn around and see what the difference is – not on a detented switch, but a feel.
Plug-ins have made everybody an instant expert on a Fairchild because they’re very regulated in their dial-in. They can dial-in the perfect setting. But actually going back to pick the difference between a 1073 or a 1081 Neve module or a LA-2A or [Universal Audio] 1176? Push the buttons. The mysterious Roland Dimension D, if you pushed three buttons and held one down, that was “so-and-so’s trick.” That was the way a lot of different signature sounds were found, using something like a Publison. For the last three generations, if you say “Publison,” they say, “God bless you.” We’ve gone back to having people want to touch knobs. They are not plug-in heavy unless it’s the last resort. So there have been about four different generations of engineers going in four different directions, but I think we’re heading back to knobs. A lot of people are producing product that’s rack-mount driven again, whether it’s the 500 carrier or 19-inch rackmount equipment.
Do you think that gives people more of an investment in their own personal way of working? What’s the appeal?
The price levels of equipment have dropped, because either the technology is not as advanced or the price points have become lower for manufacture. There is a difference between a GML 8200 and a lesser-priced EQ from somebody else. And it’s personal choice. If you’ve always wanted a certain piece of gear, and that makes you happy, you’re going to have it. You’re going to try and get that Pultec [EQ]. That’s the thing you’ll polish every day, and everything is about owning that Pultec. Or a Neumann U47 tube mic. “I must have it.” It’s a personal choice, and it’s an investment as part of your toolkit. A lot of people strive for that. But I can also put anything they want in people’s hands at a reasonable price on a daily or weekly basis – so let’s hear it for the rental business!
For more information: tbs.jimflynnrentals.com
