by Ike Zimbel | Apr 5, 2016 | Road Stories
An instructive tale from a “one-off” live gig many years ago: Don’t sweat the small stuff? Well, I’m just sayin’… In early 1986 I got a call to see if I was available to mix an up-and-coming young band for a gig at the local art college. If it worked...
by Ike Zimbel | Apr 29, 2016 | Road Stories
Not all of the sound? You’re ripping us off! (Another strange but true tale from “back in the day”) In 1980 I was working for a band, doing sound…and lights…and some backline…from front of house. During the 11 months I was with them, the band completed a...
by Ike Zimbel | Oct 7, 2016 | Road Stories
Another audio adventure long ago in the Great White North, this one right in the heart of downtown Toronto on a cold winter night… Much has been made over the years about the difficulty of winter touring in Canada. What with long drives on empty snow- and...
by Ike Zimbel | Jan 12, 2017 | Road Stories
“What do you think I have to do to get him to send me out on the really big shows with the big concert rigs?” In the early 1990s I was serving as a maintenance tech in a large recording studio complex when I got a call from the sound company I’d worked for in the...
by Ike Zimbel | Mar 23, 2017 | Road Stories
We value your feedback. At 6 o’clock one fine Saturday morning in 1994, my bedside phone rang. It was the crew booker for the sound company I was managing at the time. One of our freelancers had spent the night in ER with his girlfriend, who’d been in a car accident....
by Ike Zimbel | Nov 27, 2017 | Road Stories
Tales of mixing for English guitar maestro Robert Fripp, tape-based effects in live shows, and a promoter who just doesn’t get it. In the spring of 1983, while working for a sound and lighting company in Toronto, I got tapped to mix a solo show for English...