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See the full story and some amazing pictures at http://www.rspe.com/kuwait



My first email from Gary Lux today was at 3:37AM after having landed at LAX.
quote:
"Russ,

3:37am.....

Good day, morning, who even knows....I’m home!

I've done many great things in my career Russ and have been extremely blessed to have had these opportunities. Operation MySpace Kuwait has by far and away, on every level, professionally, spiritually, mentally, and patriotically, been the most significant project I've ever had the privilege of being part of."
Gary Lux

Gary, tell us more!

Operation MySpace

Good Day All,

Glad to be back from Kuwait. We left on Wednesday night, March 5, and returned on Tuesday night, March 11. Six days that changed my life.

I fully understand that this forum is designed to discuss all the wonderful and cool equipment we get to use these days, and in every way, my system operated beautifully and held up in very hot and dusty conditions. We were in the desert. In Kuwait! (More to come on the nuts and bolts on how we did things). We basically produced a Hollywood style show, in HD, streaming on the internet. No big deal. Right? But that's not the real story here......

It was a given that we would hit a home run sonically and musically with the gear we brought. That's why we own it. The intangible here and what we didn't know was how we all were about to feel on a patriotic, emotional, spiritual, and American level. I totally get why Bob Hope made these USO trips and he is a god for doing so.

We arrived at Camp Buehring on Friday morning after a 10 hour flight from LAX to London, 7 hour layover, a 7 hour flight from London to Kuwait, and a 70 mile bus ride from Kuwait Int'l Airport. After a briefing session on camp history and purpose, we were assigned rooms at the barracks, handed our keys, and given our sheets and blanket for our bunk beds. Down and dirty with the troops! Off to DFAC2 (dining facility 2).

From the very first eye and verbal contacts we made with the troops, you could feel the genuine appreciation they had for our arrival. They knew that we were coming, why we were there, and very grateful that we were putting on this show. What they didn't know was how really incredible the production value of this show was about to become. More to follow....

GLux

Operation MySpace

(Continued)

12PM Friday, March 7

After getting our first taste of “mess hall” food, and a great name for it I might add, we were all anxious to see the “venue”. It was about a quarter mile from our barracks to the stage and our only means of transportation to and from was walkin’ it. It was hot and dusty but it gave us the opportunity to get some exercise and say hello to as many troops on the way. It’s funny that before we left on this trip, many of the people that I had told that I was going to Kuwait were ignorant about the war status and apprehensive for our safety. Comments had been made like, “aren’t you afraid, will you have to wear a flack jacket, do you think you’ll hear bombings”? Nothing could have been further from the truth. I never felt safer in my life. There were about 12,000 troops stationed at Camp Buehring and each of them carried a gun, some more than one. Nothing was ever going to happen to us except lots of hard work.

I was the first one on the stage. Being the brave music mixer that you would expect, I made the obligatory handclaps and other oral gestures testing the sound. The ceiling of the stage was a “half moon” and the sound bounced around everywhere. I went to center stage and pounded my foot on the floorboards. Dirt and sand came flying up and hit me in the face. Perfect! Looking out from the stage was a big open field with woodchips on the ground. Quite a few fast food establishments, Taco Bell, Subway, Panda Chinese, and a few more surrounded us. From this vantage point I usually scope out where my crowd microphones would be placed. I didn’t have many options, but I was prepared.

GLux

Hi Gary, Chris, Marques, Neil, et al!
Finally posted some of the pictures that you brought back.
Thank you for sharing these images with all of us!
http://www.rspe.com/news/events/client-news%3a-operation-myspace-lands-in-kuwait/


Russ

Operation MySpace

(Continued)


There were two great guys with me on this trip, Chris Haynes and Marques Kemp. Chris “Mr.” Haynes, as he is fondly known, and I have been friends for a very long time. He is a tremendous talent as a musician and engineer and I rely on him heavily in most audio situations. We’ve worked on many great projects together through the years. Marques came to me after working two years as an audio assistant at Margarita Mix, and as a graduate of the Recording Academy in Tempe, AZ. Our team’s greatness is truly the sum of the parts.

Saturday, March 8

8AM call and full steam ahead. We were assigned a 40’ truck for our studio. We’ve been in trucks like this before. It had air conditioning, but was so loud that we could only have it on when we didn’t need to hear anything. Everytime we started it up, I thought there was an earthquake.

Once we had the gear inside the truck, we assembled the control room. Aside from running the crowd mics to the stage racks and the cables from the stage racks to the control room, setting up averages about an hour and a half. Sound and line checks were scheduled to begin at 1PM. We were ready!

GLux

Hello,

Wow, we went to Kuwait for a concert broadcast, and all we brought was a Venue and 2 Pro Tools rigs. Pretty crazy. Lot's of sitting around in the choking dust and heat, and that was before we left LAX. I've got to hand it to Digidesign because the equipment performed as though we had moved it across the street. Actually this system has worked in zero degree weather so I should not be that surprised. From one extreme to the next. In fact the only hand wringing I had involved that damn 2 gig file limit. The show was over 5 hours long, you see, and I hate dropping out of record while someone's singing. It's rude.

The experience begs the question, "If an Avid renders a film in the forest, can the squirrels watch the quicktime?" If they can, how come the audio guy can't capture Sergei Bondarchuk's 8 hour "War and Peace" broadcast un-interupted on cable tv? Don't tell anyone, but computers aren't perfect. On the other hand, the thought of shipping 2 Studers with enough tape for 5 hours of A/B reels at 30ips is truly frightening.

Anyway, upon returning to Los Angeles, I think the system recovered faster than I did. So maybe the Venue can do the show solo next time.


See Ya,

Chris