Spence-Thomas audio post
Spence-Thomas audio post
NAB Las Vegas 2008 by Laura Davies
Monday, May 5, 2008
Richard and I, along with our colleague Glenn, took a very serious business trip last month. The following are some highlights. Please note that being an audio engineer does not in any way, shape or form, make me a good photographer.
This was my first trip to Las Vegas...it's definitely a sight to see, flying over the city at night with the lights shining bright in the middle of a vast desert. We arrived at our hotel around 11pm on a Sunday night. I knew that LV was a completely ridiculous place, but seriously, a giant fake Eiffel Tower? We didn't pay to go up it. I will reserve that for when I have my dream wedding set at the top of it. It will be much easier to release the doves from such great heights.
I was still quite taken by the sights and sounds...and the fact that "everything's sexier in Paris" (it wasn't). Also, everything was quaintly termed "Le" and "La" in a tres chouette manner...here is Le Reception:
I have to say, we got pretty sweet hotel rooms. The casino (which, surprisingly, you can find in every hotel! Who knew?) was covered by a lovely blue sky and clouds...all the better to suck you in for hours and hours, day and night! According to my brother (who knows everything), Paris doesn't have a very good casino. I guess it depends how you measure such a thing...I thought it did a very efficient job of taking my money.
After a couple of drinks, we headed off to bed, to get ready for the big day, bright and early!
Oh yeah, the reason for our trip...the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Look! Men in suits talking on cellphones!
Richard and I spent the first day doing a quick wander of the entire South and North buildings, just to case the joint and check out anything that really caught our eyes. It was definitely a sight to see...although most of it tended to concentrate on TV/Video/Broadcasting subject matter. This is when I realized that, though it's definitely valuable to be able to view and touch something concrete, and talk to real people (as opposed to a lot of the research on new products that is done online), it's really quite hard to gauge how well something works, audio-wise, when there is so much ambient noise going on around you. I was interested in checking out Noise Isolation Booths, as a lot of our work tends to be recording dialogue for animation. In this type of recording, it would be very valuable to be able to accommodate multiple actors in one room, without the bleed and over-talk that are the common problems in such a scenario. However, standing in these rooms only seemed to highlight the near impossibility of diagnosing the potential effectiveness that could be achieved through these constructs. Similar problem with speakers...we are in the market for some new small monitors for our newest recording/editing room. I asked at the Genelec booth if they had an isolated room where they had speakers set up, but they did not. It kind of made me wonder what the point of them having a booth there at all was, but then, I DID get a free bag out of it.
I called it a day after around 6 hours of wandering, and headed back to lose some more money before going to every Canadian's favorite room...
The Flamingo, one of the oldest hotels (and casinos) on the strip, hosted the Canada Room every night for two hours...a room full of nerds like ourselves, enjoying the free booze until 8pm...when we left and drank MORE booze. No longer free though.
Thanks, Canada!
We headed up the strip and made our way to the Mirage (another hotel with a casino! we were blown away) and had one of the loveliest meals I've ever been a part of. Richard and Glenn ham it up for the camera:
and I get in on the breadstick action:
We had tickets to the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage, so after eating we headed to the theatre. I have to say, I was worried. I had seen Cirque as a kid in Toronto, but all I could think was that it was going to be weird, hyper-flexible mutants in unitards crawling around on a stage to pan flute Beatles music. But then Richard alerted me to the fact that there was something like 6000 speakers in the theatre:
And I was immediately at attention.
Guess what? I freakin LOVED it! The sound was, as hoped, incredible. Sir George Martin's son had some say on the arrangement of songs (real Beatles songs! no pan flutes within earshot) and the tricks were pretty damn cool. Glen had a little bit of a nap, but he looked so peaceful that we didn't want to wake him.
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The next day, after traipsing around the NAB show floor for a little while longer, letting random booths scan our cards in hopes of winning iPods and GPS systems, though all the while knowing that all we were setting ourselves up for was years of spam to come, we took a stroll down the strip. We headed to New York, New York:
Where the boys went to a deli and got some gigantic meat sandwiches. We didn't actually see the roller coaster running, but I'm sure it was fun and ridiculous. I also made them come with me to M&M World! 4 floors of gaudy M&M paraphernalia, and of course, every colour of M&M imaginable. Then we decided that we needed a drink, so we headed to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville! YEEHAW!
Here, we were treated to delicious Margaritas, and the end-of-happy hour signal...a half naked woman who ultimately stripped down to a bikini and dove into a giant margarita jug. But then it got even better! A giant fishhook was lowered from the ceiling, which she grabbed onto and proceeded to spiral down to the floor a la ghetto Cirque du Soleil. Ah, Vegas.
I decided to be a downer and head back to my room for a much needed soak in the jacuzzi in my marble tub:
Showcasing my true amateur jacuzzi status, I poured a lot of bubble bath in that tub. The experience soon turned from relaxing to incredibly stressful, and left me thinking I should just stick to good old showers.
It was a whirlwind trip, but definitely a valuable experience! I think if I'd had any more time to spend there...I would have spent it elsewhere. I still want to ride a mule down the Grand Canyon! But that will have to wait...until I go back to get married by Elvis at the top of the Eiffel Tower, obviously.
Laura.