When Damon Gold explains his wireless sound system, you begin thinking that he would have good reason to be a little uneasy. Lightweight and affordable, Gold’s systems are portable, easy to set up and break down, and capable of putting out sound for the largest of stadium concerts at a fraction of the cost.
Which explains why Gold might have reason to worry — he’s about to put a legion of burly, tattooed rock concert roadies out of work.
With Gold’s AIR Console system, thousands of pounds of ‘snake’ wiring, large mixing consoles, and other heavy-duty equipment is replaced by a sleek and mobile mixing system that performs to the highest live concert standards. No longer do bands have to pay for and wait on a group of muscled stage hands to unroll or even bury thousands of pounds of wiring, and connect hundreds of hard-wired systems. It’s a band’s dream and a roadie’s nightmare.
And Gold, the president of AIR Console and a veteran sound engineer who has toured the globe mixing some of rock ‘n’ roll’s largest acts, is developing the revolutionary system on his quiet 80 acres of forest on Tahoe’s West Shore.
Walking through Gold’s Big Water Studios, he explains AIR Consoles in very visual terms. ‘This replaces about 8,000 pounds of gear you would take on the road,’ he says as he points to a single black, plastic box. Gesturing at another compact piece of sound equipment he adds: ‘This replaces about 12,000 pounds of gear.’
A few minutes later he puts it in more labor-centric, hard-cost terms: ‘Right here,’ he said pointing to a piece of gear, ‘I’ve killed three hours [of set-up] and killed six people off the crew.’
The AIR Consoles have been used by everyone from Dweezil Zappa to Tesla, and now Gold is getting interest from some of the big touring acts like Incubus and Van Halen.
As president of AIR Consoles, Gold integrates all of the software into the hardware of the wireless sound systems. The process requires a mind like Gold’s: a mix of computer scientist, expert sound engineer, and musician.
Gold got his start on the performing side of the microphone. One day, the band he was playing bass for in LA showed up at the record studio before their sound engineer. Gold jumped behind the mixing board and found out he was good at it.
Within a few years he was traveling across Asia and Europe, mixing sound for bands whose tours are commemorated by clumps of stage passes tacked to his studio wall.
‘In a band, a good engineer is like the fifth Beatle,’ said Gold. ‘You convey all of the nuances to the audience.’
By 1986, Gold moved to Tahoe, and was ‘playing gigs all night and skiing all day.’
In 1997, Gold began designing Big Water Studios on his West Shore property. It opened in 1999, and has since seen artists such as Vince Neil and KD Lang come to his property to record.
Gold said the bands used to book Big Water for three months at a time to record albums, but now much of the recording is done elsewhere, and bands come to Big Water for the high-quality finishing touches to an album or to re-record vocals on a live album.
But as Big Water’s business adapts to changes in the recording world, AIR Consoles’ customer base is expected to expand exponentially.
Thunder Valley Casino recently purchased a system, and Gold sees customers from recording studios, record labels, churches, and event production companies.
One of those customers is Crux Events in Truckee. President James ‘Woody’ Woodruff said the system’s versatility, sound quality, and portability impressed him.
‘It lightened our gear load tremendously,’ said Woodruff.
Crux Events no longer has to transport, unload, and block off space for the front-of-house mixing station, since AIR Consoles allows the sound engineer to mix from anywhere on a tablet-sized digital mixing board.
Crux used the system to mix sound for a live concert by Train, and said the quality of the sound was amazing.
‘The guy who is creating it has an incredible ear,’ said Woodruff. ‘It is as good as any board I’ve heard.’
For more information on AIR Consoles and Big Water Studios, visit airconsoles.com or bigwaterstudios.com.
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