#193 - Jeremy Bridge from PK Sound talking Motorized Line Arrays

0:00 Thank you for joining me today on geezers of Gear episode. Number 193, today's episode is brought to you by Elation lighting. Elation is simplifying. Ellipsoidal lighting with the all new all-in-one KL profile FC. The KL profile FC, combines everything, a designer needs in one Innovative lighting package eliminating, the need for additional accessories with an integrated manual. Zoom range of Of seven degrees to 50 degrees. The KL profile. FC requires no additional lens tubes. Reducing costs and complexity. It features full spectrum are gbma, color mixing full blackout manual, Framing and ships with a designer Gobo set containing. 10 high, resolution glass gobos shipping. Now the all-in-one KL profile.

0:53 FC may be the most cost-effective ellipsoidal lighting Solution on the market today. Check it out at www.lsnjlawhotline.org calm. And also please take time to visit coffee cult.com that's with Kay's coffee cult.com and search for geezers grind. It's a killer blend. That's not too strong, but we'll definitely get you going in the morning and proceeds from all sales of geezers grind. Blend go to row, be backstage to support people. In our industry with medical and other challenges, Episode 193.

2:01 It is so hello. And thanks again for joining me here today. I appreciate you very much for taking the time to listen. And we've had a great time with all of the recent episodes even the one that we replayed with rain from Limelight. And you know what, I haven't checked to see, which light one, I need to do that, I need to figure out which one won the March Madness of moving lights and I'm wondering if it's the mega Point again, or if it's something else this time so we'll see. Anyways, what did I want to talk about? I wanted to talk about the industry.

2:41 Of course the industry is still wild and crazy. Everyone. I talk to every day, still records, everyone's breaking records, all the sound lighting video manufacturers say they had their biggest year, they're having their biggest months. Everyone kind of agrees that January was slow, but February went back to sort of batshit crazy. Load. So, yeah. I mean, it's exciting. It's an exciting time for our industry that everyone is growing. As much as they are. You know, me, I'm still a bit of a doomsday or thinking that I'm not a doomsday are. I'm actually really really positive about everything but I just am a realist and I see that this can't continue forever. So I keep seeing that there's an incoming and I keep talking about it and people laugh at me for it and say, didn't you say that by now?

3:29 Yeah, I get it the whole day 91 thing as well, right? So, yeah, I mean, I hope it keeps going for a long time. I hope it goes for years, but I do believe that we're going to see a slowing down in our industry. We're going to see. It comes to a point again, where we're sort of 2018-2019 mode where we have kind of enough gear, but people are still looking for a little bit more, or newer, or upgrading or whatever and it gets back to sort of a normal Market, not one that's just Doubling in size all the time. Speaking about doubling, in size. So, I know many of you have heard or Taken part in or have been subject to my own software pains. And so gear source is a tech company. We happen to be in the lighting and sound and video world, but we are a tech company.

4:20 And we did a massive software change last year, where we completely switched our platform over to a new platform. We call it At forming. And yeah, I mean, it was challenging. It's still challenging but last week actually last Wednesday night at 7:00, I'll never forget. We did a massive change and I'll get into the sausage making here a little bit. We switched from our a code base of react.js to something called Next dot JS. And for those of you who are geeky coders, you will say. But next is Act and it is.

5:00 It's just a lot faster. A lot better A lot newer and I will tell you the change has been like somebody turned on a light switch like suddenly we had power that we didn't have before. It really has been a from Darkness to light kind of change and so one of the things that happened when we did our big swap last year or re-platforming last year as we lost all of our traffic, we lost a very large percentage. Of our traffic and last week beginning on Wednesday night at 7:00, we got our traffic back so we're not back to where we were prior to switching platforms, November 9th of last year, but we're getting hell, a close.

5:44 And so, yeah, I'm in a good mood this week because the lights are back on and and it really is a good time for for gear Source right now. So thank you everyone for your patience. Thank you for riding along with us. Thank you for keeping me from jumping off a bridge. And I appreciate all of our users and and I appreciate the fact that gir Source has now been in business, 20 years, and people continue to support us as we grow the business. So thank you. We appreciate you. So today on cases, of gear, I have a very cool guest somebody. I've been trying to get on for a while, not because he has my son's same name. His name is Jeremy but because I think his product is really cool. And so Jeremy bridge is the ER, of a really great company called PK sound, which happens to be based out of my own Hometown Calgary Canada as well.

6:35 And I'm not going to tell you much about him or his company because I'd like him to tell you. So, let's go ahead and bring Jeremy on right now. Jeremy Bridge from PK sound. Jeremy, good morning, morning. How are you? I'm doing, excellent. You are in sunny and warm and beautiful. Calgary Canada. Right. Baby in a month or two. Yeah, but I love the snow. So it's hap. It's great for me. Are you a skier or snowboarder snowboarder? I think it's an age Gap. You're a little bit younger than me. So people, my age typically at least started in skiing and then at some point may be switched over to snowboarding. My son's always tried to talk me into Into trying it. But you know, I've been skiing since I was like eight or nine and I just don't want to fall and get hurt and stuff. Yeah, I hear that out.

7:25 I started skiing and then I started snowboarding because I thought it was cool but I think skiing's like come up a lot in the cool Factor these days. Yeah, the kids are skiing again, you know? Yeah, but they're doing crazy shit on skis. Really, they're not, they're not just pointing them downhill and and turning and stuff. They're doing like snowboard stuff. On skis and they don't use poles, you know which tells you that they're doing some crazy shit, right? So yeah now I you know I'm having a harder time with skiing now because I guess of my age and and my conditioning is good, you know I actually size all the time and stuff, but I just find that skiing is such a different tool kit that you need and you live in Florida. You don't practice those tools here. Right.

8:16 So, you know, I didn't used to have to, like I would just show up in Canada and ski for a few days and I felt just fine. Now, I ski a few runs and my legs feel like they're going to fall off. So the first day is always like that. It's a bummer. It's a bummer getting old. So, you know, I've done a crash course, learning about p.k. sound. I feel like I should know everything about your company because I am from Calgary, but I've been gone 30 years and And your company hasn't been around for. What is it now? Like 2000. What year did you really write? Yeah. Normally we incorporated in 2005 and it was hot for quite some time. And then nine is when we kind of say that we started doing it. Yeah.

9:03 Go job. Let's say, yeah, I want to, I want to go way back before that. So, you know, I read somewhere that you started it, you literally were like kind of a hobbyist making speakers at 14 years old or whatever. Wow, or subwoofer when I was 14 and literally, with, with a skill, saw in my, in my friends, Mom's Kitchen. So did you just not like Long and McQuaid or whatever you didn't want to go by while we couldn't afford it. Yeah, we literally were trying to make a subwoofer box for my buddy's car and he had some of his dad's old speakers from his house and so we're like well we need these don't fit so we just want to make a we want to make a subwoofer box for his trunk and so that's what we had and that's awesome.

9:53 But it together. Yeah that's awesome. And so like from I'm there it actually kind of became a thing and so at what point like, did it go from Hobby to hey, I might actually do a little more with this thing than just making friends subwoofer boxes. It was a long path actually, I moved to Calgary to take engineering. So where were you before that? I was in Red Deer. Well, okay, I lived in central Alberta out near Rocky Mountain House and then out near Statler. And then when I was 22, I would like all good, Alberta kids. I work the rig's for a while. Hmm. And then, when I was 22, I decided to let my mom was right. And she be telling me my whole life that I'm supposed to be an engineer.

10:39 So I was like, okay, Mom. I'm old enough to That you are always right? Yeah and so I moved to Calgary to take engineering but with the full intention to work in oil and gas actually. Yeah. And while I was in university like every kid in University, I like the party. Yeah. And I also like, I also continued to have a passion for building loudspeakers, and so when I was in university to try and make some extra cash, I started a little rental company building my own loudspeakers in our Are actually our basement at that point that point because the garage wasn't big enough. Yeah. And then really, I don't know if I ever made any money, I may be spent more money.

11:24 Yeah, on basically how those are deadly sins but that's usually how it goes. Yeah. And then actually my wife was my roommate actually at that point and she was part of this little Festival in the interior BC and at that point it was maybe. Weird people, but she'd lived there her whole life was called Shambhala music festival and one of the stages needs sound and she knew I had a passion in building speakers and she's like, I'm pretty sure my and she know I was trying to, you know, have a little rental company. She's like, I'm pretty sure my roommate can do it and so that at the end there it went and that was actually the first, like, kind of real Festival. It maybe it was a little bit bigger than 300, but not many not much bigger when was it.

12:13 2001. Okay guys, who somewhere in there? You know what's weird about that story though, because I love the story but it's a very common story when you're talking to companies like turbo sound or like, you know, all of them. Yeah. Aw they all started but it was in the 70s. It wasn't in the early 2000s. It was in the 70s and they built loudspeakers because they had to, you know, that's just how you It, you want to sound company, you got to build your boxes, you know? And you're one of the very few that I've heard, did that in the 2000s, I think the difference was we wanted something different so I had a passion but we wanted something different. It was the beginning of electronic music in North America.

13:03 You know that's where our teeth and we were a bunch of young kids and we wanted something. We wanted a different feeling a different experience than What the current sound providers were providing good. Really. Honestly, at that point it was was significantly. More bass heavy. As what we wanted? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. When your specific to EDM, maybe you're just looking for more bottom end. The other thing too, is these festivals, would start on Friday and then they would never stop until Monday or longer, right? So, you know, pick December fighters of that time would just like you kids are crazy. No way I'm going to take. Nice speakers to the middle of the Bush and have them play at maximum level for, you know, an entire weekend a week.

13:52 Yeah. I mean, that was sort of early days for EDM festivals, you know, what? Even now, even, you know, again, I'm down here in South Florida. So Ultra, you know, talking early 2000's that was, that was early days for Altra and loyalty. No. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ultra was just in Europe but it was pretty small here. Still Yeah, it was well festivals in general. I think we're always bigger in Europe, like, at it was talking to someone God. I'm not going to remember the number. The number is insane. I was talking to someone in the Netherlands, and he was telling me the Number forty thousand keeps popping in my head, but he was telling me, there's like 40,000 different festivals.

14:34 Wow. And Netherlands every year, And I'm like, that's impossible, like, how is that even possible? Netherlands is coming very, very fine. People, we have a good contingent there and that we talk about it and they are the numbers. They were, I don't remember the numbers are telling me but I'm neither was very high like, you're talking. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 40,000 and I know that it sounds like a ridiculous number, but I remember it being that ridiculous and rest of us, they love their festivals. Well, on the other thing is it's not a big hot spot for tours. So, you know, not a lot of Is go through the Netherlands so they end up having festivals instead I guess which is, which is crazy. Yeah, you know, I wasn't familiar with that Shambala festival and I when I was doing some research on your company and on you I went back and looked at that and that it's very cool.

15:25 Like the stage last year. I think you call it the village or something like that. Yeah was. And I have been the curated the stage. It's my hobby now. Really? Honestly it's kind of my artistic. Let I may be. Yeah but we we first we're doing sound for it and then we got asked to actually do the stage directors for it. Yeah. And we doing it for Since 2006 I guess. Yeah, it's not fairly her. She does all the real work now and I just, you know, show up and have fun off. Looks incredible. How big is this Festival Shambala Festival? Well now, it's about 14 thousand attendees. Wow. And it's a one-day thing or a, we do it.

16:05 It's a week, the core days or a week and the attendees are there for, about a week, There's a bit ramp up. And, uh, you know, whether out in the fields, looking for mushrooms, for the first few, You have been at the music part of it. There's a mushroom hunt for three days and then four days of music. Yeah, I've been to some of those fields in in British Columbia and really Columbia 40 years ago but I've been to some of those fields. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty unique. The family still owns the land, the family, still curates, the festival that is awesome corporate sponsorship. So it still has like a very unique kind of like, I don't know and it must Must be profitable because it keeps happening.

16:48 Yeah, yeah, of course. That's right. It's all right. What a great story. Yeah, I'd love that. So, it was before committing to a life of sound. You, you were, you were an oil guy, you talked about that. But so that's an interesting thought to because I looked at your sort of your bio your history on LinkedIn and I saw you worked as an engineer in an oil company, which cannot be a low-paying job. For a couple of years. And so, you know, was it, your wife or your mother that you had to call and say I'm not going to be an engineer in an oil company anymore. I want to go into the Sound business.

17:29 Oh, it was my mother. My wife was like all their I really walk for the ride. She's helped. She's been a founder of. She is a Founder in p.k., that's kind of the beginning, but I do remember the day that I called my mom and told her I was gonna quit my downtown oil and gas drop too. To do PK full time and no one, actually. She was like good for you really not in the conversation to go that way but she was like, you know what, you got your engineering degree. That means that you have the freedom to pursue what you love. And if anything happens you can always go back to it. Do what you love, I have a similar, but way worse, calm conversation with my mom. When I wanted to quit school in tenth grade and go on the road with a rock band, which I ultimately did. And And and she had a similar answer remarkably, you know, the hey schools, not for everybody.

18:22 If you don't want to, if you don't want to be a student. I mean, at the time, I was like full on straight, A grades and stuff. But I was I was a passionate musician. I wanted to go on the road and play music and that's all there was to it. So yeah, moms can be very supportive. Yeah. But you know I'm sure that was a scary thing, you know? Of course it was scary. Yeah. How about of a job like that with nothing but a secure future, you know? at that point, you know, like It was too much to be a PK. Had been growing all along the way, even when I have an oil and gas job, he almost like against my will.

19:05 Yeah. Just because of all these connections that we made and, you know, artists started touring with our sound and so then in 2009 we were like, okay, this is too much to be a hobby. We either just stop doing it or we really give it our all. Yeah, so yeah, we took the plunge and I really cool. You know, I've had a lot of friends. Ask me about that like, you know, should I quit my job to start the company and you did it so right, I mean having a really not only a good job, but an extremely stable job that pays really well and all of that stuff having that stability while you're building a company in the background. Even if you didn't expect for that company to grow bigger or anything like that, you know, it's just it takes so much pressure off and after sure, it also allows you to make the right decisions for the Reasons like you're not just going well but I need the money.

19:57 So I'm going to sell this guy a crappy sound system or whatever, right? Yeah so so yeah PK. So PK started in 2003 but you didn't really make it a full-time thing and you know, you didn't become the CEO of PK until really 2009. Right? Yeah. Yeah, really. So what is PK W PK stand for? Because it's none of your initials. It's none of my initials. It stands for pull or kinetic, of course, which is the It describes controlling sound through motion. Yeah. So you always knew you were going to go that direction. I kind of had it morphed over the years but I always had a thought to that.

20:42 That's kind of where the technology needed to go. I guess you know. Interesting. Yeah. I mean based on the name it feels like you kind of set up the company and got it going and got it to a point of stability, and then dove into the big idea. Yeah, I guess I guess a little bit. Yeah, the idea was always there. It just wasn't going to be executed, wasn't. Holy be holy for Mad. Yeah. For yeah, yeah. So 2009 you dive in head first and then I read that you opened and I think a u.s. office, right? We did in 2011, we opened the u.s. office in San Francisco.

21:26 Don't ask me why I said Francisco. It's probably just because it's the most of the Itís, that we knew were from there. Yeah. And we were touring quite a lot in the US. And we, at that point we were still really primarily rental company. Yeah. Both in Canada, and in the u.s. we are building loudspeakers for ourself people started calling us and being like, hey, we saw your loudspeakers on tour, you know, could be by them. So then that's really how the manufacturing stud started. But, yeah, the San Francisco office was too. Serve the US tours and going and and most of your clientele was EDM. Most, mostly DJ's was all EDM awliya. Yeah, interesting.

22:09 Yeah. And was that more? Because that was where your head was at? Or was that just what your products were best suited to know? I mean it's just for our network is that you really I don't think you really, you know, you always try to build a loudspeaker so that it can serve all genres. But but you grow away your network is and we got started. Electronic music. And that's where, you know, the friends that were sleeping in my bedroom, all of a sudden were big touring artists or selimiye Barracks, but big touring artists, it's just gross like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean that was a good time to because these DJ's a lot of them went from, you know, making you know, a thousand or five thousand a night to making a hundred thousand a night and flying in private jets that is exactly correct.

22:55 Yeah. Yeah. I mean they became Rock stars like very quickly and very quick. I have a friend down here in South Florida, who was one of the people who was responsible for that shift? It's a woman named pam. Pam, DJ do, you know? Pam and oh my God. Yeah. So Pam Kennedy was one of the people and she was working for. I believe she was working with Paul. What's Paul EDM Paul older guy? Old-school, Paul Paul's, there's lots of Falls. I don't remember his last name, British guy anyways, she was working with him. Is it open felt or something?

23:41 I mean, that is the DJ. Paul Oakenfold is a DJ. Yeah, maybe it was him. He was one of the guys that she was working with. I don't know, she had all these famous DJs and and she helped them kind of go from being, you know, beaten-down club DJs to be in pop. Ours, yeah. Which was pretty cool. So you know I want like your story's interesting because I want to get I want to get into a whole bunch of things because I want to get into your people side of things because I love I love how you've assembled your company and how the importance that you place on people. But I also really want to get into the technology and admittedly. I'm not an audio technology guy, I know enough to at least have somewhat of a conversation with you So, I'll try not to be completely stupid with my questions.

24:29 But you know, where did the idea for a motorized array come from? Because I'll tell you in sort of the aftereffect, it kind of seems like a world. Uh, you know, it seems like a very logical thing. Although, if I had a, I had a dollar for every time somebody said that, I had that idea. Like, I mean, it's just, yes, it makes sense, right? And the idea just came from being a young engineer setting up shows. And being like this, this process is mad. Why is this process not been automated? It's like my couch, you know my recliner has a motor in it because for convenience but but really The process just seemed way too manual for me and and ultimately I was like why why is it that every time?

25:21 Every day I go to a different venue which is a different shape and size. Yeah, the loudspeakers that I have to use our fixed right. You know you can generally set them up but in a manual nature to try and cover shapes and I'm like this doesn't make sense. Why can't we have a speaker? I always had the idea. Why can't we have a speaker? It can change like a light, right? You can focus a light. Yeah, you can widen it. Well, we got away from manually, focusing lights. Well, you know, in all my long, long time ago, 30 years ago. So I was like, wow, can we just motorized it? And I'm sure. And I know, lots of people I've had talked to people from Meyer from lots of other companies are, like, I had this idea a long time ago.

26:05 Yeah. But at some point, an idea becomes able to be reality because You know, different Technologies converge. Yeah. The actuators have become a lot more robust and a lot less expensive because of other Industries like Automotive like solar. Yeah. Oh so you get other Industries driving down the cost of these parts. They could become more readily available embedded systems or you know it's they're not like voodoo magic anymore. Right? You know putting together an embedded system is Known technology. So and then computer software, same kind of thing. So, all the tools were there, they just need to be put together and idea to the I hadn't we had. Literally at that point, I was the engineering team at PK myself.

26:54 Yeah which I and I couldn't do all that myself. So I pitched the idea to the National research Council of Canada and they got behind it and then I want to go backwards just a little bit. Yes there's probably people listening to this going. What? The hell, are they talking about? So, what you did basically, and I'm sure you're going to tell me I'm wrong here, but what you did really was, you took a line array system and a liner a, from what my basic understanding a liner. A, there's sort of a mathematical equation as to how a liner a is positioned, how many boxes are in the array and and the direction of those boxes, based on the room that you're putting sound into or the Space that you're putting sound into and so far, is that relatively accurate? It's relatively act, okay?

27:46 Yeah. And so every time you every time that condition changes, you have to, then go unbolt these arrays that are in some sort of a curved array, you have to unbolt them and change the angles of that curve to better suit that space. Yes, accurate so far. And so, what you did, Is you found a way that you can presumably? There's a piece of software involved that reads the room and that says, here's the angles that this thing needs, both vertical and horizontal angles that this thing needs an droop and all of a sudden the system is in those positions and you don't have to deal with all of the time consuming and and heavy work of moving things around on the hardware that you're hanging the system from, right.

28:37 Yeah, I mean you pretty much have it. Yeah, yeah. See, I'm not that stupid. I thought I would never get through that with you. I thought there was no way I was gonna get through that one. Well, the big things too. About the liner a though, when the liner I took over from the old trapezoidal arrays, you know, like the big old wall of sound. Yeah. Like Papa. So it'll erase the whole industry kind of lost sight of the horizontal, the ability to direct or change because liner is pretty much all of them. There's a couple exceptions that are manual. They They have controlled manual in the vertical plane. Yeah. But they're fixed in the horizontal flip. Right. Interesting. So you just have to add more boxes basically to to change.

29:21 Yeah. Boxes beside them or yeah angles between them and trusting. So this is this is something that is positioned. I'm assuming when there's no audience and That's correct. Yeah it's not something that you're going to need to change because the conditions changed or whatever. There's not a mean there's been some use cases that the people have talked about like you know once when a performer goes on on hold on to the thrust to be able feedback is a real problem. Yeah, for thrust, right? Yeah. So the ability to pull the sound field off the thrust that may be small, things like that but generally it's it's a setup and tuning type configuration.

30:03 Yeah. Are there are there? R. So from a hardware standpoint is this system in a sense safer because you're not changing that Hardware. Every time you put it into a new facility or whatever, it's safer. Because when you set it up, you don't have people's fingers with little tiny links in between right arrays, that way, you know, thousands of pounds. So in this setup sense, it is quite a bit safer for the people that are are setting it up.

30:43 Yeah. Yeah. I've been that person with my finger in the wrong know what too many people you know. Yeah. And when you can just fly the system straight and then articulated afterwards, you don't, you don't have that problem anymore. And so what is the process? So everything comes out of the truck, it gets hung and the rig goes up. And then what happens? Well, it's okay. Our process, I guess the software that we use called Dynamics and it's called that because I've been a proponent that the process shouldn't have to necessarily be rigid. The prescribed process is you get the drawing of the venue. You put it into our software, you simulate the venue, and the loudspeakers virtually, then you go to the show, you bring the loudspeakers out of the out of the truck. And you set them up as per plan and then the system flies straight, you connect it to the software, you articulate the or you change the robotics to fit your prediction and then you find tune from there by changing robotics. I mean maybe but the reality of the situation for anybody that's been in production, everyone knows that that never goes production never goes the way you plan. Exactly course.

32:06 Yeah you know there's there's a look at that. Barricade is 10 feet forward or 10 feet back or the do the rigging points. The lighting guys, I'm pointing at you, put the trust line, where the speakers are supposed to go, you know, like there's so many things that happen in the real world. That if you use a conventional system, you have to go back to the planning step replan and then redeploy or rehang. The sound system, what? But with ours, you essentially can once even once the system's been flown, you can adjust to those like, you know, conceptually actually not conceptually as has happened, you know, you don't sell as many tickets as you thought that you were going to. So you're not going to open the 27. Section or something, for example. So, with our system, you simply open the software. You adjust the robotics in the system to have less horizontal coverage in that instance and you go with the show and you have less reflection because of it because us you're not shooting sounded empty seats or something like that. So it's not something where like what I was envisioning was something where there's just microphones placed out in the room and it just automatically like, You know, is sending signals out and getting them back and adjusting itself like fine-tuning itself.

33:30 Not yet, not yet we working on that. Conceptually, I think that we have the building blocks. Yeah, something like that. I have a couple ideas with respect to that. It's always like a. It's a fine line between how much, you know, the technician wants to have control. Yeah. First much you want to give them and you always want to give them the best starting. Point and then let them take their cries. Of course, he an actual all right. Yeah, yeah, that makes so much sense. So the very first time that you hung, this rig, it had to be pretty exciting. Like it, you had to be standing there just going.

34:11 Whoa, as it's moving, you know, as everything's like, going from being hung straight to curving into an array. Yeah, I mean it was a lot of a lot of years, right? It didn't just suddenly happen, I guess it's didn't suddenly suddenly hap. So a lot of years building up to that because we were developing, you know, kind of like being filled in our industry technology. Yeah. So there were lots of bumps and bruises along the way, there was a point where I didn't think it was ever going to happen ever. And yeah, it was a, an amazing feeling when it all came together and it worked but So before you had a motorized array, you had just normal line arrays, right? Yeah, and is it basically the same box like are the components?

35:04 The same and there's just actuators back. And I mean fundamentally the technology of the line arrays is generally the same when we have our own twist that our own flavor, but the reality of the situation is that all of the Manufacturers are you know, Ella Acoustics DNB us. We are all using the same transducers in the same companies so the Box people powered bought our boxes are powered, which makes us a little different more like Meyer. Yeah. But because our platform requires each loudspeaker to be essentially smart to, to a degree. The powered solution is okay. Even before that, I've always thought that a powered speaker makes more sense for a rental company.

35:49 Quickly because as the owner of a rental company, I wanted to be able to send, I wanted to be able to deploy my investment. However, I wanted, if I want to send speakers here or two here or one here or seven here, then that's what I can do. I don't have not. I'm not constrained to my amplifier setups, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to go out and reconfigure, a bunch of Rags or whatever. You use your inventory. How you need? Yeah, well, it just seems to make sense. Ants from a cabling standpoint and stuff to like, it always was something that I thought made a huge amount of sense. When I started seeing companies putting out powered boxes, but I think you just have two sides of that one, right? Like, there's always going to be two sides, you know. That's no different in the lighting business. How you know, one side.

36:38 Always thinks it should be this way. The other side thinks it should be a different way so yeah, I don't know you're ever going to win or lose that argument. So it is it like the the Obvious question. I guess it's got to be wildly more expensive than the competitors that you've mentioned. There's more, there's more technology in the loudspeakers for sure. Yeah. But it's not wildly what more expensive? Yeah, especially recently. So, in the beginning, of course, the first time you take it to kick at the can cost you more, you're developing new technology. Yeah, and Trinity is more expensive.

37:19 Sir. But recently we've actually been able to get it a lot. Like I'm taught a lot lot more competitive. Yeah, we did. We poured a ton. I mean I took there was too kind of Transit Hub during the pandemic. You either sit down and you just hold on and see what happens. And there's the other train where you just pour more into it because it was me to believe that the other side is going to come and I took the latter approach and we We invested a lot in R&D and it was a great time to do that. Yeah. But it allowed us to kind of like re-envision and and taken another pass at the technology right from the ground. Up with everything we had learned over the last 10 years and so we were actually able to reduce the cost by half. Wow.

38:13 In our latest T8 line array. Which will we are building kind of 200. Boxes this year. And then the plan is will actually, you know, go to formal production and marketing. That type of stuff 28. Is that the transducer a dish? Yes. So a smaller line array. We have large format that we have a 10 inch, then we have 8 inch now. Yeah, really cool. And, and it's actually manufactured in Calgary. It's actually manufactured in Calgary. Yep. And Tristan, what's up? We have full assembly. I mean, we Like everyone we have lots of third party contractors. Yeah yeah. I'm just to build you know, cast parts or stuff like that for us rails but the all the wood cabinets are built here right below.

39:02 Me amazing and all the final assembly to you see ya? I mean, it was one of the cooler things I read about your company was that it's manufactured in Calgary, you know, my hometown where I was born and raised. And it's Exciting. You know, I love seeing like calories, not a big Hub of audio technology, let's just say, you know, not the touring Mecca, the world. Now the touring Mecca of the world know which, you know, can complicate things, but it also can, you know, I'm sure the being able to hire people in Calgary is a lot easier than Los Angeles or New York, or a lot of other places that may be more of a touring hotspot or a audio hotspot or whatever you want to call it.

39:51 Even technology people there's pluses and minuses. So, you know, like on specific roles, obviously specific, you know, experience. We have to bring those people here. Yeah. Maybe I'm a base of it, but on the other side of it, you know, the majority of this town is oil and gas. Yeah, and Fuller kind of tired of that industry in anybody who loves music, you know. So, you know, if you end up at PK and you love music, if you're going to stay here for quite a little bit. Yeah, that's what. Yeah. I mean, I want to get into that a little bit too. And, and unless you think we've missed something on the technology side, like so what what is your latest greatest? You talked about the T8.

40:35 He ate would be the latest greatest. I would say. Yeah. For so that's sort of being launched right now. You said you're Building 7 beta so we're putting out with our trusted users Distributors that kind of stuff but we're next because I really like to try to have a product really ready? Yeah. It goes. Okay. So I believe quite at each step may be cutting some of the lighting manufacturers that beta test it inside. Not in the market, how's that? Oh, it's so hard. You know, because there Always Financial pressures. You always want to have your latest greatest box into the market and but but it pays to take time to write. We're also in a techie industry, everybody loves a new thing. You know, they love a new wrinkle. They love a new feature.

41:19 They love a whatever. Oh you've got that. When can I have can I can I put him on a CDC? I got a CDC coming up next month. Can I have him? Can I have them? So the world in general is different you know software can be developed and iterated and release so quickly as Add to a product. Yeah, our world is. It is used to the newest greatest feature right now over and over and over again. Yeah, very difficult to do that when proud with products. Well, I guess what that's getting a lot quicker now, too. Because of all the latest AI stuff. And, you know, we're always talking about that. Like I talked to, I talked to lighting designers all the time, you know, when do you think your console is going to program itself and everyone agrees, it's not very far out. You know, that's coming quick.

42:04 Really latest GPT scores. I was reading GPT for are insane. Unreal unreal I mean I've been writing blog posts with it. I'll dialed and I'm not too proud to admit you know I've been writing all kinds of things with it and just trying things and just going whoa you know, but I mean within the next year, you're going to be able to create your own website in a few minutes. You know, by just saying make me a website that does this and this and this The nurse in this and yeah, boom, there it is. Which is crazy. It's going to be an interesting ride for it is. Do you just to stick with Hardware here for a second? Do you work closely with any of the console manufacturers? Like are there any features from your products that are built into digital consoles or something or it does? No, not yet.

42:59 We part of the platform that we just spent the past number of years through covid. And now Now, developing though is an ABB digital audio capability on the Milan. So all of our new newer products, if there are newer newest, amplifier, platform will be Milan ready. And so that will move us into the cape into the area of kind of like collaboration. I would say with console me. I think it's a pretty cool idea. To have a, you know, be able to especially for like, say a corporate. Yeah. Yeah. Asian we're just going to bring two speakers in your favorite console and then you just want to control those loudspeakers from your console. I think that's a great application. Yeah.

43:42 Yeah, offense. Yeah, so I want to talk about your people concept because you know and again I might be wrong. I read it somewhere that that your employee owned. Yeah, I certainly don't own all the company and Purposefully actually, one of my first jobs, my first job out of engineering school, I work for a company called Spartan Controls and it was when I got the concept, it was my first job professional job and everybody at that company was so invested. And people have been there for 20, 30 years.

44:23 And then I went to work at the next company, and it was a revolving door. And so the difference of the Spartan Controls was that it was employed. Old. And I was like, man, this is such a great concept and I've never wanted to be, I'm not here because I'm trying to make a billion dollars. If I wanted the billion dollars, I will show just staying in oil and gas. I'm here because I want to create something that lasts and that makes him impact on the world. So Financial motivations are secondary for me and that leads to my leadership style and the ownership of the company. And I'm much more interested in having a group of people that have A total vision aligned Vision because we are all owners and you know we all we all get to Let's we all get to share in the reward of building a successful company that changes the world.

45:25 So Since the Inception of the company, it's the whole concept has been to be employing. So you know, and you can tell me at what point I get to be asking, you know, secret things that you don't want to tell me about, but what's that look like like so, you know, you bring in a new engineer and you tell them, okay. By the way, we're employee-owned. Do you just hand him a stock package, right? When he walks in the door, is Invested over a period of time or oh. So when a new employee starts there's a three-year vesting period, okay? They employ you can start to earn and typically it comes through part of our comp.

46:09 Well, I mean, if you step back, I guess, everybody's compensation structure in the entire organization is the same as mine. So we have Milestones that are laid out from today till ten years from now. And every time we hit a milestone We get a raise, we get shares and the whole company does, that's really cool. So I mean, I bought if I'm going to preach alignment, then we really should probably be aligned and I shouldn't be on some magical, fairy compensation structure that my guys In the Woodshop are. Yeah. So when you start at PK, you get presented with a Compensation Plan and you can start to accrue Equity, I guess for contribution towards that plan. And then once you've been here for 3 years, then you've asked, then you become a shareholder.

46:59 And so, Isn't there a challenge to that when someone leaves and goes to work for your competitor and one of these? Your goal is everything. Yeah. There's pluses and minuses. Yeah. We have the option of course in area spp to part ways. Amicably. You know. Yeah. Yeah. No such a cool model. I love it. I mean it's like you're literally kind of putting your money where your mouth is. Sweet. Here's the thing. If I hire Buddy. And I want them to treat the customer or our partner like I would treat them like an owner, then isn't the easiest way in the makes the most sense for them to be an owner to.

47:44 I always use the example of my dad's toolbox. When I was 14, my dad gave me a truck and he, you know, he had a pile of tools and he's like, you can fix his truck up and I borrowed the tools and I lost them all. They were my tools, right? I didn't care. He's you know, he's Battle of them, but the tools but and then I'll as I was older in life. I bought my own tools. Yeah, my toolbox is immaculate. Yeah, I know where every tool is I, if I lose the dyno and it's because they're mine and because I like either an analogy, so doesn't your cap table just look insane know, like, if you go to bring in a new investor or something? Don't they go.

48:25 Whoa, you have like 112 owners. You know what's going on here. That's the way. Yeah, I mean that's part of valor situation there. It's not that complex, and I've actually never had. We done it. We did a series, a Harry's 18. And I would say everybody, I mean, I want people to be to be involved that share my values, right? Yeah. So if that, if that doesn't work, then it's probably not a match business-wise. Yeah, I really love that. That's, that's fantastic. And I'm guessing, you know, you don't really have an attrition problem Like you said revolving door problem? No, I mean we have that's one of the nice benefits to right? And you're an owner, you care about the company won't stick around for a long time.

49:20 Yeah. I know every employee owner knows the cost of new hires or replacing people is extremely high. Yeah. When you get the good people you want to keep them around. Do makes it stronger? Yeah, it makes it you know, right. Of course is there is there like a Voting process or anything. Like when let's say the company wants to go a certain direction, like do you do almost hold a board meeting with all your investors and and say, you know, we want to do this. We want everybody to vote on it, not that you have to. But we have the typical corporate structure where the directors guide, the, you know, the operations of the business throughout the year.

50:03 And then each year, we have an annual general meeting and at that point made Considerations can be brought up or new directors, can be appointed that kind of stuff. So yeah, there's there's your typical voting process like you would have in even maybe in the public company although we're not public and yeah, so I don't want very cool. So now your business has gone beyond EDM and and you're actually touring with with music acts as well. I would assume or live entertainers or however bands vs Edie. Them and any unique or different challenges to that or are you finding it harder to break into that market then EDM? Perhaps I don't know I think it's always harder to break into markets that you don't you didn't build your core in, right?

50:56 Yeah and it's not because of the technology it's because of your network. Yeah. You know network is everything it's who you know and so when you go into another Market you have to build that network from the ground up. Are you have to have a partner that takes you into that Network? So on the technology side honestly? No I don't think there's there's no real challenges. I could say like the nice thing about EDM is it's by far the hardest on a loudspeaker that there is yeah. So when you go to other things it's actually kind of easier on the loudspeaker. Yeah, the technical implementation is, is similar, right? Depending regardless of the genre of music.

51:36 Yeah, it's more. About the crew and write the stuff on stage. You know, obviously a DJ show on stage is completely different than a live act. Yeah. So when did you transition from just building stuff for yourself to actually selling products outside of PK sound? You okay? So on a scale like it was a slow process. Obviously, we started as a rental company that just kind of built loudspeakers for us and then, as I mentioned, people just started calling because the loudspeakers were on tour. There be like, I love this for my club. I'd love this from production company and so we started the girl them in. I think my pretty quickly my vision for the company was manufacturing and Technology, but our core was in Rentals. And so, right up to the pandemic, actually, we had still a rental division, but the pandemic made that choice for us.

52:40 No, we made the choice, but it was we were we were heading that direction. Yeah. I want us to be. We were, that's where we were making our long-term Investments and but, you know, when you got a successful portion of your business, it's hard to just turn it off. It is. Yeah. Yeah, we started to move some of our customers to our loudspeaker customers and then the pandemic head and we lost all the revenue and just like everybody else a week. Yeah, we lick our wounds and complained about it for, you know, a month or two and then, and then I was like, guys, okay, what? No more. Yeah, we are now a global manufacturer period. Only don't all of our rental customers when they come back as a pandemic will, end will go to our customers. That's again another Really Brave decision to make, you know, just like leaving, leaving an oil company to go form a sound company full-time, but I wasn't brave enough to make it until it was removed from me though, that's horse. Yeah, yeah.

53:44 Well, it's hard I mean you know the margins are so much better on doing a show than on selling a box and and so, you know, that money's nice. I'm sure. But at the end of the day, if you To be a serious sound company, sound manufacturing company. I think it's obviously the right decision even though there's some logic to having a sound company on the side where you can test new technology and stuff right on your soul is a nice part of it for sure. Yeah, you know, the beta process kind of happened in house. Mmm. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for doing something one thing really well, right. And that's I mean we grew loudspeaker Revenue four times through the you know 23 years to not do three years of the pandemic.

54:32 Yeah. Because you're hyper focused. Yeah well and let's face it the other companies left a big hole in the market to when they couldn't ship for a year or whatever. You know. Like you know I know somebody who sent four million dollars or whatever to D&B. 18 months ago and I think they just got there. I don't know if it was a.j. rig or what it was, but at the end of 20 22, and there's a lot of stories like that out there and everybody suffered from some supply chain issues. And you probably have some yourselves You by some of the same electronics and same components and stuff. But but yeah, there's there's certainly room, you know, when a couple of companies are that dominant there's there's always room to Go in there. And especially, you know, again you have the added wrinkle that. You've got technology.

55:28 Nobody else has that's patented to right you're protected. There's a yep. Multiple cock. Yep, that's really, really cool. I'm very excited for you. I, you know, a, I think I'm a bit of an idiot for not even knowing you guys existed until I started talking with Andrew a couple months ago, actually, you know what? Gil Gil, Hopkins. Who we both know really well. Sent me an email and said you got to check. These guys out, it's really cool and I was blown away right away. I said, man, I love it. Can you connect me to them? I want to get, I want to get the founder on my podcast and talk to him about the company and it took a couple months to lock you down. You're a busy guy but I'm not, I'll confess. I don't love interviews.

56:13 I'm not the super best of them, but I'm definitely much more at home in the engineering lab. Yeah, why I'm trying to talk to you in calgarian? And, you know, as much as I can. So I appreciate that. Yeah. So, are you a Flames fan? Oh, wow. I'm not a fucking gun. Oh, you're not a hockey fan. Believe a Canadian Canadian find that doesn't love hockey. What the heck is going on? Please tell me it's not baseball. No, actually, just that. I'm not a sports fan. You're snowboarding and mountain biking I played. I was still your typical Canadian kid. I played hockey collect the cards and everything and when I was the first strike, if you remember, yeah, of course. Strike happened.

56:54 I was just like, I don't know, probably maybe 10 or 12 or something like yeah and my dad was a welder. Could barely afford where we lived and I was like what is going on? I idolize these guys and they're on strike. I don't it didn't make sense. I didn't understand the dynamic at that age. Didn't understand the owner player Dynamic that guide you now. Yeah, but it didn't. And so that's just kind of my relationship. Yeah. You got a little bit pissed off and said I'm leaving this top and I went to take your money with you. Yeah. Good for you. Why? I was always a die-hard flame fan and and it's hard to watch what they've done this year. And it's crazy because I'm a I don't know if you know, but the flames and the Florida Panthers made a fairly massive trade before this season and it sort of worked out for the Panthers in that the guy who came here could chuck is like our all-time leading scorer and just had an unbelievable year. But the team went from being the Presidents Trophy winner, which is the top of the entire league to not making the playoffs this year and Calgary who was like second or third best overall. The previous year they lost could shock. And got our top guy which was Hoover do and he's just laid an egg in Calgary and now Calgary looks like they're not going to make the playoffs either, so that the trade went horribly for both teams, it took them both the wrong direction and And so yeah, it's a bummer and they're

58:25 my two teams. So you know, I'm going into the playoffs with no teams. I'm bummed. So I guess I'll just work. Yeah yeah. Well I Jeremy I appreciate very much you taking the time to do this. It's been very enlightening. And you know, who knew I could like an audio guy and appreciate an audio guy, you know, I'm a lighting gospel. We need to get in the fight. Now we didn't get in a fight we didn't I even used the lighting reference. Yeah, you did. You did. Yeah. No. It's all good. No, I appreciate it. And I intend at some point when I'm up in Calgary this year I'm gonna check in with you and see if you've got some time and I'll come buy you lunch or something, and check out your place.

59:10 Yeah. Please, please come. I would love to give you a tour. Like I said, loudspeakers are best enjoyed in person so I don't even need to hear it. I just want to see the thing moved. You know, that for me. Me is just gonna blow me away cuz it's still like I was just talking to somebody about your company this morning and I directed him to your to your website and I went to your home page to grab the link and send it to him. And I watched the little video again and I just get goosebumps every time I see it. Every time I see that array like, you know, taking shape, I just go. Wow, you know, this is just, you know, I love Innovation. And, you know, to me in the audio business, the last Innovation this big was, you know, maybe even as far back as like, digital console Al's, you know, when, when we went from analog to digital consoles, it's huge, its massive. So I'm sure competitors are going good, damn it, you know, do you plan to license the technology? Probably not.

1:00:09 You know, a lot of people have asked me this and I've never had I guess. I've always said no, but maybe that's a mistake. I don't know who know. I love, Bill loudspeakers. I want I want our loudspeakers across the world. Yeah. Yeah. I understand and you have such an advantage right now so it's very cool. Well, thank you my friend, the real conversation. I'm sure it would be. Yeah, yeah. Well Money Talks yeah. But but but it does Come back to passion. And that's why I'm here, right? So of course. Yeah. Well I appreciate you. And I look forward to meeting you in person and and yeah, thanks for doing this Marcela. Really appreciate it. Have a great day.

1:00:50 All right, sir.