Strategic Briefing From the Standard Operating Procedures Briefing Series — The Bedazzled Gamble: Field Testing Under Pressure

EARTHWORKS AUDIO FIELD OPERATIONS BRIEFING — REDACTED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Strategic Documentation: Real-Time Decision Architecture and Placement Intelligence Under Live Market Conditions

Classification: Internal Strategic Documentation — Released with Proprietary Details Redacted
Series: Standard Operating Procedures — Field Notes from Brand Transformation (2020–2024)
Purpose: Operational intelligence transfer — How decisions were made, relationships activated, and placements executed under real pressure with documented outcomes
Context: These briefings were written in real-time to live teams during active campaigns. They capture the invisible labor, trust infrastructure, and coordination systems that produced measurable market outcomes. What is preserved here is the wiring beneath the surface — the operational principles that made wins inevitable rather than hoped-for.

The Manufacturing Constraint

When you operate under Kennedy bullet scarcity — one or two beta units total, shared across every engineer, every test, every placement opportunity — every decision about where to invest those units becomes existential. You cannot seed widely. You cannot hedge. You get one shot, and if you waste it on the wrong relationship or the wrong timing, the product launch stalls before it begins.

The SR117 vocal microphone was developed to solve a three-layer engineering problem that most manufacturers compromise on: polar pattern consistency across all frequencies, sensitivity dialed to stage-appropriate levels, and sound quality that justifies a price premium over the industry-standard Shure SM58. Getting all three right simultaneously is legitimately difficult. Most live mics sacrifice one to optimize the other two.

The marketing claim was precise: "the control of a dynamic with the power of a condenser." This is not hype. It is a technical statement about rejection, clarity, and feedback resistance under real stage conditions. Condenser mics are more sensitive than dynamics. They pick up more ambient sound. On a live stage with monitors, backline, and crowd noise, that sensitivity becomes a feedback liability unless the polar pattern holds and the gain structure is correct.

The beta process surfaced multiple sensitivity variants. Some testers received hotter versions — more condenser-like in their openness, more prone to bleed and feedback on aggressive stages. The production version would need to behave closer to a dynamic — rejecting what it wasn't pointed at — while retaining the clarity and frequency response that made it worth the upgrade cost.

This briefing documents what happened when the first real seed of the SR117 was invested in a bedazzled microphone with zero brand visibility, handed to a skeptical engineer touring with a major artist, and field-tested for four months without a single public data point to validate the decision.

The Relationship Foundation: Jason Batuyong and Matt Russell

Jason Batuyong is a primary source rainmaker — a documentary collaborator, a trust broker, someone whose introductions carry weight because he only makes them when both sides will benefit. When Jason introduced Mike Dias to Matt Russell, the vouch was the credential. No further validation required.

Matt Russell was the front-of-house engineer for Bebe Rexha before she became Bebe Rexha — before the commercial breakthrough, before the headline tours, when the operation was still being built and the team was still being assembled. The early touchpoint was a drum mic package. Earthworks had no vocal mic to offer at the time. The only play available was to hook engineers with measurement microphones for PA tuning and dB analytics, build credibility with drum mics despite a first-generation kick mic that sounded broken, and earn the right to ask for beta participation when the vocal mic that actually mattered was ready.

The iconic drum overhead shot — the microphones silhouetted against the New York skyline during the NBC 4th of July performance — came from that initial package. Most microphone companies lead with vocals because that is where artist identity lives and brand visibility concentrates. Mike Dias led with drums because drums were all he had. The vocal mic was still in development.

The NAMM Confrontation

Several years after the initial touchpoint, Mike Dias encountered Matt Russell at NAMM while filming the in-ear monitor documentary Can I Get a Little More Me. The SR117 had just been announced. The marketing copy framed it as offering "the control of a dynamic with the power of a condenser."

Matt pushed back. He was skeptical. The claim sounded like every other condenser-on-stage promise that failed under real touring conditions.

Mike's response: "Perfect. You're the skeptic. Take it for a test drive. Push it hard in front of your PAs. Tell me what it does."

Matt explained the constraint. He could not test-drive a microphone mid-tour. Once a show starts, there is no swapping, no fallback, no second chances. And if the microphone was going to appear on Bebe Rexha's stage, it needed to be visually impossible to ignore — crystalized, bedazzled, designed to match the aesthetic of the production.

Mike's counter-offer: "Give me the visual spec and your crystal shop. I'll make the test mic look exactly how it needs to look. If it doesn't work, no harm, no foul. When it does, enjoy every minute of it."

The $1000 Stealth Gamble

The bedazzler quote came back at $1000. The microphone would be fully customized to Matt's visual specifications. It would also have zero Earthworks branding visible. Completely stealth. If Bebe Rexha adopted the mic for the tour, the only return would be the knowledge that the product worked under real conditions and that Matt Russell had been taken care of.

No brand visibility. No public win. No marketing collateral. Just a trust deposit made with no expectation of a measurable return.

At the time, Earthworks manufacturing did not provide real seeding inventory ahead of product launches. Mike Dias had access to one or two beta prototypes — Kennedy bullet scarcity — and those units had to be shared across every engineer, every field test, every validation sequence. This was the first actual seed of the SR117. One microphone. One decision.

The gamble was not the $1000. The gamble was investing the only available unit in a completely invisible placement with a four-month field test and no guarantee that any public-facing outcome would ever materialize.

Best-case scenario: Bebe Rexha uses the mic for the tour. The field test generates real data. Maybe another engineer notices and asks Matt what he is running. Maybe that conversation becomes the next placement.

Worst-case scenario: same outcome, but the relationship with the bedazzler — the customization shop that handles Super Bowl mic aesthetics for top-tier celebrity performances — justifies the spend on its own.

The bedazzled SR117 shipped in January 2023, immediately after the NAMM conversation.

Four Months of Silence

Matt Russell toured with the SR117 from February through June 2023. No updates. No reports. No public mentions. Just field testing under the only conditions that validate a live microphone: real stages, real crowds, real monitor mixes, real feedback potential.

Mike Dias had no knowledge that NBC had booked Bebe Rexha for the 4th of July special. No knowledge that the microphone he had bet his only seeding unit on was about to be broadcast in front of millions of viewers with the Manhattan skyline as the backdrop.

On July 5th, 2023, Matt Russell sent a photo and a YouTube link with two words: "Guess what."

The bedazzled SR117 — crystals visible, Earthworks branding invisible — had been front and center on the NBC 4th of July performance. Launch to national broadcast in under six months. The placement Mike Dias did not engineer, did not pitch, and did not know was happening had just validated the entire product category on one of the largest stages in live broadcast.

The Amplification Protocol

The NBC placement was not the win. The amplification was the win. The briefing to the sales and marketing team was explicit: a placement that is not weaponized is a placement wasted.

Mike Dias did not celebrate. He mobilized.

Private one-on-one emails to every channel partner with the hero image — the drum overhead mic shot silhouetted against the New York skyline — and the full NBC performance YouTube link. Sweetwater executives. B&H executives. Guitar Center buyers. Full Compass leadership. Every reseller who had been waiting for proof that Earthworks could compete at the top tier of live vocal microphones received the proof directly, personally, with context they could deploy immediately in their own sales conversations.

Then the win was looped back to the engineers who had participated in the beta process but had not yet converted.

Brian Pomp — front-of-house engineer for Lil Nas X and Olivia Rodrigo, already a supporter of the Earthworks drum mics — received the NBC footage with a note: this is what the vocal mic does under real touring conditions.

Andy Hernandez — front-of-house engineer for the Jonas Brothers, early beta tester who had received a hotter sensitivity variant of the SR117 that did not yet have all three engineering layers solved — received the NBC footage with a different message. The version Andy tested had been too sensitive for live stage use. The production SR117 solved the three-layer problem: polar pattern consistency across all frequencies, stage-appropriate sensitivity, and sound quality that justified the price premium over an SM58. All three. Simultaneously. Matt Russell had just proved it on a major tour.

Andy Hernandez's response: "I already saw Matt's post."

That response is the proof of concept for the governing principle of this briefing. At the level where everyone knows everyone else, wins travel faster than the organization can amplify them. Andy did not need Mike Dias to tell him the microphone worked. He had already seen the placement. He already knew.

The Governing Operational Rules (As Taught to the Team)

On scarcity: When manufacturing constraints limit seeding capacity to one or two units, every placement decision becomes existential. You cannot hedge. You cannot diversify. You invest the bullet where the relationship is strongest and the field conditions are most punishing. If the product survives that test, it will survive everything else.

On invisibility: The bedazzled microphone had zero Earthworks branding. The placement was completely stealth. This was not a compromise. It was the correct decision. The goal was not brand visibility. The goal was field validation. If the microphone worked under real touring conditions, the engineers would talk. If the engineers talked, the brand would follow.

On amplification: A win that is not weaponized is a win wasted. The NBC placement generated value only because it was immediately converted into channel partner ammunition, beta tester reactivation, and competitive positioning. The organization that sees the win first and moves fastest controls the narrative.

On everyone knows everyone else: Andy Hernandez saw Matt Russell's post before Mike Dias could send him the win. That is not a failure of communication. That is the system working correctly. When the relationships are maintained and the product delivers, the information travels through the network faster than any single node can manage. The role of the organization is not to inform the market. The role of the organization is to amplify what the market is already saying.

On the three-layer problem: The SR117 had to solve polar pattern consistency, sensitivity, and sound quality simultaneously. Most manufacturers compromise on one to optimize the other two. The production version did not compromise. That achievement — getting all three right — is what allowed the microphone to survive four months of major-tour field testing and emerge as a category solution rather than a niche product.

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