Seizing the Opportunity By Becoming A Constant Learner

My first show as a touring engineer, I was thrown into an audience of 15,000+ people; vastly different from the whatever-cap rooms of lower Broadway and other small Nashville venues, churches, and rehearsals I had come up in. I had never touched a DiGiCo outside of the one time at the Clair shop, thanks to some dear friends of mine. I had also never mixed on a large format line array.

Amid the chaos of being in an intimidating environment, I had to choose to lean into the discomfort of these new challenges. It’s daunting, but it may be the only way to effectively achieve success in this career. When the opportunity presents itself, have some grace for yourself and others, but focus on being a constant student. Nothing I mention here is rocket science, and everyone will develop their own variation – mostly this is a reflection on some of the foundations that have helped me feel grounded, stay inspired, and most importantly have fun at the beginning of my career.

The night before that first gigantic show, I stayed up studying console manuals and whatever articles on gear I could find and listened to every single song of the artist I was being hired to mix. I learned the arrangement and intention of the setlist, simultaneously referencing the multitrack I was provided to learn how the band and artist had developed the thrill of the live show. Weekend warrior-style touring allowed me to diligently study board tapes upon returning home and it equally provided time to intently review and research the notes I had gathered from the weekend.

Developing a routine came down to a few key actions. As I mentioned previously, I committed to a physical notebook. For me, every mistake and any thoughts from the day made it onto these pages, as did more technical questions regarding my mix or gear. I was also able to gather information and opinions from peers and the headliner crews, who took the time to share their mixing or system engineering techniques. Tour managers and production managers also encouraged dialogue between myself and members of the crew/band. These conversations all turned into actionable data to later provide an educational framework.

Reading was also an important part of this journey. Before touring, I consumed articles and videos regarding studio and live mixing, and Bob McCarthy’s System Design and Optimization book was visited frequently, as well as various other audio fundamental books and manufacturer’s websites. Today there are so many resources for discovering new technical blogs, videos, and plenty of resources have emerged even in the last two years to support this kind of study. You could probably ask your nearest friendly audio nerd to share their favorite with you.

Today my structure is more detailed and systematic than it initially was on that first show, although much of the routine looks the same. It has been important to take risks and push technical and creative boundaries. I am reiterating classic advice, but I challenged myself by making mistakes and asking questions (yes, even those trivial, “wrong” ones). Reading and writing have been huge for my comprehension, and I’m sure many others can emphasize this.

Being studious in these ways helps me to push my limits. I eventually leaped outside of country music to pursue another genre, for the sake of curiosity and an eagerness to learn. The fun part of our industry is that these shows can always be pushed farther; the creative and technical journey certainly never ends, and what I shared here is a small part of what has helped me achieve everything so far. I encourage you to take a moment to discover what works for you, and enjoy the process as you do!

Live Sound Engineer Sana Romanos

Sana grew up in Lebanon, Beirut, a region that is hostile to women and their advancement, yet Sana prevailed as a native Arab woman, running mixing consoles and leading teams. Something that had never been seen before. Sana says “I come from a third-world country that most people have never heard of unless it made the news for wars and bombings but I am now working for one of the top international companies in our industry. All of this to say – there was a lot of betting against me going into the live sound field, but none of that mattered in the long run- so the lesson to learn: aim, focus, work and you will find a place for yourself in this industry.”Sana currently works as a specialist for Meyer Sound and is a freelance live sound engineer.

Early Life

When did you discover audio as a career path?

My parents took me to my first large-scale concert when I was 15 here in Beirut. I was fascinated that sound can be “spread” into such a big space, beyond just headphones or car radio systems. During that same concert, I saw a person behind a big board full of knobs and thought well this must be a cool job to have! That concert I believe was the trigger of my interest in audio and in a career in this field.

Did music and audio interest you while you were growing up?

I always loved listening to music and had a very varied taste while growing up but I never was able to learn to play any instruments. I was more into the sciences – math and physics. – and I entered this field not from the musician’s side like most but more from the scientific side.

Educational Background

Did you attend a University/College/Trade School?

Yes, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the American University of Beirut (2012) and a Master of Science in Audio Engineering from Université Blaise-Pascal in France (2014)

Career Start

How did you get your start?

I did an internship in the summer of my first year of master’s back home in Beirut in one of the largest rental companies there. I then went back to France finished my masters and then returned home to Beirut to be hired by that same rental company. I worked there for the next 3 years (2014- 2017)

How did your early internships or jobs help build a foundation for where you are now?

That internship led to my first job offer. I consider the 3 years spent at that rental company as the years that really formed and shaped my career. I was doing all sorts of work with them from managing teams to running set-ups and beginning to mix at large-scale events and festivals in the region.

What did you learn interning or on your early gigs?

Speed in troubleshooting and working under pressure. Mainly the internship and then first job exposed me to a variety of sub-fields so that later on I was able to choose and be more selective in the jobs that I wanted to take on as a freelancer.

Did you have a mentor or someone that really helped you?

A few worth mentioning along the way. The owner of the rental company I worked for, Fida Zalloum, was the one who gave me my first shot at mixing and managing projects. Then along the way very few local engineers were helpful except for one, Wissam Jarrah, who I still consider as my mentor and who I go back to for questions and support when needed. Then after I joined Meyer Sound I can honestly say that the entire technical team at Meyer has been beyond supportive and helpful, it has been great being part of this team.

Career Now

What is a typical day like?

I am mostly traveling for my work with Meyer Sound – which I love because not a week is like the other. If I am not on the road then I am working remotely from my apartment in Beirut doing system design, technical support, and education work for the company. I am also still taking on selective projects as a MON or FOH engineer and technical concert/festival management locally.

How do you stay organized and focused?

I am not great at working ahead of time I am more of a work-under-pressure type of person but what helps me stay on time is being organized and sorted in my to-do list and priorities.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

That there is no overwhelming routine. It is always varied- always on the move in different settings especially when traveling and being in different countries, witnessing and working with different cultures and people.

What do you like least?

Sometimes the extensive traveling takes a toll on me physically but I am learning to take breaks when that happens – still a work in progress!

What is your favorite day off activity?

Relaxing, reading books, catching up with my loved ones.

What are your long-term goals?

To keep doing what I love and keep learning and exploring new things in this field,

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

The obvious thing about being a woman in this male-dominated field especially in the Middle-East where I come from.

How have you dealt with them?

I just focused on what I wanted – it was clear to me from the beginning that this is what I wanted to be this is what I wanted to work in – and that is the only thing that at the core mattered as long as I was convicted and motivated all the obstacles were obsolete.

Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Be sure this is what you want because it is not easy – but if it is truly what you want then the difficulties won’t matter in the big picture.

Must have skills?

Emotional intelligence – especially when doing monitors. It is important to know how to read people and how to react and support them in the high-pressure environment that is the stage and performance time.

Thank You R

As almost everyone in this industry knows, and as I have said multiple times, this work is a thankless job. You do ridiculous hours, sometimes no guarantee of pay because companies are trying to take advantage of everything they can including free labour, hardly any time to rest/prep/have personal time, and the list goes on. But occasionally, you get something that makes it worth it. Occasionally you get a reaction from a young audience member and you know that is the moment they fall in love with the arts. Or a chance encounter with someone you have idolised. Or just after a really long strenuous and stressful week, you get the rare occurrence of a thank you.

A recent day while on tour, there was a particularly bad day. It had been a rough few days leading up to this day for various reasons. Mostly admin paperwork and things that were generally out of my control and out of my pay grade. But of course, these things were still factors in making a show happen so as the day approached for the show, and things still weren’t complete, the stress levels rose and a question began to be prevalent on everyone’s mind. Can we even put the show on without this paperwork done? For those who don’t understand why I was stressing about something that was out of my control, it’s simply because I was worried for two main reasons. The first being that the blame would be put on us technicians for the show not being able to be put on (even though the admin paperwork needed was not our responsibility). The second being that at the time it was unclear to me if a show was cancelled whether or not we would still be paid. So, hopefully, this lets you see why I was a bit stressed. Us techies were not the only ones stressed about this either. The performers were dying to know whether they were going to get to perform or not, and if not would it mean we would premiere the show later or would they also not get paid for months of hard work? Obviously, on the day the performance was supposed to be opening, tensions were more than a little high.

We get into the venue and it takes us a while to get the rig working. Once that was finally done, the lighting plan was still not given to us so we had very little information to go off of but we tried to make it work. The paperwork still hasn’t been finished and signed off on. We have less than 8 hours before the curtain goes up by the time we have finished with the lighting. We skip ahead to rehearsals where the performers are practically ignoring us techies and we’re trying not to yell at them to pay attention to where their damn spots are marked. The sound keeps cutting in and out during rehearsals, so we do a hard reset of the system. That seems to fix the problem and we have less than 6 hours before the curtain goes up. After rehearsals, we’re frantically trying to see what anyone can do about the paperwork and the legalities of what might happen if it doesn’t get finished in time. The head honcho finally comes up to the Technical Director, less than 3 hours before the curtain goes up, and he gives us the news that would determine the rest of our weekend, potentially the rest of the tour. The paperwork has just been signed off and given approval. There’s almost a collective breath of relief. Now we just face one other problem… The performers don’t feel ready for the show because they have been practising for other shows for the tour in case the paperwork didn’t pan out. So now we’ve finally been given the green light, with an unprepared cast.

Amazingly, they pull it together and make the show happen anyway. As the saying always says “The show must go on.” It was after the show and once the audience left that one performer, in particular, made a point to come up to the tech booth as we were finishing shutting everything down and prepping for the show the next day. This performer, I’ll call him R, is the senior performer on tour. He’s been with the company for a while and is the one who tries to get the other performers comfortable with us techies. What he said to us that day I will never forget. He said,

“I know today was rough. Rougher than most of us would have liked it to be. I know a lot of the others didn’t notice how stressed you guys were, but I did, and some of the others who have been with us a while noticed as I’m sure you noticed we’ve been stressed too and some of them took it out on you guys which wasn’t cool. So I’m sorry for them. I always wanted to say thank you because you guys did amazing with all that was going on.”

We techies just kind of looked at each other. R was always nice but this was something entirely unexpected. We congratulated him on making the show happen and for a great performance. The relief came over his face as he was clearly happy to hear that the audience couldn’t see the nerves bundling underneath. We as technicians often forget the performers are just as stressed about a show as we are. Just like performers often don’t understand why we’re stressed about a show. It was nearly an industry miracle getting an apology as well as a thank you. So I just wanted to remind everyone that it does happen, even if as rarely as spotting a unicorn.

Similarities Between Different Audio Disciplines Part 2

Part one covered the differences and similarities between dialogue editing and podcast mixing and between sound reinforcement for musical theater and themed entertainment. Here we will be comparing two other surprisingly related audio disciplines: game audio and sound design for themed entertainment.

Collaboration

Every medium benefits from collaboration. Video games and themed entertainment can’t be made without it! Collaboration manifests in many ways throughout the design process, so I’ll focus on communicating with the art and programming departments. Collaboration between those departments with audio designers has quite a few similarities when we compare game audio processes with themed entertainment workflows.
Decisions the art department makes affect the sound design. In game audio, it is very hard to put sound effects to an animation that does not exist yet, or even create ambience and music when you do not know what the world looks like. It is wise for sound designers to check in early in the process. Storyboards and renderings can tell a lot about the world of a game before the game itself is even built. Incomplete or temporary animations are often more than enough to get started on sounds for a character. The sound designer combines these resources with clarifying questions, such as: What is this character wearing? Are the walls in this room wood or stone?, et cetera.
Reaching out to the art department early on informs the sound design for themed entertainment attractions as well. Working off of a script and renderings is a great start, just like with game audio. Set designers for live events will also provide draftings of the scenery, such as ground plans and elevations. This paperwork informs speaker placement, acoustics, backstage tech rooms, and audience pathways. It is wise to have conversations with the art department early on about where you need to put speakers. Directors and set designers will typically want audio equipment to be hidden, and it is the sound designer’s job to make sure that there is a speaker for every special effect and that there are no dead zones. Showing your system to the rest of the team post-installation will not only frustrate other departments but also, your technicians who ran all the cable and hung all the speakers who will have to redo the work. And, you may end up not having the best speaker placement. Communicating from the start will empower you to advocate for the ideal placement of equipment, and ideate with the set designer on ways of hiding equipment.

Then there’s programmers. Programmers implement sound effects and music, integrate all the art and lighting assets and video game programmers also code game mechanics. Establishing an ongoing process ensures that sounds are being played when and where you want them to, and the programming team might even have some cool ideas! In both mediums, the most obvious way to relay necessary information is by keeping an asset list. The asset list should say what the sound is, where and when it plays, how it is triggered, whether it loops, the file name, the file length, the sample rate, the number of channels, and any short creative notes. It is also wise to meet with the programmers early and often, so they can flag any limitations on their end. They are implementing your work, so a positive relationship is a must.
This section talked about collaboration between departments, and these examples are just the most common and the most similar between video games and live attractions. More about programming audio later.

Non-Linear Processes

When I say that the process is non-linear for both disciplines, I do not just mean that the sound design is reiterated until the desired outcome is achieved. Both types of experiences have to be designed based on conditions, not a linear timeline.
In video games, sound (or a change in sound) is triggered such as when the player enters a new room, area, or level; when they encounter/attack/kill an enemy; when the status of their health changes; when a button is pressed; and many more. In themed entertainment, sound is heard or changes when the audience enters a new room, when an actor decides to jump at them (hitting a button to activate a startling sound); when the player interacts with an object in the world; and much more.
Notice how all of these things may occur at a moment in time, but they are triggered by conditions determined by choice and interaction, or by other conditions that have previously been met. Before the product is launched, sound designers need to be able to work on any part of the project at a given time or make adjustments to one part without affecting the rest of the experience. In addition to having a cohesive design in mind, designers in both sectors need to plan their sounds and programming so change can be implemented without a terrible domino effect on other parts of the experience.

Spatialization and Acoustics

In games and themed entertainment, the goal is to immerse the audience in a realistic, three-dimensional space. For this reason, both video games and live experiences involve realistic localization of sound. Google Dictionary defines localization as, “the process of making something local in character or restricting it to a particular place.” Music, user interface sounds, and ambiences are often stereo. However, all other sounds assigned to an object or character, and thus are usually mono. In real life, sound comes from specific sources in a physical space, and games and attractions emulate that through object-based immersive audio. Sound sources are attached to objects in the game engine. Sound designers in themed entertainment use precise speaker placement and acoustics to trick the audience into hearing a sound from a particular source.
Both mediums require knowledge of and a good ear for acoustics. In game audio, sound designers program virtual room acoustics as a part of creating realistic environments. They have to understand how the sound of voices and objects are affected by the room they are in and the distance from the player. Themed entertainment deals with real-life acoustics, which uses the same principles to achieve immersion. Knowing how sound will bounce off of or get absorbed by objects will inform speaker placement, how the audience perceives the sound, and how the sound designer can work with the set designer to hide the speakers.

Both mediums implement audio via specific sound sources and 3D audio environments, and audio designers have to understand acoustics to create realistic immersion.

Audio Implementation for Adaptive Audio

Earlier we talked about condition-based sound design, where sound is triggered when conditions are met. Possible conditions include entering a new room, encountering an enemy, or pressing a button. The actual term for this is “adaptive audio.” Games and attractions may have linear elements, but both use adaptive audio principles. So how do those sounds get from your DAW to the game engine (video games) or sent through speakers (themed entertainment)? There is another step between those, which is implementation.
Games use something called middleware. Sound files are brought into the middleware software where they then get mixed and programmed. Sound designers can even connect to a build of the game and rehearse their mixes. Common middleware programs are Wwise, FMOD, and Unreal Engine’s Blueprints. Some game studios have their own proprietary middleware. Developers will then integrate metadata from the middleware into the game. On a very small team, the sound designer will also program in the game engine. On larger teams, there is a separate technical sound designer role that will handle programming. No matter the team size, game audio designers implement audio via middleware.
Themed entertainment attractions, on the other hand, use something called show control software. Show control software mixes and routes audio signal and patches inputs and outputs (alongside using other DSP). Show control software is also where triggers for all the technical elements of the experience are programmed. Types of triggers can include but are not limited to a “go” button (at the most basic, the spacebar of a computer), a contact closure, OSC commands, or MIDI commands. Sound, lights, automation, and video are all things that are possible to trigger in show control software. Think of it as a combination of an audio middleware and a game engine. Examples of show control software are QLab, QSys, and WinScript. On a very small team, the sound designer will create content as well as programming audio and all the show control for the experience. As teams get larger, there are more roles. Sound content may be a separate role from the programmer, and there may even be a programmer, a sound designer, a mixer, and someone dedicated to installing and troubleshooting IP networks.
Both video games and themed entertainment require some knowledge of audio implementation. Even if the sound designer is focused solely on content, they need to have an idea of how audio gets into the experience so they can communicate effectively with the programmer and build content appropriate for the sound system.

Agility

As mentioned in part one, many audio disciplines have more in common than most audio professionals realize. The past few years have shown us that being agile can sustain us in times of unpredictable circumstances such as labor strikes, economic uncertainty, and pandemics. Opening up our minds to applications of similar skills across mediums can also open up new job possibilities.

Aline Bruijns, M.P.S.E

Aline Bruijns, M.P.S.E, works in Audio Post Production, specializing in sound effects and foley editing, and as a sound designer and re-recording mixer. Aline has been working in audio since 2007 and owns her own company called AudioRally Sounddesign in the Netherlands.