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If you would like to volunteer to be a mentor please apply here
When I was 13 or 14, I was reading the liner notes of some CD and saw that one track had been written, recorded, produced, and mixed by one of the band members. At the time I only had a loose grasp of what most of those things meant, but I knew one thing: I wanted to be able to do all of that. Someday I would have a liner note like that all to myself. (Ironically, nine years later I have stayed almost exclusively within live sound.)
A local DIY music venue I knew of offered both audio classes and volunteer opportunities. I quickly convinced a friend to take the first class with me: Live Sound 101, a primer on signal flow, miking techniques, and general day-of-show procedures. Live Sound 102: Mixing for Monitors soon followed. Before long, thanks to the open schedule of a high schooler and parents who would pick me up at midnight, I was volunteering at shows multiple times a week. Within six months I had gotten through all of the classes: Small PA Systems, Mixing for Front of House and Troubleshooting. Once I felt comfortable behind the monitor board I moved up to shadowing the front-of-house engineers.
Like a lot of people, my first gig was unplanned. Around a year and a half, after I first started volunteering, I found myself sitting in rush hour traffic on I-5 with another volunteer friend, worrying about whether we’d make our 5 PM call time. Before leaving my house, we had noticed that there still wasn’t anyone listed as the sound engineer that night, and we spent the drive speculating about who (if anyone) would be there when we showed up. Suddenly my phone rang – the venue was calling me. I picked up, and a voice on the other end told me that they still hadn’t found anyone to come in, but it was okay because I could just run sound, right? The interns were busy, but one could come after doors if we felt like we needed him. Surprised, and feeling nervous, I agreed.
That was that – suddenly, I was the sound engineer, and my friend who was signed up to shadow the sound engineer was now shadowing me. The show itself is a blur, and I don’t remember much, but I know that once I got over the initial anxiousness and we got to work, things went pretty smoothly. It was a hardcore show, and a few of the bands contained audio students I recognized from a local community college. I went in and filled out the hiring paperwork a few days later, and it was official. I had my first job as a sound engineer.
The art of foley is an amazing magic trick that can really bring a production to life. If your project has the budget for custom foley, I would highly recommend taking advantage of skilled professionals to help bring this element of your soundtrack to life. That said, not everyone has the money and access to a professional foley team. Never fear! You can be your own foley team with incredible results. All from the comfort of your home, at little to no cost.
There was a time of course, where everything for a soundtrack was recorded. Nowadays, sound libraries are an amazing tool at our disposal. However vast, libraries can’t necessarily fill the exact needs of every project. Or maybe you find the perfect sound but are only given one or two options to work with. Shameless plug… this is a situation we remedy by including lots of options in our own original sound libraries at boomboxlibrary.com.
Additionally, keep in mind that anything you record is entirely unique to you and your project. That’s great sound design! Of course use libraries for the nuts and bolts of any project, but pick out a few special elements to record on your own, giving yourself a completely original palette to design from.
We are humans, surrounded by junk we have collected. Put it to good use! Look around your home with your sound editor brain and start to think of things in a new way. Get creative. I find that small props (like writing with a pencil, bubble wrap, cardboard handling) are all best served with custom recordings. This allows you to control the performance, tailoring to your exact needs. After all, handling a cloth pass entirely with a library is a tedious task that could be accomplished in a fraction of the time with a live recording.
Of course, don’t limit yourself to props. Remember that small recordings can become BIG builds. With pitching and processing, the right source materials can really let your creative brain fly.
As a jumping off point, here are some great examples of what you can record at home:
– Source vocals for monsters, robots, aliens
– Stressed materials like creaking wood, rubber stretching
– Foliage movement like leaves shaking and brush movement
– Body interactions like head or beard scratching
– Specific toy props
When I worked on a series that needed mutant mushroom movement, I scoured the house for “squeaky” sounding items. Ultimately, I found that if I rubbed together layers of my wetsuit (acquired for surfing… this is Southern California after all), I got this super strange and unique sound! I was able to “perform” the wet suit to produce all kinds of different pitches.
Here’s the thing. You can get amazing recordings these days on a smartphone. Trust me, I’ve already blogged about it. And since writing that post over three years ago (we’ve been at this a while), the tech has only gotten better. But ok, if you really want to go Pro-Am with your home recordings, you can purchase a portable recorder. That’s a tool you’ll not only have for home recording but one you can keep in your day bag to have on hand any time the sound design muse comes calling. A worthy investment.
We could do an entire post on portable recorders (and probably will). For now, however, I polled our team (all very experienced guerrilla recordists) and they suggested the following listed in price from highest to lowest:
You’ve got your phone or your recorder, now it’s time to set up your recording space. Of course, the quieter the better so try and avoid recording near shared walls, doors or windows. To keep your recordings free from room reflections (the sound bouncing off the walls) you want to record in as “dead” a space as possible. In fancy studios, this is achieved with dampening measures; padded walls, high-end sound diffusers and traps. So what space does the average home have that is isolated and pre-treated to be dead sounding? The answer is in your closet. All of the hanging clothes in a typical closet provide tons of free sound absorption, and the doors provide isolation. If your closet doesn’t have a light, or the light is noisy, get yourself a headlamp. Trust me on this, I’ve done it. A lot. And in some very small closets. Realistically all you need room for is yourself (cramped if necessary, as we suffer for our art), your recorder, your props, and if necessary a playback screen. Which brings me to my next point…
If you want to record in sync with picture playback, I’ve got a hack for that as well. Save your video file somewhere you can access it on your phone or tablet; I like google drive. Voila, instant playback device. Mute the sound, and start playing back with ample lead time. Start the recorder and then verbally count down by the second along with the timecode prior to your performance. This will give future you a reference point for syncing up your recordings in Pro Tools later on. A few seconds worth should be enough to lock it in. Before you wrap up, always remember to record a few seconds of room tone so you have it for potential de-noising later on.
Guerrilla home records aren’t perfect, but they can come pretty close. With the ability to custom record as close by as your nearest closet, you have the ability to unleash your creativity at virtually no cost.
WRITTEN BY JEFF SHIFFMAN, CO-OWNER OF BOOM BOX POST
I had started this blog with the intention that small venues would be re-open by this point in the United States. I remember early March, deciding to close our doors, knowing that the city-wide shutdown was imminent. Thinking it would last a month, at most. “Get some needed rest, file for unemployment, we will all get back to it before you know it,” I remember welcoming the little break. Having worked through all of the holidays, and truly needing some R&R. Weeks turned into months, and we approach one year without a definite reopen date. Thanks to the incredibly smart, dedicated work of N.I.V.A (the National Independent Venue Association), and the heart and soul of everyone that works at The Bowery Ballroom, we stand a great chance at coming back from this thing better and brighter. It is my hope that we continue to be a positive experience for all artists, crew, staff and patrons that come through our doors.
I want to take you through a show at our venue step by step, pre-Co-Vid. In hopes that giving you this inside look will help you grow in whatever path you decide to pursue.
We barely debated rescheduling the Sudan Archives performance on March 12th. They were coming to Bowery from a fairly long tour. On our side, we had seen admission steadily and noticeably decline since the beginning of March, but nothing to call a deal-breaker. When asked if they would like to go ahead with the show, there was no question in their mind, this was their New York play, and like so many other bands, they wanted to make it special. Plus there was a videographer from German Public TV looking to document the performance.
As with most advancing, I let the artist take the lead. At our capacity, most artists are traveling with a Tour Manager, or someone fairly experienced in management, and can properly organize their tour, and translate it to the house. This was no exception. The TM/FOH was professional in every sense of the word; nice, extremely easy to work with, talented, and familiar. Our paths had crossed when I was traveling in Atlanta a few years prior.
–Point of contacts and multiple ways to reach them
-Travel vehicle/Parking needs
-Load in needs and Questions
-Proposed Production Schedule/Run of Show (*Though important note, the door/show timings are usually somewhat planned in the booking/contracting/ticketing phase.)
-Plot/Input List
-Hospitality Requests, number of people for dinner (buyouts) and Questions
– Merch info and the request for a house seller
-Settlement info
See the consolidated and annotated version of the tech rider:
This show took all of a few hours, and a follow-up phone call to sort. There would be a Front of House engineer, Monitor engineer, Lighting Designer and myself as Production Manager, and load-in would begin three hours before doors. Then, as can be expected for New York, the special requests come trickling in.
About a week before the show, I was given word of this German film crew looking to document the night. Typically this is one that the House Manager and I tackle together. Our venue is one of many that charges an origination fee to film the façade, or inside of our space. We also require prior written approval from our promoter, as well as the artist, to ensure everyone is on the same page with permissions.
*Learning moment for any new TM’s out there, always get any photo/video information to the venue as soon as possible, and make the artist/film crew aware that there could be fees associated before they lock anything in. Smart artists/crew work with the film team to make sure they handle all necessary fees. Others are often surprised and disappointed by the price sticker at the end and wish they could have invested that money differently.
In this same vein, the artist management put in a request about three days before the show for a barricaded photo pit. At our venue, in particular, we do not own a barricade, nor do we usually barricade the front of the stage. To me as a concertgoer at the venue, it is part of what made seeing my favorite artists so special. To others, it could prove a headache. I had to decline this request and offer substitutions of balcony space for the photographers. To bring in a barricade (this point at Artist Cost) would be over $1,000, and cut sellable capacity significantly for the venue. The second point was the real deal-breaker. This was a sold-out show, and we simply did not have space. Even with attendance dwindling because of coronavirus, it is our responsibility to assume that all will come, and have a safe space to stand.
The final string to tie up was with support. About a week before the show they provided their stage plot/input list, and tax form for settlement.
Simple, and undeniably clear. Pro tip: Always make sure your stage plot has your band name and contact information listed on the document, and that the file is labeled accordingly. PDFs are everyone’s friend. They had asked about visuals for the performance, which is fairly easy to get sorted here. 6,000-lumen projector exists as part of house equipment for artists use. We do advance that the artist provides the media server, which is typically a laptop or some sort of computer, with the content, and that it is able to connect via a VGA cable (which the house provides). The support artist was on tour with Sudan Archives, and it all made for a very seamless and transparent advance.
There was one final check-in the day before the show, to make sure no other higher powers had canceled. I told the T.M. we were trucking along with business as usual, and looking forward to it.
The crew always gets the abridged version over a calendar invite looking something like the following:
When hearing of the addition of the film crew, as well as the imminent shutdown, I had hired a lighting designer more comfortable with film and focused my attention on advancing this shut down information with the remainder of our March shows.
I arrived sometime between eleven and noon to start my day at the club. Checking everything over, answering emails, ordering the hospitality, and sorting any last-minute needs for the event. Once load-in begins, I shift my responsibilities to whatever tech role is needed for the day. Though it can be demanding, being able to regularly mix for a venue where I manage, is incredibly rewarding, and often makes all of the mundane computer work worth it. I am sure many other TM/FOH engineers can agree.
The green room was set up by 3:00 pm, and the house crew started to arrive at 4:00 pm. PA, consoles, Monitors, and lights are all tested before the artist arrives. If the stage was not cleared of decking from the night before, now would be the time to clear it. I shared any last-minute notes I received from the show, made sure the crew had printouts of the riders and stage plots and I’m sure casually, and ignorantly joked about the coronavirus.
Load-in was very smooth and as expected. Merchandise took up the majority of the space in the van, followed by wardrobe, then production. Lewis quickly tackled the artists’ key needs of the day within the first hour and was getting soundcheck underway as scheduled. There was a last-minute addition of the use of atmospherics, to add to the light show. I secured the permits, notified the LD, and as is standard for us, our LD has a conversation with the artist representation about the look of the show, and how to execute something effective.
Support was on stage to soundcheck by 7:15, just after our Merch Seller arrived, and we were ready to open doors at our scheduled 8:00 pm. Typically if a house seller is requested to sell the artists’ merchandise, a flat fee is paid to the seller and must be approved by the artist as well as the house.
About half of the patrons who purchased tickets actually attended the show. It made the worry of the photo pit seem trivial, but it also made us very uneasy about the state of music, and live events. Especially with someone as talented as Sudan Archives, a show we all enjoyed, more so knowing it would be the last for a little while. Loadout was as smooth as when the show came in, but a little more somber, as we all worried about getting home on various forms of mass transit, late at night.
The artist and crew were staying local, only having a short ride to Philly the next day. Unsure if anything ever came from the taping of the performance, but like so many who were on the road during this time, they packed up and headed home shortly after this night.
Still having some tech work planned at the venue, I did not advise the crew on any special shut down procedure, and it was about a month before I could get back in to do any real work.
Over these next few months, I plan to talk you through not only what it takes to build a great venue production advance, and what you should be looking for, and what types of events we will see as we transition back into a new normal. This includes: what added responsibilities a Production Manager has to take on, what new safety concerns security and porters must deal with, and how we can build a stronger community for everyone when we re-emerge.
Learn more about tour managing and advancing shows in our 3-Part Series on Tour Managing on our YouTube Channel
When Charles Bradley’s final album, Changes, was released in April of 2016, I had it on repeat for months and months. It felt prophetic. As the political and social landscape became increasingly turbulent, the album provided me with some sort of a grounding force. If we think of the months leading up to the 2016 election as the beginning of the current moment, then now we are at the next inflection point, and over the past few violent and difficult months, I have been returning to Bradley’s Changes. It is just as relevant and necessary as ever.
Immediately remarkable about the album is its footing as pure, unadulterated soul. Not neo-soul, not retro-soul, but capital S Soul. Changes didn’t merely draw upon the ‘60s sound, it seamlessly brought the genre – and all of the traditions that go along with it – into 2016. Daptone’s Thomas Brenneck produced the album in a minimalist fashion, with very few special effects, but he spared nothing when it came to backing musicians. Most of the songs feature musicians from The Menahan Street Band, a few are backed by the Budos Band, and The Gospel Queens are featured on two songs. Changes is laced with organ trills, horn jabs, an almost psychedelic bass, and on several tracks, you can hear people partying along with Bradley in the background. Each track pays homage to ‘60s soul in its instrumentation without simply recreating the ‘60s Stax/Atlantic sound or relying on nostalgia. The album is Soul at its core, but the sound is distinctly Bradley.
Central to every song is Bradley’s voice. When he starts to get going, it’s like sitting in a motorboat while someone revs the engine, rough and hearty, and then gliding away on the water. His voice is what earned him the nickname “The Screaming Eagle of Soul.” This was his third record with Daptone, and while his characteristically roaring voice has always held fast, Changes stands apart. By far his most cohesive album, this one is personal to Bradley. At 67, the former James Brown impersonator, known for his high energy performances and astounding vocals, solidified his individual voice and sang from a profoundly personal perspective. In doing so, he deviated from a sound sternly reverent to the ‘60s soul aesthetic. Between Bradley’s voice and his emotionally provocative lyrics, he reignites a genre exactly when we need it most.
Charles Bradley sings right to the soul: the soul of the listener and the soul of the country. Soul grew in tandem with the Civil Rights Movement and the two are closely entwined. Bradley continues this legacy, beginning the album with a rendition of “God Bless America,” which he sings as a love song, directly addressing America, the country that’s caused him much pain and grief. He opens the track by introducing himself:
“Hello, this is Charles Bradley
A brother that came from the hard licks of life
That knows that America is my home
America, you’ve been real, honest, hard, and sweet to me
But I wouldn’t change it for the world
Just know that all the pains that I’ve been through,
It made me strong,
To stand strong, that know
America represents love for all humanity and the world
I say from my heart
God Bless America
My home sweet home”
In the heat of police violence, Black Lives Matter, and an ever-deepening racial divide in 2016, Bradley tackles what it means to be a Black person in the United States head-on as “God Bless America” rolls right into “Good to be Back at Home.” He sings about America in the same terms as he has sung about tumultuous romantic relationships.
In “Change for the World,” Bradley invokes a rallying call to action. “Hate is poison in the blood/ Heaven is cryin’, the world is shakin’/ God is unhappy, the moon is breakin’/ Blood is spillin’, God is comin’.” He urges listeners to “Put away the guns and take this love.” With the reverb and delay on his voice in this track, it sounds like Bradley is imploring us to change from on high. His tone is powerful yet optimistic and carries through the whole album.
The title song, “Changes” is, as you may have guessed, a cover of the Black Sabbath song. This surprising rendition of the Ozzy Ozbourne classic is nothing but awe-inspiring. Kevin Young in The Gray Album notes the long-standing tradition of Black soul artists covering white popular music, like Isaac Hayes’ cover of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk on By” or Curtis Mayfield’s cover of The Carpenter’s “We’ve Only Just Begun. Young writes that soul is “a black means of transforming material, … to return to the blues tone of the music.” Bradley does just this as he reimagines the song which was originally about an ex-lover to be about his late mother, to whom the album is dedicated. It is her memory and wisdom that he seeks to imbue throughout this album. With or without that knowledge, his rough voice on this track can summon tears.
After Changes was released in 2016, the radical optimism that saturates the album felt necessary to get by and to summon the energy needed to take action. In the current moment, optimism feels inappropriate, insensitive, and nearly impossible. Bradley’s optimism, however, is not one rooted in ignorance (willful or otherwise), but rather in an acute understanding of the issues facing this country that need to be confronted. The album creates the space to acknowledge silver linings and small victories while still bearing witness to violence and cruelty. Listening and re-listening to Bradley’s 2016 brand of radical optimism in Changes can help in regaining energy, envisioning and working towards the just future that Bradley summons in the album. Bradley died in 2017, leaving Changes as his greatest legacy which, I believe, will serve us well into the future as it’s served us these past four years. As one of the most fraught years in recent memory turns into another and with so much uncertainty about what lies ahead, it is worth re-listening and considering Bradley’s voice and vision as a means of solace, rest, and reinvigoration. Works Consulted
Charles Bradley. Changes. Daptone Records, 2016, CD.
“Charles Bradley.” Daptone Records. 2013. Accessed October 02, 2016. https://daptonerecords.com/charles-bradley/.
Young, Kevin. “Chorus Four: Moanin’: Soul Music and the Power of Pleasure.” Essay. In The Grey Album: on the Blackness of Blackness, 249–73. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2012.
Abigail Nover is a sound designer and composer based out of Miami, Florida. She works as a freelance designer for theatrical productions in English and Spanish throughout the country. She holds a BFA in Sound Design from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work is often rooted in cultural memory and immersion. In addition to theatrical work, Abigail conducts oral histories and writes about cultural and sound studies. She is a member of the OISTAT Sound Design Group.
Audio Programmers are skilled coders specialized in implementing audio and music into video game engines, creating plugins, and software development. Programmers, IT, and other technology industry jobs are at an all-time high. Between 2020 through 2029 Computer and Information Technology jobs expect to see a much faster than average growth of 22%. The median salary of an audio programmer is $87,000. Top earners make $103,000 per year in the United States.
While our industry continues to be at a standstill, thinking about career path changes or continuing education is essential. We are SoundGirls, and SoundGirls MUST learn how to adapt to changes, by any means necessary. If you’ve been thinking about learning a new skill while staying in your industry, here are steps I am currently taking as well to become an Audio Programmer.
With any programming job, one must know how to code. There are many different programming languages. Audio Programmers are mostly skilled in C/C+, Java, and MAX/MSP. Audio Programmers are also proficient in APIs like Miles, FMOD, and Wwise. There are many Coding Bootcamps online or locally near you. FREE coding courses are Code Academy, Khan Academy, and Up Skill just to name a few. There are many self-taught programmers but formal education is favored for high-paid salary positions. Having an undergrad in recording arts/audio production with a graduate degree in Computer Science (CS) is common. Also, online coding boot camps offer a certification of completion for a fraction of the cost of a Bachelors or Masters degree.
Building your portfolio is essential for any career path. Create work that demonstrates your technical knowledge of the principles of sound and audio manipulation, and as well as your skills as a programmer. Audio programmers are a piece of a larger puzzle, dive into other technology/coding skills to show your strengths.
Just like the entertainment industry and many other professional industries, networking is very important. Social media has greatly improved how we network daily. Find forums, Facebook groups, and other websites where you can meet like-minded peers and hopefully a mentor.
Audio Programming is one of the infinite technology jobs that are out there. With our current skill set as well as continuing education, an audio programmer can transition into Front End Developer, Technical Writer, Software Developer, QA Analyst, and Database Administrator. Here are a few more resources to check out.
We start 2021 with most crew wondering if they remember how to do their jobs. Isn’t that crazy!? I didn’t work a single show during 2020. I was coming off a Christmas break, as is usual in our industry when COVID hit. And because I live in the USA on a visa, I couldn’t pick up any other job. This meant that if I wanted to keep my life as I know it, I have to buckle up and dip into those savings. There have been sacrifices and most definitely a dwindling of my financial safety net. However, I have made sure over the years to be financially savvy so that if I was ever faced with a situation like this (or simply breaking a wrist and not being able to do my job), that I would be able to survive and not have to completely pivot out of my career and potentially risk everything I’ve worked to get to where I am.
I guess the point of this post is that we never know what is coming ahead so we need to make sure we set ourselves up for success. We are a culture that wants everything now. We find it hard to see the bigger picture. We lack patience. These all apply to trying to break into the industry as well. It can be a long, hard road but with patience, you will get there, whatever “there” is for you personally.
There is light at the end of the tunnel and I am grateful that I am in a position to be able to step back on tour when the machine starts back up again. Remember your greatest tool to being successful is the ability to say yes to an opportunity when it arises. Make sure you position yourself to be able to do that and now is the best time to get set up for that!
Do you have a mentor?
Finding a mentor is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself. And you know what else? It’s free! There are plenty of people who would be happy to mentor you. Find someone doing what you want to do and reach out to them with a polite email or DM asking if they would mind answering some questions or having a chat over zoom.
Do you have a job?
Whilst it may not be necessary or possible for you personally to take a job right now, if you are able and willing, this is a great time to save up money so you can be ready to jump on any opportunity that arises when touring starts again.
Skills
Are you using this time to brush up on your skills and knowledge? There are tons of free resources online to learn the basics of almost anything!
If this starts to feel overwhelming, refer back to the first action point; find a mentor. They will be able to steer you in the right direction when it comes to all aspects of getting on tour or getting a job in the industry. This is especially crucial post-COVID. There is no better time than now to find a mentor as people have a lot of time on their hands!
Whilst 2020 was a bit of a blowout, hopefully, you can turn it to your advantage. Here’s to the roaring 20’s!
Over the coming months, I will touch on a topic I have gone into more detail on in my handbook “Girl On The Road: How to Break into Touring From a Female Perspective”.
As always, anyone can reach out to me to chat about their journey into touring or if you have any other questions: claire@trash-tours.com
The role of FOH or Monitor Tech differs from the role of system and stage techs, system engineers and crew chiefs. They work alongside FOH and Monitor Engineers and responsible for setting up and maintaining the FOH/Mon equipment. (consoles and processing). The FOH Tech is responsible for running walk in and out music, announcements, media feeds. FOH techs often fill the role of the system engineer and are responsible for or assist in the EQ and time alignment of the system and setting the rigging points. FOH Techs can be called on to record the performance through digital technology such as Pro Tools. FOH Techs often mix the opening artists. FOH Techs should have solid experience with different consoles and outboard processing.
At the other end of the snake, Monitor Techs are often responsible for In-Ear Monitoring Systems (IEMs) and RF coordination. The Monitor Tech will most likely be responsible for mixing monitors for the opening artists. The Monitor Tech should have solid experience with different consoles and outboard processing, as well as different types of monitor and IEM systems.
Both of these positions are often filled by well-established engineers. FOH and Monitor Techs often work with Artist Engineers on a regular basis and are an important part of a touring production.
This is your opportunity to have your questions answered by Rachael Moser, Krysten Dean, Trevor Waite, and Ivan Ortiz.
Feb. 20, 2021, at 11 AM PST
Beth is a freelance live sound engineer and tech-based in Sheffield, England. While studying for her degree in zoology, she got distracted working for her university’s volunteer entertainment society and ended up in the music industry instead of wildlife conservation. Over the last ten years, she has done everything from pushing boxes in tiny clubs to touring arenas and spends a lot of her life in muddy fields working on most of the major festivals in the UK. She has a particular passion for flying PA, the black magic that is RF, travel, and good coffee. Read Beth’s Blog
Krysten is a touring Sound System Engineer and Crew Chief working for Eighth Day Sound Systems, but if you said Krysten on the road, most people would not know who you were talking about because everyone calls her “KD.” She has been working in professional audio for the last 17 years after quitting her corporate engineering job. She has toured with JayZ, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Earth, Wind and Fire, Drake, and Madonna to name a few. She is also an entrepreneur working to introduce more women and people of color to the technical side of the touring industry, through what she likes to call S.T.E.M.M. – Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Music.
Trevor works for Group One Limited as a technical support engineer. The company is the US distributor for Digico, Calrec, Klang: technologies and Avolites, among other professional audio and lighting brands. Prior to this Trevor was an audio technician for Firehouse Productions and Eighth Day Sound. Trevor has worked as technician, engineer and crew chief for multiple tours, festivals, and one-offs. Over the years, as both an independent and staff engineer, he has mixed monitors for countless well-known artists, including Harry Belafonte, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Black Keys and many others.
Trevor worked for The Who (from 2007 – 2019) as a monitor tech for their two monitor engineers Bob Pridden and Simon Higgs. Trevor would take over mixing for Pete Townshend when Bob retired.
Rachael has worked for Clair Global in Nashville for over ten years as a PA Tech, Monitor Systems Tech, RF Tech, Monitor Mixer, and most recently System Engineer/Crew Chief. She has worked in audio for over 15 years and attended Belmont University, graduating from their Audio Engineering Technology program with a BS and minor in business
Ivan is an audio veteran, with over 18 years of experience in professional audio – gaining his education working for a small sound company that specialized in Latin acts while attending Full Sail. After he graduated he headed to the west coast – taking an internship at Rat Sound Systems and his “can-do attitude” led to weekend work with several Los Angeles-based sound companies. Ivan would go on to tour as a system tech for Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World, Pepe Aguilar and toured for several years as a monitor engineer for My Chemical Romance, Gavin DeGraw, and multiple fill-in gigs for other bands as FOH or MON Engineer.
Ivan would go on to work for LD Systems in Houston Texas working the Houston Rodeo as Monitors Engineer for the event for five consecutive years. While working for LD Systems Ivan also had the opportunity to work on nationally televised events as the A1 for NCAA Final Four, NCAA Sweet Sixteen, Houston’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, before returning to Rat as shop manager and all-around Tech Master. Ivan is now the Technical Resources and Account Manager at Rat Sound Systems.
Hello all, and thanks for reading and supporting SoundGirls! A quick intro to give context to my first post here. My name is Becca, I use she/her pronouns, and until March 12th 2020, I was a freelance sound engineer working primarily on Off-Broadway shows in New York. My main gig was as the Head of Audio for the 80s hair metal jukebox musical “Rock of Ages” where on March 11th I mixed my 175th show, a personal record for me! I often supplemented that work by doing shop preps and load-ins/load-outs on other shows during the day. I’ll talk more about my specific trajectory in some future posts.
The subject of my first post is my particular wing of the live sound industry: NYC Theatre. Including but definitely not limited to Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, etc. I’m going to refer to it as “Broadway” just for clarity of writing. It’s an industry I love, and I can’t wait to get back to it BUT…like any relationship, it’s important to step back now and then and reevaluate the terms. So, with a new year upon us, and at least six months to go before anyone is likely to be working on a show with an audience in New York again, here are my New Year’s Resolutions for Broadway.
The pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on folks who raise children. Lack of access to childcare with schools closed has pulled a lot of parents out of the workforce and forced a lot of people to choose between keeping their job or supporting their families. Of course, everyone in theater, parent or no, has been out of work for some time now, but when we come back, we can’t simply go back to the way things were. New York State’s Paid Family Leave law is a good start, but the way that sound jobs work means you are usually juggling multiple employers and can’t always pool your benefits, or use time off when you need it most. I have a friend whose partner gave birth to their child during the run of a show he was engineering, and all he was able to get was 1 week off unpaid.
The Broadway Community takes pride in the fact that we have each other’s backs, and that has to extend father. Make childcare at work more accessible. Make Paid Family Leave the law of the land nationwide for all workers, not just for the parent who is pregnant (if applicable). Provide places for breastfeeding folks to pump. Don’t just put pregnant people on disability and call it a day. The realities of workplace sexism and the “motherhood penalty” should already be things of the past, let’s not bring them back into the room with us.
Jeanine Tesori spoke those amazing words when she and Lisa Kron accepted the Tony Award for Best Score for their musical “Fun Home”. They were the first all-women team to win the award. Jessica Paz took that one step further in 2019 when she became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Sound Design (as co-designer of “Hadestown” with Nevin Steinberg), having been only the second woman ever to be nominated in either the play or musical categories. Jeanine, Lisa, Jess, and so many other women have punched enormous holes in the glass ceiling of Broadway, but the work is not done.
The nominees for the 2020 Tony Awards were announced this fall, and the voters are only judging a small number of shows that opened prior to the March 12th shutdown. This year, there are zero women nominees for Best Sound Design or Best Score. But here is the even more key point: had the Broadway season gone on interrupted, there would still not have been any women eligible to be nominated for Best Sound Design (play or musical), and only two women would have been eligible for Best Score nominations. The Tony Awards may be a single New-York-Centric event, and they certainly don’t represent all of the amazing theatre being made in the US, but they are one of the few theatre-themed live TV broadcasts that reach the entire nation in a non-pandemic year. Representation matters, and we need a whole lot more of it
There are enormous access barriers to working one’s way up in New York. The few schools with theatre sound programs are exclusive and expensive. The pay starts low and the rent is high. If you’re freelancing you often need to work multiple shows at once to cover your costs, which stretches you thin and also takes opportunities away from other people who might benefit from them. Working on Broadway specifically requires a union card, and getting one can take years if you don’t have a connection or the “right” experience. People hire people they already know or people their friends already know, and the cycle perpetuates. For my part, I know I will be challenging myself to cast a wider net the next time I am in a position to hire or recommend someone for a gig. I’ll be looking at it as a chance to open a door, not help someone already on the inside.
So many New Yorkers have no connection to the theater, despite the fact that the unofficial world headquarters is in their city. Tickets are expensive, arts programs in public schools were already in bad shape, and local budgets are reeling from the costs of the shutdowns. Multitudes of research have shown the positive effects that arts education has on students, even if they don’t end up pursuing a career in the arts. But let’s expand the definition of what “arts” is. When a student group has a post-show talkback, make sure it’s not just actors and directors on stage taking questions. Broadway shows should partner with schools to give workshops not just on singing and dancing, but on songwriting, producing, stage managing, and of course sound. Getting kids interested while they are young will not only grow and diversify our future workforce, it will make sure we have a future audience to come and support that work.
Climate change is real, and it’s not going away without serious action from the top down. Broadway, with its high profile and wide reach, can be a trailblazer on the path to make our everyday lives less destructive to the planet. Specifically, to sound, the Broadway Green Alliance recommends that at a bare minimum, we make the switch to rechargeable batteries and start to limit the amount of single-use products we use to handle wireless microphones. Buy personal belts with sweat-proof packs for each actor to eliminate single-use sheaths/plastic wrap/condoms. Switch to Green Seal Certified cleaners to cut down on alcohol swabs and abrasives. Encourage paperless schedules and scripts, and make them easy to update/reconcile. Use LED light bulbs in EVERYTHING. All this is barely a drop in the bucket, but if we begin to lead by example, we can inspire change in others and make green thinking the norm.
So, with all that in mind, Happy New Year to you all, and let’s work on building the Broadway we want to work in when we come back!