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Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

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Women Behind Film

 

Let’s talk about film composers – Women film composers. 

More precisely, the lack of representation of women in film scoring.

The centre for the Study of Women in Television and film released a report stating that of the top 250 domestic films in 2018, 94% were scored by men.

This year, Hildur Guðnadóttir was the first solo woman to win Best Original Score at the Golden Globes. It was a historic moment that I hope will advance the profession and therefore offer more scoring opportunities to women.

The world of movie scores tends to be male-dominated with composers such as Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Michael Giacchino, and Danny Elfman. However, with this new demand for content on platforms like Netflix and Amazon, we can only hope more opportunities for women to score films and series’ will increase.

For the first time in Oscar History a woman, Eímear Noone will conduct excerpts from the five nominated scores. This is a major milestone and hopefully will open doors for other women in the profession.

Although these milestones have been long-awaited, it is encouraging to see women being represented behind the camera. We can only hope that these are the first steps in evening out the playing field.

 

How Do You Measure Career Success?

 

Written By: Erica D’Angelo

 

I’ve been working as an audio engineer in Australia since 1997.  When I meet young sound engineers starting out, particularly women,  I am inspired by their passion and fearless attitude towards forging a career in this very challenging industry, particularly in a country like Australia where the market for audio professionals is pretty small.  The same questions and fears that I faced working in a male-dominated industry still confront women today. I want to share my story to illustrate how a career in sound can take many paths, but the key ingredients for longevity are the same today as they were 25 years ago.

I started life as a classical musician completing a Bachelor of Music majoring in Clarinet in Adelaide, South Australia.  In the classical world, it was rare to come across audio reinforcement, only on the odd occasion of being part of a recording, but when I finished my studies and started gigging as a sax player and with pops style orchestras I started to notice the microphones, the miles of cables, and how there were only ever guys running the sound.  That all looked way cool compared to hanging out with the middle-aged people sitting in symphony orchestras.

Teaching music in the UK a few years later – the early 90’s, when techno/jungle and drum and bass were coming up from the underground in London,  kids were bringing cassette recordings to the class of pirate radio techno raves and asking how to make that music. I didn’t know, but I wanted to learn.  Each school had bits and pieces of gear – 4 track recorders, microphones, outboard gear, mixing desks – so I started to teach myself. Eventually, I enrolled in the SAE Diploma of Audio Engineering course and embarked on a new career at the age of 26.

Studying in London brought great opportunities.  I was resident FOH at my local Latin bar, mixing salsa bands that actually came from South America, which for an Australian was a new experience.  The guy that owned the PA became my first mentor – a generous Ghanaian man called Tito, who was happy to teach me everything he could. Other opportunities arose in film and TV but overwhelmingly I found live sound to be the most exciting.

Early days at Adelaide Festival

Eventually, the lure of the sun and the beach called me back home, where I landed in Sydney as an experienced live sound engineer, but with no idea of how the Australian industry operated.  I talked to every FOH engineer at every gig or festival I went to and found a lot of great advice was freely offered. It became clear that to be a working sound engineer in Australia you had to mix rock and roll.

So far, I had never crossed paths with any other women working in the industry.

I went and got a job with Jands – who at the time was the biggest PA company in Sydney that provided the production for all the touring acts, had a huge inventory of Clair Bros, Meyer, and JBL, and employed dozens of audio and lighting technicians for both touring and local shows.  Finally, I met two women employed as lighting techs, but working for Jands was as masculine an environment as was possible. These guys were (notoriously) hardcore roadies, in the days when OH&S concerns were laughed at, and you proved your worth by being able to lift the most, party the hardest and work the longest hours.

Despite the prevailing attitudes, I earned respect from my colleagues, and again was mentored by a couple of the guys, gaining invaluable training on large-scale sound reinforcement systems.   I liked the job, the loading in and out, the long hours, the banter – the physicality of it all. I learned quickly that you don’t need to be able to lift as much as the guys – there are plenty of other jobs to do and if everyone is working together no one has an issue.

Jands was going through one of their many restructure, which saw them sack all their permanent staff and invite back half of them as casuals.  I took this opportunity to get out and keep looking / learning. A couple of years in TV followed – working on entertainment shows which showcased live bands, as well as some very well-paid hell in the Shopping Network channels.

My next major achievement was being part of the Adelaide International Arts and Fringe Festivals for eight years.  These gigs were so much fun, working in crazy purpose-built venues, or parks, or rivers, working with international artists, working with crew from all over the country.  These festivals all involved miles and miles of cables, large-scale reinforcement systems, and logistical nightmares – requiring way more than audio skills. Operations and scheduling were organisational skills that I really enjoyed using and the beauty of these Arts festivals was more women on the crew!  The Australian rock and roll scene really was a man’s world for a very long time.

Schools Spectacular

Back in Sydney, the lead-up to the 2000 Olympic games was in full swing.  I was working as an assistant audio director with the Arts Unit of the education department – a department that provides large-scale performance opportunities for public school talent.  We would famously produce the Schools Spectacular every year in the Sydney Entertainment Centre – flying a massive PA, fully miked orchestra, dozens of radio mics, full broadcast split.

The Olympic Committee in conjunction with Norwest Audio was looking for as many large scale gigs as possible to practice fine-tuning the PA they would use for the opening ceremony, so our organisation was kept busy in the years leading up to the main event, staging events such as the Pacific School Games,  – so Norwest could get their specs right. During the actual Olympic event, I was seconded by the Olympic organising committee to be the Audio director of the Team Welcoming ceremonies. This was a great gig – pre-production involved going all over the country recording children’s choirs singing the national anthems of each country, that would be played at the ceremony each country has when they arrive in the athlete’s village.  For some countries, it is the only time they get to hear their anthem played.

In the 2000s I moved to Melbourne and started my own audio services business – Mind’s Eye Entertainment – writing and producing pop musicals for schools, sound design for theatre, and doing whatever else came along to pay the bills.   As much as I loved the life, I have always been an absolute realist with a pragmatic approach to survival, so when an opportunity to start up Staging Rentals in Melbourne came about, I took it. This was not audio, but it was events and high-end corporate events with large budgets.  So, I got to use the operations and logistics skills to full effect, as well as being account manager, truck driver and on the tools building stages as required. Again, the physicality of the job appealed to me. I met my husband at this time and loved working with him on gigs, but the inevitable question of age and babies started nagging.

I was 39 and decided to try and have a baby.  The male-dominated worlds I had been working in were not going to be conducive to a mature woman getting pregnant, so I changed jobs again and got an office job coordinating logistics in the exhibition industry.  At 41 after one round of IVF I produced a baby boy, and again was confronting how to shape my career while being a mother. A great fallback I always had was a teaching qualification, which I did as a matter of necessity way back when I finished uni.  I started looking for new career directions and discovered the world of vocational education – you could complete a Certificate III in sound production while at high school. This was an incredible discovery – all my qualifications and experience were perfect for a job like this.

Six months after having a baby I was teaching sound engineering to 16 and 17-year-old boys at a catholic school.  I loved it.

I continue delivering audio training to school kids at a private school in Melbourne. I teach part-time and spend the remaining time being technical production manager of the school’s large events. The school has a 1000 seat concert hall with flown Nexo array,  a multitude of incredible microphones and a generous production budget.

Discovering Soundgirls a couple of years ago was huge for me.  I was 50 and starting to question who I was – was I a sound engineer, a teacher, a manager?  I was middle-aged, grey hair, and still coiling cables – what kind of role model was I? How do you measure career success in the world of audio – FOH for a touring group?  Or simply having a workplace where you get to work and talk about audio all day?

After getting to meet the Melbourne Soundgirls and share stories, I found my personal story was finally validated – the fact that I am still here 25 years later thinking, talking, working and now inspiring young people to pursue a career in audio defines me as an audio professional.

New goals are to further my knowledge of acoustics.  I love the science of sound, how it behaves in a space, and I’ve taken very baby steps in studying acoustics – logarithms, logarithms, and more logarithms!

Shadow Re-Recording Mixer Stacey Hempel

Post Audio/Re-Recording Mixer & Editor Stacey Hempel has invited SoundGirls who are working in post-production audio or wish to work in post-production to shadow her.

Stacey has worked in the industry since 1993 and has an extensive client list. She is well versed in Pro Tools 12 Ultimate, Dolby Atmos Mixing, Experience on a wide variety of control surfaces, Soundminer, FTP, Network Servers, Dropbox, Media Shuttle, Aspera.

 

Shadow FOH & Monitors on Dermot Kennedy

SoundGirls have been invited to shadow FOH and Monitor Engineers Will Donbavand and Simon Lawson on Dermot Kennedy.  SoundGirls will be able to shadow both engineers and will get a chance to observe a touring production. You must be 18 to apply and be pursuing a career in live sound. You will be expected to show up for load-in and stay until load-out.

Apply Here

 

Shadow FOH & Monitors on Milky Chance

SoundGirls have been invited to shadow Marcus Wimmer (monitor engineer) and Achim Lindermeir (FOH Engineer) on Milky Chance. SoundGirls will be able to shadow both engineers and will get a chance to observe a large scale production. You must be 18 to apply and be pursuing a career in live sound. You will be expected to show up for load-in and stay until load-out.

Apply Here

We will be adding more dates in the future.

Marcus Wimmer Monitor Engineer: Started working in the industry in 1999 and is still touring as aFOH/MON engineer for different live acts mostly in Germany and the rest of Europe. In 2009 he started working as a lecturer for technical communications at the IHK adult education: Bachelor professional of event technique and in 2018 started giving workshops for Vectorworks Spotlight. He has been touring with Milky Chance since 2014. He has worked with Milky Chance, Sasha, MightyOaks, Bananafishbones, Shelly Bonet, Liquido, Killerpilze, Itchy Poopskid, Livingston, Django3000, theHeimatdamisch

Achim Lindermeir FOH Engineer: Started in the industry in 1991 as a musician and switched over to a mixing console in 2000. He has worked with Heather Nova, Emil Bulls, Schandmaul, Milky Chance, Martin Herzberg, Andreas Kümmert, Royal Republic, SSIO, Parcels, Claire, Agnostic Front, Mighty Oaks and more.

Stage Managers and Sound Designers

Together Forever

2020 is the year of the stage manager, so this is the perfect time to talk about how I get the most out of my Sound Designer/Stage Manager relationship!  The Stage Manager is the one person that probably knows the most about the show and the actors. They are also the one who is going to make sure your design is executed exactly as planned at each and every show.  Basically, the Stage Manager is someone you really want in your corner, so I want to go over just a few of the ways my relationship with Stage Managers has been beneficial.

First of all, I completely support listing the Stage Manager as a part of the creative team.  I’m stating this, maybe obvious (to some) fact, because it just doesn’t happen a lot. Frankly, I’m still beating the “LIST THE SOUND DESIGNER IN YOUR POSTS” drum loud and hard, because that title is also one that is often left off…. I guess because you can’t see that design in a photo.  So if I have to constantly remind people that Sound Designers are part of the creative team and need to be listed in posts, I can’t imagine how much harder that fight is for Stage Managers. Let’s just think about it for a minute though. What defines a creative team? Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a succinct “Theatrical Creative Team” textbook definition, but I did find this “Advertising Creative Team” definition from smallbusiness.chron.com, and honestly, it totally fits:

A creative team is made up of several key members, starting with a creative director,  and including copywriters, editors, graphic designers and artists, and web developers.  In short, it’s the group of people that comes up with advertising ideas and brings those ideas into being.

This is basically the same for theatre, right?  The Director, Choreographer, Music Director, and Designers are the key members that come up with the ideas and bring those ideas to the stage.  But from the first concept meeting, the Stage Manager is also there. They are running the meetings, taking notes, and sending those notes out to the team.  The Stage Manager is keeping track of all of the action that’s going on in rehearsal and keeps the rest of the team updated daily. They will remind the director of Designers’ ideas, and likewise, let Designers in on things that might help or hurt their design idea—like informing a Sound Designer that a group of actors are constantly blocked to be in a place where a speaker was going to be.  They are the ones firing sound cues in rehearsal and reporting on how it was received by the director, and any good stage manager will practice calls over and over until their “GO” lands at that perfect swell in the music that will ensure every audience member leaves feeling all the feels. That’s art. Stage Management is an art form, and they have every right to be recognized as part of the creative team, and basically, what I’m saying is that the more we openly recognize that fact with our Stage Manager friends, the better the working relationship is going to be.

I mentioned that the Stage Manager probably knows more about the actors than anyone else.  This is really useful to the Sound Designer of a musical. For years, I would make my plans about which microphones to use, which lavs to put on actors, what I would use to change the color of the lavs if needed, what kind of tape or another attachment method to use, and which style of mic belts to assign well ahead of tech on my own.  Many times over the years, I would run into situations where I was changing tape on an actor because they were allergic to what I was using, or switching out a mic belt because of a blocking direction that was just given, or what have you. It was frustrating, and would often create a domino effect if I was short on equipment or supplies.  I soon learned that consulting the Stage Manager while I was preparing these plans alleviated a lot of those issues for me before I even met the actor. The Stage Manager would not only know the nuts and bolts information, like allergies and blocking, but also more personal things, like actor preferences: This actor likes to wear the lav on the left side of the face, that actor has their own mic belt, etc.  Once I realized that I could unlock that info ahead of time, it was a definite level up for me.

The Stage Manager is also very invested in protecting your design and maintaining its original intention throughout the run.  There are sometimes situations in which microphone and lav placement are very specific, and I’ll tell a Stage Manager that if this position moves an inch one way or the other, the sound will change.  Many of the Stage Managers I’ve worked within the past take that information very seriously and will note actors throughout the run for the sake of the design and the production. I’ve also worked with Stage Managers in the past who, during rehearsal, will bring up things I’ve said in the past about which circumstances give us the best sound quality if it looks like the Director is blocking actors to be somewhere or do something that is not conducive to excellent sound quality.  Because I like to keep a line of open communication between myself and my Stage Managers, I’m able to count on them to be my voice, even if I’m not in the room.

When it comes to theatre allies, Stage Managers are definitely a group of people I want on that list.  I want to know that they care as much about my design as I do, and will give their all every night to make sure that it is executed perfectly.  I think that as Designers, we can sometimes feel overprotective of our work, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that the questions, the emails, the regular check-ins from a Stage Manager are all in pursuit of the same goal as us—a perfectly crafted piece of theatre.

 

More Than Line-by-Line

 

Going Beyond the Basics of Mixing

When I started mixing shows in high school—and I use the term “mixing” loosely—I had no idea what I was doing. Which is normal for anyone’s first foray into a new subject, but the problem was that no one else knew either. My training was our TD basically saying, “here’s the board, plug this cable in here, and that’s the mute button,” before he had to rush off to put out another fire somewhere else.

Back then, there were no Youtube videos showing how other people mixed. No articles describing what a mixer’s job entailed. (Even if there were, I wouldn’t have known what terms to put in a Google search to find them!) So I muddled through show by show, and they sounded good enough that I kept going. From high school to a theme park, college shows to local community theatres, and finally eight years on tour, I’ve picked up a new tip or trick or philosophy every step along the way. After over a decade of trial and error, I’m hoping this post can be a jump start for someone else staring down the faders of a console wondering “okay, now what?”

Every sound design and system has a general set of goals for a musical: all the lines and music are clear and the level is enough to be audible but isn’t painfully loud. These parameters make a basic mix.

For Broadway-style musicals, we do what’s called “line-by-line” mixing. This means when someone is talking, her fader comes up and, when she’s done, her fader goes back down, effectively muting her. For example: if actresses A and B are talking, A’s fader is up for her line, then just before B is about to begin her line, B’s fader comes up and A’s fader goes down (once the first line is finished). So the mixer is constantly working throughout the show, bringing faders up and taking them out as actors start and stop talking. Each of these is called a “pickup” and there will be several hundred of them in most shows. Having only the mics open that are necessary for the immediate dialogue helps to eliminate excess noise from the system and prevent audio waves from multiple mics combining (creating phase cancellation or comb filtering which impairs clarity).

You may have noticed that I’ve only talked about using faders so far, and not mute buttons. Using faders allows you to have more control over the mix because the practice of “mixing” with mute buttons assumes that the actors will say each of their lines in the entire show at the same level, which is not realistic. From belting to whispering and everything in between, actors have a dynamic vocal range and faders are far more conducive than mute buttons to make detailed adjustments in the moment. However, when mixing with faders, you have to make sure that your movements are clean and concise. Constantly doing a slow slide into pickups sounds sloppy and may lose the first part of a line, so faders should be brought up and down quickly. (Unless a slow push is an effect or there is a specific reason for it, yes, there are always exceptions.)

So, throughout the show, the mixer is bringing faders up and down for lines, making small adjustments within lines to make sure that the sound of the show is consistent with the design. Yet, that’s only one part of a musical. The other is, obviously, the music. Here the same rules apply. Usually, the band or orchestra is assigned to VCAs or grouped so it’s controlled by one or two faders. When they’re not playing, the faders should be down, and when they are, the mixer is making adjustments with the faders to make sure they stay at the correct level.

The thing to remember at this point is that all these things are happening at the same time. You’re mixing line by line, balancing actor levels with the music, making sure everything stays in an audible, but not eardrum-ripping range. This is the point where you’ve achieved the basic mechanics and can produce an adequate mix. When put into action, it looks something like this:

 

 

A clip from a mix training video for the 2019 National Touring Company of Miss Saigon.

 

But we want more than just an adequate mix, and with a solid foundation under your belt, you can start to focus on the details and subtleties that will continue to improve those skills. Now, full disclosure, I was a complete nerd when I was young (I say that like I’m not now…) and I spent the better part of my childhood reading any book I could get my hands on. As an adult, that has translated into one of my greatest strengths as a mixer: I get stories. Understanding the narrative and emotions of a scene are what help me make intelligent choices of how to manipulate the sound of a show to best convey the story.

Sometimes it’s leaving an actress’s mic up for an ad-lib that has become a routine, or conversely, taking a mic out quicker because that ad-lib pulls your attention from more important information. It could be fading in or out a mic so that an entrance or exit sounds more natural or giving a punchline just a bit of a push to make sure that the audience hears it clearly.

Throughout the entire show, you are using your judgment to shape the sound. Paying attention to what’s going on and the choices the actors are making will help you match the emotion of a scene. Ominous fury and unadulterated rage are both anger. A low chuckle and an earsplitting cackle are both laughs. However, each one sounds completely different. As the mixer, you can give the orchestra an extra push as they swell into an emotional moment, or support an actress enough so that her whisper is audible through the entire house but doesn’t lose its intimacy.

Currently, I’m touring with Mean Girls, and towards the end of the show, Ms. Norbury (the Tina Fey character for those familiar with the movie) gets to cut loose and belt out a solo. Usually, this gets some appreciative cheers from the audience because it’s Norbury’s first time singing and she gets to just GO for it. As the mixer, I help her along by giving her an extra nudge on the fader, but I also give some assistance beforehand. The main character, Cady, sings right before her in a softer, contemplative moment and I keep her mic back just a bit. You can still hear her clearly, but she’s on the quieter side, which gives Norbury an additional edge when she comes in, contrasting Cady’s lyrics with a powerful belt.

Another of my favorite mixing moments is from the Les Mis tour I was on a couple of years ago. During “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” Marius is surrounded by the ghosts of his friends who toast him with flickering candles while he mourns their seemingly pointless deaths. The song’s climax comes on the line “Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me—” where three things happen at once: the orchestra hits the crest of their crescendo, Marius bites out the sibilant “sk” of “don’t aSK me,” and the student revolutionaries blow out their candles, turning to leave him for good. It’s a stunning visual on its own, but with a little help from the mixer to push into both the orchestral and vocal build, it’s a powerful aural moment as well.

The final and most important part of any mix is: listening. It’s ironic—but maybe unsurprising—that we constantly have to remind ourselves to do the most basic aspect of our job amidst the chaos of all the mechanics. A mix can be technically perfect and still lack heart. It can catch every detail and, in doing so, lose the original story in a sea of noise. It’s a fine line to walk and everyone (and I mean everyone) has an opinion about sound. So, as you hit every pickup, balance everything together, and facilitate the emotions of a scene, make sure you listen to how everything comes together. Pull back the trumpet that decided to go too loud and proud today and is sticking out of the mix. Give the actress who’s getting buried a little push to get her out over the orchestra. When the song reaches its last note and there’s nothing you need to do to help it along, step back and let it resolve.

Combining all these elements should give you a head start on a mix that not only achieves the basic goals of sound design but goes above and beyond to help tell the story. Trust your ears, listen to your designer, and have fun mixing!

Recording in Two Days

For this first blog of 2020, I’m going to be talking about a current recording project I am working on. A few days before the end of the year, I had two full days of recording a great punk band that I am now in the process of mixing an album for! I’ll be talking about the setup I used for recording them for this month’s blog and mixing the album on my next blog.

To start, I want to talk a little about the album. It’s a 16 song album. The genre is garage/punk. We only had two days to this 16 song album, and guess what… WE DID IT! Everyone did a great job of executing their parts and staying focused (including myself). Since we had two days to record 16 songs, you’re probably thinking that we live tracked the album- and you’re right! Personally- that’s my favorite way to record, but I know not all music really calls for that *particular* recording process.

On the first day of recording, we captured drums + bass. We kept some of the guitars we used and doubled them on the second day of recording, but we’ll get to that later. For drums- lately, I’ve been straying away from the *less* is more mentality. I’ve been close mic-ing more of the kit. I ran into some trouble with a couple of my own projects by choosing not to mic certain things, and trying to use the overheads or the room to capture them, but ran into trouble when the mixing engineer didn’t have proper control over the things that I chose to not mic. On that note, if you’re also straying away from the less is more mindset, CHECK PHASE! The more mics you have up, the more the likelihood of phase happening! Anyways, we got GREAT drums tones on that first day of tracking. Now for the bass, it was very simple. I just captured a DI and put one dynamic microphone on the isolated bass amp. It was beefy, yet clean, and now I have two great tones to work within mixing.

On the second day of recording, we knocked out guitars, vocals, and harmonies. We worked the whole day through. The first thing we started on was guitars. We re-recorded some of the songs we did the day before, and if we didn’t we doubled the guitars (for a wider stereo image) and added more layers of tone, etc. For the guitars, I mic’d with one dynamic, and one condenser (sm7b, and a Mojave 201fet). I placed each mic on two different speakers in the cab. We got a great tone out of this setup.

For vocals, it was very simple! I used a microphone I wouldn’t typically use for recording vocals, but it worked for this style. I used an Sm7B and used the Universal Audio 610 for the pre-amp. We doubled the choruses, and depending on the song…sometimes we’d double the whole song. After recording the main vocals, the bass player recording harmonies. For the harmonies, I used a CM7. I wanted these vocals to sound airier and lighter than the main vocals. I wanted the main vocals to have grit, and these to counteract it, and I believe we achieved that pretty well.

As I’m going into the mixing process for this album- I’ll be taking notes along the way of techniques, plug-ins, and other things I’d like to share with you on my next blog. Until then everyone!

There Really Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Using The Scientific Method in Assessment of System Optimization

A couple of years ago, I took a class for the first time from Jamie Anderson at Rational Acoustics where he said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said something to the effect of our job as system engineers is to make it sound the same everywhere, and it is the job of the mix engineer to make it sound “good” or “bad”.

The reality in the world of live sound is that there are many variables stacked up against us. A scenic element being in the way of speaker coverage, a client that does not want to see a speaker in the first place, a speaker that has done one too many gigs and decides that today is the day for one driver to die during load-in or any other myriad of things that can stand in the way of the ultimate goal: a verified, calibrated sound system.

The Challenges Of Reality

 

One distinction that must be made before beginning the discussion of system optimization is that we must draw a line here and make all intentions clear: what is our role at this gig? Are you just performing the tasks of the systems engineer? Are you the systems engineer and FOH mix engineer? Are you the tour manager as well and work directly with the artist’s manager? Why does this matter, you may ask? The fact of the matter is that when it comes down to making final evaluations on the system, there are going to be executive decisions that will need to be made, especially in moments of triage. Having clearly defined what one’s role at the gig is will help in making these decisions when the clock is ticking away.

So in this context, we are going to discuss the decisions of system optimization from the point of the systems engineer. We have decided that the most important task of our gig is to make sure that everyone in the audience is having the same show as the person mixing at front-of-house. I’ve always thought of this as a comparison to a painter and a blank canvas. It is the mix engineer’s job to paint the picture for the audience to hear, it is our job as system engineers to make sure the painting sounds the same every day by providing the same blank canvas.

The scientific method teaches the concept of control with independent and dependent variables. We have an objective that we wish to achieve, we assess our variables in each scenario to come up with a hypothesis of what we believe will happen. Then we execute a procedure, controlling the variables we can, and analyze the results given the tools at hand to draw conclusions and determine whether we have achieved our objective. Recall that an independent variable is a factor that remains the same in an experiment, while a dependent variable is the component that you manipulate and observe the results. In the production world, these terms can have a variety of implications. It is an unfortunate, commonly held belief that system optimization starts at the EQ stage when really there are so many steps before that. If there is a column in front of a hang of speakers, no EQ in the world is going to make them sound like they are not shadowed behind a column.

Now everybody take a deep breath in and say, “EQ is not the solution to a mechanical problem.” And breathe out…

Let’s start with preproduction. It is time to assess our first round of variables. What are the limitations of the venue? Trim height? Rigging limitations? What are the limitations proposed by the client? Maybe there is another element to the show that necessitates the PA being placed in a certain position over another; maybe the client doesn’t want to see speakers at all. We must ask our technical brains and our career paths in each scenario, what can we change and what can we not change? Note that it will not always be the same in every circumstance. In one scenario, we may be able to convince the client to let us put the PA anywhere we want, making it a dependent variable. In another situation, for the sake of our gig, we must accept that the PA will not move or that the low steel of the roof is a bleak 35 feet in the air, and thus we face an independent variable.

The many steps of system optimization that lie before EQ

 

After assessing these first sets of variables, we can now move into the next phase and look at our system design. Again, say it with me, “EQ is not the solution to a mechanical problem.” We must assess our variables again in this next phase of the optimization process. We have been given the technical rider of the venue that we are going to be at and maybe due to budgetary restraints we cannot change the PA: independent variable. Perhaps we are carrying our own PA and thus have control over the design with limitations from the venue: dependent variable forms, but with caveats. Let’s look deeper into this particular scenario and ask ourselves: as engineers building our design, what do we have control over now?

The first step lies in what speaker we choose for the job. Given the ultimate design control scenario where we get the luxury to pick and choose the loudspeakers we get to use in our design, different directivity designs will lend themselves better in one scenario versus another. A point source has just as much validity as the deployment of a line array depending on the situation. For a small audience of 150 people with a jazz band, a point source speaker over a sub may be more valid than showing up with a 12 box line array that necessitates a rigging call to fly from the ceiling. But even in this scenario, there are caveats in our delicate weighing of variables. Where are those 150 people going to be? Are we in a ballroom or a theater? Even the evaluation of our choices on what box to choose for a design are as varied as deciding what type of canvas we wish to use for the mix engineer’s painting.

So let’s create a scenario: let’s say we are doing an arena show and the design has been established with a set number of boxes for daily deployment with an agreed-upon design by the production team. Even the design is pretty much cut and paste in terms of rigging points, but we have varying limitations to trim height due to high and low steel of the venue. What variables do we now have control over? We still have a decent amount of control over trim height up to a (literal) limit of the motor, but we also have control over the vertical directivity of our (let’s make the design decision for the purpose of discussion) line array. There is a hidden assumption here that is often under-represented when talking about system designs.

A friend and colleague of mine, Sully (Chris) Sullivan once pointed out to me that the hidden design assumption that we often make as system engineers, but don’t necessarily acknowledge, is that we assume that the loudspeaker manufacturer has actually achieved the horizontal coverage dictated by technical specifications. This made me reconsider the things I take for granted in a given system. In our design, we choose to use Manufacturer X’s 120-degree line source element. They have established in their technical specs that there is a measurable point at 60 degrees off-axis (total 120-degree coverage) where the polar response drops 6 dB. We can take our measurement microphone and check that the response is what we think it is, but if it isn’t what really are our options? Perhaps we have a manufacturer defect or a blown driver somewhere, but unless we change the physical parameters of the loudspeaker, this is a variable that we put in the trust of the manufacturers. So what do we have control over? He pointed out to me that our decision choices lie in the manipulation of the vertical.

Entire books and papers can and have been written about how we can control the vertical coverage of our loudspeaker arrays, but certain factors remain consistent throughout. Inter-element angles, or splay angles, let us control the summation of elements within an array. Site angle and trim height let us control the geometric relationship of the source to the audience and thus affect the spread of SPL over distance. Azimuth also gives us geometric control of the directivity pattern of the entire array along a horizontal dispersion pattern. Note that this is a distinction from the horizontal pattern control of the frequency response radiating from the enclosure, of which we have handed responsibility over to the manufacturer. Fortunately, the myriad of loudspeaker prediction software available from modern manufacturers has given the modern system engineer an unprecedented level of ability to assess these parameters before a single speaker goes up into the air.

At this point, we have made a lot of decisions on the design of our system and weighed the variables along every step of the way to draw out our procedure for the system deployment. It is now time to analyze our results and verify that what we thought was going to happen did or did not happen. Here we introduce our tools to verify our procedure in a two step-process of mechanical then acoustical verification. First, we use tools such as protractors and laser inclinometers as a means of collecting data to assess whether we have achieved our mechanical design goal. For example, our model says we need a site angle of 2 degrees to achieve this result so we verify with the laser inclinometer that we got there. Once we have assessed that we made our design’s mechanical goals, we must analyze the acoustical results.

Laser inclinometers are just one example of a tool we can use to verify the mechanical actualization of a design

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It is here only at this stage that we are finally introducing the examination software to analyze the response of our system. After examining our role at the gig, the criteria involved in pre-production, choosing design elements appropriate for the task, and verifying their deployment, only now can move into the realm of analysis software to see if all those goals were met. We can utilize dual-channel measurement software to take transfer functions at different stages of the input and output of our system to verify that our design goals have been met, but more importantly to see if they have not been met and why. This is where our ability to critically interpret the data comes in to play. By evaluating impulse response data, dual-channel FFT (Fast-Fourier Transform) functions, and the coherence of our gathered data we can make an assessment of how our design has been achieved in the acoustical and electronic realm.

What’s interesting to me is that often the discussion of system optimization starts here. In fact, as we have seen, the process begins as early as the pre-production stage when talking with different departments and the client, and even when asking ourselves what our role is at the gig. The final analysis of any design comes down to the tool that we always carry with us: our ears. Our ears are the final arbiters after our evaluation of acoustical and mechanical variables, and are used along every step of our design path along with our trusty use of  “common sense.” In the end, our careful assessment of variables leads us to utilize the power of the scientific method to make educated decisions to work towards our end goal: the blank canvas, ready to be painted.

Big thanks to the following for letting me reference them in this article: Jamie Anderson at Rational Acoustics, Sully (Chris) Sullivan, and Alignarray (www.alignarray.com)

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