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Radioactivity and Sound

With Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to explore the spooky ambience of radioactivity.  Nuclear radiation is a common mysterious force in science fiction and horror films. Its manifestations are generally physical sensations, like heat, or mutations rather than sonic phenomena.  However, there are fascinating sounds and ambiences that are connected with nuclear radiation.

Nuclear reactors are inherently spacious concrete buildings.  It takes concrete walls several feet thick to block the most penetrable of nuclear radiation from escaping to the outside world.  These make for excellent reverberation chambers. At the decommissioned B-Reactor in Hanford, Washington, a local vocal group, has taken advantage of that.  They have created a concert showcase about the Hanford Site and the Manhattan Project (of which the B-Reactor was initially built for), and are performing inside the building.  Nuclear Dreams is composed by Reginald Unterseher, performed by Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, and was commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the B-Reactor.

Isolation and silence also surround nuclear sites.  They are built away from busy urban centers, and often the wildlife reclaim the nearby land.  Irradiated animals inside nuclear tanks do not decay, and their sunken remains haunt silently.  Above ground, the radiation does little to change their regular habits. Humans interacting with the radiation often are enveloped in silence, either by their limited viewing capabilities via closed-circuit monitors or even by way of the radiation itself.  Journalist Igor Kostin of Novosti Agency, who was first on the scene at Chernobyl, recounted that when he opened the helicopter window to get a better camera shot, he heard nothing. Not helicopter rotors, not wind, just nothing. In his words, “deafening silence.”  It is possible that what happened was a physiological response, similar to what brain cancer patients experience during chemotherapy.

Then there is an eerie sense one feels at not being able to perceive the danger that they know exists at the nuclear sites.  The Chernobyl television series encapsulates this with its score.  Quiet drones pulse in time to sirens and are accented with distorted static.  Hildur Guðnadóttir’s compositions accent the tension and the panic of the unfolding disaster and subsequent cover-up.  The muted dynamics of the score allows the magnitude of the visuals to hit with more power. It is only disaster itself that causes the noise.  Wailing sirens and alarms, and the static of Geiger counters create a constant cacophony that follows explosions. Beeps from monitoring machines and sparse clicking of dosimeters are the soundtrack to a normal functioning reactor, not of a meltdown.

When building up the sound design of your nuclear-centric haunted house (or is that just me) remember the reverb, silence, and eeriness of the real thing.  The trick-or-treaters will feel isolated and on-edge. Have a Happy Halloween.

 

The Importance of Saying No

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about The Importance of Saying Yes while building a career in audio – something I am still continually practicing.  While writing that blog, I realized I wanted to include a follow-up about the importance of saying no. Practicing this discernment is almost more important than saying yes, however, can be much more difficult!

I often find myself wanting to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way. It’s easy for me to do; I’ve grown accustomed to a full schedule of projects to balance, and I tend to be energized by my work. I’ve been in a building stage of my career for long enough to know that saying yes to one thing often leads to another opportunity. Sometimes it’s frightening to say no and feel like I’m missing out on something. The downside of this, however, is that during the times I get increasingly overwhelmed with my schedule, I’m unable to take necessary breaks for myself, which is ultimately bad for both my clients and myself.

When I think about my ideal career it’s full of flexibility and also full of projects that I’m really passionate about – I want to work on a number of records every year, yet still have enough time to play drums in projects, go on the road, and experiment with making new things with new people. To make all these things happen, I have learned to be more and more selective with my time.

To be more selective, I have to be comfortable with drawing a line and saying no. This doesn’t necessarily mean just saying no to new projects, it means saying no to additional edits past the agreed limit, an extra few takes during tracking or additional unpaid time. It comes down to drawing boundaries and standing up for yourself and your work. Admittedly, I sometimes find it hard to do this in an environment that is so much about curating an atmosphere of support and trust, but it’s ultimately a disservice to everyone involved if I am making decisions from an “I can do everything” mindset. It’s important to set limits, and it’s important for artists to work within those chosen parameters. Saying no doesn’t mean that I don’t want to or can’t do something; it means that I know what’s best for me.

The tipping point comes when work is coming at a healthy pace (a result of saying yes), and I start to realize what I might not want to work on, or what might not be best for my time. This can be tricky to decide, as the answer isn’t always immediately clear. I often change my rates to meet my clients’ needs, and while I think most freelancers do this to some extent, after some time if you aren’t clear and firm about your rate, you may be undervaluing yourself. This is a concrete way to help establish what is and is not worth your time. This may come at a metaphorical price – you say yes to fewer projects, but the flipside is your work is more valued and more structured. I believe developing this skill is a key component to growing in a freelance career.

Saying no can be a scary thing – it can feel like a missed opportunity, but ultimately, learning how to say no respectfully but firmly is crucial when valuing yourself, your time, and the growth of your career. As individuals who work for ourselves, it’s our job to set limits and guidelines!

 

The Importance of Reference Tracks

While mixing and how to use them.

One of the first things I do when I schedule a time to record a band is asking them what albums, and songs they like the sound quality. I ask so I get a good idea of what they might be *subconsciously* looking for in a mix or master. Then I will ask, “What would you like your reference track for the mixing process to be?” I ask these in two separate questions because what you like and what’s right for a mix of a particular song can be two different things. I want to have options, so when I go to pick a reference track- I am picking one that’s right for the song, and that the band will like too.

Reference tracks are essential because often while mixing, your ears can lose perspective. A reference track is helpful to have this happens; you can play the track and compare it to where your mix. Once you’ve done that you can hone in on anything that isn’t where it needs to be in your mix- and with a specific goal in mind you can get it where it needs to be because of the reference track.

Now, to utilize this correctly, you have to do it right. You don’t want to just download your reference track from Youtube and upload that wav file into Pro-Tools. You also don’t want to use an MP3. When using a reference track, you want to get the rawest and uncompressed version of the track you can find (WAV file). Another thing, you need to know how your reference track translates onto different sound systems. Listen to the track in your car, at your house, on your laptop, on your headphones, in your parents’ car…you get the point. Then do the same for YOUR mix. Listen to it everywhere you can, so you know exactly what to fix when you sit back down at your computer to do revisions.

You can use plug-ins to help you compare the track to your mix. Magic AB is my favorite. It’s straightforward to use. You upload both tracks, one is A, and one is B. Then you level the two songs out, so your ears aren’t being tricked because one mix is louder than the other (Hello, Fletcher Munson), and then you just click between A and B to compare your reference track to your mix! Easy as that!

I hope this helps your mixes grow as it helped mine when I discovered how to use reference tracks! As always, you can send me examples of your mixes, or even email me just to chat about how you noticed a difference in the process after you started using reference tracks at virginia@backbeat365.com.

 

How Do You Go About Setting Up Your Console Workflow?

Once you start mixing more than a few shows, you’ll start to find that you have some preferences in how your console is laid out.

Everyone has a particular way of doing things, and it’s all a matter of what works for you. For instance: How you do your input patch will determine where things show up on the surface.  It doesn’t have to be 1 to 1 with the snake patch; you can patch inputs to come up in whatever channels you like.

If you are mixing on a digital console with a limited number of faders available on the surface, you’ll have to think about how you want your inputs to populate them.  If you have 42 inputs and only 16 input faders/layer, how do you want to build your layers?

It’s a good idea to have all of your drums on the same layer or page so you can easily make adjustments to the overall drum mix. Likewise, if you have numerous inputs for keyboards and tracks, keeping them on the same layer or page makes for easier control.

Something I like to do is keep my most important inputs on the channels closest to the master section. For most of what I mix, this is the lead vocal or vocals. I rely heavily on VCAs/DCAs and do most of my mixing from the master section where they are found so having my most important inputs right next to the VCAs; they are always where I need them.

When I was mixing the bands Styx and Mr. Big, the music was heavy with 4 part vocal harmonies.  I would always lay out my console to make sure that the four vocal channels were right next to the master section and able to be pulled to the surface in an instant. It wasn’t a set it and forget kind of mix; there was constant massaging and blending of the vocals.

Keeping important inputs near the master section stems from the days of large frame analog consoles where inputs could be spread out over quite a distance.  But I find it still works well with digital boards and tends to keep things that need lots of attention close to that area of the console.

Other things to think about are your effects returns. You might want your effects returned in channels rather than the FX returns.  Using open channels instead of dedicated FX returns for your Effects will generally give you more flexibility in routing and better EQ options.

All of these things will be determined by your input patch, so give it some thought ahead of time.

Next, consider how you will designate your VCAs/DCAs and/or Groups. Think about how you can group things to make it easier to mix.  It’s much easier to mix from the 8 or so VCA faders than all of your individual channels, especially on smaller consoles that only give you eight input faders on the surface.

If you’ve got 42 inputs, you don’t want to have everything just assigned to L and R and be mixing on 42 faders jumping through layers or pages all night.

Things can be double assigned.  What I like to do is have one VCA,  that I label BAND for all of my instruments. I tend to set up my VCAs along these lines:

Every input goes to its intended VCA- drums to drums, bass to bass, etc., but is also assigned to the band VCA, except for the vocal channels.  This way, I have control of the overall level of the band with one fader, which is incredibly useful if I am having trouble getting the lead vocal above the music.  I can just grab the band fader and bring everything but the vocal back a bit.

Now if you have a four-piece band with 16 inputs total, this isn’t such a big issue.  But still, it’s much easier to mix on 4 VCAs than 16 channels. The more involved your show gets the more thought you’ll need to put into it.

Think about what your needs are?  What will help you be as efficient as possible, and what will give you the control you need?

Groups are great for processing multiple inputs at once.  Smaller analog consoles may only have Sub Groups available and no VCAs.  You can assign all of your drum inputs to a stereo group and insert a couple of compressors across your drum mix for a little added punch to your drum mix.  You can send multiple background vocals to a group and compress them so sit together nicely.

You’ll also want to consider AUX buses.  If you are doing monitors from FOH you’ll want the aux buses to be Pre Fader and depending on the console; you may only have the option of certain aux buses being Pre Fader.

Which Auxes will be for monitor sends and which will be for effects?  How many effects do you need? If there are enough available, it’s a good idea to have separate effects for different inputs.  For example, have one for drums, a different one for vocals and yet another for instruments like keys and guitars if needed. This gives you more control and allows for more clarity in the mix.

These are just a couple of things to think about when you are setting up your workflow on the console.  For me, I build my workflow around control and efficiency, but you may have other ideas, and I’m curious to hear what works for you.

For more from Michelle, check out Mixing Music Live

Audio Tips For The Top High School Musicals Of 2019

NPR Ed has just published a database of the most popular high school plays and musicals in the U.S. for 2019.  Upon reading this list, I realized that I have designed all but two of these musicals, so I thought I’d share a few experiences I encountered with each.  I’m only touching on the musicals, but here’s the link to the original article if you’d like to follow along at home, and also read about the most popular high school plays in 2019.

Alright, here we go!  (I feel like David Letterman…digital high-five if you get the reference.

#10 Shrek, The Musical & The Wizard of Oz

No, this is not a weird mashup (but that would be hilarious, someone write this right now).  These two musicals have tied for 10th place. I’ll start with Shrek.  

I loved this musical, it was so much fun, and it’s a great option for high school casts.  The biggest hurdle I faced with this show was makeup. As you probably know, Shrek is green, Fiona turns green, and donkey is grey.  There’s also a giant dragon puppet. Shrek almost never leaves the stage. He also has a pretty complicated costume and heavy face makeup, so my first piece of advice is to double-mic Shrek.

Our Shrek wore a little beanie that was never removed, so I integrated microphone elements into that beanie. I asked the costumes department to sew a few small, elastic loops into the inside of the beanie, and threaded two microphone elements (which were Hellermaned together) through the inside of the beanie that popped out the front, landing in a nice little forehead position.  Shrek’s makeup was airbrushed on him each day, and our costume department was nice enough to give me a little bit of that green so that I could paint the elements in the same color.

This paint job had to be touched up about 2 times a week. Also, if your Shrek is wearing a fat suit, I recommend placing his transmitter on the outside of that rig. Depending on the transmitter and the fabric of the suit, they can have some difficulty cutting through all of those layers.  Fiona is a little easier, but has one very important scene to consider—her transformation scene. The transformation, including green makeup and prosthetics, needs to happen super quickly.

Since I could foresee green makeup flying all over that microphone element, I made the decision to have a second element prepped and ready for this quick change. This element was also painted in the Shrek green makeup. Human Fiona wore her element in a forehead position that ran under her wig (but not under the wig cap, which I would normally do), and during the quick change, the Human Fiona wig and element would come off, disconnect from the transmitter, her face was quickly painted green, and then the green element would replace the previous one and run under Ogre Fiona’s wig.  My A2 would handle all of the element work, including holding the capsule in place while the wig was being attached, and dressers took care of the rest of the change around the A2.

Our Donkey wore a head-to-toe bodysuit, so running his element under the hood of the bodysuit to the top of the forehead was my preferred method. Finally, the dragon. The dragon is a puppet that is manipulated by several operators. We had a separate actor voicing the dragon for her very fabulous song, Forever. Our vocalist was visible onstage, so I decided to match her R&B goodness with a gold-grilled handheld wireless mic.

#9 Into The Woods

I have never designed this show, but I really want to, so if you’re reading this blog and you are a producer, call me.

# 8 Seussical 

I designed this show over a decade ago, and it was for a high school company.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that 85% of the companies producing this show nowadays are middle and high school companies.  My biggest challenges on this show were the gear and personnel.

There are 12 principals, and an endless possibility for the ensemble.  I think my total cast size was between 50-60, plus we had an 18 piece orchestra. The school chose to provide their own gear as opposed to renting from my theater, so I had to work with what they had.

For the orchestra, I was given 5 pencil condenser microphones, 1 SM57, 1 SM58, and a handful of DI boxes. Luckily, I had enough DI boxes for guitars, keyboards, and bass. I ended up mic’ing sections instead of individual instruments, as would normally be my choice.  So, I put a condenser microphone on the reed section, brass section, string section, percussion section, and used one as overhead for the drumset. I used the 57 on the snare and the 58 on the kick. Some careful EQ really helped with this skimpy choice of mics.

For actor mics, I was given 12 wireless transmitters, 9 lavs, and 3 choir mics.  Yep, you read that right. Remember, this is a cast of about 55. I put all 12 transmitters on the principals, and 7 lavs permanently on those principals that had the most stage time. Now, I really, REALLY hate microphone swapping and avoid it whenever possible, but for this show, it just had to be done. Luckily we were only swapping 2 lavs between actors.  I put together a mic swap sheet and walked my high school student A2 through the process step by step.

Since I had 12 transmitters, the packs could all stay on their dedicated actor, and the A2 would just have to attach the lav as needed. For the ensemble, I had to bargain with the director a bit. The ensemble blocking was all over the place, and the director was hoping I would just hang those 3 choir mics evenly distributed over the stage, and they would produce the same sound as the principals in lavs.  I told her that one choice mic hanging 6 ft over the head of one tiny 13 year old was not going to give her the sound she was looking for, but 3 choir mics positioned in one area over a group of 40 13 years olds would get her closer. She was not willing to forfeit all of her blocking and make the ensemble completely stationary, so we chose 3 locations where large groups of the ensemble would land for musical numbers, and I hung a choir mic over each location. On the rare occasion that an ensemble member had a pop-out solo, we made sure they were standing next to a principal so that we could get a little more gain from that open mic.

I also had a high school student mixing at front of house, so I preprogrammed the show for him, made it as user-friendly as possible, and walked him through the scenes one by one. Designing this show was the first time that I realized student production does not necessarily equal easy. Given all of the constraints and restrictions, I’m happy with the way the show turned out, and I DEFINITELY learned a lot from that production.

#7 Little Shop of Horrors

Again, I have never designed this show, but it’s one of my FAVES, so if you need a sound designer for this, you know who to call!

#6 Newsies

I did this show a few years ago, and I absolutely loved it.  The cast was phenomenal, the music was great, my biggest and only enemy during this production was sweat.  If you don’t know the show, it basically features a group of stupidly talented dancing newsboys. If the show is done right, and I’d like to think ours was, they are dancing their little hearts out for the majority of the show.  That means lots and lots of sweat.

My regular transmitter protection protocol is to put the transmitter in a non-lubricated condom rolled all the way up with a cotton ball sitting between the connector and antenna. Most of the transmitters were in a neoprene mic belt, which is super protective against a sweaty body.  Because only a few of our mic belts had flaps on them for extra transmitter security, the excessive amount of dancing would sometimes cause my cotton balls to jump out of the mic belt, and onto the ground. I decided to add a rubber band around the length of the transmitter to hold the cotton ball in. In a few cases, I found that transmitters were still getting sweated out, despite the neoprene mic belt and latex protection.  For these few microphones, I added a layer of glad wrap around the transmitter. The sticky seal on this wrap really helps to keep the transmitter dry and happy. Remember to let the seal extend above the microphone connector and antenna. I then put the glad-wrapped transmitter in the un-lubricated condom and added the cotton ball.

I also had a few situations in which the microphone element that was rigged over the ear of the actors picked up an extreme amount of sweat regularly.  One of my favorite solutions for this issue is to add a tiny, rubber washer to the element that sits just above the capsule. The idea is that the washer will help distribute accumulated sweat out instead of down into the capsule. I got mine in a pack of 100 for less than $10 from McMaster-Carr.

#5 Mary Poppins

The most important thing to remember for this show is that Mary Poppins=FLYING!  This is important to remember because

#1:  In addition to her heavy costume, corset, and mic belt, Mary Poppins also wears a flying harness.

#2: Depending on where her take-off and landing zones are, you may not have as much off-stage access to Mary as you might like.

This becomes problematic when microphone troubleshooting becomes necessary. There are also very few moments that Mary Poppins is off stage, so I decided to double mic her.  I originally had her two transmitters on her mic belt under her corset, but I found that their antennas were having a difficult time cutting through all of the layers of heavy fabrics.  It was also quite uncomfortable for our Mary Poppins, given the extra belt of the fly harness.

I ended up moving one transmitter to inside her wig, and the other clipped to the front, outside of her corset.  The wigged transmitter was a Shure UR1M. I think this position would have been too uncomfortable with anything other than a micro-transmitter. The costume department helped by making a wig cap sandwich to help keep the transmitter secure, yet still accessible.  The actor playing Mary Poppins would pin curl her hair and wear a wig cap

#1 over the curls. On top of this wig cap was an added pocket for the transmitter. She then added a wig cap

#2, which was held on with 2 hairpins. The wig was then applied. There were many times throughout this run when we had to switch to the backup mic mid-show, so I’m glad we made the choice to double mic.

#4 Beauty and the Beast   

This is a BEAST of a show!  As we all know, there are many enchanted objects that live in the beasts castle.  If the mouth and/or majority of the face are obstructed by costumes, my advice is to build the microphone into the costume in such a way that it has better access to the mouth.

I chose a forehead microphone placement for our beast, but his hair/mane was worn so low on his forehead that it became necessary to place the capsule of his mic just above his brow line, which was fine, just required a bit of a different EQ.  Most productions, including ours, feature a Beast double for the final battle between Beast and Gaston. This is to facilitate the transformation of Beast to Prince.

There are several Beast lines that occur while the double is on stage, so as not to let on about our theatre magic, I chose to record those lines and have them played back.  There is a lot happening in this scene, and it should be pretty dark and scary, so there’s no need to worry about lip sync lining up. We had a second microphone element mounted on an ear rig for Beast’s transformation to the Prince, so during that costume change, we switched to the second element.

#3 The Little Mermaid

I am currently contracted to design this show, but will not begin the process for another few months.  So far, my biggest concern is, again, flying. While our production does not feature true flying, we will be using a few silks and ropes that actors will climb and swing on.  They will be harnessed, so I will be thinking of careful transmitter placement to guard against the actor or the equipment getting damaged.

# 2 Mamma Mia! 

Mamma Mia!  seems like it would be a pretty straightforward show, and it is.  The thing that required some extra thought for me was the large number of backup vocals.  We did not use pit or offstage singers, so I chose to record our ensemble singing all of the backup vocals.  Our production also features lots of dancing, so we did record some ensemble vocal overdubs to playback and sweeten those very heavy dance moments.

The curtain call of this show features what is basically an Abba concert. For this moment, I had originally planned on our music director and his assistant to be wheeled out on stage while playing live keyboards, but because of a personnel change very close to the opening of this show, we had to scrap that idea.  I’m telling everyone this tidbit because I’m hoping someone out there is able to up the stakes of this glimmering disco concert! I also insisted that the main six use handheld wireless microphones during the concert, and we even managed to add some blingy handle covers for good measure!

 

#1 The Addams Family   

 

It seems only right that this show is in the number one slot, it is definitely in my top three favorite designs.  If I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t encounter too many issues I needed a creative solution for on this show.  I did get to play with a few fun effects, though. I don’t know if this is the typical casting, but our Cousin It also played the monster in Pugsley’s room.

Both of these characters featured a costume that completely covered the actor’s head. The monster costume was literally built on top of a motorcycle helmet worn by the actor.  As you can imagine, these are not ideal microphone situations. I chose to cover the echo chamber that these pieces created with effects. Since both characters made only sounds and not words, I was able to be pretty heavy-handed with the effects, as I was not worried about intelligibility or tedious balance.

For both characters, I used a dual pitch. I dialed both of It’s pitches extremely high, and both of the monster’s pitches extremely low. We gave the actor some time during tech to experiment with different sounds to see what could be produced through these effects. The outcome was very exciting, and a crowd favorite!

The opening number of the show features ensemble “ah’s,” which were sung offstage for our production. To give this an “other-worldly” feel, I basically drowned them in a large chamber reverb with a shockingly long 9-second decay. The same effect was applied to the women’s ensemble final “ah’s” in The Moon and Me.

Whatever musical you may be working on, remember that you do not always have to be beholden to budget, inventory, or personnel.  Creative solutions are out there, you just have to think outside the box. Also, remember your community if you get stuck! There is nothing wrong with reaching out to your hive, analog or digital, to discover just the right trick!     

Soundgirls Expo 2019

This July the SoundGirls Orlando Chapter, along with B4 Media Production and Mainline Marketing, hosted our second annual SG Expo at Full Sail University. The expo was intimate; we had panel discussions and presentations followed by everyone filling the lobby to network and explore the vendor tables. The people who showed up were eager and enthusiastic, some were thrilled to bits that this organization existed and we welcomed them right into our community. Beckie Campbell, the Orlando Chapter Head, and owner of B4 Media Productions got the band back together with Willa Snow – the Austin SG Chapter Head and Laura Davidson with Shure.

Beckie Campbell has been on tour this summer as a FOH Engineer for the Indigo Girls. She found her way back to Orlando to host the expo. Beckie gave expert advice on live sound, production management, and being a small business owner.

Laura Davidson represented Shure at our expo for the second year in a row. Her RF presentation enlightened those new to using wireless microphone systems. Her RF Basics discussion is integral to any new engineers exploring the wireless in live sound production. She also shared some of Shure’s new wireless microphones, which had some impressive features. Shure’s rechargeable rack-mounted station was a favorite of mine. Having worked in live sound for over 15 years, changing batteries took up such a large part of my day when we had 20+ cast members with IEMs and belt packs. The ADX1M micro body pack transmitter was one of my favorite new items, the compact size was impressive (and adorable).

Willa Snow presented for Allen & Heath, giving us some insight on their new firmware updates and iLive family of consoles and accessories.  She also contributed to our panel discussions, giving our attendees a bright and refreshing attitude on mixing live music in Austin, TX.

Mainline Marketing, another amazing local company, supported our expo by bringing some amazing equipment for our guests to demo and get hands-on experience. Michael, Michael, and Zach provided us with expert knowledge and experience. They also brought along the fabulous Shure Jeep, which was a huge hit.

Some new players this year included Kaysen Thurber with Inearz, a local Central Florida company who are passionate about preserving hearing for musicians and Wesley Devore, the Documentation Manager for Presonus Audio Electronics.

Inearz is a Central Florida family-owned company. Kaysen’s father, Kim Fisher. Kim has been building IEM drivers since the 70s. He started his own company in 2003 and has kept it in the family ever since. Kaysen has been working with her father since she was 15 and continues to represent the brand passionately.

Wesley Devore braved a hurricane in her home state of Louisiana to join us in Orlando. Wesley writes the manuals for Presonus; her presentation featured Presonus’s Studio Live console and their scaleable ecosystem of products. Presonus’s NSB Stagebox was a beefy addition to their line of consoles, a stagebox that behaves as an I/O router with gain compensation down the line. Each integrated system would have control over its gain, so nothing is set by any one part of the system, in turn giving the operator complete control.

Featuring these women and providing a platform for them to be passionate about their products and experiences is the main reason we present this expo. We had several students from local colleges, including some who traveled over three hours to attend. Many of these women echoed the same stories we’ve heard over and over, being passionate about music and technology while feeling pushed aside by men who think their passion is more “serious.” Referring them to SoundGirls, including the scholarships that are offered and resources provided on the website was exactly what they needed to hear. Screw gentle encouragement; we can push these women into their dreams. Empowerment is in our tagline for a reason; we can equip these young ladies with the education and confidence necessary to succeed in their career of choice.

 

The Power of an All Women Team

I just got home from a load-in that I’ve been dreading for months. To my surprise, I don’t feel exhausted, I don’t have any harrowing stories of woe to share, and I’m not annoyed, frustrated, or angry. Instead, what I feel is proud, accomplished, and satisfied. I’m not immediately sure what is different about this load-in, and then it hits me: There was not one man on this team. The power of the all-women team is real, and I’m about to tell you why.

Yes, I am a feminist. No, I do not hate men. Yes, I work with great guys all the time. So why has my experience with this all-women team been so remarkable? I’m really not sure, and to be honest, I never expected myself to be the person attributing a smooth process to the lack of testosterone in the room, but here we are. Let me start with a little back story on the project.

This load-in was at my resident theatre company. The load-in was for a musical theatre show featuring a six-piece live band on stage. The Sound Designer (also a woman) is a guest, so the rest of the team has been prepping in advance of her arrival. All along, we have checked with her on patching preferences, microphone choices, speaker placement, etc., and she’s been very relaxed and happy with the choices that we’ve made. We haven’t had to deal with any ego or power trip. We haven’t encountered the “only brown M&Ms” on the rider just to make sure we’re paying attention. Easy and efficient is how I would describe the process of advancing this Sound Designer.

Because this show is just a two-hour long concert, we agreed to let the majority of the gear (monitors, FOH console + engineer, microphones, keyboard, etc.) be in the rehearsal room. The intention was that monitor levels, mixes and scenes could be dialed in during the rehearsal process, and save us some valuable tech time. Because all of our gear was sitting in rehearsal during our usual load-in time, we had a finite amount of change over time from rehearsal to stage in preparation for upcoming sound levels time and tech.

The last rehearsal ended at 3:30 pm. My crew, which consisted of the show’s A1, A2, and Assistant Sound Designer, started loading out the rehearsal room at 5:00 pm. We got to the stage around 6:30 pm and began mapping out our setup. Everything must be ready and working by 1:00 pm the next day for the Sound Designer’s designated sound levels time. This process isn’t entirely as cut and dry as it might sound. In addition to making sure everything looks and sounds great on this stage, we have to consider the outdoor theater this show will travel to in two weeks. We need to make sure we have enough resources set aside to support a significant orchestra recording that is coming up at the end of the week and the next musical that will be on this stage.

In addition to the band on stage, we also have two speaker specials hidden in the scenery, 2 Rio stage boxes 50 feet apart, and a wireless microphone rack used for actor body mics, and three of the instruments on stage. We also have eight channels of QLab and an external audio interface. All of this has to be networked in our Dante system. As the load-in progressed, some plans had to change, different runs needed to be made and troubleshooting gear.  This was the part when I noticed a difference in many of my past load-ins. These young women, basically fresh out of college, were very smart, keeping all of the pieces tracked through their plans, and working efficiently and calmly.

As a woman working in a male-dominated field, I have been undermined, discounted, and “little-lady’ed” more times than I can count. This regular kind of interaction or expectation has made me permanently defensive, not only for myself but for my fellow SoundGirls in the industry. I have found myself on various calls watching the interaction between women and men, wondering if I’m going to have to drop what I’m doing to come to the defense of another woman who is being railroaded. When I’m juggling all kinds of various technical elements in my brain during a time-sensitive load-in, the last thing I need to be thinking about is whether or not (or how many times) I’m going to have to defend my position to a man who thinks he knows better. Whether or not that situation occurs, the possibility of its existence automatically puts me in defense mode every time.

Here’s the thing about all of this subconscious self-protection: I didn’t know I was doing that until I didn’t have to do it anymore. As I said, I was dreading this load-in. I knew so much was riding on my planning. When my expected stress never arrived at the onset of the load-in, I had to actively think about what was different. All of us on that project were able to focus on the task at hand and nothing else. What a luxury I didn’t know I was missing. Because of this cohesive team and everyone’s smart and careful planning, we walked out of the space at 10:30 pm, hours ahead of what I was expecting. I drove home beaming with pride. Why can’t every job be this way?

The moral of this story is not that we should kick all of the men out of our industry. The moral is that we ALL need to be able to work on an equal and cohesive team. I do not want to see the new generation developing the same defensive complex that I have. To the men reading this blog, pay attention at your next gig. Pay attention to your interactions and the interactions of your fellow male team members. Do you notice a difference in how you interact with the women on your team?  Does your voice change? Do your facial expressions vary? What about your body language? All of these things are second nature to all of us, so much I wasn’t even aware I was missing the serenity of working on an all-women team, you might not even be aware that your responses change for no other reason than the gender of the other party. If you see it, when you see it, change it. Make yourself aware. Stopping the cycle starts with you. It’s a fight the women of this industry have been fighting forever. Be an ally, be supportive, be on our team.

BBC New Creatives

I have recently been accepted onto the BBC New Creatives scheme 2019. This is the first time the project has been run. It aims to give artists the opportunity to make fresh and innovative short films, audio, and interactive works. This new talent development scheme is being launched by BBC Arts and Arts Council England. There are various hubs across the UK, including Tyneside Cinema which is covering the North of England, which is where I applied as my family base is in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The programme has been designed for emerging creatives aged 16-30 years old to make new artistic works to potentially be published for BBC channels and platforms in the future.

There are three pathways to choose from:

As a SoundGirl, I chose to go down the audio route! But there are opportunities for the creativity of all genres, from poetry and art to dance and electronic music.

 

 

The process so far:

The workshop was held at ‘The Sharp Project’ in Manchester, and the group was informed that there were 142 applicants for the whole programme, but only 20 specifically for audio. They whittled the group down to eight by carrying out phone interviews.

We were each assigned a mentor, well established in the audio industry, throughout the weekend to help develop our ideas. I have since been in touch with my mentor via email. It has been great to have continued support throughout the project and not just be left to make something by myself.

The whole programme is a well-thought-out and structured collaboration between Naked Productions and BBC Arts and Arts Council England. The coordinators aim to help you improve your knowledge, skills, and abilities in designing, producing, and sharing creative work.

 

 

I have the next month to develop my project and create a 5-10 minute audio piece. I will have a mastering day at the end of the programme.

As I am relatively new to audio, with my only experience being in student radio and my own experimental podcast experience, I have already learnt lots of new vocabulary which may be obvious to some, but I have decided to note some words here in case anyone else is a novice when it comes to the technical language.

Audio vocab:

Foley: the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality

Diegetic: sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film, e.g., voices of characters

Non-diegetic: sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action, e.g., narrator’s commentary, sound effects which are added for the dramatic effect, mood music

Binaural audio: binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3-D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments

ADR: Additional Dialogue Recording

Dialogue: that cannot be salvaged from production tracks must be re-recorded in a studio. An actor watches the image repeatedly while listening to the original production track on headphones as a guide. The actor then re-performs each line to match the wording and lip movements. Actors vary in their ability to achieve sync and to recapture the emotional tone of their performance.

Blanket agreement: in the music industry, a blanket license is used to give blanket permission to use any music from a specific catalogue.

PRS: PRS for Music Limited is the UK’s leading collection society, bringing together two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society. It undertakes collective rights management for musical works on behalf of its 140,000 members.

 

 

The programme focuses on many aspects of creative work, including:

There is funding and budgets available so that participants can produce high-quality audio content. There are also opportunities to learn more about the specific editing process at the BBC. We were given lots of information about mics including contact mics, lapel mics, M/S mics, and stereo mics.

I would highly encourage any young creative people to apply.

The next deadline for applications for Film and Audio work is midnight, Sunday 7 July 2019.

You never know what might come of it!

Good luck!

Find out more here:

New Creatives North and Tyneside Cinema

Twitter:

Instagram:

Tyneside Cinema:

BBC Arts:

Arts Council England

WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME:

 

 

How to Learn Any Digital Console Quickly

Many times I have accepted an event, asked about the equipment, and received a super vague response. Or, even better, requested a specific console and then received something completely different! Cool, I guess we’ll figure it out as we go?

Locate your most important things:

Interface – how do you navigate? Is there a computer/mouse situation, or is it a touch screen? If you’re on a console, some are touch screens, and some aren’t. Do you need to make your faders, is there a blank session you can load for the venue that gives you a starting point? Figure it out.

Console layout – Take a minute or two to see how the console is set up. Where is the EQ/effects section, does it have its own section or is it variable on the scribble strip? How many layers, and can you change the layers with a flip to faders function (those can screw you up if you don’t realize it’s turned on!) Locate the headphone port and how to adjust your own monitors. This sounds silly, but I had a conversation last week with Beckie Campbell where she just couldn’t find it on a Midas console, and she’s a damn legend.

Patching – Usually when I start to get annoyed or confused on a new console, it’s because of the patching. Patching can be super simple (like on the Avid consoles) which is a click-and-drag situation. Calrec Summa is a multi-step process where you click back and forth between Source and Destination points. It’s a good system (in my opinion) but takes extra consideration.

Bus assignments – How do you assign your channels? Are there buttons, can you select them all and do it all in one go? I teach audio students, and this is one of the biggest things that gets overlooked. It’s one of the very first things that I do, but students seem to forget until they don’t get audio as expected.

Now figure out what you will need for the show

Aux Sends & Effects – Are there dedicated effect returns, or do you need to make some from stereo channels? In some interfaces, it might be easier to add the effect first and then route it. Other consoles will demand you have the aux and returns and then add the effect to the channel.

Compression/EQ onboard vs. plugins – All digital consoles will have some onboard effects. Calrec Summa – a broadcast console – has two dynamic effects per channel. It does not have any time-based (other than time delay) effects onboard whatsoever. FOH digital will have a large selection of brand-based or fancier licensed plugins, with the option to load more from your personal key (such as Waves). This can be frustrating and may require phone calls to get your license functioning on a new console. It’s up to you and your client, but for any smaller shows or corporate events, I just keep it simple.

Snapshots – You can select which parameters will save in your snapshots, so I suggest you take a few minutes to set this up. It has screwed me up when I changed snapshots and then my patch changed, for example.

Other Notes

Download the manual (not a link!) and read it if you can on your commute.

Download software if available and start building your show file.

Try to give yourself time for a break so you can walk away. It’s fun to learn new things, but it can be frustrating when it isn’t working the way you expect.

Use your network – Do you have any friends you can call or text to get a tip? We have dozens of digital consoles where I work, so I am lucky enough to be able to access almost anything to build a show file or learn the layout ahead of time. Most people aren’t privileged in this way, try to see if a friend of a friend has the console you need or will be using one locally! SoundGirls on Facebook is also an excellent resource; there are literally hundreds (thousands?) Of people online who are willing to help. We’ve had FaceTime sessions, chats, phone calls, text marathons, etc. to help when needed! Once I phoned a friend just to see if I could plug my phone USB into the console to charge it (I couldn’t), so don’t be afraid to ask the dumb or seemingly obvious questions.

 

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