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Live digital audio in plain English part 2

Never mind the bit clocks… it’s a word clock primer

My last blog dealt with translating audio into a digital signal. The next step is keeping that signal in time when it’s being captured, processed and sent to different parts of the system. This is where the fabled word clock comes in. If anything weird ever happens with a digital set up, like odd clicks or pops over the PA, you can seem wise beyond your years by nodding sagely, saying “Hmm, it sounds like a clocking issue”, then making your excuses and leaving before any further questions can be asked. However, you can become a rare and very valuable member of your audio team by actually learning what word clocks are, how they work and how to fix the most common problems they can cause. They might seem strange and complicated, but they are of course not black magic. It’s all about crystals.

So… what is a word clock?

Any device receiving audio sees a string of 1s and 0s. How does it know whether 0000011100001011 is two samples, reading 00000111 (= 7) and 00001011 (=11), or the second half of a sample, a full sample (01110000 = 112), and the first half of the next one? As you can see, the resulting values can be very different, so it’s essential to get it right to the exact bit.
A word clock is a signal that is sent at a very accurate frequency of one square wave per sample (the bits in each sample make up a ‘word’). This signal is produced by passing an electrical current through a small crystal inside a word clock generator. The rising edge of the resulting wave means 1; the falling edge means 0. The clock runs alongside the audio signal, with 1 usually meaning “this is the start of the sample” and 0 meaning “this is the end.” Different shapes and sizes of crystal resonate at different frequencies, then more subtle changes are controlled by variations in the voltage running through the circuit and temperature. Some clock generators even keep their crystals in tiny ‘ovens’ to keep the temperature constant.

What the clock?

Clocks are necessary for a few different stages in the signal path. AD convertors might take a fixed number of samples per second, but they still need to make sure those samples are evenly spaced. If they aren’t, the waveform will end up deformed when reproduced by something that is in time. Thinking back to the video analogy from the last post, it’s like film taken on old hand-cranked cameras: uneven capturing of the signal leads to weird inconsistencies when it’s played back. In audio, it’s referred to as jitter. This can also happen when an accurately-captured signal gets reconverted with an unreliable clock, like a film being played on a clunky projector (see figure 1). Clocks used to trigger the capturing of the signal are often called sample clocks. There are also bit clocks, which produce one cycle per bit. These days they are only used for signal transport within devices, for example from one PCB to another. You’re very unlikely to encounter a problem with a bit clock, and if you do there isn’t much you can do except send it back for repair. You might also hear people referring to word clock as sync clock, signal clock or simply clock.

An AD converter with a stable word clock (represented by the square wave at the top) captures an accurate waveform (left), but if it’s converted back to analogue through a DA converter with an unstable clock, the waveform will become deformed (right). Source: Apogee Knowledge Base http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgebase/fundamentals-of-digital-audio/what-is-jitter/”

 

One clock to rule them all

A stable clock compared to a jittery one, compared to one whose frequency has drifted. Jitter is caused by a varying clock frequency, whereas a clock that has drifted has a pretty stable frequency. It’s just the wrong one. Source: Apogee Knowledge Base http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgebase/fundamentals-of-digital-audio/word-clock-whats-the-difference-between-jitter-and-frequency-stability/”

What we are really interested in for live audio is using word clock to keep multiple devices, e.g., the front of house desk, monitor desk, and system processors, in sync. Think of it like keeping a band in time: most digital devices on the market have their own internal clock, so it’s like each member of the band having their own click (or metronome if you’re that way inclined). If it’s a solo artist, there’s no problem. Even if the click wanders a bit, it probably won’t be noticeable, because there’s nothing to compare it to. However, when there are several members, they need to stay in tempo. Neither clocks nor clicks are perfect, and even if everyone starts off together, they will eventually fall out of sync (known as frequency drift. See figure 2). It makes sense to choose one person to keep the beat for everyone else, like the drummer. Much in the same way, you need to designate one device in your system to be the master clock, and the other devices are slaves who sync their clocks to the master. Sometimes, it can be even better to get a separate device whose only job is to keep time, i.e., an external word clock generator. This is like hiring a professional conductor for the band. Much like a conductor though, they can be very expensive and for the most part aren’t necessary as long as you have a good enough band/set up.

“Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall during the Aldeburgh Festival, 2017, by Matt Jolly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mirga_Gra-inyt–Tyla_conducts_the_CBSO,_Aldeburgh_Voices_and_Aldeburgh_Music_Club_at_Aldeburgh_Festival-crop.jpg”

Each device still uses its own clock when following the master. They constantly monitor at what phase in the cycle the incoming clock signal is and compare it to their own. If the two fall out of time, the device can adjust its clock (usually by varying the voltage running through the crystal) until it’s locked in sync. The circuit that does this is called a phase-locked-loop. It’s like a band member nudging the speed of their click or metronome until it matches the conductor. However, some common sense is needed. You don’t want to constantly adjust for every tiny discrepancy, nor do you want everyone to follow when the conductor is obviously wrong, like if he sneezes or falls over. A phase-locked loop’s sensitivity can be adjusted, so it ignores fleeting differences and remains locked to the last signal it received if the master clock outputs major errors or drops out of the system. The device will then continue at that speed until the master gets reinstated or replaced, but will slowly drift if this doesn’t happen. The sensitivity can also be adjusted depending on how good the device is compared to the master. If your conductor isn’t the best, it might be better to listen to your own click when in doubt (or invest in a better conductor). In the next post, I’ll discuss how all this relates to our real life setups.

Live Digital Audio in Plain English Part 1

Digitizing the audio

Digital audio is nothing new, but there is still a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about how it really works, and how to fix it when things go wrong. If you’ve ever tried to find out more about digital audio topics, you will know that there are a lot of dry, complicated, and frankly, boring articles out there, seemingly written by automatons. I’m going to spend the next few posts tackling the fundamental ideas, specifically as they relate to live audio (rather than recording, which seems to have been covered a lot more), in plain English. For the sake of clarity and brevity, some things may be oversimplified or a bit wrong. If unsure, consult the internet, your local library, or a pedantic friend.

So, how does audio become digital in the first place? The analogue signal travels from the source (e.g., a mic) into the desk or its stagebox, where it gets turned into a series of 1s and 0s by an analogue-digital converter (AD converter or ADC). AD converters work by taking lots of snapshots (called samples) of the waveform in very quick succession to build up a digital reconstruction of it: a method known as pulse-code modulation (PCM. Don’t worry about remembering all these terms; it’s just useful to understand the whole process. In over ten years of live gigs, I’ve never heard anyone discuss PCM, and I’ve heard some pretty nerdy conversations). Two factors control how accurate that reconstruction will be: sample rate and bit depth.

Sample rate is the rate at which the samples are taken! Not surprisingly, the more samples per second, the smaller the gap between them (sample interval) and the less information that is lost. Think of it like frame rate in film – a low sample rate is like a jerky, stop-motion video, high sample rate is like 48 frames per second fancy Peter Jackson stuff.

Bit depth is the number of bits (piece of information encoded in binary for electronic use – so a 0 or a 1) in each sample. 8 bits make a byte, and samples are set to capture the same number of bytes each time. They record the amplitude of the signal – more bits mean there are more discrete amplitudes that it can be recorded as (See figure 1), so the resolution of the soundwave becomes clearer. Bits are like pixels on a screen – low bit depth is similar to blocky, unclear footage, high bit depth is like high definition where you can see every detail. Back in the early days of computer games, there wasn’t much available memory in the cartridges, so all the sound was recorded in 8-bit. The low-resolution audio matched the pixelated video.

Figure 1: Bit depth vs. sample rate. Time is represented on the x-axis, amplitude on the y-axis. Source: https://www.horusmusic.global/music-formats-explained/ Original source unknown.

Looking at figure 1, it’s clear that the longer the bit depth and the higher the sample rate, the closer you can get to the original waveform. Realistically you can’t take an infinite number of infinitely detailed samples every second – even very high values of each produce an unmanageable amount of data to process, and costs too much to be practical. The Nyquist-Shannon theorem states that to reproduce a waveform accurately for a given bandwidth you need to take more than twice as many samples per second as the highest frequency that you are converting. If you take fewer samples than the highest frequency, an entire wavelength could happen between samples but wouldn’t be recorded. With between as many and twice as many, you still wouldn’t collect enough data about that waveform to differentiate it from all other frequencies, as is shown in figure 2.

Figure 2: Aliasing. If a waveform isn’t sampled often enough, it can be confused with other, lower frequency, ones.Source: Eboomer84 via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aliasing.JPG

For music, we usually assume the bandwidth is the range of human hearing: roughly 20Hz-20kHz. Twice that range is just under 40kHz, but the Sony corporation figured out that 44.1kHz synced up nicely with the video recording equipment they already had while leaving a nice margin for error, so it became the standard for recording film audio and CDs. Later 48kHz was adopted because it worked well with new digital video recording gear, and could reproduce even higher frequencies. Most digital mixing desks work on 48kHz or 96kHz.

Moiré patterns like this, or the weird lines when you take a photo of a screen, can be caused by the visual equivalent of aliasing. We have more in common with the video department than we might like to admit. Credit: “angry aliasing in a webgl fragment shader” by Adam Smith on flickr. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Why bother with 96kHz? No one can hear 48kHz, so what’s the point in sampling enough to cover it? It isn’t strictly necessary, but there are a few reasons to do it anyway. Firstly there’s the argument that, much like when choosing a speaker’s frequency range, frequencies above the limit of human hearing can still affect the overall waveform, and so ignoring them can change the resulting sound. Secondly, in digital sampling, higher frequencies can have a real and detrimental effect called aliasing. In figure 2 you can see that the AD converter would not be able to tell whether the points it’s recorded belong to a very high-frequency waveform or a lower one. It has been told what bandwidth to expect to see, so it will assume that waveform is the lower one, within the defined bandwidth. This causes it to be artificially added to the digital audio, making it sound… just not quite right. AD converters use low pass filters, called anti-aliasing filters, to get rid of these high frequencies but they aren’t perfect; they aren’t like a brick wall stopping everything above 20kHz (or whatever they’re set to) getting through, they have a sloping response just like other filters. Increasing the sample rate can clarify which waveform is which and take the pressure off the anti-aliasing filter, moving the highest frequency that can be accurately recognised higher than that slope. Thirdly, AD converters use complex mathematical formulae to take an educated guess at filling in the blanks between samples, known as quantisation. The more samples you have, the smaller the blanks that need to be filled and the more accurate that quantisation can be.

Increasing the bit depth also greatly reduces quantisation errors. Quantisation is basically rounding to the nearest amplitude point to smooth off the ‘pixelated’ waveform – more bits mean more options to find as close a point to the real value as possible. When this process is inaccurate, the guesswork introduces noise that isn’t present in the original signal. Increasing the bit depth reduces that guesswork, increasing the ‘signal to quantisation noise ratio.’ 24 bit, which is common in live digital audio, can give you over 120dB of dynamic range because it significantly lowers that quantisation noise floor, and so can give your true signal more space and reduce the likelihood of it clipping.

As ever, your sound will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain. You might never notice the differences between these options in a live setting as a lot of live gear is not sensitive enough to show them. This might be why there is so much more discussion about them in relation to studios. However, it helps to know what processes are at work, especially when it comes to troubleshooting, which I’ll cover in a future post.

Beth O’Leary 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 entertainments 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

Grow Your Ears for Music

Imagine if, on the first day of school, your teacher had stood up and said “Look, we’re going to try this thing called reading. It isn’t for everyone. Some of you will just have an eye for words, and some of you won’t. If you find you don’t have the knack, you might as well just leave it.” I like to think that would be greeted with a bunch of toddlers falling over laughing, but you would expect that questions would be asked about the teacher’s career choice at the very least. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that the ability to read is predetermined and cut and dry, so why do we listen to people who say only those with an ear for music can become great sound engineers?

The jury is still out on whether there is such a thing as an innate, genetic talent for hearing and music. Even if there is, the thing about genes is they very, very rarely account for the whole spectrum of differences amongst the population. A gene might give you a head start, but the environment in which you grow up can influence the development of that skill as much, often more. Even for child prodigies, an initial flair gets nurtured (or perhaps smothered) by parental encouragement and hours upon hours of daily practice. It is much the same with sound engineering. Some people might take to it quicker than others, but everyone benefits from practice and study. A skill being hard-earned does not negate its value, otherwise, why would we bother going to school? When I started out I was in awe of what my more experienced colleagues could pick out in a mix, and how quickly they could not only detect but identify the cause of a problem. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do it. I’m still far from perfect, but there are plenty of sounds I don’t even think about how to fix now; I’ve heard them so many times I automatically know what to do. I’m still discovering new aspects of my favourite songs that I’ve listened to since I was a teenager. Fancier professional earphones can only partly explain that!

So where has this belief that only the golden-eared chosen few can make it in the music industry come from? I suspect it’s people who have been told all their lives that they have an ear for music. When people do well, they like to find logical reasons for that success. The special gifts that they are born with, combined with what they feel was hard work, mean they deserve everything they have earned. Of course, they often do, but too few people acknowledge the roles that the help of others and luck play in a field as fickle and competitive as ours. Similarly, if you don’t make it, it is easy to say that you simply weren’t cut out for it, that you didn’t have a good enough ear. Only successful people want to believe that they live in a meritocracy. In reality, it takes the support and advice of countless colleagues and a big chunk of luck, in addition to skill and determination, to get your break. However, this doesn’t mean you should give up now. You can work to improve your knowledge and skillset and grab as many opportunities as you can. Put yourself in the path of luck as often as possible and be ready when it hits.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not one for baseless positive thinking. I don’t think we can all become astronauts, as long as we simply believe in ourselves: there aren’t enough shuttles, and someone has to do all the other less exciting jobs. However, someone does have to be an astronaut. Someone has to mix that fantastic up-and-coming band. Someone has to system engineer that stadium tour. Someone has to do all those myriad jobs that don’t get as much attention but can be just as satisfying (and often better paid!) like RF tech, comms tech, or installation engineer. Who gets to decide? Your school music teacher? That lighting guy? Some blogger? What do they know? Even if an ear for music is encoded in your chromosomes, are they suddenly geneticists? How did they get a sample of your DNA anyway? Don’t be put off by other engineers telling you that you don’t have what it takes either. However subconsciously, they are reassuring themselves that they deserve to be where they are and are trying to protect themselves from the competition.

In research on geniuses, one of the most important factors is their passion for their subject, known as the ‘rage to master.’ They study and practice so intensely not just because they’ve been made to, but because they want to because they must. They don’t feel right if they aren’t working on their “thing.” The author Hunter S. Thompson once wrote a brilliant letter when he had been asked for life advice, in which he advocates finding a lifestyle you enjoy and creating a career around it, rather than the other way round: “The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important.” Let’s be honest, sound engineering is competitive, but you don’t need to be a genius. If sound is what you love, don’t wait for some authority to tell you that you have what it takes, to give you permission to do it. Decide now that you are one of those special people, and just do it. The Department of Who Does and Doesn’t Have an Ear for Music will never know. Maybe you won’t make a living out of it, but the only way to find out is to put yourself out there, learn, practice and improve. Even if you never get a gig bigger than the local bar, if no one hears your mixes, if no one subscribes to your podcasts, the important thing is that you enjoyed the process, and so the net positivity of the whole world is up.

 

What’s Your Plan B?

So you’ve wanted to be a sound engineer since you were a little kid. You studied hard in school, slaved away as an enthusiastic, overworked and underpaid intern, and no matter what the setbacks, you remained determined to succeed. In such a competitive industry, you’d think you’d need to be focused on nothing but sound, but what happens when your dream gets derailed? It’s easy to believe that pure grit is enough to get to the top and stay there, but there are so many factors that can throw your best-laid plans out the window. The earlier you put contingencies in place, the softer the blow will be if something does go wrong. Believe me; I’ve been there.

Firstly, I can’t stress enough how important insurance is. It seems so expensive when you’re starting out, and you’re barely earning enough to pay the bills, but do not treat it as optional. The world of live sound is a high-pressure, fast-paced, physical environment and accidents happen. Your number one priority should be public liability insurance. This won’t keep you out of jail if you are criminally negligent, but it helps if you get sued. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, could you afford to prove it in court? Plus, any company worth its salt won’t hire a freelancer without it. Most unions and professional bodies can offer PLI for their members at a discounted rate, just make sure whatever policy you get covers you for all eventualities. If you are employed, check that your boss has you covered, don’t just presume.

Next is injury and illness insurance. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to carry on working if you aren’t in full health. Even if you live in a country with good social security, there can be a long, frustrating application process that can leave you without any income for months, especially if you’re a freelancer. It can also be tough to show that you are unwell enough to qualify. For example, if you break your leg, you can’t load in gear or tip a desk, but as long as your hearing is intact, the person in the social security office may not see why you can’t work. Get a good injury and illness insurance policy from a provider that understands the nature of your job. It’s tempting to skip the illness part when you’re young, thinking it’s so unlikely to affect you, but you should seriously consider it.

I was 28 when I got ill. I went from being absolutely fine to having to leave work halfway through a load-in within a week. It turned out that I had gastroesophageal reflux disease, which is the term for severe, chronic heartburn. It doesn’t sound serious, but I got unbearable stabbing pains in my stomach any time I tried to lift anything. If left untreated it can lead to oesophageal cancer. It took 18 months to get the message through to my doctor that taking an antacid here and there and avoiding lifting wasn’t an option for me, get referred to a specialist, get officially diagnosed, have surgery and recover. If I had known that it would take so long, I would have taken a break from sound and done something else, but it felt like everything might get fixed at the next appointment. Of course, I didn’t have illness cover. I was 28! I stubbornly kept working as much as I could, but every gig hurt, and it made my condition worse. It also meant I wouldn’t have qualified for unemployment benefits if I had applied.

You can do everything in your power to pursue your goals, and you can treat your body as a temple, but there are some things you can’t predict or control. Even if you’re lucky enough to stay healthy, you might have to take time out to look after a loved one. You might need to move somewhere with fewer jobs available, or the work might simply dry up. Our industry is frustratingly fickle, and I’ve seen talented, hardworking engineers lose long-term clients just because their new management wants to use their own team, or someone offers their services cheaper. It’s a smart move to make as many friends as possible and have a diverse client base, so you aren’t relying on one band or company too heavily, and you have an excellent network to call on when times are hard. Still, there will almost definitely be a point when you’ll need to make a living doing something else, even if it is temporary. Live sound, especially touring, is unlike any other job and can leave you institutionalised and stuck. What transferable skills do you have? What else are you passionate about? You need to sit down and seriously assess how you could make a living outside of sound. That Etsy shop you’ve meant to open to sell nose warmers for elephants isn’t going to cut it.

I know I’ve been pretty pessimistic here, but there are ways to stave off disaster if the unthinkable does happen. If you realise your skills are lacking, start working on them now. We’re lucky enough to live in a time where we can study online from anywhere in the world, whenever it suits us. Learn a language, learn how to code, figure out how those social media celebrities make a living. Find something you enjoy, treat it as a hobby, and if the worst happens, you know you have something to fall back on. It could even earn you some good money on the side in the meantime, and you can feel smug in the knowledge you’ll continue to do great things, no matter what life throws at you.

 

Festival Guide part 2: In-house Tech/Engineer

Much like in part one of my festival guide, the key to working in-house at a festival is to be prepared. Pack warm, waterproof clothes, way more socks than you think you’ll need, sanitiser, etc. If you have any special dietary requirements make sure they know as soon as possible, and bring extra non-perishable food in case the message doesn’t get passed on. The days are long and busy; you may not get a chance to sit down to eat your meals, let alone leave the stage to get them. Someone else might pick your food up for you, and they might not understand what Coeliac is, for example, so have a backup ready.

When prepping the gear, read all the specs you’ve been sent carefully (e.g., a Shure Beta 98amp, 98AD/C and 98H/C may all have the same capsule, but they are not interchangeable) and allow for several bands to be mic’ed up at the same time if you have rolling risers. Pack extra mics (I’d recommend mainly Shure SM57s. We joke about it, but they really will work on almost any instrument) and adapters so you’ll be ready when someone inevitably brings more than what was on their spec. In fact, take the specs as a guide rather than gospel and plan to be flexible. If you are operating a desk, try to find out whether the bands have their own engineers, and whether they have a show file. If not, along with your generic starting file you can start building ones for them to save time on the day (but expect there to be changes!).

If you’re in charge of patching, discuss with the rest of your department whether you’ll work “1 to 1” (everyone gets plugged in as per their channel list) or if you’ll have a festival patch (all bands use the same channels, with similar instruments grouped together. e.g., inside kick drum is 1, guitars all go in 13-16, brass in 24-30, etc.). Festival patch can be a lot quicker if you’re using analogue desks, sharing backline and mics throughout the day, or if you’ll be mixing most of the bands yourself. It helps the in-house monitor engineer in particular because they can leave rough mixes up and just tweak them band to band instead of starting fresh every changeover, which can be very time-consuming. 1 to 1 is obviously a lot easier for guests, though, especially if they have programmed a lot of scenes for their set in their file which could take too long to adjust after a soft patch.

Festivals can be intense, with very short changeovers, so staying organised is paramount. Label absolutely everything. Imagine you were to suddenly get ill and have to leave. Would a colleague be able to step in and know where and what everything is? If not, label it up until there’s no way anyone could get confused. If the worst happens and you do have to go, someone will be able to pick up where you left off. More importantly, when you’ve been working flat out for 14 hours and your brain goes blank right at the critical moment when you’re fault finding, you’ll be able to rely on the labels to get you through. If coloured tape everywhere doesn’t suit the look of the show (for example if it’s being broadcast), silver marker pen on black tape is a lot more subtle. Keep your paperwork and a pencil with you, so you can note down any changes as you go along. Don’t forget to update anyone else who needs to know, e.g., other stage crew, engineers or the broadcast truck. Carry a phantom power checker, and a small mic with a patch lead and an XLR to jack for DIs so you can test any lines that go bad straight away (after making sure that channel is muted!).

Don’t wait for bands or engineers to come to you, go and find them as soon as they get to the stage. Check for any changes to their spec, ask them how they like their mixes if you’re doing monitors for them, and so on. Musicians can be very laid back, so you need to be friendly but firm to keep them on schedule. At the changeover, make sure they set up as quickly as possible. Take the lead for line check if you’re mixing. Ask for the instruments you want to hear, and politely tell them to stop playing the ones you don’t. For monitors, the quickest way to get usable mixes is to ask everyone to put their hand up when they want the instrument that is being checked in their mix, and not to put them down until it’s loud enough for them. Don’t get flustered trying to give everyone what they want at the same time, just calmly work from one side of the stage to the other and let impatient people know you’ve seen them and you’ll get to them. If the engineer on the other end of the multicore is moving too fast for you, ask them to slow down. You both need to hear everything, so they should be happy to oblige.

Festivals can be manic, challenging, wet and cold, but it’ll be over before you know it, and that huge sense of achievement you feel at the end might even be enough to persuade you into another field the next week. You’re going to need more socks.

Other articles on Festivals with useful information

Festival Guide Part One

Working Coachella and Surviving Festival Season: How Two Monitor Engineers Approach Festival Season

Coachella Music and Arts Festival: Two Companies that Did!

Rat Sound Answers Your Questions about Coachella

 

Festival Guide Part 1: Guest Engineer

I have spent over seven years working in-house at nearly every major festival in the UK, and plenty of the smaller ones. Festivals can be some of the most rewarding shows to do, but they come with their own set of challenges. I hope this guide helps you to have a good show.

Step one: Be prepared. You should always have a clear, up-to-date stage plot and channel list (make sure any colour-coding works in black and white. They won’t get printed in colour). Send them, and a show file for the in-house desk if you have one, to the festival in plenty of time. I’m talking weeks, if not months. It’s no good sending your advance in on Friday morning when the gear left the warehouse on Tuesday. Try your best to keep your information accurate for that particular show, too. A lot of festivals will be run on “festival patch”: every band shares channels for similar instruments (e.g., kick drum inside mic is 1, guitars all go in channels 13-16, brass in 25-30, etc.), which means someone will have been tasked with going through everyone’s advances to figure out how to fit everyone in (another reason to send it in early!). If you turn up and tell them you were only touring the 37-piece children’s choir for your headline shows you will have caused a lot of hassle for nothing. It isn’t usually a big problem to add an acoustic guitar, but inviting the mariachi band you made friends at the campsite last night to join you for a few songs might not be possible. Even if the stage is running “1 to 1” (every band is patched according to their channel list), the more accurate your information, the more the stage team will be able to help you in advance.

Step two: Be prepared. Check what the weather is meant to be like, then bring layers and waterproof clothes anyway. Figure out how many socks you’ll need for the duration and pack twice as many. You won’t always have access to running water. A lot of festivals provide alcohol gel instead of taps, and they might not get refilled regularly. Bring your own sanitiser, wet wipes, toilet paper and diarrhea medication. If you have a uterus, bring sanitary products that don’t involve… well, you know. Pack plenty of drinking water and snacks; even though you’re with an artist, you might not be given more than one meal for the time you’re there. If you have any dietary requirements, make that evident as soon as possible and have a contingency plan in case the message doesn’t reach the caterers/runners.

Step three: On the day. Be prepared. Set off as early as possible. Traffic can be absolutely awful getting into a festival. Leave literally hours earlier than you would normally. Make sure you know which gate you need to head to, which may not be signposted. Allow for a long wait to get your passes at the gate. Bands have missed their set because they only got to the site for the time they were meant to be setting up. Being five minutes’ walk away from the stage is by no means the same as being five minutes from the stage!

When you get through security, head straight over and talk to the in-house team. Don’t be surprised if they don’t have your up-to-date spec, even if you sent it ages ago (but thanks for trying)! There are so many different layers of organisation and management involved with a festival; information sometimes falls through the cracks despite people’s best intentions. Keep a few printed copies with you, and have your show file on at least two USB sticks. I guarantee you, you will leave one in a desk somewhere and not notice until the next day, and you might be in a different country by then.

Check with the stage manager whether there’s space to unload and set up your gear. The earlier you get ready, the more time you’ll have to line check and fix any problems. It’s tempting to reward yourself with a few beers in the dressing room after the painful journey onto the site, but that might delay the running of the stage, and you’re risking wasting precious set time fault-finding. Get everything ready and check when your line check slot is (either just before your set or often during the changeover before yours if they’re using a rolling riser and double desk system). If you haven’t used the in-house desk before, you can ask whether there’s any time to play with it before your set. If they’re running two desks at each end, you should have at least the set before yours to get used to the layout. If not, it’s no big deal, because you checked out the offline editor for it beforehand, right? Because you’re so prepared?

Arrive back for your set in plenty of time. If possible, smuggling some cakey treats out from artist catering for the stage crew will win you major brownie points (especially if they are brownies). If you’re still unsure how to use the desk, or anything else, there’s no shame in asking the in-house engineers for help. It’s what they’re there for! No-one’s used every desk out there, no matter how experienced they are. Your host should be more than happy to help, and even show you some of their favourite tips and tricks if there’s time. It’s also very common for engineers to cover for each other over festival season, so it might be your first show with this band, and that’s fine. These experienced engineers can spot a bluffer a mile away, and if you’re too proud to let them help, they’re well within their rights to step back and watch you crash and burn. No-one wants you to have a bad gig though, so make friends with them early (hint: brownies)! If you’re mixing FoH from a tent or tower, walk outside of it at least once. It can sound completely different in the crowd compared to by the desk, even with reference monitors, so don’t just mix for yourself in your little bubble.

Once you’ve finished the show of your life because you were so on it because you were so prepared, all you have to do is grab your USB stick and headphones (don’t forget to bring your headphones by the way. Seriously), pack your gear away and celebrate! Please don’t skip straight to celebrating; there are lots of other bands to get on and off the stage, and there isn’t space to leave your gear set up until you feel like taking it away. So after a grueling 20-minute loadout and thanking the crew, you can kick back and enjoy those well-deserved beers (or soft drinks if you’re the driver) before heading to another field to do it all over again.

More info on working festivals

Festival Guide Part Two

Working Coachella and Surviving Festival Season: How Two Monitor Engineers Approach Festival Season

Coachella Music and Arts Festival: Two Companies that Did!

Rat Sound Answers Your Questions about Coachella

 

The Benefits of Sign Language

I’ve been slowly learning British Sign Language for a while now (BSL – it’s different to American Sign Language, or even Irish Sign Language. You might think it would be more logical for everyone to use one universal language, but how would you feel if someone forced you to speak only in Esperanto, giving up all the nuances and beauty of your own language and the ties to your culture that go with it?). I’ve been asked a few times if it’s because I know someone who is deaf. While more than a few people I know are hard of hearing (we can all think of at least one engineer who doesn’t even flinch when there’s a 10k squeal on stage), I’m not studying BSL because I know a deaf person. Firstly, I’m doing it because it’s fascinating. It isn’t just taking each spoken word in order and translating it to a sign; it’s an entirely different approach to communicating. I highly recommend everyone at least reads about it, but you should consider learning it too.

Sign language can be genuinely useful for us sound engineers. How many times have you needed to talk to a colleague, but it’s too noisy to even catch their attention? How about trying to get an urgent message to the other side of the stage but you don’t have comms? If more people had some basic sign language skills, we’d be able to communicate more quickly and efficiently. It isn’t an option for private discussions about other people though: most sign languages are very graphic and literal, so if you’re rude to someone in front of them they’ll know about it!

On a more selfish level, I’m preparing for later life. The comedian Francesca Martinez has pointed out that it isn’t a matter of disabled vs. able-bodied: we are all either disabled or not-yet-disabled. It’s a dark message, but it’s true. An unfortunate side effect of our job is that no matter how careful you are, and how conscientiously you wear earplugs, your hearing will deteriorate over time (but don’t give up on the earplugs!). The older you are, the harder it is to learn a language too, so I don’t want to wait until I need it before learning it. I hope I will never become deaf, but studying BSL is fun, and I’ll have that knowledge if it does happen.

With BSL, I have a way of welcoming deaf clients, even if my grasp is very basic right now. You might think it’s odd for sound engineers to interact with deaf people, but it does happen. There are deaf musicians, choreographers, event organisers and guest speakers. There are also shows that have live interpreters, for example, a lot of comedians will have specific performances with live signing, or some bands and festivals provide signed sets. Just because someone is deaf doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy comedy or music (they can still feel the beats, or they may not be entirely deaf so can hear the melody but not the lyrics), so why should they miss out?

The same can be said for any condition. Having epilepsy doesn’t stop you liking dance music, having autism doesn’t stop you having a wicked sense of humour, having dwarfism doesn’t mean you don’t like to go out for drinks, being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy live theatre. One of my best friends has a long-term condition that affected her mobility for years, and now she’s in a wheelchair. Just getting around and doing simple things can get quite complicated and tiring, and you know what? It’s boring! She can’t just give up and stop having her condition when she feels like it, she’s got to go through it every day. Having some time to relax and going to see a show where the aisles are wide enough, and she doesn’t get dumped on the end of a row and feels like she’s in the way, or the toilets are actually set up so she can use them without help (have you ever tried to open a door towards you while in a wheelchair and then roll yourself through it one-handed? It’s pretty challenging), can make her feel normal for a while, and make her week.

So the next time you’re working or organising an event, think about how you can make it more accessible to a broader range of people. You don’t have to wrap everyone up in cotton wool and not do anything risque for fear of offending someone, just put yourself in their shoes. Maybe contact local groups and charities to ask their advice on how you can help to make your venue more wheelchair friendly beyond the basic building regulations. You can also suggest daytime acoustic performances, some shows without flashing lights, better lighting at the box office and bar to aid lip reading or look into having a section of your bar lowered so people of all heights can order a drink. Why limit your audience (and your income stream!) when you can make all sorts of people feel not just included, but genuinely welcome?

 

 

 

Bands are Like Spiders

When I started mixing bands in-house at university I was terrified: I had so much technical stuff to remember, and then I was faced with a bunch of stony-faced strangers who wouldn’t even come and talk to me! They were going to hate me. If I had known then what I know now about interacting with bands (and event organisers, or any kind of client really) those first gigs would have been so much less stressful. It’s easy to forget that not many people outside of our job really understand what the role entails; it’s a bit of a dark art to them. The technical team can make or break a show, and that can make people a bit nervous about us. Once I realised that bands are like spiders: they are, on the whole, more scared of me than I am of them, I could approach things differently.

First off: don’t expect them to come to you! They may be affecting an air of cool by being standoffish, or they may just be shy, or a bit lost because they’ve just got out of the van after an 8-hour journey and are looking for the facilities… Take a deep breath, smile, and go and introduce yourself. Be ready with a pen and paper to note anything you need to know that wasn’t in the advance. The single best piece of advice I’ve ever got for mixing is to write the band members’ names down! If you’re on monitors, write it on their mixes, on FoH on their vocal or instrument channels. It’s such a simple thing, but using their names during soundcheck makes them feel that you really are paying attention, and if someone yells “I need more of Dan in my wedge!”, halfway through a song with no hand gestures, you stand a fighting chance of knowing who and where Dan is. Communicating with them properly from the start will help them to relax so they can concentrate on having a better show. You’re also inviting them to let you know about problems constructively, instead of giving you the silent treatment then complaining after the fact that it sounded bad.

The same applies to any live event: take the initiative to introduce yourself to the client’s point of contact (or ask the head of the technical team to introduce you if that’s more appropriate) and be confident! I come from a background where modesty and talking down your skills is the norm, and confidence is looked down on as boasting, especially if you’re a woman. It took me far too long to understand that people look to the techs for reassurance that the show’s going to go smoothly. You needn’t be arrogant, just be secure in your abilities. Clients often gauge how well things are going by looking to you; the knock-on effects of you appearing happy or worried are definitely noticeable.

When things go wrong, and they will don’t let the confidence fade. Technical issues happen, it’s how you deal with them that’s important. Take a few seconds to assess whether you can fix the problem quickly. If not, it’s time to swallow your pride and let someone know. If you realise you’ve made a mistake don’t ignore it in the hopes, it’ll go away. The earlier you own up to it, the easier it is to deal with. For example, if you’ve forgotten to bring something from the warehouse, you might be able to get it delivered in time for the show if you mention it at 11 am, but you won’t have a chance at 6 pm. You might get teased or worse for it, but it’s much easier to forgive and forget as long as it’s alright in the end. How you deal with problems gets remembered much more than what the problems were.

As engineers, we often tend to shut out the outside world and think only about the signal path when something goes wrong during soundcheck or the show. While it’s great to be focused, taking a minute or two to tell someone else can actually speed up the problem-solving process, or at least prevent a stressed and angry client because the music has stopped and you’re ignoring them. If there’s another sound person there, tell them what’s happening. Two minds are better than one, and at the very least they can go and smooth things over with the band or event organiser while you get on with troubleshooting. It can be very frustrating when an already patronising colleague steps in and “rescues you,” but in the long run, it’s more important that the show goes well than that you were the one who saved the day.

If you’re the only tech, calmly tell whoever’s in charge what’s going on, and roughly how long it will take to fix. No need to waste time on details unless they ask; saying you have a technical issue but you’re working on it is usually enough. Don’t be tempted to tell even a little white lie! You never know who used to be a sound tech in a previous job, and bluffing to them could do you a lot more harm than good. Clients don’t care that an XLR has broken, all they want to know is whether you can fix it, how long it’ll take, and whether it’s likely to happen again. Remember the Scotty principle: overestimate the time you need by at least 25-50% to allow for unforeseen complications. People are much happier if you’re back up and running in 20 minutes when you said half an hour than if you promised them it’d be done in 10 or 15. Don’t waste time apportioning blame either. It’s impossible to look professional while pointing the finger at someone else, even if it was their fault.

There’ll be times where you might think there’s nothing that sharing the problem will do to help, but you never know. Someone might have a quick and simple solution that just didn’t occur to you because you’re stressed or inexperienced, or the event organisers could open the community fair with the sack race and move your band’s set to, later on, buying you precious time. You won’t know until you discuss it. You might be surprised by how willing people are to help if it ensures the success of the show, and makes life easier for that nice sound engineer who was so welcoming and friendly when they first arrived.

 

 

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