Join Us

Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

Join Us

Do I Still Know How To Do My Job?

My last mixing FOH for a real audience was January 8, 2020. For some reason I feel a necessity to write down a year as well, being afraid that if this stand-still stays longer than we all hope I’ll still be able to track down to my last real show. I only wish we won’t get in the scenario of those memes where there’s a senior person being led by a young kid saying “my 2020 gigs were rescheduled again” and the youngster answers “let it go granny, it’s 2063 already”.

So, it’s over a year at this point without being surrounded by live music, audience cheers, and the feeling of those butterflies in a stomach two minutes before a show starts. I had rehearsals with my supposed-to-be cast on a cruise ship through mid-February to mid-March, so I feel like I was still in the right vibe. And after that –  that’s it.

The slow sway of a vaccination process gives some positive thoughts that we’re moving in the right direction and one day to be able to get back to our jobs, Here comes the scariest part. Do I still know how to do my job?

I was talking with other artists and randomly we started talking about skill loss when not practicing. An artist that I genuinely admire, shared his experience that after not painting for a year it was very frustrating to take a brush in a hand again, and then it took time to get back the same technique. A scriptwriter told me that not writing a script for some time has become a struggle to get those creative juices going again. Then I thought about myself, as an ex-drummer. When our high school band split up and I stopped drumming for good. A couple of years later I got a job as a backline tech and one day I got asked to do a drum soundcheck. Kick – fine. Snare- fine. You know how it goes. And then a guy running FOH who knew about my drummer career asked me to play something. I froze, couldn’t keep a steady 4/4 beat. So, at this point, I already know how it feels to try doing something that you knew well some time ago, but suddenly it feels so unknown. –

Let’s point out that I’m not only talking about mixing. Mixing is easy, I see live sound engineering as a complex set of skills. A lot of us, live sound engineers, didn’t have a necessity to be sharp for over a year, no 5-minute changeovers, no crew management, no immediate problem solving on the fly, no 300ft power cable ran backward, you name it. All of these skills didn’t come overnight. It took years and years going through fire and ice just not to freak out and learn how to calmly make the right decisions. Thinking about that honestly makes me worry, do I still know how to behave? Or is it just like riding a bike? Am I the only one in the industry concerned? Or will it be a slow start for everybody when live shows will get back? Is there a way to do a self-check? Or it is not necessary, because everything we knew comes back naturally once we start doing what we’ve been doing?

Can’t tell how much I appreciate those virtual product presentations, free training, and Q&A sessions. I haven’t watched that many educational videos ever in my life. But does that keep us, live sound engineers acute and prepared for the live environment? Can’t wait the day to come to find out!

Dovile Bindokaite is currently based and working as a freelance sound engineer in Lithuania. She has an MA degree in sound engineering and started working in sound in 2012. Since 2014, she has worked in various positions in live sound including FOH, monitor engineer, sound engineer for broadcasting, RF coordinator, backline tech, stage tech, stage manager. For the past year, she was part of an audio team at Schubert Systems Group (USA). She has experience working in theatre as a sound designer and recording studios as a recording engineer.

 

Head of Sound for the First Time

Saying out loud that I no longer need a babysitter and that my skills do not need to be watched or checked over was a scary thing. But it was time and it the bravest and most worthwhile thing that I’ve done during my career.

That’s basically how I got the head of sound and FOH position for the largest music festival in Lithuania. The festival took place over four days, but the production team was working on it for over a month. During that time I’ve faced a bunch of outside and inner demons. I learned a lot about myself and got to know more about others.

I am the only SoundGirl in Lithuania that freelances for festivals and massive productions at the moment. To be honest, it is tough, but possible with the right attitude. Furthermore, here in Lithuania, all production roles are a little bit mixed up. While my role was FOH engineer, I was also performing job duties that typically a tour director, stage manager or production manager usually do.

After the news became public that I would be the head of sound for the festival, a weird thing happened. I never felt watched through magnifying glass that much in my life. Nobody got in my way, but I knew that a lot of people were waiting or hoping for me to screw up, and that became an extra motivation to kick ass. It was essential for me to become known in the local market as a sound engineer again as I had spent the last year in the United States honing my skills.

Technical side

Location scouting was fun. There is a weight limit in venues on every rigging point, and the number is so low that it is impossible to hang a sound system on one rigging point. It was a pain in the arse to explain exactly where I wanted the system to hang, and the riggers weren’t happy because it was a lot of extra work for them to rig the system. Sometimes I question why people choose certain professions if they are so unhappy when they are asked to do their job. After lengthy discussions, I got the system where I wanted it.

The weekend of the festival there were a lot of tours and other events, and it became an issue in securing the equipment for the festival.  We used a Meyer Sound Leopard four tops and three subs per side, UPJ’s for side fills, UMP’s for front fills, and 2x UPA’s for delays serving VIP lounge. Tuning the PA is not my strongest skillset, so I asked for help on that. For FOH I had Midas PRO2 which crashed on the last day of the second to the final performance. And PRO1 for monitors.

Dealing with performers

There were 25 performances during the festival, so that is 25 riders to review, 25 acts to work with and explain how the festival runs, making sure they understand that there were volume restrictions and that the performance could not be longer than x minutes. Then put it all together and communicate it to the production team.

Try to imagine doing that with no authority and when one-third of 25 conversations with performers start with a question ‘wait… who are you…?’. I was expecting this because for most of my career I was ‘Dovile who works with…’ at the best, and at the worst, a girl who works with…’. But I did it, and it was exhausting as hell.

My team

The people that worked with I have known since day one of my careers as a sound engineer. We have had good and bad times along the way. During the early days, they were curious about me because having a woman on the team was unusual, but they were friendly and shared their knowledge with me. When my skills improved and I was able to do the same work as they did I was put under pressure to work harder and sometimes I was given tasks that they knew I would not be able to figure out. All to say that I should be doing something else instead of being a sound engineer. Five years later and I’m still here.

If I try to describe relationships between us this time, the best description would be ‘cold as fuck’ or try to imagine a couple that just broke up and both behave as stubborn bitches too cool to have a mature conversation. Can you imagine working for four days with people that you know only saying ‘good morning’ and ‘see you tomorrow,’ not having a single joke in four days and on the intercom having only ‘input 13 – guitar’, ‘thank you’ type of conversations. That’s a bummer. Nonetheless, they did an incredible job on stage. No mistakes at all, every changeover went well, and every performance started right on time. Every one of my requests, from FOH position like ‘could you move that mic closer to a double bass,’ was fulfilled and not questioned. As long as the primary goal for all of us is to make the festival great is the priority. I don’t care about all the dramas and any of their feelings about having a woman on top of everything. We can be friends or not. Doesn’t matter.

Photo Credit Dainius Cepla

Off-topic related to a topic. We had six women volunteer to work the festival. For the most part, they were completing random tasks, but there were times when they were helping technical departments, setting up something, or being a runner for me. Some of them said that they want to work in sound for live shows and when I asked have they tried to contact local rental companies for an internship; I was shocked about what they said. The first and the only question that rental companies asked them was if they can lift and carry 50 kilos  (110pounds)!!!! That was the only reason why they were rejected by every single rental company. What the f**k…. I promise I’ll do better research on that.

In conclusion, today everything to me seems as it was an easy and fun ride through all the obstacles. It wasn’t. It took me four days to mentally leave the festival after it was over. Starting with riggers and their ‘no we can’t hang anything here,’ rental companies ‘nah, we don’t have gear,’ performers and their management ‘why are you asking for our rider, you should know our band, we’re famous…’ And the team ‘..’ I don’t even have an ironic sentence for that. LOL. I have done a lot of hard work to make the festival sound good, and the feeling when everything is running smoothly because of you is the best satisfaction ever. I didn’t know what I was about to do when I said that I could deal with everything that takes to be head of sound for a festival. I took a risk and had proved to myself that ‘Hell yeah, I’m pretty good at what I am doing and what others think doesn’t matter.

I wish every SoundGirl has enough support to be brave and feel invincible to stand for herself as well as face and deal with challenges slightly higher than the skills acquired at the moment.

Dovile Bindokaite is currently based and working as a freelance sound engineer in Lithuania. She has an MA degree of sound engineering and started working in sound in 2012. Since 2014, she has worked in various positions in live sound including FOH, monitor engineer, sound engineer for broadcasting, RF coordinator, backline tech, stage tech, stage manager. For the past year, she was part of an audio team at Schubert Systems Group (USA). She has experience working in theatre as a sound designer and recording studios as a recording engineer.

 

X