I’ve recently have been training as a PA Tech at a local venue, Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. The venue is a shed with a covered stage that seats about 5,000. It is located in Cleveland Flats and is right on the river. Each of the shows I have worked on has had the same PA and setup configuration. With each gig, I gain more experience with the sound system, which allows me to build more confidence and independence. (more…)
The Ear Training Guide for Audio Producers
Mastering Q&A with Jett Galindo
Interview with Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab
Back to Basics: Gain Structure
Gain Staging in your DAW Software
Gain Structuring with Plug-Ins
Intro to Sound Design for Theatre
Details, Details: Setting up Snake Channel 24
True Lies and Digital Audio: Time for a Quick Trip Down the Disinformation Superhighway
What’s the Difference: Polarity vs. Phase
Dave Rat: Perception and Failed Illusions
The Conundrum Of “Ears Versus Education”
What The Hell Do Sound Mixers Do?
What Are The Basics Of Mixing? Theory & Practice
WORK WORK WORK
For someone who only began working in live sound 2 1/2 years ago, Kerrie Mondy is a very busy woman. Along with being a FOH Engineer, Kerrie is currently the Resident Engineer/Sound Designer for New Line Theater, a little theater company in St. Louis, MO. She also works as a stagehand, freelance audio tech, part-time at several performing arts centers, and runs sound at St. Louis’ Jazz at the Bistro, which she says “is a blast! I get to see a lot of great music and meet a lot of nice people. I have, at last count, 10 regular jobs.
Kerrie started out as an on-air radio personality but quickly became interested in live sound. Making commercials and putting together shows for the station were part of her job but she wanted to learn more about audio engineering. Kerrie taught herself enough Pro Tools to get by, however became discouraged when she couldn’t get any time on the station’s engineering equipment. Soon after, she started working as a stagehand and quickly realized that she loved the theater world and doing live events. As a stagehand, Kerrie enjoyed working in many of the departments, but her boss advised her to pick one specialty and pursue it. Kerrie chose live sound. Recognizing her desire to learn, a colleague/friend from one of the venues she was working in, gave her the opportunity to work with him running sound at the church he attended. After a while, she started working her own shifts there. “In the meantime, I looked around for the smallest-fry audio work that I could find. If it was boring, small, paid poorly, etc, I raised my hand for it! 🙂 Worked my way up little by little, learning as I went.”
Things came a bit full circle as she recounts- “as an on-air personality, I remember coming to one of the venues I work at now to announce an artist on stage. I remember looking around, watching the crew, and thinking that it would probably be a neat job to work in a place like that. A few years later, I was working shows on that very stage!”
Kerrie has learned that a good attitude, a willingness to learn, and being accountable for your mistakes are essential, as well as knowing the basics- signal flow, proper gain staging, and knowing your frequencies. From her experience, these skills will get you through almost any basic audio job and help you move up. “Don’t let ‘fake it to make it’ become your mantra” she says, “You WILL get called out eventually.”
Although she is working on a BA in Digital Video/Film making and has studied marketing and technical theater, Kerrie has no formal audio training and has found so far that the best education she’s received has been on the job. “I’ve been really lucky to be surrounded by wonderful coworkers who became great mentors and friends. So many people have shared their hard-earned knowledge and experience with me – I never could have done this without them.”
The biggest obstacles Kerrie has faced have been: “money and time mostly, and my own doubts. Five years ago, I was in a completely different situation, personally and professionally, but I saw what I wanted and what I needed to do to get there.” “Staying on track has been tough,” she says, but she handles it by being relentlessly focused on controlling what she can and being ready to adapt to things she can’t control. “You have to really, REALLY believe you can have the life you want. You have to see it in your mind and know deep down it’s achievable.” “I see so many people quit before they get to the finish line- giving up, losing patience, because they just can’t see their dream life coming to fruition.” “I’ve encountered a lot of not only financial and logistical challenges, but psychological ones as well. It’s hard being in your 30s and being a newbie, not having a professional identity – being able to tell people, “I am (this)”, or “I do (this)”. You really have to develop a sense of worth and purpose apart from that.”
Advice to women wishing to enter the world of live sound:
One – Attitude is, indeed, everything. Your approach to your work, and to the people around you, will define you. Don’t feel like it’s a right of passage to become jaded.
Two – be versatile. Not just in the realm of audio, either. I’m not an expert in lighting, projection, or set building, but I can work as an electrics, video, or carpentry hand competently. I can also crew a show and manage that crew. Not only does an array of skills help you find more work and meet new people, it helps you understand how your job in audio fits into the bigger picture. And it keeps things fresh!
Her favorite gear includes Allen & Heath’s iLive T112 console. She loves the simplicity of it and the ease of accessing everything she needs quickly. “ I use it at two of my venues. Getting things up and running in a hurry is a breeze and making changes on the fly couldn’t be easier. Bossy technology bugs me. I love gear that gives the user control and flexibility without making them dig for it. I also really like Shure’s MX153 ear-worn mic. Sounds good, cheaper than the competition, and it’s rugged and resistant to sweaty actors. 🙂
For her future goals, Kerrie says she’d really love to manage a theater or music/arts venue someday.
Kerrie has been with New Line Theater for about a year and just started with the Bistro in December. She is currently featured as a Guest Blogger on SoundGirls.Org where you can read about her trials and tribulations as the sound designer and mixer for the theater’s production of Rent.
Kerrie can be reached at: kmondy@hotmail.com
This month I sat down with a fellow sound engineer and friend Andie Cascioli. Andie and I both attended Capital University together. Andie is now working as a live sound engineer in Columbus OH. As for myself, I have been busy busy busy at Eighth Day Sound, building cables and new interface boxes for the new D80 amplifiers Eighth Day Sound is starting to use. (more…)
GIL EVA CRAIG
Gil Eva Craig is an independent Audio Engineer and Music Producer working in professional audio for the last 18 years. Gil got her start as a recording engineer in 1996 and still owns and operates her own mixing and production studio, The Secret Beehive. This past May, she co-produced an album with Charlotte Yates and has done sound design and written original music for several theatre productions. Her passion though is live sound, and she currently is the FoH Engineer for The Wellington Ukulele Orchestra and works for the family business, Western Audio Engineering.
Gil’s interest in audio started in her teen years, as she would make ‘multi-track ‘ recordings using her brothers Walkman and the family boom box. Recording a guitar track first on the Walkman and then playing it back off the boom box, while recording a second track with the boom box, recording on the Walkman, and so on and so on. Reflecting back on this tracking technique Gil says “It didn’t take too many generations before my recordings turned to unintelligible satanic hiss”. Eventually, she was able to purchase a four-track cassette recorder, followed by a host of recording setups including; ½ inch 8 track, 1 inch 8 track, adats, 2 inch 16 track, and finally a 24 track hard disc recorder and Protools.
Gil spent the early years of her career recording and mixing demos for bands while trying to fund her studio. Initially, she was lured to live sound with the promise of fast cash to fund her studio. She started mixing bands at the local bar and quickly found that she not only enjoyed it but preferred it overworking in the studio. She has continued to work in both the studio and live environments. Gil has worked on several theatre productions, in which she has won awards for sound design.
Gil stumbled into sound design for theatre productions, as well as writing original music, when a mutual friend recommended her to a sound designer. She was hired to write music for a production of Penumbra that he was working on. At this point in time, the only theatre experience she had was as a musician in two amateur productions of Shakespeare. Tim Spite, a theatre director, attended the production, liked the music he heard, and hunted her down. He offered Gil the chance to compose and sound design on his next production. Gil continued to work on several of his productions, including a production of December Brother that she won a Chapman Tripp Theatre award for best sound design. The Chapmann Tripp Theatre Awards are New Zealand’s equivalent to the Tony Awards.
Sound Design for theatre productions encompasses two main disciplines; the technical design and the creative design. The technical design includes the speaker and playback system, programming the playback software and the digital consoles. The creative design is the sound effects, atmos, and music.
Gil was recently involved with the production for ‘360, A Theatre of Recollections. The production includes a surround sound and music design, and the audience is seated inside a circular stage, on swivel chairs. Gil programmed the show into a Q lab, and was able to run eight discrete outputs to six surround speakers, overheads, and subs. The sound designer, John Gibson, wrote the score utilizing surround sound to create the illusion of being surrounded by singers and players at key points in the score.
The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Gil’s extensive music background has surely helped throughout her career. She was trained in classical guitar starting at the age of ten and took up the trumpet when she was fifteen. She briefly played the Soprano Cornet and Flugelhorn, before settling on the Tenor Horn. She played as a musician in several bands, including a “file-under-difficult-listening” art band that was mixed by her future husband. She also played in a Brass Band called The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Playing in the Brass Band provided a brilliant musical education, Gil explains that “playing in an A grade brass band was demanding, as a big part of being in the band was playing in contests. The test music for the A grade is challenging, much of it sonically pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a large brass ensemble. The time spent in rehearsals pulling these amazing and complicated pieces of music apart and making sense of them, coupled with what I learned at university and a modern music course I took, was the best musical education I could have wished for”.
While Gil did not have formal training in sound engineering, as at the time there were not programs offered in New Zealand, she did embark on a degree in music. Eventually, her engineering work took priority and she did not complete her degree. She feels that the time spent on her music degree gave her a solid foundation for sound engineering. She was taught the basics of harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, acoustics, and ethnomusicology. As for the technical side of things, she learned by reading, observing, and hands-on experience.
Hands On – The Family Business
Gil’s husband, is a partner in Western Audio Engineering, a professional live sound production company. For over a decade, the couple lived in the PA workshop (warehouse), which also housed her studio. This allowed her free access to outboard gear and mics for her studio and live gigs, and she found herself surrounded by sound gear 24/7. Instead of flowers on the kitchen table, there was a soldering iron. Gil reflects on her time spent living in the workshop “It was awesome living in the workshop for nine of those years, then I started to hanker for vases of flowers on the kitchen table, and nice vintage glassware that wouldn’t get smashed in a week”.
Currently, Gil works mainly in live sound, and her job duties at Western Audio include whatever needs to be done; stage patching, show prep, loading trucks, equipment maintenance, FOH, and Monitors. Recent gigs at Western Audio have included; mixing the entertainment and anthems for an international netball match, mixing live elements for a wearable art show, a stage patch for a festival, and monitors for a small outdoor festival.
As an independent engineer, Gil mostly mixes FoH, and does a small amount of sound system and playback design for theatre. She tours as the FoH engineer for the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, who regularly tour New Zealand and occasionally Australia. She recently shared her experiences mixing them with SoundGirls.Org, you can check it out here: Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Gil does monitors for the Pink Floyd Experience, which regularly tours New Zealand and Australia and has done sessions in South Africa.
Gil explains what she enjoys the most about touring “I like that every day is different, but the same, as you are setting up the same rig (give or take a few variables) each day, but are in different places. It’s a perfect blend of routine and novelty. Also, being part of a team, but with a certain amount of independence. Both of these factors completely suits my nature”. She also loves to travel, which fuels her fascination with airplanes and her love of photography. Her days off usually include visiting galleries and museums and taking photographs. The thing she likes the least is finding food, being gluten intolerant is a challenge. Aftershow pizza is out.
Women in sound in New Zealand
New Zealand is a very small country, with only about 4 million people, so women in live sound are fairly scarce! I think I am the only woman who is currently touring. In all the years I have been doing live sound, I have met three New Zealand women working in a technical capacity. One is a good friend of mine and is head of audio for the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. A female engineer is definitely still a novelty to some house guys when I meet them for the first time. When last touring with the Pink Floyd Experience, I got the classic ‘so you sing backing vocals’ a couple of times.
Advice for Women starting out
It is important to learn at least one instrument and be able to read music. Learning to speak the language of musicians is invaluable. Invest in a professional set of earplugs and take steps to protect your hearing. Take time to learn and try out different areas of audio to see where your passion lies and what fits your personality.
Gil feels she would not last in today’s modern recording environment with its emphasis on computer-based recording and pro tools editing. She once worked on a film production and immediately knew that was not a good fit. At some point, you just gotta jump in. I have met two women who have gone through audio school, who have yet to mix a show because they are afraid. I’m still afraid! Just today I agreed to mix a monitor gig and now I’m thinking why the f*** did I say yes? Learn by osmosis and observing, but you have to observe and surround yourself with people who are really good at what they do!
Must Have Skills
Aside from the obvious technical ability, having diverse musical experiences both as a listener and player gives you a huge head start. I’m grateful for every second I spent playing in the brass band, orchestra, guitar and brass ensembles, various pop/rock bands and the howling I did in the file-under-difficult-listening performance art group. Human communication skills: basically really listening to what people say and knowing what questions to ask. Which means you can translate ‘my monitor sounds mongy’ into ‘its right on the edge of feeding back at 250.
Favorite Gear: I am mad about and completely obsessed with reverbs. My favorites are the Bricasti M7, AMS, lexicons 460 and 300. I am also very fond of the Sony R7, and have a soft spot for the Yamaha Rev 7. I just love them. I haul my Bricasti to all my shows. The one show last year I couldn’t take it to, as we were traveling on a plane so small it was basically a van with wings, I really missed it. The Sony M7 is an underrated treasure, possibly because it’s not easy to program. It’s got its own thing going on sonically.
While I don’t really get overly gooey over microphones, I do really like DPA 4061’s and 4099s. I think they sound great. I used 4099’s on a couple of trombones recently, fantastic. My favorite consoles are Midas digital consoles. I like how they sound and love the VCA and Pop group concept as you can program it so it’s under the fingers, very nice. I have done a few things on the pro 1 lately, which I call the kitten console because it’s impossibly little and cute. When coupled with a DL251 stage box to expand up to 40 channels, it’s amazing what you can do on it.
Album mixes: History of The English Brass Bands
The English Brass Bands got their start during England’s Industrial Revolution. They were originally organized and financed by mining and milling companies to keep the working classes from politically organizing. In 1860, there were around 750 brass bands in England. Today the English Brass Band tradition is found throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States. The Salvation Army has kept the tradition alive in the United States.
English Brass Bands are made up cornets, flugelhorn, tenor horns, baritones, trombones, euphoniums,B-flat and E-flat basses and percussion. The bands are made up of 28 to 30 members and their programs can include original music, traditional marching songs, hymns, and medleysBands in New Zealand are graded into four levels A grade to D grade. A grade being the top grade, and D being the equivalent of a beginner band. In Britain, the equivalent is 1st – 4th grade, with the addition of the Championship Section. The Championship Section is the best of the best and includes famous bands such as Black Dyke and Grimethorpe.
The contests in New Zealand consist of each band preparing a March, a Hymn, and an original piece. They are also given a set test piece. The A Grade is very competitive, and as the contest becomes closer; the bands practice several times a week, with extensive rehearsals on weekends. Each player is expected to continue practicing at home. Several bands have tempted top players from England by helping them relocate to New Zealand.
By: Gilli Craig
I have recently returned from mixing the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The band, one of New Zealand’s most beloved acts, have an improbable cult following, who can’t get enough of the band and their ‘four stringed bonsai guitars’.
The ensemble of 10 singing ukulele players and a bassist translates into 30 channels of madness! There is a total of 16 ukuleles on stage, including baritones, resonators, a banjolele, a Tahitian ukulele that’s strung with fishing line, with concert and soprano ukuleles rounding out the ensemble. There is also, in a moment that some find alarmingly dylanesque, an appearance from an electric ukulele.
The band stand in a semi circle- there is no main soloist in the band as members take turns at singing the lead either from their position in the semi circle or they come forward to a front mic position. The beautiful ensemble singing and vocal arrangements are as much a feature of the band as the ukuleles.
All the ukuleles are miced up with DPA 4061’s. Two players have pickups installed in two of the instruments as well, which are used for volume boost in the monitors when they solo, and for the judicious use of a few carefully chosen effect pedals.
There are a couple of reasons why the DPA 4061 is the mic of choice: the primary one being the sound. They just sound great on the little bonsai imposters! The other reason the 4061 works is because it can be taped flat onto the ukulele, with the capsule poked into the sound hole and it doesn’t get in the way of the player.
Usually we run 8 wedges on 8 sends with a monitor engineer. For the Edinburgh Fringe Festival there were 8 wedges on 5 sends of monitors from front of house. The front of house console was a Yamaha CL5, which, as it turned out, was surprisingly good for doing monitors from FOH for the band. The venue, the Debating Hall in the Gilded Balloon, was nicely kitted out with d&b from Orbital including M4 wedges which are a favorite with the band.
Prior to going to Edinburgh, I was able to spend a few hours making friends with the CL5 thanks to Drew Mollison, the Yamaha guy at MusicWorks New Zealand.
As the CL 5 has plenty of inputs I was able to do virtual splits of everything for the monitor mixes. The layout of the console lends itself well to this concept for this band as the left fader bank has 16 channels, the middle fader bank has 8 faders, including DCAS, and the right section a further 8 faders including, usefully, another 8 DCAs .
Because there are 16 faders on the left side of the board I was able to replicate the positions of the monitor channels to be the same as the FOH channels by soft patching, ending up with two layers for FOH and two layers for monitors. As each player has a corresponding main ukulele and vocal, it also meant that the channels associated with each player stayed in the same place from layer to layer, and from monitors to FOH. So no Nigel wandering all over the console. Nice!
I also colour coded the channels and DCAs – green for FOH and red for monitors. That meant I could glance down and immediately see if I was looking at FOH or monitor channels. Having the extra 8 DCAs meant I could have a handful as master level controls for monitor channels.
As I was able to have all 16 DCAs in front of me on the middle and right hand banks, it meant that all my key FOH and monitor channels were within easy reach, and I could flick between the two FOH layers. I had each monitor mix as mix on faders on quick keys. While it still took a couple of steps to get in and out of the monitor mixes for monitor cues that were not addressable via the monitor DCAs, it wasn’t too bad. I just had to be very aware of getting myself back to my main FOH banks and faders.
The venue was busy, with tight turnarounds between acts…we had 15 minutes to get every thing onstage, patched and checked, and 15 minutes to get the house in. Anytime the band do a festival or multi band show, I always request 10 extra mic stands, so I can prep the ukulele microphones onto the mic stands. The DPAs are fixed to the stands with a cunning arrangement involving a bulldog clip, rubber bands and gaffer tape, ready to be whipped onto stage and into place. Rather than the band having the DPA s fixed to their ukuleles prior to going on stage, its easier and faster for both the band and stage crews if the DPA s are fixed to the stands ready to be patched into stage cabling and line checked. The band are quick and accurate at placing the DPAs onto their instruments, so I very rarely have an instrument sounding wildly different to how it should due to erroneous mic placement.
For this band, I don’t do scenes on digital consoles as they have a large repertoire and rarely repeat a set list. There is also a fair amount of improvisation, so it’s better and more fun to just roll with the show. However, if I was to mix monitors again from FOH on the CL5, as part of a tour rather than a festival I think I would create a handful of scenes to manage some of the monitor cues.
Finally, as the venue was originally a debating hall, the mix position was in a tiny old fashioned enclosed booth, with the windows open, up in the back of the venue. It was as cozy as a Finnish sauna! Orbital installed a couple of Genlec studio monitors in mix position to fill in missing HF detail, which worked really well.
When you have a chance to work with and learn from the best, you set your standards high. This was the case for Suzy Mucciarone on her very first tour, in 2001 with Neil Diamond. Starting out as a stage tech, and moving on to co-systems and PA Fly tech on later tours, Suzy had the opportunity to work with people who she believes displayed the standards in audio and conduct that should be achieved on all tours. She has worked hard to reach and exceed those standards ever since and has spent more than a decade working for Baltimore-based Maryland Sound International. However, the path that led Suzy to a career in Live Sound started many years before and was on the other side of the globe.
Perth, Australia
A high school requirement, to organize a week of work experience, led Suzy Mucciarone to one of Perth’s two top 40 radio stations. When she completed her workweek, Suzy kept in touch with the station, returning occasionally to spend the day. Shortly after graduation, she was offered a position of ‘carting’ which, at the time, was the junior position to production.
When Suzy began working there, she recalls, “the station was still AM, soon to be FM, and largely resembled an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati”. The modest studio housed an 8 track Studer, and “well used and abused, 16 channel Soundcraft, that you had to hit in certain places to get the occasional weird noise to go away, or patch connection to work”. “We actually managed to shut down all the power to the room one time, when a coworker accidentally clipped the side of the console with his Doc Martin.” Once the station gained its FM license it underwent a total overhaul making it the most up to date, digital, on air and production studio in the country for that time.
Through her position as a production engineer at the station, Suzy had the opportunity to see almost every tour that came through town. Her work with presenting concerts, soundcheck parties, sitting in on interviews with artists, as well as meeting many of them, helped her make the decision to move into the area of live sound. “I love the energy of a live show. It was never really a consideration until then, because there were large differences in knowledge and technology at that time in Australia, compared to the USA or England. Quite simply, we were lagging behind. I also knew that to move into live sound/touring in Australia, I would have to pack up and move to the east coast. Even then, I would only be temporary, local crew to overseas tours, and I knew I wanted to be further up the food chain than that.”
Circumstances would soon provide the motivation for her next step. A change in ownership turned the radio station into a very unhappy place to work, and while on a long-overdue holiday trip to the U.S., Suzy discovered The Institute of Audio Research in New York City. Less than six months later, she decided to return to attend school.
Corporate gig broadcast mix
Baltimore, MD
Suzy began working full-time at Maryland Sound International in August 2001, roughly six months after graduating from the Institute of Audio Research. In her position as a senior A1 Audio/Systems Engineer at MSI, having now worked for the company for the past 12 years, Suzy is well versed in all areas of sound reinforcement. “In the corporate world, from basic podium gigs to large formal dinners with high-end feature bands, events on the National Mall with tens of thousands of people, to being the broadcast engineer on nationally aired events, I have been fortunate to find myself doing it all over the years. From designing and putting a system together, getting them in, up and running on-site, then running either FOH or Monitors (and sometimes both), I’m happy to say I can jump in anywhere. And while I admit that touring is my first love, I’ve done a ton of corporates and I have learned a great deal about audio in doing so.”
Inauguration
On that first tour with Neil Diamond, Suzy was working as provisional crew and was able to work with a well-seasoned crew who had been together for many runs. All were very secure in their abilities and working together in a happy environment, where the tour looked after its crew very well. Things were well planned and organized to make the day from load-in to load-out as efficient and painless as possible. One of the key factors was excellent communication and professional interactions in the work environment.
When it comes to touring, Suzy tends to lean towards monitors as her preferred gig. “Although working for the size company that I currently do, by the time tours end up here the tour already has their engineers so the opportunity to step into those gigs in that position are rare.” She’s been FOH tech/Systems Engineer for many major tours including Hall and Oates, Seal, Josh Groban, and Linkin Park, and generally ends up mixing FOH or Monitors for support acts as well.
She’s also no stranger to challenging gigs and situations. Suzy had the pleasure of being FOH and Systems Engineer for the “Spirit of America” tour last year. Spirit of America was an in the round, arena performance profiling the history of the US Army. All of the performers were enlisted, 30 or so of them on headsets, as well as the fully live, United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” Orchestra, making up approximately 150 odd inputs. A Soundcraft Vi6 handled FOH Production with a Studer for the orchestra and one PM1D for monitors. The floor of the arena was the performance area, complete with horses. PA was a 270° Arena hang with a separate Surround Sound PA for special effects.
Suzy has done several tours with Josh Groban, which included a string of shows at the Sydney Opera house where she says, despite having to cram all of their gear into the opera house, the Aussie crew made it as painless as possible. She started with Josh Groban in 2004 as a stage tech and moved on to Systems/Fly/Foh tech on later tours.
Some other touring highlights include Hall and Oates- “I did a couple of years touring with them and it was a great run. The band and crew were fantastic and they still sound better than ever. I started as Stage tech/Fly, moved on to Systems/Fly, and mixing FOH or Monitors for the support acts. It was also the first gig that took me to the Bahamas. It was a gig at the Atlantis Resort. I happily blame them for my love of the island, and oddly enough, the best Italian restaurant I’ve found yet, Cafe Matisse, is there.”
She loves to spend her days off being a ‘tourist’ with a passion for Zoos, Aquariums sightseeing, and outdoor fun. Finding a great restaurant where she can enjoy a lovely meal and glass of wine is always a treat. Touring with Seal (Systems/Foh tech), gave her the chance to experience places in Europe she never thought she’d get to, including the white nights in Tallinn, Estonia.
Linkin Park in Adelaide
Earlier this year Suzy handled System Engineer/Foh tech duties for the last leg of Linkin Park’s tour, working closely with Ken “Pooch” Van Druten, who she says does an “absolutely jaw-dropping job of mixing the band”. The tour made stops in Australia and New Zealand and the crowds were massive. It also gave her the chance to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
When asked what she likes best about touring, Suzy says, ” I love touring! I’m one of these people who love being on the move and traveling. I love the energy of a live show and the consistency and order of a well-put-together tour, although some tours are far better than others, this is very true. Even living on a bus with a bunch of people for a while, it’s a great way to get to really know someone. There is nowhere to hide. Everyone falls out of their bunk with bed hair.” And what she likes least- ” I’ve had to trudge through a couple of bouts of food poisoning and that was miserable. I don’t think too many on the road haven’t experienced it at some point. Being unwell on the road is tough no matter what the ailment. I also have very little time for individuals who are unpleasant, they can drag an entire tour down. Good people skills and common courtesy is a must. When you’re living on a bus with 10 others, you’re living in each other’s pockets. You have to be mindful… and clean up after yourself.”
Advice for women wanting to enter the field of Live Sound- “Know your craft better than most because the rules are different. Unfortunate, but true.” People skills are essential as well.
Suzy’s ideal tour would schedule days off near Wimbledon, The Australian, French, or US Open, with a fabulous brunch. And as for her favorite gear- “Dolby/Mesa units. You will pry these out of my cold dead hands…”
Rock and Roll was no ‘pipe dream’ for Grace Royse. Despite all of the discouragement from those around her and closest to her, Grace fought her way through to a touring career as a live mixer, never giving the negativity an ounce of energy.
“I was always obsessed with music for as long as I can recall. I still own the mixtapes I dubbed in my garage as a kid. In high school, I discovered Punk Rock and made some brilliantly terrible recordings.” Once she was old enough to drive, Grace started following bands around and working her way into recording sessions where she met a few engineers and learned whatever she could. “I ended up in the beginning stages of CRAS (Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences) in Phoenix. Back then the school was taught mostly by working engineers and the classes rotated through local studios, some of us even landed internships while in class.”
While attending CRAS, Grace met David Nichols, who was the owner of Livinghead Audio Recording and a talented engineer himself. “Livinghead had amazing vintage gear and the best of the new digital platforms. I worked with Jazz, Classical, Rock, Rap, Country, and Indie. We attended several AES’s as a studio, and after graduation, I worked with David for three years before opening my own studio in Tempe.”
Grace and her business partner built their studio by at first, providing PA and live multi-track recordings. Maintaining her own clients and running shows, even on a small scale, is where she really learned the most. “A few years after the studio opened, a Production Manager friend called and said his engineer had quit and he needed help. That very day I ran my first real touring show as a favor to my friend. I worked at that venue for the next 6 years, meeting hundreds of Engineers and Tour Managers was eventually scooped up by a Fat Wreck Chords tour, and have been touring ever since.”
When she was first getting started in the business, Grace faced a lot of opposition from family and friends who believed touring to be an unsafe environment and bought into false rumors that she had fallen prey to drug use and promiscuous sex. Learning to stand up for what she wanted was her biggest obstacle, but one she has overcome. “I never gave in to what others thought was best for me, pushing forward with my own voice in my heart. It’s a technical job. It’s no different from any other career with a long learning curve and long hours. You must prove yourself, starve for a while, stick to your guns, and love what you are doing, even when it gets really, really hard, even if you stand alone in your vision. ” “As a doctor, it takes 12-14 years to actually get anyone to call you “Doctor” with an ounce of respect, and though being a Doctor is looked on with reverence in our culture, with the long hours, and travel schedules, not many people can maintain relationships with them. The struggle feels similar to me, though we aren’t curing cancer out here, some days it feels just as hard.”
Touring life can be brutal on relationships, which Grace experienced recently with both a supportive significant other, who was unhappy and wanted her home all the time, and a very old and close friend who, overcome with jealousy, told her touring would make her ugly. To make things easier, Grace started actively seeking out like-minded people. “I continue to build an expansive network of colleagues who support me and have big goals of their own. It’s kind of like growing up in a small town where everyone becomes a farmer, and you are the outcast who wants to be an artist, then one day you move to San Francisco and find amazing, happy people to create with. Touring was my grand move. Over the last nine years, I have met the most amazing teammates. We push each other to succeed, believe in what we are doing, and offer this rare comfort: You aren’t crazy to have such wild dreams and I believe you can do it! “
Over the last nine years Grace has had an exciting career in a variety of roles: FOH engineer, Monitor Engineer, Stage manager, Production Manager, Recording Engineer, Pro Tools Op, and Broadcast mixing, with a variety of bands: No use for a Name, Useless ID, Pour Habit, Dirty Heads, Cypress Hill, Pennywise and the Descendants. She is currently the Monitor Engineer and Stage Manager for Sublime with Rome, and FoH/Production Manager for Rome. That’s a lot of hats to be wearing. When asked how she handles all of the responsibilities Grace replied, “I love working within a company that has me doing lots of different things. There is no chance of getting bored around here, that’s for sure. There’s huge comfort in that. I’m kind of an organizational freak and to be able to steer my own ship is awesome. To be able to work with people who trust me is awesome. I hope in the future, they continue to give me even more responsibility, because not only do they know I can handle it, it’s a benefit to the whole project and everyone involved to have me at the helm, and that’s one of the biggest compliments in the world. I don’t mind that my hat changes and I don’t mind that they lean on me for just about anything.”
“I remember the first time one of my Artists introduced me to someone as simply “my Engineer.” I really took that as a huge compliment. I’m going on four years with these guys, and we have done just about everything you can imagine. Fly dates where I’m mixing them in this little room, with scarcely a PA and I’m the only one there, to these huge arena tours, where I’ve got several semis trucks, tons of local hands, and my own PA to fly. I think in that time, my whole network has learned that they can come to me with just about anything and I’ll make it happen.”
Her favorite day off activity is hiking to a swimming hole, as long as the destination permits, and being a huge foodie, she likes to seek out the best cuisine around.
As for advice to other women who wish to enter the field: “Hold your own. Set boundaries and stick to them. If you are not true to yourself, your goals, and your own professionalism, you won’t make it, not in Rock n Roll, not anywhere.” “You’re a technician but also an artistic performer. Passion drives art. If the passion is in your heart for that chilling silence right before the first note hits, and the thunderous applause after the last, proceed.” Grace’s future plans include the goal of FOH/TM. “As long as I stay with people and projects I care about, I know it’s within reach.” “All the amazing people I have met and grown with over the years are invaluable to me. I am beyond grateful for their years of guidance and support. Lapping the globe with your best friends is beyond amazing.”
Grace’s favorite gear includes Digidesign, Neuman, Shure anything, and D&B. I have a huge lady crush on AKG 4050’s, Neumann KM184’s, anything Manley Labs, API or Great River.
“I am totally a closet gear junkie.” She’s quick to add, “I have worked with the worst gear you can imagine over the years, having to duct tape together a PA for a show, and repair things on the fly has made me a better engineer. I feel really bummed when I think about the privileged kid that gets to buy all the really nice gear right out of school or goes right into a super clean gig. They are totally getting jipped out of the struggle that will make them amazing. I laugh now, thinking about this disgusting club me and my friends worked in many years ago. I had to repair an NL4 that got stepped on in the middle of the show because we didn’t have spares. There I was on stage, right there under the lead singer, who was spraying fake blood all over the crowd and me. That club taught me to repair, maintenance, and really down to the point physics of sound and electrical science of what we do. You will never learn that if you walk in, flip a switch and it always works. Get your hands dirty and make it work when it won’t.”
People Skills!
It is unreal, the broad spectrum of people you will work with. Be ready to have thick skin for that loud tough boss. Be open to the quiet, humble tech who doesn’t speak much, he likely knows more than anyone. Get along with everyone. You never know where you will see them again on your journey
Technical Aptitude.
You’re a super dork now. Read the books, hit the conferences, get in the blogs, and nerd down with your gear head friends. Stay on the edge of the coolest and greatest. Someday, when you are a really big deal, they’ll give it to you for free! For now, do what you can to put your hands on the gear and read anything you can find.
Organize, Prioritize and Be Prepared.
Learn to be the neat freak. The cleaner you are, the smoother the show will go. I make lists. I lay out my gigs in my head on the airplane. And I anticipate a million scenarios.
Stay Calm.
As the saying goes, “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” If you live by #3, you are already, ready. I tell my interns, the people I respect most are calm amidst the storm. A pillar, the one you go to when the sh*t really hits the fan, and there they are, calm and with the answer in hand.
Have a good sense of humor.
Number five should very likely be number one. If not for my ability to laugh, I’d never have made it this far. Humor, when you make mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up about it. That’s how anyone gets great at anything, by getting it wrong first. Laughter, when you are too tired and too busy to think. Humor is vital to the ability to brush off stress. Laughing with my friends is the #1, hands down, the greatest part about this career. Laugh lots. Laugh that you are blessed to wake every day to a career you love, that you followed through with what you started, and now your dreams are chasing you around the world.
More on Grace
Grace on The SoundGirls Podcast
Grace Royse on Roadie Free Radio
Grace Royse on Signal to Noise
Grace Royse, Virtual Congregations
The Right Balance: The Diverse Career And Life Of Grace Royse
Grace Royse on Mixing Sublime with Rome with VENUE | S6L
It’s September 2003 and the band I’m working for is embarking on a tour of US military bases in Europe and the Middle East to show support for the troops stationed there.
9/24/03
9:00 am The band and crew meet in front of a Holiday Inn just outside of Dobbins Airforce base to be to escorted onto the base and to our plane. We’re scheduled to fly from Atlanta, GA to Rota, Spain via military aircraft. Once we arrive on base we learn that our aircraft is stuck in Norfolk for some maintenance so we’ll be delayed until they can get our plane checked out and to Atlanta. (more…)