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Asle Karstad – Mic Tips for Acoustic Instruments

On the last day in February, Soundgirls.org – in cooperation with KRETS (Norway) – arranged a day with Asle Karstad, who gave a lecture on the reinforcement of acoustic instruments.

Asle Karstad has worked for over 35 years in sound, and and refers to himself as a ‘sound producer’ – the person who guides the sound so the listener will get the most optimal experience. He has spent most of his time working with the Oslo Symphonic Orchestra, but is also very well known by Norwegian Jazz and folk musicians.

On this particular day Asle had been kind enough to invite some friends to join him – an acoustic guitar player, a quartet from Norwegian Radio Orchestra and a well known contrabass player by the name Ellen Andrea Wang.

We were very excited to meet Asle in this relatively new venue in Oslo.
Sentralen is only a year old and contains five separate and diverse concert rooms. (If you happen to visit Oslo, don’t miss out on visiting this very special venue.)

Asle’s first mission was to show us how you find the resonant frequency of an acoustic string instrument – or the ‘Crazy Note’ as he refers to it. (The resonant frequency is the natural ‘note’ that the instrument will create on it’s own as soon as you ‘put’ some energy into it, for example by tapping on it.) The reason Asle places importance on finding the ‘Crazy Note’ – is because he discovered that when six violin players put down their instrument at the same time, the little bump on the floor creates the resonant frequency, which could lead to feedback from the six violins in close proximity with each other. The resonant frequency of a violin will be around 275 Hz – 280 Hz. Their fundamental note is 94 Hz.

The method he used to find the ‘Crazy Note’ was to place the instrument on a table and close mic it where the resonant frequency was assumed to be found (Asle was using a DPA 4011 as microphone). He would then tap around the body of the instrument, and take a ‘snapshot’ of the frequency response.

By using this method we discovered that the instrument has one spectacular note in the lower range that stands out- the crazy note! (If you try this yourself, remember to dampen the strings so they don’t resonate – a towel works well)

It’s important to find this frequency because you may have to deal with other issues in the low end, like for example the low hum that likes to ‘sneak’ around your PA and end up in your mic’s on stage. If that ‘hum’ happens to be the same frequency as the ‘Crazy Note’ on one or more of the acoustic instruments in the orchestra, you could quite quickly end up with a problem.

Asle reminded us that it is always good to consider that the low end has a tendency to travel around the speakers and up on the stage, higher frequencies, as we know are more directional and therefore don’t have the same problem. This is also why we like to close mic, to eliminate ‘sneaky’ low end frequencies from PA and the room itself.

Whilst we are thinking about resonance – we also have to remember that any kind of resonant shell acts like an amplifier. You will do yourself a favor knowing the resonant frequencies of your acoustic instruments in advance to deal with any issues. For example the resonant frequency or ‘crazy note’ of an acoustic guitar will most likely be around 200 Hz. Asle suggested, when you pull that frequency out of your acoustic guitar that you add a little decay to it around 1,85 – 3,25 seconds to keep the natural sound to it.

Here are some other resonant notes to remember: Cello 80 – 90 Hz, Contra Bass 105 Hz (105 Hz goes for electric bass too). Asle suggest to ‘work’ a little around 65 – 105 Hz, since you will have the low end energy from the PA in this area as well.

Some other interesting tips from Asle are to put a compressor on the reverb send for your acoustic strings. And if you do not want ‘things right up in your face’ as he puts it, delay the whole mix 6 – 9 ms. We tried this and it made a huge difference, it somehow also made the mix sounds bigger and brighter.

Also to make your mix sound more natural you might want to put a high shelf cut on your strings from 1500 Hz and up – it sounds crazy, but if you think about it, higher frequencies die quickly over a distance. We felt this method worked.

Regarding string instruments – aim the capsule at the wood when you mic up – not for the strings!

KRETS is a part of the Norwegian music organization that was founded in 2013, as a tribute to the 100 year anniversary for the Women’s Right to Vote in Norway. The group is trying to connect female technicians across Norway by supporting events like this one with Asle Karstad. Soundgirls.org would like to thank KRETS for their co-operation and support.

 

The Important Art of Documentation in Theatre Sound Design

When you work on a production, you never really know what sort of life it’s going to have after that initial run or tour. A production you designed two years ago may suddenly get another run, and you realise you need to dig out all your sounds and designs and make them work in a different venue. Or, you need to hand it over to an associate to do the same. It’s at times like these that you discover the value of two things: accurate, detailed documentation and an organised filing system.

I know that documentation and filing are the least exciting aspects of a creative sound role, but I cannot overemphasize how much they will save your bacon when you need to recreate the sound design for a show. In the time-sensitive, pressured environment of theatre and theatrical productions, it’s very easy to let documentation lapse, so you need to either delegate the task or make time for it. You don’t want to be tearing your hair out the night before tech week kicks off because you have no idea where you put that crucial sound effects file you recorded four years ago.

Here’s a starter list of what you should be captured during the production of a show.

Rehearsals and production weeks before tech week

  1. Make sure you have copies of all your design drawings, whether you created them in CAD software or hand-drew them. If they’re hand-drawn, scan them so you have an electronic copy as well. Ask for model box photos as well (or take your own), so you have a visual reference point for this production.
  2. Make sure you have an electronic copy of the script, score, or both, and any additional material e.g. song lyrics, prologue/epilogue, as well as paper copies.
  3. Take photos of any pictures, sketches, diagrams, props, or anything else that were used in the rehearsal process or in your own creative time that directly influenced your sound designs. They may come in handy if you need to create any new files for subsequent runs.
  4. Label each sound file accurately as you create it, including documenting the recording process if you recorded it from scratch.
  5. Label and save all venue tech specs and sound hire quotes
  6. Label and save all photos taken during venue visits, including any notes about potential speaker/equipment positions

Tech week to press night

  1. Once speaker positions are set, take photos from multiple angles to accurately capture positions. If you have to hand a show over to an associate further down the line, it’s far easier to show them a picture of how you positioned a particular speaker in a venue than explaining it.
  2. Note positions of racks, microphones, processors, desks, screens, comms, cue lights, everything that’s specific to that show.
  3. If there’s anything particularly unique about this production that you may need to remember at a future date, write it down.
  4. Keep sound cue sheets and update them as necessary, including a record of deleted cues. They may be reinstated for future productions.
  5. Make sure you have an accurate list of hired sound equipment, including the hire company, any existing venue equipment used in the show, and any equipment purchased by the production
  6. Save all show and desk files

After press night

  1. Save copies of the final show files and desk files with copies of all final sound files.
  2. Save any sound files not used in the show to a separate folder. You may need them for subsequent productions
  3. Save all documentation, including sound design plans, final cue sheets, radio mic plans, scene maps, etc.
  4. Confirm where any sound equipment purchased by the production company will be stored following the end of the show’s run and save that information in a document
  5. Label everything clearly and put in a single folder so you can quickly find everything for that show
  6. Back up everything!

Managing your documentation should be an integral part of your sound design work, not an addition to it. Do it once and thoroughly for each production, and you’ll save yourself a lot of potential headaches in the future

The Art of Listening Part Two

The Art of Listening Part One

Mixing sound is both an art and a science – a collaboration between the feeling, intuitive right-brain, and the analytical, logical left-brain. Last month I talked about critical listening and how, as a monitor engineer, to interpret a musician’s requests. This month we’ll examine how to separate different audio elements within a mix, and I’ll describe how I EQ individual inputs. It’s by no means the only way, but in 20-plus years of trial and error, I have found this method to be the most efficient and effective for me.

Monitor mixes need to be easy to play an instrument to / sing to as well as sounding good. They particularly need to provide clear, functional information about pitch and timing, so it’s worth considering what is supplying useful information to a monitor mix, and what is unnecessary filler. For example, some sounds are useful for an artist to pitch to or time to, or they carry a signature riff within the song; other sounds might create a pleasing fullness for FOH but reduce the clarity of a monitor mix and make it hard to play along to. This is especially true when it comes to hard-drive tracks – some elements are more useful than others. Sounds like strings and percussion are typically pretty helpful; effects might be less so. PFL is your friend when it comes to identifying different sounds, particularly when multi-tracks are involved because the sounds are likely to change from song to song. Frequent PFL’ing of your inputs will familiarise you with what’s coming in, and helps you to identify useful audio information.

Judicious use of the most basic of EQs – a high pass filter – goes a long way to eliminating unnecessary frequencies that can muddy a mix, and it’s my first port of call in the EQ process. Consider the range of frequencies that each sound exists within and where the defining characteristics of that sound lie in the audio spectrum. Let’s take a hi-hat as an example – there’s not much useful information in the lower frequency ranges, in fact, the mic is picking up spill from the rest of the kit – so it’s good to clean up and get rid of the extraneous low stuff. Personally, I set a HPF at around 600Hz for cymbals, but try it for yourself – solo the mic, use your ears and see what you think. Follow the same process with your other inputs, and tidy up anything that isn’t providing useful audio information – play around and consider where you might set hi-passes for different drums, vocals and so on. You can do the same thing with lo-pass filters, but be very careful with these. A bass guitar for example is primarily low frequencies, but if you set a LPF too low, you’ll lose a lot of the ‘attack’ – the finger-on-string sound which gives a bass its definition – because that attack sound is actually quite high up in the frequency spectrum. (Try boosting a bass guitar in the 5kHz region and see what you notice.) Likewise vocals – most of the action is in the 300Hz to 3KHz range, but set your filters there and you’ll lose low ‘body’, as well the ‘super-Ks’ – the very high harmonics which give a sound its ‘air’. So listen, listen, listen and experiment!

Identifying frequencies is obviously a vital tool for a sound engineer, and learning this skill really is just practice and repetition. I spent many hours in a PA company warehouse with a mic and a graphic EQ, making a wedge feedback and gradually learning what different frequencies sounded like. Once you’ve got a decent idea of that, you can start to refine your skills using the parametric EQ on the channel strip of the desk, and this is the next EQ tool after the HPF for your inputs. My preferred way to precisely locate a frequency is to solo the (muted) input on cans/IEMs, set a filter with a tight bandwidth or ‘Q’ around the frequency I’m looking for, and boost it quite hard – say by 10dB. Then I sweep the filter up and down slightly until the frequency I’m listening for me pops out (you can close your eyes as you do this if you like, to make sure you really are using your ears and not letting your assumptions fool you!) and with that identified I can then reduce or boost it as appropriate. You might want to keep the Q really tight if it’s just one frequency that’s over or under-represented (which is what I’d usually do with toms), or you might choose to do a big old scoop – my typical kick drum EQ has a wide low boost for ‘boom’, a wide high boost for ‘thwack’, and a wide gap in the mids where there’s nothing useful or sonically pleasing going on.

Approaching EQ like this means that you start to carve an audio landscape, with different instruments occupying different areas of the frequency spectrum. In my experience that gives a nice clarity and ‘separation’ to your mix – the opposite of audio ‘muddiness’. It’s all about trial and error, so grab every opportunity you can to play around – the advent of virtual soundcheck playback systems has made it easier than ever to refine your skills, so if you’re lucky enough to have access to such a system, make use of it. Tip – most high-end desk manufacturers have demo rooms set up with exactly that, and are usually very amenable to potential end-users coming to try out their equipment, so don’t be shy about calling them up and arranging a session! It’s a great way to hone your craft, learn different desks, and make contacts.

Until next month, SoundGirls – happy listening!

Registration for the 2017 Live Sound Camps for Girls is now open!

We are excited to announce that registration is available for the 2017 SoundGirls.Org Live Sound Camps for Girls!

Register here: 2017 Camp Registration

Registration is open for the following cities:

Camp dates and registration for Los Angeles coming soon!

Support our camps by contributing to our Generosity Campaign! Rewards for donating are tax-deductible and include perks from companies like Pro Tools, Ableton, Slate Digital, Sennheiser, Ultimate Ears, Audix, and many, many more!

For questions, please e-mail soundgirls@soundgirls.org with the subject line “2017 Live Sound Camp”.

Preconceptions in Human Hearing

As sound designers, we often have to fight against what something actually sounds like, and what audiences expect things to sound like. For example, an authentic phone ring might not necessarily fit the tone of the piece, and actually, a phone from a different era would suffice in creating urgency and tonality.

As a starter for ten, human hearing is fairly straightforward. Sound waves are transmitted through the cochlea which then eventually reach the Primary Auditory Cortex and the syntax processing areas of the brain. We can say that these processing areas of the brain share the sound waves and do their best to find some rhythm and harmony in what we are hearing. This is because of the linguistic processing tendencies we have, and our innate need for understanding and communication.

Our perception of sounds stems from our memories, and the human memory is typically untrustworthy. How many times have you shared a story and had someone remember a completely different version? We could argue that it’s the same premise for sound.

While it’s true that our echoic (hearing/auditory related) memory lasts longer and has a quicker processing time than our iconic memory (visual related), and could therefore be described as more reliable; our echoic memory can only hear things once, and things once heard cannot be unheard.

This is also where our short and long-term memories come into play. If you were sitting in a packed auditorium at front of house and heard an announcement (the quarter call, for instance), nine times out of ten we would hear the call, process it, and then completely forget about it. Should somebody then ask you, five minutes later, what that call was, you may just be at a loss as to what it was, but could probably remember the tone, the clarity, and more about the speaker’s voice than the actual message. There are a number of factors to blame here.

Upon recognising that there was no immediate danger, you would blend out the rest of the call, and continue your own conversation. This is our basic selective hearing, but what of the rest of the call? We attenuate the rest of the information and store it in case it becomes useful, but it’s not always remembered accurately. This is further because our memories store a lot of information, whether it be in the long-term or short-term, and intrinsically we link memories to other memories to aid said storage. Of course when talking about sound, and sound effects, it entirely depends on the context of how/when/where a listener has heard them before – no two natural sound effects will ever be the same, and nor will their memory recalls within individual human beings.

But what does all of this mean for sound design? And particularly sound design for theatre? If we are playing on audience perceptions of what sounds, atmospheres, or even conversations between actors should sound like, then it depends on the effect being sought. If we’re talking a straight play, then a doorbell from 1911 should probably be true to the text – this means a bell on a pull.

On the other hand, I have absolutely used a recorded shop doorbell because it fitted the tone of the piece better. The bell was, due to pitch, smaller than any of the real house bells we tried, which meant it was a slightly lighter sound, and therefore more whimsical. Of course, this steers us into the territory of scenes in a play, and their overall tones (not to be confused with musical tones). A big old rusty house doorbell would often seem too clanky and boisterous for the entrance of the next-door neighbour (unless, of course, this is the exact effect that you’re heading for).

Sound designers will often never use just one sound effect to attain the overall effect that they are seeking; this may be as part of a sequence or even underscore/atmosphere. As we can see below from my recent show A Little Night Music, I used multiple tracks to create two car arrivals:

It’s often the textures of the sounds that I aim to create when sound designing, and often they do end up being true to what authentic/real-life things sound like, but more often they do not. This can often be for the reasons stated above. It can also end up being that, again, they do not fit the set, tone, or overall direction of the piece.

This is where the overall direction, sound design, and artistic licensing come into play. We can, with our best intentions, want something to sound authentic, however realistically, as designers and artists, we will borrow from different genres and times to make happen what we want to happen. This again, however, can come back to our own personal memories and experiences of sound and effects, and the ideas that they give us in terms of what we want to create.

Ideas fuel other ideas, as do our memories and creative minds, so the more that we feed into said ideas and the ethos of our creations, the more we contribute to the expectations of what things should, or could, sound like.

Connections

During the time I spent teaching, one of the biggest areas I missed about the sound industry was the opportunity to network. It seemed to me that the drawing together of like-minded souls was one of life’s joys and I was missing out whilst in the classroom. Any chance for a course or extra CPD and I was there like a shot! It has to be said, we as sound engineers are particularly good at creating opportunities to get together and share experiences. And of course, this is the best way to pick up new ideas and expand our horizons.

Last week our Opera House received a touring production of West Side Story. The sound department had a UK touring background and our team took great pleasure in exchanging stories and experiences. For some of us this reflection reminded us where we had come from and how lucky we are to be involved in such a diverse career.

With this in mind, the Soundgirls Chapter of Muscat has started preparing for a workshop to promote the mission statement and to introduce the audio profession to a new, keen, and eager audience. It will be run at a local music school- The Classical Music and Arts Institute in area of Muscat called Qurum. General Manager, Thanae Pachiyanakis, a seasoned singer and teacher herself is keen to encourage young girls (particularly musicians) to take an interest in sound for performance.

Thanae and I first met last year during one of the Opera House’s ‘Open days’. These days are incredibly popular and involve local bands, handicraft and art exhibitions, and local school children. It all takes place in the spectacular front-of-house area. Several porches lend themselves to small staged areas for performers and tables are set up for artwork. We set up PA systems for the bands, projectors, and playback in each area as required.

It wasn’t until another chance meeting at an ‘Internations’ event that Thanae and I got chatting. We realised that although from totally different backgrounds and different experiences of the industry we were passionate about very similar causes. Hence the start of the Soundgirls chapter in Oman!

Despite a relatively small arena for audio networking Thanae and I have proved that no matter how remote you are feeling, there is always someone who will share your enthusiasm and passion. The support and encouragement we are able to offer each other is immeasurable. So next time you feel alone, know you are not. If you look hard enough there is always someone to lean on.

 

From My Ears to Yours

If someone asked you what the job of the monitor engineer is, I’m fairly certain you’d say, “to build the mix for the stage monitors”. Recently, there was an interesting exchange between some audio folks and myself where I realized that, somehow, that very basic concept and the true meaning of mixing monitors has sort of gotten lost. There is a bit of glory associated with running the desk, and kind of an egotistical boost with being in charge.

I had someone say to me, “there is no art in mixing monitors”. I want to firmly remove that thought from anyone’s mind. Whatever your skill level, your ultimate goal should be to help the performer give the best performance they possibly can. On monitors, you have an audience of one – just the one person on the other end. What I think, enjoy, or like literally does not matter at all. A mix is subjective, but on monitors, it can be a whole lot easier to define: The mix is whatever the performer wants and likes.

The creative part of doing monitors is figuring out what the performer wants, and whether they can express that want clearly. There are three things you can use to evaluate their hearing situation: Body language, understanding of music, and listening.

Watching body language is key. I find musicians typically give the same basic cues to ask for a few typical changes, and then give a whole host of other cues that are so unique that I often feel I’m playing a guessing game. Just the other day, I was mixing for a pop band and the trombone and sax players kept not being able to hear their wedge. I kept pushing and pushing the volume. Finally, they agreed it was good. During the second set, I kept seeing the sax player do…something. Something seemed to be causing him to act ‘off’. During the break, I asked him if everything was ok. He lamented that it was ok, but the sax he was playing didn’t have the right mouthpiece for this music, and if only it had “more mids, like 800”. I had said almost nothing, just asked if he was okay. He talked through it himself, and literally gave me the answer to his problem. I boosted 800Hz and he was thrilled with the rest of the gig. Mixing monitors is about listening to your performer. I like to give the ‘you good?’ look. Trust me, no musician wants to suffer a bad monitor mix, but a whole heck-of-a-lot of them would rather do that than deal with Mr. Pissed-Off Monitor Guy.

Understand music. I highly recommend knowing the basics of the Nashville Number System, and maybe knowing a little bit about as many instruments as you can. Any amount of music theory can give you more ‘ah-ha!’ moments than you’d realize. If you can’t take classes, or don’t have time for books, you have access to the second-best thing: the performers themselves. Learn the language of the performer. As an audio engineer, you’re in ‘technobabble’ and they are in ‘performer lingo’. Learn to follow that lingo. I once had a band where, every time they played a certain song, the keyboard player’s keyboard would cause chaos. After talking it over with someone else in the band, I hummed the few notes which had caused the issue. The musicians’ eyes brighten up – the keyboard player and the bass player were hitting exactly the same notes. Whenever that happened, the room was very unhappy. The keyboard player and bass player couldn’t hear each other well and had never realized that was what was happening. They corrected it and afterward not only did I not have issues with the sound, but the song itself was also more musically sound. Learn their lingo because some performers don’t know how to tell you that the vocal reverb in their in-ears is too long.

My last key point is to listen to your space. Realize that you live your life analyzing audio and what it sounds like – a performer does not. Think of things that might be hard for them to express. Does your space sound different to their space? Maybe that performer isn’t actually being difficult, maybe it does sound like crap in their wedge? Think about where you are and how it sounds, and how that is different to what they are hearing. When possible, I’ve taken to walking up to the wedge during soundcheck and feeling their space. Is there any wonkiness? Are there any frequencies that are too present? When the crowd shows up, will this mix really cut through? How is the house going to affect their mix? Learn to listen, because once you can put yourself into their head, you can do something that I like to do: “Hey, that song later in the set is a rather fast tempo – do you think you’ll want that much reverb on your voice? It might drown you out.” Oh, maybe they didn’t think of that, so yes, please turn it down. Your job is to put your feet in their shoes (or, your ears on their head). If you were them, would their requests really be that strange?

There it is. Watch for body language, understand the music, and listen. Do all these things and you will be well on your way to a creative experience mixing monitors. If you’re like me, the creative joy of nailing one person’s mix is way more exciting than mixing FOH for a ten thousand person show.

Aubrey Caudill: Aubrey lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area and works as a freelance audio engineer. She currently works for several area wedding bands and runs monitors at The Potter’s House North Dallas. She is also a mother of two sons under ten.

Oman – Sound Engineer Workshops

Classical Music and Arts Institute Muscat and SoundGirls.Org Presents

Learn About Sound Engineering Workshop

SoundGirls Representative and Senior Sound Technician for The Royal Opera House Muscat and Thanae Pachiyanakis General Manager for Classic Music and Arts Institute will lead a free workshop for young women and girls who are interested in learning more about sound engineering. Ideal for those who have a love for music and a head for problem solving.

Workshop will feature hands on activities and career ideas.

Workshop Details

University of Crash and Burn – Rebecca Wilson

Rebecca Wilson is an industry veteran, working in live sound for over 25 years. Touring solely as a monitor engineer, except for a brief stint as FOH Engineer for Flemming and John (while out with Ben Folds), she has worked for Sound Image, at Humphrey’s by the Bay and toured with Nanci Griffith, Wilco, The Bangles, and more. Rebecca is based in New York, and after finishing a 15-month project for Tibet House US, the Cultural Center for the Dalai Lama in NYC has moved into the position of head audio engineer for the TED headquarters and TED World Theatre.

Rebecca grew up in ‘cow-town Colorado and says she had limited exposure to the arts. She took piano lessons from the age of five until age thirteen when her musical training was stopped short: “I got kicked out of the piano school for pressing a million short yellow pencils into the styrofoam ceiling of the composition room. I thought they were neat wooden stalactites, but my teacher didn’t.”

When asked about what drew her to audio, Rebecca says, jokingly, “hot band guys of course.” In fact, she always had a thing for audio, spending hours using her father’s voice recorder as a child. “I’d steal the batteries from my friends’ TV remotes for it and record endless stories, listen back, and then re-record them.” When she got the chance to push her first fader, she became love-struck with the idea of being the moderator for people’s sonic experience. “Plus, getting DJ rights between sets is fun.”

Like so many in the music industry, Rebecca fell into it by chance. During her Freshman summer break, she lived with her brother in Hawaii and worked as a cashier at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was there she met a roadie from KC and the Sunshine Band, and she asked him how she could get his job. He told her, if she could leave right now, she could have his. He mixed FOH, and they talked. Since she was attending college, he suggested she work for their campus performing arts center; learn sound, and get paid.

Rebecca answered a projectionist ad that fall when she returned to Colorado State University. It turned out to be more: the performing arts center which did the screenings had just purchased a brand-new PA in components. “I learned to use tools at that job, cut holes for the enclosures, load drivers, and wire the new racks.” She started to learn about signal path and processing and got to mix her first band, punk band Seven Seconds, in the university’s beer basement. “It was so awful and riddled with monitor feedback they stopped mid-show and ask if anyone in the audience knew how to run sound because it was obvious that she (and pointed at me) had no idea. Pin drop. I was mortified and totally hooked on understanding audio.”

After getting her BA from CSU in Communications, Rebecca worked for local venues as a stagehand, pushing speaker cabinets and loading trucks. She requested to assist the audio crew and then asked enough questions to drive the engineers crazy. She then got work at local sound companies where she attended the ‘University of Crash and Burn and Get Up Again.’ “My first real boss was really drunk all the time, and he’d let me mix even though I didn’t know what I was doing.” Rebecca has never taken a live sound class and does not support expensive schools that spit you out without real experience. She says, “all you need to know you can learn by starting at the bottom and can get paid for it.”

A year after school, Rebecca saved enough money, from stage-handing and freelance audio work, to move. She packed up her 20-year old Toyota Tercel and drove from Denver to San Diego. “I wanted to learn to surf, [it] seemed like a good plan − I’ve never liked wearing shoes.” After a week on a friend’s couch, she found a house and job working freelance for a large corporate production company Meeting Services Inc. doing hotel and AV work. She then got a house gig at a venue called ‘4th&B’ in San Diego, and it was there she met Fishbone. “They came through, liked what I did, and I left the following week on my first tour.”

Touring through the South at 21 years old opened Rebecca’s eyes. On a bus with ten black guys and one white guy, she had a gas station attendant refuse to sell her cigarettes. “He said they were sold-out of my brand while I pointed to a pack of them behind the counter. He said, ‘those aren’t for sale.’ I had no idea what was going on.” When she told the band what had happened, they semi-laughed. “You got off the bus with us,” Angelo explained. The band told her that in the South some people saw her as worse than a ‘n*****’ because she worked for ‘n*****s.’

Rebecca toured with Fishbone for two years, honing her audio chops. “Mixing a club tour tends to be your first step as an engineer. Its hard knocks, different gear, various spaces, nothing is ever the same. A lot of club gear it is broken, blown and bad, but that’s where I learned the most about phase reversal and troubleshooting. Clubs tours can accelerate one’s understanding of gear, rooms, stage volume and band dynamics, and how they correlate. Invaluable.”

Over the next few years, she would work for unknown R&B artists whose labels told her that they were going to ‘blow up.’ “I learned very little about audio during that time, as there were many promises for support tour slots with large artists, but none of that ever happened. All that ‘blew up’ was my credit card bill when I couldn’t get paid.” She ended up getting a house monitor gig at Humphrey’s by the Bay through the audio company Sound Image.

At Humphreys, she got to mix folk legend Nanci Griffith, and a week later Rebecca was on her way to Nashville for rehearsals for the Newport Folk Festival Tour. Nanci Griffith had a large band with around 50 inputs, mainly playing sheds. During the tour, she met Wilco who was traveling with little production and they ended up hiring her for the run. Rebecca found it incredibly rewarding working with such amazing artists and talent. After that tour, she became the ME for The Bangles and would work with them for over ten years. Rebecca says “I love them; fantastic people and musically wonderful. Truly”.

Rebecca has just wrapped up a 15-month audio contract job as Media Director, for the Tibet House, the Cultural Center for the Dalai Lama in NYC. “It was the first 40-hour a week ‘job-y job’ that had a title beyond ME, FOH, A1 or A2.” She took 30 years of analog recordings and converted them to digital, installed a webcasting system in their event space, and started broadcasting meditation classes and programming. “I was relatively unqualified for the archiving bit − I’ve never been a DAW whiz −, so I researched best practice for file transfers and archiving. I also learned audio compression and ID tagging for the web, along with streaming and international content delivery networks. The webcasting part felt more familiar; it was live, mixing audio and switching cameras for broadcast. There were some initial hiccups; internet bandwidth issues, audio aux crapping out. I learned that webcast audiences are less frustrated if the picture is compromised rather than the audio: if they could still hear the webcast fine, the phones didn’t ring with complaints. Of course, I’m a bit partial, but I believe that audio is more important than lighting and/or picture. Radio had told visual stories before TV was even on the scene.”

When asked what her goals are now, Rebecca says that “beyond living through President Trump, I’d like to keep building my skills in still photography. My website is www.rebeccawilsonstudio.com  I also write screenplays.”

What, if any, obstacles or barriers have you faced?

“I’ve put more pressure on myself to measure up as a ‘soundman’ than any man ever has. The biggest obstacle I’ve ever faced is my own inner critic, feelings of inferiority, and the fears of being broke, old and alone (but with a good pair of headphones of course).”

How have you dealt with them?

“I had to come to terms with the fact that just because my life looks different than most, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me or my decision-making. I still consistently throw myself into new, unfamiliar aspects, [both] audio and things in general. It’s a terrifying and sometimes stressful way to live, but I hear people express they’re afraid to die with a lot of ‘should have’ regrets, that they didn’t step off the pavement. I’ll certainly die with a few extra stress wrinkles, but smiling. No regrets. I would encourage anyone reading to not fall for the safety net trap. Of course, be smart, but if you’re on the fence, just do it. No personal richness or outward success ever comes without some humiliation and failure. Learning to use it positively is key.”

What advice do you have for other women, and young women, who wish to enter the field?

“Speaking from a live concert sound perspective, check your motive for going into audio engineering. Is it sensational-based? Or do you have an affinity for sound waves moving through the air? You don’t need to know until you get a little experience in it, but it’s something to think about. I feel a strange timelessness and focus while listening to music critically. Early on, I think I heard the world more than saw it. My stuffed animal horse was named Beep.

I’d like to add that when you mix and tour, there’s a good chance you’ll be tired a lot. The job is physically demanding, lots of lifting, pushing and standing, [and] lots of bruises and cuts if you’re me. The other day my boyfriend joked that I have construction worker hands. I went into the bathroom and cried a little. Then I gave him a kick-ass back massage. I love my hands and ears. They’ve enabled me to travel the world.”

What do you like best about touring?

“Seeing the similarities of how humans inhabit the Earth.”

What do you like least?

“Who I became on tour (1996-2000 at least). Touring gave me a professional excuse to separate from all the people and circumstances I didn’t want to deal with at home. I lived with complete impunity and isolation (it was the late 90’s, before cell phones). It turned out, being ‘on tour’ and ‘unreachable’ didn’t bring me any peace or freedom like I’d hoped because the problems weren’t back home. The problems were how I saw the world, more specifically, what I like to call the ‘golden carrot syndrome’: the belief that the better place or thing was just around the next corner. I was always in mal-contentment mode; I wasn’t a fun person. I lived on cigarettes, red vines, coffee, booze and breath mints. I’d become the touring ‘shot-out’ cliché by [age] 26. I took a year-ish off in 2001 to regroup. I was happy to find that the problem was me and not everyone else. I went back to touring without all that baggage. Two different lives doing one profession. Lucky. Wouldn’t change a thing.”

What is your favorite day off activity?

“I’d made a rule early on not to get aboard anything that went faster than 15mph on off-days. I walk a lot, lay on grassy mounds in quiet parks, I like to troll a place without a plan, try to get a feel for how it connects to the last place we just were. See art museums and do yoga. Whatever is quiet.”

Must have skills:

“Tenacity and kindness. If you’re a woman, don’t get hard and crass. Leave that to men.”

Favorite gear:

“Sennheiser G-series in-ear monitors with 3D molds by Sensaphonics. They change lives. The Westone’s triple driver pair is good too.”

Parting Advice:

“If you’ve read this far, you’ll probably really make a great soundperson. You’ve got dedication and longevity. Here are some non-technical things I’ve found that matter more than audio mathematics and algorithms ever have:

“The most valuable thing I can give a musician besides a feedback-free stage is my full attention. Try to always be scanning the stage for someone who needs something. During soundcheck I walk the stage and stand right behind them, listening from their perspective. If the band doesn’t soundcheck, and they struggle to hear. After the show ask about the experience. Be prepared for criticism, but communication is fundamental as an ME. If you don’t understand what they’re describing, keep asking questions. Lots of musicians lack the vocabulary beyond ‘tin can sound.’ Help them find words for what they are experiencing. If you can’t dial in a solution, look into a new piece of gear for it.

“Also keep in mind, some days nothing will sound good to them (or you) − don’t reset the console mid-tour because someone is hungover. The greatest enemy of ‘good’ is ‘better.’ If everyone is happy onstage, I don’t turn knobs, especially if I think ‘this will make it a little better.’ It’s a rabbit hole and changing things mid-song can really upset things onstage. Let the artist guide you. Once I get it up and running, on a good day, there’s not much to do.

“If things go wrong, GO OUT ONSTAGE. ME’s are usually listening in closets, as far as onstage crew. It’s our job. If the problem isn’t in your department, get the person who is responsible, if it is your department, trust that you’ll know a solution. One always comes. It’s a bit of gypsy stage magic. Don’t let the artist struggle out there alone.

“ME’s are there for mainly two reasons: One, to allow artists to connect to their instrument and what their bandmates are playing. Two, to give them [the artist] the sonic personal confidence to stand in front of a HUGE CROWD of people who paid a lot to hear them. Imagine how you’d feel if people shelled out a lot of money to hear you play and you couldn’t even hear what you are playing. I’ve been hit in the head with flying drumsticks and bottled waters because I was staring at the console for minutes on end. It’s a serious thing they and you are doing. Artists are out there totally exposed. It’s your job to give them clothes. Even if I have a bad feeling about a certain gig or day, I try and be calm when they come onstage; it transmits to them. Don’t do crack or Red Bull.

“Lastly, always have a spare vocal mic with a long cable. Always. And check it.

“Over and out − Rebecca.

“P.S. when you’re starting out, never call a cable a cord.”

More on Rebecca

Driven To Excellence: Inside The World Of Multifaceted Audio Professional Rebecca Wilson

Rebecca Wilson on Roadie Free Radio

Find More Profiles on The Five Percent

Profiles of Women in Audio

 

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