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Beth O’Leary – Baking a Cake on a Moving Tour Bus

Beth O’Leary is a freelance monitor engineer and PA tech based in the U.K. She has been working in the industry for 11 years and is currently working as a stage and PA tech on the Whitney Houston Hologram Tour. She has toured as a system tech with Arcade Fire, J Cole, the Piano Guys, Paul Weller, a tour featuring Roy Orbison as a hologram. She recently filled in as the monitor engineer for Kylie Minogue and just finished a short run for an AV company in Dubai.

Live Sound was not her first career choice, as Beth was originally attending university for zoology. Although she has always been passionate about music. She remembers the first festival she attended “I remember the first festival I went to (Ozzfest 2002 – the only time they came to Ireland), and the subs moving all the air in my lungs with every kick drum beat. I thought that was such a cool thing to be able to control. When I heard about the student crew in Sheffield it made sense to join.: Join she did and it was there she learned “ everything about sound, lights, lasers, and pyro in exchange for working for free and letting my studies suffer because I was having too much fun with them.”

Her studies did not suffer too much as she graduated with a Masters’s in Zoology, but she would go on to work as a stagehand at local venues, eventually taking sound roles at those venues as well as a couple of audio hire companies. Even though she had no formal training, she would attend as many product training courses for sound and few focused on studio works. She says at the time “real-life experience was more important than exam results when I started, I think it’s changing a bit now. But, it’s still essential to supplement your studies with getting out there and getting your hands dirty.”

By her mid-twenties, she wanted to expand her skills and start working for bigger audio companies. After a lot of silence or “join the queue” replies to her emails asking for work experience from various companies, she met some of the people at SSE at a trade show. She would learn that they are really busy over the festival season and said she was welcome to come to gain experience interning in the warehouse. She remembers arranging to intern for three weeks “I put myself up in a hostel and did some long days putting cables away and generally helping out. A week in, they offered me a place as stage tech on some festivals. I’m pretty sure it’s because one of their regulars had just broken his leg and they needed someone fast! I then spent most summers doing festivals for SSE. After a few years I progressed to doing some touring for them. I now also freelance for Capital Sound (which became part of the SSE group soon after I started working with them!) and Eclipse Staging Services in Dubai, amongst others.”

Can you share with us a gig or show or tour you are proud of?  

I baked a cake on a moving tour bus once, I’m very proud of that…

Apart from that, I used to run radio mics for an awards show for a major corporate client. Each presenter was only on stage for a couple of minutes, but the production manager didn’t like the look of lectern mics or handhelds, so everyone had to wear headsets. Of course, we didn’t have the budget or RF spectrum space to give everyone a mic that they could wear all night, we needed to reuse each one three or four times. I put a lot of work into assessing the script and assigning mics in a way that would minimise changes and give the most time between changes. I then ran around all night, sometimes only getting the mics fitted with seconds to go. I always made sure to take the time to talk to the presenters through what I was doing (and warned them about my cold hands!) and make sure they were comfortable. I did the same show for about five years and was proud that the clients, most of whom were the top executives for a very large corporation, were always happy to see me, and asked where I was by name when I couldn’t make it. Knowing that the clients appreciate you is a great feeling.

Can you share a gig that you failed out, and what you learned from it: 

I was doing FoH on a different corporate job, the first (and last) gig for a new company. I had terrible ringing and feedback on the lav mics. It was one of those rooms where it will still ring, even if you take that frequency out wherever you can. I worked on it all through the rehearsal day, staying late and coming in early on the show day, trying to fix it. I did most of the ringing out while the client wasn’t in the room, so as not to disturb them. I asked the other engineers in other rooms for advice, and probably followed my in-house guy’s lead a bit too much. I figured he knew the room the best of anyone, but in hindsight, he wasn’t great. The show happened, and the client was smiling and pleasant, but it definitely could have been better.

Afterward, I got an email from the company saying the client had complained to them about my attitude. I was devastated. I had worked as hard as I could, and I pride myself on always being as polite as possible! I realised too late that from the client’s point of view, they saw an issue that didn’t get fixed for a long time, and they didn’t see most of the work I put in or know what was going on. I learned that it is so important to take a couple of minutes to keep your client in the loop and let them know you’re doing your best to fix the issue, without going overboard with excuses. It can be hard to prioritise when you’re so focused on troubleshooting and you don’t have much time. I still have to work on it sometimes, but it can mean the difference between keeping and losing a gig.

What do you like best about touring?

The sense of achievement when you get into a good flow. So few people realise how much work is involved. For arena shows, we arrive in the morning to a completely empty room, we bring absolutely everything except the seats. We build a show, hopefully, give the audience a great time, then put it all back in trucks and do it all again the next day.

What do you like least?

When the show doesn’t go as well as it could. There’s no second take if something goes wrong that’s it and you can’t go back and change it. It’s quite difficult not to dwell on it. All you can do is make sure it’s better next time.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

I love exploring the cities we’re in. My perfect day off would be a relaxed brunch with good coffee, then a walk around a botanical garden, a bath and an early night. Rock and roll!

What are your long-term goals?

I need variety, so I’d like to stay busy while mixing it up. Touring and festivals, music and corporate shows working with different artists and techs. I’d also like to get to a position where I can recommend promising people more and help them up the ladder.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I think one of the major barriers in the industry is people denying any barriers exist. I was told I needed a thicker skin, to toughen up, everyone has it rough. Then after years of keeping my head down and working hard, I saw how my male colleagues reacted to words or behaviour that didn’t even register as unusual to me anymore. Their indignation at what I saw all the time really underscored how differently they get treated.

Thankfully I have done plenty of jobs with no sexism at all, but it can be frustrating to get told I don’t understand my own life. Just because you don’t see what you consider to be discrimination, doesn’t mean it never happens. It can be particularly disappointing when young women are outspoken about how sexism isn’t a problem, ignoring the groundwork set by the tough women who came before them.

I have also struggled a lot with a lack of self-confidence, which can really put you at a disadvantage when you’re a freelancer. You need to be able to sell yourself and reassure your client they’re in safe hands, so I’m sure the self-deprecation that comes naturally to me has held me back.

How have you dealt with them?

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Whether I misunderstood their intentions or they’re honestly mistaken, or they genuinely don’t want to work with a woman, all I can do is remain professional and courteous and do my job to the best of my ability. A lot of the time we get past it and have a good gig, and if we don’t I know I did all I could. I take people’s denial of sexism as a good sign, in a way. It shows it is becoming less pervasive and I hope the young women who are so adamant it doesn’t happen are never proven wrong.

I’m still working on my self-confidence. I try to remember that the client needs to trust me to relax and have a good gig themselves. I aim to keep a realistic assessment of my skill level. I used to turn jobs down if I wasn’t 100% sure I knew everything about every bit of equipment, for the good of the gig. I then realised that a lot of the time the client wouldn’t find someone better, they’d just find someone more cocksure who was happy to give it a go. Now I’m experienced enough to know whether I can take a job on and make it work even if it means learning some new skills, or whether I should leave it to someone more suitable.

The advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Be specific when looking for help. If you want to tour, please don’t ask people “to go on tour”. Pick a specialism, work at it, get really good, then you might go on tour doing that job. When I see posts online looking for “opportunities in sound”, I ignore them. What area? Live music? Theatre? Studio? Film? Game audio? What country, even? Saying “I don’t mind” will make people switch off. People looking to tour when they don’t even know which department they want to work in makes me think they just want a paid holiday hanging out with a band.

Most jobs in this field are given by word of mouth and personal recommendations. Networking is an essential skill, but it doesn’t have to mean being fake and obsequious. The best way to network is to be genuinely happy to see your colleagues, and interested in them as people. And always remember you’re only as good as your last gig. You never know where each one will lead, so make the effort every time.

People who run hire companies are incredibly busy, and constantly dealing with disorganised clients and/or very disorganised themselves. Don’t be disheartened if they don’t reply when you contact them. Keep trying, or get a friend who already knows them to introduce you so you stand out from the dozens of CVs they get sent every week. Make it easy for employers. You are not a project they want to work on. Training takes time and money. They don’t want to know you’re inexperienced but eager to learn. Show them how you can already do the basic jobs, and have the right attitude to progress on your own.

Must have skills?

Number one is a good work ethic. You can learn everything else as you go along, but if you aren’t motivated to constantly pester employers until they give you a chance, turn up, work hard and help the other techs, all the academic knowledge in the world won’t help you.

Being easy to get on with is also essential. We can spend 24 hours a day with our colleagues, often on little sleep, working to tight schedules and people can get grumpy. Someone who can remember all the Dante IP addresses by heart but is arrogant and rude won’t go as far as someone who can admit they don’t know things, but is willing to ask questions or just Google it, then laugh at themselves later.

Staying calm under pressure, communicating clearly and being able to think logically are all needed for troubleshooting.

Anyone who tells you that having a musical ear is determined at birth is just patting themselves on the back. Listen to music, practise picking certain instruments out and think about how it’s put together. Critical listening can be learned and improved, even if you have to work at it more than some others.

Favorite gear?

Gadget wise, I love my dbBox2. It’s a signal generator and headphone amp in one and produces analog, AES and midi signals so it helps with so many troubleshooting situations and saves so much time.

I use my RF Explorer a lot to get a better idea of the RF throughout a venue and can use it to track down problem areas or equipment.

As far as desks go, I don’t have loyalty to a particular brand. They all have their advantages. I still have a soft spot for the Soundcraft Vi6 because that’s what I used in house for years. DiGiCo seems pretty intuitive to me and has a lot of convenient features. I spent most of the last year using an SSL L500. It sounds fantastic and has a lot of cool stuff to explore.

Parting Words

It can take a long time to break into this industry. I had been doing sound for nine years before I went on a tour, and then didn’t do much touring again for a couple of years after that. You have to be tenacious and patient. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t progressing, or the work environment is toxic, leave. As a freelancer, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on one client anyway. And that’s what they are: clients. When a friend pointed out these people aren’t your bosses, they’re your clients, it really helped me to change my approach. I now rely less on them for support, but I’m also free to prioritise favoured clients over others. Live sound can be rough around the edges, but there’s a difference between joking around and bullying. There’s a difference between paying your dues and stagnating. If you’ve been in a few negative crews it can be easy to believe that everywhere is like that, but it isn’t. Keep looking for the good ones, because they do exist.

The SoundGirls Podcast – Beth O’Leary: Freelancing, blogs, and sexism

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Gain Without the Pain:  Gain Structure for Live Sound Part 2

 

In my last blog, I outlined the basics of gain structure, and how to get to a good starting point for your mix. This time I want to discuss a few situations where you might take different approaches to how you set your gain, and why.

I like to think of gain as a tennis ball growing out of the mic if it’s omnidirectional, or a peach for cardioid mics, with the stalk-socket (is there a word for that?) at the point of most rejection. Bidirectional/figure eight mics always remind me of Princess Leia’s famous hair buns in Star Wars. Whatever you imagine it as don’t forget that the pick-up pattern is three-dimensional. There can be a bit of a subconscious tendency to think of pick-up patterns as the flat discs you see in polar plots, so don’t fall into that trap! The main thing to remember is that as you increase the gain, you’re expanding the area in which the mic will pick noise up in every dimension, not just in the direction of what you want to amplify. This will be more of an issue in some circumstances than others, so they can benefit from different approaches.

Quiet singer, noisey stage

My first example is the one I encounter most often and causes me the most issues. You have a loud band on a reverberant, noisey stage, and you’re trying to get the vocals audible, or even nice! This can be a bit of a challenge even with a strong singer, but a quiet vocalist can seem impossibly lost in the mix. Thinking back to my previous post, the problem in this situation is that the other instruments, the crowd and everything reflecting back off the walls is keeping the noise high in the signal-to-noise ratio. Turning the gain up will just bring more of that noise into your board and muddy the mix. Upping the gain for monitors will increase the likelihood of frequencies in the monitor mix being picked up by the mic, which feeds back to the monitor, which feeds back to the mic… which creates feedback!

In an ideal world, the other players would set their instruments at reasonable levels, and the vocalist would sing loudly, close to the mic. This would increase the signal-to-noise ratio naturally. Unfortunately, this often doesn’t happen for one reason or another, and you need to fix it at the board. In these situations I try to keep the gain as low as possible while still picking the vocalist up. I use high and low pass filters to get rid of the unnecessary noise in ranges away from the vocalist’s frequencies. I might EQ a few bits out of the vocal channel where other instruments are being picked up more than the singer, and might EQ out some vocal frequencies from other channels to give them some more space to be heard. I then try to have the fader as high as possible while still leaving some headroom. Setting your master fader or monitor mixes at +5 instead of 0 can give you the extra volume you need, while keeping the gain as tight as possible. I very rarely find myself needing to turn an entire mix-up mid-show, and if it comes to it I can just turn up all the sends from the channels instead. There are plenty of other tricks to get vocals to stand out in your mix, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

Wandering keynote speaker

On the other end of the noisey gig spectrum is the classic corporate speaker who won’t stay near the lectern mic. I think one of the most misunderstood aspects of live sound by people outside our industry is that the mics pick everything in their field up, in every direction, whether the sound is intentional or not. For example, I had someone loudly shuffle their notes and bang them on the lectern, cough and say something privately to an assistant right by the mics as they were supposed to start their speech. They then fully wandered the 20 metre (roughly 60 feet) wide stage, talking at normal conversational volume, expecting the mics to pick them up perfectly, no matter where they were. Quickly muting the channel when it’s apparent the speaker is still preparing solves the first issues, but there’s not much you can do about audibility when they’re metres away from the mics. This is an extreme example. However, it is very common for people to stand at a lectern but talk quite far away from the mics, turning their heads repeatedly to gesture towards their presentation.

Hopefully, the stage at a conference isn’t as noisy as a rock band in a club, and the audience are mostly quietly paying attention rather than screaming and cheering. It’s less common to have stage monitors, and with any luck, the PA is quite far away from the mics. In this case, you can get away with turning the gain up, to catch more of what they’re saying. Just remember to add a pretty strong compressor for when they inevitably lean in and suddenly talk loudly, directly into the mics. This can also help if you have several people using the lectern without soundchecking. You can set the mics to as high a gain as is stable, so even if they’re quiet you’re covered. If they’re loud you can always turn them down.

Popping lavalier or headset mics

You don’t always want your sound source as close to the mic as possible. Plosives in speech; the consonant sounds made with a burst of air, like p’s and b’s, can sound horrible on sensitive mics like lavaliers or headsets. These mics can also pick up too much sibilance. In these cases, it’s best to move them slightly further away or off-axis (by a matter of millimeters) so they aren’t in the firing line of the speaker’s breath, then turn the gain up to compensate. You might have noticed that lavaliers are often attached completely upside down for recording or TV. This stops the mic capsule being battered by those plosives and reduces sibilance, and the recording engineer can turn the gain up as much as needed without worrying about feedback because there are no speakers in the room.

I hope these examples have helped you to see how gain structure is just another tool in your mixing bag of tricks. There are good rules of thumb to follow for getting a decent signal-to-noise ratio quickly, but they aren’t written in stone. If you need to move the balance around or adjust different aspects of the channel strip to make your particular situation work, just try it (gradually if the show is already live!). It’s easy to talk about what the correct approach is in a textbook situation, but real life is very rarely ideal. Do what you need to do to get it working. If it sounds good in the end, that’s all that matters.

The Bad Buzz: Finding and Fixing Unwanted Noise

Of all the irritating things that happen when you’re rushing to finish a soundcheck, an unwanted buzz coming through the PA system is one of the worst. There are so many possible culprits, and it seems to happen all the time. Since it’s such a common issue, I wanted to walk through the process I use to find and eliminate unwanted noise, in an attempt to make troubleshooting less stressful.

Finding the Source

To begin, determine whether the buzz is coming from the audio system or something onstage by turning off the PA and monitors. If there’s silence, you know the problem is within the system itself. Turn them both back on and mute the PA system: do you still hear the buzz in the monitors? Use this information to narrow your focus area. If the buzz is solely in the monitors, for example, then you know to examine the channels and equipment that are being sent to the monitors only (such as a click track), and can consider the possibility of a bad channel on the monitor board.

Most likely the buzz is caused by a specific input. If it is unclear from the meters which channel is noisy, mute your inputs one by one until the noise stops. (If you are running monitors from front-of-house, make sure your aux sends are post-fader so that the send is muted along with the channel). Check for a bad channel on the board by hard patching the noisy input to another channel. If the buzz persists, check for a bad channel in the signal path by changing inputs on any snakes or sub snakes in use. Listen for any crackling, pops, or other giveaways that there may be a bad microphone or cable.

Most importantly, talk to the musicians! Ask them to stay quiet while you are troubleshooting and ask about their gear – they will be able to tell you any problems they have experienced at past gigs, and maybe even what solutions have worked.

Troubleshooting the System 

If the buzz is system-only, the issue is probably power. Check where everyone onstage is pulling power from and whether or not the circuit is used exclusively as audio power. Ideally, backline power will be on a circuit used only for the musicians’ gear, but often at smaller venues lighting and audio share power. Lighting dimmers, movers and fans may be audible if power is shared, so see if the buzz changes as lighting dimmers are moved. It may disappear when the lights are at 100%. In this case, there’s not much you can do besides try to reconfigure the power to be as separated as possible.

Next, check for cable crossing. Look at the paths of unbalanced cables. Do they cross paths or run along any cables carrying AC power? Electrical interference often arises when AC cables are in close proximity to unbalanced cables (for example, pedalboard cables), so it’s best to keep them as separated as possible.

There can also be grounding issues at play. If the hum sounds like it’s around 60 Hz, you probably have what’s called a ground loop. Ground loops occur when the ground connections from two or more separate sources (say, the system power and amplifier power) differ. Ideally, both pieces of equipment reference ground at 0 Volts. But nothing is ideal in real life, so it’s more likely that the ground readings differ slightly: say, 10 millivolts and 0 Volts. When this happens, the difference in electric potential can cause a small current loop that flows between the two connections, resulting in noise.

Here the quickest fix is to lift the ground switch on the channel or amplifier (if there is one) or use an adapter that accomplishes the same thing. But this workaround is not ideal since it removes a safety feature. Having the guitarist move around and angle the pickups differently may be enough to get rid of or at least lessen the hum.

Troubleshooting the Stage

If the noise is coming from one of the pieces of equipment on the stage itself, turn the PA system off and start with the simplest case. Here we’ll use the signal flow of a guitar as an example.

To begin, have the guitarist set their amp to clean. Have them unplug and re-plug their instrument cable at both ends – sometimes the problem is as simple as one end of the cable not being completely connected.

Next, have the guitarist plug directly into the amp, bypassing any pedals. Ask the guitarist to move around onstage, to see if the noise changes with location. If so, environmental noise is probably being picked up by the instrument cable, and there should be a spot on stage where the sound minimizes or even disappears altogether.

Connect pedals one by one and see if the buzz reappears with a specific pedal. Plug the guitarist directly into a DI box, and see if the hum disappears with the ground-lift switch flipped. If so, then you know it’s a grounding problem, with either a ground loop in place or an instrument grounding issue somewhere.

A buzz can also be the sign of tubes in a tube amp going bad. If so, there’s not much you can do beyond tolerating the buzz or switching amps. In the rare case that the guitarist is plugged into two amps and sending each amp one side of a stereo pedal, noise can result from a grounding issue between the two amps themselves.

The General Process

Buzzes, hums, and other unwanted noises only have a few likely sources: instruments, cables, and equipment. When unwanted noise occurs, stay calm and determine the general location of the buzz (system or stage). Then, continue narrowing in until you find the source. You may not always be able to find or fix the exact source, but the tips I have given should help you on your way.

 

Love for Chaos: Willa Snow Live Sound Engineer

Willa Snow is an independent FOH, Monitor Engineer, and system tech based in Austin, TX. While she has only been working in Live Sound for just over three years, she is filling up her resume.  She regularly works with Texas Performing Arts, Stage Alliance, and C3 Presents, amongst others. She works as a board op/system tech for Bass Concert Hall, as a monitor engineer at Historic Scoot Inn and Emo’s, and as a FOH/MON engineer for several other clubs in town. She has toured with the Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare during the fall of 2018 for their piece, “Considering Matthew Shepard,” as an assistant stage manager and general audio tech.

Before Willa discovered the world of audio, she was pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter. She was playing coffee shops and small venue gigs at the age of 15, and she says “despite that I had no clue about the world of audio, all I knew was that I had to sing into a mic nice n loud.  I don’t recall ever having a monitor mix, or even an engineer introduce themselves.”

She would enroll in college with the intention of going into performance. This was until she was required to take a recording technology course for her major.  “That year I fell HARD for working in the studio. I loved how many variables there were to play with, and all the different directions that you could take a piece of music in. The creative process was suddenly busted wide open for me, and I couldn’t let that go, so I switched my focus to engineering. My decision to change solidified when I found out how few women there are on this side of the industry… less than 5% is just B.S! I became even more impassioned when I started working in live sound at 23 and discovered all the directions that you could take that path in, and all the wonderful types of music and performance that you’re exposed to! Since being a youngin singing acoustic pop-punk in run-down venues in Silicon Valley, my instrument has changed from a guitar and my voice to a console and mics. Each show that I work is a chance to explore and express my musicality alongside the incredible talent that I get to work with here in Austin, TX.”

Willa started out working in recording studios while in college as a ProTools op and audio engineer. She has a BA of Contemporary Music from Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where she was trained in various instruments, music theory, orchestration, advanced vocal techniques, western and world music history, and basic business management, as well as studio production. In contrast, all of her live sound knowledge has been developed on the job and through independent research on various subjects.

After graduating from college, she moved to Texas and ended up taking a job in live sound as an A2 for a small local production company, where she was taught how to build PAs and tune systems. While there, she soaked up everything she could learn and said she “initially hated live sound! In comparison to the studio, it’s loud, chaotic, and terrifying, Everything’s happening all at once, and almost nothing goes according to the original plan. I must have developed Stockholm Syndrome because now I can’t get enough of it! I’ve learned to love the fluidity and chaos, and I’m constantly finding myself challenged to grow and inspired by the techs that I encounter and the artists that I get to work with.”

Like many of us, when Willa first started running sound, she was terrified of failing. She put a lot of pressure on herself and says she felt “that as a woman, people were going to be looking at me as an example of all women engineers. If I wasn’t 100% absolutely perfect, then it would be reflected 100x worse on me than it would a male in my position, and it would be a stain on the reputation of women engineers the world over. I put all that pressure on myself, despite having only just begun my journey into live sound!”

Then  Willa started to notice something… “in my conversations with more experienced engineers and hearing their origin stories, they all said the same thing: they were TERRIBLE when they were starting out! I heard many tales of butchering mixes and struggling to make the broken gear work in dirty clubs. I finally realized that in order to grow and move past this mentality, I needed to give myself permission to fail. So, before every gig, I would have the following conversation with myself: “let’s go out there and SUCK! Let’s have the worst mix ever, and get shamed out of the club! The band is going to hate everything you do, and the gear’s going to catch fire, and it’s going to be GREAT!” And strangely, that worked for me. Giving myself the space to be an inexperienced failure allowed me to embrace that risk, and to go in with a clear head and tackle the show. At the end of the day, we’re all human, and humans mess up and make mistakes, and that’s okay; the key is how you recover from that mistake. Do you own it, fix what needs fixing, and learn from it? Or do you wallow? After a few months, I didn’t need that non-pep pep talk anymore. Now I just walk in with my shoulders back and a big, fat smile on my face.”

One of Willa’s Early Failures

Early on in my experience (I think it was my second gig), I had a show where All The Things Went Terribly. I was given an incorrect load-in time; I hooked up the mains wrong, my iPad mixer was futzing out, the stage sound was terrible, the FOH mix was REALLY bad… so bad in fact that when the singer of the band greeted the crowd and asked, ”how’s it sounding out there?” the audience responded with, “clap… clap… crickets…” An audience member standing near me even leaned over and asked me, “it doesn’t sound good, does it?” I could do nothing but admit that indeed it did not. Oh, it was so embarrassing!! Thankfully the band was very kind and even tipped me at the end of the night.

As soon as I got home, I called up one of my sound buddies and took him out for beers. I walked him through the entire gig, top to bottom, and asked him for some guidance on the mix, and for advice on how to do things better.

A few weeks later, I got the opportunity to mix the same band again. I made sure to get to the venue extra early, set up and rang out the stage as cleanly as I could, incorporated some suggestions my friend made into my mix and remembered exactly how the band set up the stage and where they needed lines. The band showed up, and this time, All The Things Went Smoothly. Stage and FOH sound were vastly improved, the band had a great time, the audience had a great time, they even gave me a ‘thank you’ shout out!

As Willa continues to learn and grow, her long-term goals are to become a touring FOH /Monitor Engineer and System Tech.

What do you like best about touring?

I like hearing how the sound of the music changes in different venues, and the constant momentum of traveling from place to place

What do you like least?

I miss my loved ones and my own bed while I’m away.

What is your favorite day off activity?

My favorite day off activities are resting and taking care of my plant collection. It’s lovely to have a period of quiet and calm after the storm.

What are your long-term goals?

I have several interests that I’m avidly working towards, my main ones being touring as a FOH and/or MON engineer, and/or as a system/PA tech.

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

I’ve been turned down for a tour because of my gender, and am all-too-often dealing with unwarranted attention and sexist comments.

How have you dealt with them?

It depends on the situation. For the tour, I let it go and decided that wasn’t a tour I wanted to be involved with anyway. I turned to the SoundGirls forum for advice when going through that process, and deeply appreciated the support and words of encouragement that I received from the group. When dealing with sexist comments on the job, sometimes I’ll ignore them, while others I’ll confront head-on and shoot something back (ex: if I get called honey, I’ll call them sweetie. Stops that sh** real fast.)

The advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Learn as much as you can from every situation and interaction, and ask as many questions as you can at appropriate times. Don’t be afraid to work hard, and allow your enthusiasm to drive you. Always keep an air of professionalism at every gig, no matter how big or small. Say yes to every challenge and opportunity possible. Be authentically who you are and embrace that; faking it until you make it is not a thing. It’s okay to stand up for yourself when you are being mistreated; no amount of abuse is worth your time or mental health.

Must have skills?

Have a running knowledge of basic signal flow, mic placement, gain structure and EQ techniques, and learn to embrace failure (how else are you going to learn?). Be kind and cool to those you interact with, and keep your connections positive as much as possible.

Favorite gear?

Work gloves, c-wrench, and my Shure SE846 IEMs. An Allen & Heath desk is always preferred.

 

 

 

Shadow on David Haines on Alessia Cara

Members of SoundGirls have the chance to shadow David Haines (FOH) on Alessia Cara.

Details:

You are invited to apply to shadow David as they come through Texas. You will arrive at load-in and stay until load-out.  Specific Times will be TBD. David Haines is FOH for Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, John Legend, and more.

Dates Available:

Apply Here

 

Shadow on City and Colour

Members of SoundGirls have the chance to shadow Meaghan McEachren (Monitor Engineer) and Jon Halliwell (FOH Engineer) on City and Colour.

Details:

You are invited to apply to shadow Meaghan and Jon.  They will take two hours to tour their production and day to day life on the road. Two SoundGirls per date.

The time of arrival would be 10 am local time and will conclude at 12 noon.
You will need a hard hat and steel toe shoes/boots.

Dates Available:

Apply Here

 

Adriana Viana: Engenheira de Som Brasileira Independente

Read English Version Here 

A Brasileira Adriana Viana trabalha como diretora técnica, e técnica de PA e monitor freelance. Situada em São Paulo, já trabalhou com diferentes artistas da música Brasileira, como Teatro Mágico, Flora Matos, Plutão Já Foi Planeta, Rodrigo Teaser – Tributo ao Rei do Pop, e mixou shows de artistas internacionais no Brasil, incluindo Mark Lanegan, a banda jamaicana Toots and the Maytals e o guitarrista de blues Jimmy Burns. Atualmente está em turnê com uma das maiores compositoras brasileiras, Adriana Calcanhoto além de operar o PA das bandas Far From Alaska e Rashid. Ela também assina a direção técnica do Women’s Music Event, onde monta uma equipe de mulheres qualificadas para operar toda parte de audio do evento.

Quem vê Adriana operando uma mesa de som pode ter a impressão de que ela passou a vida inteira mixando. Mas quando ela começou a trabalhar na área há 12 anos, ela não tinha autorização para mexer no equipamento de áudio. Adriana sempre teve interesse pelo audio ao vivo – não apenas ia aos shows, mas também acompanhava seus amigos nas montagens e nas passagens de som. “Eu pensava, o que esse cara faz? Ah ele arruma o som… eu já entendia a profissão, sabia que tinha um cara que montava, um cara que fazia o som, um cara que fazia a luz, e achava super interessante.”

Quando soube que haviam duas vagas em uma locadora de equipamento de áudio, ela foi fazer uma entrevista no intuito de entrar no mercado, entender melhor a profissão e aprender.

Chegando lá, descobriu que as duas opções eram: recepcionista ou almoxarife. “Eu falei que queria ficar no almoxarifado! Me perguntaram se eu tinha experiência, eu falei que não, mas que era muito organizada e queria aprender para entrar no ramo.

Eles precisavam de alguém que conferisse tudo que tinha lá, contar cada coisinha. Então quando vinha um técnico, eu perguntava: o que é isso? ‘É um Shure SM58’. Esse outro também? ‘Não esse é um beta 58’. E aí eu fiz a contagem, deixei tudo organizado, dava entrada e saída nos gaveteiros.” Todos enfrentam dificuldades ao começarem uma carreira no áudio, mas Adriana aponta que mulheres ainda têm uma dificuldade extra que é enfrentar assédio e machismo. Adriana não foi ensinada sobre a parte técnica, e como solução para aprender, ela lia todos os manuais que encontrava. Sem apoio na empresa onde trabalhava e sem dinheiro pra fazer um curso de iniciação ao áudio, comprou um livro de fundamentos básicos do áudio e começou a estudar. “Eu ia aprendendo do jeito que eu podia, pegava apostila, livro, ia lendo o que eu encontrava. Eu ia acompanhando nos eventos e ficava observando.”

Um dia, em um dos eventos que Adriana costumava acompanhar, um técnico freelance percebeu seu interesse em aprender e convidou-a para acompanhar seu trabalho em uma casa de show “nos sábados, às 14h. Ele não operava, ele era roadie de palco, fazia todo cabeamento, patch, monitor, e tudo que ele sabia ali ele me ensinou. Ele falava, ‘isso é um XLR, isso é um P10, isso é um multicabo’. Ele me passou a visão geral do sistema, as conexões e eu fui aprendendo. Eu trabalhava de segunda a sexta na empresa de som, e todo sábado por meses eu ia de graça pra aprender. Cabeava, microfonava, ligava os monitores, AC, ficava na house vendo o técnico operar. Só olhando. Quando sentia uma brecha, eu perguntava.” Logo, o técnico que ensinou Adriana precisou de sub – e quem melhor para substituí-lo do que a pessoa que ele treinou? “Eu comecei a trabalhar como técnica de montagem de palco e logo eu comecei a operar, depois entrei no Centro Cultural São Paulo e fiquei fixa no setor do som. Aí comecei a trabalhar em várias empresas de som, fazer muito show. Eu sempre saí para trabalhar e aprender, eu lia manuais, não tinha dinheiro pra fazer IAV, nunca fiz, então eu lia apostilas. Tinham pessoas que me ensinaram algumas coisas, eu pude acompanhar grandes técnicos trabalhando, então você vai absorvendo. Mas foi muito na cabeçada também, de meter a mão e ir pra cima.”

As pessoas notavam o bom trabalho de Adriana e as propostas de trabalho iam aparecendo. Um dia, mixando uma banda na casa de show em que trabalhava, a banda gostou tanto de seu trabalho que passou a chama-la para trabalhar em seus shows. “Eles tinham equipamento próprio, eu ia junto ligava e operava.” Ela enfatiza, “tudo foi aprendizado, todos os processos pelos quais eu passei, todas as bandas. As oportunidades foram aparecendo e eu aproveitava.” Quanto mais ela trabalhava, mais bandas notavam seu trabalho e mais propostas de trabalho ela recebia. Logo, ela começou a viajar com a banda Teatro mágico como técnica de monitor, um divisor de águas em sua carreira. “Era outro esquema, todo mundo de fone, pan pra lá e pra cá, clicks, procedimentos diferentes de trabalho, RF, sistema sem fio; ali eu aprendi muito, eu fiquei três anos lá e quando eu saí muita galera me chamava pra fazer monitor.”

Agora que Adriana é um técnica reconhecida e com muita experiência, conversamos sobre os aspectos técnicos do seu trabalho e as particularidades de trabalhar com som ao vivo no Brasil.

  Ao ser perguntada  sobre quando começa a adiantar a pré-produção de um show, ela nos contou que “assim que eu recebo o contato, já faço. Tem show que eu recebo um mês antes, tem show grande que a produção técnica do evento já pega os contatos e já começa a pré, tem uns que é três dias antes do show. Eu peço o email, já envio o rider e peço o contrarider, via e-mail ou WhatsApp. Quando não dá pra fazer visita técnica eu peço foto, eu vejo online qual a casa de show. Tudo é formalizado por escrito, tudo que foi acordado, com todo mundo ciente, contratante, diretor técnico, dono da empresa de som ou técnico da casa, envio uma lista com tudo que eu preciso. Depois, se tiver algum problema com algum desses equipamentos, tem que avisar, e se precisar de substituição, tem que avisar com antecedência. E na passagem de som, se algum dos ítens não estiver funcionando perfeitamente, tem que ser resolvido na hora, senão não dá pra fazer o show. Eles sempre dão um jeito, mas tem que ficar em cima, e eu deixo muito claro, eu sou chata. Tem uns caras que dizem ‘ah tá bom, vai tá tudo certo’, e você chega lá e o equipamento é ruim. Então eu digo: se não trocar, não vai ter. Eles dão um jeito e trocam.”

A falta de profissionalismo na pré produção já serve de alerta para Adriana. “Respondem de forma genérica, ‘tem 4 monitores’, mas não dizem qual falante, qual drive, qual tamanho. Aí eu peço foto, porque as vezes só de olhar você já sabe, e já diz se tem que alugar outras caixas, porque essas não vão servir. Se você falar com outro profissional, você envia seu rider, ele manda o contrarider, você negocia o que não te atende e as opções para substituição, e você chega num acordo, só que quando não é um profissional, você não tem como negociar, é difícil, aí eu vou direto no contratante e informo o que está no contrato e o que não está sendo atendido.” Outro problema é quando as pessoas não são nem qualificadas para saber a diferença entre bom e ruim. “Você joga ruído rosa numa caixa e ela não reproduz corretamente, e o técnico diz que tá boa e tá funcionando. Como que um cara que trabalha com som não ouve? Ele não ouve o que tá ruim, ele não ouve nem um humming.”

Em quais consoles Adriana prefere trabalhar? “Eu gosto muito de encontrar mesas boas, gosto muito das mesas Soundcraft linhas Vi, 3000, 2000, gosto muito de Digico SD8 e SD9. Midas e SSL são ótimas mas difíceis de achar.” E o que ela mais costuma encontrar? “Yamaha M7CL e LS9, são equipamentos de muito uso, e se não fazem a manutenção direito, não dá. É o que eu mais pego, mas não entram em nenhum dos meus riders, nem com banda pequena, eu não peço, porque normalmente é o que vai ter. E até atende o input e o output, efeitos, equalizadores gráficos, mas o problema é o mau estado delas.”

Adriana não costuma encontrar equipamentos periféricos além do console, talvez um par de equalizadores gráficos, que muitas vezes não estão funcionando direito, então ela se adaptou a resolver tudo direto no console.

“Eu nem peço, porque pode ter um cabo de insert ruim ou mal colocado, aí o som não chega e você só perde tempo. Melhor ir no console, estou acostumada a trabalhar com qualquer console. O que tiver, você vai e faz. Tenho minhas preferências, mas o que tiver eu faço, não fico dependendo de equipamento. Claro que muda, né, as ferramentas, quanto melhores, mais fácil seu trabalho. Mas eu tô acostumada a torcer M7, LS9 e X32.”

As bandas brasileiras têm uma queixa comum antes de contratar Adriana como técnica de monitor. “O maior problema que as bandas tem é se ouvir. Uma banda que só pode ter um técnico, não vai ter um técnico de monitor, normalmente esse técnico vai fazer o PA. Muitas vezes é um técnico que faz só um show e depois vai embora. Músico que tá acostumado a ter técnico de monitor, se acostuma a se ouvir bem, e no dia que não tem, passa um perrengue.” Por isso, quando Adriana é a única técnica de som na equipe, ela levanta uma mix básica de monitor antes de ir para o PA, porque “enquanto eles não tiverem se ouvindo, eles não vão tocar. Não adianta o PA estar bom se eles estiverem errando, se eles não tiverem se ouvindo. Eu penso assim. Tem gente que não se importa porque foi contratado só pra mixar o PA, mas eu acho que tudo isso agrega no trabalho, se você chega e faz um trabalho mais completo a banda vai te dar muito mais valor e falar ‘a Adriana resolve tudo pra gente, quando for um show maior com cachê melhor a gente aumenta a equipe, mas por enquanto ela é o suficiente’”.

Então as bandas contratam apenas um(a) técnico(a) por causa da verba ou por que acham que não precisa de dois? “Tem bandas em que os músicos estão acostumados a não se ouvir e não tão nem aí. Tem bandas em que eles fazem questão de ter um técnico de monitor, mas a produção não tem verba, prefere chamar algum outro profissional, tipo dançarino ou figurinista, do que priorizar a equipe técnica.” Adriana costuma trabalhar com bandas com uma atitude profissional, e enfatiza que mesmo as bandas pequenas querem cada vez mais ter uma equipe eficiente e buscam contratar no mínimo um técnico de som, um iluminador e um roadie. Quanto maior o show, maior a equipe. Ela faz questão de não ocupar o cargo de roadie, para não tirar o trabalho de outra pessoa e explica para as bandas a importância de ter uma pessoa na equipe dedicada a esse cargo. “No meio do show, se der um imprevisto, quem vai virar as costas pro público pra resolver? O artista não pode resolver isso, tem que ter um roadie pra ir lá resolver o problema no seu instrumento, afinar sua viola no meio do show. Eu tento ao máximo agregar equipe, sempre, eu to acostumada a ter equipe grande porque funciona muito bem e um ajuda o outro, tudo funciona melhor. Eu sempre tento aumentar a equipe e mostrar a importância e a diferença que faz.”

Comparando a realidade brasileira com a americana, Adriana aponta que “aqui você tem que saber fazer tudo: alinhar o sistema, coordenar o RF, mixar PA e monitor, várias coisas. Lá fora é tudo mais setorizado, o que acabando sendo mais organizado. Aqui a gente acaba fazendo tudo porque, se sou só eu e começa a fugir um microfone sem fio, é da parte do som e isso complica o meu trabalho, então eu já garanto o RF. Se for um evento maior, tem que ter uma pessoa pra fazer isso, a casa de show tem que me entregar o equipamento funcionando, mas em shows menores com banda menor que a gente leva nossos próprios microfones e in ears, eu não vou deixar o artista passando sufoco.”

Sobre os problemas técnicos que costuma encontrar, Adriana suspira “a gente passa por muitas coisas”, mas encara essas situações já prevendo como resolver: “se você passa por algo e aprende, você se antecede, previne e toma medidas para evitar que aquilo aconteça, senão você tem que parar o que você está fazendo para resolver um problema. Independente do que seja, você já tenta, os cabos são todos por aqui, já vou fazer o RF, já vou checar tudo, já vou testar antes, logo quando chegar, pra ter tempo, então você vai se antecedendo. Vai dar um monte de imprevisto, cabo que pára e não funciona, canal que entra humming, mas a experiência faz com que você consiga lidar com isso de uma maneira mais rápida. Ok, aconteceu algo, resolve dessa forma; RF tá ruim? Então põe a base no pé da cantora, sabe? Então tem coisas que você já vai tomando medidas mais bruscas para garantir, não dá para perder tempo resolvendo um monte de problema, porque normalmente é só a gente que tá lá pra resolver.”

Falando em prevenir, perguntamos a Adriana o que ela costuma levar para os shows: “Eu levo par de pilha nova sempre, fita, hellerman, toalha, listerine e alcool gel, duas grades de sm58 – se for outro modelo eu limpo, caneta, pen drive. Uma artista reclamou que o microfone tá fedendo? No outro show você já entrega um microfone limpinho. Uma cantora reclamou, eu liguei no dia seguinte pra produção e avisei que tava indo comprar duas bolinhas de microfone e pedi pra ela me depositar. Acabou! Então você tem que achar soluções práticas ao invés de falar que está com problemas. Acho que equipe técnica é isso, achar solução e evitar problema.” No início da ano, Adriana viajou para a Europa com os irmãos, e mesmo sendo uma viagem de férias, ela levou fita. “A gente usou tanto! Colei o tênis do meu irmão que tava abrindo o bico, o livro da minha irmã soltou a capa, passei fita! Meu óculos tinha aberto, prendi com fita. A gente usou tanto, e meus irmãos riram, ‘só você mesmo pra viajar com fita!’. Eu também ando com um multiteste, porque são coisas que podem te salvar. Quanto menos você depender dos outros, menos problema você vai ter.”

Algo que notei ao acompanhar Adriana em montagens e passagens de som, é que ela costuma levantar a cena do zero. “Cada dia é um dia, não é sempre a mesma mesa. Eu tenho muita cena no meu pendrive, mas é difícil usar, já tive que fazer muitas vezes do zero porque a mesa não lia o cartão.” E é claro, cada dia é uma sala e um sistema de PA diferentes. Para verificar a resposta de frequência do sistema, Adriana costuma usar ruído rosa e na sequência tocar suas músicas de referência. “Eu gosto muito de Change The World, do Eric Clapton”, ela também toca versões dub de músicas do The Police para testar os subs. “Costumo usar também Massive Attack, músicas que eu tô acostumada, eu sei o que eu tem um detalhe aqui e ali”. Ela toca Everybody Here Wants you do Jeff Buckley, por causa do reverb longo da caixa, “tem PA que não tem o reverb da caixa, que não tem a resposta dos harmônicos. Tem uns que o stereo está péssimo, tem o stereo de altas, de médias, que estão na mix. Quando chega um backing vocal aberto e não veio, você sabe que aquela região de frequências não está certa.”

Em 10 anos, ela quer continuar fazendo o que está fazendo. Ela gostaria de passar mais tempo no estúdio aprendendo técnicas mais apuradas de captação e mixagem, “mas eu não posso parar de trabalhar para ficar aprendendo no estúdio e ganhando muito pouco. Eu preciso trabalhar. E eu realmente gosto do que eu faço. Tem uns trabalhos que você faz que você se sente parte mesmo. Eu fico feliz quando sei que no dia seguinte tem show do Far From Alaska, ali é a gig do coração! Eu não me vejo fazendo outra coisa. Quando comecei a trabalhar com som, eu nunca mais parei, eu sempre trabalhei muito. E a galera gostava e chamava de novo. Quando você é determinado e se esforça pra fazer o melhor, não importa o que seja, você colhe o que planta.”

Desde que começou sua carreira há 12 anos, Adriana só parou de trabalhar quando estava grávida de sua filha Luka, e mesmo assim trabalhou até os oito meses de gravidez. “Depois que ela nasceu eu fiquei seis meses só em casa com ela, depois eu voltei a trabalhar, por isso eu não tive mais filho, porque eu não posso perder esse timing e financeiramente eu não posso parar de trabalhar. Mas eu gosto muito do que eu faço, e eu gosto de fazer vários trabalhos diferentes ao mesmo tempo, estilos, equipes e produções diferentes, isso tudo é agregador e o aprendizado é maior.”

Adriana já foi chamada várias vezes para dar cursos de áudio, mas sua resposta é mais prática e direta: “Vem trabalhar comigo que você pega!”. Uma pessoa inclusive pagou para ter aulas particulares, e ela formulou como repassar todo seu conhecimento da melhor forma possível, mas ao fim ela resumiu “Eu levei muitos anos para aprender tudo isso que eu te ensinei em um mês. Agora, depende de você. Bate em porta de empresa de som, bate em porta de barzinho, casa de show, diz que você está estudando áudio e pede pra acompanhar, se ofereça como assistente. Você quer mesmo? Bate em portas”. Adriana não se sentia a vontade de indica-lo, pois ele não tinha experiência. “Eu aprendi com um técnico que nem sabia para que servia o botão de high pass, ele apertava pra descobrir, mas tudo mais que ele sabia, ele me ensinou. E eu sou muito grata a ele por isso.” Recentemente, Adriana estava mixando PA e no meio do show foi surpreendida pelo técnico que a orientou no início da carreira, ele foi lhe dar um abraço e dizer o quanto estava orgulhoso do seu progresso. “A gente tem que correr atrás. Hoje em dia é fácil, tem muito video, workshop, técnico que vem de fora dar curso, tudo agrega. É importante saber mexer no equipamento, mas o mais importante é saber o que você tem que fazer com esse equipamento. Equipamento é uma ferramenta, como se fosse um computador ou uma máquina de escrever, você pode aprender muito sobre som e audio, e conhecer as ferramentas, mas o mais importante é o ouvido.”

Adriana reforça: se a gente não correr atrás, nada acontece. “Nada caiu no meu colo. As coisas foram acontecendo porque eu ia me mexendo, nunca fiquei parada esperando nada. Graças a Deus todo esse tempo eu não fiquei sem trabalho. Quanto mais você trabalha, mais trabalho aparece. Isto é fato.”

Profile by Gabi Lima, engenheira de audio, produtora, compositora, instrumentista, cantora e comedora de doce.
Gabi Lima is an audio engineer, producer, songwriter, musician, singer, and candy eater. She is based in São Paulo, Brasil

Adriana Viana: Independent Brazilian Sound Engineer

 

Read Portuguese Version Here

Adriana Viana is a Brazilian freelance Front of House, monitor engineer, and technical director. Based in São Paulo, she has worked with many Brazilian artists such as Teatro Mágico, Flora Matos, Plutão Já Foi Planeta, Rodrigo Teaser – Tributo ao Rei do Pop (a Michael Jackson tribute concert) and mixed international artists when they played in Brazil, such as Toots and the Maytals, Mark Lanegan and blues guitarist Jimmy Burns. She is currently the front-of-house engineer for Far From Alaska and Rashid and is also on tour with one of Brazil’s finest songwriters, Adriana Calcanhoto. She is also the technical director of Women’s Music Event, where she puts together a team of qualified women to run sound for the entire event.

Those who get to see Adriana in action might get the impression that she has been mixing all her life. But when she started out in this business 12 years ago, she wasn’t even allowed to operate any equipment. Her interest sparked from going to a lot of shows, and as most people bitten by the audio bug, she would tag along with her musician friends for soundcheck. “I wondered, what are those guys doing? I could see there were people in charge of the audio equipment, of setting it up, mixing, doing lights, and I found it super interesting.”

She learned of a couple of job openings at a local rental company and went in for an interview. She then discovered the only two positions available to her were: answering the phone or keeping track of warehouse inventory, so she chose the latter, to be closer to the equipment. “They asked me if I had any experience and I didn’t, so I told them I was very organized and I wanted to learn so I could get in the business. They needed someone to manage their inventory, so I took that opportunity. When techs brought in equipment, I would ask: what is this mic? They’d tell me; it’s a Shure SM58. Next time they’d bring a similar mic, and I’d ask, “Is this a Shure SM58? They’d inform me that it was a beta 58, so I’d learn the difference. I would keep stock, count, and organize all the equipment going out and coming in”. It’s already difficult for anyone coming into this industry to work their way up, and Adriana points out that it’s even more difficult for women who have to deal with sexism and harassment. Adriana wasn’t really taught anything about the equipment, instead, she’d find the manuals and read them. She wasn’t given the opportunity to operate the equipment either, and couldn’t afford formal training, so she bought a book about audio engineering and started studying it.“I just learned by reading manuals, workbooks, books, just any printed material I could find. I was eager to learn so I’d go to events and watch.”

At one of the events that she’d tag along to, a freelance tech noticed her eagerness to learn and invited her to his regular gig “every Saturday, at 2 pm. He didn’t mix, he was a stage tech, ran all the cables, patched everything, and taught me everything he knew. He’d tell me, this is an XLR, this is an instrument cable, this is a snake, he taught me how the system was set up. I worked Monday through Friday at the rental company, but on Saturdays, I went to his gig to learn. You could say I worked for free, I’d run cables, set up mics and monitors, then I’d quietly watch the front-of-house engineer mix, and I’d ask questions when he had a break.” Soon, the tech who taught Adriana needed a sub – and who better to call than the person he trained? “I started subbing for him as a stage tech, and soon after that, I was mixing, then I became the house engineer for that venue. Then I started working for other sound companies as a tech, and I worked a lot of shows. Then I worked at other venues and learned even more. I was always out there learning and working, I read manuals, I couldn’t afford to go to school for audio engineering, so I never did. I watched people working, and I learned. I would always go for it and just try and do it.”

People noticed her hard work and kept hiring her for more gigs. While working at a venue, she mixed a band who liked her work so much they asked her to go on the road with them. “They had their own equipment; I’d set it up and operate it.” She emphasizes, “all I went through, all the bands I worked with, that was my learning process. Whenever there was an opportunity, I’d take it.” The more she worked, the more bands noticed her excellent work, and the more she would work! She soon landed a gig with the popular Brazilian band Teatro Mágico as their official monitor engineer. “It was full-on wireless, in ears, stereo mixes, click, everything! I learned a lot in those three years, and more people kept hiring me to mix monitors.”

Now that she’s an experienced and well-respected live sound engineer, she talked to us about the technical aspects of her work and the particularities of working with live sound in Brazil.

When asked how early she starts pre-producing a show, she replied, “as soon as I’m hired to do it. Sometimes a month ahead, sometimes a couple of days before the show. I ask for the venue’s tech contact so I can send in my rider right away and get theirs back, via email or WhatsApp. If I can’t do a site survey, I ask for photos, too; I also look online for more info on the venue and their equipment. I exchange all the information in writing, so everything that’s been agreed on by promoters, managers, the rental company, techs, and directors is documented, and everyone is informed. If the full rider can’t be provided, I ask that substitutions be worked out ahead of time, and inform that everything needs to be working during soundcheck or the show won’t happen. I stay on top of things, I request all the necessary info, and some guys will dismiss it with ‘relax, everything will be alright,’ and when I get there their equipment is terrible and their system isn’t working correctly, so I show them all the documented info and state: you either provide us with the right equipment or there won’t be a show, so they do.”

People who don’t act professionally during pre-production are a red flag for Adriana. “They give generic answers like ‘there are four monitors’ but won’t tell me the specific brand, model or specs. That’s why I ask for pictures, so I can identify if the equipment meets our needs, and if it doesn’t, I specify what they should rent instead. With real professionals, you can work out a deal between what you need and what they have, but you can’t really negotiate with people who don’t act professionally, they walk in circles, so I go straight to the promoter and let them know that the rider is not being met. The promoter then demands that all technical aspects of the rider be honored.”

Another problem is when people aren’t even qualified to tell good from bad. “You play pink noise through a speaker and it sounds terrible, but the house tech listens to it and says it’s working fine. Some people can’t hear hum noises either.”

So, what consoles does she request in her rider? “I love getting good consoles to work with – Soundcraft consoles, the Vi, 3000 and 2000 series, I like Digico SD8 and SD9. Midas and SSL consoles are great but hard to come across on the road”. So what does she usually get? “Yamaha’s, usually in bad condition, unfortunately. M7CL, PM5D, and LS9 are the most commonly used consoles, and if they’re not regularly checked and well maintained, they won’t work properly. I never request them on my riders, not even when mixing a small indie band – because that’s what I’ll usually get anyway, and though they have enough inputs and outputs, they’re usually poorly maintained.”

When it comes to outboard gear, she says venues usually just have a pair of graphic EQs, and if that’s not available or in poor condition, as often is the case, she’ll resort to using the console’s graphic EQs on her outputs. “I avoid poorly maintained equipment; the cables might be in poor condition too, so as not to waste time, I deal with it in the console. I’m used to working on any console that’s available. I have my preferences, but whatever is there, I’ll use it, I’ll mix on it. I don’t depend on equipment to do my job. Of course, the better the tool, the easier my job will be, but I’m used to getting a good sound out of not-so-good equipment.”

Brazilian bands have a common issue that makes them hire Adriana as a monitor engineer. “They have trouble hearing themselves on stage. If the band can afford an engineer, they’ll usually hire just one engineer, not two different people for monitors and FOH. And that one person will mix FOH. Sometimes it’s a one-off gig for that tech. Musicians that are used to having a monitor engineer are used to hearing themselves well, and when they happen to not have a monitor engineer, they’re in trouble.” That’s why even when Adriana is the only engineer in the crew and is mixing FOH, she’ll get a basic monitor mix up for her musicians, because “I can’t begin to mix FOH if they can’t hear themselves – they won’t play right. It doesn’t matter if I have a great-sounding PA if my musicians aren’t playing well if they can’t hear what they’re playing. At least that’s how I see it. A lot of people will just stick to mixing FOH because technically, that’s all they’re getting paid to do, but I think this makes my work better, more complete. And if I do a good job, the band recognizes and appreciates it, they see that I presented a solution, and I make sure they get a monitor engineer when their budget is bigger.”

So do bands only hire one tech because they don’t think they need two or because of a tight budget? “Some bands never heard themselves well on stage, and they’re used to it. Some bands only play if there’s a monitor engineer. Some productions don’t allocate the budget for it – they’d rather spend the money on a different professional, a dancer, a stylist, than having a larger audio crew.” Adriana is used to working with professional bands that hire at least one sound tech, one light tech, and one roadie. The bigger the show, the bigger the crew. She also makes a point of not working as a roadie and informs bands of the importance of hiring one, as that’s someone else’s job that she’s not taking. “If you’re playing a show and something goes wrong, is the artist going to turn their back to the crowd to fix it? That’s a roadie’s job. I try to add as many people to the crew as possible because everyone’s work is better that way. I always put together a good team and show the artist how important that is.”

Reflecting on the reality of working in Brazil compared to the US, Adriana points out that “You have to know how to do everything – tune the system, set up wireless equipment, coordinate the RF, mix FOH, mix monitors, a lot of different things. Overseas there seem to be different professionals for different tasks… but here, if something goes wrong with the audio, that’s all part of my job, and I want to make sure everything works. If it’s a big event, you need people dedicated to specific functions, the equipment needs to be working, but in smaller shows, my artists will bring their own mics and in-ears, and if something goes wrong, I have to fix it. We may not have an RF tech, but we have common sense. Each situation is different, but I won’t let the artist encounter difficulty and do nothing about it.”

When asked what difficulties she usually encounters, she sighed, “We go through so much…” but replied with a problem-solving attitude: “if there’s a problem and you learn how to deal with it, you can anticipate it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. You take precautions to avoid possible problems. And if you set up correctly and test ahead, you won’t have to stop what you’re doing to troubleshoot it. Things might go wrong, you might get a bad cable or a noisy input channel, but experience makes you identify possible issues and deal with them faster. Ok, something is not working, we’ll set it up differently. Poor wireless signal? Send the singer’s mix to her floor wedges. You know? You take precautions so you won’t waste time trying to fix a bunch of different things, because usually, I’m the only person there to fix it.”

Speaking of thinking ahead, we asked Adriana what she takes with her to a show: “Fresh batteries, tape, Hellerman tool, towels, Listerine and hand sanitizer, a couple sm58 grilles, pens, memory stick. An artist complained that the mic was stinky? Well, next show, you hand them a freshly clean mic. An artist complained, I called her production and said I was on my way to buy two spare sm58 grilles and asked them to reimburse me. There, problem solved. You have to come up with solutions instead of complaining about the problems. Good audio techs will find solutions and avoid problems.”

Earlier this year, she went to Europe on vacation with her siblings – even off duty, she took gaff tape with her. “I taped my brother’s shoes; they were coming apart on the sides; the cover was coming off on my sister’s book. I taped it! My glasses were falling apart; I taped them. My siblings were amazed that I took tape with me on a vacation trip. I carry around a multimeter too. The less I depend on others, the fewer problems I have.”

One thing I’ve noticed from watching Adriana set up and sound check, is that she’ll usually build up her scene from scratch. “Each day is different; I don’t always get the same console… I have a lot of scenes on my memory stick, but I hardly ever use any. Sometimes the console won’t read the flash drive!”

Needless to say, she encounters different rooms and PAs every time. She uses pink noise to check the system, see if all frequency ranges are responding correctly, then she’ll play some music. “I really like Eric Clapton’s Change the World,” she also uses dub versions of The Police songs to check the subs. “Massive Attack, you know, music I’m familiar with, so I’ll know what’s missing.” She plays Jeff Buckley’s Everybody Here Wants You, which has a distinctive long verb on the snare, “I can tell if the PA is reproducing the harmonics. With these mixes, I can also check the stereo image, especially the mid and hi mid-range. When you play a song that has a wide backing vocal mix, I can tell what’s there and what isn’t but should be.”

Ten years from now, Adriana hopes to be still doing what she does. She wishes she could spend more time in a studio learning recording techniques, but she “can’t afford to stop working and assist at a studio making less money. I gotta work. And I really love what I do. Some gigs make you feel like you’re part of them. I go to sleep happy because I know the next day I get to work with Far From Alaska, this gig is the apple of my eye! I don’t see myself doing anything else. Since I started working with live sound, I never stopped, and I’ve always worked a lot, and the more I work, the more work I get. When you’re determined, and you work hard to do your best, you reap what you sow.”

The only time Adriana stopped working since she started 12 years ago, was when she got pregnant with her daughter Luka and even then worked till she was eight months pregnant. “I took a six-month break when she was born; then I had to go back to work, that’s why I haven’t had more kids, because I can’t lose momentum, and it’s also not financially possible for me to stop working. And I really love my job; I always worked for different bands at the same time, different styles, different crews, different productions, it all makes my learning much richer.”

People keep asking Adriana to teach about live sound. Her reply? “Tag along, and you’ll learn.” One guy went as far as paying her for private lessons. Hard-working as she is, she developed a teaching plan and taught him everything she knew. In the end, she told her student, “It took me years to learn what I taught you in months – from now on, you’ll have to learn from your own experience. Look for a gig, go to venues, say you’re learning audio, ask if they need an assistant. Do you really want it? Knock on doors.” She said she couldn’t recommend him for gigs, because he didn’t have any real live hands-on experience. “I learned from a guy who didn’t know what an HPF button on a console was, he kept turning it on and off to find out – but everything else he did know, he taught me. And I’m very grateful.” Recently Adriana was mixing a show where her mentor happened to be, so he went up to her and gave her a big hug to tell her how proud he was. “You have to go after what you want. Nowadays there’s a lot of information available, youtube videos, workshops, panels. It’s important to know how to operate the equipment, but most importantly, you have to know what to do with it. It’s a tool, like anything else, you can learn a lot about audio and about your tools, but the most important thing is your ears.”

Adriana insists: things don’t happen if you don’t make them happen. “Nothing fell on my lap. Things happened because I went after them. Thank God I was never out of work. The more I work, the more work I get. That’s a fact.”

 

Shadow Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato on Elvis Costello

Members of SoundGirls have the chance to shadow Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato.

Michelle is currently on tour with Elvis Costello as FOH Engineer. She can have up to four people to shadow her on the dates listed below.  Please only apply if you are serious about shadowing. The info is as follows, no exceptions.  You will be expected to arrive by 11 am (if you are not 15 minutes early, you are 15 minutes late) and can stay until line check is over.  Unfortunately, the soundchecks are closed, and you will need to leave the venue before 4 pm.  If Michell can and space allows, she will provide passes to also shadow her at FOH for the show.

11/5/19 Atlanta, GA – Coca Cola Roxy Theater
11/10/19 St Petersburg, FL – Mahaffey Theater
11/11/19 Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
11/17/19 Louisville, KY  The Palace Theater
11/19/19  Cinncinati, OH- Taft Theater
11/23/19 Minneapolis, MN-State Theater

Apply Here

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