I was on tour with Neil Young and Pearl Jam when I discovered I was pregnant – at the time it seemed like a cruel joke. I was pretty happy with my career, spending 8 – 10 months a year on the road. I was working with artists that I enjoyed and respected, juggling between Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, and hoping that Fugazi would tour again. I could not imagine fitting a child into this world, or if it was even possible. (more…)
Click on the links below for a description of each job.
FOH Engineers
Monitor Engineers
System Technicians, PA Technicians, Stage Technicians, FOH Tech and Monitor Tech
Recording Engineers
Mastering Engineers
Post Production Engineers
Broadcast Engineers
Video Game Sound Designer
Theater Sound Design
Location Sound technicians for Film and TV
Barbara Adams has a full plate. Not only is she the Full-time House Engineer at Tin Angel- a listening room in Philadelphia, part-time engineer at World Cafe Live, also in Phili, she occasionally works as a freelance Engineer/System Tech for two production companies and does freelance work mixing FOH for regional bands touring the North East and Mid Atlantic states. Barbara is also the owner and business manager of Burn Down Studios in Germantown PA, Adjunct Professor of Sound Reinforcement at Drexel University AND as if that’s not enough she is a mother to a five-year-old son.
Even though she wasn’t a musician, growing up, Barbara Adams was all about music. At around 14 years old, while flipping through a copy of Rolling Stone magazine, she came across an ad for Full Sail which sparked her interest in music production. As graduation grew closer, it wasn’t easy convincing her mother that audio engineering was what she wanted to do, but she was hooked on the idea of working in music production, and enrolling in Full Sail seemed to be the best route. “ Being fairly shy at that time in my life, I wasn’t comfortable going to a studio and trying to learn that way. I was more apt to learn in school.” “When I was 20, I finally had the opportunity to go to Full Sail, and let’s just say, I learned not to be so shy anymore. I took every opportunity I could while I was there to get out and learn. When I graduated, I came home and started as an intern at a studio.”
Following her graduation from Full Sail in 1995, Barbara started as an assistant engineer at Sonic Recording Studios in Philadelphia. Three years later, she found herself feeling stuck and very unhappy. While attending Full Sail, she had found her passion was in Live Sound, and the studio life just wasn’t cutting it. “ I was thrilled when I started working with local bands at various clubs in the Philadelphia area. Around 1998 I got a job as monitor engineer at the Trocadero and moved to doing live sound full time.” “I love the challenges I face every show. It is what drives me to be better. This industry is constantly changing, and to move forward, you have to adapt. Although it is not given every time, one of the best things is to hear an audience member tell me how great the show I just mixed sounded. And band members who smile when they see me because they know it’s going to be a great night.”
Several years later, Barbara expanded on her education by receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration, Legal Studies & Entrepreneurship; Management from Temple University. “I had been working in the music industry for about five years, and I was seeing a lot of the businesses I worked for being run very poorly. I decided to get a degree in business because of that. I think it helped me to understand entrepreneurship better.”
During this time she was also working as a Monitor Engineer for Electric Factory Concerts. “In 2005 I left Electric Factory for a production manager and front of house position at a smaller club called Grape Street, while still freelancing with bands and various production companies. When Grape Street closed in 2008, I started at the Tin Angel. “ At the Tin Angel, I work every show we have which can vary week to week, but averages about 4 shows a week.” At World Cafe Live, where she’s worked since 2010, “I do mostly morning shows which can be private events, Live Connections sessions, or their weekly kid’s show. The kid’s show is one of my favorites because my son gets to come to work with me and helps me set up.” For the past ten years, Barbara has also been working freelance with DBS Audio and FSP Productions, doing monitor mixing and system tech for festivals such as DC’s Jazzfest, Boston’s Summer Arts Festival, Appel Farm Festival, Bethlehem, PA’s Musikfest, and many other events.
Barbara has had some hurdles to overcome. “Attitudes… sometimes it is my own. It took me a long time to realize you can’t please everyone all the time.” Also, “Being a girl in the music business is an obstacle itself. I have been overlooked for positions I was well qualified for because I am female, and I have been through many instances of sexual harassment.” Barbara has dealt with these situations by enduring and learning from every obstacle, forging on to better herself and her craft. “I get schooled every day I work. I am constantly learning, even after doing this for nearly 20 years.” She also says, “keeping her head up and growing a tough skin” have helped her survive in the business. Working in sound reinforcement doesn’t leave much time for her to spend evenings with her family or social outings with friends. “ My schedule is the opposite of most people I interact with now, especially being a mom.”
If you want to enter the field of professional audio, Barbara recommends figuring out how you like to learn. “For me it was school, but if that isn’t your thing, then go out and meet some people. Be outgoing, but not arrogant. Be open to learning, be open to trying things. When things get tough…don’t give up. Keep learning and keep doing it. Listen to the good advice and throw away the negativity. Learn from your mistakes, and you will become better than you ever imagined. “
People skills are first and most important. This is a business of who you know and building a network is critical.
Listening skills, use your ears! Listen to the band and the audience and make adjustments where you can.
Know signal flow and gain structure. It will make your job so much easier.
“ While I was at Full Sail, I was able to attend my first AES conference as a representative from the school. The school took promotional photos of all of us who attended. The picture they took of me was used a year later in that very same ad that got me interested in production to begin with. It was my face that graced the Full Sail ad in the back of Mix Magazine in 1996.”
When asked about her long-term goals, Barbara replied “ At many points in my life, I have wanted to have my own venue. But knowing the amount of money and work that takes, I don’t know if I have that same strong desire anymore. Lately, education has been a focus of mine. I enjoy passing on the knowledge I have gained to the next generation. I am an adjunct professor at Drexel University and am currently looking for other opportunities to teach live sound.” Barbara is doing just that by creating SoundGirls.Org’s ‘Lessons in Live Sound.’
Barbara Adams can be reached at soundarella@verizon.ne
Barbara Adams is an audio engineer and educator with twenty-five years of experience in the music industry. She specializes in live sound and production management. Her strong and varied experience also includes recording engineer, stage management, and artist management.
Barbara is an Assistant Professor at Rowan University teaching Sound Reinforcement and Audio Recording in their Music Industry Program. She also is the booking manager for Rowan Music Group, the program’s record label, and artist management services. By night she is busy as engineer and production manager at The Locks at Sona, Philadelphia’s premier listening room. She occasionally works as a freelance Engineer/System Tech for several production companies and does freelance work mixing FOH for regional bands touring the North East and Mid-Atlantic states.
As the SoundGirls Philadelphia chapter president, she is always looking for ways to help mentor and guide new engineers in the field of live sound and bring together the Philadelphia community of SoundGirls. And as if this wasn’t enough, she is the mom to a very busy pre-teen son who enjoys helping mom at gigs if he isn’t playing hockey, playing music, or in school.
This month I sat down with a fellow sound engineer and friend Andie Cascioli. Andie and I both attended Capital University together. Andie is now working as a live sound engineer in Columbus OH. As for myself, I have been busy busy busy at Eighth Day Sound, building cables and new interface boxes for the new D80 amplifiers Eighth Day Sound is starting to use. (more…)
GIL EVA CRAIG
Gil Eva Craig is an independent Audio Engineer and Music Producer working in professional audio for the last 18 years. Gil got her start as a recording engineer in 1996 and still owns and operates her own mixing and production studio, The Secret Beehive. This past May, she co-produced an album with Charlotte Yates and has done sound design and written original music for several theatre productions. Her passion though is live sound, and she currently is the FoH Engineer for The Wellington Ukulele Orchestra and works for the family business, Western Audio Engineering.
Gil’s interest in audio started in her teen years, as she would make ‘multi-track ‘ recordings using her brothers Walkman and the family boom box. Recording a guitar track first on the Walkman and then playing it back off the boom box, while recording a second track with the boom box, recording on the Walkman, and so on and so on. Reflecting back on this tracking technique Gil says “It didn’t take too many generations before my recordings turned to unintelligible satanic hiss”. Eventually, she was able to purchase a four-track cassette recorder, followed by a host of recording setups including; ½ inch 8 track, 1 inch 8 track, adats, 2 inch 16 track, and finally a 24 track hard disc recorder and Protools.
Gil spent the early years of her career recording and mixing demos for bands while trying to fund her studio. Initially, she was lured to live sound with the promise of fast cash to fund her studio. She started mixing bands at the local bar and quickly found that she not only enjoyed it but preferred it overworking in the studio. She has continued to work in both the studio and live environments. Gil has worked on several theatre productions, in which she has won awards for sound design.
Gil stumbled into sound design for theatre productions, as well as writing original music, when a mutual friend recommended her to a sound designer. She was hired to write music for a production of Penumbra that he was working on. At this point in time, the only theatre experience she had was as a musician in two amateur productions of Shakespeare. Tim Spite, a theatre director, attended the production, liked the music he heard, and hunted her down. He offered Gil the chance to compose and sound design on his next production. Gil continued to work on several of his productions, including a production of December Brother that she won a Chapman Tripp Theatre award for best sound design. The Chapmann Tripp Theatre Awards are New Zealand’s equivalent to the Tony Awards.
Sound Design for theatre productions encompasses two main disciplines; the technical design and the creative design. The technical design includes the speaker and playback system, programming the playback software and the digital consoles. The creative design is the sound effects, atmos, and music.
Gil was recently involved with the production for ‘360, A Theatre of Recollections. The production includes a surround sound and music design, and the audience is seated inside a circular stage, on swivel chairs. Gil programmed the show into a Q lab, and was able to run eight discrete outputs to six surround speakers, overheads, and subs. The sound designer, John Gibson, wrote the score utilizing surround sound to create the illusion of being surrounded by singers and players at key points in the score.
The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Gil’s extensive music background has surely helped throughout her career. She was trained in classical guitar starting at the age of ten and took up the trumpet when she was fifteen. She briefly played the Soprano Cornet and Flugelhorn, before settling on the Tenor Horn. She played as a musician in several bands, including a “file-under-difficult-listening” art band that was mixed by her future husband. She also played in a Brass Band called The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Playing in the Brass Band provided a brilliant musical education, Gil explains that “playing in an A grade brass band was demanding, as a big part of being in the band was playing in contests. The test music for the A grade is challenging, much of it sonically pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a large brass ensemble. The time spent in rehearsals pulling these amazing and complicated pieces of music apart and making sense of them, coupled with what I learned at university and a modern music course I took, was the best musical education I could have wished for”.
While Gil did not have formal training in sound engineering, as at the time there were not programs offered in New Zealand, she did embark on a degree in music. Eventually, her engineering work took priority and she did not complete her degree. She feels that the time spent on her music degree gave her a solid foundation for sound engineering. She was taught the basics of harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, acoustics, and ethnomusicology. As for the technical side of things, she learned by reading, observing, and hands-on experience.
Hands On – The Family Business
Gil’s husband, is a partner in Western Audio Engineering, a professional live sound production company. For over a decade, the couple lived in the PA workshop (warehouse), which also housed her studio. This allowed her free access to outboard gear and mics for her studio and live gigs, and she found herself surrounded by sound gear 24/7. Instead of flowers on the kitchen table, there was a soldering iron. Gil reflects on her time spent living in the workshop “It was awesome living in the workshop for nine of those years, then I started to hanker for vases of flowers on the kitchen table, and nice vintage glassware that wouldn’t get smashed in a week”.
Currently, Gil works mainly in live sound, and her job duties at Western Audio include whatever needs to be done; stage patching, show prep, loading trucks, equipment maintenance, FOH, and Monitors. Recent gigs at Western Audio have included; mixing the entertainment and anthems for an international netball match, mixing live elements for a wearable art show, a stage patch for a festival, and monitors for a small outdoor festival.
As an independent engineer, Gil mostly mixes FoH, and does a small amount of sound system and playback design for theatre. She tours as the FoH engineer for the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, who regularly tour New Zealand and occasionally Australia. She recently shared her experiences mixing them with SoundGirls.Org, you can check it out here: Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Gil does monitors for the Pink Floyd Experience, which regularly tours New Zealand and Australia and has done sessions in South Africa.
Gil explains what she enjoys the most about touring “I like that every day is different, but the same, as you are setting up the same rig (give or take a few variables) each day, but are in different places. It’s a perfect blend of routine and novelty. Also, being part of a team, but with a certain amount of independence. Both of these factors completely suits my nature”. She also loves to travel, which fuels her fascination with airplanes and her love of photography. Her days off usually include visiting galleries and museums and taking photographs. The thing she likes the least is finding food, being gluten intolerant is a challenge. Aftershow pizza is out.
Women in sound in New Zealand
New Zealand is a very small country, with only about 4 million people, so women in live sound are fairly scarce! I think I am the only woman who is currently touring. In all the years I have been doing live sound, I have met three New Zealand women working in a technical capacity. One is a good friend of mine and is head of audio for the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. A female engineer is definitely still a novelty to some house guys when I meet them for the first time. When last touring with the Pink Floyd Experience, I got the classic ‘so you sing backing vocals’ a couple of times.
Advice for Women starting out
It is important to learn at least one instrument and be able to read music. Learning to speak the language of musicians is invaluable. Invest in a professional set of earplugs and take steps to protect your hearing. Take time to learn and try out different areas of audio to see where your passion lies and what fits your personality.
Gil feels she would not last in today’s modern recording environment with its emphasis on computer-based recording and pro tools editing. She once worked on a film production and immediately knew that was not a good fit. At some point, you just gotta jump in. I have met two women who have gone through audio school, who have yet to mix a show because they are afraid. I’m still afraid! Just today I agreed to mix a monitor gig and now I’m thinking why the f*** did I say yes? Learn by osmosis and observing, but you have to observe and surround yourself with people who are really good at what they do!
Must Have Skills
Aside from the obvious technical ability, having diverse musical experiences both as a listener and player gives you a huge head start. I’m grateful for every second I spent playing in the brass band, orchestra, guitar and brass ensembles, various pop/rock bands and the howling I did in the file-under-difficult-listening performance art group. Human communication skills: basically really listening to what people say and knowing what questions to ask. Which means you can translate ‘my monitor sounds mongy’ into ‘its right on the edge of feeding back at 250.
Favorite Gear: I am mad about and completely obsessed with reverbs. My favorites are the Bricasti M7, AMS, lexicons 460 and 300. I am also very fond of the Sony R7, and have a soft spot for the Yamaha Rev 7. I just love them. I haul my Bricasti to all my shows. The one show last year I couldn’t take it to, as we were traveling on a plane so small it was basically a van with wings, I really missed it. The Sony M7 is an underrated treasure, possibly because it’s not easy to program. It’s got its own thing going on sonically.
While I don’t really get overly gooey over microphones, I do really like DPA 4061’s and 4099s. I think they sound great. I used 4099’s on a couple of trombones recently, fantastic. My favorite consoles are Midas digital consoles. I like how they sound and love the VCA and Pop group concept as you can program it so it’s under the fingers, very nice. I have done a few things on the pro 1 lately, which I call the kitten console because it’s impossibly little and cute. When coupled with a DL251 stage box to expand up to 40 channels, it’s amazing what you can do on it.
Album mixes: History of The English Brass Bands
The English Brass Bands got their start during England’s Industrial Revolution. They were originally organized and financed by mining and milling companies to keep the working classes from politically organizing. In 1860, there were around 750 brass bands in England. Today the English Brass Band tradition is found throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States. The Salvation Army has kept the tradition alive in the United States.
English Brass Bands are made up cornets, flugelhorn, tenor horns, baritones, trombones, euphoniums,B-flat and E-flat basses and percussion. The bands are made up of 28 to 30 members and their programs can include original music, traditional marching songs, hymns, and medleysBands in New Zealand are graded into four levels A grade to D grade. A grade being the top grade, and D being the equivalent of a beginner band. In Britain, the equivalent is 1st – 4th grade, with the addition of the Championship Section. The Championship Section is the best of the best and includes famous bands such as Black Dyke and Grimethorpe.
The contests in New Zealand consist of each band preparing a March, a Hymn, and an original piece. They are also given a set test piece. The A Grade is very competitive, and as the contest becomes closer; the bands practice several times a week, with extensive rehearsals on weekends. Each player is expected to continue practicing at home. Several bands have tempted top players from England by helping them relocate to New Zealand.
Eddie Vedder Solo Tour.
Life on the solo tour is just a bit easier, but it is not a piece of cake or vacation by any means. It is extremely challenging and demanding, yet easier as all energy is focused on one. The venues are theaters and the sound characteristics are a bit nicer than loud, steel, and cement arenas. I am not fighting volume from other band members, as the show mainly consists of acoustic instruments and one incredibly talented human.
The monitor system is fairly simple – yet it is complex for a solo artist. I am running a Midas Heritage and eight mixes, made up of wedges, side fills, and Shure Vocal Masters. There are two IEM mixes, one mix is provided to Ed for the performance of the song Arc, which is a vocal loop, and one for guitar tech extraordinaire, George Webb.
You might be wondering at this point if there was a typo – surely she did not mean Shure Vocal Masters? Yes, I meant Shure Vocal Masters. We are running all of the acoustic instruments into the Vocal Master. The acoustic guitars are run directly into the vocal masters, while the ukes, mandolin, and banjo I send to the vocal master from the monitor board. Ed has owned a couple of vocal masters for years, and I always knew they would end up in the monitor system somehow. At any rate, the instruments have a nice warm sound coming off the Vocal Master and I add the instruments to the side fills for some high-end definition and clarity.
The Vocal Master and wedges are set up behind Ed – This helps to achieve a loud – full sound that does not vibrate the acoustic instruments and helps to reduce feedback. I wish I had been the genius who thought of this, but Ed is responsible for the design. You are probably asking, really, the monitors are that loud to vibrate the instruments? This is not a low-volume acoustic show onstage. I believe the monitors do a decent job of covering certain areas of the venue (balconies), much to the dismay of our FOH engineer. The other mixes are for the pump organ and Hard Sun positions and a guest mix.
I truly love mixing and being a part of the solo tour, but most of this tour I am pondering how to solve the PJ dilemma. How to get the overall volume onstage down – while increasing the volume of certain inputs.
What I do know is that we will be flying side fills to increase vocal coverage and volume. This poses problems as I have five other musicians onstage that do not necessarily desire louder vocals. The vocal mic is not just the vocal mic – it is the sound of the center of stage – you don’t necessarily hear the guitar rig or the monitors but they are a part of the sound, so essentially every time I send the vocal input to a mix – I am sending the center of the stage sound as well. The vocal mic is the loudest thing in everyone’s mix, so much so that if I turn it off it sounds like we have lost power. The goal will be to find PA boxes that will cover the center of the stage and not the entire stage. I am not currently sold on the flown side fills – but currently cannot nix it.
1) Reducing the overall stage volume is going to be tricky as I can’t destroy the sound of each of the rigs.
2) Ed’s cabinets are open back and just blow underneath the drum riser into bass and drum world – this needs to be resolved.
3) And that old sound trick of angling the rigs offstage is not working for Stone and Mike, depending on where they are standing the rigs are either too loud, too quiet, or perfect. I am guessing it is too late for them to adapt easily to a new stage position.
So I start collecting ideas and suggestions – they range from good ideas, warrants further research, to not going to happen – but everything is on the table.
Fly lots of big loud PA boxes
Neil Young Surround Sound Side Fills
New Louder Wedges
The band should just go to in-ears and put the amps offstage – sure they will have to do at least a month of production rehearsals to get it dialed.
Turn down the amps turn up their ear mixes
They can monitor their amps from their ear mixes
Baffles
Plexiglass
Put power soaks on all the rigs
New vocal mic
Someone suggests to me that maybe microphone technology has improved and we should see whats out there.
New In Ears
Get Springsteen set up
Well on Marilyn Manson they do
Go back to analog
Open the stage – spread everyone out
Cover the stage in wedges
Go see Springsteen
Before the tour ends I meet with Ed to discuss the direction he wants to go. What I believe is that he wants to get off his ear mix and go back to wedges and I ask him this. He tells me no and tells me he will probably never be able to lose the ear mix. This is key – so remember this – we will come back to it. We discuss the flown sides, possible new wedges, and opening up the stage five feet on either side and pushing amp lines upstage by five feet. We also discuss the possibility of trying a new vocal mic.
This all sounds reasonable and feasible – so I plan to get to work and make plans to go visit Springsteen.
Oh – and can this be ready for South America. The tour is in March – but the gear has to ship mid January. It is now Dec. 7th….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD0gC0k2o2g]
For more on the Shure Vocal Master system click here: shurevocalmaster.com
UK-based sound engineer Kim Watson has been a freelance audio engineer since 1999. Kim’s foray into live sound started with a love of music and a desire to work in the music business. “I always knew I wanted to be in the music industry, I just never quite knew in what respect.” Although having started her training in recording school, she found recording sessions boring and monotonous. Kim was attracted to the challenge of live sound, “having one chance to get it right and then, that moment is gone.”
It never hurts to ask
While she was at a show, Kim approached the FOH engineer to whom she expressed her interest in live sound. Luckily for her, he was the owner of a local PA system and gave her a call the next week to show up for work. Kim recalls how she was the 3rd person on the show and was ‘paid in pizza and information.’ It was a proper sound company, and Kim spent the next three years learning as much as she could. “First thing he showed me was how to coil cables. Then how he wanted mics plugged in Stage box end first, roll the cable to mic stand, so it lies flat, coil left at the bottom of the mic stand in case it needs to move, etc…” She got on very well with the crew, earning their respect by getting her hands dirty, asking questions, and learning how to not get in the way if a problem arose. Her fellow crew guys became very protective of her, jumping in if anyone gave her a hard time. One bit of wisdom she retains to this day, ” If a mic goes down on stage, you have 30 seconds to fix it before everyone notices, and the band stops the song and kills the flow of the show.” Kim paid close attention to the crew guys when they were talking tech, ” At first I didn’t understand much, so I picked up on words- ‘Crossover,’ and would then go home and research what it does. The next time I would ask questions. I made it my mission to read the Live Audio Boards every day, even if I didn’t understand it, things would sink in.”
Four years later while she was working with another company, Kim would get her big break as a monitor engineer, when she got drafted to replace a co-worker who didn’t show up for a festival. It was a 50’s Rock and Roll weekend with ten bands a day and a crash course in mixing monitors. “First time on the monitor board was fun. Feedback wasn’t so much an issue as we set up the day before, and Barry, the guy I was working for, had me ring the monitors out, teaching me as we went. Barry introduced me to the principle of subtractive mixing, pulling back something that’s in the way of the item they want more of, be it through EQ or nudging the aux back a touch”, she says. Kim’s been doing monitors ever since.
She is currently the monitor engineer for The Subways. When she isn’t touring, Kim works freelance for PA companies, such as ESS (based in Mansfield), and is also an audio tech for the O2 Academy in Newcastle, UK. Having a sweet house gig at the Academy is a huge advantage for Kim, being that she can always find work in the downtime between tours.
Kim is an experienced system/fly tech and more than capable of mixing FOH when required, but most often finds herself at the stage end of the snake. “Primarily I tend to end up being Monitor Engineer and these days specializing in mixing IEMs.” The close interaction with the band and the on-stage shenanigans that the audience doesn’t see is one of the things she enjoys most about doing monitors.
Never stop learning
During her school years, Kim went to careers meeting with her parents where she was told that being a “sound engineer” wasn’t a real job. While her parents tried to guide her to a more reliable career as a music teacher, she knew it wasn’t for her. “It wasn’t until after I had started work experience with the PA company, that they realized it could be a job, but I would have to MAKE my way job in the industry. For me, it was all or nothing. I got into the habit of giving 110% on every show. People are always watching, and that is what gets you up the ladder.”
Her educational background includes; studying music throughout her school years, Technical college, which included education in Music Tech, Math, Computing, and Physics, also getting her HND* in Music Production, while she was cutting her teeth working at the PA companies. Kim also plays several instruments and has a background in music theory, which she finds very helpful in mixing.
Kim continues educating herself to this day. To keep her chops up, besides working and mixing as much as possible, Kim also makes an effort to attend manufacturer’s training seminars. “I did the Meyer Sound Comprehensive System Design (5 days) and the SIM3 (5 days) courses a few years ago. I learned so much from both. Understanding a lot more about the physics behind the sound system, audio interactions, and system measurement has helped a lot.” Kim is also grateful for having studied Physics at College; she says it “made understanding the principles of phase and wave interactions (in wave theory) very easy.”
She has done training on every digital console she could get her hands on. “I have always been a computer nerd and got my head around digital desks very early. I am one of those engineers, that even though I have never used a certain type of board, I can make the show happen the same as I would on analog. This makes festival walk-up gigs really easy.”
Emili Sande at Royal Albert Hall
For The Subways, who she’s been with for going on two years, Kim is mixing IEMs. The band usually carries their own LS9 and Sennheiser transmitters, and she’s hoping to have them fully self-contained on stage by next year’s tour.
Kim has been working for the O2 Academy since it opened in 2005. Recently, she was Monitor System Tech for the two UK legs of Emili Sande’s tour, Monitor tech and Fly tech for Brit Floyd UK and Europe, and Monitor Engineer for “Wow- A celebration of the music and artistry of Kate Bush.” Kim loves the people she meets on tour. Familiar friends of The Subways will show up at their local gigs, sometimes joining band and crew on the bus for a few days. She is also lucky enough to work with a band that enjoys organizing days off in towns with something interesting to do or see, such as visiting a castle or museum.
Lack of sleep is the hardest part of touring for Kim. “There have been a few tours where hours of sleep at night are very minimal, with lots of back-to-back shows. That nearly killed me, pushing me right to my limits and making me quite ill. It’s learning to get the balance. When you are on tour and you have the option of one of- shower, food, or sleep – choose wisely as it can be your undoing.”
While she admits to having difficulty picking a favorite piece of gear, since gear is always changing, she says, “ My favorite piece of gear is the one that works when you plug it in, and it’s right for the job at hand.”
From the start, Kim’s long-term goal has been to be in the top 10% of live engineers. “I was told early on by one of my mentors, to be the best you have to learn from the best. I went out and found out who the top engineers in the world were and read everything I could online that they had written, (through prosoundweb.com and other sites). It’s been awesome over the years meeting, working with, and hearing the engineers I looked up to.”
Brit Floyd
When she first got started in the business, Kim asked another female engineer for advice which she quickly adopted as her own rules.
And one final word of advice: “The most important skill in this job is attitude. Do it all with a smile and your day will be very easy. Become a ‘yes person.”
*An HND is roughly the equivalent of two years of university and generally vocational in nature leading to work in a specific industry and entry into advanced levels of the university, somewhat similar to an Associates degree in the USA
Over the course of twenty-two years with Pearl Jam, the stage volume has always been an issue. Back in the day, stage volume measured around 120 to 122 dB on any given day. Mind you, we were playing clubs and small theaters, and often the stereo drum mix ( 2 Rat dual 15”/ dual 10”/2” cabinets) with a sub was loud enough to fill the room. (It would have been louder than most of the club sound systems, except we were carrying production). The vocal mic would feedback in the drum monitor. Our first soundman, Brett Eliason, would often joke that he only needed to add HH and Vocal to the house mix. (more…)