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How is your equipment doing?

Whether you work in a studio, venue, or on the road, it is easy to neglect our equipment and not give it the love it deserves.  Drinks are spilled, dust gathers around fans, and if singers are using the same microphones, well, a lot of bacteria lives on those SM58 grills!

Here is how I look after our equipment regularly and how I am preparing for the busy festive season that is slowly approaching us!

Day-to-Day cleaning:

It is good to keep things up to scratch on a day-to-day basis just to extend the lifespan on our equipment. I start the day by cleaning and dusting our mixing & lighting desk area. I regularly check the fans on our Yamaha Ql1 desk to make sure it does not fill up with dust. I usually give it a quick clean with our mini hoover to get the dust out! That goes for the XLR in- and also outputs, as the dust tends to want to get in there as well!

Moving onto the stage area, we dust and polish our N3X Avant Grand Digital Piano on a daily basis as it is used every day. We also get it serviced regularly, although it is a digital baby grand when it is played every day the keys occasionally break.

On stage, we have a ‘drinks on the floor’ policy. We want to avoid any spillages on our equipment. It is common sense; we do not want any equipment to get damaged or anyone to be electrocuted.  We also do not want our equipment to get sticky.

We keep our cables coiled and labeled to ensure our XLR’s and jack cables lives a long and healthy life. The cables we have off stage are also neatly coiled and tucked away in a cable bag.

Our vocal microphones we clean on a daily basis with a foaming cleaner & deodorizer. Lipstick and bacteria often live on those grills so to make sure the germs do not go from one singer to another we keep them clean, which is only fair for the vocalists coming in using our microphones.

Monthly & Yearly Maintenance:

Our in-house Yamaha Absolute Hybrid Maple drum kit we reskin every 2nd or 3rd month as it is used almost every day. It just sounds a lot better when it is looked after.

We have two club areas with permanent CDJ setups. We have unfortunately had a couple of drink spillages the past year. Luckily, they were saved. Top tip – Turn off your equipment immediately if any spillages occur and do not turn back on again, send it straight away to be repaired. This way the motherboards have a higher chance of being OK and repairable.

We tidy up our DJ booths monthly, give the CDJ’s and mixers a dust and wipe.

Our lighting trusses are tested yearly to ensure maximum safety, and the lights themselves are being manually shut down every night to ensure they do not get overheated. They occasionally need a bit of dusting as well which is done whenever we have the trusses down for our more significant events.

Relationships with repair companies:

It is incredibly important to build good relationships with the people who repair your equipment. You never know when an accident might happen and you need a quick turnover for an event. Often if you have a good relationship and require their services regularly, when needed, they will prioritise your product or perhaps lend you one of their products as a temporary solution.

It is a win-win situation if they provide a good service you will most likely recommend them, which keeps their business up and running. I praise everyone we work with; they are all indeed the best at what they do, and I make sure they know that we think so!

Overall, a tidy workplace is a happy and long-living workplace. It does not cost you anything to take that little bit of extra time to take care of your equipment. Neglecting it, however, will probably cost you a lot in the end!

Performance Anxiety

I think pretty much everyone has at least once in their lifetime experienced anxiety in one way or another. Personally, my anxiety is a good old friend I have had with me for years. It is something I always have struggled with and there is different reasons to why that is, but some reasons that stands out the most is; I am a perfectionist and I am not best friends with failure.

For a lot of people, I think it is hard to admit that you suffer from anxiety and the impact it may have on your life. I used to be like that because I felt like I was overreacting.

In my previous blog post ‘A lesson about fun & failure,’ I briefly mentioned and touched on the subject about failure. My anxiety, and probably for a lot of people, is linked to the fear of failure.

I have studied music for many years; I began at the age of 11 to play classical piano. I love playing the piano, and I learned sight-reading from an early age. I played Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and I to this day absolutely love their compositions. But, what I could not get my head around was that I could not play those pieces perfectly every time. I got so angry with myself for messing it up to the point where I stopped enjoying playing the piano because I felt like I was failing.

Throughout college, I had to go through plenty of live performances, all of which I suffered terrible anxiety attacks from. I simply did not want to be on stage; I could not deal with the pressure and the possibility of failing. The pressure I put on myself, not anybody else, I’ve realised now later in life.

This is one of the main reasons I chose to work behind the stage and what makes me love and care so much about live performances. For me, it is so important that artists feel comfortable whilst being on stage because I know what it feels like when you don’t.

Performance anxiety is so important to acknowledge and to deal with in all aspects and careers of life. We put so much pressure on ourselves, from such an early age, it affects our mental health severely. It’s good to be ambitious, but when is it too much? At what point do we tell ourselves ‘hey it’s getting a bit too much now’?. Especially within the music industry, it is a very fast-paced industry and you’re expected to be multi-talented from a young age.

Sometimes it is not about overcoming your anxiety, sometimes it is merely about becoming friends with it. Nowadays I handle it in such a way that I give myself some time and space. I analyse what is going on in my life, usually my anxiety flares up when I’ve got too many things going on at the same time and really should’ve said no to a couple of jobs. I get terrible anxiety when I am new to things, especially jobs, to the point where I feel nauseous and overthink every possible scenario that might happen. But when this happens I tell myself that everything will be ok, one way or another.

We are only human in the end of the day, and as I have learned along the way, it is perfectly normal to feel anxious sometimes. However, if you feel like you need help to improve your anxiety and mental health do not hesitate to get in touch with your GP. There are also great apps to manage and improve your mental health here: https://apps.beta.nhs.uk/category/mental_health/.

 

The Perfect Moment

In the last couple of weeks, I have had some really good and interesting conversations with sound engineers, musicians, family & friends about waiting for the right moment. It seems that no matter what career path we have taken in life, we seem to have one thing in common.

We think that we one day will feel like we are ready, but the truth is; we never will feel like we are. There always seems to be an excuse to why we should not do something because we do not feel confident enough.

I would never have gotten to where I am today if I was waiting for the perfect moment, that moment when I would feel ready. Even now, I still feel like I am not ready, but I now also know that I probably never will be! Because how else will we learn if we do not challenge ourselves and throw ourselves into the deep end?

I have done FOH sound at so many gigs where I just felt like I was not competent enough. However, I said yes, I went for it because I knew that I otherwise would not learn and get to where I wanted to be, and I wanted it so badly. And in the end, I was competent enough, because otherwise I would not have been offered the job in the first place. I think we all know a little bit more than we give ourselves credit for.

Being confident is a struggle. Especially when you are young. But at some point, you have to start trusting yourself and your abilities, because if you do not trust yourself, well then, who will? The only trust that I carry with me every day is that I know that no matter what happens, I will come up with a solution. It does not matter how, but what does matter is that at the end of the day, I do my job and I make it happen.

Let us start making excuses for why we should do things and not wait for the ‘right’ moment. Take a leap, trust your knowledge and admit your flaws. Know what you need to work on, put yourself out there. Take that chance and make it happen. If you feel insecure, that is OK, we all feel insecure at times. But that does not mean that you do not know what you are doing. That does not mean that you do not have the ability to make something happen. Do not wait around for that perfect moment, just do it.

 

Multitasking – Why you should avoid it

Being multitalented is excellent and almost a necessity in the audio industry. It is expected of us to be able to do many different things, sometimes even at the same time!

However, I believe multitasking at work should be avoided if possible, and here is my reason why;

The other week I was asked to do a live recording of a band while they performed. We have set up multi-track recording via Dante, which means we can record straight into Pro Tools via a Cat 5 cable. This is great and makes life a hell of a lot easier when doing live recordings.

But also recently, having had a lighting course in the Jester 24 Zero 88 Lighting desk, I now also control the lights more in-depth than we used to.

So this one evening I was going to run the live sound, the lights, and record one of our four acts, while also making sure all the artists were looked after and ready to go for their allocated time slot.

I did not think much of it; I came in early to set up Pro Tools to make sure it was up and running. When that was set up, I prepared the stage and the setups for the different bands. I set up the lights; we had photographers in that evening so we made sure the lights hit all the sweet spots and set the colours, to make sure the artists would look great on picture.

I felt good about having everything set up, ready to go on time, and did not feel stressed at all.

Well, that was until I had the first act on who had almost finished their set. I thought I would do a test recording of the first act to make sure it sounded great for the second act; the band I had promised to record. At this point, I realised I did not get any signal from any of the wireless microphones.

Why?

Well, we have a Yamaha Rio 32×24 stage box, but our Shure Beta 58A wireless microphones we have are directly plugged into the back of our Yamaha QL1. Immediately, I felt fairly stressed as the first act walked off the stage and I simply did not have the time or hands to re-route it in the Dante Controller software.

As the second act walked on stage, I helped them set up and then quickly decided that the vocalist would have to use a wired Shure SM58 running it thru the Rio as I knew this route was already working. Not a big deal, but I definitely panicked for a second as I had promised and confidently said I would be able to record it, and there was just no room for any mistakes. Luckily, I managed and very quickly, came up with a solution though feeling ever so slightly stressed out.

I recorded the band, it sounded great, but I felt that my focus was definitely not where it should have been. It was a live show, and my focus should have purely been on the live sound.

My thinking was that everything was going to go well, it is not like we can predict disaster and obviously, we want all live shows/recordings to go well. However, something I have learned throughout the years it that most of the time, it does not run smoothly and you must leave room for mistakes. No matter how good you are, no matter how many things you think you can do, mistakes happen. Technology breakdowns happen. And when you are alone, you simply will not have the time to solve a problem, and you will cause yourself unnecessary stress.

I did, after all, run a successful night, the band was happy with the recording, photographers were pleased with the lightning, everyone was happy with the sound. However, I did learn my lesson, and next time I will get another pair of hands into the mix. It is simply just not worth the risk of messing up a show and recording because you decide to do everything on your own.

However, if you are ever having to multi-task and do several things on your own; leave plenty of room for mistakes because they will happen!

 

 

What is in my toolkit?

There is one thing every engineer should have, and that is a toolkit. It does not have to be a full box of random tools, but just a little kit with handy tools and necessities for you to carry with you in your bag. I have recently upgraded mine with tools and things that I use the most. For me, it is also important to keep my kit compact and only with things that I really need. Every toolkit should be customised to your own needs!

Tape – Electrical tape, gaffer tape & masking tape – you name it. Should live in your bag always.

Drum keys – I am not a drummer, but I always carry drum keys in case a drummer have forgotten theirs. Tuned drums sound better and makes your mixing a hell of a lot easier!

Hex key (Allen Key) – In all the different sizes, good for drum pedals, DJ speaker stands, etc.

Lighter – I am not a smoker but always have lighters with me in case an Apocalypse is around the corner. Seriously though, I’m sure one day I’ll think that I need one and then I will. Better be safe than sorry!

Flashlight – For tight and dark spaces, though most smartphones nowadays have a built-in flashlight, it is always handy to have one in case you need to use your phone for something else.

Adapters – All kinds of adapters – Jack adapters, XLR adapters, RCA adapters – they are always needed and the more, the merrier (because they do tend to disappear).

Multi-tool – If I could only bring one thing with me to a deserted island (or gig) it is the multi-tool for multi-purposes.

Cable cutter & cable stripper – Whenever you need to repair a cable, a cable cutter & stripper will save you a lot of time rather than using scissors.

Sharpies & Pens – For labeling, buy a multi-pack of sharpies and always have loads with you. As with the adapters, the sharpies tend to grow legs and walk away!

Measuring tape – So handy for the odd jobs. I have had to measure stages, workspaces, desks, pianos, etc.

Batteries – Always good to have extra batteries especially AAs & AAAs.

USB sticks – For backing up session files. Have some tracks on it for testing CDJ’s or good for recording stereo tracks on digital desks!

Earplugs – Invest in a good pair of earplugs, trust me it is worth it. Mine are custom-fit from RealAudio, but there is plenty of companies making custom-made ones in all price ranges. Always have some spare disposable foam earplugs though for an emergency, in case you forget your good ones or if anyone in your surrounding needs a pair.

Headphones – If you can afford to get a good pair of IEM’s that is great, but if you cannot afford it just any pair will do, trust me, a pair of shit headphones are better than none!

Super glue – Seriously good to have when needing to fix and hold together something quickly.

I fit more or less all of these things into a medium makeup bag that I bought from Primark (In the U.S I think the equivalent is Walmart) as I wanted something compact that I could have with me anywhere I go.

Another good thing to have at work or home is a soldering iron to repair cables. We live in such a wasteful society and repairing XLR’s, and Jack cables are so easy to do yourself! If you are unsure of how to solder cables, ask for help!

If you have a Smartphone there is also a few good apps to have downloaded on your phone:

Sound meter – To measure dB, not always the most accurate but if you do not have a real dB measurer, a sound meter app will at least give you some idea of how loud it is.

Laser, Clinometer & Bubble level – 3 in 1 app, good to have if you do not have the real deal. Again, it is perhaps not the most accurate but better than none!

Google translate – If you are working abroad or communicating with someone who may not speak your language fluently Google translate is the one to help you out on the go! There is no reason for things not to be communicated properly when we are so lucky to have such a great tool to help!

I am sure my toolkit will continue to grow, but for now, it has got everything that I need on a daily basis.

It will save you so much time to invest in the tools you need the most. You will not have to ask around for it when you need them, and you will know how to use them correctly.

How is your toolkit looking, is it up to date?

 

The Art of Asking for Help

I think anyone who is reading this can probably agree that asking for help is not always easy. I for sure have had this problem a lot and is something I recently discovered; I need to change. I am quite possessive of my work, I take a lot of pride in what I do, and I often feel like my job is my baby. After all, you have put so much effort into it; it would be mad not to feel this way no?

However, this makes it incredibly hard for me to ask for help and put my trust in somebody else to help. But lately, I’ve realized that the only one missing out on asking for help is me. And I can look back at so many situations where I wish people would’ve just asked me for help.

When I think about it, there is almost a certain arrogance in not asking for help. I had an excellent conversation with a fellow live sound engineer the other day. The topic was people who we had worked with over the years who showed up acting like they knew everything, experienced live sound engineers pretending to know a system when they did not. And rather than asking for help, they spent a lot of valuable time trying to do it all by themselves. If you meet someone that has more experience than you or is hired to be there to help out, then my best advice is to allow for help. Save valuable time and learn in the best possible way: from somebody else! It is impossible to have infinite knowledge of everything. Especially in the world of both analogue and digital!

When you are asking for help, it might make you feel like you are less capable of doing your job. Like you do not know what you are doing. Stop that feeling right there! I do not believe this to be the case at all. It is better to be humble enough to admit that something is out of your knowledge than wasting loads of valuable time, break something or mess something up badly! It causes a lot of stress when you feel like you need to do everything on your own as well. In my case, I often think that it is because I need to prove my own worth.

However, I try to figure things out on my own. When anything goes wrong, I really try every single possible way of solving it. That is a good thing! That is one way of learning! However, sometimes things are perhaps out of your knowledge, and this is when you should definitely ask for help.

The world of audio is massive and infinite. We have invented such fantastic sound systems and ways of transferring audio from point A to point B and it will keep evolving. It will be impossible to know all of it. However, if we all know a little and share what we know with each other than that is when can genuinely create some amazing sounding shows/ recordings. It is when we help each other out we learn and figure things out.

A quick summary of why we should definitely ask for help more often:

-Not asking for help causes extra stress

-If you do not ask for help, you might miss a learning opportunity

– Not asking for help will most definitely burn you out

– It saves you time

– People are happy to help!

 

The Role of a Production Manager

Just over six months ago, I became a Production Manager at a hotel in Bank, London. A lot of people have asked me how I ended up in this position, thinking I’m probably too young and too lucky to have ended up with such a title.

I am going, to be honest with you, I had no idea what was expected of me. However, I just knew at that point in my life that it was the right direction for my career. I always liked a good challenge; I think that is an important trait to have working within a live sound environment.

So what do I do on a daily basis? Here are a few of my many duties:

My team consists of the Head of Entertainment & Production, my freelancers, and me (Production manager). My main duty is to run the live sound on the main stage in the hotel lobby. Some production managers might not do live sound at all, but because we are such a small team, it is my main responsibility.

Our stage has a permanent setup that needs to be maintained, and I need to make sure that everything is working correctly. If anything would be faulty or damaged, it is my job to make sure the equipment either gets repaired or replaced. We have live music seven days a week, so things do tend to get run down pretty quickly.

I am the one who needs to deal with everything and everyone. This may be musicians, managers, management companies, restaurant managers, the events team, AV companies, and the list goes on. Head of Entertainment and I do work closely with each other when it comes to dealing with a lot of different people, and we make sure we’re both staying on top of everything.

As a Production Manager, you definitely need to be a ‘people person’ and to keep good relationships with everyone. A happy face goes a long way and having a ‘can do attitude is necessary, as there are often stressful situations that need to be dealt with efficiently and as quickly as possible. Being quick to come up with solutions to unexpected problems is an excellent trait to have.

In our venue, we do not have the luxury of having sound checks. Ever! It was tricky when I first started because when you are new to a system (or in this case, we have two different PA systems), it takes time to get to know the system with all its perks and flaws. It felt pretty stressful the first couple of weeks, but now after six months I have my QL1 template, and I’m confident whenever we have a new artist or band rocking up, that I can make them sound great even without a soundcheck.

Every day I have loads of fun. I absolutely love my job, even after sometimes working 13-14 hour shifts. Even when I have not had a day off, or a terrible day dealing with difficult people. Because we all do have those days, but those days are very few and far in between.

I had loads of doubt in myself when taking on this role. I thought that I did not have enough experience; I was worried I was not going to be able to do what they expected of me. This venue is also completely different to anywhere I have ever worked in before. However, I just went for it, I thought there is nothing that I am not able to solve; I had no other choice than to go for it! Therefore, if an opportunity ever presents itself to you, by all means, you will have doubts. But, take a chance and challenge yourself. I am so grateful I did not let fear stand in my way because otherwise, I would not be where I am today

 

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