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Valuing Your Worth and Getting Paid

Happy New Year, SoundGirls! Let me start by saying I hope you all have a fantastic year ahead of you. I hope you get that gig you’ve been working toward for years. I hope you learn lessons that make you a better engineer, and business owner. Most of all I hope you have fun! We engineer because we love music, we love the job, and because we all want to live exciting lives! So, I challenge you this year to do all of these things.

For my first blog post, I’m going to jump right into the nitty-gritty: payment. First of all, we as women and as creatives often sell ourselves short when it comes to how much we charge and how strict we are about receiving payment. We’ve all been there. You’re spending hours on a song, an EP, an album, and you haven’t even seen half of what you should’ve made yet. I know I have spent hours in front of Pro-Tools working on a mix only to do the math and realize I have made less than minimum wage for hours invested in a project. Why does it give so many of us anxiety to charge what we deserve? I mean this is how we make our living, isn’t it?

Now, I will clarify that I engineer for more than just the money. I feel so passionate about this work that I tear up sometimes – especially when I finish a project. I love helping people bring their music to life, hold their project in their hands and share it with the world. Engineering warms my soul. It gives me a strong sense of purpose. I imagine many of you feel similarly, and this is likely the reason we have anxiety about asking for what we deserve. It’s true; we are fortunate to have such a cool occupation – one that sometimes doesn’t even feel like “work.” We’ve all had those sessions we walk away from thinking, “I had that much fun, and I get paid for it?”

However, being paid fairly for our work is still essential. It’s taken practice, but I’m better at realizing my worth and charging appropriately. I’ve also learned to make sure I see half of it up front before beginning a project. I always ensure I get paid immediately at the end of a session. I also only take projects that excite me. I’ve stopped taking projects just for the money or because I feel like I have to say yes to everything that comes my way. I’m engineering because it makes me happy, so I choose to work on the music and with the artists that make me happy. I hope that is what all of you decide to do this year, too.

So, to bring this first blog post to a close; here are some key things to have ready to bring up the next time you are talking to a potential client about pricing:

My Love of the Guitar (Pt. 2)

Read Part One Here

I went to an early college (Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts), and while I was finishing up my BA thesis, I was also in my second year of private classical guitar lessons. I’d been playing for almost nine years already and was also playing the viola, and in two choirs, and music theory classes. I had a laptop, but this was before everything was done digitally, so I used my hands to write and edit and analyze notation in addition to taking notes, and editing drafts of my thesis. I write with my left hand, and I play “standard” guitar (which is to say that my left hand presses the frets and my right hand plucks the strings). My guitar teacher instructed me to practice a minimum of two hours a day, “but really six hours is more reasonable if you can manage that,” she’d suggested.  Because I adored her, even with a full course load and two babysitting jobs, I practiced as much as I could. This usually amounted to three hours a day.

“If I could play in the morning or late at night, I could practice even more,” I told her. “But I don’t want to bother my roommates.”

“Ah yes, I remember those days!” She reminisced. “When I was in college, I would wake up at 4 am and put socks on my hands. That way, when I played, it was very quiet!” She said this with a twinkle in her eye. I looked at her gesturing hands and arms and realized they were perfectly oriented to hold a guitar. Even without one in her arms, she was ready to play the guitar. I wanted to be more like her. But socks on my hands? At 4 am?

All I could muster up was: “I’ll give that a try.”

playing my G&L telecaster on a rooftop in Brooklyn, 2013. Photo by Lisa Myers.

I woke up earlier and drove to the soundproof practice rooms on campus. I’d set up my foot pedal, cut and file my fingernails, warm up, and set up the various pieces I was attempting to memorize. After three hours I’d head over to the library and sit in my cubicle I was allotted as a senior to read my books and take notes. For the first time, I was writing a long-form academic essay on anything of my choice. It was as exciting as it was terrifying. When the sun set, I’d pack up and drive to the next town over to babysit, where I would read, take notes, and write on the couch while a baby slept upstairs. (To this day I’ve never met this particular child. Once she woke up and I entered her room, picked her up, sang to her until she fell back asleep, and then put her back down and left the room again. But it was completely dark the whole time, so I feel this doesn’t really count as having properly met.)

After half a semester of this routine, my left arm began to hurt. I tried to give it a rest, but I was doing something with it almost every waking moment. I couldn’t help it. I hoped my guitar teacher would have a solution. I’d come to see her as a sort of wise woman; an auntie of musical persuasions.

“My left arm and hand really hurt,”  I said during my next lesson. Truthfully the dull hurt had started to become a throbbing pain that was now going up to my left shoulder. “I think I’m just using this side a lot. You’re left-handed too, yeah? What do you suggest I do during this time while I’m in school and need to use my left hand to write a lot?”

She didn’t skip a beat. “Learn to write with your right hand!”

She said it with a hint of condescension like I was stupid for not having thought of it myself.

“Oh. Okay, I will have to… give that a try,” I said, disheartened. She couldn’t be serious, could she? It’s not like I chose to write with my left hand. How could it be as simple as choosing to write with my right hand?

I really did try it, but it was useless. I couldn’t write a word with my right hand, let alone notes and sentences and paragraphs.

I had to keep going the way I had been.

my first electronic (read: no guitar or live instruments) performance, somewhere in Vermont, 2010. Photo by Jane Sweatt.

After I graduated, I expected the pain to subside on its own within a few weeks, but it got worse. For the next year it was so bad there were nights I had trouble sleeping. I talked to many musicians about it. Finally, a violinist who had toured and recorded for over 40 years suggested that I had nerve damage. “You have done the same couple actions so many times, and overused certain parts of your arm in the process. The only way to experience relief is to completely stop doing those actions.”

I looked down at my right hand. I had kept my fingernails long and curved for plucking for many years. My left-hand nails were always short for pressing strings onto the neck board. I was used to typing like this, used to the difference in sensation when I would use both my hands. I loved sitting down to practice and learn new pieces, even if I wasn’t planning on being a concert player.

Could I let this go? How long would I need to stop for? Would I be okay without it? Would my college guitar teacher somehow find out and call me and berate me for not following her learn-to-write-with-your-right-hand advice? How much shame could I endure?

my first time troubleshooting Ableton Live during a soundcheck, Brooklyn, 2012. Photo by Clyde Rastetter.

Eventually, the pain became so bad I had to stop playing for years. Sometimes I would forget the pain and would pick up a guitar for a little while and regret it later. I was so sad to not play as much as I wanted. But unbeknownst to me, my guitar time was being replaced by audio time. I was buying books, downloading programs, going to classes, and spending hours upon hours learning the ins and outs of digital audio technology. I was starting to create sounds I had never heard before, using them to create soundscapes I’d never interacted with before, and writing lyrics and melodies I’d never think up before.

Unknowingly, a  new world was opening up to me.

An Underwater Recording Adventure

I recently began work on a new show, and luckily it has already presented tons of new challenges.  At Boom Box Post, we like to consider sound design challenges as creative opportunities. So, when I spotted an episode in which the characters travel via microscopic submarine through a human body, I was excited.  Each exterior shot of the submarine illustrated it moving through a viscous plasma-like liquid. I wanted to call upon the tried and true sounds of a submarine for the vehicle itself, but I wanted to do something unique for the sound of it moving through the plasma.  This was the perfect opportunity to get creative with some recording!

This presented an immediate challenge:  we do not own a hydrophone. I looked into buying one, but they are somewhat expensive, and our underwater recording needs are pretty slim.  It didn’t seem worth the investment. I considered using one of my current mics and wrapping it in a water-proof casing, but that struck me as pretty risky.  So, I settled on buying a couple of inexpensive contact mics, a pack of condoms to act as waterproofing, and some heavy duty duct tape to put it together.

About Contact Mics

If you’ve never used a contact microphone before, they are wonderful things.  Sometimes called piezo (pronounced pee-EH-zo) mics, they are what is used for the pickups on electric guitars.  You can buy them as a standalone version, and either tape them to the object you are recording or use the adhesive on the mic itself, thus turning any everyday object into an electric whatever (i.e., electric cello, electric rainstick–the possibilities are endless!)  But, keep in mind that they work differently than all of the other microphones in your mic locker. Normal microphones pick up subtle changes in air pressure as an audio wave passes the microphone. Conversely, contact mics pick up the vibrations of physical matter and transduce those vibrations into an electric signal which can be transduced again into audio.

Thus, contact microphones have no sensitivity to the audio waves passing through the air. This makes them very unique as recording devices (and sound designer tools!) because you don’t need to worry about ambient noise that must be removed later.  A great example of this is that if you were to, say, turn on an electric beard trimmer and skim it across the surface of a cymbal, a traditional microphone you would pick up not only the awesome sound of metal on metal but also the whir of the trimmer’s electric motor.  If you, instead placed a contact mic on the surface of the cymbal, you would only pick up the sound of the trimmer skimming the metal cymbal, because it does not transduce sound waves traveling through air, only those through the physical object itself.

Now, would this particular technology lend itself to recording underwater?  That was a tough call. Would the pressure differences in the water as the mic moved through it be extreme enough for the contact mic to pick up the physical change?  I acquired all of the necessary parts: contact mic, tape, condom (for waterproofing), recorder, and headphones, and then filled a small metal tub with water to find out.

The Trial Run

I learned a lot from this initial experiment.  Dragging the submerged contact mic through the water did not result in any audio.  However, turning on the faucet and letting the water hit the contact mic did. Unfortunately, that audio did not have the sound that I was looking for.  It was crackly (think: rain drops landing with hard splats on a plastic surface), not watery. From there, I tried submerging the microphone near the point of entry of the running water and found that I got a great bubbly sound.  The water pressure was changing constantly as the faucet poured into the basin, but I wasn’t getting the hard hits of the water slamming against the mic itself. I brought those sounds into Pro Tools, and while they were definitely in the vein of what I wanted, the size just wasn’t there.  They sounded too small.

The Final Record Session

So, I took the recorder home and did my final session in my home bathtub.  I submerged the mic and recorded steadies at the point of entry of the water, and then ran the mic back and forth over that area for the submarine bys.  The contact mic, being that it records physical vibrations, picked up fabulously unique splatty sounds for these–just what I was looking for!

Editing the Material

I brought everything into ProTools again and then was faced with an additional technical issue inherent to almost all contact mics.  Because they consist of small capacitors in series, they function at a much higher impedance than a regular microphone. When connected to a typical line input, this creates a high pass filter, thus cutting out any low end from your recordings.  I was aware of this issue and had set up my session with this in mind. I separated the files I wanted to work with, then ran them through a low-pass filter EQ, pitched them down an octave, and also applied both tactics to each file to see which approach brought the sounds closest to what I was looking for.  In the end, I bounced some of each. Here are a few samples:

The Sounds

You can hear the final product here

Kate’s Gear Recommendations

Sony PCM-M10 Portable Linear PCM Voice Recorder with Electret Condenser Stereo Microphones, 96 kHz/24-bit, 4GB Memory & USB High-Speed Port

Neewer Piezo Contact Microphone Pickup for Guitar Violin Banjo OUD Ukulele Mandolin and More

Gorilla Tape, Black Tough & Wide Duct Tape, 2.88″ x 30 yd, Black

Trojan Non-Lub Latex Condoms, Enz 12 ct – 4pk

This Blog originally appeared in Boom Box Post Blogs

 

Shadowing Opportunity – Greg Price – Ozzy

Shadowing Opportunity with FOH Engineer Greg Price.

SoundGirls Members who are actively pursuing a career in Live Sound or Concert Production are invited to shadow FOH Engineer Greg Price on Ozzy.

Please fill out this application and send a resume to soundgirls@soundgirls.org with Ozzy in the subject line. If you are selected to attend, information will be emailed to you. Please note Load In will be at 7 am, and you are required to bring safety gear (hard hat, closed toed shoes, etc.)

Cities Available

About FOH Engineer Greg Price: As a live-sound engineer, Greg Price has worked with some of the biggest rock bands around. In addition to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, Greg has mixed everyone from Kiss, Chicago, Aerosmith, and Van Halen right through to Rage Against The Machine, Limp Bizkit, Velvet Revolver and Foo Fighters. Price also spent a very memorable eight years with Glen Campbell in the 1980s and even earned a few pop stripes a decade ago when he engineered for Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus), Christina Aguilera and the Cheetah Girls. Read More Here

 

Things we learn in a year

As December is approaching us, another year is gone. Time flew by, and I swear it was just January!

A year ago I could’ve never imagined that I would’ve learned the things that I’ve learned and worked with some amazingly talented artists, some whose music I have grown up with. I would’ve never thought I’d work on big events, having to plan and prepare for the Brits Awards after-party in February, our first birthday party in May with the amazing Gabrielle on stage, and last week we had Sophie Ellis Bextor doing a surprise performance. I mean, what a year!

With big events comes great responsibilities but also great learning opportunities. When you continuously challenge yourself and learn from your mistakes you are always improving!

Here are a few things that I’ve learnt this year that I thought I’d like to share:

Power – It started with the Brits Awards after-party. The production we had in was insane, with extra everything! Extra lighting, extra sound system, LED screens, etc. All these extra things needed extra power, which we at the time did not have. Luckily we have some great electricians on site that helped me with getting all the extra power installed, with very short notice! Spending time with electricians is always useful as you learn so much from them, and without their knowledge, we wouldn’t be able to have such an extravagant show!

Brit Awards After Show

Brit Awards After Show

Network – Audio via network and Dante is great when it’s working. Not so much when it’s not, it is tough to troubleshoot where the issue might be. Our whole audio system stopped communicating the night after the Brits Awards after-party. I was about to cry after having worked an insane amount of hours. It took over a week to fix, and the basic explanation of the issue was the power to the switch inside our stage was powered off, which meant that it lost all the IP addresses, so it did not know where to send the audio! I’d like for that to never happen again!

Knowledge – If you do not know how something is working, then learn it! Due to some changes in one of our weekly nights we needed to be able to control our lights more in-depth. The issue was that none of us actually knew how to use the lighting desk properly. So I reached out and arranged for a full day of training for my team and me in how to use the Zero 88 Jester 24 lighting desk! It was a lot of fun, and it’s great to be able to incorporate out lighting rig into our shows. There’s not much room for us being able to be creative, but hey some colour here and there makes a huge difference!

Being a manager – Make sure to triple-check that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do. That is to check in on everyone you’re working with and getting regular updates on what they’re doing. Sometimes people just need a reminder, but this is so important to make sure everything is running on time. On the day of a big event, you do not want to find out that someone hasn’t dealt with a particular thing, which can cause a lot of stress and issues on the day. You do not need that in your life.

Inequality – It’s frustrating when people treat you differently because of your gender or other reasons, however, try and not let it affect you. Just do your job and do it great. This is forever a reminder to myself to just let it go and focus on what I’m supposed to do, my job.

Back up – Back everything up. Thrice. On different USBs and laptops.

Learn from your mistakes – Admit when you messed it up and deal with it. Don’t repeat your mistakes!

Looking back at this year it’s been insane and went way too quickly. However, having taken the time to reflect, I realise now how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned. Now it’s all about the new year and to continue advancing within the audio industry. Who knows where we will be this time next year?

 

Arica Rust: In Love with Live Sound Technology

Arica Rust works for Sound on Stage in San Francisco as a staff engineer. Sound on Stage is a sound system rental company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing systems for a wide range of events ranging from high-profile corporate entertainment to rock festivals like Outside Lands and Treasure Island Music Festival. Arica has been with SOS for the last six years, which means she wears many hats and works as an engineer for FOH and Monitors, stage patch, and whatever else they might throw at her. Her favorite position is as a FOH systems engineer. She enjoys being on the road and recently completed the North American leg of the Ben Howard Tour as the PA Systems Tech.

Arica has been working in live sound for the last nine years and came to it as many do, with a love of music. Her initial dream was to work in a recording studio. Her journey into live sound started when she went to City College of San Francisco to study studio recording and found herself in the live sound classes as well.

City College of San Francisco offers an excellent audio program, providing several different certificate programs and is headed up by SoundGirl Dana Labrecque. (Dana runs the Bay Area SoundGirls Chapter and is a Co-Director or SoundGirls). After attending the live sound classes and her first internship, that was it; Arica knew live sound was where she wanted to be. When she was a teenager, Arica says, “ I spent all my lunch money buying records and going to concerts with my friends. I originally went to college in upstate New York out of high school to study avant-garde Electronic Music and Creative Writing at Bard College”.

“I want to be able to make people experience music the way that I do with that same feeling where it lights your brain on fire. I figured the best way to shape people’s experience was to be on the technical side of the stage”.

Arica and her friend Tiffani used to throw underground electronic music events in the Bay Area and would use her friends’ rental company Word of Mouth Sound. When she was looking for her first internship while at City College of San Francisco, she contacted them and ended up working behind the scenes at the events she used to attend. She completed her trade certificates in Live Sound and Recording Arts at CCSF before transferring to San Francisco State University.

Realizing that she wanted to work in live sound on the technical side set Arica on her way. She went on to study at San Francisco State University and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcasting and Electronic Media Arts with a focus in Audio Production. Professor John Barsotti taught the audio program in the broadcasting department and introduced Arica to Sound on Stage.

Arica continues to immerse herself in ongoing education and training, receiving certification in Rational Acoustics’ SMAART, L-Acoustics Levels 1 and 2, and attends various AES related conventions and events. “I value the importance of education and feel that no matter how much one thinks they know, there is always something new to discover. I try to learn from a variety of sources whether it is from the war stories of other engineers or diversifying my training from different manufacturers”.

Arica’s long-term goals have changed since she started on her audio path: “It’s funny how your goals change over time as you learn more. I went to school imagining myself mixing albums for bands, but now I am way more interested in the science of sound and designing, deploying, and tuning systems for different clients”. She also loves teaching and getting people excited about science.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

The biggest obstacles I have had to face have always been the ones I create for myself. I think I will forever be plagued with Imposter Syndrome: the feeling that I am not good enough, smart enough, know enough, etc. to be where I am. No matter how much I try to prove myself there is always that feeling in the back of my head of self-doubt, but then I’ll have those magical moments where the show starts and maybe it’s music I’ve heard before or, even better, a band I’m unfamiliar with that just blows me away, and I feel like I’m right where I need to be doing what I love.

How have you dealt with them?

I just keep telling myself over and over that “I got this” when I start doubting myself. I stay focused on doing the best I possibly can. I try not to let my demons in my head get the best of me and put 110% in everything I do. It’s easy to get jaded, but even if this time you don’t get acknowledgment for your efforts, eventually hard work shows and people respect that. I do things to help me relax and get in a confident headspace. For example, I have a playlist that I sometimes listen to before going into work to get myself ready to go.

The advice you have for women and non-binary people who wish to enter the field?

I wish we lived in a world where people do not change the way they interact with you based on what they perceive to be your gender, but sadly that is not the reality yet. Things are getting better slowly but surely, but my best advice is to have a tough skin and be the bigger person. People should not be allowed to get away with unprofessional behavior, but you have to counter these situations with professionalism. If you work hard and show everyone your value, then it should not matter who you are. I want to be seen for my skills as an engineer not what people perceive to be my gender.

Must have skills?

I joke that this industry is 20% technical knowledge and 80% customer service skills. You can teach anyone how to operate a board, but not everyone can learn the people skills to interact with artists and clients. A good attitude and a willingness to work will get you farther at first than knowing how to mix. Also always be open to exploring new things and learning from others. I am continually learning and re-evaluating my current knowledge because technology is ever changing and I respect the wisdom of people who share their experience with me.

Favorite gear?

My favorite rig is L-Acoustics K2 with KS28 subs, Kara Outfill, and Arc Wide front fill. I don’t think I could leave home without my laptop running SMAART v8 and the modeling software of the manufacturer whose PA I am working with, my ISEMCON EMX-7150 measurement mic, my multimeter, and my disto. I have Roland Octa-capture and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB interfaces in my A and B rigs as well as a soldering iron to fix problems on the job.

What is your favorite day off activity?

I enjoy spending time and catching up with my friends when I am not working. The industry demands you to sacrifice a lot of your social life, but it is essential to make an effort to keep in touch with your loved ones when you can. Your real friends understand when you are busy because they want to see you doing what you love to do. I also am passionate about my dance practice and reading anything from comic books to technical white papers.

Anything else you would like to leave us with?

I would like to stress the importance of self-care. I think there is a lot of taboo around taking care of your self because everyone works hard and plays hard. I’ve failed, many times, to eat enough, sleep enough, drink enough water while working long hours and paid the consequences on my body and mind sooner or later. It’s important to take time to decompress and reset your brain, even just for a minute that you get to step away. This is a stressful job, but it is also a labor of love. Please feel free to reach out to me! I enjoy geeking out. You can contact Arica at aricarust@gmail.com

Learn more about Arica:

Find More Profiles on The Five Percent:

Profiles of Women in Audio

Seven Ways To Make the Most of the Quiet Season

Last year I put together a list of activities to make the most of the end-of-year quiet season. Ten Ways to Make the Most of the Quiet Season

With another one fast approaching, here are a few more suggestions.

Make time for family and friends

Touring schedules and unsociable working hours means that many of us let family commitments and get-togethers with friends slide a bit during the year. Quiet seasons are a great time to reconnect with your nearest and dearest. If it’s cold in your part of the world, wrap up warm and grab an appropriate hot beverage. If it’s warm, enjoy a natter over a few cold ones in the sunshine.

Get healthy Part 1 – revamp your diet

If you’re coming off the back of a hectic year, chances are you’ll be run-down and more susceptible to viruses. Being ill over the holiday season is no fun, so ward off the bugs by increasing your intake of fresh fruit and vegetables and staying hydrated.

Get healthy Part 2 – personal system overhaul

Make time to do a full checkup of the kit you carry to every job: your body. You only get one, so it’s worth putting in the time and effort for regular maintenance. Book in with your GP, dentist, optometrist, audiologist, whoever you need to get your system back up and running.

Financial spring-clean

Boring but necessary! Get your accounts in order and your tax return ready. If numbers aren’t your thing, it’s also a great time to look for an accountant.

Get certified

If you’re anything like me, you have a list of new tools that you keep meaning to learn and certifications that you know you need to look into. With so much training and certification programmes available online, as long as you have a decent internet connection, there’s really no excuse not to get stuck in over a quiet period.

Get some rest

Your body needs it! Sleep, switch off, and rejuvenate.

This will be my last blog for Soundgirls for the foreseeable future. Thanks for reading, and I wish you a relaxing holiday break, wherever you are in the world.

SoundGirls note – We will miss Kirsty writing for us and we appreciate all the years and dedication she has dedicated to writing her blog.

When it stops running like clockwork – troubleshooting the basics

Live Digital Audio Part 4

What can you do when it goes wrong? Each live set up will vary, but there are a few fundamentals you can check before having to call tech support.

Snap, crackle, and pop – how to recognise digital issues

What does a sampling or word clock issue even sound like? Unfortunately, they can sound like all sorts of weird noises. As mentioned in previous posts, if your word clock starts to slip out of sync it will just sound a bit off. You may notice the stereo image doesn’t feel as big, or it sounds a little dull, or phasey. More disconcerting problems manifest themselves as strange periodical pops or clicks, or even like someone twanging a rubber band. Think of the 1s and 0s – if the information isn’t transmitted correctly there isn’t any intermediate value, there is no 0.5 in binary. The bit is either there, or it isn’t. Devices then try to read the empty (or partially empty, in the case of slight mistiming) slot and it may result in random noise. If we go back to our video analogy if you’re watching an analogue transmission and the reception goes bad, it will go fuzzy around the edges, but it’ll still be watchable. If a digital transmission does the same, the entire image tends to freeze, become pixelated, or fill with weird patterns and colours.

Don’t overcomplicate it

So what can you do about it? The number one step should be to make sure it is actually a digital issue. Don’t hear hooves and presume zebras. If something is crackling, make sure it isn’t a bad stage cable or piece of backline, etc. If there’s a weird noise, is it over the entire system or is it just on one or two channels? If it isn’t global, it’s more likely to be something like a broken input or analogue transmission line. If it’s over several channels, it could be crosstalk in a multipin cable or something in one area of the room that several mics are picking up.

If you’re certain it’s a sampling or word clock problem, think through the signal path methodically, like you would with any other fault. Make sure everything is still set to the correct sample rate, master clock, and IP address. Check your cables are seated correctly – this is especially important for BNC connectors. Due to the central pin being so small, if they aren’t in the socket completely straight, or are taking a lot of strain, they can lose too much of their connecting surface area and stop passing signal. Optimally (I always try to secure cables in such a way that the weight is taken off the connections for this reason. It also keeps the cable in good condition for longer). Double-check that you haven’t connected cables of differing impedance. Work from one end of the signal path to the other, swapping out cables or bypassing devices one at a time. Take it down to the simplest setup you can, removing things like effects units or even the desk. If your amps have the capability, playing music or pink noise directly into them can take a big chunk of your setup out of the equation. If you are still experiencing problems, check that everything’s firmware is up to date, or at least the same version as other devices of the same type (e.g., all the amps, or desk stage boxes).

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

If this is all in order, it’s time to turn things off and on again! I know it sounds like a cop-out, but power cycling devices (using that term in front of clients makes you sound more professional than saying you’re turning it off and on again) can force them to reset to the right settings, or do their boot-up checklist, where they do a sweep of the network and see other devices that they might have lost contact with for whatever reason. It might not be enough to just switch it off; completely unplugging the device from its power source and leaving it for half a minute can sometimes make it forget any bad information it had stored and start again. Of course, be sure to save anything you need, like your show file, before trying this step!

Make the call

If none of this helps, I’m sorry to say it’s time to call tech support. But here’s the secret to most tech’s tech support: it’s other techs. Nearly everyone in this industry has friends who know more than them about certain topics, which they can phone when they’re stuck.  If nothing else, they might know the solution just because they’ve had the same thing happen to them before. Yet another reason to be (genuinely) nice to everyone; we’re all part of a hive mind of knowledge, and nearly all of us are more than happy to help a colleague out of a bind. On top of this, audio equipment manufacturers are invested in making sure you don’t have bad experiences with their gear, and their support people are often ex-techs themselves, so they will definitely want to sort you out! There’s no shame in tapping into that knowledge if it gets the gig back up and running, and soon enough you’ll be the one who receives the panicked phone call half an hour before doors. Just remember that the more problems you experience, the more you can help others in the future.

Finding the Right Companies to Freelance With

Freelancing is a standard part of our industry and the way many organizations find their labor for various kinds of shows. As freelancers, people often worry about where their paycheck is going to come from; including how they are going to cover things such as insurance, taxes, and the grocery bill. However, there are other aspects to freelancing that need consideration as well. Yes, freelancing is about the paycheck just like most work, but it is also about being your own boss, in which you get to pick and choose who you work for and what you do each day. As you are choosing companies to partner with I think there are a few things that can help quality companies stand out.

As I’ve mentioned in many blogs before communication is essential, make sure you are getting the information you need to do the job and to succeed at the event. You are partnering with the company that has hired you while also representing them onsite. Everyone needs to be on the same page to make sure the entire team succeeds. This means there must be good communication involving all of those contributing to the event.

A freelancer needs to be able to trust the company they are working for. Trusting that the company will follow through on their commitments, provide the tools needed, and pay your invoices within a timely manner. Make sure the company holds their full-time employees accountable. A lack of accountability could result in tough events, missed content, and terrible communication. Also, as a freelancer, the company also needs to trust you. Trust that you know your craft and will remain flexible as the client will change their mind, and to be prepared for what the event needs.

Trust also brings understanding; any company you would be willing to work for must understand that you are a freelance employee. You will be working for other people and taking on different events and projects. Your schedule will be full at times when the company calls; they need to be ok with you saying no, and still be willing to call you next time. You are not obligated to work for the same company all the time, that would be a full-time job, but if the company doesn’t recognize that or gets angry if you’re not available it might not be a good fit.

The overall culture and feel of the company are essential too. We all know the stereotypical angry techie. If the whole company is like that, it might not be a great environment to work in. Look for a positive working group that builds teamwork, communication, and is prepared for their events. The long days can get tough, especially when things don’t go according to plan. Working with a negative crew will only make it worse when you reach hour 16 of that supposed to be 10-hour event. Freelancing is an excellent opportunity to work a variety of events with many different people and partnering with the right companies can make the experience that much better.

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