This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Mindy Abovitz, founder of the only magazine in the world dedicated to women in percussion. Tom Tom Magazine was founded in 2009 in response to gender disparity in the percussion world. Mindy is no stranger to the world of drumming as she has been drumming for over eleven years. She has been in multiple projects including ‘Taigaa !’, ‘Hot Box’, ‘More Teeth’, and ‘Chicas Vas’. I wanted to find out more about Mindy, and her magazine highlighting women percussionists.
What motivated you to create a magazine dedicated to women percussionists?
In 2009, I was googling the words “female drummer” and “girl drummer” and the search results were terrible. The result retrieved photos of women sexily standing next to drum sets and then articles titled: ‘Can Women Play the Drums?’. I wanted to show the world what I knew about women who drummed and depict us in the correct light.
I read that one of your goals is to increase the gender parity in percussionists by 50% in the next ten years. Have you seen an increase?
I believe there has been an increase that the industry has felt. I will know better in a decade from now what our impact has been.
How has your magazine contributed to the equality of women drummers since its start in 2009?
We have inundated the internet, print media, social media, and live events with true and inspiring depictions and role models of girls and women who drum. So, in that way, we have shown who we are and who other future females can be.
How was the climate for female percussionists then, and how has it changed now?
Prior to Tom Tom, existing drum magazines would have a women’s history month issue or feature one female drummer every once in a while. The representation of the average or aspiring female drummer was non-existent. Now, since dedicating an entire media company to female percussionists, we have a decent shot at being represented.
Who inspired you to become a drummer?
A few people inspired me. One of them was my friend Gina Marie (who is still drumming!). My main reason for thinking I could be a musician at all was the Riot Grrrl movement and the band Bikini Kill. Once I discovered them, nothing was going to stop me from playing any instrument.
What advice do you have for young girls who want to play drums?
My advice is to do it! And to call yourself a drummer as soon as you do! Don’t wait (five years, like I did) to call yourself a drummer.
What do you think about the Future is Female movement?
I love it. A lot of my very good friends are heavily involved in spreading the message. Females need a heavy dose of recognition, attention, support, and listening to if we are going to have any semblance of an egalitarian society. Supporting the Future is Female movement is simply saying, I support women and girls.
What is next for you and Tom Tom Magazine?
More of the same! Working on growing our company, increasing the integrity of our storytelling, and promoting more underserved folks.
You can read or subscribe to Tom Tom Magazine
The Future is Female and, in the drumming world, women are breaking their own glass ceilings by supporting each other – and now they have a voice
Australia Mentoring Opportunity
Sound Engineer Gil Eva Craig will be touring Australia with The Pink Floyd Experience in June and is welcoming SoundGirls members the chance to shadow her for the following shows. One member per show. If you are interested please email soundgirls@soundgirls.org with the following info.
Name
Number
Email
SoundGirls Username
1st show you are interested in
2nd show you are interested in
Adelaide: Thebarton Fri 23rd June
Melbourne: Hamer Hall Sun 25th June
Sydney: Riverside, 29th June
Sydney: Enmore, 30th June
Queensland: Gold Coast Arts Centre 6th July
Brisbane: Q Pac 8th July
Speak Up and Record It!
Voice Recording and Spatial Audio as Tools for Empowerment
I am a Brazilian SoundGirl from Rio de Janeiro that moved to Berlin, Germany, in 2013 to study and work. During my first year in this new city, I started to feel alone and disconnected, like I was watching life passing by through a window: I was there, but I was outside. I would like to share here some of my experiences with you, and explain how I used audio as a tool for empowerment while dealing with my own feelings of alienation. I believe that many of us have gone or are going, through similar experiences. I hope I can bring a bit of encouragement, as well as proposing another point of view on using our knowledge as a weapon to overcome challenges.
In facing my feelings of disconnection, I found comfort in technology. I started to exchange voice messages with a close friend that was also living abroad. Speaking on the cellphone in my mother-tongue, while wandering through the streets of Berlin, helped me feel I was no longer an outsider. I was somehow functioning in that society. The streets were mine, as I walked through them. I was re-appropriating that place and contributing to its soundscape, by bringing my private discourse into the public space.
During this process, I noticed that I enjoyed playing back my recordings. I could listen to what I just said from a new perspective, and this was helping me reorganise my thoughts. I started to experiment with that, but without sending my recorded messages to anyone. In other words, I decided to talk to myself through the phone, and listen back to what I just said. This turned out to function as a fun (and reflective) practice, that I had developed spontaneously to deal with my issues of feeling disconnected.
This whole experience led me to develop a method for artistic research in the Masters in Sound Studies, at the University of the Arts (Universität der Künste) in Berlin. Through this method, I researched my own sense of self, while feeling “I don’t belong” – either to a place, to a group of people, or to both at the same time. This work culminated with the creation of an immersive installation, which I called ‘This Alienness and Me’.
I would like to talk a bit about this process, both technically and conceptually. The research project was initiated in December 2015 and lasted until February 2017. The installation was exhibited on 7th February 2017 at the Wave Field Synthesis Studio, at the UDK.
Installation: ‘This Alienness and Me’
In the installation, I used spatial audio to juxtapose my personal voice recordings, made with a cellphone. The process of composing the sound for my installation was executed by using object-oriented audio. Through a Wave Field Synthesis system (WFS), I was able to position sound objects and organise them spatially, around different parts of the studio. According to Brandenburg, Brix & Sporer (2009):
“Wave Field Synthesis is a method to recreate an accurate replication of a sound field using the theory of waves and of the generation of wave fronts…WFS controlled loudspeaker arrays reproduce wave fields that originate from any combination of (virtual) sound sources like an acoustic hologram. When driven properly, the system recreates wave fronts approaching perfect temporal, spectral and spatial properties throughout the listening room.” (p.1)
WFS Studio at the UDK
I will explain later how and why I used low-quality recordings in a high-end technology system, as well as talk about my experience with composition and mixing in the WFS. At the same time, I would also like to open a dialogue concerning the sense of self and female discourses. I believe, that through the use of our knowledge, we are able to shift perspectives on how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others.
Inspiration
The main problem I have faced in the few last years is to realise that the way I perceived myself – and what I understood as my identity – was different and disconnected from the ‘images’ of myself that I perceived through the eyes of others. I felt for example, that my personal history was not important (or almost worthless) to the new people I met. Conversely, the categories I would be put in as a first impression – woman, foreign, chubby – seemed to be overestimated. Another example concerns my auditory reality. My efforts to communicate were aggravating those feelings. I heard myself talking imperfectly in two different languages, neither my mother tongue: English and German. The situation was complex because it was surrounded by different issues related to self, identity, perceiving others, listening, talking, language, speech, communication, different kinds and degrees of relationships, and new and strange environments.
I had started to find some comfort in speaking on the cellphone – in my mother tongue – while wandering through the streets of Berlin. I felt empowered as if I had a secret weapon to deal with my problems. In 2014 I suggested to a friend, Fernanda Sa Dias, that we exchange mobile voice messages as an act of mutual comfort and ‘free self-analysis’. Fernanda is also from Brazil and was living in Bremen. We would record ourselves talking about our lives, experiences, insights, feelings, and send these recordings to each other. Further, we listened to each other, not specifically giving advice, but commented freely and gave emotional support if necessary; and we listened to our own voice messages. This was an agreement that we made as friends, to see if this could help us emotionally.
The writer and theorist Gloria Anzaldúa (1980), in her essay ‘Speaking in tongues: a letter to third world women writers’, writes “our speech, too, is inaudible. We speak in tongues like the outcast and the insane” and calls on third-world women writers to speak up: “Because white eyes do not want to know us, they do not bother to learn our language, the language which reflects us, our culture, our spirit” (p.165). For Lydia French (2014), professor of English and director of Mexican-American/Latino Studies at Houston Community College-Central, Anzaldúa brings attention to “social invisibility and inaudibility for [those women]” (p.3). For her, Anzaldúa is emphasising “how some in positions of power implicitly ‘close their ears’ to the voices of women of colour, voices frequently cast as unmeaning noise” (p.3).
Additionally, while analysing Bose’s noise-canceling headphones, Mack Hagood (2011), a researcher in digital media, sound technologies and popular music, discusses how mobile technology can act in favour of objectifying the sound of women’s voices into noise. According to Hagood, “voices – particularly women’s and children’s voices – are referenced in reviews [of Bose’s noise-canceling headphones] almost as often as the sound of the jet engine [of the airplane]” (p.584). For the noise-canceling headphone buyer, there is no difference between the noise sources: all of them are unwanted and unpleasant noise. Hagood takes into account both Bose’s commercials and the users’ reviews on the product. According to him, in male-written newspaper pieces, women’s voices are perceived as “emotional, distracting, and annoying – generally too young, feminine, and irrational to silence themselves” (p.584).
Inspired by my experience with mobile voice messages, I decided to explore this ‘talking out loud to myself on the phone while feeling alienated’ as part of my research. At the same time, I aimed to reconceptualize the sound of my voice into the soundscape of an immersive environment, which would function as a medium for communicating the results of my research to others.
Recording, Composing & Mixing
During the time of my research, I produced a total of 24 recordings with my cellphone. In all of them I’m describing my feelings of alienation in different conditions: different places, different times of the day, either moving through the city, sitting somewhere or laying down on my bed. Later, I used those recordings in my immersive environment, by further mixing them using the WFS.
Through the Wave Field Synthesis System, I was able to position sound objects and organise them spatially around different parts of the studio. To begin with, twelve different recordings were being played. The use of object-oriented audio allowed me to find a space in the room for each sound source. I mixed the audio by spreading the sound sources around the space, and focusing both on the macro and micro level simultaneously. It means that I should be able to produce an ‘acceptable cacophony’, where sound objects superpose each other, but have also their own space inside the room. Sounds happening in the micro environments should be more or less independent from each other, by telling different stories in different places of the room, at different moments. At the same time, the macro environment should still be reasonably perceived as a whole system.
During the compositional process I was able to hear myself speaking about my feelings of alienation and play with volume automation. I increased the volume in the moments where I felt I was saying something important and decreased the volume of the recordings where I was saying something not so relevant. This helped me guide the listener into the ‘acceptable cacophony’ mentioned above. Although the listener, most of the time, had the feeling they could choose what they heard inside the installation, those choices were limited through my mix. I guided the listener through my intimate thoughts, by choosing carefully what moments I would like to raise more awareness of.
Next, I included some voice recordings I made while reading written descriptions of my feelings. These were also recorded with a cellphone but, instead of walking through the streets, I was on my bed, in my room. Spatially, the sound of those recordings weren’t fixed in the studio room, as I worked circularly with the localization of these sound objects. I felt that the circular movement was providing a clearer way of continuing to ‘tell the story, without drawing the visitor’s attention to the technology and equipment.
Installation: ‘This Alienness and Me’
The composition needed to be so that the visitor could choose what and how they wanted to listen. They could also choose to listen to the environment by focusing more on sound quality, colours and movement, and less on spoken words. The idea was that the visitor should be free to make those choices. The audio was played in a loop and the visitor could move inside and outside the room at any time.
“If it is only through the other that we know who we are, then interacting with others is always a presentation and renegotiation of the self…” (Hagood, 2011, p.578)
Conceptually, and following Hagood, the idea was that the visitor would need to reassess themselves over and over, either by interacting with the installation – and, in consequence, being confronted with my voice and my words – or with other visitors inside the installation. Every time they made a decision to move inside the room, stay, leave, or even of changing their awareness from some mode of listening to another, they were responsible for how and to what they listened, as well as for which images of themselves emerged while inside the installation.
Additionally, a dialog between private and public was taking place. On a macro level, the cacophony produced through the superposition of my recordings was inspired by the cacophony present in urban spaces. Depending on the visitors’ interactions (either through movement or shifting auditory awareness), this was slowly intercalated with the private: the intimacy of my personal recordings happening in the microenvironments. Temporally, the composition also slowly changes from the macro-level to the micro, more interiorised level, when the recordings made in the streets stop, and the audio I recorded on my bed start to play. Visually, I decided to include some personal objects in the room: carpets, lights, a cushion. The contrast between my personal objects and the studio room was also contributing to this dialog, by bringing my private world into the university’s studio.
In the installation, the lights are spread out around the carpets and one chair is positioned in the middle of the room, while seven other chairs are positioned in the circle peripherally, facing the chair in the middle. On the chair, the visitors found glasses with a tag that said “Try Me”. Each chair brought the visitor to a particular perspective and a new approach to the environment. The glasses had mirrors that pointed to the floor. If the visitor chose to sit on the chair and put on the glasses, they could see themself seated, while the lights made interesting reflections back to their eyes. If they decided to walk around and/or sit on one the peripheral chairs, then according to their own perception, awareness and movement inside the room, they were able to interact with the space in different ways.
Anzaldúa (1980), facing an imposed silence, calls women to speak up. She speaks up through writing. She is compelled to write, “[b]ecause the writing saves [her] from this complacency [she] fear[s]. Because [she] ha[s] no choice. Because [she] must keep the spirit of [her] revolt and [her]self alive” (pp.168-169).
Facing my feeling of alienation, I also decided to speak up. I spoke, recorded, and turned each narration into a sound object inside the studio room. I layered, organised spatially, and played back all tracks containing my voice. My secret weapon to deal with my issues of disconnection was being upgraded to a new level.
I talked about my feelings on the cellphone while wandering through the streets of Berlin, or while in the comfort of my room. I brought my low-quality intimate recordings to the public through the use of hi-end technology. The mixing possibilities provided by the WFS enabled me to create a sound piece in which my cellphone recordings were reconceptualized into high-quality audio processing. Through this work, I could resignify the noises of my alienation into speech, by juxtaposing discourses and reshaping them into the soundscape of my created environment.
In the end, it was not only about myself. I hope to encourage Sound Girls into using their knowledge to feel empowered and motivated to speak up, reclaim acoustic space and reconceptualize their own notions of self.
References:
Anzaldúa, G., 1980. Speaking in tongues: a letter to third world women writers, in: Moraga, C., Anzaldúa, G. (Eds.), This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Persephone Press, Watertown, MA, pp. 165–175.
Brandenburg, K., Brix, S., Sporer, T., 2004. Wave Field Synthesis: From research to applications. Presented at the 12th European Signal Processing Conference, IEEE, Ilmenau, Germany.
Hagood, M., 2011. Quiet Comfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space. American Quarterly 63, pp. 573–589.
I’ll be developing and presenting these ideas further at the Symposium Sonic Cyberfeminisms in May 2017, in Lincoln, UK.
Mariana Bahia is a sound artist and researcher in digital media and audio technology. She is particularly interested in understanding the sense of self through sound recording and audio reproduction. She likes to explore the intersection between hi-end and low-quality technology, from cellphone recordings to spatial audio. Her work is based on composing sound pieces and installations using superposed voice and self-designed instruments. Mariana is a research assistant in immersive audio in the TiME Lab at the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut and is finishing her Masters in Sound Studies at the University of the Arts (UDK), Berlin. www.marianabahia.comwww.sifonics.com
Post-Production Audio: Promo Mixing
One area of the post-production industry that goes under the radar when looking for jobs or career paths is advertising and promos. A promo is a form of advertising used in media/broadcast to promote a program or event. You’ve probably seen these a million times and never thought much of it. “Coming up next on the Simpsons!” or “Tuesday night right after the Voice!”
Mixing a promo is not terribly complicated. There’s usually voice-over, dialog, sound fx and music. The content is short – generally, you are given a “spot” which is 30 seconds (but could be other lengths). Then, there can be “cutdowns” of that spot – shorter spots that are usually derivative of the longest one. For a 30 second spot, the cutdowns might be 20, :15, and :10. Here’s an example of a 30-second spot and a basic cutdown version:
Once you mix the:30 it’s often a matter of conforming your mix/tweaking or applying settings from the original mix to the cutdown versions.
The main thing that makes promo mixing difficult is organization and file management. For one spot, you might have 3 cutdowns (4 mixes in total) plus “versions.” Versioning is taking your mix and changing the tag – the VO at the end of the spot that identifies the show, time, date, network, etc (“The Americans. All-New Next Tuesday. Only on FX”). Your average tv show that has a promo for next week’s new episode might have the following tags: Next Wednesday, Wednesday, Tomorrow, Tonight, Next. If they’re running a spot early there might be tags like “This summer,” “coming in May,” “premieres May 5.” Sometimes it gets specific like “Next Wednesday at 8” or “Wednesday at 9/8 Central.” There might be promotion across networks or platforms, too. For example, a mix I do for the cable network FXX might also air on FX, Fox, On Demand, and online streaming (FXNow). Some promos are also on the radio or play at movie theaters.
This basic Protools session shows tags for a :30 spot and 3 cutdowns (:20, :15, and :10). The three versions for each spot are “Starts Today at 3,” “Starts Next” and “Continues.” Sometimes it’s easier to do the mix and tags in separate sessions.
If you have a bigger session – say 10 tags for a spot and 3 cutdown versions – that means 40 total you have to edit voice-over (and mix), output and name files, double-check the file names match the mix and spot check the mixes. You may be asked for similar named versions like “premieres next” and “premiering next” so naming files correctly is very important. This is just one promo and you might be doing multiple in a day! This is why people who are detail-oriented do really well in promo.
Voice over script with many tags
As a promo mixer, you get to wear a lot of hats. You might be recording voice-over, editing dialog, sound design, recording Foley or walla (background voices), and music editing. Generally, you don’t get to wear so many hats working on movies or tv shows and definitely not on the same day.
There’s a nuance to promo mixing because there’s a lot of things happening at once that are all competing for your attention. Your job is to point the listener to what’s most important. There can be a lot of mood changes in a short period of time and a good promo mix can navigate these without calling attention to volume rides or overlapping audio. When an explosion happens in a promo you’re usually onto the next idea when the audio is barely starting to decay.
Promo mixing can be a great gig if you’re trying to pursue another interest, too. Mixers are usually booked by the day and there are opportunities to mix from home. It’s not as hard to break into as film mixing, for example. However, it’s not the type of gig you necessarily want to learn on the job because deadlines can be tight. Often a mix is booked the same day a spot needs to air so there’s not a lot of room for error. If you are good with details, organization, are a fast editor and mixer, enjoy wearing a lot of hats, and not looking for your name in the credits, promo mixing might be a good fit for you!
Failing Smart
Recently, I have been super excited to see many women sharing their stories and joining us as part of SoundGirls. Many of the recent posts on our Facebook page have been new members of our organization in school, about to graduate, or just starting their first position in this amazing field. It reminds me of conversations about what’s next as student staff members and student event organizers around me begin their last steps toward graduation and their next steps toward their desired careers.
Working within an educational system, we frequently discuss with graduating students what they have learned if they feel prepared, and how to find support once out in their field. Outside of the educational system, I hope everyone can learn something through all of their life experiences. I would like to share some things that I have learned over time through failure in hopes you can learn from them.
How to Fail Smart
There are many things outside of our control that can lead to failure. Those we are rarely able to change, but there are things as an individual we can do to prevent our failures. The first being, always blaming others. It’s a fact, mistakes will be made, things will go wrong, and sometimes it is our fault. Something was missed, forgotten about, or we just simply misunderstood something. When this happens, and you know that you could have prevented it or you messed it up – take ownership of it. Own the mistake, apologize for it, and work toward fixing it. It can be as simple as, “I’m sorry, I messed up on this – I am going to fix it by…..”
I had a situation just like this happen the other day. I was making a room reservation for a client when I was pulled away for something else, and by the time I got back to my desk, I completely forgot about it. Then the next day I was reminded that I needed to finish the reservation. When I did so, I found that the hotel was sold out. I had messed up for not completing the reservation when I should have – but I owned it. I went to my team, let them know what had happened, and asked for help. I asked if there was any way we could fix the problem. We worked together, and we were able to solve the issue quickly.
A second way to avoid failure is to not complain about everything all the time. Yes, there can be negative times, but if all that comes from you as an employee, team member, and leader is negative, you have failed. To get out of this rut, look at what went well and what didn’t and fix it. Take steps to turn the negative into positive outcomes. I grew up with an ideology of – if you don’t like it, then you fix it. Now that can sound a bit intense, but when you break it down this way take ownership, change what you don’t like, and if you can’t change it make decisions to make it better. As individuals within the sound world we will end up working with negative people, and if we continuously act the same as those negative people as well we will all live miserable lives – so let’s not do that, because life is too short to be negative all the time.
Finally, it will always be important, no matter if you are a rookie or a veteran to learn from your mistakes. As I mentioned above, we have all made mistakes. Taking ownership of those mistakes is important; learning from them is even more important. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The same goes for mistakes. If you are making the same mistakes over and over again, you are failing. Learn from those mistakes, and adjust your game plan from show to show. In the long run, this will make you a productive and valuable employee and leader, plus you may not have to spend so much time troubleshooting.
At the end of the day, no one is perfect when it comes to failing, but owning and learning from mistakes will help you succeed in your career path and remaining active will help you move through failure one step at a time by failing smart.
Dedication and Perseverance – Meegan Holmes
Meegan Holmes has worked in live sound for over 25 years doing everything from system teching to mixing monitors and FOH. She is now in Global Sales for one of the largest sound system providers in the world, 8th Day Sound – Los Angeles. At 8th Day Sound Meegan can utilize her years of experience in sales and account/project management, as she held a similar position at Delicate Productions for over 18 years.
With a mother who is an artist and a father who is a musician, chances were high that Meegan would end up working in the arts. Meegan says her parents “were always supportive of whatever I wanted to do and they never discouraged me from pursuing my goals. In many ways, it made me both fearless and a bit stubborn.” At age 13, Meegan was exposed to live sound and event production when she volunteered at a summer stock theater. She would spend many evenings through several summers, painting sets, hanging lights and speakers. It was there Meegan learned all about theatrical mic technique and live mixing from the FOH engineer. From there Meegan would go on to attend California Institute of The Arts, where she studied Sound Design and Music Composition.
After about 18 months at CalArts, Meegan realized that she was not going to make it as a musician and started to think about how she could still be involved in music and not have to perform. It was evident to her that bands would always need crew and if she chose a path on the tech side, she would always have a job. ”I loved the experience that I had with the technical aspect of live production when I was younger, so it was an easy transition for me to make and one that I do not regret.” During her junior year, she started working as a stagehand with LA Stagecall. While working for Stagecall, she would make friends with the guys at Delicate Productions, which eventually led to Delicate hiring her as a stage tech for a tour.
While Meegan does not believe that attending an audio program or obtaining a degree is necessary, it will most likely benefit you. “CalArts gave me a chance to try varying aspects of audio, not just live production. I tried designing and mixing for film, television, and animation. I spent time in the recording studio on campus; I used the first version of Protools. None of that excited me, but a live rock show did. I don’t think a four-year private university is mandatory. Where I grew up in Connecticut, we weren’t given an option to ‘not go to college. I had to apply to at least four and pick one. I chose an art school. Honestly, going to college gave me the hunger to learn, the networking skills to get a job and the discipline to keep it. Keep in mind; there are many successful people in our industry that do not have any continuing education at all. If you already know someone that can help you get involved in the industry, great but if you don’t, attending some education program might be the only way to get some contacts to help launch your career.”
Meegan’s first tour was Lollapalooza 1997, (back when it was still a tour), as the stage/patch tech. “The tour was a lot of hard work; I started my day with flying/ground stacking PA. Once the band risers were up, I would start mic’ing up the seven bands. I’d re-patch between each and only get sporadic breaks to eat lunch and dinner. After the show was over, I took down the PA I had installed in the morning. My trouble-shooting skills improved by 100%. I learned how to be a strong member of a team (not only the audio crew but the other departments as well), we all worked together to execute the show.”
From there she would go on to mix FOH and monitors for various smaller acts, such as Soul Coughing, Tenacious D, The Melvins and God Lives Underwater. The majority of her road experience has been as a monitor or system tech on tours with Natalie Merchant, Natalie Cole, TOOL, Queens Of The Stone Age, Linkin Park, Basia, and Gorillaz. She even had a brief stint working as a production assistant on Limp Bizkit “I just wanted to try something different, I loved working with the PM on that tour, but I missed being on the audio crew.” Her favorite thing about touring was being paid to see the world, but the disconnect from her life at home was taxing.
Touring would no longer become an option prompting Meegan to seek local full-time work with Delicate. Over time she would start to assist in crewing shows, eventually leading to working as an onsite Project Manager for the more complex shows. Meegan says she “developed a knack for dealing with some of their more challenging clients. After learning the onsite leadership skills and all about dealing with personnel, I just had one last piece to learn, the money. I was promoted to account management in 2013 where I learned pricing and client management on an entirely different level. It was not a difficult transition to make. I spent a lot of time on-site with Delicate’s clients, building relationships with them. Also being on-site, I developed stronger relationships with the crew, bands and event producers. Creating these relationships gave me the opportunity to represent the company beyond email and phone calls. I learned a valuable lesson about how relationships drive our industry. Clients liked dealing with me; they did not care where the equipment came from, they wanted the service, attention, and dedication that I had to offer.”
After 18 years, Meegan felt it was time to move on as she says “Account Management showed me a lot. It also showed me the limitations at Delicate as well. I knew I needed to move on to take my career to the next level. I needed something slightly different and challenging. I interviewed with several different companies. Initially, I was interviewing with 8th Day to take on some of the 30+ festivals they do in the U.S. each year. After my interview, the plan changed, and I was asked if I was interested in starting the west coast operation of the company.
So start she did, with a small pile of gear stored in a warehouse owned by one of 8th Day’s clients. Meegan worked alone with the support of the Cleveland office and freelancers that she knew in Los Angeles. “At the time, I did much of everything, sales, crew, trucking, prep, loading and unloading the gear. I don’t think anyone (including myself) knew how quickly we’d grow here. We hired more full-time personnel and moved into our own warehouse last August. I spend most of my days, now that we have more personnel, doing quotes for shows and tours, conference calls and attending site visits and meetings, hiring crew for our shows here in LA and keeping up with the warehouse maintenance and needs. I spend time on show site, I still feel like nurturing personal relationships is a crucial part of my job.”
When hiring crew Meegan says she looks for “someone that is willing to do any aspect of audio, patching the stage, FOH/monitor tech, RF tech, and mixing. This versatility is beneficial if you plan to work for sound companies. If someone specializes in something, we have less work for them of course but sometimes being the best RF technician brings you more work. Keeping a positive attitude, being reliable, honest and having a good sense of humor are all necessary traits. We can teach you the technical side of the things you don’t know, but we cannot teach you to have integrity. Spending time as a stagehand, working in a warehouse or working in a venue learning how everything goes together is beneficial, especially if you are starting out.”
Meegan’s long-term goals are to help build the 8th Day’s business here in Los Angeles and to use her position to help others achieve their goals in the industry.
What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?
I contacted two audio companies when I graduated from college; the first told me “we don’t hire women for touring positions.” The second told me “we don’t hire women because we find we have to pick up their slack.” These were literally the only two tangible barriers I experienced, and both happened in 1993.
How have you dealt with them?
I never stopped wanting to work in the industry and have always worked hard. I never made a big deal out of gender or my education; I let my work speak for itself. Either people wanted to work with me, or they didn’t. I kept a positive attitude and tried to have fun regardless of what I was doing. I never said ‘no’ when I was asked to do something like pull feeder or load or unload a truck.
Advice you have for women who wish to enter the field?
Get ready to work and prove yourself. Nothing comes easily to anyone, and there will always be someone smarter, stronger, and more experienced than you. Stay humble and open to learning from anyone and everyone you are around regardless of age, gender, race, or experience level. This applies to both technical and interpersonal skills.
Must have skills?
Patience. Drive. The willingness to learn. A strong knowledge of signal flow and troubleshooting.
Favorite gear?
Equipment that can handle the wear and tear of road life.
Parting Advice.
Don’t limit yourself! If you tell someone that you only mix FOH, then you’ve just limited yourself, and you’ve made it harder for someone like myself, to hire you or recommend you for a tour. Do not be afraid to fail; it means you tried. If you are not happy with your job, do everything you can to change that. We spend much of our lives working, and if you don’t love your job 90% of the time, it will affect your entire life. Have fun, be safe and do not give up on your goals, sometimes they might take a little longer to achieve than you want but the wait will be worth it.
On the last day in February, Soundgirls.org – in cooperation with KRETS (Norway) – arranged a day with Asle Karstad, who gave a lecture on the reinforcement of acoustic instruments.
Asle Karstad has worked for over 35 years in sound, and and refers to himself as a ‘sound producer’ – the person who guides the sound so the listener will get the most optimal experience. He has spent most of his time working with the Oslo Symphonic Orchestra, but is also very well known by Norwegian Jazz and folk musicians.
On this particular day Asle had been kind enough to invite some friends to join him – an acoustic guitar player, a quartet from Norwegian Radio Orchestra and a well known contrabass player by the name Ellen Andrea Wang.
We were very excited to meet Asle in this relatively new venue in Oslo. Sentralen is only a year old and contains five separate and diverse concert rooms. (If you happen to visit Oslo, don’t miss out on visiting this very special venue.)
Asle’s first mission was to show us how you find the resonant frequency of an acoustic string instrument – or the ‘Crazy Note’ as he refers to it. (The resonant frequency is the natural ‘note’ that the instrument will create on it’s own as soon as you ‘put’ some energy into it, for example by tapping on it.) The reason Asle places importance on finding the ‘Crazy Note’ – is because he discovered that when six violin players put down their instrument at the same time, the little bump on the floor creates the resonant frequency, which could lead to feedback from the six violins in close proximity with each other. The resonant frequency of a violin will be around 275 Hz – 280 Hz. Their fundamental note is 94 Hz.
The method he used to find the ‘Crazy Note’ was to place the instrument on a table and close mic it where the resonant frequency was assumed to be found (Asle was using a DPA 4011 as microphone). He would then tap around the body of the instrument, and take a ‘snapshot’ of the frequency response.
By using this method we discovered that the instrument has one spectacular note in the lower range that stands out- the crazy note! (If you try this yourself, remember to dampen the strings so they don’t resonate – a towel works well)
It’s important to find this frequency because you may have to deal with other issues in the low end, like for example the low hum that likes to ‘sneak’ around your PA and end up in your mic’s on stage. If that ‘hum’ happens to be the same frequency as the ‘Crazy Note’ on one or more of the acoustic instruments in the orchestra, you could quite quickly end up with a problem.
Asle reminded us that it is always good to consider that the low end has a tendency to travel around the speakers and up on the stage, higher frequencies, as we know are more directional and therefore don’t have the same problem. This is also why we like to close mic, to eliminate ‘sneaky’ low end frequencies from PA and the room itself.
Whilst we are thinking about resonance – we also have to remember that any kind of resonant shell acts like an amplifier. You will do yourself a favor knowing the resonant frequencies of your acoustic instruments in advance to deal with any issues. For example the resonant frequency or ‘crazy note’ of an acoustic guitar will most likely be around 200 Hz. Asle suggested, when you pull that frequency out of your acoustic guitar that you add a little decay to it around 1,85 – 3,25 seconds to keep the natural sound to it.
Here are some other resonant notes to remember: Cello 80 – 90 Hz, Contra Bass 105 Hz (105 Hz goes for electric bass too). Asle suggest to ‘work’ a little around 65 – 105 Hz, since you will have the low end energy from the PA in this area as well.
Some other interesting tips from Asle are to put a compressor on the reverb send for your acoustic strings. And if you do not want ‘things right up in your face’ as he puts it, delay the whole mix 6 – 9 ms. We tried this and it made a huge difference, it somehow also made the mix sounds bigger and brighter.
Also to make your mix sound more natural you might want to put a high shelf cut on your strings from 1500 Hz and up – it sounds crazy, but if you think about it, higher frequencies die quickly over a distance. We felt this method worked.
Regarding string instruments – aim the capsule at the wood when you mic up – not for the strings!
KRETS is a part of the Norwegian music organization that was founded in 2013, as a tribute to the 100 year anniversary for the Women’s Right to Vote in Norway. The group is trying to connect female technicians across Norway by supporting events like this one with Asle Karstad. Soundgirls.org would like to thank KRETS for their co-operation and support.
SXSW – Tips, Tricks and Other Stories
This festival is like nothing else in America. Its origin and functionality in our industry is modeled completely differently from any festival you will ever attend, work or perform at. I’ve been doing this festival since 2011 and have always worked as the house engineer for what I consider to be ‘pop-up’ venues; places that don’t normally have sound and that SXSW puts production into. So here is some of my advice, having lived through it for a few years.
Places that normally don't have sound that SXSW puts production into.
Attitude
If you are in anyway a grumpy, or pessimistic person, this gig will run you down. You need to walk into this knowing that what sustains the event for the people around you, is how you react.
I like to prepare myself to have a good attitude, amidst the chaos, by planning. Before I leave for SXSW, I ask myself “what piece of equipment makes my day faster?” I bring a few of my favorite mics and DIs, zip-ties, gaffe tape, e-tape, several flash lights, screwdrivers, fans, adaptors, Y-cables, a soldering iron, solder, and instrument cable. Do you need all these extras to pull off a show? No, of course not, but in a pinch, I’d rather reach over and grab the easy solution. Someone forgot their instrument cable? You know what? No problem, got you covered. It’s easier than having to send them to ask all the other musicians if they can borrow one.
Another way to prepare yourself within your venue. I test every piece of gear, every day. I test every line, every day. Every mic, every day. I ring out my main system and my wedges, every day. I may not start from flat, but I go through to make absolutely certain that what I thought sounded good yesterday still sounds good today. I try to get all the input lists, and plan all the patch changes I can mentally keep in my head at one time. I show up an hour before my call-time to do these things.
Understand your role on show-day
This is big. Will you have a stage manager? Most likely. But understanding their experience level is key. Most are volunteers and have varying skill-levels. They start working, planning, and contacting artists long before the music festival portion of SXSW starts. Letting them know on the first day how you like to have your stage function is key. Find out how the backline will work, making sure they know, and you know, where it all is going to live, how it will come off the stage, etc. Don’t over talk it, just get to the point. If something feels like it’ll be a problem, do not think ” that’s their job, their problem”. Its ultimately your problem. If the band doesn’t start on time, everyone will be looking at you – pointing fingers won’t fly. Work as a team. Just remember, you do this for a living and the stage manager is probably doing this for the first time.
You will also have volunteers at your venue. They are not your resource. The stage manager is their boss and if you need anything, I recommend going through your stage manager. I’ve been lucky; this year I taught one stage manager how to over-under cables. After the first couple days, she seemed very interested in production and when I asked if she wanted to have a more active role, she said yes. That was her choice – coiling cables and helping manage the stage is not in their job description. Most help at the door, or maybe carry gear on and off the stage, but they are not your stage hands. However, they can be an untapped resource, depending on their level of interest and, of course, how
That being said, prepare for everything you can think of, and just accept that many things will be uncontrollable. Almost all the bands that will play your venue understand how SXSW flows. Road closures, broken gear, forgotten gear; approach everyone as if your venue could turn itself upside-down and, despite that they (the musicians) will have a great show. It works.
Just roll with it
Yes, sometimes a band will go over by fifteen minutes, but later in the evening another band might end ten minutes early. Don’t get stuck on the little details. If the SXSW production staff or the event sponsors are happy, then you are doing your job. I let my stage manager have total control of telling the band when to get off the stage. Usually the event runs on time, but I’ve seen some engineers really get bent out of shape. It’s SXSW – just go with the flow.
Musicians should keep in mind, when playing these venues, that a line check may be all you will get. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes at pretty much all the venues. Rest assured, every line will work and we mix so many bands each day that the in-house engineer will work like a machine, sussing out your sound within the first song. We get hired to work these events specifically because we are trusted to fly like that. We want you to be happy, we really do, and we want to enjoy the music, and the faster we can make that happen, the better.
As a band or a solo artist, the best thing you can do is to make sure your management sends out the most up-to-date stage plot, and avoid changing it while we are loading onto the stage. Sometimes I will have already set up my patch based on your paperwork, which said that the keys are on stage left and percussion on stage right. I’ll roll with the change, but those changes can throw hiccups into the flow. Guess what we like at SXSW? A good flow.
Make sure your gear is in working order
Does your bass DI not work? Please tell the sound person ASAP. Do you have a passive pick up in your guitar? I highly recommend carrying an active pickup with you. Please know all the functions of your gear: There have been times someone has brought a piece of guitar gear that I’ve never seen before, and therefore don’t know how to troubleshoot it. Are you a keyboard player? Please have cables and back-up cables – maybe even back-up cables for the back-ups. You play so many shows that those cables could work fine at one venue, get thrown into your keyboard case, and then come out ruined. Same for guitarist: please bring back-up cables and back-up strings. Assume there is absolutely no way to get a replacement or repair any gear. All the music stores in town will be out of everything and so busy it’ll be a mental drain to get to them. If you are a DJ, bring a small table with you. Also be aware that stage vibrations may affect your turntables; if that will ruin your show, please find appropriate ways to eliminate that problem. The sound person will have limited resources for you to use if that happens.
The stories
This year, from the very first day, I had my backline show up exactly at downbeat. This was a new room with a PA that had not had a band play through it yet and there were lines that hadn’t been used at all. My venues operate on a line-check basis, and my band had shown up at their load-in time, two hours before downbeat. Having been excited about having so much time to soundcheck, we then had to scramble to get started on time. Between the sponsor, stage manager, volunteers, backline tech, and the band themselves, we got set up extremely quickly. The sponsor was very stressed-out while I sound-checked: I had continuous feedback on a vocal mic, and insisted on them holding-doors until I could suss out the problem. During this, I had several folks at FOH adding a mental strain to the process. In a moment of clarity, I realized the vocal had a processor on it that I wasn’t aware of, coming from the stage. Within minutes the feedback was solved. We opened doors and started only fifteen minutes late.
Another year, I came in to find my PA sounding ‘off’. This was the year that I learned a valuable lesson: trust your ears. I had issues with feedback and an overwhelming wonkiness. While the first band was sound-checking, I ran to another venue that a friend was running and asked for his advice. After running noise through the PA, I found that in all four of my three-way speakers, the mids had frozen. If you don’t know how to test your PA, I highly recommend learning that process. My friend left the other venue while he had touring engineer at FOH and came over, collected my volunteers and anyone else who was interested, and started the processes of replacing every mid. We lucked out as the company I was working for had extra parts. Guess what was the life-saver? Me bringing tools. I won’t ever leave tools at home again. Having screwdrivers was a life-saver.
If you get booked at SXSW, don’t sink with dread or get an overwhelming sense of fear about it. It’s an experience that can bring the best together. As an engineer, you’ll get stronger, tighter, and faster. As a band, you’ll earn a level of teamwork you never knew you had before. Just remember, the music festival is just a week. Let the experience build you as a performer or technician.
Aubrey Caudill: Aubrey lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area and works as a freelance audio engineer. She currently works for several area wedding bands and runs monitors at The Potter’s House North Dallas. She is also a mother of two sons under ten.
The Important Art of Documentation in Theatre Sound Design
When you work on a production, you never really know what sort of life it’s going to have after that initial run or tour. A production you designed two years ago may suddenly get another run, and you realise you need to dig out all your sounds and designs and make them work in a different venue. Or, you need to hand it over to an associate to do the same. It’s at times like these that you discover the value of two things: accurate, detailed documentation and an organised filing system.
I know that documentation and filing are the least exciting aspects of a creative sound role, but I cannot overemphasize how much they will save your bacon when you need to recreate the sound design for a show. In the time-sensitive, pressured environment of theatre and theatrical productions, it’s very easy to let documentation lapse, so you need to either delegate the task or make time for it. You don’t want to be tearing your hair out the night before tech week kicks off because you have no idea where you put that crucial sound effects file you recorded four years ago.
Here’s a starter list of what you should be captured during the production of a show.
Rehearsals and production weeks before tech week
Make sure you have copies of all your design drawings, whether you created them in CAD software or hand-drew them. If they’re hand-drawn, scan them so you have an electronic copy as well. Ask for model box photos as well (or take your own), so you have a visual reference point for this production.
Make sure you have an electronic copy of the script, score, or both, and any additional material e.g. song lyrics, prologue/epilogue, as well as paper copies.
Take photos of any pictures, sketches, diagrams, props, or anything else that were used in the rehearsal process or in your own creative time that directly influenced your sound designs. They may come in handy if you need to create any new files for subsequent runs.
Label each sound file accurately as you create it, including documenting the recording process if you recorded it from scratch.
Label and save all venue tech specs and sound hire quotes
Label and save all photos taken during venue visits, including any notes about potential speaker/equipment positions
Tech week to press night
Once speaker positions are set, take photos from multiple angles to accurately capture positions. If you have to hand a show over to an associate further down the line, it’s far easier to show them a picture of how you positioned a particular speaker in a venue than explaining it.
Note positions of racks, microphones, processors, desks, screens, comms, cue lights, everything that’s specific to that show.
If there’s anything particularly unique about this production that you may need to remember at a future date, write it down.
Keep sound cue sheets and update them as necessary, including a record of deleted cues. They may be reinstated for future productions.
Make sure you have an accurate list of hired sound equipment, including the hire company, any existing venue equipment used in the show, and any equipment purchased by the production
Save all show and desk files
After press night
Save copies of the final show files and desk files with copies of all final sound files.
Save any sound files not used in the show to a separate folder. You may need them for subsequent productions
Save all documentation, including sound design plans, final cue sheets, radio mic plans, scene maps, etc.
Confirm where any sound equipment purchased by the production company will be stored following the end of the show’s run and save that information in a document
Label everything clearly and put in a single folder so you can quickly find everything for that show
Back up everything!
Managing your documentation should be an integral part of your sound design work, not an addition to it. Do it once and thoroughly for each production, and you’ll save yourself a lot of potential headaches in the future
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I read that one of your goals is to increase the gender parity in percussionists by 50% in the next ten years. Have you seen an increase?
