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Help Promote Women in Audio

SoundGirls Social Media Campaign

SoundGirls will be collecting short video clips on Why I Love Being a Sound Engineer. These videos will help us promote our Live Sound Camps for Girls for Summer 2017 and our Fundraising Campaign.

Why I Love Being a Sound Engineer

Musicians welcome too – Why is important that there are more Women Sound Engineers.

We are asking members to record a short video of themselves at work

If you have a SoundGirls Shirt, Sticker, Lanyard please include it in the video

Be natural, don’t make it something that seems fake or too rehearsed

What to talk about

Why do you love being a Sound Engineer?

Guess what I did today? What gig or project are you working on?

Why women don’t even consider this as a career?

Example: “oh if only women knew about what life is like when my work is going to gigs and being sort of the boss since you are in control of the most important thing: the sound!”

Since you will most likely be filming this your phone – please consider the background and lighting. The image must be clear. Music in the background is great – but make sure your audio is clean and we can understand you.

Keep it short – one minute or less – (no more than two minutes)

Please email videos to soundgirls@soundgirls.org

Thanks for your help

Team SoundGirls

Challenges

If you’ve ever helped a child learn to read then you will understand the agony and sheer determination that is required to succeed. As adults, we often forget what is required to undergo the ‘learning process’ and place too high expectations on ourselves. Often we pick new ideas up as we go along without giving much thought to how we got there.

This month we’ve been lucky enough to welcome the Arabic megastar, Mohammed Abdou, to the Opera House.

Mohammed Abdou was born in Saudi Arabia in 1948. He had a rough start in life. Six of his siblings and his father died of smallpox, meaning that he, his mother, and two other siblings had to live in a hostel for orphaned families. At the time, Crown Prince Faisal funded schools for orphaned children and it was there that he has said that he, ‘learned how to live and depend on himself’.

At the end of his schooling, he took any work that he could find, starting by selling sweets and nuts in the local market. Eventually, he earned enough money to join a vocational institute. By the time he left, he was able to support the family and they moved into a new house. It was in this new location that Mohammed met a neighbour who was an expert ‘danat’ singer. Danat is a type of Arabic song that comes from central Saudi Arabia. During a ‘Sama’aie party’ (A classical Arabic music gathering) Mohammed sang one of the songs he had learnt from his neighbour. He was heard by a singer called Omar Kardras who took him to a recording studio in Jeddah to record his first three songs.

In his 40 year career, Mohammed Abdou has produced over 200 albums, his style influencing generations of Arabic music and reaching far across the globe.

And so, the two concerts at the Opera House sold out within weeks of release. An extra night was added to help meet demand. For us as a sound and broadcast department, it was certainly one of the largest Arabic bands that we had seen. Starting with 82 inputs this was increased to 87 during rehearsals as more backing singers were added.

As with a typical Arabic concert setup, soloists including an oud, qanoon, nay, and accordion were placed center stage with a violin section to the left and a percussion section to the right. Two keyboard players also played solo sections. Behind the soloists were a typical woodwind and brass section, drummer, bass, guitar and backing vocals.

Given that we were in our ‘concert setting’  we tried to limit the number of wedges onstage and use IEM’s as much as possible. We used a combination of wireless (Shure and Sennheiser) belt packs as well as 4 Behringer Powerplay units for the percussion section and Sound Device MM-1 units for the bass, drummer, and guitar. The violin section, backing vocals, and woodwind and brass all had Meyer UPM or UPJ monitoring and Mohammed Abdou, 2 MJF’s. An additional UPM was added for the Maestro.

Rehearsal Line Check

In addition to our own built acoustic treatment of the room, we also used clear acoustic panels between the percussion and soloists. Extra attention needed to be paid to aesthetics as Oman TV filmed all three nights!

If Abdou can teach us anything, it is that no matter our beginnings, hard work and determination will eventually pay off. The battles we overcome today will become part of a much larger picture.  Once again, we are left in the wake of this concert feeling that the learning that we gathered in previous challenges produces greater knowledge and success moving forwards.

N.Y. – SoundGirls Presents Hearing Health with Musicians Hearing Solutions

Join SoundGirls for an evening learning about hearing health, live sound, noise induced loss and how to prevent it.  Learn about IEMS and ear plugs and how to use them properly. Dr. Julie Glick and Dr. Elvera Bader of Musicians Hearing Solutions will have demos of different IEMS available; Shure, Sennheiser, Ultimate Ears, JH Audio, Sensaphonics and Noble Audio. Plus we will have plenty of time to meet and network with other SoundGirls members. SoundGirls Executive Director Karrie Keyes will be on hand to meet members.

JULIE GLICK, Au.D., F-AAA

Dr. Glick was first introduced to custom in-ear monitors and musicians earplugs nineteen years ago when she started her career in a private practice in Beverly Hills, California. Her passion for music and commitment to the field of audiology led her to recognize that the optimization of the live performances of musicians and hearing conservation was a niche she wanted to be involved in from the very beginning. Over the past nineteen years, Julie has spent invaluable time with monitor / sound engineers and has been backstage and in rehearsal studios with musicians of all genres.  She has also worked as an audiologist for two years at Sensaphonics Hearing Conservation in Chicago. Through all of these experiences, she has gained great insight and appreciation for all the technical details that go into live musical performances and how important hearing and hearing conservation is to not only musicians but to the fans as well. Dr. Glick’s knowledge and technical expertise of sound, hearing and hearing conservation make her a valuable asset to the music community.

Dr. Glick received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech and Hearing Science from The Ohio State University, Master of Science in Communicative Disorders from California State University, Northridge and Doctor of Audiology from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, School of Audiology. Dr. Glick is a licensed Audiologist and Hearing Instrument Dispenser in the state of New York and a Fellow of the American Academy of Audiology.

ELVERA BADER, Au.D., F-AAA

Dr. Elvera Bader’s professional experience in audiology at the leading practices in New York City combined with her background in dance and love for music made her a perfect fit as part of the team at Musicians Hearing Solutions™.  Elvera’s background includes extensive audiological evaluations, hearing conservation, tinnitus treatment and rehabilitation.  

Elvera received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Sciences and Disorders from City University of Brooklyn College, where she graduated magna cum laude and was elected into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She went on to complete her Doctorate of Audiology through the City University of New York Graduate Center and co-authored a study titled “College Music Faculty Views about Hearing Protection and Hearing Conservation Training”.

Dr. Bader is a licensed Audiologist and Hearing Instrument Dispenser in the state of New York and is a fellow of the American Academy of Audiology. She is also a licensed Audiologist in the state of New Jersey.

Netherlands- SoundGirls and Klang Present 3D In Ear Monitoring

 

 

SoundGirls invites you to experience 3D In-Ear Monitoring to its full extent: Klang will be presenting their 3D In Ear Monitoring system and products. Please bring your IEMs as we will have a live act to demonstrate the 3D In-Ear Monitoring. In addition Monitor Engineers, Marcel van Limbeek (Tori Amos) and Bennie Veenstra (Within Temptation) will also be there to talk about in-ear monitoring and share their secrets and Tjidde Custom in-ears will be on-site.

KLANG:fabrik, takes the incoming audio signals and places them 360° in the virtual acoustic room. It then sends an individual mix to the headphone amps and radio transmitters of up to 16 musicians.The almost invisible motion tracker measures every head movement of each musician to constantly update the mix in real-time. 3D In-Ear Monitoring would work without motion tracking as well, but you’d miss the fast adaptation of your mix to the things you see on stage. Finally you need total control over your In-Ear mixes. You can install the KLANG:app on any mobile device or computer and connect it to KLANG:fabrik via WiFi or LAN. The engineer can control all mixes with one app, or every musician can control his or her own mix with their own devices.

 

Los Angeles – SoundGirls – Allen & Heath – Rat Sound Systems Presents dLive Training

We invite you to attend our training event on the dLive digital mixing system from Allen & Heath. The design goal for dLive was to create the ultimate mixing system, with plenty of processing and flexibility to handle the most demanding live scenarios.

The day is built around an immersive combination of presentation and hands-on training designed to showcase the dLive’s power and flexibility across multiple applications.

We will be hosting two days of training, each day features two sessions –

Training is free but space is limited. You must register for each session you wish to attend.

 

What’s Wrong with Being Special?

Recently, I was conducting a back-of-house tour for someone when they asked, “What is your favorite part of the building, and what is your least favorite?” I have been asked that question over and over again, but suspect it is one of those questions people don’t actually care to hear the true answer to, so I moved forward with my cushy standard response. I had this glossed-over answer prepared because to answer properly would require a lot of reflection on where and what things went right, and how other things went wrong.

Mostly, I think this question gets asked to fill time while moving from space to space. But this time I got called out on my somewhat polished standard response and this person pushed to know the real answer. I took a minute to craft my response then I answered: The most difficult part of this building project has been watching things go wrong and not being able to use my skill set to address the issues before they became something we have to live with every day. To my surprise, the person responded with “Well, we all can’t be special. People think they have the right answer to everything.”

I understand what they were saying. They were commenting on an ideology that seems prevalent lately – that people think they are always right or believe that only they can do it right – which was not the intention of my answer. I understand that there is a stereotype that Millennials, a generation I belong to, feel they are somehow special, but I see a different meaning in my answer. Isn’t the point of hiring a diverse team to work together, solve problems, and rely on one another to complete a directive? Don’t we use this diverseness to help people learn from the experts among the group and to fill in for the weaknesses of others? Isn’t the point of interviewing to hire someone who seems to fit within the team? Of course, the candidate or employee needs to meet the job requirements and be able to do the tasks assigned, but a hiring manager can get that information from their CV. The interview process is about gaining insight into their personality and the skills that will contribute to (or hinder) the team the organization already has, and understanding how their attitude and drive will contribute to accomplishing the end goal.

In this job, our goals are to work with new equipment, create the best sound, get an impressive mix, set the best EQ, and more. We can’t achieve these goals by ourselves – we aren’t that special. But, as warehouse managers, we look for a team that supports the organization’s desire for equipment rentals or tour packs; as tour managers, we look for effective sound engineers, stage-hands, and RF technicians who can problem-solve their way through the touring minefield. Each trained in their specialty, with their own strengths and weaknesses. The audio field requires so many specialties; we have guitar techs, stage techs, tour managers, monitor engineers, safety coordinators, and more, just for one traveling show. Knowing this, why wouldn’t an organization make the most of the specialist team it hired by capitalizing on team members’ individual strengths? Doing so enables an organization to gain information, achieve tasks faster, grow as an operation, tackle new challenges, increase revenue and productivity, and further its mission and purpose.

So, my point is, shouldn’t everyone on staff be special to their organization? Shouldn’t there be the opportunity to share knowledge to help the organization achieve its goals? As an employee, don’t you want your strengths to be recognized and used for progress? As a manager, don’t you want a team that can support the project or department that you’re leading? In other words, I want to work somewhere where I am viewed as special – and so are those around me – because our specialties are how, together, we’re going to get the job done.

How to Bid on a Project

One of the hardest parts of being freelance is knowing how to bid on a project. You want to be competitive but you don’t know who the competition is. If it’s a client you haven’t worked with before, you may have no idea what their expectations or budget are. “Small” budget for one gig could be $100 and for another, it’s $10,000. On top of it, bidding can be a game of poker where no one wants to be the first to throw out a number.

To give a good bid, you first have to understand who, what, when, where, why, and how. Some people will request a bid and give little or no information but it’s hard to give an accurate bid without knowing those details.

Approaching a bid

Here are some tips when approaching a bid. Never throw out a number or commit to any work without first having a conversation about it (whether it’s by phone or in-person). The main reason is to make sure what they’re asking for covers everything they need. At least half of the people who ask me for a quote need something different or additional from what they say (for example, a film mix may also need editorial or sound design).

Talking to someone also gives you a sense of how professional the project is and the temperament of the people you would be working with. I once had a singer inquire about a music mix and when we talked I learned she had no recordings, couldn’t play any instruments, no band-mates, and had no songs written (I passed on the gig). Sometimes you see red flags that someone is going to be really picky or difficult to work with which could mean extra hours that need to be factored into your costs (assuming you don’t pass on it – which is ok to do).

I always ask for materials to check out before giving a bid for a few reasons. One is to get a sense of sound quality, technical issues, organization, etc. Every project has unplanned time-suckers – tasks that take longer than you budgeted for (or didn’t budget at all). The more you can do to identify those time suckers beforehand the more accurate your bid will be.

Another reason for looking at materials is to evaluate content. Sometimes a project turns you off and you can afford to say no (like a boring movie or a band who’s music you don’t like). Sometimes there’s more to it – Years ago I bid on a film after only seeing the trailer. They told me it was a mystery/thriller but it was more like a horror film with a lot of graphic violence against women (two types of content I don’t like to work on). They were happy with my bid and willing to work around my schedule so it was awkward to back out.

If it’s a music mix, ask for a rough mix or for a sample session (which will give you a good idea of how many tracks/overdubs and organization). If it’s someone who needs a recording, ask for a demo or temp mix. For film, I ask for a rough cut (a video I can download or watch online) and maybe an output of a few minutes of the AAF/OMF to gauge how much time it’ll take to organize (more on that here)

The basic details to find out before giving a bid

Managing expectations

Part of this conversation is managing expectations. If a band expects a full album recording, overdubs, and mix in a weekend for $500 it’s a joke. If they’re willing to book a multi-room studio and crew, put up the cash to work around the clock, and accept it’s not going to be perfect, it’s a legitimate (but challenging) gig. It helps build trust if the client understands the limitations (what’s technically possible, the resources needed, and what you’re able to do or not do). It’s best, to be honest and only promise what you can actually deliver. If they are convinced they can find someone to do the impossible, then good luck to them!

Writing a bid

To write the bid, you’ll want to break down each element of the project and the time/resources necessary to do the job. I send some options based on the quality they are looking for. A low-budget “get ‘er done” job may cover the basics. Medium budget will be a solid job – taking a more in-depth look at everything and including some extras (if time/budget permits). High is going all out – spend as much time/money as it takes (within reason) to do an awesome job. You should have an idea already of what budget range they are in and what extras they might want from talking.

It’s a lot easier to estimate if you’ve kept track of these hours on past projects (if you don’t track hours, it’s a good reason to start!) For example, a 90-minute comedy film with a month deadline, a 5.1 mix (intended for theater), standard deliverables, and a moderate “indie film” budget the breakdown might be:

A recording/music mix of a band would have tasks like recording, studio time, overdubs, comping, tuning, editing, mixing, mastering.

I apply a day rate to each task (plus studio time) and tally up the total (keeping the optional items as separate add-ons). The exact numbers/dates are for my own reference and I usually send a condensed breakdown for the actual bid. I also like to pad hours a little bit in the bid because that helps cover unforeseen issues/changes without having to say “we’re going to be over budget” (unless it’s something major or time-consuming). Some people bid using a day rate but don’t mention that a day is calculated at 9 or 10 hours.

Once a bid is accepted it can be a legally binding contract so it’s important it’s accurate and includes details like when the work has to be done when you expect payment, what is included or not included. If you’re working on a project that might have updates/revisions (like a film or music mix) it’s important to clearly state what is included and what isn’t. For example, it’s common for indie filmmakers to make picture changes or ask for mix tweaks if their film gets into a festival or lands a distribution deal. This could happen as long as a year after finishing the film. I generally don’t include this work as part of the bid – I’ll have something written in the bid like “any conforms or audio changes after the final mix is delivered (or xx date) are considered a new version of the project and not included under this contract” or “any future changes after the mix is delivered will be billed at an hourly rate of xx”. It’s important to set limits so everyone knows what you’re going to do (or not do).

But, if the fixes they need later are minor (only take a couple of hours) I might comp the time (especially if I didn’t need all the buffer hours). Sometimes offering a small service for free can really benefit the relationship, which can bring in future projects and work.

Following up after sending a bid

Once I send a bid, I like to follow up with the client and feel out what they think of it. Is it in line with what they were expecting or do you sense sticker shock? If we’re in two totally different places and it’s a project I’m really interested in, I’ll be honest that I want to work on it and suggest ways to accommodate. Some ideas:

Bids become easier the more you do them. Sometimes you’ll land the gig and other times you’ll never hear from the client again. It’s not personal and maybe there’s nothing wrong with your bid – it might be that you’re not the right fit for the project. All of it is experience which makes it easier to do next time.

Practically Perfect

Recently for a RADA show that I was sound designing, it seemed that there was scope to make a practical radio. Practicals are some of the best fun in theatre without the audience knowing that there are little bits of trickery happening.

The show was Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris in RADA’s GBS Theatre, in-the-round, directed by Michael Fentiman and designed by James Turner. The story is told in two halves; the first Act being set in 1959 in a suburban Chicago house, and we are introduced to a married couple. As the Act goes on we learn that their son died, and that the remaining parents are moving to escape neighbourhood gossip; what follows is a heated discussion as to who should be allowed to move into the house after they’ve gone. Introducing Act 2, we have moved on 50 years and are now in 2009 in the same house. A group of people from the neighbourhood are discussing what should become of the house, and who exactly should move into it (which echoes Act 1). More arguments ensue and the play ends on a flashback to 1959, with a conversation between the deceased son and his mother. It’s a politically charged play full of dark humour and uncomfortable truths.

Here is the end product:

Clybourne Park 2016 – GBS Theatre, RADA)

 

I found that 1950’s-era replica in Deptford Market for a tenner, and it’s the best practical I’ve ever made (and I must confess that it functioned as a real radio before I destroyed the inside of it). I’d decided to go ahead and make the practical myself, by way of a challenge in between attending rehearsals and dealing with paperwork.

So I bring the radio back to the sound workshop, and I’ve ordered a mini-amp online that will sit inside the radio, along with an IEM, and I’d been hoping to hook it up to the speaker that came with the radio itself. Quite happily, my mini-amp arrived that same day so I can get started straight away.

One problem, however.

Now I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly didn’t expect that the amp would come in pieces and I’d have to solder it all myself.

So now I had to solder this thing having never really paid attention to circuit boards before. I dug out some instructions (all 2 pages of them) off the company’s website and set to work.

That said, this is probably the most common way to create a practical in theatre with the basic workflow as such: Qlab – Sound Desk – IEM Transmitter – IEM Receiver – Mini-Amp – Speaker

Most mini-speakers will simply be attached to the IEM because they’ll be self-powered, however, my system just so happened to need an amp because it was just the cone that sits inside the radio. Below is my system diagram for the show, so that we can see where the practical will sit in the larger scale of things (relevant signal flow is highlighted).

System diagram for Clybourne Park

Practical radios are almost two a penny in theatre amongst other fan favourites such as doorbells, telephones, intercoms, etc., all of which would have their own tried-and-tested ways of being produced.

For instance, we’ve had a couple of shows that require practical mobile phones, and for this we use an app called StageCaller that works over Midi/OSC – you’ll need an iPhone to do this and Dropbox, and for the best results, a stable WiFi connection that is used solely for the practical phone.

To get the sounds onto the StageCaller app you’ll need to download them from Dropbox and upload them in the app – all you’re doing in Qlab is sending OSC commands – all of the audio lives in the app. So from here you can trigger the sounds via OSC from your Qlab file (with relevant IP addresses) and in the most recent version, the app allows you to set up ‘heartbeat’ pings so that it doesn’t become completely inactive and triggers precisely when you want it to. There are various other little tricks that you can set up, too, including the sound cutting out as the character lifts the phone to their ear, or no sound at all and just a text vibrate.

You can find out more about the functionality of StageCaller on the Figure 53 website

 

The amp inside the radio hooked up to the internal speaker – IEM not pictured

Back to the radio, I powered through and soldered the entire circuit board and tested it by plugging my phone into the mini-amp via a mini jack-mini jack cable, and hooking up 2 other speakers (L/R) that also came free with the kit from the online shop. Miraculously – it worked!

So now I had a working system, and all I had left to do was to find a way to attach all of this inside the radio (lots of glue and velcro was involved here – not my finest prop-making) and plug up my IEM – for this I was using a Shure PSM300 System – and have a go at sending audio to it via Qlab.

It worked like a dream and was the most stable practical that I’ve used – of course, I had a backup in place just in case something went wrong with it, which is also quite common practice. The backup was simply an assigned key on my sound desk (a Yamaha 01V96i) which my operators could press, and the audio being sent to the radio would be internally reassigned to a JBL Control 1 speaker rigged above the stage, which would hopefully not interrupt the action! (As it was, the ops never had to use the backup, but it’s very good practice to have something in place anyway). My Operators, who took turns opping the show every day, then had the task of looking after the practical radio and changing the batteries before every show.

Practicals to me are little bits of fun that we can add in to a show to represent something that otherwise, a good few years ago, would have ended up being played from the nearest speaker, or being mimed. We’re quite fortunate that we now have such wide ranges of technology to play with, and again little tricks up our sleeves to truly create our own version of reality.

*all production photo credits belong to Linda Carter for RADA

Norway – Sound Check with Sound Engineer Sune Snellman Jakobsen

Sound Check with Sound Engineer Sune Snellman Jakobsen

Sound Engineer Sune Snellman has invited us to shadow him doing soundcheck for ‘Trentemøller’ at the ‘Rockefeller’ venue in Oslo. Q&A afterwards. There may be a chance to view John Dee and Sentrum Scene venues housed in the same complex. 

There are only six spaces available – Please register here

 

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