“Mixing a club tour tends to be your first step as an engineer. It’s hard knocks, different gear, various spaces, nothing is ever the same. A lot of club gear it is broken, blown and bad, but that’s where I learned the most about phase reversal and troubleshooting. Clubs tours can accelerate one’s understanding of gear, rooms, stage volume and band dynamics, and how they correlate. Invaluable.”
As a new monitor engineer, it can feel intimidating when the band turns up in front of you for the first time. Here’s a bunch of people who probably all know each other, who might be considerably older than you, and who all seem super-chilled and confident. And here’s you, about to play a major part in how they experience their gig, probably not knowing any of them and maybe feeling a little nervous.
As a full-time sound engineer, she is involved in making people feel the emotion in the music the way that she does, albeit a little differently. Whether it’s pushing up the fader for a particularly awesome guitar solo or dialing in the perfect vocal effect for a more intimate song, it’s hugely rewarding to watch people experience the music instead of just listening to it, and know that she has had a part to play in that.
By: Grace Royse
There’s a new face in the touring world, a west coast favorite now making her way across America. And the best part, I got to tour with her first!
In my position, I spend a majority of my time teaching new students how to run the equipment we own. All the artists know they are coming to a college where learning occurs, and a majority of the audience members know this too. We constantly hear from artists that we have better equipment and are more prepared than the last school they were at, and I pride myself on that achievement. My expectations for a show are no less than what professional production person would produce.