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A Little Dab’ll Do Ya… Bringing a Corporate Mindset to the Music World

Despite the fact that we are in a creative business, I have found that a little dash of “corporate” goes a long way.

My mother is an MBA, and a wiz in the corporate world. While I was growing up, she would come home from one networking event or another and would tell me about the discussion topic of the night, who she met, etc. When I was older, she took me along with her to a couple of these events. It is from these experiences that I picked up a few techniques that have served me surprisingly well as a youngin’ coming up in this industry.

The first of which is the use of LinkedIn. You’d be surprised how useful this social media platform has been! It’s fairly simple: you create a profile, post some pictures, fill in your resume, and voila! LinkedIn profile. A lot of the older industry corporate bigwigs are on this platform (which you can find by searching the company they work for), and you now have immediate access to them. Start looking for groups and conversations that they’re creating or commenting on, and start participating in the discussions. The more you talk, the more views your profile will receive, and the more connections you will gain. I myself have connected and chatted with studio owners and assistants, other musicians, and radio DJs. Also found on the site are interesting and fascinating articles regarding the state of various aspects of the music industry, from the SoundCloud changes to the debate on whether record labels are still relevant. Lots of interesting perspectives, and a wealth of knowledge and connections, all at your fingertips.

Secondly, prepare for and learn how to network, and always be in “networking mode.” I always keep a stock of business cards on hand, whether it’s in my wallet, a cardholder, or just my pocket. You never know who you’re going to meet in your day-to-day life! As soon as you do exchange cards with someone, keep in mind that this whole industry is based on connection, so be sure to follow up with them via either email or phone as soon as possible. And definitely FOLLOW UP! It’s a rare thing for people to keep in contact, let alone show up, and just the initiative of sending off that little thank you note for meeting with you says wonders.

The bottom line is this: CONNECTION. Keep meeting with, and talking to, as many people as you can, and build relationships. Every time you meet with someone, don’t necessarily expect to come out of it with a new job or opportunity. Hope to come out of it with a new friendship, mentorship, or connection. Ask them about their life, their career moves, what benefitted them, what didn’t, etc. People love to talk about themselves, and 9 times out of 10 they’ll be happy to answer and help you out.

If you’d like to go more in-depth in your reading about networking tips, I have found this article to be extremely helpful: 20 Tips on Networking in Music Industry  

 

 

SoundGirls Invited to Feinstein’s/54 Below

download-28Feinstein’s/54 Below, Broadway’s Supper Club, offers an unforgettable New York nightlife experience, combining performances by Broadway’s best with world class dining in an elegant setting.  Steps from Times Square, the club is known as Broadway’s Living Room, a home away from home for Broadway professionals and audiences alike.

Amanda Raymond has invited SoundGirls.Org members visit and tour Feinstein’s/54 Below on the following dates.

If you are interested please RSVP to soundgirls@soundgirls.org with the following information:

Name

Contact -Email

Phone

Date Requested

Second Date Requested

Space is limited.

Dates/Schedule: (Folks can come for the whole day if they want, or any parts and pieces they would be interested in.)

10/4/16:  

3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

7pm – Show 1

 

10/6/16:   

2:30pm – 4pm – Sound Check Show 2

4pm – 5:30pm – Sound Check Show 1

7pm – Show 1

9:30pm – Show 2

11:30pm – Show 3

10/10/16:

3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

7pm – Show 1

 

10/11/16:

1pm – 3pm – Sound Check Show 2

3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

7pm – Show 1

9:30pm – Show 2

 

10/12/16:

1pm – 3pm – Sound Check Show 2

3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

7pm – Show 1

9:30pm – Show 2

 

10/14/16:

11am – 1pm – Sound Check Show 3

               1pm – 3pm – Sound Check Show 2

               3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

               11:30pm – Show 3

 

10/17/16:  2pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1 & 2

                7pm – Show 1

                9:30pm – Show 2

 

10/20/16: 2pm – 4pm – Sound Check Show 2

               4pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

 

10/21/16: 11am – 1pm – Sound Check Show 3

               1pm – 3pm – Sound Check Show 2

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

               11:30pm – Show 3

 

10/25/16: 1pm – 3pm – Sound Check Show 2

               3pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

 

10/28/16: 12pm – 2pm – Sound Check Show 3

               2pm – 4pm – Sound Check Show 2

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

               11:30pm – Show 3

 

10/29/16: 2pm – 4pm – Sound Check Show 2

               4pm – 5pm – Sound Check Show 1

               7pm – Show 1

               9:30pm – Show 2

 

 

In Search of the Perfect Whoosh: 5 Great Sound Effects Resources

As a sound designer, my sound effects library is one of my most significant resources. It is slightly insane how much time I devote to finding the perfect whoosh, drone, hit or random squishy sound for my sound design work. I can demo hundreds of versions of the same type of sound for hours, looking for one that’s got just a bit more HF or is half a second longer or is a touch more organic than electronic.

I’ve built up my sound effects library with love and care over the years and like most designers, I have my favourite places to find new sounds. Here’s a few:

Pro Sound Effects 

There are two reasons I love ProSoundEffects. One, the single-downloads library is comprehensive, well-organised and the sounds are high-quality. Two, the PSE Hybrid Sound Effects Library is one of the best investments I have ever made as a sound designer and my starting point for creation or inspiration for almost every project. The number of sounds is staggering (tens of thousands), the audio quality is excellent, and it has a good range of more specific sounds not included in a lot of other libraries, underwater, subwoofer, and surround recordings in particular. The Hybrid Library isn’t cheap but you can get a significant discount through the Freelancer Program.

Sonniss 

Sonniss is a great place to find more creative sound effects. I mainly use it to source sound design elements like hits, tones and rises and for interesting atmospheric ambiences and textures for gaming demos. You have to purchase sounds by collection, which can be a little annoying if you’re only after one or two files, but the prices are reasonable, and they do regular sales and giveaways.

A Sound Effect 

A Sound Effect offers libraries from independent sound designers, which means their content is always pretty unique, even if it’s not as comprehensive as some of the other larger websites. It’s also great as a central resource for content that’s otherwise scattered across individual websites. Keep an eye on their social media feeds for sales and free stuff, in particular, the free downloads, which are great for discovering new designers and libraries that you can then explore in more detail.

Freesound 

Freesound is a hidden treasure trove of audio recordings and created sounds. Free to join, it describes itself as a “collaborative database” and as such, although the amount of content is vast, the quality is vastly variable. I use Freesound to find the everyday and the exotic, particularly location recordings of various countries. I’ve found great recordings of medieval battles, Antarctic penguin colonies, Japanese markets and African villages all on Freesound. All sounds are available under a Creative Commons License, so be mindful of this when using the sounds and always attribute as required.

Foley It Up!kirsty-gillmore-aug-2016-pic3

When you can’t find what you’re looking for, record it yourself! It’s fun, free (once you have the kit) and you’re adding to your own FX library. Some of my favourite sounds are ones I created myself and after hours of robotically demo-ing hundreds of sounds, you’ll probably be glad of the fresh air, or at least the blood flowing back into your legs. I created the sound of a girl drowned in a bath with me, my partner, our bathroom, a Zoom H4 out of splash range and well-rehearsed safety signals. Who says sound design isn’t edgy?

There’s a great list of suggestions to get your Foley juices flowing here 

There are tons of sound effects libraries out there, and I’m sure you have your own favourites to add to this list. Once you start building up a collection, the next step is organisation. It’s not as exciting as the sounds themselves, but just as important if you want to avoid hours of trawling to find a precise sound in your database. Expect a future blog post about my journey into audio asset management, but until then, happy whooshing.

 

SoundGirls Workshops – Rat Sound Systems

Soundgirls.Org Workshops – Dec. 2016 and Jan. 2017

All Seminars are held at

Rat Sound Systems

486 Constitution Ave

Camarillo, CA 93012

Seminars taught by Ivan Ortiz

10 am to 2 pm

Cost per seminar $40

20% discount for two or more seminars

Financial Assistance Available

Dec. 10 – Workshop on Best Practice for Throw and Go FOH and MONs

Seminar will cover:

Venue Limitations (Stage dims, proximity effect, House gear)

Priority in dialing a mix

Foldback mixing

Microphone selection and placement

File Storage

Digital console file management

What size USB, Virus protection

Festival file management for guest engineers (output patching, global, scenes, etc.)

Overview on different consoles – Hands on

Digico

Midas

Avid

Soundcraft

 

Dec. 17 – Power / Networking – Workshop on Best Practice for Power

Seminar will cover:

3 phase power vs. single phase

Clean power source

Isolating transformers

Battery backups

What you must know

Multi-meter

Dynamic Load

Generator power

Load Balancing

Networking

TCP/IP and the dot whatevers

Audio via Cat5 (Dante, AVB, etc.)

 

Jan 18th – What skills You Must Have

Seminar will include:

Listening/Mixing

Technical

Bring your many hats

People Skills

Communication

Know your place in a production

Working with Stage Crew

What are Sound Companies looking for in a technician

Qualities

Knowledge

Personality

 

Jan 14 – Understanding RF

Seminar will include

Transmission

Antennae

Cables and Impedance

FCC regulations

Active / Passive / Helical

Best Practice

Ideal and not so ideal scenarios

What not to do

Having a plan of action

Coordination

US Major cities

Tools / Software

Reality check

Limited Spectrum

 

Registration – Space is limited

If you would like to register for these seminars – please email soundgirls@soundgirls.org with the following info.  We will send you an invoice to pay for the seminars. You will not be registered until payment is made. We will send you confirmation of registration.

Please include

Name:

 

Phone:

 

Email:

 

Seminars you would like to register for:

Dec. 10 – Workshop on Best Practice for Throw and Go FOH and MONs

Dec. 17 – Power / Networking – Workshop on Best Practice for Power

Jan 18 – What skills You Must Have

Jan 14 – Understanding RF

All seminars are $40, there is a 20% discount if you register for two or more seminars.

Financial Aid is available.

 

Good Foundations Part Two

Last month we looked at preparing for a monitor gig – all the planning that happens long before we make noise. This month we’ll look at how to run the initial soundcheck and dial the band’s mixes up in an efficient and stress-free style! Good Foundations Part One.

You may have heard the old adage about monitors being 50% technology, 50% psychology. Well, there’s a lot of truth in that, although I’d probably go with thirds each of technology, psychology and good organisation!

So let’s say we’re now in the rehearsal studio or setting up for soundcheck. Everything is neatly labeled and patched in – organisation – and it’s time to get busy with the technology.

My first task is always the RF, and the first part I address is the setting on each unit. I make sure all the sensitivities, hi-pass filters, volume boosts, limiters etc are set to where I want them, then I turn to the RF itself (I highly recommend getting a hand-held scanner). I make sure the frequencies are both clean (no outside interference) and intermodulation-free (not interfering with each other). Once tuned to the chosen frequencies, the easiest way to check this is to have all the transmitters switched on (including mics and guitar packs), then switch off one transmitter at a time and see if the relevant receiver goes ‘quiet’ (displays no RF). If that’s the case, happy days; if not then there’s work to do, which I’ll address in greater detail next month.

When that’s all clear, I send pink noise to each IEM in turn and listen to the packs – left then right so I know they’re patched correctly. I walk the performance space and listen to each pack, to check that there are no drop-outs. Then I follow the same pink noise process with any hardwired packs on stage (again, check any filter switches are where you want them), and then the wedges, including my PFL.

Now I know that my outputs are good, I turn to the vocals. I set the gains, then dial them into the relevant IEM packs along with a touch of reverb.

Then it’s time to EQ the wedges. Using the main vocal mic, I first reduce any frequencies that just don’t sound good; then I see how far I can push my send before feedback, and pull out anything troublesome on the output EQ. I copy that EQ to all the wedges as my baseline. For the wedges with a vocal mic in front of them, I like to have a good 6dB of spare headroom on my send so that I have someplace to go, and I’ll often make that change on the mic input EQ.

If you have a singer who uses both IEMs and wedges (I don’t encourage it, but sometimes people are set in their ways), then it’s a great idea to split the vocal mic across 2 channels – one for the IEM, one for the wedges – so you can have different EQs.

The final stage of tech-checks is the inputs – it’s time to get the backline techs and FOH engineer involved for a line check. Good communication speeds this up – make sure you and FOH can hear each other, and if you’re in a big space then put both your shout mics through the wedges, or give the techs an IEM pack each so they can hear you too.

Finally, you’re ready for the band – and the psychology! A common mistake amongst new engineers is to have the band all pile in and play at once. This is a bad move because you won’t have time to set your gains and dial mixes in before they all start telling you what they can’t hear! One at a time is the golden rule. Have the drummer hit each drum individually – around 30 secs per drum should be sufficient to gain it and set a rough EQ – you can fine-tune later. When you’re fairly happy with each drum, bring that up in the drummer’s mix and move on to the next. Then have them play sometime, so they can tell you what they need more or less of.

Next up is bass. Set the gain and then have bass and drums play together. When the rhythm section is happy, I dial a rough drum and bass mix, minus overheads, into the other IEM packs (but I don’t do this if the band are on wedges, because they’ll get a lot of what they need acoustically).

Then I have guitars, keys, and any remaining musicians play one at a time, set each gain and bring them up in their own mix. Now they can each hear themself and the rhythm section.

Next, I ask them all to play together (no hard drive tracks at this stage, just a jam) and dial whatever else they need to hear for their ‘starting point’ mixes.

I then add hard drives if they’re being used, and finally, I hear the vocals.

It’s time to run a song and see how it’s all sitting. You’ll still need to tweak as you go along, but this process gets you to a really good place with the minimum of fuss.

Newer bands, in particular, will sometimes do two things which you, as the monitor engineer, should take charge of. Firstly, they often get excited and all want to play at once when they get behind their instruments. Make sure they can hear you, explain that you’ll build their mixes methodically and ask them to play one at a time. Secondly, they’ll start apologising every time they ask for a change (although this may be because I’m English and we apologise for everything!) You need to offer reassurance that you are there for them, so they can ask for what they need without worrying about it.

There are different ways of working, and you’ll develop your own over time, but this is a process that has never let me down. It leads to a happy band. And a happy band equals a happy monitor engineer!

After all, our purpose is to give the band the best audio environment possible, so they can get on with their job – giving the audience a truly kick-ass performance!

Training Your Ears

If you’ve been in this business for more than a week, you know how important training your ears can be. Training keeps your senses sharp and out of any ruts. Our hearing is very sensitive and in addition to protecting it, you need to keep it in shape.

Focus

An important ability for sound mixers of all kinds is the ability to focus your hearing onto individual sounds within a larger mix. This allows you to do a sort of zoom-in, analyze, and zoom back out, and analyze again. Another way to think about this is selecting “solo” on your console, without all the show-stopping awkwardness of actually solo-ing the channel in the middle of an event. It takes some practice but once you get it down, you should exercise it frequently. Your goal is to be able to focus in on something to make slight adjustments and then re-add them into the mix to finish making adjustments. This assures that you’re able to find issues deep in the mix, while still mixing the entire image. Another metaphor for this would be a magnifying glass to a painting; the smaller details matter, but we mustn’t forget the larger picture. Being able to focus your hearing will also let you hear whether not every instrument is audible. One of my top 3 mixing must-have’s is being able to hear every single instrument. A good training for this would be to listen to some of your favorite songs to try and find the quietest instrumental part. Focus on that and be sure you are able to recognize what rhythm they are performing to truly know that you have focused in on them. When you start to get comfortable, try going in and out of that instrument as quickly as you can.

EQ

Knowing your frequency ranges, and where common instruments fall on it, is a necessity. You should always know where to start when something going through your board needs to be EQed. You should also be able to identify at least the octave an issue is occurring in and the octave on either side. This gives you a 3 octave variance to find an issue. That’s significantly smaller than the entire spectrum. Then you don’t have to try to wildly sweep around and attack the problem. This can expedite the sound check process, as well as the process we as engineers go through in the heat of an error mid-show.

There are a few different ways you can go about training your ears for EQ

Pick out one of your favorite songs that you won’t mind listening to 300 more times. Import it into your favorite recording software or play it through your desk console. Apply a graphic EQ and set a 10dB or 15dB attenuation starting at 20hz. Bypass the EQ and listen to the song as it normally is, then turn the EQ back on. Listen carefully. Toggle between the bypass of the EQ and see if you can hear the difference. Then double the frequency on the band to go up an octave and do the same thing. Begin to learn what each one sounds like. Try to find identifying characteristics about each octave. Be sure to take frequent breaks to keep your ears fresh. When you don’t rest up, your ears get fatigued and try to enter into homeostasis. If homeostasis occurs, the differences will be skewed and all of the sudden you aren’t hearing any differences at all. If you start to get really good at hearing differences in a 15dB attenuation, make it 5dB, or even increase octaves of frequencies. When that gets boring, I recommend trying a program called Golden Ears. It’s a quality program that can blindly quiz you to really stretch you to the limits. Another great option that I tell my interns to use is SoundGym. It’s a free website that gives some great training on not only EQ, but sound quality, dynamics, and even sound location. It’s going to be tiring and it’s going to take some time, but doesn’t all training?

Recovery

For all those in training, for as hard as you go in practice, there needs to be a recovery period where your body can repair the damage to build muscle. The same thing goes for hearing training. Protect your ears and like I mentioned before, you need to rest. I also recommend not overthinking. If you let your mind get clouded or distracted, you won’t be able to focus, or to train. There are times when I need to stop multitasking, close my eyes, and focus on 1 event, and 1 event only. I should also take a moment to remind all of you reading this that you need to protect your hearing. That rock band does not need to be 120dB. Get some molds for custom ear plugs and protect your most valuable asset. Consider it insurance.

So if you’re brand new to the field, or you’ve had 15 years behind the board, you should really keep your ears as fresh as possible, and as sharp as possible. Come up with brand new training to push yourself. If you care about your career, you’ll want to be great at it as possible. Training breeds greatness. Go, train.

 

Kirsty Gillmore – A Diverse and Rewarding Career

kirsty3Kirsty Gillmore is a London-based sound designer, sound engineer, voice demo producer, and voice actor. She started working as a sound engineer in 2000 in her home country of New Zealand. She has had a diverse career since that start, working across a variety of fields including music, post-production, broadcasting, theatre, opera, and live sound.

Musical since the age of five Kirsty was always part of the choir and orchestras at school. As she grew up, she played around with recording technology using cassette players and her mum’s record player. One of her favourite toys was a Casio PT-1 Synth and Kirsty credit’s this with an endearing love of vintage synths! After secondary school, she applied to study for two degrees in music and arts at the University of Auckland in New Zealand because it seemed like the logical choice. At this time. Kirsty wasn’t aware that studying sound engineering was an option until the second year of her degrees.

While playing viola in an outdoor production of Macbeth she struck up a conversation with the composer about a gig they had both been to and how it could have been improved by changing the mix. It was the first time she had thought about what went into making that music and sound happen, and it grabbed her. It was around this time that Kirsty decided that she didn’t have the talent to make it as a solo musician and the only other career option that seemed to have a clear path for music graduates was teaching. Kirsty was already teaching and didn’t consider this to be a lifelong career at this stage of her life. Being a sound engineer gave her an entirely different career path and a way of using her musical training without being a musician.

After that conversation in the mid-1990s, Kirsty spoke to a lot of sound techs and sound engineers, all had learned on the job by attaching themselves to particular bands. At the time, it was a pretty closed shop, exclusively male, and Kirsty couldn’t see a way in. She started looking into courses when her composer friend suggested a course that a friend of his had done. In the ’90s in New Zealand, there were only two institutions that offered sound engineering courses, so Kirsty applied to the one with the best reputation, the Music and Audio Institution of New Zealand. She almost had to decide on studying stage management and technical theatre, as she had been involved with theatre all the way through university, but the only technical theatre course in the country was brand new and didn’t cover sound. She spent two years training as a sound engineer, mostly in music production and also synthesis, live sound, post-production, radio sound, electronics, and sequencing. In her second year, Kirsty did a placement at a post-production studio and was offered a trainee role, which then led to a freelance position.

Her first job after graduating from the Music and Audio Institution of New Zealand was as a freelance ADR & Dubbing Engineer at Native Audio in Auckland, New Zealand. One of Kirsty’s jobs as a dubbing engineer was for a series of English-speaking children’s programmes that were dubbed into Maori. At the time in New Zealand, there weren’t many opportunities to work in sound and in 2002 Kirsty made the decision to move to London, UK. She threw herself into the local scene and applied for any audio job she could find and surprised herself by getting a job within the first month as an audio archivist at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

For the next eight years, Kirsty built her experience working in various roles at the BBC where she learned about sound for speech-based radio, TV and online.  By 2010 her job had somehow become entirely administrative, and she was pretty unhappy, so when the opportunity for a redundancy came along, Kirsty took it and went back into freelance work.

By the end of 2010, Kirsty had set up her company, Sounds Wilde and spent the next year doing various freelance sound jobs in post-production, live sound and theatre before deciding to focus on theatre, voice acting, and voice production. Currently, Kirsty is looking to expand into sound design for games, which works well alongside voice acting work and directing for voice acting. She is also interested in more composition work.

Kirsty is a big believer and advocate of educating yourself both formally and with ongoing training. Her initial formal training gave her a solid understanding of the basic concepts and a common language for sound, but she finds that since she has been working in sound, she has consolidated these concepts, and it’s allowed her to build and expand her knowledge. Kirsty says there are topics she covered in her formal training which she only now really understands. In the past few years, Kirsty has done short courses on mixing for musicals, radio production and various aspects of theatre sound.

Through the early years of Kirsty’s career, she didn’t have much support, in fact, asking for support was actively discouraged in the jobs she held in the first five or so years of her career. Kirsty found that everyone was just expected to get on with their jobs and learn through mistakes. While Kirsty never had a mentor, (though she would have really loved one) there were people whose work she admired like Nigel Godrich, an English record producer, recording engineer and musician best known for his work with Radiohead, Butch Vig, an American musician and record producer, who is the drummer and co-producer of Garbage and also Sylvia Massy who, at the time was the only female producer, mixer and engineer Kirsty knew of. Massy is recognized for her work on Los Angeles’s alternative metal band Tool. When Kirsty started to specialise in post-production, she found she definitely admired the work and career of Leslie Ann Jones.

In her studio, Kirsty has Focal CMS50s as monitors, (which she loves). Kirsty does all her mixing in the box and in doing it this way – she doesn’t need a console.  Her main go-to mic for voice-overs currently is an AKGC414 and for software, she uses ProTools for most of the recording and mixing she does, Ableton is used for looping and Qlab and Ableton are used for the theatre sound design work. For theatre sound, Kirsty prefers DiGiCo desks (with the theatre sound “T” software) and definitely DPA mics!

kirsty2Kirsty has had her share of discrimination and is a prime example of self-belief and determination to come out the other side. Discussing how she has been accepted in a male-dominated field, Kirsty will tell you she has been discriminated against too many times to count.

Thankfully, the more experienced Kirsty became, the discrimination issues seem to be fewer. She is not sure if the climate is changing or if her body of work speaks for itself but says it’s nice not to have to deal with it as frequently.

Looking at what’s ahead for Kirsty seems pretty exciting. In her studio, Kirsty is looking to invest in more mics. She is interested in what Advanced Audio can offer as alternatives to the Neumann U47 and U87. She is also looking at replacing her soundcard soon and is hoping to trial a Focusrite Claret with Thunderbolt, and the equivalent from Apogee as well.

Hopefully, there will be more international opportunities. After years of working in London Kirsty is looking forward to working at least a few months next year in her home country of New Zealand both as a sound designer and sound design tutor. She would also like to expand into game sound design and develop a composition portfolio, as well as taking on more voice-over directing opportunities.

Kirsty’s message is about being consistent, persistent, and open to opportunities.  She says “It’s great to have your heart set on a particular career in sound but don’t be put off if that doesn’t pan out at first. Once you know the fundamentals of sound, you can apply them to lots of different career paths as long as you’re willing to learn and take the time to meet people and build relationships. Technical skills are obviously imperative, but it’s your people skills that will get you the job. You’ve got to be prepared to hustle and find the opportunities; the jobs won’t come to you. Don’t be afraid to sell yourself, be proud of your achievements and confident in your skills while being open to learning from others”.

By Toni Venditti

 

Preparing for the Start of the School Year – Staff Training

As the start of the school year approaches there are many things that need to happen before the first events take place at UWL. Checking racks and carts to make sure everything is working. Installing fresh projector lamps where needed, and finishing up the last of the cable repairs to name a few. The overall goal is to be prepared for the busy season, which is virtually the entire semester.

Working for the school many of my staff members leave for the summer and won’t touch a soundboard until they are back in the fall. Just like in elementary school with such a long summer break many items are forgotten and time has to be spent relearning the skills and procedures, and then start building on the new ones. In preparation, student employees are asked to come to campus a week early for 40 hours of staff training before classes and events start on opening weekend.

This week is vital to getting the team back into the tech regime as well as setting the tone for the entire season. This is the one and only week for the entire year when the pressure of events are off and time is more flexible to address issues and try new things. I find this week to be one of our most important as it sets the tone for the year as well as gets everyone back up to speed, making the year easier for me. I take full advantage of this week, and carefully pick and choose what we will do, to make the best of our time.

Here are the topics we will be covering and why.

Technology

We spend a lot of time on technology; it’s what we do, and what our clients need the most assistance with. I make sure we always spend time on our primary audio systems as well as the lighting systems. We work toward advancing the existing skills by doing drills and exercises that will push the staff’s limits. Substantial time is spent on any equipment pieces that are new.

This year the technology training is going to complete via solo activities. This is purposely designed due to having a fairly new staff and needing those students to gain independence. Seven different stations designed for each person to refresh and improve their skills. The goal is to get everyone to their next level in time for our new building. The stations this year focus on mixing, LED light, faster setups, house lighting, troubleshooting, and more.

Emergencies

We work through our emergency procedures twice a year, but fall is where we get really in-depth. We combine the 3 teams that are most likely to need to react in an emergency and work together to make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities. We cover medical situations, building safety, fire, inclement weather, and active shooter situations. These students also receive AED/CPR training from a certified instructor as well as basic first aid.

Teamwork

Teamwork is important to me; I think it is vital to be able to work together to create a successful event. We spend time developing how we work together by doing different exercises to see how people react and open dialogue about strengths and weaknesses. I usually ask for someone else within my office to lead this training so an outside perspective can offer advice to increase the team’s cohesiveness. Then throughout training, we build on these activates that expand on teamwork as well as offer some fun and competitiveness.

Communication

stageI’ve talked about the importance of communication before and it will always remain a forefront topic during our training. There is a great deal of communication that takes place in the learning and planning modes. The importance of good communications increases during an event. The emphasis is on different types of communication and how good communication can improve the success of the team. Each year we try to raise the bar on how the team uses communications to work together. An example of this is if the team struggled to work through conflict communication in the last year, we’ll spend time on that. Other topics could include leadership communication, directional communication, or even body language.

Customer Service

Customer Service in production technology is a whole lot different than customer service in say retail or restaurants. The customer isn’t always right and sometimes we just have to say no to some of their desires. Here we work to empower the staff to be able to help as necessary, offer advice for logistics, the best use of the venue and technology. It’s important that we develop the skills to communicate clearly with the customer, and address issues in a friendly manner. We work through how to tell a customer they can’t do something due to safety concerns or time constraints, or equipment possibilities, solving problems in a way that works for all parties involved.

Team planning

staffFinally, we spend time team planning or visioning. Usually, over a meal, we talk about what the team looks like now and what they would like to look like in the future. We talk about what procedures are working and which aren’t. Overall, we come up with a vision for the group that includes improvements through the year that makes the team better by continuing to learn, grow, and change as needed. Vision is important to me. When the team is involved in creating the vision and goals for the year, they will be more engaged in putting forth the effort that is needed to reach those achievements.

To conclude, preparation is important for the start of the year. Training, communication, and planning gives us the foundation to come together as a well-performing team. It’s not a one-time thing; the opportunity to improve and learn is continual. Next year we will be in a new building with hundreds of updates, new demands, and a new outlook on how we work as a unit and a team. While my focus for the moment is on training the staff for this year, my subconscious is already working to anticipate what will need to be done to prepare for the next year, when we move into a new facility. There will be more space, more technology, shifting customer expectations, and more deliverables expected from the team. One thing I feel confident about is that we will continue to work with the core concepts of technology, teamwork, communication, customer service, and team planning.

PS: more on the new building to come soon!

 

Professional Social Media

I like to read a lot of articles via sites like AV Nation, Inc. , Pro Sound Web, Forbes, etc. I read each platform for different reasons. Inspiration, motivation, to learn about new products, business storylines, and all in all to stay in the know. One key factor that is consistent across each of these platforms is the topic of millennials. 10 mistakes millennials need to stop making, what millennials want from the workplace, millennials, and how we use social media trends.

All kinds of titles leaving all generations kind of divided. We have a handful of industry leaders voicing their opinions, “they (millennials) feel entitled to things. They’re lazy.” On another hand, you have a group of industry leaders embracing us millennials and all the different aspects we have to bring to the workspace. They’re willing to teach us what we have yet to learn and guide us through situations we haven’t to fully experienced. Both of these groups are a blessing to all of us millennials. We might not like or agree with the boxes they try to fit us all into. But this group of wise industry leaders keep us sharp and on our toes if you take a minute to listen to what they’re really saying.

How does any of this tell you how to create an awesome portfolio on social media? It doesn’t, not yet anyway. But the point is, I want all of us to reap the benefits of utilizing social media outlets to build awesome portfolios no matter what generation. No matter what age, whether you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, employee. Personal branding online is important in each circumstance and when your passion is reflected throughout your social media properly, it can create one beautiful portfolio and great opportunities to push you forward within your career. On social media not only do you need to remain professional, but you need to showcase your personality across all platforms.

Most millennials love social media and most of our elders are not fans of too many social sites. But in this day in age employers and clients are looking for you online before they even ask you to come in for an interview or to discuss a project. Here are some social platforms we all can utilize to create an awesome portfolio on social media.

Instagram 

Instagram is a great place to showcase your work for one reason that is pretty obvious. You can display visuals. Pictures and videos are one the best ways to show prospective clients and employers the gear you’ve worked with, the types of training you’ve participated in or even the school you’ve attended.  It’s living proof of you working with a particular console or at a specific gig. When utilized correctly, Instagram can be a visual resume of what you can do, how you do it, with a hint of personality to give a little sense of who you are. As a freelancer or entrepreneur, you will possibly have more freedom in posting what you want from the gig. But always be sure to have social media postings cleared in a contract or have final approval from the overall facilitator of the event. Do not overdo the picture-taking. Remember, you’re working so you will have other important things taking place. Find the right time and prioritize accordingly. Maybe before soundcheck, or after the show get a few pictures of the board and some behind-the-scenes footage of the band showing their gratitude toward all your hard work that night. Get creative but do it within the right time frame.

Twitter 

My favorite platform of them all. There is so much you can do with Twitter to showcase your passions and interests. The best thing you can do on Twitter is engaged in a Twitter chat. Twitter chats allow you to connect with like-minded individuals in the industry. It also allows you to become a part of a community where you can share your knowledge, collaborate and learn from others. This will show you know at least minimum information about audio or production. Or it will show that you are beyond proficient in the subject matter. If you don’t give a lot of feedback or information, still participate. Ask questions to show you want to grow, have a strong passion and are willing to learn. Another great way to take advantage of Twitter is to post about your work. Share tips on how you EQ a particular instrument or share a blog post about a console and incorporate a known hashtag to correspond with the post. For example, below I share an article. I tag the company or person it is in relation to. I then use hashtags to connect my post to the community.

You can also use Twitter to post pictures and videos. When you post pictures and videos on Twitter it will create more engagement. This is exactly what you want, you want to be active so people have a reason to follow and connect with you. If you’re not active why would anyone want to follow you? Of course, you must continue to be professional on this platform as well. Don’t tweet about how unorganized a client is or how difficult a band was during a show. Your public timeline is not the place. Your professionalism and personality have to equally shine and reflect you in the same light across every social media outlet.

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is the social platform created for professionals. This is the place where you always want to remain professional no matter what, this is not the place to post too many pictures or add videos. It’s very direct and straight to the point. On your profile you create a resume, make sure you keep your profile up to date, and keep any gaps in your work history to a minimum. After you have created your profile make sure you fill out every section in its entirety. Especially the skills section. This will allow people within your network to endorse your skillset.

For example, as a sound engineer, you would list skills like audio engineer, audio, sound, pro tools, music, etc. Over time as you build your network people will begin to endorse you and vouch for you in your particular skill sets. The skills listed on your profile will also lead you into groups that represent your skillset. There you will meet possible employers and other engineers looking to connect and build genuine relations that can lead to greater opportunities in a community of your peers.

Now, this platform is professional, but you still have to find a way to incorporate a hint of personality. You can do this but publishing articles on LinkedIn. Here you can write about audio and anything else you have a passion for. This way anyone looking at your profile for the first time gets your work history, schooling and a little taste of who you are as a person. You must stay active on LinkedIn so you don’t miss any job opportunities or a chance to connect with influencers and shot callers. LinkedIn is not the place to down-talk your previous employer or talk about any other personal business. Your colleagues within your network will become very annoyed if you do this and it will turn off any future leads.

Website 

This is the place where you bring it all together. Yes, websites can be expensive but there are a lot of ways to get a nice presentation of yourself up and running. Here are a few free sites where you can have a bio, a display of your work history, showcase your mixed content, and have the links to all your social media outlets in one place. Utilizing anyone of these free website developers will give you a specific online address and help people connect with you. There are many more free builders I’m sure, but find which one displays you and your work best and create your online address.

Some of the industry leaders that have paved the way for us say there is no place for social media in the workplace. But there is and it can possibly help advance your career if done in a proper way. Social media can generate clients and a variety of different gigs. Creating more revenue, more experience, and greater opportunities. Social platforms allow us to connect with community more than anything, the SoundGirls platform is living proof of that. If it was not for the SoundGirls Facebook group and website, I wouldn’t have connected with all you awesome people. We wouldn’t be learning from each other and sharing experiences and how to handle situations in the moment. If you are using any of these social platforms to create an awesome portfolio, please share below so we can all follow you and see how you’re building your portfolio.  

 

Alesia Hendley is an AV professional that found her passion at a young age as a sound engineer with her Father’s church. In the early stages of the church’s foundation, they couldn’t afford musicians. By utilizing audio and technology she and her Father found creative ways to go higher both musically and spiritually, taking the congregation with them. Now you can find her operating/installing audiovisual systems or executing creative ventures. As a young professional she’s finding ways to bring AV, creatives, and creative visions together in the effort to leave her mark by making an impact and not just an impression.

 

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