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Beth O’Leary – Baking a Cake on a Moving Tour Bus

Beth O’Leary is a freelance monitor engineer and PA tech based in the U.K. She has been working in the industry for 11 years and is currently working as a stage and PA tech on the Whitney Houston Hologram Tour. She has toured as a system tech with Arcade Fire, J Cole, the Piano Guys, Paul Weller, a tour featuring Roy Orbison as a hologram. She recently filled in as the monitor engineer for Kylie Minogue and just finished a short run for an AV company in Dubai.

Live Sound was not her first career choice, as Beth was originally attending university for zoology. Although she has always been passionate about music. She remembers the first festival she attended “I remember the first festival I went to (Ozzfest 2002 – the only time they came to Ireland), and the subs moving all the air in my lungs with every kick drum beat. I thought that was such a cool thing to be able to control. When I heard about the student crew in Sheffield it made sense to join.: Join she did and it was there she learned “ everything about sound, lights, lasers, and pyro in exchange for working for free and letting my studies suffer because I was having too much fun with them.”

Her studies did not suffer too much as she graduated with a Masters’s in Zoology, but she would go on to work as a stagehand at local venues, eventually taking sound roles at those venues as well as a couple of audio hire companies. Even though she had no formal training, she would attend as many product training courses for sound and few focused on studio works. She says at the time “real-life experience was more important than exam results when I started, I think it’s changing a bit now. But, it’s still essential to supplement your studies with getting out there and getting your hands dirty.”

By her mid-twenties, she wanted to expand her skills and start working for bigger audio companies. After a lot of silence or “join the queue” replies to her emails asking for work experience from various companies, she met some of the people at SSE at a trade show. She would learn that they are really busy over the festival season and said she was welcome to come to gain experience interning in the warehouse. She remembers arranging to intern for three weeks “I put myself up in a hostel and did some long days putting cables away and generally helping out. A week in, they offered me a place as stage tech on some festivals. I’m pretty sure it’s because one of their regulars had just broken his leg and they needed someone fast! I then spent most summers doing festivals for SSE. After a few years I progressed to doing some touring for them. I now also freelance for Capital Sound (which became part of the SSE group soon after I started working with them!) and Eclipse Staging Services in Dubai, amongst others.”

Can you share with us a gig or show or tour you are proud of?  

I baked a cake on a moving tour bus once, I’m very proud of that…

Apart from that, I used to run radio mics for an awards show for a major corporate client. Each presenter was only on stage for a couple of minutes, but the production manager didn’t like the look of lectern mics or handhelds, so everyone had to wear headsets. Of course, we didn’t have the budget or RF spectrum space to give everyone a mic that they could wear all night, we needed to reuse each one three or four times. I put a lot of work into assessing the script and assigning mics in a way that would minimise changes and give the most time between changes. I then ran around all night, sometimes only getting the mics fitted with seconds to go. I always made sure to take the time to talk to the presenters through what I was doing (and warned them about my cold hands!) and make sure they were comfortable. I did the same show for about five years and was proud that the clients, most of whom were the top executives for a very large corporation, were always happy to see me, and asked where I was by name when I couldn’t make it. Knowing that the clients appreciate you is a great feeling.

Can you share a gig that you failed out, and what you learned from it: 

I was doing FoH on a different corporate job, the first (and last) gig for a new company. I had terrible ringing and feedback on the lav mics. It was one of those rooms where it will still ring, even if you take that frequency out wherever you can. I worked on it all through the rehearsal day, staying late and coming in early on the show day, trying to fix it. I did most of the ringing out while the client wasn’t in the room, so as not to disturb them. I asked the other engineers in other rooms for advice, and probably followed my in-house guy’s lead a bit too much. I figured he knew the room the best of anyone, but in hindsight, he wasn’t great. The show happened, and the client was smiling and pleasant, but it definitely could have been better.

Afterward, I got an email from the company saying the client had complained to them about my attitude. I was devastated. I had worked as hard as I could, and I pride myself on always being as polite as possible! I realised too late that from the client’s point of view, they saw an issue that didn’t get fixed for a long time, and they didn’t see most of the work I put in or know what was going on. I learned that it is so important to take a couple of minutes to keep your client in the loop and let them know you’re doing your best to fix the issue, without going overboard with excuses. It can be hard to prioritise when you’re so focused on troubleshooting and you don’t have much time. I still have to work on it sometimes, but it can mean the difference between keeping and losing a gig.

What do you like best about touring?

The sense of achievement when you get into a good flow. So few people realise how much work is involved. For arena shows, we arrive in the morning to a completely empty room, we bring absolutely everything except the seats. We build a show, hopefully, give the audience a great time, then put it all back in trucks and do it all again the next day.

What do you like least?

When the show doesn’t go as well as it could. There’s no second take if something goes wrong that’s it and you can’t go back and change it. It’s quite difficult not to dwell on it. All you can do is make sure it’s better next time.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

I love exploring the cities we’re in. My perfect day off would be a relaxed brunch with good coffee, then a walk around a botanical garden, a bath and an early night. Rock and roll!

What are your long-term goals?

I need variety, so I’d like to stay busy while mixing it up. Touring and festivals, music and corporate shows working with different artists and techs. I’d also like to get to a position where I can recommend promising people more and help them up the ladder.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I think one of the major barriers in the industry is people denying any barriers exist. I was told I needed a thicker skin, to toughen up, everyone has it rough. Then after years of keeping my head down and working hard, I saw how my male colleagues reacted to words or behaviour that didn’t even register as unusual to me anymore. Their indignation at what I saw all the time really underscored how differently they get treated.

Thankfully I have done plenty of jobs with no sexism at all, but it can be frustrating to get told I don’t understand my own life. Just because you don’t see what you consider to be discrimination, doesn’t mean it never happens. It can be particularly disappointing when young women are outspoken about how sexism isn’t a problem, ignoring the groundwork set by the tough women who came before them.

I have also struggled a lot with a lack of self-confidence, which can really put you at a disadvantage when you’re a freelancer. You need to be able to sell yourself and reassure your client they’re in safe hands, so I’m sure the self-deprecation that comes naturally to me has held me back.

How have you dealt with them?

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Whether I misunderstood their intentions or they’re honestly mistaken, or they genuinely don’t want to work with a woman, all I can do is remain professional and courteous and do my job to the best of my ability. A lot of the time we get past it and have a good gig, and if we don’t I know I did all I could. I take people’s denial of sexism as a good sign, in a way. It shows it is becoming less pervasive and I hope the young women who are so adamant it doesn’t happen are never proven wrong.

I’m still working on my self-confidence. I try to remember that the client needs to trust me to relax and have a good gig themselves. I aim to keep a realistic assessment of my skill level. I used to turn jobs down if I wasn’t 100% sure I knew everything about every bit of equipment, for the good of the gig. I then realised that a lot of the time the client wouldn’t find someone better, they’d just find someone more cocksure who was happy to give it a go. Now I’m experienced enough to know whether I can take a job on and make it work even if it means learning some new skills, or whether I should leave it to someone more suitable.

The advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Be specific when looking for help. If you want to tour, please don’t ask people “to go on tour”. Pick a specialism, work at it, get really good, then you might go on tour doing that job. When I see posts online looking for “opportunities in sound”, I ignore them. What area? Live music? Theatre? Studio? Film? Game audio? What country, even? Saying “I don’t mind” will make people switch off. People looking to tour when they don’t even know which department they want to work in makes me think they just want a paid holiday hanging out with a band.

Most jobs in this field are given by word of mouth and personal recommendations. Networking is an essential skill, but it doesn’t have to mean being fake and obsequious. The best way to network is to be genuinely happy to see your colleagues, and interested in them as people. And always remember you’re only as good as your last gig. You never know where each one will lead, so make the effort every time.

People who run hire companies are incredibly busy, and constantly dealing with disorganised clients and/or very disorganised themselves. Don’t be disheartened if they don’t reply when you contact them. Keep trying, or get a friend who already knows them to introduce you so you stand out from the dozens of CVs they get sent every week. Make it easy for employers. You are not a project they want to work on. Training takes time and money. They don’t want to know you’re inexperienced but eager to learn. Show them how you can already do the basic jobs, and have the right attitude to progress on your own.

Must have skills?

Number one is a good work ethic. You can learn everything else as you go along, but if you aren’t motivated to constantly pester employers until they give you a chance, turn up, work hard and help the other techs, all the academic knowledge in the world won’t help you.

Being easy to get on with is also essential. We can spend 24 hours a day with our colleagues, often on little sleep, working to tight schedules and people can get grumpy. Someone who can remember all the Dante IP addresses by heart but is arrogant and rude won’t go as far as someone who can admit they don’t know things, but is willing to ask questions or just Google it, then laugh at themselves later.

Staying calm under pressure, communicating clearly and being able to think logically are all needed for troubleshooting.

Anyone who tells you that having a musical ear is determined at birth is just patting themselves on the back. Listen to music, practise picking certain instruments out and think about how it’s put together. Critical listening can be learned and improved, even if you have to work at it more than some others.

Favorite gear?

Gadget wise, I love my dbBox2. It’s a signal generator and headphone amp in one and produces analog, AES and midi signals so it helps with so many troubleshooting situations and saves so much time.

I use my RF Explorer a lot to get a better idea of the RF throughout a venue and can use it to track down problem areas or equipment.

As far as desks go, I don’t have loyalty to a particular brand. They all have their advantages. I still have a soft spot for the Soundcraft Vi6 because that’s what I used in house for years. DiGiCo seems pretty intuitive to me and has a lot of convenient features. I spent most of the last year using an SSL L500. It sounds fantastic and has a lot of cool stuff to explore.

Parting Words

It can take a long time to break into this industry. I had been doing sound for nine years before I went on a tour, and then didn’t do much touring again for a couple of years after that. You have to be tenacious and patient. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t progressing, or the work environment is toxic, leave. As a freelancer, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on one client anyway. And that’s what they are: clients. When a friend pointed out these people aren’t your bosses, they’re your clients, it really helped me to change my approach. I now rely less on them for support, but I’m also free to prioritise favoured clients over others. Live sound can be rough around the edges, but there’s a difference between joking around and bullying. There’s a difference between paying your dues and stagnating. If you’ve been in a few negative crews it can be easy to believe that everywhere is like that, but it isn’t. Keep looking for the good ones, because they do exist.

The SoundGirls Podcast – Beth O’Leary: Freelancing, blogs, and sexism

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Profiles of Women in Audio

Side Hustles for the No Work Drought

As freelancers, we’ve all experienced dry weeks or months and are often struggling to find work to fill in the gaps.  The wave of the dreaded Coronavirus has only pushed this drought into high gear. Many of us rely on events that include large gatherings of people, or feature people that have traveled from other countries that may have a larger amount of confirmed Coronavirus cases, so when those events are canceled, so are our paychecks.

Over the years I have tested out different side hustles, so I thought I would share the list of things I’ve tried.  There are really millions of weird little side jobs out there, so, no, I did not just Google that for you, I’m giving you a list of only things that I’ve personally tried and liked.

Too Good To Be True

First and foremost, do not bite on any “quick cash” listings.  Remember what your mom always said: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.  Remember how I said I’m only sharing personal experiences? Yeah. This is one of them.  And by “one” I mean an embarrassing number. I’m not going to list the specific listings, because I’m not here to put anyone on blast, but just remember that any job worth doing will take some work to get to the good part.  If it’s easy, it’s sleazy. You have my permission to use that.

Teaching

 The longer you have been working on your craft, the more you can start to call yourself “an expert in your field.”  I don’t say that out of vanity, it’s what I was told when I started teaching without having an education degree. I landed a band director job straight out of college, and when I reminded those that hired me that I did not have an education degree, they said that was ok because I was considered “an expert in my field” and as long as I could pass a test for an emergency teaching credential, I would be good to go.  That test, by the way, is definitely the easiest academic-style test I have ever taken. I easily passed. For me, that teaching job was a full-time job, not so much a side hustle. It did, however, help me land my next teaching job, which only required 20 hours p/w of my time. I got to extend my emergency credential, and this time, I was also serving as the Resident Sound Engineer of a theatre in the same city. Teaching classes those 20 hours per week gave me some financial stability, and really helped keep my own knowledge and education sharp.  That same year, I also taught piano lessons, flute lessons, and voice lessons out of my home. Currently, I am an adjunct professor at a CSU. I teach one class two days per week, and it is just a really great source of steady income.

Teching

I live near a casino, and for the past three years, I have been working as an audio technician in the showroom that brings a new live act 1-2 times per week.  I love it. I love it because I can come and go as needed, so when I’m designing a show for theatre, I don’t stress. I also love working at the casino, because every week I set up a different console, or watch a different FOH engineer, and I always learn so much.  The kind of side hustle that keeps you learning is definitely the best kind.

Online

There are many online job opportunities, but the one that I tried and really liked was rev.com.  This is a transcription service, so being able to type quickly and accurately is key.  Bonus for having great ears, because some of the files you are transcribing are really poor audio quality.  You choose how often you work, but once you’ve chosen a project, you have a time limit in which it needs to be completed.  There are resources that help you out, so if you get stuck on an impossible sentence, you basically just send up a flare, and help is on the way.  As I said, good things don’t come easy, so there is a bit of a ramp-up to this job. You have to pass a typing test, and then you have to take several jobs that will only make you a few dollars each but will also only take 10-15 minutes to type.  Once you’ve earned your keep, you can start choosing jobs that will bring you more like $50-75 and (if you’re pretty decent) should only take 1-2 hours to type. Best of all, no face mask or Clorox wipes needed!

Whatever your side hustle, remember that it should stay on the side, so don’t pick up something that makes you buy a bunch of new equipment or requires a ridiculous amount of time.  Do try to find something that’s fun, keeps you learning, and most importantly, brings the $$$! Cheers and Happy Hustling!

You can find a list of side hustles here   

 

How to Make Tech Easier: Be Prepared

 

In my last blog, I talked about what goes into mixing a Broadway-style musical, and there’s a lot to do. For almost every production you work on, you’ll be expected to mix the show mostly line-by-line with some dynamics and (hopefully) few mistakes from day one. Having a smart layout for your DCAs and a clear script can be the difference between an incredibly stressful or a delightfully smooth tech process.

Once you have the script, first things first: read it. The entire way through. If you don’t have a good idea of what’s going on from the beginning, the rest of the process is going to be guesswork at best. Next, go through the script again, this time with an eye out for where scenes might go; either where a natural scene change happens in the script, or where there are more actors talking than you have faders. (The number of DCAs you’ll have is usually 8 or 12, determined by the console you’re using. DCAs are faders in a programmable bank that can change per scene so you only have the mics you need or can consolidate a group, like a chorus, down to one or two faders.)

There are two common ways of programming DCA’s. The first is a “typewriter” style where you move down the faders in order for each line and if you run out of faders, you take a cue and go back to the first fader, then repeat (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, CUE, 1, 2, 3, etc). This is very useful in larger scenes where characters have shorter one-off lines and you quickly move from one character to the next. The second approach is where each principal actress and actor is assigned to a constant fader (Dorothy is always on 1, Scarecrow on 2, Tin Man on 3, Lion on 4, etc), and will always be on that fader when they have dialogue. In shows where you mostly deal with a handful of reoccurring characters, this is friendlier to your brain as muscle memory brings you back to the same place for the same person each time.

As an example, let’s say we have 8 faders for dialogue and take a look at “The Attack on Rue Plumet” from Les Mis (if you want to listen along, it’s the dialogue from the 2010 Cast album for the 25th Anniversary production):

 

A typewriter approach to mixing would assign DCAs in increasing order each time a new character speaks (first lines are highlighted):

By the time we get to Marius, we’re almost out of faders, and there’s a natural change in the scene when Thenardier’s gang runs off and Valjean enters, so it works to take a cue between those two lines and start over with the DCAs.

But Les Mis is an ensemble show that’s centered around a core group of principals, so assigning characters to designated fader numbers is another option. If we’re mapping out the entire show, we find that Valjean, as the protagonist, ends up on (1), Marius, the main love interest, on (2),  and Cosette and Eponine can alternate on (3) as they interact with Marius most frequently, but usually aren’t in scenes together. Thenardier could go a couple of places: he leads in scenes like “Master of the House” and “Dog Eats Dog,” but in scenes with the other principals, he typically takes a secondary role, so we’ll put him on (4) in this scene. The chorus parts, Montparnasse, Claquesous, Brujon, and Babet (first lines are still highlighted below), are easiest to put in typewriter style after Thenardier since they only appear once or twice in the show, so don’t have a designated fader number.

The mix script for this approach would look like this:

 

Here, Thenardier (4) is still right next to his cronies (5), (6), (7), and (8), but is also right next to Eponine (3) for their bits of back-and-forth. The scene change still ends up after Marius’s line, as it’s a natural place to take it, and Cosette replaces Eponine on (3), getting ready for the next scene “One Day More,” where Marius (2) and Cosette (3) will be singing a duet, with Eponine (4) separated, singing her own part.

With this particular scene, neither approach is perfect, as all the characters have multiple lines (and not in the same order every time), but either one would be a legitimate way to set it up.

Typically, you’ll use a combination of both approaches over the course of a show, with one that you default to for scenes that could go either way, like the example. Personally, I like to use a spreadsheet where I can see the entire show and get an overview of what the mix will look like. This makes it easier to spot patterns or adjust potentially awkward changes in assignments. (The colors for major characters in the examples are just visual aids that I added for this blog.)

For example, here’s a layout that’s mostly typewriter. Characters may stay on the same fader for connected scenes, but overall the assignments go in order of lines in a scene:

 

As another example, there is a core group of four actors that are in almost the entire show and a couple of reoccurring supporting roles, so using a designated fader for those characters works much better. There are times that the pattern breaks for a scene or two to switch to typewriter, but largely everyone stays in the same place:

 

Once you have the DCAs planned out, you can start to format a mixing script. The first example from Les Misérables gives a basic version of that: putting numbers next to lines for the DCA assignments, notes for where cues will go, but you will also eventually add in-band moves, effect levels, and other notes.

Personally, I like the majority of my information to be in the left margin, and if I have enough time I’ll retype the script into my own format so I can mess with it as much as I want. My scripts look like this (I thoroughly enjoy color coding!):

 

Each show might have slight differences, but the broad strokes are always the same: cues are in lavender boxes with a blue border (for cues taken off a cue light, the colors are inverted, so blue box with lavender border), band moves are in purple, vocal verb is green, red are mic notes as well as DCA numbers, and yellow is anything that I need to pay attention to or should check.

Here’s another example and an explanation from Allison Ebling from her script for The Bodyguard tour (she’s currently the Head Audio on the 1st National Tour of Anastasia):

 

“One is the top of show sequence which had to be verbally called and on Qlite due to the fact that it was a bit jarring for audiences. (LOUD gunshots and all the lights went off without warning, our preshow announce was played at the scheduled start and downbeat was 5 [minutes] after.) 

The other is a sequence in the second act where I took one cue with the SM, and the rest were on visual. It also has my favorite Q name ever… ‘Jesus Loves a Gunshot.’

I also like reading my script left to right, so I usually end up reformatting them that way.”

And another example and explanation from Mackenzie Ellis (currently the Head Audio on the 1st National Tour of Dear Evan Hansen):

“Here are some from my DEH tour script [Left], and some from the Something Rotten [Right] first national tour, both of which I am/was the A1 for. Both scripts were adapted from the Broadway versions, created by Jarrett Krauss and Cassy Givens, respectively. 

Notes on my formatting:

 

As you can see, there are different styles and endless ways to customize a mixing script. How you arrange or put notations in your script is purely a personal preference, and will constantly evolve as you continue to work on shows. As a note: not only should you be able to read your script, but to be truly functional, it should be clear enough that an emergency cover can execute a passable show in a pinch.

At this point, you have your script ready and a solid plan for how the show will run. If there’s still time before tech, you can start practicing. Practice boards are becoming more and more popular and are incredibly helpful to work out the choreography of a mix. Casecraft makes one that is modeled after the DiGiCo SD7 fader bank. Scott Kuker (most recently the mixer for Be More Chill on Broadway) made a custom, travel-size board for me a couple of years ago that I absolutely love. It immediately became an integral part of learning the mix for both me and my assistants!

I highly recommend getting one if you’re career plans involve mixing theatrical shows, but if you don’t have one, there’s the tried and true option of setting up coins to push as makeshift faders (pennies tend to be a good size, but some prefer quarters). Whatever method you use, the point is to start getting a sense of muscle memory and timing as you work through the show. It also gives you an opportunity to work through complicated or quick scenes, so you get a feel for the choreography or can even look at adjusting the DCA programming to make it easier.

After prepping a script and getting in some practice, walking up to the console in tech doesn’t seem as daunting. If you’re well prepared, you’re able to keep up and adapt to changes faster. Plus, if you’re self-sufficient at the board, your designers can trust you to mix the show and take more time to focus on their job of getting the system and the show the way they want it, which will help you in the long run.

 

Podcasts – Making Waves

Spring is almost here! With the Earth gradually awakening, I can feel my own mind coming out of its hibernation. I find myself reading more articles, keeping up with current events, and listening to new podcasts.

Speaking of podcasts, the podcast industry has been receiving attention for some time now. I recently had the pleasure of talking with Fela Davis about podcast audio and what it means for the audio industry. Fela has nearly twenty years of experience in the audio engineering industry. Her list of credentials is very impressive. She also produces and hosts a podcast called The Art of Music Tech Podcast with her business partner Denis Orynbekov.

I became aware of the increasing interest in podcast audio after attending the 2019 Audio Engineering Society’s national convention in New York City. I had listened to a few lectures where Fela and a panel of other professionals talked about their experiences. I had many questions and fortunately, Fela was able to answer all of them.

In the past few years, producing a podcast has become increasingly more affordable. Fela mentioned that most students have the bare minimum needed to put together a podcast. Some kind of DAW to record onto, an interface, and a microphone. Even with the accessibility, how does someone make this kind of work profitable? Fela explained that not only does she work on her own podcast, but many others too. Through 23dB Productions audio services, Fela is able to work with clients who need audio and video services. We both agreed, most people have something they want to say and there will at least be one person willing to listen to it. These can be large-scale companies or organizations or smaller groups or single individuals.

Being mobile and having your own equipment is important, but with the surge of companies, organizations, and individuals looking to use this form of media, being open to its opportunities is key. As a woman in the audio industry, what really intrigued me was, it’s kind of brand new. Fela and I both laughed, but it’s true. This is a part of the industry where women and minorities have the opportunity to flourish. There are no jerks named bob hiring their best friend over you. The pressure to prove yourself is significantly lessened.

In the beginning, most individuals will be playing the role of producer, host, engineer, and editor. Drew Stockero, a student at Michigan Technological University, does just that with his podcast If It Matters Podcast. Stockero said the podcast is about, “ordinary people having ordinary conversations about the things they find extraordinary.” He takes the time to curate each episode and interviewee, he is the producer and hosts every episode, all while recording, mixing, and mastering. After chatting for a bit about his workflow, he did admit that fulfilling every role for the podcast is a lot of work. Typically, indie podcasts are much smaller and only run by one or two people. But, as Fela stated, the option to use remote engineers is there once you start gaining clients or attention.

Radio was brought up in both of my interviews. Stockero mentioned podcasts being an extension of talk radio. Growing up, my father would listen to a lot of NPR on long family road trips. With the shift from cable television to streaming services, it is no surprise we are seeing a move from radio to podcasts. It was also mentioned that podcasting is making more money than radio broadcasts. It is undeniable that there has been a boom in revenue for the podcast industry, but all of this did surprise me. I was starting to have more questions than I started with, and definitely more interest.

I received many great words of wisdom when I asked for advice regarding this topic and its industry. You will want to immerse yourself in the business, or your local chamber of commerce. Networking is always important, but also being someone that has a positive personality and is easy to communicate with is just as important. From an artistic standpoint, being passionate about the topics you are addressing through your podcast is essential. It helps keep the information fresh, the motivation constant, and ultimately something others will want to listen to.

This form of entertainment intrigues me. It is a service where, we as engineers, can have a voice or help others have a voice and be heard. I do agree, I think it is a place that women can flourish in the industry. Not only is there a supply of work where women and minorities can be at the top, but we can also have a voice. Having the ability to not only strengthen myself, but the ones around me is an opportunity that I value. More of these conversations, podcasts, and articles need to exist for our current community and the future community. It is conversations and the spread of information such as this, that makes me feel awake and ready to take on the industry.

I hope you all have a wonderful spring and do not forget to check out the wonderful people that I got to chat with for this article. Fela Davis can be found on LinkedIn and her website felaaudio.com. The Art of Music Tech Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, IHeart Radio, and Youtube. Drew Stockero’s podcast If It Matters is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google, iHeart Radio, listennotes, and player.fm.

The Power of Podcasting Roadie Free Radio, and panelists Fela Davis (The Art Of Music Tech Podcast), Lij Shaw (Recording Studio Rockstars), Chris Graham (The Six Figure Home Studio Podcast) and Matt Boudreau (Working Class Audio).

Women in Audio Podcasts

Introducing Women in Audio Spotify Podcast

On my last blog, I talked about recording Posival. I know I promised my next one would be about the mixing process for this album, but we are going to take a pause on that. The reason we are taking a pause is that one of my very good friends that is also a (badass) live sound engineer just dropped the first episode of her new podcast called “Women In Audio” today! I was lucky enough to be her very first guest too. What I am going to do is break down some of the key conversations that took place during the podcast.

Work Ethic

Tangela and I talked about music and what it means to us, amongst many other things. I’ll break down here the topics that specifically pertain to audio engineering. The first thing she asked me (that was audio-specific) was how I record my bands’ music. I know I’ve written about the recording process for my band’s music before, so I won’t go too much into that. What I will mention is the reason I am able to record my own bands’ music out of different studios. I am able to do these things because, from the moment I started engineering, I was a go-getter. A question Tangela asked me was *essentially*, “How do you gain those people’s trust, and how do you get to that point?”. I recommend from the moment anyone starts this journey that they DIVE right in. Be the first one there, and the last one to leave. Study. Learn. Ask so many questions. Be the first one to get up during a session when the head engineer is needing a microphone fixed. Don’t be shy in that regard. People will notice your work ethic, and opportunities will flourish from there. Another interesting question she asked me that I’ll lump into this topic is “Did you feel like you had to work harder (as a woman)  to be good?” My answer was, yes I did, but this industry is so hard, to begin with, EVERYONE has to. I explained how I was very lucky to be at a tech school where I never felt talked down to, or out of place even though I was one of four women there at the time. I know that’s not always the case especially at tech schools for audio. I did touch on a couple of situations that were slightly sexist (that had nothing to do with where I’ve interned or gone to school) but all in all, I’ve been very lucky to have had a good experience as a woman in this field. I think that comes from me knowing to set boundaries very early on in my career.

Credits

Credits, and how to obtain them as an hourly worker. Credits have always been a struggle for me because it does take you having to ask for them. Most audio engineering work is hourly, and once you are done with a project- you are done. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get credits on huge platforms though. I’ve struggled to become a part of The Recording Academy for years because you have to have 12 separate credits on AllMusic.com. The way to get these credits onto AllMusic.com is by submitting a PHYSICAL copy of the album. That is crazy to me because in this day and age not that many people are recording albums. I record more singles than anything and most artists/bands are not printing any physical copies of their single. That doesn’t make the work I have done invalid, or *not professional*. That’s just what the industry has been moving towards for years, and we need to move with it.

Payment

Being paid is something I’ve written about before and how do you figure out what to charge someone when you’re first starting out? How to make a contract? How to be confident enough in your work and when it’s time to up your prices. When she asked me these questions I put it simply. My music business teacher asked me “How much do you need to live?” We made a template and broke down all my bills and figured out how many bands I need to reach out to a month and how many bands I  need to be working with on a monthly/yearly basis to survive. When I first started out I charged the bare minimum of what I needed to survive. Luckily, I had other jobs supplementing my income so I didn’t have to rely solely on freelance engineering. I think being as logical as possible when it comes to pricing is the best way to go about it. Ask yourself those questions, and be honest with yourself about where you are in your career. Whether you are just starting out and maybe charging too much or you’ve been doing it for years and you’re charging too little. Either way, (this goes without saying and I’ll end this here) KNOW YOUR WORTH.

Please go listen to my friend, Tanglea Lamb, and her podcast, “Women in Audio”. She is having intelligent conversations with the amazing women that occupy this field. It’s so important for our experiences, knowledge, and stories to be heard on platforms like what Tangela is starting, and what SoundGirls has been doing for a good chunk of time now.

Spotify  Women In Audio podcast

SoundGirls List of Women in Audio Podcasts

 

Word Clocks, Clock Masters, SRC, and Digital Clocks

And Why They Matter To You

Three digital audio consoles walk into a festival/bar and put in their drink orders. The bartender/front-end processor says, “You can order whatever you want, but I’m going to determine when you drink it.” In the modern audio world, we are able to keep our signal chain in the digital realm from the microphone to the loudspeaker longer without hopping back and forth through analog-to-digital (and vice versa) converters. In looking at our digital signal flow there are some important concepts to keep in mind when designing a system. In order to keep digital artifacts from rearing their ugly heads amongst our delivery of crispy, pristine audio, we must consider our application of sample rate conversions and clock sources.

Let’s back up a bit to define some basic terminology: What is a sample rate? What is the Nyquist frequency? What is bit depth? If we take a period of one second of a waveform and chop it up into digital samples, the number of “chops” per second is our sample rate. For example, the common sample rates of 44.1 KHz, 48 KHz, and 192 KHz refer to 44,100 samples per second; 48,000 samples per second; and 192,000 samples per second.

A waveform signal “chopped” into 16 samples

Why do these specific numbers matter you may ask? This brings us to the concept of the Nyquist theorem and Nyquist frequency:

“The Nyquist Theorem states that in order to adequately reproduce a signal it should be periodically sampled at a rate that is 2X the highest frequency you wish to record.”

(Ruzin, 2009)*.

*Sampling theory is not just for audio, it applies to imaging too! See references

So if the human ear can hear 20Hz-20kHz, then in theory in order to reproduce the frequency spectrum of the human ear, the minimum sample rate must be 40,000 samples per second. Soooo why don’t we have sample rates of 40 KHz? Well, the short answer is that it doesn’t sound very good. The long answer is that it doesn’t sound good because the frequency response of the sampled waveform is affected by frequencies above the Nyquist frequency due to aliasing. According to “Introduction to Computer Music: Volume One”, by Professor Jeffrey Hass of Indiana University, these partials or overtones above the sample frequency range are “mirrored the same distance below the Nyquist frequency as the originals were above it, at the original amplitudes” (2017-2018). This means that those frequencies sampled above the range of human hearing can affect the frequency response of our audible bandwidth given high enough amplitude! So without going down the rabbit hole of recording music history, CDs, and DVDs, you can see part of the reasoning behind these higher sample rates is to provide better spectral bandwidth for what us humans can perceive. Another important term for us to discuss here is bit depth and word length when talking about digital audio.

Not only is the integrity of our digital waveform affected by the minimum number of samples per second, but bit depth affects it as well. Think of bit depth as the “size” of the “chops” of our waveform where the higher the bit depth, the greater discretization of our samples. Imagine you are painting a landscape with dots of paint: if you used large dots to draw this landscape, the image would be chunkier and perhaps it would be harder to interpret the image being conveyed. As you paint with smaller and smaller dots closer together, the dots start approaching the characteristics of lines the smaller and closer together they get. As a result, the level of articulation within the drawing significantly increases.

 

Landscape portrayed with dots of smaller sample size

 

Landscape portrayed with dots of larger sample size

 

When you have higher bit depths, the waveform is “chopped” into smaller pieces creating increased articulation of the signal. Each chop is described by a “word” in the digital realm that translates to a computer value by the device doing the sampling. The word length or bit depth describes in computer language to the device how discrete and fine to make the dots in the painting. So who is telling these audio devices when to start taking samples and at what rates to do so? Here is where the device’s internal clock comes in.

Every computer device from your laptop to your USB audio interface has some sort of clock in it whether it’s in the processor’s logic board or in a separate chip. This clock acts kind of like a police officer in the middle of an intersection directing the traffic of bits based on time in your computer. You can imagine how mission-critical this is, especially for an audio device, because our entire existence in the audio world lives as a function of the time domain. If an analog signal from a microphone is going to be converted into a digital signal at a given sample rate, the clock inside the device with the analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter needs to “keep time” for that sampling rate so that all the electronic signals traveling through the device don’t turn into a mush of cars slamming into each other at random intervals of an intersection. Chances are if you have spent enough time with digital audio, you have come into some situation where there was a sample rate discrepancy or clock slipping error that reared its ugly head and the only solution is to get the clocks of the devices in sync or change the sample rates to be consistent throughout the signal chain.

One of the solutions for keeping all these devices in line is to use an external word clock. Many consoles, recording interfaces, and other digital audio devices allow the use of an external clocking device to act as the “master” for everything downstream of it. Some engineers claim the sonic benefits of using an external clock for increased fidelity in the system since the idea is that all the converters in the downstream devices connected to the external clock are beginning their samples at the same time. Yet regardless of whether you use an external clock or not, the MOST important thing to know is WHO/WHAT is acting as the clock master.

Let’s go back to our opening joke of this blog about the different consoles walking into a festival, umm I mean bar. Let’s say you have a PA being driven via the AES/EBU standard and a drive rack at FOH with a processor that is acting as a matrix for all the guest consoles/devices into the system. If a guest console comes in running at 96 KHz, another at 48 KHz, another at 192 KHz, and the system is being driven via AES at 96 KHz, for the sake of this discussion, who is determining where the samples of the electronic signals being shipped around start and end? Aren’t there going to be bits “lost” since one console is operating at one sample rate and another at a totally different one? I think now is the time to bring up the topic of SRC or “Sample Rate Conversion”.

My favorite expression in the industry is, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” because life really is a game of balancing compromises for the good and the bad. Some party in the above scenario is going to have to yield to the traffic of a master clock source or cars are going to start slamming into each other in the form of digital artifacts, i.e. “pops” and “clicks”. Fortunately for us, manufacturers have thought of this for the most part. Somewhere in a given digital device’s signal chain they put a sample rate converter to match the other device chained to it so that this traffic jam doesn’t happen. Whether this sample rate conversion happens at the input or the output and synchronously or asynchronously of the other device is manufacturer specific.

What YOU need to understand as the human deploying these devices is what device is going to be the police officer directing the traffic. Sure, there is a likelihood that if you leave these devices to sort their sample rate conversions out for themselves there may not be any clock slip errors and everyone can pat themselves on the back that they made it through this hellish intersection safe and sound. After all, these manufacturers have put a lot of R&D into making sure their devices work flawlessly in these scenarios…right? Well, as a system designer, we have to look at what we have control over in our system to try and eliminate the factors that could create errors based on the lowest common denominator.

Let’s consider several scenarios of how we can use our trusty common sense and our newfound understanding of clocks to determine an appropriate selection of a clock master source for our system. Going back to our bartending-festival scenario, if all these consoles operating at different sample rates are being fed into one system for the PA, it makes sense for a front-end processor that is taking in all these consoles to operate its clock internally and independently. If the sample rate conversion happens internally in the front-end processor and independent of the input, then it doesn’t really care what sample rate comes into it because it all gets converted to match the 96 KHz sample rate at its output to AES.

 

Front-end DSP clocking internally with SRC

In another scenario, let’s say we have a control package where the FOH and monitor desk are operating on a fiber loop and the engineers are also operating playback devices that are gathering time domain-related data from that fiber loop. The FOH console is feeding a processor in a drive rack via AES that in turn feeds a PA system. In this scenario, it makes the most sense for the fiber loop to be the clock source and the front-end processor to gather clock and SRC data from the AES input of the console upstream of it because if you think about it as a flow chart, all the source data is coming back to the fiber loop. In a way, you could think of where the clock master comes from to be the delegation of the police officer that has the most influence on the audio path under discussion.

 

Fiber loop as chosen origin of clock source for the system

 

As digital audio expands further into the world of networked audio, the concept of a clock master becomes increasingly important to understanding signal processing when you dive into the realms of protocols such as AVB or Dante. Our electronic signal turns into data packets on a network stream and the network itself starts determining where the best clock source is coming from and can even switch between clock masters if one were to fail. (For more information check out www.audinate.com for info on Dante and www.avnu.org for info on AVB). As technology progresses and computers get increasingly more capable for large amounts of digital signal processing, it will be interesting to see how the manifestation of fidelity correlates to better sample rates, bit-perfect converters, and how we can continue to seek perfection in the representation of a beautiful analog waveform in the digital realm.

The views in this blog are for educational purposes only and the opinion of the author alone and not to be interpreted as an endorsement or reflect the views of the aforementioned sources. 

Resources:

Hass, Jeffrey. 2017-2018. Chapter Five: Digital Audio. Introduction to Computer Music: Volume One. Indiana University. https://cecm.indiana.edu/etext/digital_audio/chapter5_nyquist.shtml

https://avnu.org/

Ruzin, Steven. 2009, April 9. Capturing Images. UC Berkeley. http://microscopy.berkeley.edu/courses/dib/sections/02Images/sampling.html

www.audinate.com

**Omnigraffle stencils by Jorge Rosas: https://www.graffletopia.com/stencils/435

 

An Interview with SWIM 

 

The music scene here in Scotland is one of the most vibrant. But behind the scenes, the figures for women in music aren’t always encouraging. Hoping to change that is a charity organisation called SWIM – or Scottish Women Inventing Music. I caught up with them to discuss their work, experiences and goals to help women in music.

Could you tell me a bit about SWIM? 

SWIM is a charity organization. It stands for Scottish Women inventing Music. It was set up to try and address the gender imbalance that’s currently in the music industry as well as be a space for women where they can network and to also advocate for women in the music industry.

What are the services that SWIM offer?

We have informal networking nights usually once a month and this is a chance for members to come and meet each other in person and can discuss current work situations and any issues they’re having. We also have a database on our website where as a member you can input your skillset and then you can search the database for other members and their skills and you can connect with them that way as well. We also have an initiative called GirlPool which is a full day of workshops for young girls between the ages of 12-17. Throughout the day they get the chance to look at all aspects of the music industry. So not just pay they get to perform what they’ve done that day.

Is there a cost of joining? 

There is a minimal cost of £5 a year for membership which runs from September to August each year. For that, you get a newsletter full of information from all our fantastic members and things that are happening, opportunities, collaborations, etc. There are also monthly casual meetups for members as well.

SWIM are doing a lot to help women in music in Scotland. If you would like more information on SWIM you can visit the website at www.scottishwomeninventingmusic.com

 

Gain Without the Pain:  Gain Structure for Live Sound Part 2

 

In my last blog, I outlined the basics of gain structure, and how to get to a good starting point for your mix. This time I want to discuss a few situations where you might take different approaches to how you set your gain, and why.

I like to think of gain as a tennis ball growing out of the mic if it’s omnidirectional, or a peach for cardioid mics, with the stalk-socket (is there a word for that?) at the point of most rejection. Bidirectional/figure eight mics always remind me of Princess Leia’s famous hair buns in Star Wars. Whatever you imagine it as don’t forget that the pick-up pattern is three-dimensional. There can be a bit of a subconscious tendency to think of pick-up patterns as the flat discs you see in polar plots, so don’t fall into that trap! The main thing to remember is that as you increase the gain, you’re expanding the area in which the mic will pick noise up in every dimension, not just in the direction of what you want to amplify. This will be more of an issue in some circumstances than others, so they can benefit from different approaches.

Quiet singer, noisey stage

My first example is the one I encounter most often and causes me the most issues. You have a loud band on a reverberant, noisey stage, and you’re trying to get the vocals audible, or even nice! This can be a bit of a challenge even with a strong singer, but a quiet vocalist can seem impossibly lost in the mix. Thinking back to my previous post, the problem in this situation is that the other instruments, the crowd and everything reflecting back off the walls is keeping the noise high in the signal-to-noise ratio. Turning the gain up will just bring more of that noise into your board and muddy the mix. Upping the gain for monitors will increase the likelihood of frequencies in the monitor mix being picked up by the mic, which feeds back to the monitor, which feeds back to the mic… which creates feedback!

In an ideal world, the other players would set their instruments at reasonable levels, and the vocalist would sing loudly, close to the mic. This would increase the signal-to-noise ratio naturally. Unfortunately, this often doesn’t happen for one reason or another, and you need to fix it at the board. In these situations I try to keep the gain as low as possible while still picking the vocalist up. I use high and low pass filters to get rid of the unnecessary noise in ranges away from the vocalist’s frequencies. I might EQ a few bits out of the vocal channel where other instruments are being picked up more than the singer, and might EQ out some vocal frequencies from other channels to give them some more space to be heard. I then try to have the fader as high as possible while still leaving some headroom. Setting your master fader or monitor mixes at +5 instead of 0 can give you the extra volume you need, while keeping the gain as tight as possible. I very rarely find myself needing to turn an entire mix-up mid-show, and if it comes to it I can just turn up all the sends from the channels instead. There are plenty of other tricks to get vocals to stand out in your mix, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

Wandering keynote speaker

On the other end of the noisey gig spectrum is the classic corporate speaker who won’t stay near the lectern mic. I think one of the most misunderstood aspects of live sound by people outside our industry is that the mics pick everything in their field up, in every direction, whether the sound is intentional or not. For example, I had someone loudly shuffle their notes and bang them on the lectern, cough and say something privately to an assistant right by the mics as they were supposed to start their speech. They then fully wandered the 20 metre (roughly 60 feet) wide stage, talking at normal conversational volume, expecting the mics to pick them up perfectly, no matter where they were. Quickly muting the channel when it’s apparent the speaker is still preparing solves the first issues, but there’s not much you can do about audibility when they’re metres away from the mics. This is an extreme example. However, it is very common for people to stand at a lectern but talk quite far away from the mics, turning their heads repeatedly to gesture towards their presentation.

Hopefully, the stage at a conference isn’t as noisy as a rock band in a club, and the audience are mostly quietly paying attention rather than screaming and cheering. It’s less common to have stage monitors, and with any luck, the PA is quite far away from the mics. In this case, you can get away with turning the gain up, to catch more of what they’re saying. Just remember to add a pretty strong compressor for when they inevitably lean in and suddenly talk loudly, directly into the mics. This can also help if you have several people using the lectern without soundchecking. You can set the mics to as high a gain as is stable, so even if they’re quiet you’re covered. If they’re loud you can always turn them down.

Popping lavalier or headset mics

You don’t always want your sound source as close to the mic as possible. Plosives in speech; the consonant sounds made with a burst of air, like p’s and b’s, can sound horrible on sensitive mics like lavaliers or headsets. These mics can also pick up too much sibilance. In these cases, it’s best to move them slightly further away or off-axis (by a matter of millimeters) so they aren’t in the firing line of the speaker’s breath, then turn the gain up to compensate. You might have noticed that lavaliers are often attached completely upside down for recording or TV. This stops the mic capsule being battered by those plosives and reduces sibilance, and the recording engineer can turn the gain up as much as needed without worrying about feedback because there are no speakers in the room.

I hope these examples have helped you to see how gain structure is just another tool in your mixing bag of tricks. There are good rules of thumb to follow for getting a decent signal-to-noise ratio quickly, but they aren’t written in stone. If you need to move the balance around or adjust different aspects of the channel strip to make your particular situation work, just try it (gradually if the show is already live!). It’s easy to talk about what the correct approach is in a textbook situation, but real life is very rarely ideal. Do what you need to do to get it working. If it sounds good in the end, that’s all that matters.

Ground Breaker Tana Douglas

Photograph by Lisa Johnson Rock Photographer.

Tana Douglas is known as the first woman roadie and got her start working Production in 1973 when Philippe Petit rigged a steel cable between the towers at the northern entrance to the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  (Kathy Sander another roadie got her start in 1974 touring with Elton John). Without realizing it she had just done her first gig. This was followed by a meeting with a well-known Australian Tour manager Wane “Swampy” Jarvis, who piqued her interest in the production side of the Music Industry. This led to her first paying gig with a band called Fox, setting up and looking after their stage equipment known as the backline. After taking that job and relocating to Melbourne, an offer to work for a different band came along in the middle of 1974. This band was AC/DC. Throughout Tana’s four-decade career she has worked in backline, sound, lights, logistics, production, and tour management.

At just fifteen, Tana had joined the circus that was rock ‘n’ roll and after taking the job with a young and upcoming band AC/DC, found herself on a fast track to a lifelong career. Her first job with AC/DC was to continue doing backline until she says that “it became clear that we really needed our own PA to help Bon (Scott) with his vocals. I was sent to pick it up from a local sound company called Strauss, Nova Sound. Not realizing that from that moment in time I would become their FoH Sound engineer. It wasn’t so much a matter of volunteering for the position, it was what the band wanted. They trusted me and knew that I understood what sound they were looking for, which is very important. I had zero training. In those days in Australia, it was not uncommon to do 10, 12 or even 14 shows in a week. There was no time for training. I also had the dubious pleasure of operating their monitors, at the same time; through the FoH console. Not the ideal situation for a notoriously loud band.”

The sound system Tana fetched was a 3-way system with A4 bins, JBL horns, and tweeters. Tana discovered that it was not cutting it and upgraded to a 4-way system with W Bins, A4’s as midrange, and multi-cell horns and tweeters. The monitor system consisted of five fold-back wedges with dual speakers in each. The only advice she was given to running sound, was to keep the guitar volume down and it should be good. Tana says “we would do shows with other bands on the bill as we weren’t headlining these larger shows in the beginning, so I would watch and try to learn as much as possible from people who obviously knew what they were doing and apply it to the shows where we used our PA.”

The biggest challenge she faced with mixing for AC/DC was inadequate equipment and the sheer volume coming off the stage. Tana says that “as the PA grew in size so did the number of speaker cabinets on stage, for the guitars. As I was still relatively new to this whole thing, I didn’t know enough to demand a system that would be capable of doing the job. We were restricted by the budget and size of venues to accommodate a larger PA. We also travelled with all the gear in the back of a bus. Not to mention I was only 16 years old.”

Despite all this Tana learned some important lessons. One was that the equipment must be able to handle the job, so you can do your job. ”If you are good you can get the most out of your system, but there is only so much a system can give, I made it work, but thinking back it would have been nice to have had at least twice the system. Would have made my life so much easier. Even with the restrictions both the band and the audience were happy with the sound I managed to get.”

The 18 months Tana spent working with AC/DC ignited her passion for a life on the road but she realized she needed to find an environment where she could continue to learn. She took a job with a production company called ACT that specialized in International tours coming to Australia.  Their crews were considered the best in Australia and Tana toured with artists Suzi Quatro, David Essex, Leo Sayer, Carlos Santana, Neil Diamond,  and Status Quo.

Tana says “leaving AC/DC was a big step, a leap of faith that it would be the best move for me to grow and learn. I also wanted a team around me that I could become a part of and if I had those two things, the job I did at that time really didn’t matter. The position they needed filled was for a lighting person, so I jumped. It was a complete change of direction which I felt was appropriate for this next phase of my life.”

For the next several months she worked her ass off, watching, learning and growing. Tours in Australia typically last about a month and Tana did seven back to back tours working with some of the best international production personnel. Tana says she utilized the time wisely “I always asked about everything. How? What? Why? When? Where? something should be done. These questions make the difference between someone who knows how to set up a system and someone who knows how to operate a system. whether it is sound or lights. I think another important thing I learnt very early on was that for me to be accepted in this industry it was all about how I fitted in as a member of a crew, not how I stood out as a woman.” 

Tana would make her transition into lighting official by moving to the U.K., where she landed a job building a 360 lamp lighting rig for Status Quo and then spent the next four years touring with them. Tana would move over to TASCO and head up their lighting department working and touring with Ozzy, David Coverdale, Iggy Pop, The Who, Elton John  to name a few. In 1983, Tana would move to the U.S. to work for the U.S. TASCO Division along with Delicate Productions and Light and Sound Design, continuing to work with Elton John, Men at Work, INXS, Little River Band and Johnny Halliday’s Spectacle in Paris for 7 months.

Lighting appealed to the artistic side of Tana, she loved art in school and always enjoyed creating things and experimenting with color. It was also an exciting time to be involved in lighting, everything was changing so quickly. She says “we went from a couple of hydraulic light towers with 16 steel lamps a side to suspended truss configurations with hundreds of aluminum lighting fixtures, moving motors, truss spot operators, retractable set pieces, to the piece de resistance: the Vari-Lite. There was no turning back.”

Thinking outside of the box when problems arise and need a quick resolution for live TV. TASCO Crew.

The first time Tana realized she had “made it” came when she was requested for The Who and Friends Roar In at Wembley Stadium in 1979. This was The Who’s comeback show after the loss of Keith Moon and AC/DC was on the bill as well. The second time was when she was in charge of dimmers and control of the largest lighting rig ever built consisting of 3,000 par cans, 64 Vari-Lites, a dozen 10K Fresnels and all the moving parts including a giant fist with the performer, Johnny Halliday inside.

Tana remembers her time at Tasco “I loved my time with TASCO London. It was hard work and extremely long hours, new innovations, pulling all-nighters, in a freezing cold warehouse in time for the tour to start. What made it all worthwhile is I was given a position of authority which validated that all the hard work had been worth it. I have to say I loved the other people that worked for TASCO. It was a really good bunch headed up by Terry Price and Paul Newman at the time and made me feel a part of it all. That was always important to me. Growing up without any family to speak of, I needed that feeling of belonging and I found it there.”

Focusing the rig between acts.

Tana loved Tasco, but after gaining custody of her son, Tana knew she had to make some changes in her career. She says “ the blinding difference between men touring and women touring is children. I don’t know if that will ever really change. Maybe now, there are laws in place on grounds for dismissal but when I was touring it was not something that was up for discussion. I had gained custody of my son, and that meant I needed to make changes to my career. Touring for 10 months of the year was no longer an option. So she moved into Logistics.

Working in logistics, Tana dealt with making the band’s schedule work, creating carnets, and financial bonds for customs, freight forwarding to make sure the equipment arrives on time and in working condition. Dealing with artists’ personal requests, such as when Alice Cooper forgot his snake and had to get it to London in time for his first show or when a bass player left his instrument at home in LA when the band flew to England to play Reading Festival. This was an instrument he insisted was too important to travel as cargo and required breaking into his house after warning the local police, retrieving instrument and getting on a plane to Reading in time to hand it to him on the side of the stage as the band was starting their set.

Many of her clients came from the crew people she had grown up with and had moved into Tour or Production Manager positions. At first, she was working for a company, but when the company went belly up, she started to handle the accounts on her own, starting her own company Network. During the ten years she worked in logistics, she handled accounts for Bad Religion, Tom Waites, Butthole Surfers, Billy Ray Cyrus, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Luther Vandross, En Vogue, Tool, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, Ice-T, Ice Cube. Henry Rollins, Carlos Santana and many more. Sadly she closed her company due to health reasons in 1985.

After her health recovered, she went into tour managing. Tana believes these things are a “natural progression if you have worked enough different parts of production over the years, then you should really know what it takes to be a successful tour manager. It wasn’t something I had aspired to be and I only really worked with one band that was in development and while I enjoyed it, the band fell apart and I moved on to representing Bill Ward from Black Sabbath negotiating his reunion with Sabbath for their upcoming shows at the Birmingham NEC that were to be both filmed and recorded. That was fun and included flying Bill halfway around the world for a “chance” encounter with the promoter who was happy to have Bill on board and then the negotiations that ensued with Sharon Osbourne, who was not happy to have Bill on board. But that’s a whole other story.”

Tana now resides in Los Angeles, and has spent the past couple of years finishing a book called “LOUD”. It is being published through HarperCollins and will be released on April 20, 2020. Tana is also involved with organizations called Crewcare and Support Act both based in Australia. The organizations focus on health and wellbeing for road crew. They sponsor and the annual “Roady4Roadies” that raises funds to help and support both musicians and crew members in times of difficulty. Both organizations are doing cutting edge research into the effects of life on the road. She is also working with The Arts Centre in Melbourne on a new project for their Rock Vault that will entail a series of panel discussions and individual interviews to be filmed, centered on the history of Production in the Australian Music Industry.

What do you like best about touring?

The music, of course, is what draws most of us in, but then there are the bonds that form with others on tour that are special. A good crew makes all the difference. I would tend to pick a tour by the crew, not the performer, as the crew is who you’ll be living with for the next 12 months of your life, not the performer. Plus, a good crew doesn’t work for a bad performer.

What do you like least?

I dealt with a lot of solitude being the only woman on a tour. I mean, there is always a group of people around, but interaction with 20 to 100 guys on a daily basis can get tricky when you are out there alone as a female, for extended amounts of time. What is acceptable behavior for a guy can be frowned upon for women.

How did you deal with that?

Not always well, sad to say. We all make mistakes in judgment. I guess what is important is we learn from them and hopefully don’t keep making the same ones. At least, mix it up a little (laughing).

What is your favorite day off activity?

Swimming and horseback riding

What is your educational or training background

Zero

Did you find it hard to find people to train/teach you? Do you recommend a formal education or just learning on the job? or a combination?

Once I’d taken that leap of faith over to ACT way back in Australia with the likes of Wyn Milson, Peter Wilson, Curley Campbell, D’Arcy, Russell Kidner, Billy McCartney to name a few, it was like I’d found my tribe and to them, it was a bit like having a little sister (who could drink you under the table) but also keep up with them on the work front. Who doesn’t want the best for their little sister? On the international side, I had the likes of Patrick Stansfield, Paul Newman, Chris “Smoother” Smythe as an early support system. I think also while I was obviously young, thankfully nobody figured out just how young I was. That may have changed things.

There were no options for schooling as there are now. How effective that is I am sure it depends on who is teaching the class. I hear that Kevin Lyman is teaching a class at USC. I’m sure that would be worth attending. I think though with any schooling it needs to be adapted to a real-life situation. You can be taught that something is hot, but until you feel just how hot it is, you can’t appreciate what it is you are being told. In the touring world, it is different every day. You must be prepared to adapt to that, as does your equipment. Be flexible. There is no one way.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

It’s never easy when you are going against the grain. It was a wilder time when I was starting out. There were no rules, there were no other women. I literally had to give as good as I got. There was resistance from some areas, but there was also a great deal of support from others, once they realized not only was I serious about doing this as a career, but I was also capable of doing the job better than most, there was a shift in how I was perceived. For me, the biggest obstacle was a personal one. Relationships never went well for me. Maybe it was because I was mostly in a supervisory position? Or as I say, “My picker is broken”. Think long and hard before getting into a relationship, as you can’t let a relationship come before the job you have been hired to do.

How have you dealt with them?

I tried to stay away from relationships, while likewise staying away from the group that is of the opinion that you shouldn’t be there before they even meet you. Don’t even bother with them. Prove yourself by example, by doing the job better than others. Don’t complain, make it better. Choose your battles. There is no point in winning a battle if you lose the war.

Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Focus on the details. Learn from every situation that arises. There will be many and they will all be different. Your success will rely on how you fit in as a crew member, not how you stand out as a woman. There is no such thing as a stupid question, as long as you learn from the answer. Embrace change, as there will be a lot of it. The friendships you make on the road will stay with you for your life, so be authentic and true to yourself.

Must have skills?

Think outside of the box. If you have done a course or some other type of schooling that is great but don’t let it tether you. Every day is different on the road and things change in a moment. Be prepared and keep up. Always listen to advice and respect your crew.

What are your future goals

At this stage, I am interested in developing talent on both the artist side and the crew side. I have also started my second book.

Favorite gear?

I got to play with a Neve desk which at the time was a big deal. I was also lucky enough to be one of the first people to tour with the new AVOlites dimmers and consoles that changed the face of lighting.

Anything else you want to add or contribute

Where you start is rarely where you finish. Just because you start in one field doesn’t mean you need to stay there. What we think we want isn’t always what we need. By being willing to accept change you will end up where you were meant to be. It will be a journey that is not an easy one, but the rewards make it all worthwhile. Enjoy the world!

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