Years ago, I used to remember phone numbers and addresses of all my friends, relatives and business associates. I also had a fairly good internal databank of their birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. I kept most of my appointments and gigs in my head, and I was fairly adept and remembering detailed instructions and directions that were verbally conveyed to me. I had a good memory for recalling certain movies, music and sports trivia as well as having a decent knowledge of historical fact, which I could recall at any given time. I must admit that I finally bought an address book/organizer when I became really busy, but I still kept the most pertinent information in my head.
Times have changed, and now I’m content to remember ten of my most used phone numbers. I’m not going senile, but I — like everybody else — have a smart phone, which holds hundreds of numbers, emails and addresses. I don’t have to remember important dates or special occasions either, since both my phone and laptop alert me to such paramount information.
Technology, Sweet Technology
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to demonize technology, nor am I lamenting the loss of the “good old days” by trying to romanticize a “simpler” time. Not a chance! I love new technology, and I cannot fathom how I managed to work without an iPhone, email or the Internet, but work we did. We toured, we advanced shows and we worked on analog consoles that had to be set and reset for every show. When we shared a console, we charted our mix and then reset after the band before us. The better speaker arrays were huge and unwieldy, and the amplifiers were like boat anchors on which one could fry eggs when they heated up. It sounds like the stone age of audio now, but somehow it all worked at the time with the available technology which — by the way — was state-of-the-art.
There is no going back, and as good as some of the older technologies may be, we all adapt and learn the new skills required to function in a world that is constantly changing. Like it or not, antiquated skills and outdated technology fall by the wayside, only to be replaced by new skills and a new modus operandi. “My kingdom for a rotary phone,” or “I sure miss dial-up Internet,” have certainly not been battle cries I have heard lately. For the most part, the call for analog consoles and outboard gear has quieted since the new generation of engineers — many who have only trained on digital — has entered the field. Even most of the older holdouts have converted to digital consoles, because as one technology changes, others will adapt and expand due to capability. IEM’s are more popular than ever, and doing 12 or more stereo mixes on an analog board is a stretch, even for the best of them.
As I said, new technologies beget new skills, and as we advance boldly into the future, the old skill sets become a distant memory. Take, for example, tape splicing which, for all intents and purposes, is an archaic skill that was once a necessary tool that every recording engineer needed to employ. It took practice and time to be proficient at tape splicing, and some of the best could even splice out a note from a single track on a two-inch master reel. A very impressive feat, since a mistake would have been, at the least, a very costly proposition, but who cares? Now, with the newer digital formats, we can magnify the section requiring an edit and accurately cut and paste new or different parts in a matter of seconds. No muss, no fuss, and all with an “undo” button, to boot.
New skills replace the old as contemporary technologies present themselves and become dominant in the audio marketplace and — while the basic concept and foundation of audio engineering remains the same —modern engineers are equipped with a current arsenal of techno-tricks that enables them to come at the job with a different approach from the engineer of even ten years past. The computer has become a prevalent component in most P.A.’s — from ringing out a system and focusing a speaker array to mixing and recording. While this technology is merely commonplace for the newer engineers, those of us who have a history in the business and have witnessed the analog to digital evolution can see and appreciate the difference between the requisite skills of past and the current disciplines necessary for the successful engineer.
Dreams Become Reality
Years ago, a few of my engineer friends and I used to get together and dream about things that would make our jobs easier. We came up with things like speaker arrays — with motors driving each component that had laser sensors and would properly align themselves to any given room (we didn’t think line array). We also thought that it would be great to make a recording of a live show and instantly create thousands of CDs to sell to the audience members on the way out of the venue. One thought we came up with was to give every audience member headphones and a small mixer so that they could mix their own show (iPads were not yet invented). We also wanted to invent a way to save our mix from any given concert and take it with us for the rest of a tour.
Well, apparently we weren’t the only dreamers scheming to simplify our jobs, and fortunately other visionaries were actually able to transform the dream into reality; a skill that none of us possessed as we fantasized about a brave new world. Believe me, I do not think that our ideas were all that unique or advanced, and some of the technologies were already in existence in one form or another. Our imaginings weren’t those of great genius, but rather musings of working engineers regarding the next technological step in making a more efficient audio world.
So, staying in the contemplative mode, I wonder how engineering skill sets might change if there were a board that mixed itself with no onstage microphones required. I imagine the board to have an internal video camera that would let you focus an internal mic(s) on any given instrument on stage. That instrument would be assigned a channel, and then the focus would be turned to the next instrument, and so forth, until all instruments are assigned a channel. The engineer could then scroll through a database of samples on each channel and find the best-fitting sound for the instrument or, if they so desired, they could let the computer find the best match. Then the engineer could enter into the computer a type of mix that he/she would like for the band. For example, rock, jazz, country, etc. — and the computer would then search its database of perfect mixes in that particular genre and mix the instruments accordingly, using the internal samples while adding appropriate processing.
If the engineers didn’t like a particular suggested mix, they could scroll through the bank of suggested mixes until they found one they liked. Of course, an override button would be available for any necessary tweaks or changes, but once the desired mix was chosen, it would then be sent to the left and right outputs as well as the other console outputs, making for the “perfect show.” Again, in my Big Brother version of a new and improved audio world, engineering would require a whole new set of skills to be learned and mastered while the old abilities fade into the great beyond and get forgotten. Just saying.
