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New Kid on the Block

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Dear Sirs,

I don't have my own sound company. I don't even have a job working for a sound company. I am currently graduating high school and volunteering at my local church, but I have aspirations of one day owning my own company. However, I currently have very little experience and would appreciate any advice you can give me on what are the most important things to consider when mixing live sound. I am an Anklebiters fan and I want to thank you for considering my request. Sincerely, Steve Shafer, Pasadena, CA

Jamie: Steve, I have been thinking about your question for a better part of a week now. Mainly because I want to give you a bit of information that is useful, but not too complicated. So, here I go: First, consider taking a class on recording or sound reproduction or whatever is available at your local community college. I took a couple of courses on recording when I was in school and they have proved their value throughout my career.

But before you run off to enroll in a class, let's look at the equipment you are using. Understand the mixer you are working with inside and out. Read the manual and familiarize yourself with the signal path. What I mean is, start with plugging in a microphone, follow the cable to the snake or your mixer and see what channel it's plugged into. Learn everything on that channel strip and then continue to follow the signal path to the main section. Once you leave the mixer, do you go through any compression? EQ, or other outboard gear? It's very important to understand what path the signal takes as it travels from the mic to the speakers. Next, you need to begin to train your ears. If I tell you that we are getting a rumble off the stage at 80 Hz, your ears need to know what that sounds like. Or if I asked you to push the graphic EQ at 630 Hz in order to get a little more punch out of the vocalist, your ears will also need to learn what that sounds like.

Steve, if you have a one-third octave graphic EQ at your church, memorize each slider position. Then learn what that position sounds like. If you don't have one, get your church to buy one, or go online, search frequencies and listen. Music is just frequencies, and it is essential for you to be able to differentiate between them. If you want to bring out the richness and stringiness of an acoustic guitar, you must know what frequencies to add or subtract. If you want the bass to be punchy and not flabby and to blend with the kick drum, you will have to learn where they lay in the tonal landscape. The more you hear and understand what you are hearing, the more fun your job will be. That, my friend, will make you a real value to your church. It will open your ears and your mind to what good sound mixing is. And it will let you know if this is really a career for you. This is a great industry to work in, Steve. I wish you all the best.

Tim: Steve, first of all, I'm impressed with the fact that you just graduated from high school and you already know what you want to do. I've personally had a couple kids graduate from high school who were still undecided about what they wanted to do with their lives, and it's been rough for them to decide how to invest their time and money. It's always easier to get somewhere when you have even a little direction of where you're going. So I commend you on pursuing what you're passionate about.

In order to give you some advice, I'm trying to figure out where you got your inspiration and enough experience to influence you to make a decision to pursue a sound company. I'm going to have to assume you got it from your high school experience, perhaps being a sound technician for drama, band or vocal departments, possibly being the AV guy at school or even providing sound needs at church or local events. Whatever the case may be, those opportunities are just as important as the ones to come. Look at every job as an opportunity to practice your sound skills. Every time I go to any event, whether it's a concert in the park, a high school graduation or a band performance at my child's school, I'm paying attention to the details of the sound–what equipment is being used, who's running it, from where, is it working, what I would do to improve it, etc.

Church can be a good place to experiment with EQs, speaker delays, miking techniques and placement, signal processing and compression. Experiment walking around to different areas and get familiar with how the audio sounds with different environments, acoustics and surrounding materials. Work toward total coverage of the room or area. Familiarize yourself with the spectrum of how far a speaker can throw, how wide it can cover and so on. I would also suggest working for a sound company to learn about handling equipment, system management and how the chain of signal works. It's good to understand electrical and electronic theory, matching impedence and matching amps to speakers. The most important thing to your client is confidence that you can handle the job you've been hired to do. So familiarize yourself with all aspects of the job.

I also suggest that you remain open-minded and look for opportunities to increase knowledge of sound/audio and practice those skills Jamie and I mentioned above. Honing your "ear," learning how to make the best use of your equipment and understanding the principles behind sound are a must! But there are characteristics you may not learn from textbooks that I strongly urge you to put the time and energy into developing. And these facets are important for any profession you decide to pursue–have a positive attitude, have integrity and always be prepared.

These are characteristics that you can develop on a daily basis while you're studying sound, volunteering at your local church or lounging around at home. If you're able to master these attitudes, and develop your audio skills, you'll be much more employable.

Need advice? Contact the Anklebiters at anklebiters@fohonline.com.