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Leslie Ann Jones Scholarship in Honor of Ethel Gabriel

This scholarship is made possible by a generous donation from Leslie Ann Jones and is in honor of Ethel Gabriel

APPLICATION For 2021

The Leslie Ann Jones Scholarship in honor of Ethel Gabriel and is a $250 scholarship to be used for education in the music industry. Applications will open on June 1, 2021

WHO IS ELIGIBLE?

Any member of SoundGirls that is attending or plans to attend educational programs relating to the music industry. There is no age requirement and includes college programs, trade schools, seminars, and workshops. Applications are open to all genders and non-conforming genders.

HOW TO APPLY

Write a 400-600 word essay on the topic:  Why you love working or want to work in professional audio. Application opens on June 1, 2021 – Apply Here

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION

The essay submission deadline is 12:00 midnight EDT July 30, 2021. The scholarships will be awarded in August 2021 and paid to scholarship winners. Scholarship winners will be required to send proof of enrollment in the educational program to SoundGirls or scholarship money must be returned.

SELECTION PROCESS & NOTIFICATION

The SoundGirls Board will review essays and will notify the winners via email.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

The scholarship funds awarded can be used for educational programs related to professional audio. Scholarships are non-renewable. You will need to submit proof of enrollment in a program.

QUESTIONS?

Any questions on the scholarship essay can be directed to soundgirls@soundgirls.org.

APPLY HERE

Additional Scholarships to Apply for

The Ethel Gabriel Scholarship

SoundGirls Scholarships

 

 

Alexandria Perryman – Audio Engineer for the Astronauts

Alexandria Perryman is a live broadcast engineer and Emmy winner working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where one of her jobs is to run audio for the astronauts on the International Space Station. Every “Mission” is different for her. One day she might be working a spacewalk, making sure the astronauts have a clear connection to mission control the next she might be mixing audio for a video that’s going up on the NASA YouTube channel.

Lately, she’s been working to provide Skype links between astronauts and students. The effort is part of NASA’s “Year of Education on Station” – a program where ISS crew members and teacher Ricky Arnold Skypes in via satellite and performs real-time experiments for kids in classrooms around the country.

Alexandria discovered audio when she was in her high school’s marching band and was put in charge of the on-field sound mixer. This is where she started to fall in love with the idea of live audio mixing. She always had a passion for music and sound and as she got older she became intrigued by how music and sound are created. She remembers seeing Blue Man Group perform when she was in elementary school and being in awe with how they used everyday items to create music.  Alexandria would enroll at Full Sail University and study audio engineering and graduate in 2015 with an Associates Degree of Science.  

She got her start in audio volunteering at her church, mixing their online broadcast and working part-time as an AV Tech. Early on she learned how important troubleshooting quickly is and learned how to work in fast-paced and high-stress situations. She says “I made many mistakes in those early gigs but I was in an environment where if I could troubleshoot my mistakes quickly then it was not harmful to my career.”

She has been at NASA working as an Audio Engineer and Chief Engineer and Producer of Podcast for the last 2 ½ years. Alexandria says there is no typical day at NASA.

The workday starts for me an hour before my first show which sometimes could be at 3 am. Then there is the podcast that I produce weekly and studio shoots. It is common for me to go day by day.”  Staying focused and organized is difficult Alexandria says “I may have a live event then an hour later I am recording a podcast, two different mindsets. Staying focused on the task I am doing at that time is super important.”

Some of Alexandria’s job duties are coordinating Skype signals in space and she is proud that during her time at NASA her team has never lost a Skype signal in space. Mission Planning and Operations works with her team to find optimal windows between satellites and schedule sessions accordingly.

Alexandria also works on archiving and preserving audio for the historical record and the U.S. National Archives. The crew of the ISS rotates every six months and NASA will use this audio for training new crew members and for reference on repeat problems. Alexandria with other engineers monitors the day to day operation recordings and are often the first line of communication between station and NASA. She often works with the astronauts before missions, she is the one mic-ing them up for interviews and trains them on using the audio equipment.

In addition to all of her official duties, Alexandria also serves as the producer of NASA’s official podcast Houston We Have a Podcast.  The podcast talks with and interviews astronauts, scientists, and engineers working on furthering space exploration.

Alexandria says she loves that her job allows her to be part of something bigger than herself, but is not a fan of how politics come into play with what she does as a creative. She is awaiting NASA’s return to the moon and hopes to be able to mix the audio. Her long term goals are to mix audio for the Grammys.

On Challenging Projects

One challenge that sticks out the most was the Space X Demo-1 mission. It was challenging because it was the first time we ever merged our NASA shows with SpaceX. Learning how to coordinate a show between multiple locations and have it flow easily was definitely difficult. The audio setup was new and extremely complicated but as a team, we managed to put out great shows for that mission. It’s also the same mission I won my first Emmy for.

On Failure

For me looking back the biggest failure, I had happened in college. I had become lazy with class and my grades quickly fell, to the point that I was put on academic probation. That was a big wake up call for me, because if I had failed another class I would have failed out of college. In the next couple of months, I kicked it in gear and studied more, went to my instructors during office hours for extra help, and surrounded myself with positive people. I learned from that experience to never slack off and always do my best. Most importantly I learned that even when the odds are against me that I can overcome anything as long as I never stop trying.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I have been fortunate to not have faced many obstacles or barriers in my career. The only thing that was an obstacle was having such an age gap between my coworkers and them being able to trust that I’m mentally capable of the job regardless of my age.

How have you dealt with them?

Earning trust takes time especially in this industry. I was able to do it by constantly giving them my best work and attitude and showing up in big situations.

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

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, that’s the only way you can really learn. Some of the biggest mistakes in my career offered me the most valuable lessons.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

While I work in live television and not the music industry, I still love creating music in my free time as a way to express my emotions.

Must have skills?

Must be able and willing to be teachable at any level. Also for anything-audio understanding signal flow is key.

Favorite gear?

My favorite gear would have to be my Zoom F8N recorder, it’s perfect for in the fieldwork.

Check out Alexandria on The SoundGirls Podcast

More Profiles on The Five Percent – Profiles of Women in Audio

 

Minimalist Mixing Techniques 

Hi SoundGirls! Back in January, I wrote about the recording process for a 16 song album I was working on at the time. Although I promised that my next blog would be about the mixing process, that took a pause because my last blog ended up being about my friend Tangela’s new podcast, “Women in Audio”. I was lucky enough to be her first guest, so for my March blog, I broke down some essential topics we talked about in the podcast, and provided links to it at the end. If you haven’t listened to the Women in Audio podcast yet- I suggest you do. She has multiple interviews streaming now, plus the conversations are fun and intriguing! You’ll definitely enjoy them.

With all that being said, we are circling back to the album I just wrapped and today’s blog will be about the mixing process, (YAY!).

You might’ve noticed the title for this month’s blog is called “Minimalist Mixing Techniques”, so you already know what I’m about to dive into…the art of NOT using 10,000 plug-ins on ONE song! Now, there is nothing wrong with that at all! If the song is calling for production, or if you want to just be creative with plug-ins…do it. There are certain artists or bands I work with that I like to get very creative with plug-ins, but in this instance- we didn’t go that route, and I wanted to talk about the steps I used to get the band their final product.

Here is the list of steps I would take from when I would first open up the session to when I sent them their first mix of the song:

Clean up your session

What I mean by “clean up your session” is- get rid of tracks you don’t need. Not using that DI track you captured? Hide and make inactive. If you have two tracks that could become 1 (ex. two mono overhead mic tracks)- create it as a stereo track. Make your starting base simple, so you can move through it seamlessly.

Set up your effects

Now that you’ve gotten rid of things you don’t need. Start adding in things you do need to create some depth in the mix. I would recommend only 2 (maybe 3) effects tracks since we are keeping this mix minimal. A reverb, delay, and a slap delay are pretty effective for any mix.

Start with the drums

The way I mix is I start with the drums soloed and then I move through the mix adding in each instrument at a time. For the drums, I would recommend bussing together the things that are the same (kick in/kick out, snare top/ snare bottom, etc), but don’t get too “bus” happy. One of the reasons I sometimes like to mix minimally is because it’s easy to have control over your mix when you don’t have too many things bussing into one another (aka phase issues, and your mix could get muddy if you lose control of the low end).

EQ

Eq is always incredibly important in any mixing process. I think it’s usually best to eq minimally, and if you’re capturing things well in the studio you shouldn’t have to do TOO much of it on the back end anyways. With this, I would recommend practicing using pro-tools stock eq so you can focus on using your ears instead of your eyes. You’ll question the eq moves you make more than you would vice versa (which results in minimalist eq techniques). That will also help you avoid phases that you may create yourself by eq-ing too much.

Compression

When mixing minimally, compression is key. You want to keep the dynamics of the song, but you don’t want things poking out of the mix when they shouldn’t be! I think the most prevalent two things to compress in a minimal mix are the snare and the bass. Obviously, compress the kick, guitars, vocals, as need be, but I’d say the snare and the bass you will want to focus on most. Since we are keeping it simple, keep a small ratio, set your attack/release (all dependent on the instrument), and slowly add in the threshold. Keep it on the lighter side though. Remember, we want those dynamics there!

Bussing

I kind of went over this in the “drums” paragraph, but to go into more detail, I will say- bus together with the things that make sense and make the mixing process easier for you. The reason I would bus the kick in/kick out together is that I have more control over the total sound of the kick through eq AND compression. It would be the same thought process for two guitar mics on the same amp, and so on.

That’s the gist of mixing minimally. I hope this blog helps you go outside of your comfort zone, and trust your ears a bit more. That’s what mixing this way has done for me!

I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy, and creative out there! No matter what, never stop making music or doing what you love.

Until next time SoundGirls, and as always- feel free to email me at virginia@backbeat365.com.

 

 

Basic Networking For Live Sound Engineers 

Part One: Defining A Network

The World of Audio Over IP

There is a certain sense of security that comes from physically plugging a cable made of copper from one device to another. On some level my engineer brain finds comfort believing that, “As long as I patch this end to that end correctly and the integrity of the cable itself has not been compromised, the signal will get from Point A to Point B.”  I believe one of the most daunting aspects of understanding networked audio, and audio-over-IP in general, stems from the feeling of self-induced, psychological uncertainty in one’s ability to “physically” route one thing to another. I mean, after all these years consoles still have faders, buttons, and knobs because people enjoy the tactile feedback of performing a move related to their task in audio.

The psychological hurdle that must be overcome is that a network can be much like a copper multicore snake, sending multiple signals all over the place. The beauty and power of it is that it has so much more adaptability than our old copper friend. We can send larger quantities of high-quality signal around the world: a task that would be financially and physically impractical for a single project using physical wires. In this first blog, part 1 of a 3 part series, I will attempt to overview a basic understanding of what a network is and how we can create and connect to a network.

What Is A Network?

A network can refer to any group of things that interconnect to transfer data: think of a “social network” where a group of individuals exchange ideas in person or over the Internet. Cisco Systems (one of the biggest juggernauts of the industrial networking world) defines a network as “two or more connected computers that can share resources such as data, a printer, and Internet connection, applications, or a combination of these resources” (Cisco, 2006 [1]). We commonly see networks created using wired systems, Wi-Fi, or a combination of these. Wired systems build a network using physical Ethernet connections (Cat5e/Cat6 cabling) or fiber, while Wi-Fi uses radio frequencies to carry signals from device to device. “Wi-Fi” is a marketing term for the technology that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) define in standards 802.11, and we could dedicate an entire blog just to discussing this topic [2].

 

Unicast vs. Multicast

In a given network using the TCP/IP protocol, which stands for “Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol”, devices exchange packets of data by requesting and responding to messages sent to one another. In a unicast message, one device talks directly to another as a point-to-point transmission. In a multicast message, one device can broadcast a message to multiple devices at once. To understand how devices exchange messages to one another, we must understand how IP and MAC addresses work.

I like to think of a data network like a department in a tour: there are the audio, lighting, video, and other departments, and each department has its own participants who communicate with each other within their own department. Let’s look at the analogy of a network compared to the audio department. Each individual, (the monitor engineer, PA techs, systems engineer, FOH Engineer, etc.), act as discrete hosts performing tasks like a computer or amplifier talking to one another on a data network. Every device has a unique MAC address, which stands for “Media Access Control” Address and, like the name of each person on a crew (except 48-bit and written in hexadecimal [3]), is unique to the hardware of a device on a network. An IP address is a 32-bit number written as 4 octets (if translated into binary) and is specific to devices within the same network [4]. Think of an IP address as different from a MAC address like a nickname is to a given name. There may be several folks nicknamed “Jay” on a crew, maybe Jennifer in Audio and John in Lighting, but as long as “Jay” is talking to people locally in the same department, the other hosts will know who “Jay” is being referred to.

These two networks (or tour departments) are not local to the same network

MAC addresses are specific to hardware, but IP addresses can be “reused” as long as there are no conflicts with another device of the same address within the same local network. A group of devices in the same IP range is called a LAN or Local Area Network. LANs can vary from basic to complex networks and are seen everywhere from the Wi-Fi network in our homes to a network of in-ear monitor transmitters and wireless microphone receivers connected to a laptop. So how do these devices talk to each other within a LAN?

IP Addresses and Subnet Masks within a LAN:

Let’s create a simple LAN of a laptop and a network-capable wireless microphone receiver and dive deep into understanding what composes an IP address. The computer has an IP address that is associated with it via its MAC address and the same goes for the receiver. In Figure A the two devices are directly connected from the network adapter of one to the other with an Ethernet Cat 6 cable.

Figure A

The IP address of the laptop is 192.168.1.1 and the IP address of the receiver is 192.168.1.20. Each of the four numbers separated by a period actually translates to an octet (8 bits) of binary. This is important because both devices are on the same subnet 192.168.1.XXX. A subnet is a way of dividing a network by having devices only look at other devices that are within their same network as defined by their subnet mask. There are 254 addresses available on the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. According to a Microsoft article, “Understanding TCP/IP addressing and subnetting basics”, XXX.XXX.XXX.0 is used to specify a network “without specifying a host” and XXX.XXX.XXX.255 is used to “broadcast a message to every host on the network” [5]. So, in this network example, neither the computer nor the receiver can use the IP addresses 192.168.1.0 or 192.168.1.255 because those addresses are reserved for the network and for broadcast. But how does the computer know to look for the receiver in the 192.168.1.XXX IP address range? Why doesn’t it look at 10.0.0.20? This has to do with the subnet mask of each device.

Let me give you a little history about these numbers: believe it or not, but there is an organization whose main gig is to assign IP addresses in the public Internet. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) manages IP addresses that connect you and your Internet Service provider (ISP) to the World Wide Web. In order to prevent conflicts with the IP addresses that connect with the Internet, the IANA enforces a set of standards created by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). One set of standards referred to as RFC 1918 [6] reserves a specific set of IP ranges for private networks, like the example 192.168.1.XXX. That means that anyone can use them within their own LAN, as long as it does not connect to the Internet. To understand more about how our computers connect to the Internet, we have to talk about DNS and gateways, which is beyond the scope of this blog. The key for our laptop and receiver to determine whether another device is local to their LAN lies in the subnet mask. Both devices in Figure A have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Each set of numbers, like the IP address, corresponds to an octet of binary. The difference is that instead of indicating a specific number, it indicates the number of available values for addresses in that range. The subnet mask becomes a lot easier to understand once you think about it in its true binary form. But trust me, once you understand what a subnet mask ACTUALLY refers to in binary, you will better understand how it refers to available IP addresses in the subnet.

A subnet mask is composed of 4 octets in binary. If we filled every bit in each octet except for the last and translated it to its true binary form we would get a subnet mask that looks like this:

255.255.255.0 can also be written as 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000

Binary is base two and reflects an “on” or “off” value, which means that each position of each bit in the octet, whether it is zero or one, can mathematically equal 2^n (2 to the nth power) until you get to the 8th position.

The octet XXXXXXXX (value X in octet of either 1 or 0) can also be written as:

(2^7)+(2^6)+(2^5)+(2^4)+(2^3)+(2^2)+(2^1)+(2^0)

Binary math is simply done by “filling in” the position of the bit in the octet with a “true” value and then calculating the math from there. In other words, a binary octet of 11000000 (underlines added for emphasis) can be interpreted as

(2^7)+(2^6)+(0^5)+(0^4)+(0^3)+(0^2)+(0^1)+(0^0)=192

OK, OK, roll with me here. So if we do the binary math for all values in the octet being “true” or 1 then in the previous example,

11111111=(2^7)+(2^6)+(2^5)+(2^4)+(2^3)+(2^2)+(2^1)+(2^0)=255

So if we refer back to the first subnet mask example, we can discern based on the binary math that:

11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000=255.255.255.0

When a value is “true” or 1 in a bit in an octet, that position has been “filled” and no other values can be placed there. Think of each octet like a highway: each highway has 8 lanes that can fit up to 254 cars/hosts total on the highway (remember it is base 2 math and the values of 0 and 255 are accounted for). A value of 1 means that the lane has been filled by 2^n cars/hosts where n=lane position on the highway and the lanes count starting at 0 (because it is a computer). So to add another car, it must move to the next lane to the left or bit position. For example, if you climb up from 00000011 to 00000111 each 1 acts like cars filling up a lane, and if the lane is filled, the next bit moves on to the next left lane.

 

Each position of a bit is like a lane on a highway (top), when the value of the lowest bit is “filled” or True (remember this is an analogy, really it’s either binary On or Off), the ascending value “spills” over to the next bit (bottom) 

So why do we care about this? Well if a device has a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 or 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000 that means that all the binary values of the first 3 octets must match with the other devices in order for them to be considered to be “local” to the same local network. The only values or lanes “available” for hosts are in the last octet (hence the zeroes). So going back to Figure A our computer and wireless network both have a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 which indicates that the first 3 octets of the IP address on both devices MUST be the same on both devices for them to talk to each other AND there are only 254 available IP addresses for hosts on the network (192.168.1-254). Indeed both the laptop and receiver are local because they both are on the 192.168.1.XXX subnet, and the subnet mask 255.255.255.0 only “allows” them to talk to devices within that local network.

In this example, we talked about devices given static IP addresses as opposed to addresses created using DHCP. In a static IP address, the user or network administrator defines the IP address for the device whereas a device set to DHCP, or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, looks to the network to determine what is the current available address for the device and assigns it to that device on a lease basis [7]. In the world of audio, the type of network addressing you choose for your system may vary from application to application, but static IP addressing is commonly preferred due to the ability for the operator to specify the exact range they want the devices to operate in as opposed to leaving it up to the network to decide. Returning to our earlier analogy of the audio department on a tour, each host needs a way to communicate with one another and also to other departments. What if the PA tech needs to talk to someone in the outside network of the lighting department? This is where routers and switches come into play.

A switch and a router often get referred to interchangeably when in fact they perform two different functions. A switch is a device that allows for data packets to be sent between devices on the same network. Switches have tables of MAC addresses on the same local network that they use to reference when sending data packets between devices. A router works by identifying IP addresses of different devices, and “directing traffic” by acting as a way to connect devices over separate networks. Routers do this by creating a “routing table” of IP addresses and when a device makes a request to talk to another device, it can reference its table to find the corresponding device to forward that message [8]. Routers are kind of like department crew chiefs where you can give them a message to be delivered to another department.

 

Routers can connect separate networks to allow them to talk to one another

Routers often get confused with their close relative the access point, and though you can use a router to function similarly to an access point, an access point cannot be a router. Routers and access points come up often in wireless applications as a way to remotely get into a network. The difference is that access points allow you to get into a specific local network or expand the current network. Unlike a router, access points do not have the capability to send messages to another network outside the LAN.

So now let’s say we want to add another device to our network in Figure A and we don’t need to cross into another network. For example, we want to add an in-ear monitor transmitter. One method we can use is to add a switch to connect all the devices.

Network from Figure A with an IEM transmitter added, all talking via a switch

The switch connects the three devices all on the same local network of 192.168.1.XXX. You can tell that they are all local to this network because they have the subnet mask 255.255.255.0, therefore all devices are only looking to “talk” to messages on 192.168.1.XXX since only the values in the last octet are available for host IP addresses. Voilà! We have created our first LAN!

It may seem daunting at first, but understanding the binary behind the numbering in IP addresses and subnet masks are the key to understanding how devices know what other hosts are considered to be on their local network or LAN. With the help of switches and access points, we can expand this local network and with the addition of routers, we can include other networks. Using these expanding devices allows us to divide our network further into different topologies. In the next blog, this concept will be expanded further in Basic Networking For Live Sound Part 2: Dividing A Network. Stay tuned!

If you want to learn more about networking, there are some GREAT resources available to you online! Check out training from companies such as:

https://www.audinate.com/learning/training-certification

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/training-certifications.html

https://avnu.org/training/

And more!


Endnotes

[1]https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/global/fi_fi/assets/docs/SMB_University_120307_Networking_Fundamentals.pdf

[2] https://www.cisco.com/c/en_ca/products/wireless/what-is-wifi.html

[3] https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/resource_library/files/89301711029b9788/networking_fundamentals_for_dante.pdf

[4] Ibid.

[5] https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/164015/understanding-tcp-ip-addressing-and-subnetting-basics

[6] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918

[7] https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/support/faq/firewall/what-is-dhcp-and-what-does-it-do

[8] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/small-business/resource-center/networking/how-does-a-router-work.html#~what-does-a-router-do


Resources:

Audinate. (n.d.). Dante Certification Program. https://www.audinate.com/learning/training-certification/dante-certification-program

Audio Technica U.S., Inc. (2014, November 5). Networking Fundamentals for Dante. https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/resource_library/files/89301711029b9788/networking_fundamentals_for_dante.pdf

Cisco. (n.d.) How Does a Router Work? https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/small-business/resource-center/networking/how-does-a-router-work.html

Cisco. (2006). Networking Fundamentals. In SMB University: Selling Cisco SMB Foundation Solutions. Retrieved from https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/global/fi_fi/assets/docs/SMB_University_120307_Networking_Fundamentals.pdf

Cisco. (n.d.) What Is Wi-Fi? https://www.cisco.com/c/en_ca/products/wireless/what-is-wifi.html

D-Link. (2012-2018). What is DHCP and what does it do? https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/support/faq/firewall/what-is-dhcp-and-what-does-it-do

Encyclopedia Brittanica. (n.d.). TCP/IP Internet Protocols. In Encyclopedia Brittanica. Retrieved April 26, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/technology/domain-name

Generate Random MAC Addresses. (2020). Browserling. https://www.browserling.com/tools/random-mac

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. (2020, April 21). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority

Internet Engineering Task Force. (1996). Address Allocation for Private Internets (RFC 1918). Retrieved from https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918

Microsoft Support. (2019, December 19). Understanding TCP/IP addressing and subnetting basics. https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/164015/understanding-tcp-ip-addressing-and-subnetting-basics

Thomas, Jajish. (n.d.).What are Routing and Switching | Difference between Routing and Switching. OmniSecu.com. https://www.omnisecu.com/cisco-certified-network-associate-ccna/what-are-routing-and-switching.php

SoundGirls Secondary Skills Series – Tour Managing

Working in professional audio is tough in the best of circumstances, COVID-19 has made this much more difficult and impossible in live events and the filming side. (We expect this will start trickling down to the post-production side soon)

SoundGirls is launching a series of webinars to help you develop secondary skills that can help you become more versatile in the types of gigs you can take.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Wearing Two Hats.

Zoom Webinars

May 11 Basic Intro to Tour Managing

May 18 – Pre-Tour Organization, Creating a Budget and Advancing

May 25 – Day of Show

6 PM to 8 PM EST

Register Here – a link to the webinar will be emailed to you

When starting out as a Live Sound Engineer, you will encounter gigs that require you to wear two hats. The Tour Manager or Production Manager and Sound Engineer are the most common dual roles you will encounter. Being able to handle both roles effectively will make you more valuable, increase your skillset, and allow you to gain the experience you need to tour solely as a Sound Engineer or Tour Manager.

What do you need to know to tour manage? Tour managing is similar to herding cats. Why would anyone want to herd cats? It’s difficult, time-consuming, and the cats don’t like it. These days touring budgets are shrinking and the crews are often smaller. This means when you are starting your career in live sound, you will be required to do more than one job. Engineer/TM/PM is a favorite combination.  If you gain the skills to TM/Engineer, you will be paid more and make yourself more valuable.

 


Moderated by Misty Roberts – A veteran Tour Manager and Coordinator of 20+ years, Misty has been pivotal in opening up the conversation regarding Mental Health in touring.  As a leading member of Show Maker Symposium, she is helping to develop content in these times of need to assist her industry peers.  As the founding member of the Women In Touring Summit, she continues to advocate for change in the touring industry on behalf of the 1,800 members of the group.

In addition to guiding the conversation with mental health and substance abuse professionals on the I’m With the Crew weekly webinar which addresses mental resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic, Misty also hosts the Tales From Seat 4A podcast- providing interviews with industry heavy hitters in the creative fields of comedy, music touring and movie production.  Slowly she’s finding her comfortable spot being in front of the camera instead of behind it.

 


Dana Wachs is a Brooklyn based Audio Engineer, Tour Manager, and Composer/Musician. Dana started her career in music in 1994, as bass player for the Dischord band Holy Rollers, which ignited her interest in live sound, after a national tour supporting 7 Year Bitch. Her first foray into the practice of live sound began after that at the Black Cat DC, and later the infamous 9:30 club.

Dana’s first national tour was as TM/FOH for Peaches supporting Queens of the Stone Age in 2002.  Her first International tour quickly followed in 2003 with Cat Power.  Since then, touring has kept her on the road 9 to 11 months out of the year with bands such as MGMT, St. Vincent, M.I.A., Grizzly Bear, Foster the People, Nils Frahm, Deerhunter, and Jon Hopkins to name a few.

Outside of touring, Dana composes and performs under the name Vorhees, with two releases on Styles Upon Styles (Brooklyn), and is currently composing her first feature film score.


Mary Broadbent is a Tour Manager, Production Manager, and Guitar-Backline Tech who’s been in the music touring industry for 16+ years. She’s tour managed for artists such as The Mowglis, The Staves, Loote, Wrabel, Plain White T’s, and production managed/stage-managed the festival Girlschool and She Rocks Awards 2018 & 2020. In 2015 she added Guitar-Backline teching to her skillset working for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Mowglis, The Staves, Plain White T’s, and Tegan and Sara. She serves as a TM/PM mainly but pulls double duty Tour Managing & Teching when tours require it. She finished off 2019 Tour Managing for Clairo on her Immunity Tour in the US & Europe and started off 2020 Guitar Teching for Against Me!  when the industry was put on pause by Covid-19. She lives in Los Angeles, and is using this ‘ pause ‘ in the touring world to take a Mixing Live Sound Course and advancing her on-going guitar lessons.


Maxime Brunet is a Canadian freelance FOH engineer and has worked as a Tour Manager. She has toured internationally with artists such as Wolf Parade, and Operators, amongst others. She has also developed an intro to live sound class aimed at women and non-binary musicians, which she has taught in multiple cities across Canada.


Tiffany Hendren - Dedication, Hard Work and EmotionTiffany Hendren is a full-time sound engineer and head audio tech at Del Mar Hall in St. Louis. She has toured as FOH Engineer and Tour Manager for Betty Who. She is also a co-director of SoundGirls.

 

You are not a unicorn: The transferable skills you already have

I have written before about the need to have a back-up plan for when times are tough What’s Your Plan B. We literally work in a gig economy and there are plenty of reasons why you might not be able to make ends meet solely through audio. Whether it’s an injury, family illness, recession or global pandemic keeping you from working, or you simply want a bit of a change for a while, knowing you have an alternative job you can fall back on (preferably one you can do in any health, from anywhere) can be invaluable.

Unfortunately, we in the live music industry like to think we’re a totally unique, ragtag bunch of misfits, who’ll never be able to stick a “normal” job. I’ve been told many times that the only way out of live audio is to move into a less physically demanding role that is still in the industry, like production management or an office job with a hire company (or death!), because our talents are so idiosyncratic and we just don’t fit in anywhere else. This exceptionalist mentality can even extend to calling people outside the industry “muggles” or even “civilians” like we’re a band of magical Navy SEALs. The bad and good news is we are not as special as we like to think. If you’re considering an alternative career or just supplementing your income, there is hope. You already have plenty of transferable skills that you can use to your advantage. Here are just a few of them:

You’re self-motivated: If you’re a freelancer, you know you need to hustle for every gig. You organise your own education and training, network like your life depends on it and keep up to date with industry news. Even if you’re a full-time employee you will still do most of these things. At work you are task-orientated, managing your time and prioritising your workflow without direct supervision so everything is ready for doors.

You’re hard-working: You work long hours in a job that is both physically and mentally demanding and you take it in your stride. Have you ever had to sympathise with a friend who complained about having to do a nine-hour shift in retail? Or someone who had to stay in their office until 8 pm to finish paperwork? All the while thinking about the forty-five hours you had put in over the previous three days? Of course, every job has its own challenges, but long hours are not something you shy away from. Neither is lugging heavy flight cases across a field or literally getting your hands dirty pulling cables.

You’re a team-player: While you can be trusted to get on with working by yourself, you also have plenty of experience as part of a team. You’ve probably worked with difficult colleagues, in tough circumstances, and still made the show a success. If you’ve led an audio crew or worked with stagehands, you have evidence of leadership and delegation.

You’re flexible: When was the last time you did a gig where everything was exactly as you expected it to be? Channel list updates, technical faults, late arrivals, and spontaneous changes to the schedule are part of our everyday lives. Similarly, you might be patching a festival stage one day, doing FOH for a conference the next, and fitting mics for a musical the day after that. We are used to change and know how to adapt to each situation.

You’re smart!: Even if, like me, you don’t have a formal qualification in audio, you have a massive working knowledge of acoustics, electronics, and software management. If you can read a console manual and stay awake through the whole thing, let alone understand it, you’re doing better than a big chunk of the general population. It’s easy to forget that we deal with some pretty complicated topics, but we do, and often in very challenging and time-constrained circumstances.

You’re an experienced troubleshooter: This is where all that frustration over technical issues was worth it. If you can look at a setup, imagine the signal flow in your head and work through each potential point of failure, you can look at the big picture in any situation and think about potential solutions to problems. Attempting fixes in a calm, logical, and methodical way, and keeping track of what does and doesn’t work, can be a highly useful but surprisingly rare skill in many work environments.

You’re multilingual: You are so fluent in tech-speak you don’t even notice it anymore. However, perhaps, more importantly, you can also talk like a normal human and can speak client. Good communication skills are paramount in any job, and they don’t solely involve talking. Effectively listening and truly understanding what’s being said is just as important, if not more, as making yourself understood. Being able to interpret and respond to nerd-speak or a musician’s complaint that their monitors sound a bit too.. you know… green… or floooshy…, or effectively and diplomatically translating what the issue is to the non-technical end client, is an incredibly valuable talent that can be applied to countless work scenarios.

You’re calm under pressure: Gigs are some of the most stressful work environments in the world: extremely tight time constraints, expensive and complicated equipment that could ruin the whole gig if any failure occurs, and rooms full of intoxicated and excitable crowds. It’s like if someone had an hour to prepare their big presentation for corporate while being jostled by drunk people who keep spilling their beers on the keyboard. We deal with that level of acute stress on a daily basis, and we’ve learned to remain calm and think clearly throughout.

According to this Forbes article, The 7 Transferable Skills To Help You Change Careers, the seven most sought-after traits in job postings are technical skills, communication, critical thinking, multi-tasking, teamwork, creativity, and leadership. If you can solve a technical issue, work with your department to fix it, and keep your client updated on your progress while keeping soundcheck rolling, you’ve just demonstrated all seven of those traits without even thinking about it.

Whether you’re looking to change career or just diversify a little, you already have a solid skillset to help you. Listing your strengths accompanied by real-life examples can show potential employers how you’re a better fit for the position than they might think from simply seeing your job history. This article from the UK job site Indeed has good guidelines for how to adapt your resume (CV) for a change of direction. Our industry might be very unusual, but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to become institutionalised. Of course, we’re all special and as unique as snowflakes, just like everybody else, but we can be rehabilitated to adapt to “normal” jobs. Find something that interests you and give it a go. You can always re-enlist in the magical Navy SEALs if it doesn’t work out.

Choosing the Right DAW

 

Your Digital Audio Workstation – or DAW for short – is the noble companion to every producer’s life. Having the correct DAW can have a major impact on your workflow so it’s essential to choose the right one for you.

There are many great DAW’s to choose from like Pro Tools, Logic Pro X, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Garageband, Cubase, and many more. In my opinion, it’s vital to do some research and narrow down which system meets your needs.

To aid this, I’ve broken down my experience with some of the major players Pro Tools, Logic Pro X Ableton, and Garageband to try and compare my experience using each one.

Garageband Beginner Level / just starting out 

Garageband was the first DAW I used and it really helped me fall in love with producing music. I believe Garageband to be very user-friendly and the basic layout and features make it easier to understand if you’re just starting out. If you don’t have an Apple computer, I believe audacity is a great start for windows users.

Logic Pro X – Bedroom Producers / Ideal for singer-songwriter-producers

In my opinion Logic Pro X is the best bang for your buck. If you’ve come from using Garageband the layout is very familiar and you have the option to show or hide some of the advanced features. It comes with a wide range of software instruments and plug-ins that make it ideal for bedroom producers that don’t have access to live musicians.

Pro Tools – Great for recording / Industry Standard

To quote my sound production lecturers ‘it’s the industry standard’. If you want to make producing your profession and you dream of working in different studios, Pro Tools is the DAW to learn. In my experience, the learning curve is quite steep and sometimes can be a bit fiddly in places. However, once you find your way around, it’s great.

Ableton Live – You want to play live what you produce

Ableton is great if you want to make music and then perform it live. Its capabilities are incredible and I love that you can just create a beat on the spot and then add in melodies on the fly.

To conclude, all of these DAW’s are great for making music and I really recommend trying a few out to see what feels right. Most of the DAW’s mentioned come with free trials so take advantage of that and see what feels right.

Copyright in the 21st Century

 

As we know, March 2020 has been a strange time for most of the world due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Subsequently, the music industry at large has been extremely quiet, but before the outbreak and lockdown rules became widespread there were several interesting events and technological advances relating to music copyright law.

The start of March saw the current Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” legal battle rage on into its sixth year, with the band winning their latest appeal for a new trial – the group Spirit had previously won a case that ruled Zeppelin’s famous opening arpeggio riff had infringed the Spirit 1968 song “Taurus”. While it seems this particular feud may be far from being over, it was closely succeeded by another high-profile case days later.

Stairway to Heaven:

 

Taurus:

Following a previous lawsuit in 2019 that ruled Katy Perry’s song “Dark Horse” had copied the ostinato from Flame’s 2009 track “Joyful Noise”, the verdict was overturned on 17th March by federal judge Christina A Snyder. Judge Snyder stated:

“It is undisputed in this case, even viewing the evidence in the light most favourable to plaintiffs, that the signature elements of the eight-note ostinato in “Joyful Noise” is not a particularly unique or rare combination.”

While news of the judge’s decision to overturn the verdict came as a surprise, the sentiment of Snyder’s statement resonated with most musicians who had listened to the songs in question – you can read my comparison and analysis of the 2019 trial here

The latest Katy Perry development felt like a “win” for good musical sense, but where do we go from here? What might the future hold for common sequences and regularly used traditions of composition? Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin think they might have some influence on this – the duo has developed technology that is working to find the answer to the eternal question “Is the number of melodies in this world finite?” As there are only a finite number of notes, can they only be arranged in so many ways?

Rubin is a musician and programmer as is Riehl, who also happens to practice law. Together they have created an algorithm that writes 300,000 melodies per second to disc as a MIDI file, thus automatically copyrighting them. The data set parameters for measuring the melodies use a range of one octave (incorporating a major and natural minor scale), and counts up to 12 individual note values for the length of the melody line, as this range works well for the conventions of pop music.

The two big questions arising from this technology lead us to ask whether the pair have infringed on every existing song there’s ever been, and will the songs of the future infringe on them? Riehl says no to the latter – the intention of creating this technology is to put the findings into the public domain to make the world better and “keep space open for songwriters to be able to make music”. The technological parameters of the algorithms’ range are expanding and developing all the time – the pair are currently working with a pitch range of 12 chromatic notes which means that in terms of genre this covers more than pop music, such as classical and jazz melodies. Riehl is sure that one day the technology will be equipped to use “100 notes and every rhythmic and chordal variation in the future”.

From Riehl’s expert legal view the repercussions of this technology could be ground-breaking in ensuring creative freedom exists for composers; he believes the copyright system is broken and needs updating, explaining that the average legal fees for these cases are in the range of $2 million-plus a fee to the original songwriter. The consideration of whether the accused had access to hear the original song in question would still be taken into account, as would the idea of conceding that songs can be “subliminally infringed” without ill intent.

In explaining the mathematical programming element of the algorithm, Riehl borders on the metaphysical as he shares the findings that we have a finite number of melodic combinations available to us and that “melodies to a computer are just numbers – those melodies have existed since the beginning of time and we are only just discovering them”.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition that this new technology is strangely aligned with the ancient concept that we pluck or channel our ideas from an unknown aether where they have always existed. Who knows, but maybe we can find some comfort and feelings of connection with something bigger than ourselves as we work through these solitary times.

You can download all the music created by Riehl and Rubin plus the algorithm programme code at http://www.AllTheMusic.info

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   

 

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