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Maxime Brunet FOH Engineer, Tour Manager, & Road Warrior

 

Maxime Brunet is a freelance live sound engineer, primarily mixing FOH & tour management. She also works in music venues as both a FOH & monitor engineer. She has been working in live sound for ten years and touring for six. She has toured with a variety of artists over the years, including Wolf Parade, Chloe Lilac, Operators, TR/ST, Kilo Kish, Marika Hackman, & Dilly Dally.

Early Career – DIY Punk, Radio, & Trial By Fire

Growing up in Ottawa, Canada, Maxime played in DIY punk bands, promoted shows, & attended as many concerts as she could. She started her professional audio journey when interning at a community radio station in high school. After completing her internship, she was offered a position as the production coordinator: she recorded ads and station IDs, as well as helped volunteers edit interviews, and trained them on how to use the recording equipment and DAW. She developed an interest in mixing and began recording and mixing her own bands, in which she played bass & sang.

Maxime attended the University of Ottawa, where she studied political science. During her undergrad, she started shadowing live sound engineers around town. Eventually, she was hired at Café Dekcuf/Mavericks, a popular two-story venue. It was ‘trial by fire;’ she recounts learning something new every shift and really having to work on understanding how to fight feedback, properly run a soundcheck, and learning how to mix. Though she had already toured as a musician, she really wanted to try her hand at being a touring tech. She asked bands who said they liked working with her to take her on tour. In 2014, her hard work led her to tour North America & Europe with the noise metal band KENmode.

In late 2014 she moved to Toronto, where she got a job at The Mod Club, a 650 capacity local venue. This position was instrumental in helping her to hone her abilities. For the first time, she was working in a venue where there were 2 engineers on her shift – FOH & monitors. She found & worked with a community of inspiring audio techs in Toronto, who pushed each other to increase their skills, shared job postings, & looked out for each other. This was the first time she really felt like she was part of an audio community.

Perseverance & Breaking the ‘Grumpy Sound Guy’ Stereotype

❖ How did your early internships or jobs help build a foundation for where you are now? 

I learned perseverance through mixing my first shows – my mixes certainly didn’t sound great at first, but I realized that if I didn’t keep working at increasing my skills I’d never get anywhere in this field. Audio is a long-term job, we’re all continuously learning new skills and improving.

❖ What did you learn while interning or on your early gigs?

Sometimes it’s not about being the most skilled, it’s about how you work and relate to the people you’re working with. I certainly wasn’t the most technically skilled mixer when I started working in venues, but I genuinely cared about the sound the artist wanted to achieve and tried to develop relationships with the musicians instead of just demanding they turn down their amp. I realized from working alongside one too many “grumpy sound guys” that I would get further if I was nice to the artists, promoters, & crowd.

❖ Did you have a mentor or someone that helped you?

I’ve had many mentors, and they’ve all been instrumental in helping me achieve success in this field. From Slo’ Tom at Zaphods teaching me the ropes, to Ben at Mavericks answering all my questions and helping me improve my mixing skills, to Keeks in Toronto pushing me into the professional touring world, I’ve had a lot of support and I am very grateful.

Current Career & Adapting to a Post-Covid World

❖ What is a typical day like for you on the job?

As a touring tech, waking up in a hotel, answering emails before we start our daily drive, loading into the venue, making sure hospitality has arrived, soundchecking, making sure the band is comfortable, making sure the show runs on time, mixing the show, settling the show, loading out, & getting everyone settled for the night in the hotel.

❖ How do you stay organized and focused?

I use apps like Mastertour to upload day sheets and Google Drive to keep documents remotely – it’s always important to have important documents (insurance, passports, etc) on a cloud. I upload as much information as I can before the tour starts; as a tour manager, it’s important to be organized and know what each day looks like ahead of time in order to plan drive times, etc.

❖ What do you like best about touring?

Mixing in a different city every night. I am a person who loves daily challenges, I don’t love routine (though there is a certain routine to load in and shows).

❖ What do you like least?

The long hours & being away from friends and family. I’ve made a lot of great friends touring, but it can be difficult to miss events that family and friends can attend (for example I am always working Friday nights, which is often when people who work 9-5 host parties).

❖ What is your favorite day off activity?

Exploring new cities, eating local food (particularly sweets!), having a good coffee, and catching up on some reading. I also love sending postcards.

❖ What are your long-term goals?

I’d like to get back into studio mixing. I recently purchased an audio interface again and a pair of studio monitors, I’d love to mix friend’s musical projects. When touring comes back, I’d also love to get back on the road – I miss it so much!

❖ What are your short-term goals?

Making it through 2020. This year has been quite a challenge,  but I’m grateful to have a strong community of tech friends who checked in and supported each other through these tough times.

❖ What, if any, obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I, fortunately, haven’t faced too much sexism in the field, but I’ve definitely had to explain to club owners that I was qualified to mix or had bands tell the local crew to not make rude comments about me.

❖ How have you dealt with them?

I remind myself that sexism is, unfortunately, a part of modern society and try and brush it off as best as I can. I have a job to do, someone’s rude comment about me being a woman won’t stop me from having a great mix that night. As I was told by a musician: “we hire you because we know you’re great at your job”.  I still think about this comment, and it reminds me there’s a reason I’m mixing on these tours – I am talented.

❖ How has your career been affected by Covid-19, & how have you adapted to the current situation?

As a live engineer, my work disappeared in March for the foreseeable future. As things are very uncertain for the music industry at the moment, I decided to return to school to increase my skills. I am currently a student at Concordia University in the Graduate Certificate in Communication Studies. I am planning on applying to Masters programs in 2021.

❖ Favorite gear?

Digico consoles, Telefunken & Sennheiser microphones. I’m fortunate enough to tour with talented artists: a good band will sound good on ”bad” PAs and lower-end mixing consoles, but it’s nice to have good tools on hand. I always travel with my own vocal mics (my personal favorite is the Telefunken M80); it’s a definite advantage to use a mic with a tighter pickup pattern on loud stages to really make your vocals pop in the mix.

❖ Must have skills in the industry?

Problem-solving and the ability to multitask.

❖ Advice you have for other womxn who wish to enter the field? 

Be determined, persevere through those first few rough gigs and keep looking for opportunities. No one is instantly great at their job, we have all had bad gigs. Live audio isn’t the kind of field where jobs will just appear on a website, you need to constantly network and look for the next gig. It will be harder to be taken seriously as a woman and you will face barriers, but I do think that artists and management are starting to understand the value of hiring women.

More on Maxx:

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Profiles of Women in Audio

From Stage to FOH – Alice Wilder

Alice Wilder is a Front Of House engineer based out of New York City. She currently works for M.I.A., Wolf Parade, and Austra, and has done FOH for Foxygen, Divine Fits, Tinashe, The Drums, and Diana amongst others, as well as monitors for Third Eye Blind. When she is not on the road, she can be found mixing records in her home studio or working as FOH at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Alice grew up in Muncy, Pennsylvania, where she developed a passion for music in high school.  She went to college to study accounting, but after three years in the program realized she couldn’t see herself working in that field. She dropped out in 2006 and moved across the country to Seattle.

Once on the west coast, she started playing guitar in local bands. Alice realized she didn’t particularly enjoy being on stage and decided to focus on finding a way to be involved in the behind-the-scenes of the music industry. She started interning as a sound engineer in local live sound venues. It didn’t take long for her to get hired on as a monitor engineer at Neumos. Around that time, she had also started working at The Comet Tavern, a barebones, 16-channel analog board small venue where she refined her signal flow skills: “I would go in early, and see how everything worked. I couldn’t see (the signal flow) at Neumos, but at The Comet, I could see how the cables went out into amps and then into monitors, really understand the routing.”

Alice is a self-taught engineer and credits her interning and first gigs in Seattle with showing her the ropes of being a sound technician. She learns best through trial and error and mentions she follows her gut when mixing.

In 2009, she went on her first tour as FOH in Europe for Seattle band Grand Archives.  “I don’t think they wanted to bring me; I think I actually had to persuade them to bring me. My ex-girlfriend was opening for them, and I was in her band, and that was kind of the transition for me: I was opening for (Grand Archives), and then I would go and do sound, and I preferred doing sound. I think that was a determining year for me – I realized I did not want to be on stage anymore, get me off of here, I can’t wait to do sound!”

She worked at Neumos until 2011 when she started touring extensively with Toronto dance-electronic band Austra.  She met the band after working with them at Seattle’s block party, in 2011, and they were so impressed with her skills that they brought her on as their touring FOH. She has since found more clients, by networking at festivals after receiving compliments on her mixes or being referred to other bands through some of her current employer’s management. Her main touring gigs in 2017 are M.I.A. and Wolf Parade.

Alice’s favourite parts of touring are: “seeing/exploring places I wouldn’t normally think to go to or spend money on going to.  Meeting people from different parts of the world and experiencing the food they eat with them is fun.  This is about all the time you have on tour.”  Her least favourite parts of touring are not having enough time to visit a new town or place, not getting enough sleep and shared hotel rooms. On an off day, you’ll find her visiting local cemeteries: “I like to try to do non-touristy type things, as most people do now I think.  My favourite thing to do is visit graveyards.  I know it sounds dark, but really it’s just nice to get the peace and quiet whenever possible on tour, “smell the roses,” if you will.  The Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris is wonderful.”

When she’s not on the road, Alice has gotten into studio mixing. Although she is currently most comfortable in the live sound world, she is working on her engineering skills whenever possible: “anytime I have a day off, I’m on YouTube watching tutorials or buying plugins, or speakers or gear. I’m just trying to learn as much as possible.” She mixed Austra’s latest album, Future Politics, and is currently mixing projects for Petra Glynt and Caveboy.

In live sound, Alice’s favourite pieces of gear are outboard delay units and the Waves C6 multi-band compressor. In the studio, she currently likes Slate plugins and their monthly subscription service, which gives you access to all their products for a flat fee. She describes their plugins as very transparent and is a fan of using their EQ’s and compressors on busses when mixing in her studio.

Regarding her long-term mixing goals, she would love to one-day mix FOH for Beyoncé or Lady Gaga. She has a soft spot for working for female artists and loves helping or assisting women with elevating their music career in a male-dominated industry. She would also love to be on a tour with bigger production, where she would have her choice of mixing consoles & PA. Her long-term studio goals are to get into producing and to mix more records.

When asked about her must-have audio engineering skills, Alice states that knowing signal flow and having a good ear are crucial: “ultimately, you have to have a good ear and know how to mix if you want to have this job. You can’t just go in and start assigning compressors and slam everything. Knowing when to be dynamic, knowing what the band wants to sound like, and knowing how to translate that for them to the audience.”

The biggest barriers she has faced while touring have been “speedy line checks, communication problems and bitter house engineers,” which she has dealt with by “being a composed professional and making stuff happen however I can.” She also recalls this story: “one time, in New Orleans, the sound guy didn’t show up to work, and so the bartender pointed at a closet where he thought all the audio stuff was.  I ended up setting up the entire sound system, including the desk and wired everything together.  That was fun.  Luckily it was on one of my very first tours, so I had the drive to pull it all together. I’ve definitely had to deal with a ton of “mansplaining” too of course.  I take those instances with a grain of salt now and just rise above the silliness. Getting angry only makes you more exhausted and doesn’t help the situation.  I’ve learned how to have fun with it now, but it certainly wasn’t in the beginning.

She offers this advice to young women looking to enter the field: “there are a lot of ups and downs and bumps in the road, but if you stick with it, it’s a very fun career choice. More and more women are entering the scene, so the condescending/belittling attitudes are diminishing, and equality is happening. We need women in this field.  We need the balance, the talent, and the brains.  It’s an awesome job!”

You can find more information about Alice and her current mixing projects on her website alicewildersound.com

Riding the Roller Coaster of Live Sound – Rena Kozak

Rena Kozak is a FOH engineer and tour manager based out of Calgary, Canada. She has always had an interest in arts and has played in numerous Calgary bands as well as studied painting and drawing at University before becoming a sound engineer.  

A talented dancer, Rena was studying ballet at the University of Calgary in 2002 when she injured her foot. Unsure if she would be able to dance again, she considered alternate career paths. A friend of hers, Josh Gwilliam (current chief engineer at OCL Studios in Alberta) suggested she look into the audio recording course at the Academy of Production and Recording Arts in Calgary. By a stroke of luck, Rena’s father had just given her $5,000, a bonus from his job as assistant coach of the Canadian women’s hockey team after they won the 2002 Olympic gold. The audio engineering program cost exactly that amount, and Rena enrolled. After graduating, she began working at a recording studio but found the work of recording commercials to be monotonous.

Instead of pursuing more studio work, Rena interned with an electrical engineer and learned to fix analog equipment.  In 2005, this electrical engineer recommended her as FOH for the musical Guys and Dolls. She recounts: “it was an insane opportunity in retrospect, a 24 person cast with a full orchestra… people work for decades to break into that kind of work. It was a crazy stroke of luck. I never thought I would like live sound, it seemed so intimidating, but it was exhilarating to take my knowledge and apply it in the moment to tell a story to an audience.”

After the musical had ended, Rena got a job with a local production company Sound Art, working on shows and maintaining gear in their shop. In 2007, she did a national tour as a monitor engineer for a dance show that featured a live band. Rena felt the road wasn’t for her and found that touring took away her ability to create music or art. She took a house gig in 2008, as house engineer for Mac Ewan Hall.  child_actress

In 2012, her boyfriend passed away suddenly. After grieving, Rena found that she was in a different place mentally: “I wanted fewer physical attachments. I didn’t know where I wanted to live, I didn’t want possessions, I didn’t want to attempt to have a lifestyle that resembled anything permanent for a while so I approached the boys in Preoccupations  – who were called Viet Cong at the time and are long time friends – about using me as their touring FOH.”

Preoccupations agreed to hire her, and Rena found herself thriving as a touring FOH. She has worked as FOH for Operators (Montreal), did a run of festival dates with Holy Ghost! (Brooklyn) and even had the chance to fill in on monitors for Beirut for a couple of shows, which she describes as a career highlight.

Operators

Operators

Although she enjoys being on stage, she has realized she likes touring as an engineer more than as a musician. She thrives on mixing the same show every day and enjoys the challenge of having to work in different rooms.  Rena notes that touring can be a psychological roller coaster: it is hard to get to know new people and sharing tight spaces like a van or bus can be taxing. To offset the stress, she tries to eat well and do as much hotel room yoga as possible.

Her favourite piece of gear is her old TAC Scorpion recording console, which she is slowly re-soldering and fixing. In a live setting, Rena likes using guitar pedals as live mix effects – on the fall Preoccupations tour, she was running a couple of FX chains for vocals and drums, in the hopes of recreating the album’s sound. She hopes to get other gigs that allow her to be as creative with equipment.

Regarding must-have skills, Rena believes a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the show done is crucial.  “This job is mostly problem-solving – whether it’s solving the actual technical problems with the sounds themselves or repairing broken equipment or figuring out how to safely get the gear through a mud puddle into the venue. There is no problem that cannot be solved; you just haven’t found the solution yet.”

It’s also important to have a solid technical understanding. Knowing how the physics of sound works, knowing how your gear functions and why, understanding the equipment and systems in detail – these things are so important to achieving a good product. The more you know about your tools the better you will be at manipulating them. It can be easy to get by without knowing details – a lot of people work for a long time with very little knowledge, but reading up and building a foundation of knowledge is what will set you apart.”

rena_bass-with-shematomas

Rena’s long-term goals are to keep touring as a FOH, and to work on her own artistic projects. She has recently finished recording and mixing her first solo record (under the name Child Actress) and is looking forward to writing more music.  You can find her on the road with Preoccupations in 2017.

Rena shares some words of advice on the barriers she has faced as a woman in the audio industry, and how to overcome them.

“I’ve been tremendously lucky to have had an exceptional amount of support from so many people I’ve worked with. Of course I’ve faced the obvious challenge of being a girl. While it’s never prevented me from landing good jobs or enjoying my work, more often than not it has absolutely been a factor.

Fortunately, I had a lot of very real support. A lot of dudes who were well respected in the business saw my passion for it and believed I knew what I was doing gave me work and helped me learn and progress. I don’t think most people are as lucky to have as much support as I received.

That being said, it’s been a constant issue. It feels funny answering this question right now because of how I’ve continued to struggle with being female at work even in these last two months. From the guy who wants to carry my case for me (fine, you want to help but it’s my case, it isn’t even heavy, I don’t need you to look after me we are peers here) to the old house sound guy who tries to tell me how to EQ my wedges until I demonstrate to him how my EQ curve was actually cleaner than his, to the TM who makes side comments about not liking “having to listen to a woman”. It isn’t gone. I’ve been at this for nearly 15 years and it’s still there. But, it’s better. There are more of us, and things are changing.

I have always been great at handling the old-school sound guy personality type. I’m great with a quick joke and talking to them like I am their equal. I’m rarely intimidated, and I’m quick to win most of them over with my personality.

I’ve also recently found I’ve needed to deal with my own internalization of systemic sexism. Trying to remain calm and remind myself why I love this work and that I deserve to be here doing it, and trying my best not to react with anger as much as possible. I am very actively working on this right now, trying to be Zen and maintain confidence at all times. I find the best way of thinking about it is to remind myself that I have to COMMAND respect and not DEMAND respect. Don’t get angry, just be confident and execute your work as perfectly as you know-how and this will generate respect from your peers.

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

“Do not be intimidated by anyone. You have as much or more right to be there as anyone else.

And for those who are just beginning and feeling intimidated by the equipment or the technical side of it, shake that off and remember that you are capable of comprehending anything technical – and remind yourself of some of the sound guys you’ve met along the way.They aren’t all geniuses, are they? If they can do it even just a little, you can do it epically well. 

And call me up! I love to teach; I’m happy to take on any ladies who want to apprentice or just ask questions.”

You can contact Rena and find out more about her upcoming projects through her website

US Tours, Non-US Techs – Work Visas and You

 

As a Canadian working in the music industry, it often feels like my lack of American citizenship is impeding me from furthering my resume.  I frequently hear from American bands and techs how tough the Canadian border crossing can be. While I can empathise, as I am not a fan of borders, the flip side of the story is how hard it is for non-Americans to work legally in the US.

American musicians and crew with a clean criminal record can enter Canada with an immigration letter and appropriate documents, without paying a fee. Meanwhile, Canadian bands and crew looking to tour in the US must apply for work permits. Regardless of whether these artists are playing a coffee shop for three people or an arena for 20,000, they must pay for these visas.

The lowest tier and most common visa for entry-level artists and crew is a P2. Currently, this visa costs a minimum of 425$. US Immigration is reporting a backlog of P2 applications, and suggests bands send in their application 90-100 calendar days before their first show. While on tour in the US last year, the KEN mode musicians and I were waiting on renewal info for our P2 visas: although the band had submitted the forms in May of 2015, we were only told of the approval for our next visas in early October, one week before the old ones expired. That means we waited over 120 calendar days for visa approval! We were fortunate to get our visas renewed in time – fellow Canadian band Royal Canoe weren’t as lucky.

Canadians aren’t the only ones affected by this visa backlog. Polish death metal Decapitated were forced to cancel an American tour in 2015 after they didn’t receive their visas in time.  The costs of planning a tour abroad are substantial: the band most likely had to put down payments on a vehicle rental, order merchandise & backline equipment, purchase plane tickets, etc. To have a tour canceled due to immigration issues is heartbreaking, to say the least.

These are typical fees for a P2 – note that the crewmember’s visa is almost as expensive as the artists’.

For artists:

A 4-piece band can then get P2 visas for $485.

Crewmembers must submit a separate i-29 for an additional 325$ USD, and then pay a separate 100$ CND filling fee. Additional techs can be added for 20$ CND. Bringing one technician into the US then costs 425$. Adding this fee to our hypothetical four-piece band’s visa process means they are now looking at just under 1000$ to be able to perform legally in the US, with one crew member working for them.

To some, this might seem like a small cost, but to up-and-coming bands with uncertain touring incomes, this added 425$ is an expense they can’t justify. To save money, these foreign bands touring in the US might rely on local crew, or hire Americans. While this benefits my American technician friends, it’s heartbreaking to hear as a Canadian looking to do more touring.

P1 Visa

Moving up in visa categories, once a band achieves more recognition, they can apply for a P1 visa, and a P1-S visa for their crew. The P1 process requires more support documents and is typically done with the help of an immigration consultant, which further increases its costs.

P1 and P2 visas are artist-specific – this means that as a technician or musician, you are tied to the musical act under which your visa was processed. As a foreign technician, if you work with three bands with plans to tour the US, you should have three separate visas in your passport. That’s just under 1000$ sent to Homeland Security, to process the same i-29 form three times. To make matters worse for visa applicants, the US Government is proposing changing the i-29 form fee from 325$ USD to 460$ USD. That’s a staggering 42% increase, deemed necessary by officials to cover the full costs of the services provided.

Non-Americans looking to do more technician work in the US might consider applying for an O1-B visa.  This visa class requires an individual to show their extraordinary abilities in the art world, as demonstrated by either being a recipient or nominee for a significant national or international award in their field of work (ex: Emmy or Grammy), “or evidence of at least three of the following:

If the above standards do not readily apply to the beneficiary’s occupation in the arts, the petitioner may submit comparable evidence in order to establish eligibility (this exception does not apply to the motion picture or television industry).”

In short, the applicant must demonstrate that they are well established in their field and that your average American worker cannot match their skill set.  Beyond having an extensive resume, applicants will also need to pay an immigration consultant to prepare their application, which costs upwards of 5000$ USD. An O1-B is first granted for three years, and can then be renewed annually. Few up-and-coming techs can afford to pay for this, let alone qualify for the visa’s requirements.

Non-American technicians recognize that the ability to work with an American musical act is often crucial to career advancement.  The US has a population of roughly 320 million, compared to Canada’s 35 million. There are simply more touring acts and therefore more touring jobs with American acts – the US is also a much bigger musical market than Canada.

I asked a Canadian tech friend, Drew Malamud (FOH for Skrillex), why he found it necessary to apply for a 01-B. He told me that without his visa, he simply wasn’t working as much as he is now. Furthermore, buying his work permit made him level to American technicians in the eyes of future employers. As there was no added fee to hire him, he became a viable option when applying for tours with American artists.

So, what is the solution? On my end, I am just focusing on building my resume, in the hopes I can one day apply for a 01. To my American friends: do we pose enough of a threat to your job security that we can’t even apply for American tours without possessing an expensive work visa? If you have a moment, please write to your House representative and tell them you would like a more reciprocal work agreement created.

* Disclaimer: I am not an immigration consultant. If you are thinking of applying for a work visa, I recommend you reach out to an immigration consultant firm to verify your admissibility. If you are Canadian, you can also visit the Canadian Federation of Musicians’ website for more information on visa processing.

LINK: http://www.cfmusicians.org/services/work-permits#OtherWorkPermits

 

Teaching to Empower

 

How do you teach the basics of sound reinforcement, when you still find yourself learning from the shows you work?

This was the question I was left asking myself after I was asked by the City of Ottawa’s Community Arts and Social Engagement program to develop an introduction to sound course for women.

My background in sound is diverse. I worked at a community radio station as a teenager, and then I taught myself how to record when my band needed to make a demo. I moved on to working in live sound in my early 20’s when some local sound techs to let me shadow them. I never went to audio college. When I had a question, I read up on what I could find online or asked fellow techs. It was definitely a slow process – I don’t think I knew what I was looking for when I EQ’d a room for that first year of working shows. From working with different co-workers and touring techs, it quickly became obvious to me that there were many different schools of thought in how to approach mixing in a live venue.

IMG_3145As great as it was to ask questions to fellow techs, I sometimes found it intimidating to admit I didn’t understand a concept. I was a young woman, new to the industry, and with very few female audio techs to look up to. I could count on one hand the amount of female audio techs I’d worked with before moving to Toronto. It’s not that I prefer learning from women, but as volunteering for Rock Camps for Girls has taught me, it’s that it can be nice to learn in an environment where you are not shamed for asking questions. It’s these thoughts that helped me frame my course plan.

I wanted to make sure women with little to no experience running a sound board would feel comfortable doing an equipment rental, setting up a PA and running a small sound check after completing the one-day class. Perhaps a bit ambitious considering similar classes tend to run a week or more, but I had faith in my participants.

 

Preparing for that first class, held in August 2015, was daunting. I came up with a basic manual and a course agenda:

  1. We would spend the morning talking about the equipment needed to set up a PA
  2. I’d set up a PA in front of them
  3. Participants would get in groups of 2-3 and set up their own PA
  4. We would then go over tech requirements for different kinds of artists
  5. Finally, we would set up a PA at a small arts space and sound check a band

IMG_3140I was fortunate that my first round of participants were fairly experienced – mostly musicians, and even some women who had been through a music industry arts program in college. They seemed to absorb the material, and the soundcheck portion of the class went fairly smoothly, except for one crucial point: the difference between gain and faders. As we’d been using small powered mixers without faders for part of the day, I could see where the confusion was coming from. From having had a few bad experiences with over gaining and feedback, I’m always wary of my gain pot. I also don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s always necessary to hit -0dB levels on every input: sometimes, your source is just too quiet and it’s best to try and get it as close as possible and pull back before feedback. This is definitely something I learned through experience, which I tried to convey to the participants.

That first session received a positive response, and the city brought me on for another class in November 2015. With the help of the assistant teacher, Lesley, I re-worked some of the sections of the teaching manual. Version two of the booklet was definitely more concise. The second round of participants ended up having different backgrounds in audio and music than the first group, which lead to the class schedule needing to be slowed down. This taught me as an instructor that although you can prepare a lesson plan, you never know how well your students will absorb it until you start teaching them!

With that lesson in mind, I re-worked the class yet again. The winter 2016 edition of “DIY Intro to Sound Class for Women” was split into 2 days, making the weekend portion slightly longer, which gave me more time to cover materials. We moved the soundcheck practical portion of class to two days later, which would hopefully give participants more time to process what they’d learned. This proved to be a double-edged sword– the weekend portion was more relaxed, but it was difficult for some participants to make time to come to the weekday class. In retrospect, I like the condensed class better, as I found it was easier for students to stay in the groove, even if it was a long day.

As I told my students, no amount of class time can replace experience: the city of Ottawa has been working on internship opportunities for class participants so that they can put the skills they’ve learned to use. Live sound is tactical, and you have to work different shows with different artists to develop your own toolbox of tips and tricks. I also subscribe to the idea that to stay on top of your craft, you must constantly be pushing yourself to learn new things: although I have been working full time in live sound for close to 3 years now, there is still so much I want to know!

IMG_4650I am now working on part two of this intro class, aimed at women who are looking to further their skills and find work in live sound. This will be hosted in early summer at one of the city’s theaters and will give students the chance to work in a real venue, with pro-audio level equipment.

Which leads me to ask: what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned working in live sound? What resources (books, websites, videos) helped you? I’m looking for help and input in the continuous development of my curriculum. Feel free to reach out if you have resources or tips you’d like to share.

Thanks to Caleb, Allison and Karen at the City of Ottawa Community Arts and Social Development Program for their support in creating this class.

 

 

A First Timer’s Guide to NAMM

In January, I went to my first National Association of Music Merchant (NAMM) trade show in Anaheim. (more…)

Life on Tour: Your Emotional and Physical Well Being

 

As I write this, I’m just over three-quarters of the way through a 60-day North American tour. My life in the past six weeks has revolved around spending anywhere from 3 to 12 hours a day sitting in a van, loading in, hopefully getting a soundcheck, waiting around for the set, mixing, and then loading out, all fueled by little to no sleep and a questionable diet. I might not be a doctor, but I know from personal experience that this lifestyle can take a toll on a person’s emotional and physical well-being. (more…)

Setting up Heart Fest

 

For the past three years, I have helped out my friends with the audio & production side of a small festival they organize called Heart Fest. Held in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa, Heart Fest features over 30 hardcore & punk bands from across the world. (more…)

SoundGirls.Org – August 2015

August 2015 Highlights (more…)

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