Guide The Future By The Past

You kids don’t know how good you have it. Back in my day we had to load in uphill. Both ways. In the snow. A great many things have changed since I did my first paying gig on Labor Day weekend in 1980. IIRC it was $20 plus some lunch in an under attended high school football stadium in Santa Ana.

Previously I’d been schlepping gear in the back of my Toyota mini truck while trying to wrangle some Peavey columns and an XR400 mixer head for a couple of local punk bands. The Memorial Day gig was my first “big gig”. Big meaning a couple of Peavey SP1s a side, a CS800 amp a side, a Peavey 16 channel console that wasn’t a powered mixer head (IIRC a 1601) and 4 Peavey wedges with a CS400 with graphic eq for the mains and mons. Plus for the first time ever a snake and Roland RE201 Space Echo. I was like a pig in shit even though my part of the gig was largely neck down. And had one of the three pickup trucks we used.

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While some things have changed particularly with regards to equipment the basic workflow the underlying physics of sound have not changed. Unfortunately not everyone in pro audio from experienced techs to entry level recognize or appreciate it. Basic transducer theory is the same way it always was. Ditto Ohms Law, the inverse square rule and the decibel. An issue is that some formal educational programs gloss over them or don’t cover them at all.

Over the pandemic I was freelancing at a small streaming studio as a combination A1/engineer in charge. We streamed both corporate gigs and entertainment. I was lucky to have the gig given how many weren’t working. It was occasional but more for my sanity than for the money though I needed both. Because I was more “experienced” (expensive) than what was required for some of the gigs particularly the lower profile podcasts the produce I was helping train up and coming young techs new to the field.

One kid seemed pretty good. He had a strong work ethic was on time and listened to direction. During one shoot he told me he studied audio as part of the theater program of the local state university. I asked specifically what he studied. He said something to the effect of “you know, audio”. I pressed him and he responded “you know, Protools”. That was the extent of anything in detail at that particular program. He learned Protools. That was the bulk of it. The concept of basic signal flow and console operation were foreign to him. If it was outside the box he didn’t experience it in school.

I’d been involved in the hiring process since about 1990 when I started running the operations at PA companies then until the pandemic at the production shows. We had intern programs, we hired entry level people as well as savvy old dogs for our higher end tours and clients. For every theater or arena tour we did scores more local gigs. Those were bare bones a couple crew and a limited assortment of gear. These $1000-$2000 gigs were the proving ground. It’s where we had them cut their teeth. It’s where I cut mine.

You needed to know what impedance matching was, how to deal with ground loops, how sound traveled in air and factors that impacted it. If you were on the desk or setting up a rig you needed to know gain structure as well as to artistically layer a mix. You needed gig etiquette. IOW know when to talk and when to hold your tongue. You need to know how to listen to people not just hear them.

I scoffed at resumes that listed gear used as opposed to skills possessed. On most analog consoles once you could get around one you could get around most any other one. The interfaces were largely the same. These days it’s more complex but if you follow the basics of signal flow from the olden days you’re golden. Even if you can’t remember which screen or option sets your preferences. Know how to access the input, how signal flows through it and how to route it to the outputs. Same then as now but with screens and fewer faders even though now there is more I/O.

What I’ve seen doing themed production shows is somewhat similar to what I saw touring in terms of entry level hires. Here we see some theater program graduates. Touring I saw a lot of Art Institute or Full Sail graduates. I see a lot of themed entertainment people from the cruise ship and theme park world in this gig. In fact when a new hire comes aboard I’ve been known to break the ice with saying “so what cruise line and/or theme park did you come from”? Of all the disciplines of performance audio themed entertainment is probably the closest to what we do though we’re a narrow speciality of our own. The skillsets we require are a mutt’s mix of music, theater, corporate, broadcast and themed entertainment. Touring rock and pop techs often have the most difficult time in this discipline.

While there are some differences in application there are several similarities in how this new meat is trained. Back in the day there wasn’t the depth and variety of manufacturer training there is now. Largely we built, packaged and configured most of our infrastructure. We had to know how things worked not only on the application level but also the what I call “plumbing” of the system. IOW how does this work in as much as how do I work this. In 1980 the touring sound business was still relatively young. Touring with the same PA was initially only for the larger acts more because you couldn’t get that scale locally and didn’t know if you could trust them if you could. You had to be part mad scientist part poet.

Bob Heil, one of the original innovators of large scale live audio wrote a book called Concert Sound. Howard Tremaine wrote the tome Audio Cycolpia. Grob wrote Basic Electronics, its latest editions still a standard EE100 text. Many of the application based books were recording oriented as were all the formal programs at the time. Runstein penned the original Recording Studio Handbook. Don Davis and his wife Carolyn wrote the seminal text Sound System Engineering in addition to founding the gold standard of formal technical audio education Synergetic Audio Concepts or Syn-Aud-Con. Even with those thorough texts sound reinforcement was still an after thought in formal audio education.

As technology progressed and the operation of the equipment gained in complexity so did the level and depth of training. Over that time the focus started shifting to how to use specific gear in specific applications. For example when digital tech started gaining prominence many bypassed basics like quantization, sampling rates, bit depth and dither. If you are white gloving it and just turning knobs to get good sound it’s not so bad. If you need to interface devices and configure systems you’re going to need at least the basics. Those basics include some of what I listed a few paragraphs ago. On top of that throw in digital signal processing and networking.

Most manufacturer training is two fold. It allows users to train on the gear but also serves as a marketing platform. The most successful ones focus on the education and application and let the marketing speak for itself. Yamaha is particularly adept at this as is d&b, Audinate and others. Some others have a third aspect monetizing the training. I’m not against paying for education but considering what equipment from these vendors cost it’s gouging me to train to be able to use a million bucks of their gear. I know what your boxes cost and I know what training costs. You don’t need to charge us for training particularly when it’s online.

That said manufacturer training is absolutely essential. While I think it’s fair for them to offer training on their specific gear I don’t think it’s fair for them to need to train the basics. You should know the basics before you get there. That’s where something like a secondary eduction, Avixia or San-Aud-Con comes into play. If you only learn how to use specific gear you limit your effectiveness and value on the crew. You don’t have a solid platform from which to develop troubleshooting skills. Much of what a tech does is nuance to be applied to a specific situation particularly troubleshooting. It’s not so much a direct application of that knowledge.

For example you don’t need to know mic theory to wire a stage. You need to know how to count, be efficient and run clean cable paths. Once you start using that mic some of these deeper knowledge components help you better use the device and apply that to your work. When you understand a subject deeper you don’t pull things out of your ass when you’re trying to troubleshoot. When you know why and how things work you can eliminate myths and misconceptions when applying troubleshooting skills. This is particularly true with networking and system interface. I’ve heard some wacky theories in my time. When one is able to grasp the mechanics of the trade they’re less likely to grasp at straws when solving a problem.

You don’t need to become an acoustician or electrical engineer. What you do need is a basic grasp of the concepts. You don’t know need to memorize the specific formulas or details. When I studied mechanical engineering my ME101 prof told us that engineering isn’t so much memorizing things. It’s about knowing where to find that information. For example you my not need to know specifically the 10x impedance matching ratio. What you do need to know is if you exceed that with passive analog splits you’ll load down analog inputs and tank your system response. You’re all digital now? You don’t need to know how to calculate a CIDR subnet mask but you do need to know enough about subnetting to be able to get everything to talk and if you’re multicasting understanding the basics of a broadcast domain.

If you just want to push box, plug in what you’re told where you’re told, pin cabinets and run the pickle you don’t really need a deeper skill set. That’s cool. And the gang. But if you’re the tech directing push box-pull rope and responsible for making sure it runs right, even if it’s just your part, you need some basic skills. Learning those skills isn’t as sexy as learning to mix on a six figure desk or hang and tune a million dollar PA but there’re just as critical if you want to excel in those things.

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