Okay, here's my theory about those kinds of interactions. The person isn't seeking information. They think they are, but what they really want is connection, a feeling of being on the inside. For a non performer, there's kind of this magic about the stage, the show, the scene. Finding a question to ask an insider, being vulnerable and asking, it gives them a connection to the magic. Not quite a backstage pass, but something. I always try to find something to say or do to give them a moment of special. It's cool you noticed that. Most people don't even realize those are speakers.
That’s the thing. You perfectly described the thing.
I always tried *not* to break the 4th wall for the punters - once you see behind something, the magic is lost.
Knowing how it’s done IS the magic for me; when it’s just an illusion and I don’t know how they tricked me, I just get annoyed, but when I know how it’s done, it makes the trick better for me. My kid is the opposite; when we saw the Harry Potter studios and he learned how they made Hagrid look so big, he got angry.
Well put. We are in a business of facilitating human connection, and after your comment, I feel even more that these kinds of interactions are intimately connected to the very reason that we are doing what we do, to begin with.
I found out this truth in an astonishing way years ago. Was FOH for a support act on an arena tour. One night, A woman, by herself, stood in front of the barricade by my console & watched the show intently. After the set, she turned & asked me a few questions about the band & the audio. She seemed reserved & a bit distant. I assumed she might have been press or a venue employee, but she didn’t have any credentials I could see. She thanked me for explaining & went on her way. The interaction always stuck in my mind for some reason, couldn’t put my finger on why, though.
Some years later, I got a message through the band’s management. It was from the same woman, & there was a photo of her with her young son, smiling & looking very happy. She told me that the day of that show, she had planned to watch the show, & then go home & commit suicide. She was deeply depressed & felt she had nothing to live for. She said that just having a single person talk to her, and make her feel a tiny bit more connected to the world, made her get help & begin the recovery process. She later had a son & is now thriving.
Never forget that what we do can quite literally save lives.
I’ve been performing on stages since I was 10. Realised pretty quickly that there’s a magical fascination with live performance amongst people who could never imagine doing it themselves. A little info, a bit if insider gossip, a story, an anecdote… People love a look behind the impenetrable curtain. It’s amazing how much a little moment of your time results in something people recount at dinner parties ten years later
I've read this idea a couple a different places, that more important than the quality of the show is how the audience feels. I always keep that in mind with every interaction with audience members.
I’m taking this with me everywhere. What a great little tidbit, I love talking about live sound to anyone that will listen… but the idea of throwing back a compliment to really polish the interaction is wonderful. I’m definitely going to be doing that.
They even think that those speakers live there… that there wasn’t a crew working for hours or even a week or two to build the system. Education is about calm and about meeting those questions. My frustration is reserved for the Videographer who never answered emails and comes in wanting a downmix 2 minutes before downbeat. ;-)
You just experienced the curse of knowledge.
Best way to overcome it is to remind yourself of the time when things were new to you.
Then you realize there’s no such thing as being smart, just time that passed with your mind holding onto something.
Then the guitarist says "yes" and the guy replies:
Wow! I always thought the vibration of the magnetic strings in a magnetic field induced a variable current in a coil and that this signal was processed and amplified and sent to the speaker where the electronic oscillations were converted into movement of a speaker membrane, producing a compression wave in the air, which, being capable of being picked up at a distance by a human ear and processed in the brain, can be correctly called sound. But now I know - it's the actual sound of the strings vibrating that I hear from the back of the room. My PhD's in audio signal processing and in psychoacoustics let me down there. I would have thought the sound of the guy hitting the strings would be way too quiet.
These are always the most entertaining and poorly timed of the gig NPCs to approach you on the job.
"My neighbour used to own a pair of Peavey 15" speakers and a Denon controller, so I think I know what I'm on about, actually"
Having to explain the fundamentals of acoustics and electronics to a tipsy punter mid show when all you want is to go for a piss, but they're mates of the promoter so you can't just ditch 'em, that's a fun experience.
On the other hand, someone bringing their kid over who wants to ask what all the faders do and lights mean, that can be the energy that gets you through a long night on the console.
For me it's all about the energy in the exchange. If the gig's buzzing, and you come over buzzing, I'll be buzzing speaking to you. If the gig's hard work, and you're being hard work, guess what? I'm probably going to be pretty hard work. Not being a dick, but the priority chain doesn't *always* start with having a natter, sadly.
one time i was out sitting in the audience mixing on an ipad and had a guy come over who was wasking what i was doing. i explained i was controlling the mixer with the ipad and then realized he didnt even understand the concept that i was placing a mic on an instrument and putting it through the PA. he said "where does the sound come from?" and i pointed to the line array and he was like "ohhh wow cool"
kind of crazy but it was actually interesting to explain such simple concepts to someone who doesnt know but is interested
The amount of people who didn't even realize that we have the capability of controlling audio from a tablet is crazy. I feel like they don't realize we are just controlling a console that's on/near stage. I think they think the iPad is whole thing.
I went from a college jazz musician and made a 180 into audio. I knew literally nothing. I had to ask what wedges were for, was amazed you could mix from a tablet, and didn't really understand why I couldn't just plug a microphone into my computer. That was like 6 years ago so it's still pretty fresh in my mind but also seems like a different life.
I do weddings sometimes and it’s gotta be like 30% of them that someone comes up and is blown away that I am controlling the sound with an iPad. I usually tell them “yeah technology these days, eh?” and that it’s “connected to a mixer via WiFi over there where all the mics plug in.”
It’s either that or something like,
“What are you doing?”
“Doing the sound”
“Oh I thought you were playing games. So like the bass and treble?”
“Kind of…yeah”
I run sound for a church using a tablet while seated in the congregation. The console is in a balcony outside of the speaker coverage (there is only tech people up there, no normal seating). Mixing with the tablet is better than not hearing the room well IMHO.
I know there are people that are wondering "why is that guy always on his tablet?" and think I'm being disrespectful. ☺
One thing that's interesting about this is that in unfamiliar technical hardware environments, people don't actually "see" the individual parts. I noticed this while I was teaching beginner hang gliding. There's a very simple collection of bars and wires in the "cockpit"; a central keel, two sidebars, a crossbar, and four wires. That's 8 straight lines that form the "cockpit", with a ninth strap hanging down from the central point for hooking your harness into.
Over and over again, I'd try to visually explain which piece of hardware to grab onto, and the beginners couldn't do it. I eventually realized that they see the "cockpit" as one "thing", and aren't able to mentally distinguish the different pieces of hardware.
Now that I play live, when I look at a stage from the audience's perspective I see the monitors, snakes, pedal boards, amps, stands, cameras, lights, PA, etc. This makes it really weird to go back and watch old live performance videos of bands I watched when I was 14 (Queen especially) because now that I can name everything on stage the scene looks much busier than it did when I only saw Freddie Mercury and the Stage (one "thing", just like the beginners see the "cockpit" as one "thing").
Anyway, that's a lot of rambling to say that I doubt that guy ever even noticed there were speakers on the stage until that gig. If you asked him to draw the show from memory he likely wouldn't have even included the black boxes at the foot of the stage in his sketch.
Edit: just realized he said "I've always seen that and wondered", so my comment doesn't really apply to this guy in particular, but it does to other people I've taught about sound equipment.
I’m fine with people being curious and asking questions.
I hate when people come up and feel the need to tell me it’s too loud, etc. when it’s at a completely normal level for a concert and below our house dB threshold.
Stay in your lane fool!
It often genuinely is too loud, I have to bring earplugs everywhere with me so my tinnitus from it being too loud doesn't get worse. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
but also sometimes it isn't too loud.
Lol I definitely agree but that can also depend on where you’re at in the venue as well.
Tinnitus is a bitch though. I feel for you. I’ve luckily avoided that.
Literally just one gig that's too loud where you forgot your earplugs is enough to never hear silence again. Get the earplugs on your keyring (if they aren't already there) and keep them there.
Yes you should bring earplugs to a concert and expect to have to use them lol cmon. I have tinnitus too….from not realizing I needed to wear earplugs soon enough
What weighting? Measured where?
Not relevant here really, but I hate it when venues have “SPL limits!” But can’t tell me the specifics of where it’s measured at and what weighting is used.
I once had a venue try to tell me that the SPL limit (which wasn’t in our contract anywhere) was 89db and he was going to measure with a cheap Chinese made meter that he had gaff taped to the front grill of the speaker with the diaphragm directly in front of the horn output 🙄🧐😂
In all honesty it’s not typically an issue. It’s pretty rare that we have to say anything and it’s really obvious if it’s too loud in our venue. When we do check it though it’s typically the center point of our orchestra section (lower level center of PA) but we will also walk around and the weighting we use is dBA.
It’s a very old theatre with lots of original decorative plaster. We’ve had plaster fall from the ceiling in the balcony because of sound levels during a Joanne Shaw Taylor show a few years ago (she fucking rocks though!). A lot of it has since been redone and reinforced but it was still mostly kept as original. So that’s the reason why we will say something if it’s uncomfortably loud. This auditorium was designed as an acoustic venue so adding amplification can cause a lot of nodes/anti-nodes in the space. We also have a really shitty PA right now but are hopefully upgrading to an A8 rig in August.
Like I said though it’s generally not an issue and most tours that come through with their own FOH engineers have an SPL meter set up and keep it at a decent level.
I actually had a great talk with my doctor about this yesterday, he had no idea that FOH and monitor mixes were two different things and thought everyone everywhere heard the same thing!
And here I thought I knew nothing because I haven't done any real work in a while, definitely made me feel a bit better about myself :,^))
I was probably in my 20s when I realized that monitors and FOH could be 2 different consoles and two different operators. Admittedly that was a REALLY long time ago when the concept was still fairly new.
People think we are magical wizard dudes who smoke cigarettes.
My favorite thing civilians say is "so you know what all those buttons and knobs do huh?
It sounds like a ridiculous question until you realize they most likely think that every knob, fader, and button does something completely unique, instead of a lot of duplicates doing the same function on different things.
I really enjoy when a folk comes to me to understand what's happening / what do I do.
The best thing is to try to explain as simple as possible but without doubting the intelligence of who is asking.
And I love when this comes from a kid. Because I was one really curious one and had some awesome guys answering me the most dumb questions and now I'm here working with some of them.
I got my spending money in college running sound but then made my career in IT. I used to work IT for a school system and would volunteer backstage for the theater program sometimes and the look of pure joy on the FOH's face when he realized he could make a call over coms and I actually knew what he was needing was kind of hilarious. It was fun seeing some of the students learn about the tech roles in the A/V world and really get interested in them. Never really kept up with any of them but a few did go off to some well known theater schools and are now working on Broadway.
Communication is king in this line of work. Being able to quickly read what level of understanding the person you’re dealing with has is key to doing this job successfully, be it performer, manager, promoter, audience member etc.
We’re dealing with people first, technology second.
That’s my approach anyway
A family member of the band came up to me at sound check and said “it’s way too loud”.
My reply was - “ok, thanks, we’re working on several things”. It was a highly reverberant space with no one there.
After the show - same person thanked me for turning it down.
I replied that I actually turned it up as the event went on, and had the opportunity to explain that once the place was full, the bodies aided in knocking down the reflections.
The only person(s) whose requests are honored are the ones writing the check. Even PD requests are directed at the venue owner and must be based on a correctly calibrated SPL meter.
All other requests get a smile and a “thank you for letting me know”.
>The only person(s) whose requests are honored are the ones writing the check.
This is the way! Venue owner/manager/band are the only people I listen to. Everyone else gets the nicest non response I can muster in the moment
When its the people who are paying you that have no idea what you do...thats when it becomes a problem.
"we want it to be like all the shows we see on tv and live performances!"
"ok. we need this, this, this-"
"woah woah, hold up. why do we need all this stuff. i dont think we need this stuff. whenever i see it on tv they just have a mic and it gets turned up..."
"....sigh"
its a painfully common conversation for a certain group i work for somewhat regularly. seriously, why hire a professional if you aren't going to listen to anything he says???
Coming from a live theater environment, you may be surprised at how many people are unaware that all the actors have individual mics on them. And honestly a lot of people don't even clock that I am a sound person, they assume lights or something. It is truly just abstract entertainment magic for many people
Don't even get me started on explaining to them what stage management is either.
Once I worked on a little town festival, DJ as last act. afterwards, when we were literally removing the speakers and the lighting, some girl asked the DJ: can you play this and that song for me? Sure he can, without power or amplification....
Pretty harmless question. Get used to it. Much better than "why does it have to be so loud" "i can't hear the singer" (especially when the band's stage volume is killing you out front).
Personally I don't like the dumb questions from the audience, because I'm an introvert and I've grown tired of all the same dumb questions ("do you know what all them knobs do", etc.), but I am always nice about it and sometimes those exchanges turn into gigs.
When somebody ask the knob question, I always say: well, I don't know, but when I push this button it moves funny and there are pretty lights. (moving between fader banks)
Also an introvert! My face tells on me when people ask dumb questions. Because I genuinely don't care to talk to people that I don't need to talk to. I try to be nice and accommodate when I can, obviously. Innocent questions get some grace from me for sure. I enjoy talking to people about what I do, just wanna make sure they actually care about what I'm saying
>"do you know what all them knobs do",
The amount of times I hear this is excruciating. I need a shirt that says "yes I do know what all them knobs do"
I haven't been asked that one in a while. I always said "These go in and out, these left and right, those up and down". Sometimes they got my sense of humor, other times the look of horror on their face made my night.
If it was slow/pre-show or she was unnaturally hot, I would do a quick rundown of the control groups on 1st channel strip and then say "and there are 39 more exactly like it to the right - one for each microphone"
The question makes sense to me. Most people's experience with singing or casually playing an instrument is an environment where you can hear what you need to without extra amplification.
Well, it might be really straightforward for us. But for them, this is something new and uncharted territory. So its totally fine if they ask ‘stupid’ question because its the same for us too for something that isnt our expertise.
>I'm always shocked by how little people understand about what we do.
Y'all need to realize most people don't know shit about audio. That is a given. Most people don't even know what a .WAV is.
I honestly love any time I get to nerd out and explain things about what I’m doing. That being said, it’s more often than not someone demanding something be adjusted, different or created that is usually not at all possible. But, for those select few that are genuinely curious and want to learn more, they make my day.
If I had the opportunity to watch them prepare to launch a space shuttle from the command center, I would be definitely asking, “what does that button do?”
It's normalized for us but most people don't see the difference in process between a band being mixed through a million dollar line array and just "connecting the band" to their Bluetooth speaker.
I was working as local crew in an arena. Big show. Lots of new hires and some temp workers. One person (first shift on a loadout) they ask me why we were putting all the equipment into trucks.
“I said so they can do the show in the next city”.
“They said don’t they have the same equipment there?”.
That was fun.
That's it? At least it was genuine interest. I was asked if I can make it so the vocals will be in german, not english, as the elderly gentlemen in question did not understand english.
Maybe you grew up in a family or environment where right from your earliest memories you were exposed to live audio / music studios, or you’re 65 years old and have never touched a mixer in your life… at some point we’ve all had a moment - depending on how you either got into performing and/or live sound - where we looked at the dozens of speakers on and above the stage, or at the huge mass of gear with a bunch of bouncing LED and VU meters in the middle of the dance floor and were in awe.
I remember with my first band in high school (early 2001), at practice we always had our PA speakers facing away from us…that’s what it was like at concerts, right? However the band we were opening for at our very first show had these weird small speakers mounted to the mic and I obviously asked the same question…what are they for? We played the show I was stunned at the fact that I could hear myself, I chatted with him more and was just amazed at the gear. That was likely one of many conversations that changed everything, my 15 year old self was hooked.
So I try, if I’m not in the middle of a rush, to explain anything to anyone - including people who have been playing music or going to shows for a while. Last night when I was tearing down and wrapping my 30+ mic cables, someone talking to the band sort of turned to me and asked why “everything isn’t just connected via Bluetooth” and I wasn’t in a rush - I had a wireless system for the band’s vocals right next to me and I explained that just the vocals are wireless and not the drums or anything else because of reliability, the need for batteries, the sheer amount of frequency range etc. for actual wireless systems (I stopped short of explaining frequency ranges 🙃) and that Bluetooth has way too much delay and interference and quality loss. He was like “…oh wow. I guess you have a lot less to worry about with just a wire” and I smirked.
Had a guy come up to me and asked , pointing to my shark fins, "What kind of crazy speakers are those?" It took everything in me not to say, really s*@!*y ones that work better as antennas. I also used to label a fader as A/C on my last layer so when people would inevitably ask me to turn up the temperature I could push a fader up and make them think I did something.
I only learned this in the last couple of years when playing in bands.
Unless you've played onstage there's really no reason to know how directional speakers are, what the sound is like up there, what band members can hear or not, and how they might choose to only have some instruments in their monitors. If you asked random people about it at a show most would have no idea. It's a little surprising that it's surprising to you!
Why were you dumbfounded? Most people probably don’t know monitors are necessary. It’s not really an intuitive foregone conclusion. And, no, it doesn’t make you super smart that you do know.
This is common. At least he was nice about it.
Once a bar manager, who didn’t understand what I do, started talking about me behind my back. She apparently told the bar staff that she thought I was a waste of money as “all I did was walk around with an iPad”.
She would show up at 5pm by which time I had built/rigged the lights, pa and stage, and would usually be sat waiting for the bands to arrive. I think she was just pissed she couldn’t boss me around like the bar tenders.
Years later I bumped into one of the bartenders who told me he wanted to put on a night and do the sound. I said I would be happy for him to come down and shadow me.
He came down and was shocked at how much work goes into it. He said the manager had convinced everyone that I was lazy and had a cushy job. I always wondered why some people acted weird when I said I had a long day.
People have a very difficult time understanding the relative nature of sound… they think what they are hearing is the same as what someone 40ft away is hearing. They assure themselves of this. It is prejudice in the extreme.
Even musicians don’t get it. And many Studio producers and recording artists don’t understand it either… I work in musical theater and the whole game sometimes is managing expectations… the director (for whatever reason) has an idea to put the cellist onstage and the drummer off right… but the moment they say “and I really don’t want to use mics for this production…” you have to learn to say… “wait one second … you understand that this means they will both think that the other one is late and the drummer will never hear the cello player… right?” And the musical director will look at you just as quizzically as the director does … because they haven’t come to grips with the incontrovertible facts … that pressure is heat, and space is time… it bleeds into everything. Wisdom is being able to empathize. Empathy is transporting yourself to each musician in time and space and understand fundamentally that 40ms means something real. They will get into arguments about who is late… and who misses the downbeat… and not realize that EVERYONE is late.
Unless you put a monitor in front of a performer or in their ear… with what is maybe a maximum of 5-10ms… you will never win at tempos exceeding 60bpm… and that isn’t even about the amplitude of frequencies above 450Hz. Very few people understand this about the sense they use daily… they don’t understand that they gauge directionality by cognitively combining data about delay and masking in both their ears… the truck that’s about to hit you is Doppler shifting, muffled and about a ms late in your right ear… so look to your left and get out of the way… audiences are not intimate with this reality.
That lack of understanding is what we are up against every single day.
Heh, before I got into the biz I had no idea what the boxes on the stages were, but the only live performances I saw were on TV before I was about 20, then I got into recording and going to shows and I immediately knew.
I have no problem answering questions about what we do, and I don’t cast judgment for not knowing. We have a very unique skill set. It’s not much different then asking an architect or an airplane pilot what they do. We all have a basic idea of what they do but most have no fucking idea how anything in life works( myself included). I always chuckle when someone gets pissed when the power goes out or the WiFi stops working and someone says. “God how dumb are these people, they don’t even know how to keep the lights/wifi on” and the person making that statement has zero idea how any of that shit works besides turning on the switch.
They sure don’t. Until I started in music, I always thought musicians asking for certain instruments to get more volume was so that the audience could hear. If you’re not involved in live music, there’s not really any reason to think that the show sounds different for musicians than it does from the audience.
He knows now, that's the point. There are probably less humble people who will never know. Celebrate his spirit!
Some musicians think there is sound in the wires - of course we know that inside the wires the electrical signal analogous to the sound is being transmitted
oh wait that's wrong - it's really travelling in the air against the surface of the wires which is why lots of very thin wires works better than one thick wire.
And there are people out there, some of them musicians, to whom that is just the beginning of understanding how it works.
My favorite phrase is "copper is copper". Idk why but it's satisfying to say and a lot of people don't get that a cable is "generally" just a means to an end.
The whole appeal of glib phrases is that they create a feeling of satisfaction
Once you put the word "just" in there, it's easy to imagine you have gotten to the heart of something.
Rocket science is just pointing a tube to the sky and igniting the fuel within it. Rockets are rockets after all.
Electrons are just electrons
How much that we own or control is NOT a means to an end? A brain? What is the advantage in thinking of cables as just a means to an end? It doesn't follow that all cables are as good as the best, but it can create the satisfying feeling that this is so and that therefore we might as well use the cheapest.
I have a degree in metallurgy and could tell you quite a lot about copper. I can assure you that there was not an exam question "What is copper" to which the correct answer was "copper"
I could possibly tell the guy who asked about foldback even more, and I reckon he could teach both of us something worth knowing.
Actually I realise that looking at things as (but not "just" as) a means to end can be helpful in remembering/deciding what that end is. If we don't know why we have things we might not be as selective and end up surrounded by junk. That's the lesson I'm taking as I decide to sort out my garage today. Thanks
I sincerely hope you find something useful in my rant.
Anyone else have a “vibes” fader for when someone asks for something to “be louder”? The amount of times I just move a blank fader or knob and the person gives me a thumbs up is ridiculous.
Yes people do not know how things are as we didn't knew before we learned it. It seems logical for the band to hear themselves but some people do now have the slightest idea.
That seems like a harmless exchange. Was this guy a musician or just a random patron?
Agreed. As long as folks are polite and genuinely curious, I'll explain just about anything
and from the other end, I've found being polite and respectful almost always gets my questions answered.
Usually will :-) unless we are super busy or just having a terrible day
Where do babies come from
[I suppose it's time to have "the talk"](https://youtu.be/MUuNDb-nm5M?si=MeHDagmrLxmNR5jc)
Just a random guy, the band hadn't shown up yet. I wasn't in a rush so I didn't mind the question, just shocked by it
Okay, here's my theory about those kinds of interactions. The person isn't seeking information. They think they are, but what they really want is connection, a feeling of being on the inside. For a non performer, there's kind of this magic about the stage, the show, the scene. Finding a question to ask an insider, being vulnerable and asking, it gives them a connection to the magic. Not quite a backstage pass, but something. I always try to find something to say or do to give them a moment of special. It's cool you noticed that. Most people don't even realize those are speakers.
You’re a good human.
Oh mate, that's beautiful. I think you're on to something there!!!
That’s the thing. You perfectly described the thing. I always tried *not* to break the 4th wall for the punters - once you see behind something, the magic is lost.
Unless they're nerdy and genuinely derive enjoyment from understanding the whole process. My dad is this way lol
I mean, I found it MORE magical when i started to learn how it all works to be honest
Knowing how it’s done IS the magic for me; when it’s just an illusion and I don’t know how they tricked me, I just get annoyed, but when I know how it’s done, it makes the trick better for me. My kid is the opposite; when we saw the Harry Potter studios and he learned how they made Hagrid look so big, he got angry.
Thank you for a perfect example of what I was saying. Of course *I* wanna know, but I try not to ruin it for others.
Well put. We are in a business of facilitating human connection, and after your comment, I feel even more that these kinds of interactions are intimately connected to the very reason that we are doing what we do, to begin with.
Absolutely! Just as Stringy63 and your comment resonates with me. I believe these connections have an exponential value. Keep doing what you do.
I found out this truth in an astonishing way years ago. Was FOH for a support act on an arena tour. One night, A woman, by herself, stood in front of the barricade by my console & watched the show intently. After the set, she turned & asked me a few questions about the band & the audio. She seemed reserved & a bit distant. I assumed she might have been press or a venue employee, but she didn’t have any credentials I could see. She thanked me for explaining & went on her way. The interaction always stuck in my mind for some reason, couldn’t put my finger on why, though. Some years later, I got a message through the band’s management. It was from the same woman, & there was a photo of her with her young son, smiling & looking very happy. She told me that the day of that show, she had planned to watch the show, & then go home & commit suicide. She was deeply depressed & felt she had nothing to live for. She said that just having a single person talk to her, and make her feel a tiny bit more connected to the world, made her get help & begin the recovery process. She later had a son & is now thriving. Never forget that what we do can quite literally save lives.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing! And I wish all of us humans did a better job of connecting before people get to that point.
This is beautiful. Always encourage curiosity and sharing of knowledge. Punters asking about what we do is the only way they can learn about it
I’ve been performing on stages since I was 10. Realised pretty quickly that there’s a magical fascination with live performance amongst people who could never imagine doing it themselves. A little info, a bit if insider gossip, a story, an anecdote… People love a look behind the impenetrable curtain. It’s amazing how much a little moment of your time results in something people recount at dinner parties ten years later
I've read this idea a couple a different places, that more important than the quality of the show is how the audience feels. I always keep that in mind with every interaction with audience members.
Everyone wants to “touch the dream” as I always say.
I’m taking this with me everywhere. What a great little tidbit, I love talking about live sound to anyone that will listen… but the idea of throwing back a compliment to really polish the interaction is wonderful. I’m definitely going to be doing that.
They even think that those speakers live there… that there wasn’t a crew working for hours or even a week or two to build the system. Education is about calm and about meeting those questions. My frustration is reserved for the Videographer who never answered emails and comes in wanting a downmix 2 minutes before downbeat. ;-)
You just experienced the curse of knowledge. Best way to overcome it is to remind yourself of the time when things were new to you. Then you realize there’s no such thing as being smart, just time that passed with your mind holding onto something.
Trudging Cassandra like through the mire.
follow up question......"so when the guy hits the strings.....does that make sound"? /s
Then the guitarist says "yes" and the guy replies: Wow! I always thought the vibration of the magnetic strings in a magnetic field induced a variable current in a coil and that this signal was processed and amplified and sent to the speaker where the electronic oscillations were converted into movement of a speaker membrane, producing a compression wave in the air, which, being capable of being picked up at a distance by a human ear and processed in the brain, can be correctly called sound. But now I know - it's the actual sound of the strings vibrating that I hear from the back of the room. My PhD's in audio signal processing and in psychoacoustics let me down there. I would have thought the sound of the guy hitting the strings would be way too quiet.
wow that would be crazy if he was also a musician
Eh, it’s not that crazy. My music teacher couldn’t work his way around the school’s PA system that well.
neither could Beethoven or Mozart if you could time- transport them here
ahh, I guess I had in my mind that 'musician' meant 'musician that performs in live spaces".....my bad
*gestures vaguely at thousands of orchestral instrumentalists*
Yeah, I don't move in those circles
I’ve only ever seen them laid out as semicircles tbh
Gott’em
London Symphony IN THE ROUND
With me in the center!!
see my response above we should never assume the impossibility of ourselves being naive compared to a random stranger
We like the people who ask questions :)
Better than being stuck in ignorance for sure.
It's better than, "uuuuh I used to be a sound engineer, I think you need to......"
These are always the most entertaining and poorly timed of the gig NPCs to approach you on the job. "My neighbour used to own a pair of Peavey 15" speakers and a Denon controller, so I think I know what I'm on about, actually" Having to explain the fundamentals of acoustics and electronics to a tipsy punter mid show when all you want is to go for a piss, but they're mates of the promoter so you can't just ditch 'em, that's a fun experience. On the other hand, someone bringing their kid over who wants to ask what all the faders do and lights mean, that can be the energy that gets you through a long night on the console. For me it's all about the energy in the exchange. If the gig's buzzing, and you come over buzzing, I'll be buzzing speaking to you. If the gig's hard work, and you're being hard work, guess what? I'm probably going to be pretty hard work. Not being a dick, but the priority chain doesn't *always* start with having a natter, sadly.
NPC? Loved what you said about answering a kids questions.
Non playable character
How about non-payable character too?
one time i was out sitting in the audience mixing on an ipad and had a guy come over who was wasking what i was doing. i explained i was controlling the mixer with the ipad and then realized he didnt even understand the concept that i was placing a mic on an instrument and putting it through the PA. he said "where does the sound come from?" and i pointed to the line array and he was like "ohhh wow cool" kind of crazy but it was actually interesting to explain such simple concepts to someone who doesnt know but is interested
The amount of people who didn't even realize that we have the capability of controlling audio from a tablet is crazy. I feel like they don't realize we are just controlling a console that's on/near stage. I think they think the iPad is whole thing.
I went from a college jazz musician and made a 180 into audio. I knew literally nothing. I had to ask what wedges were for, was amazed you could mix from a tablet, and didn't really understand why I couldn't just plug a microphone into my computer. That was like 6 years ago so it's still pretty fresh in my mind but also seems like a different life.
I do weddings sometimes and it’s gotta be like 30% of them that someone comes up and is blown away that I am controlling the sound with an iPad. I usually tell them “yeah technology these days, eh?” and that it’s “connected to a mixer via WiFi over there where all the mics plug in.” It’s either that or something like, “What are you doing?” “Doing the sound” “Oh I thought you were playing games. So like the bass and treble?” “Kind of…yeah”
So you’re the DJ?
Especially when I was mixing in college at packed parties or bars this was always a very cool thing for drunk college kids to learn about lol
People don’t get the signal flow at all… whole other can of worms… especially now that controls don’t need to be local to where the signals go…
I run sound for a church using a tablet while seated in the congregation. The console is in a balcony outside of the speaker coverage (there is only tech people up there, no normal seating). Mixing with the tablet is better than not hearing the room well IMHO. I know there are people that are wondering "why is that guy always on his tablet?" and think I'm being disrespectful. ☺
One thing that's interesting about this is that in unfamiliar technical hardware environments, people don't actually "see" the individual parts. I noticed this while I was teaching beginner hang gliding. There's a very simple collection of bars and wires in the "cockpit"; a central keel, two sidebars, a crossbar, and four wires. That's 8 straight lines that form the "cockpit", with a ninth strap hanging down from the central point for hooking your harness into. Over and over again, I'd try to visually explain which piece of hardware to grab onto, and the beginners couldn't do it. I eventually realized that they see the "cockpit" as one "thing", and aren't able to mentally distinguish the different pieces of hardware. Now that I play live, when I look at a stage from the audience's perspective I see the monitors, snakes, pedal boards, amps, stands, cameras, lights, PA, etc. This makes it really weird to go back and watch old live performance videos of bands I watched when I was 14 (Queen especially) because now that I can name everything on stage the scene looks much busier than it did when I only saw Freddie Mercury and the Stage (one "thing", just like the beginners see the "cockpit" as one "thing"). Anyway, that's a lot of rambling to say that I doubt that guy ever even noticed there were speakers on the stage until that gig. If you asked him to draw the show from memory he likely wouldn't have even included the black boxes at the foot of the stage in his sketch. Edit: just realized he said "I've always seen that and wondered", so my comment doesn't really apply to this guy in particular, but it does to other people I've taught about sound equipment.
I’m fine with people being curious and asking questions. I hate when people come up and feel the need to tell me it’s too loud, etc. when it’s at a completely normal level for a concert and below our house dB threshold. Stay in your lane fool!
It often genuinely is too loud, I have to bring earplugs everywhere with me so my tinnitus from it being too loud doesn't get worse. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee but also sometimes it isn't too loud.
Lol I definitely agree but that can also depend on where you’re at in the venue as well. Tinnitus is a bitch though. I feel for you. I’ve luckily avoided that.
Literally just one gig that's too loud where you forgot your earplugs is enough to never hear silence again. Get the earplugs on your keyring (if they aren't already there) and keep them there.
OMG, I forgot my earplugs when I went to see Dune 2 in IMAX, and it was terribly loud. I was so happy that my wife kept her Loops in her bag!
I love Loops! I use them all the time on festivals
It is often too loud, not always something I can do about it. Investing in musicians earplugs was the best thing I've done
Yes you should bring earplugs to a concert and expect to have to use them lol cmon. I have tinnitus too….from not realizing I needed to wear earplugs soon enough
Yeah but judging by the vast majority of people not wearing earplugs at any music event, that info is not commonplace.
What's the dB threshold out of interest?
I work in a 109 year old theatre. It’s 105dB but we don’t push that normally. It’s national tours that come through when we have issues.
What weighting? Measured where? Not relevant here really, but I hate it when venues have “SPL limits!” But can’t tell me the specifics of where it’s measured at and what weighting is used. I once had a venue try to tell me that the SPL limit (which wasn’t in our contract anywhere) was 89db and he was going to measure with a cheap Chinese made meter that he had gaff taped to the front grill of the speaker with the diaphragm directly in front of the horn output 🙄🧐😂
In all honesty it’s not typically an issue. It’s pretty rare that we have to say anything and it’s really obvious if it’s too loud in our venue. When we do check it though it’s typically the center point of our orchestra section (lower level center of PA) but we will also walk around and the weighting we use is dBA. It’s a very old theatre with lots of original decorative plaster. We’ve had plaster fall from the ceiling in the balcony because of sound levels during a Joanne Shaw Taylor show a few years ago (she fucking rocks though!). A lot of it has since been redone and reinforced but it was still mostly kept as original. So that’s the reason why we will say something if it’s uncomfortably loud. This auditorium was designed as an acoustic venue so adding amplification can cause a lot of nodes/anti-nodes in the space. We also have a really shitty PA right now but are hopefully upgrading to an A8 rig in August. Like I said though it’s generally not an issue and most tours that come through with their own FOH engineers have an SPL meter set up and keep it at a decent level.
[releavant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2501/)
Everything is new to someone once. It’s hard sometimes to not think everyone gets what is happening.
I actually had a great talk with my doctor about this yesterday, he had no idea that FOH and monitor mixes were two different things and thought everyone everywhere heard the same thing! And here I thought I knew nothing because I haven't done any real work in a while, definitely made me feel a bit better about myself :,^))
I was probably in my 20s when I realized that monitors and FOH could be 2 different consoles and two different operators. Admittedly that was a REALLY long time ago when the concept was still fairly new.
Sounds like a cool doctor
People think we are magical wizard dudes who smoke cigarettes. My favorite thing civilians say is "so you know what all those buttons and knobs do huh?
“Yep every single one. Well, except *that* one. Last time I touched that one it was *really bad* so I don’t touch that one.”
😂
\*Trying to learn an effect without looking it up
It sounds like a ridiculous question until you realize they most likely think that every knob, fader, and button does something completely unique, instead of a lot of duplicates doing the same function on different things.
I love consoles with hella custom buttons
I really enjoy when a folk comes to me to understand what's happening / what do I do. The best thing is to try to explain as simple as possible but without doubting the intelligence of who is asking. And I love when this comes from a kid. Because I was one really curious one and had some awesome guys answering me the most dumb questions and now I'm here working with some of them.
I got my spending money in college running sound but then made my career in IT. I used to work IT for a school system and would volunteer backstage for the theater program sometimes and the look of pure joy on the FOH's face when he realized he could make a call over coms and I actually knew what he was needing was kind of hilarious. It was fun seeing some of the students learn about the tech roles in the A/V world and really get interested in them. Never really kept up with any of them but a few did go off to some well known theater schools and are now working on Broadway.
Communication is king in this line of work. Being able to quickly read what level of understanding the person you’re dealing with has is key to doing this job successfully, be it performer, manager, promoter, audience member etc. We’re dealing with people first, technology second. That’s my approach anyway
My last question during setup/soundcheck from a non musician was a performers parent asking me if it was too loud (it was 70db average in the room).
It’s giving mean girl
A family member of the band came up to me at sound check and said “it’s way too loud”. My reply was - “ok, thanks, we’re working on several things”. It was a highly reverberant space with no one there. After the show - same person thanked me for turning it down. I replied that I actually turned it up as the event went on, and had the opportunity to explain that once the place was full, the bodies aided in knocking down the reflections. The only person(s) whose requests are honored are the ones writing the check. Even PD requests are directed at the venue owner and must be based on a correctly calibrated SPL meter. All other requests get a smile and a “thank you for letting me know”.
>The only person(s) whose requests are honored are the ones writing the check. This is the way! Venue owner/manager/band are the only people I listen to. Everyone else gets the nicest non response I can muster in the moment
There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.
When its the people who are paying you that have no idea what you do...thats when it becomes a problem. "we want it to be like all the shows we see on tv and live performances!" "ok. we need this, this, this-" "woah woah, hold up. why do we need all this stuff. i dont think we need this stuff. whenever i see it on tv they just have a mic and it gets turned up..." "....sigh" its a painfully common conversation for a certain group i work for somewhat regularly. seriously, why hire a professional if you aren't going to listen to anything he says???
Coming from a live theater environment, you may be surprised at how many people are unaware that all the actors have individual mics on them. And honestly a lot of people don't even clock that I am a sound person, they assume lights or something. It is truly just abstract entertainment magic for many people Don't even get me started on explaining to them what stage management is either.
Funny, usually I only get credit for running sound when I am doing lights too
“Yeah I’m standing right in front of the DJ booth, meet me up here”
Once I worked on a little town festival, DJ as last act. afterwards, when we were literally removing the speakers and the lighting, some girl asked the DJ: can you play this and that song for me? Sure he can, without power or amplification....
If someone is genuine then there’s no such thing as a stupid question
Pretty harmless question. Get used to it. Much better than "why does it have to be so loud" "i can't hear the singer" (especially when the band's stage volume is killing you out front). Personally I don't like the dumb questions from the audience, because I'm an introvert and I've grown tired of all the same dumb questions ("do you know what all them knobs do", etc.), but I am always nice about it and sometimes those exchanges turn into gigs.
When somebody ask the knob question, I always say: well, I don't know, but when I push this button it moves funny and there are pretty lights. (moving between fader banks)
Also an introvert! My face tells on me when people ask dumb questions. Because I genuinely don't care to talk to people that I don't need to talk to. I try to be nice and accommodate when I can, obviously. Innocent questions get some grace from me for sure. I enjoy talking to people about what I do, just wanna make sure they actually care about what I'm saying >"do you know what all them knobs do", The amount of times I hear this is excruciating. I need a shirt that says "yes I do know what all them knobs do"
“Do you know what all them knobs do” ‘I hope so but if not, my boss hasn’t figured that out yet’ is my go to response usually
"that's what they tell me" That's my go to
I haven't been asked that one in a while. I always said "These go in and out, these left and right, those up and down". Sometimes they got my sense of humor, other times the look of horror on their face made my night.
If it was slow/pre-show or she was unnaturally hot, I would do a quick rundown of the control groups on 1st channel strip and then say "and there are 39 more exactly like it to the right - one for each microphone"
I definitely get how it looks daunting. I usually just say "it's the same thing over and over"
The question makes sense to me. Most people's experience with singing or casually playing an instrument is an environment where you can hear what you need to without extra amplification.
Well, it might be really straightforward for us. But for them, this is something new and uncharted territory. So its totally fine if they ask ‘stupid’ question because its the same for us too for something that isnt our expertise.
>I'm always shocked by how little people understand about what we do. Y'all need to realize most people don't know shit about audio. That is a given. Most people don't even know what a .WAV is.
Do I look like I know hwat a wave file is? I just want a recording of a gat dang hot dawg.
Tell me how to make a hologram. Just because you know something doesn't mean any other random person knows that.
I honestly love any time I get to nerd out and explain things about what I’m doing. That being said, it’s more often than not someone demanding something be adjusted, different or created that is usually not at all possible. But, for those select few that are genuinely curious and want to learn more, they make my day. If I had the opportunity to watch them prepare to launch a space shuttle from the command center, I would be definitely asking, “what does that button do?”
It's normalized for us but most people don't see the difference in process between a band being mixed through a million dollar line array and just "connecting the band" to their Bluetooth speaker.
I was working as local crew in an arena. Big show. Lots of new hires and some temp workers. One person (first shift on a loadout) they ask me why we were putting all the equipment into trucks. “I said so they can do the show in the next city”. “They said don’t they have the same equipment there?”. That was fun.
That's it? At least it was genuine interest. I was asked if I can make it so the vocals will be in german, not english, as the elderly gentlemen in question did not understand english.
Maybe you grew up in a family or environment where right from your earliest memories you were exposed to live audio / music studios, or you’re 65 years old and have never touched a mixer in your life… at some point we’ve all had a moment - depending on how you either got into performing and/or live sound - where we looked at the dozens of speakers on and above the stage, or at the huge mass of gear with a bunch of bouncing LED and VU meters in the middle of the dance floor and were in awe. I remember with my first band in high school (early 2001), at practice we always had our PA speakers facing away from us…that’s what it was like at concerts, right? However the band we were opening for at our very first show had these weird small speakers mounted to the mic and I obviously asked the same question…what are they for? We played the show I was stunned at the fact that I could hear myself, I chatted with him more and was just amazed at the gear. That was likely one of many conversations that changed everything, my 15 year old self was hooked. So I try, if I’m not in the middle of a rush, to explain anything to anyone - including people who have been playing music or going to shows for a while. Last night when I was tearing down and wrapping my 30+ mic cables, someone talking to the band sort of turned to me and asked why “everything isn’t just connected via Bluetooth” and I wasn’t in a rush - I had a wireless system for the band’s vocals right next to me and I explained that just the vocals are wireless and not the drums or anything else because of reliability, the need for batteries, the sheer amount of frequency range etc. for actual wireless systems (I stopped short of explaining frequency ranges 🙃) and that Bluetooth has way too much delay and interference and quality loss. He was like “…oh wow. I guess you have a lot less to worry about with just a wire” and I smirked.
Had a guy come up to me and asked , pointing to my shark fins, "What kind of crazy speakers are those?" It took everything in me not to say, really s*@!*y ones that work better as antennas. I also used to label a fader as A/C on my last layer so when people would inevitably ask me to turn up the temperature I could push a fader up and make them think I did something.
I only learned this in the last couple of years when playing in bands. Unless you've played onstage there's really no reason to know how directional speakers are, what the sound is like up there, what band members can hear or not, and how they might choose to only have some instruments in their monitors. If you asked random people about it at a show most would have no idea. It's a little surprising that it's surprising to you!
Why were you dumbfounded? Most people probably don’t know monitors are necessary. It’s not really an intuitive foregone conclusion. And, no, it doesn’t make you super smart that you do know.
This is common. At least he was nice about it. Once a bar manager, who didn’t understand what I do, started talking about me behind my back. She apparently told the bar staff that she thought I was a waste of money as “all I did was walk around with an iPad”. She would show up at 5pm by which time I had built/rigged the lights, pa and stage, and would usually be sat waiting for the bands to arrive. I think she was just pissed she couldn’t boss me around like the bar tenders. Years later I bumped into one of the bartenders who told me he wanted to put on a night and do the sound. I said I would be happy for him to come down and shadow me. He came down and was shocked at how much work goes into it. He said the manager had convinced everyone that I was lazy and had a cushy job. I always wondered why some people acted weird when I said I had a long day.
Yeah sometimes people don't know things they don't have experience in crazy right?
People have a very difficult time understanding the relative nature of sound… they think what they are hearing is the same as what someone 40ft away is hearing. They assure themselves of this. It is prejudice in the extreme. Even musicians don’t get it. And many Studio producers and recording artists don’t understand it either… I work in musical theater and the whole game sometimes is managing expectations… the director (for whatever reason) has an idea to put the cellist onstage and the drummer off right… but the moment they say “and I really don’t want to use mics for this production…” you have to learn to say… “wait one second … you understand that this means they will both think that the other one is late and the drummer will never hear the cello player… right?” And the musical director will look at you just as quizzically as the director does … because they haven’t come to grips with the incontrovertible facts … that pressure is heat, and space is time… it bleeds into everything. Wisdom is being able to empathize. Empathy is transporting yourself to each musician in time and space and understand fundamentally that 40ms means something real. They will get into arguments about who is late… and who misses the downbeat… and not realize that EVERYONE is late. Unless you put a monitor in front of a performer or in their ear… with what is maybe a maximum of 5-10ms… you will never win at tempos exceeding 60bpm… and that isn’t even about the amplitude of frequencies above 450Hz. Very few people understand this about the sense they use daily… they don’t understand that they gauge directionality by cognitively combining data about delay and masking in both their ears… the truck that’s about to hit you is Doppler shifting, muffled and about a ms late in your right ear… so look to your left and get out of the way… audiences are not intimate with this reality. That lack of understanding is what we are up against every single day.
I think that would be a very sweet exchange, I’d love for someone to come to me with questions about what I do so I could geek out😅
It's nice that someone shows an interest rather than just yelling "turn the singer up"....
Heh, before I got into the biz I had no idea what the boxes on the stages were, but the only live performances I saw were on TV before I was about 20, then I got into recording and going to shows and I immediately knew.
I have no problem answering questions about what we do, and I don’t cast judgment for not knowing. We have a very unique skill set. It’s not much different then asking an architect or an airplane pilot what they do. We all have a basic idea of what they do but most have no fucking idea how anything in life works( myself included). I always chuckle when someone gets pissed when the power goes out or the WiFi stops working and someone says. “God how dumb are these people, they don’t even know how to keep the lights/wifi on” and the person making that statement has zero idea how any of that shit works besides turning on the switch.
Are you new
not sure why you are shocked by it - you do this for a living or hobby - that guy doesn't. Why would he know literally anything about this?
I think answering those kinds of questions is part of what really solidifies the knowledge
They sure don’t. Until I started in music, I always thought musicians asking for certain instruments to get more volume was so that the audience could hear. If you’re not involved in live music, there’s not really any reason to think that the show sounds different for musicians than it does from the audience.
MC: "Are you the DJ?" Me: "No, I'm the mixing engineer. I'm also cueing playback today though." MC walks onstage: "A big thanks to our DJ!"
He knows now, that's the point. There are probably less humble people who will never know. Celebrate his spirit! Some musicians think there is sound in the wires - of course we know that inside the wires the electrical signal analogous to the sound is being transmitted oh wait that's wrong - it's really travelling in the air against the surface of the wires which is why lots of very thin wires works better than one thick wire. And there are people out there, some of them musicians, to whom that is just the beginning of understanding how it works.
My favorite phrase is "copper is copper". Idk why but it's satisfying to say and a lot of people don't get that a cable is "generally" just a means to an end.
The whole appeal of glib phrases is that they create a feeling of satisfaction Once you put the word "just" in there, it's easy to imagine you have gotten to the heart of something. Rocket science is just pointing a tube to the sky and igniting the fuel within it. Rockets are rockets after all. Electrons are just electrons How much that we own or control is NOT a means to an end? A brain? What is the advantage in thinking of cables as just a means to an end? It doesn't follow that all cables are as good as the best, but it can create the satisfying feeling that this is so and that therefore we might as well use the cheapest. I have a degree in metallurgy and could tell you quite a lot about copper. I can assure you that there was not an exam question "What is copper" to which the correct answer was "copper" I could possibly tell the guy who asked about foldback even more, and I reckon he could teach both of us something worth knowing. Actually I realise that looking at things as (but not "just" as) a means to end can be helpful in remembering/deciding what that end is. If we don't know why we have things we might not be as selective and end up surrounded by junk. That's the lesson I'm taking as I decide to sort out my garage today. Thanks I sincerely hope you find something useful in my rant.
Anyone else have a “vibes” fader for when someone asks for something to “be louder”? The amount of times I just move a blank fader or knob and the person gives me a thumbs up is ridiculous.
Yes people do not know how things are as we didn't knew before we learned it. It seems logical for the band to hear themselves but some people do now have the slightest idea.
You seem like exactly the type of person who would become a sound man. Cool story bro... -From a bassist