FOH at Large

How do you get big if it’s your job to be transparent?

“How do I get into the big time?” was a question that was recently asked of me. How indeed? Although I understand the person’s desire for success, and seem to comprehend what is meant by “the big time,” I seriously have no absolute viable solution to the query. The good news is that for any neophyte seeking a job in the audio business there are many available avenues to “The big time.” The bad news, on the other hand, is that once you arrive at your destination it may not seem as glossy as “the big time” you once expected. Therefore, I must say that it’s not as much the destination as it is the journey, because if one keeps seeking the big gig just around the corner, then it becomes increasingly difficult to see that they may have finally arrived.

I enjoy the Holiday season as much as the next guy, but quite frankly, the high cost of present-giving has left my bankbook crawling through January, and it's doubtful if it will be off crutches until March or April. Everything is just so damn expensive that, even if I do all my shopping at Target or Best Buy, my bankbook still gets its knees broken. Well, that's life, but fortunately for all of us, the big oil companies got into the Christmas spirit and, in the name of charity, raised the price of oil by only about 25 cents a gallon for the season. Tell you what. When I go visit the relatives during the holidays, it sure gets me in the spirit to top off the tank at "Bah Humbug Oil" before I leave on my journey. I guarantee that the ghosts who visited Ebenezer Scrooge will be making the rounds next year, but that's another story, and in the words of Tiny Tim Crachit, "God bless us. Every one!"

Throughout my many years sojourn within the world of live audio and production I have noticed, and become very aware of, an underlying hum that seems to permeate this specialized universe we all inhabit. Sometimes it's very quiet and other times it becomes overbearing in its volume, but it is almost always present. I have noticed it at large gigs, and I have heard it rear its ugly little head on small, seemingly simple shows. Often it is hard to pinpoint as it isn't centralized in one location, and frequently it stems from different sources. Many times this hum doesn't stop even after the gig is finished and many times I even hear it going on back at the shop. It's a hum that seems to be prevalent in our business and no, it's not a floating 60-cycle ground hum that I am speaking about, although a certain amount of "grounding" might be just the solution to alleviate this incessant hum that often clutters our best endeavors. What I am referring to is the grumbling and undercurrent of discontent that insidiously seeps into our work space regardless of one's position or capabilities. In the same way that I identify and attach the 2.5k frequency to a person prone to hysteria I also associate the 60Hz frequency with the grumblers and not so forthright complainers.

In the world of live sound I have often heard the term "sexy" used to describe certain inanimate objects such as consoles, speakers and effect processors, either singularly or in combination with each other. For example, an engineer said to me that he had seen a Brittany Spears show and that "The rig was great, a very sexy set up indeed." He said nothing at all about the show or the very sexy star herself, but he did give me the whole run down regarding the audio system and the "luscious" sound that was produced by this very sexy system. My engineer friend is inspired by technology and has a passion for audio and all its related components and my assumption is that he uses the term "sexy" and "luscious" metaphorically to describe a desirable system which produces a full sound.

Why in Heaven's name would anyone want to spend huge amounts of weekly tithing to install a State of the Art (SOTA) sound system into a house of worship? Better yet, why on earth would any house of worship deem it necessary to get into the sound reinforcement/concert business? Is it all just pomp and circumstance, a vanity stemmed from coveting a neighboring congregation's techno wizardry, or is there a higher purpose?

I was already seething and it was only two hours into the second day of a video shoot. The artist had chosen to play live with her band and record a full set of tunes to Pro Tools for a concert-style video. She had hired a well-known recording engineer who is much noted for his live productions and a video company that boasted a roster full of film and lighting luminaries. I had worked with the artist for quite a few years and was called upon to provide and mix the live audio portion of the video and recording. I was told that the artist was paying for the project out of pocket and was asked to keep the budget as low as possible. Wanting to be of assistance, I quoted a fairly low rate for the shoot, which included the equipment as well as my day rate for the three 12- to 14-hour days the production would require.