Shadowing Experience

For my Graded Unit for my HNC in Sound Production, I put together a portfolio to practice applying for a job as a live sound engineer, and so for one of my artefacts I shadowed my live sound lecturer at a sound check for one of his gigs outside of the college. This gig took place at Clydebank Town Hall and was a high school's professional music performance, which included different year groups' orchestras, as well as a big band, a string quartet section and more. I was shown around the venue, and shown the mic placements for this gig, the most heavily used being 4 small cardioid microphones at the front of the stage used to pick up the orchestra. I was also taught the usefulness of walking around to different areas of the hall, as the levels would sound completely different in different places, to help with adjusting that my lecturer showed me that he found bringing an iPad connected to the sound desk helped a ton, as he could stand in different places and adjust the levels without having to remember what sounded off, running to the sound desk to fix it and then go back and check if it worked. During the sound check is also where I learnt more about mute groups and scenes and how they helped run the gig far more efficiently when paired with the set list. Overall, shadowing at a professional small scale gig helped me a ton as I picked up on tons of small techniques that would both make my life way easier as a live sound engineer through making things more organised and efficient or would just slightly enhance the sound for any future gigs I got the chance to work on.

On the 2nd of November, I shadowed at John Knox Church, as they were still trialling out swapping over from using scenes to groups and so they didn't have enough time to both explain it to me and have me run it, so the head engineer explained how they had the system set up while running the sound for that service. It was a simple change that was easy for me to learn and remember, so I went back at 9:30 the next week to run the sound for the remembrance service, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Shadowing at the RCS allowed me to learn incredible amounts about how live sound works in a theatre setting, and it is so much more complex than just normal gig work. I spent the whole day watching them set up for and then do a sound check for the musical Sweeney Todd, which involved primarily talking to and following around the different sound engineers as they work. I was able to watch all their networking systems for this show get set up by the sound 1, which was something I had never seen before and so was really useful information! They also explained to me the different jobs sound engineers are assigned for musical theatre productions, with Sound 1 usually doing the FOH sound, Sound 2 and Sound 3 working on the radio mics, the Production Sound Engineer, who tends to ensure that all the microphones in the pit are set up and positioned correctly, and the Sound Designer, who makes all of the decisions for sound, and has the Sound 1 execute their vision, the Sound Designer is the one who will usually do all of the effects (reverb, delay, eq, etc.) and will make any sound effects that will be implemented into the show. Musical theatre sound is also way more complex than anything I had worked on so far as the Sound 1 had to not only mix the orchestra for this show, but also the roughly 20 different vocalists on top of that. The gain and rough levels for the orchestra were set up first, and then the vocalists' gains and levels were set in the evening. While the orchestra sound check was going on I was able to discuss and learn about the Sound 2's job and the kind of things they'd be doing on the night of a show with the 2nd year student that was working as the Sound 2 for this show. The student also explained to me the different kinds of radio mics they use for theatre as well, (like differing capsule sizes) and how it linked to the networking system that I watched get set up in the morning. I believe that this experience was probably the most about live sound engineering that I've ever learnt in one day, and I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity.

A somewhat unplanned but very exciting experience was offered to me over the Christmas holidays, and so I was able to shadow and help out slightly at the Red Hot Chilli Pipers gig in Ayr Town Hall on the 27th of December. It was an amazing opportunity to see how a fairly large scale touring band sets up equipment and sound checks. For this gig all the band members use in ear monitors, all controlled by the monitor engineer, who showed me the set up on the stage as well as explaining how they line check without instruments, and after a signal was confirmed in all of one of the stage boxes by the Front of House engineer, I was asked to plug all of the XLRs back in, which I completed with ease. Later on in the day I shadowed the Front of House engineer, who explained their set up in more detail. As they are a touring band, the sound engineers use Dante instead of an analogue splitter to send signals to and from both the monitoring desk and the front of house desk, this is to help limit the number of equipment needed for travelling to other countries, however the major downside is that the gain is not separate for each desk, and is set by the monitor engineer, therefore if the monitor engineer makes any changes to the gain, then the Front of House is also affected. After talking to the Front of House Engineer, I spoke my cousin, who runs and sets up the lighting for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, and asked him how he sets up before the show and what he does during the show, as I'm aware I know very little about lighting, but wanted to understand it more so that I can work well with Lighting Engineers in the future. He explained to me that most of what he does before the show is programming work, so that specific lights respond to specific buttons and faders, and then he runs the light show live at the venue according to what song is being played, to do this, he discusses with the musicians before they go on tour what they would like the lighting to do in accordance to each song in the set list, which usually changes annually. After all of the set up was completed, I returned later that night and was able to attend the whole gig to see how all the work I saw before the show comes together live. The concert and shadowing experience was extremely beneficial for me as I was able to see a professional sound check and work environment, even if some of the equipment was a lot more complicated than what I currently understand, I was able to learn a more about live concerts than what I started that day with, and I am looking forward to learning about the equipment that I don't currently understanding of.

I had the amazing opportunity to shadow at The Poetry Club in SWG3 on Monday. For this event, I arrived at 2pm, and met up with Rob, the sound engineer for this gig. I was able to take part in the set up of this event a lot more than other shadowing opportunities I've carried out in the past, which I found really fun and beneficial to me as I was able to learn and improve a lot on my practical skills.

I started by helping to bring the digital mixing desk, mic stands, cables and monitors from the store room to the Poetry Club, where I then positioned and wired the four active monitors to the digital stage box. I was also able to wire and position some of the microphones, for example, wiring up all five of the vocal microphones and clipping on and positioning the e604 on the snare drum. We primarily used Rob’s own microphones for this gig, but there was a couple of extra microphones we needed to pick up, such as an extra Sennheiser e906 that I had to pick up during the sound check from the microphone cupboard as it was needed for an additional electric guitar amp.

Additionally, after the sound checking was finished and before doors opened, Rob was able to show me all of the details of the desk we were using for this event and let me ask questions about how to do certain things on that desk, and then tested me to see if I could figure out how areas of the desk worked by myself, like how to apply and change the ratio of a compressor onto specific channels. I found this beneficial as I haven’t often worked with desks other than the Allen and Heath QU-24, so I found that having the time to figure out a different desk without any pressure was really fun and so I think I’d feel more confident at trying to figure out how to use a different desk in the future.

Overall, I think I was able to learn a lot from being able to shadow at SWG3, and it helped with my confidence a lot when it came to both working in live sound, as well as communicating with new people and more experienced sound engineers, so I am very grateful for the opportunity.