How to be Unstoppable

Nathan has written a couple of things recently about the mindset of being unstoppable.

He asked me to pick up on the topic of motivation and share a few practical tips from my experience producing music, recording bands and doing audio for film, theater and video.

I’ll start with some general things and then we’ll get to something specifically music-related.

IN GENERAL

First of all, and this goes without saying, you gotta be in shape. Stretch, get sweaty, pretend you’re Bruce Lee for 25 minutes per day, keep your mind body and spirit clean clean clean. You will be amazed how easy your “problems” appear to be, after you whip off a set of pushups.

Second, your instrument is an extension of your body. It could be your musical instrument, your studio space, or even your voice on the phone. To be unstoppable you need your healthy exuberance to radiate right through the tools you’re using, to the point where stoppable people say “He makes it look so easy!” and “How did they DO that?”

Third, unstoppably practice extreme visualization of what you want to achieve.

By extreme I mean, see yourself already there achieving it. Fantasize, daydream, mentally drool, go through it a thousand times per day. As often as you can until you can taste it! You’d be surprised how well this works to remove subconscious blockages against success.

Now let’s get serious.

How do you motivate yourself, or a band you’re working with, to finish an album project?

ANSWER: THE UNSTOPPABLE TRACK SHEET

You can use this as a studio engineer who’s keeping tabs on a session, as a musician, bandleader, or producer. This track sheet makes you unstoppable by giving you a simple way to manage a complicated project.

Remember, visual artists can hang a group of paintings in one gallery and see how they compare to each other. Chefs can see which plate is missing the garnish, and dentists can count the people still sitting in the waiting room.

Musicians can’t do any of those things because music happens only one song at a time. You can’t play a group of songs all at once, it would be chaos!

Because of this linear-sequential character of music, it is dangerously easy to begin one thing, leave it for later, and never return until it’s too late.

So let’s look at the track sheet in detail and see how it can help you avoid common mistakes such as publishing an unmastered song, leaving out a song entirely from an album, or losing a session when it gets deleted from the studio work drive.

I keep these blank track sheets in my google doc’s so I can review them anytime, from any place, especially during down time away from the actual studio work.

Let’s look at the fields:

TRACK SHEET: band name, artist, movie title, event, etc.
Project Name: the album or group of songs
Output: Describe the final delivery format you need to create and deliver. (DVD, songs for a live concert, CD, etc) Include the target date for completion!

These may seem obvious, but it’s important from the very beginning to be thinking of the finished product and deadline.

The heart of the process is in the checklist, so let’s have a look:

WRITING

Track title: or working title
Notes: good place to write the tempo if you’re on grid, and anything else that helps you remember which song it is
Lyrics: Do they exist? Where are they stored so you’ll know where to find them?
Key signature: Is is the right range for the singer? Does the band know what key it’s in? This is especially important for tracking soloists at different times, plus overdubs.
Song form: Do we know the layout (ABABC, verse/chorus)? Where are the solos? How long will this song be? Can the band play it all the way through? Can we print a lead sheet for the band?

Answer all of these questions before you start recording!!!

RECORDING

Basics: The basic tracking. Are all the instruments recorded into one session yet? Are you ready to do the mix session without emergency overdubs?
2mix: A final stereo mix before mastering. Has this song survived the mix session without returning to any of the above stages? Do you know which version is the final mix, and is its file labeled properly?

DELIVERY

Now let’s organize our output formats. Each one of these should be a folder of files on your computer AND backup drive.

HQ master: Has the track been mastered in a full-quality version? What about mastering for radio, for vinyl, for digital?
16/44: Mastering was probably done at least 24-bit depth and 96kHz sample rate. Have you down-sampled the HQ master to CD quality? (16-bit 44.1kHz tracks to send to the CD burning factory)
MP3: Has it been converted to MP3 and tagged with artist, title, etc? Will all the info show up correctly in an mp3 player?
Graphics: are they done? Are you using the album cover as the artwork for every song, or are there individual graphics for each song? These go into the MP3 tagging so people can see pictures in iTunes.
Backups: Think about it now while you still can. With all these versions and edits, have you put them into another place… or are they all sitting on one laptop?

Note: we’ve omitted video from this process, because that is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

To Summarize — Organizing your work with a

Organizing your work with a track sheet allows you to see the whole project at once, and it leads you through the process of completion so nothing gets left out.

It will help you avoid the #1 pitfall of wasting time. Do not spend three hours making micro-edits on an automation lane while you’re sitting in a miked-up studio with musicians waiting! Likewise, don’t start mastering one song before you know what format they want to publish it in!

And for heaven’s sake don’t let the mix engineer start mastering a song when you already booked a mastering house to do it next month.

Finally, in personal terms, a track sheet helps to keep the momentum moving towards finishing what you’ve started. Nothing is easier than sitting down to noodle around and come up with a million great ideas… but nothing is harder than putting it all together into a finished result, especially when everything is all over the place.

It is all too easy to fall into a slump and feel like “nothing is ever gonna happen with this.”

Track sheets are one more tool in your creative arsenal to help you get out of that slump.

Remember up top, we talked about visualizing success? The track sheet is essentially a visualization tool. The more often you review it, the more powerful it becomes.

Finally, the essence of being unstoppable is simply to succeed in creating something, where others do not.

Good luck!

Make A Living As A Sound Engineer, Part Two: How To Get Played

By Steve Knots

In the last article we looked at proactive steps that sound engineers can take to demonstrate value and make money. Now let’s take a look at some common ways to lose money in the exciting conclusion to Stevie Weenie’s Making A Living As A Sound Engineer, Part One: How To Get Paid.

PART II: HOW TO GET PLAYED

Clients With Unlimited Demands + Zero Technical Audio Vocabulary

example 1: broke actor

Problem: She is starting a solo show and needs a soundtrack that feels like a Disney movie with a full, sweeping, majestic symphony. She goes to the shows carrying her entire show in a camping backpack including set, costume, props, lighting and her portable CD player. She asks you to compose, record, mix, and master two hours of original music, for 50€.

Solution: ARE YOU INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE? If you are in love with this girl and you want her to be your girlfriend, or you secretly want to quit audio, become an actor with her, and run away to join the circus, then take this gig. Otherwise, pull her camping backpack over her eyes and run the other direction as fast as you can.

example 2: backstabbing gossip

Problem: A small local theater company is performing the time-honored tradition of a one-man Hamlet production. The egomaniac actor-director-producer wants a CD with backup voices to be the ghosts and FX, etc. His budget is worth two hours of your time. Five hours into the project you’re nowhere near finished and the guy keeps adding new ideas. You pull the plug and give him whatever you’ve got after six hours and refuse to take on anything else. The director bad-mouths you to all your common friends, e.g. “We got a bad result because the sound guy is a pussy.”

Solution: Never work with this person again. Next time anything like this comes up, ask more specific questions to define the project up front…or else.

example 3: the stoner piggyback scam

Problem: I’ve got a regular gig doing live sound, but no studio. A friend-of-a-friend has a semi-pro home studio with no live room. He proposes that we start multi-track recording the bands so he can mix the audio at home and we can sell the recordings to the musicians for their demo CD.

Solution: Sorry, I’m on the other line with Dr. Spock. He accidentally did the Vulcan death grip on his dick in the shower and now he needs me to airlift Smurfette to the Starship Enterprise so she can administer mouth to mouth CPR, and I have to hold the boom mic for the cameraman who’s making a trailer for the full length anime porn of it all.

Translation: You’re in outer space, man. These broke, starving amateur bands come here to GET PAID, not to pay me for even so much as a 2mix off the board, and they will definitely no way in hell ever pay YOU a cut.

These next two examples have no solutions. They are just shitty situations to avoid.

example 4: rotten fish can not become sushi

Problem: A local website makes promo videos to show off their best advertisers; it looks like a thriving business. They want a soundtrack for one of the promo shorts. Location sound was recorded next to a construction site and is unusable. The actors are from another country and are not available to re-record. The client wants you to “clean up” the voices and make a soundtrack. The job is impossible from the start…and as soon as you agree to take the job, all the problems become your fault.

Result: By the time you finally finish, you’re way underpaid, they’re unhappy, and they forget to give you credit on screen and send you a final copy (both of which they promised to do).

example 5: unethical practices

Problem: Video producer has a contract to record a pianist for a one-minute commercial. I ask, “do you have the music prepared already?” They say yes. As soon as the session starts, the director doesn’t like the music. He says crazy stuff like, “can you play it fifteen percent less happy?” and “play it higher” (meaning louder). It takes four hours and still no result. Their budget was enough for one hour.

Result: They completely lied about having the music ready and they blame the pianist. Ridiculous nonsense.

INCOME VS. QUALITY OF LIFE

Before you even touch the concept of making a career as an audio engineer, make sure you really define what you think of as success. If you’re a creative person in any way, this business is probably not for you. Audio engineering, especially live sound, is for practical, technical, patient people who are capable of putting up with incredible amounts of bullshit on a daily basis (…without losing their temper or applying a blunt object to the skull of the perpetrator-of-insanity who is red-faced, pinching your arm and hissing “don’t fuck it up” in your ear at the exact moment when you are in the process of perfectly not fucking anything up).

I make about half my monthly income from DJ’ing and the other half from doing live sound and program management for a youth hostel that has a live sound venue in it. There were times when I was spending five nights a week there and not really DJ’ing for money (only for fun). I’ve recently changed that, because doing sound in a hotel means you are in the restaurant business, not the music business.

In Prague, rates look like this:

50€ to do live sound for one concert in a small club using their gear.
75€ to be soundman for one night at a club with two stages, two bands, and one DJ crew.
250€ to do sound for a show where you bring mics and an FX rack.
200-400€ for a wedding gig where you bring the sound system and DJ.
50€ per musician for a band.

But it needs to be said again and again: this is not a business you get into for the purpose of making a predictable monthly income. You do it because you have skills that people need, you have a network of friends who ask you for help, and you like being out at night.

END NOTES

Friendliness is absolutely the most essential thing

People with sound problems are like wounded animals. You have to treat them gently and solve everything without making it worse.
Live sound: When you do it perfectly, nobody notices. When someone on stage screws up, you get blamed. Be ready for that.
You can’t blink or close your ears. That’s why sound is so important.
If you want to have a career at all, just keep doing what you enjoy. The rest will fall into place.

Thanks everyone. I know you sound guys read kinda slow, so I made sure not to type too fast.

peace

steve

Make A Living As A Sound Engineer, Part One: How To Get Paid

By Steve Knots

Hello everyone! This is guest writer stevie weenie, coming at you from Prague. I went through audio engineering school with your indestructible host Nathan Lively, who asked me to share some thoughts about making a living as a sound engineer.

[block]The most important thing you need to learn about building your career as a sound engineer is how to recognize which situations will lead to money — and which won’t![/block]

PART ONE: HOW TO GET PAID

BE OBSERVANT

IDENTIFY SPECIFIC PROBLEMS THAT EXPLAIN BAD SOUND

Most venues with sound problems know that something isn’t right, but they have absolutely no clue what the problem is. By the time they call you they’ve spent a ton of money on expensive fixes that didn’t help. If you can find simple, cheap solutions that make a dramatic improvement in the sound, you get the cookie. You would not believe how often a lovely pro audio system is spoiled by one weak link.

example 1: surround sound madness

Problem: DJ’ing a one-off gig at a new sports bar with a stage for live bands: it is a mess. The IT guy who built the sound system had the right parts but all the wrong connections. The FOH sound goes from a mixing board up on the balcony, DOWN AN UNBALANCED RCA CABLE TO THE BAR, into a surround-sound amp, through a digital processor (adding a 250ms delay to everything), then back to the speakers. The stage monitors are basically a quarter-note out of sync with FOH sound. Bands are physically unable to play their instruments because the FOH sound is so badly delayed.

Solution: Bypass the entire surround sound amp. Send the main L/R mix back through the snake to the stage box, extend XLR cables to a line splitter, and run all six amps in stereo with a mono sub. Install an A/B source switch-box at the amp rack to choose between the bar’s surround receiver-amp and the live mixer sound as inputs.

Result: Regular job as house soundman.

example 2: gain staging from hell

Problem: “It always comes out at the wrong volume.” I look in the rack. I see unbalanced Y-adapters plugging two sources into each amp input! They were amplifying an iPod with its volume at 15%, plus a Sky TV system with its volume at 85%, and asking me for a compressor to keep it at the right level. Oh jeez…

Solution: Plug only single balanced connections into the amps. Recognize you are dealing with a human problem, not a technical problem. Tell the bar staff “This big knob with the blue light is for the volume control, you don’t need to touch anything else.”

Result: Flirt with the blonde waitress and go home with money in your pocket.

example 3: surround sound medieval torture chamber

Problem: Basement restaurant has four small rooms and one surround sound unit to power them all. Their speaker cables are all pigtail spliced together and rammed into the speaker jacks. They are using the”Back Left” speaker jacks as a stereo pair for the back room! They wonder why it sounds weird.

Solution: Grab the receiver’s model number off the faceplate, download the PDF owner’s manual and look up how the LED display relates to the audio going out to the speaker jacks. Set up the system to run in “all channels stereo,” tighten up the cable splices, and solve their problem. Then I write notes for the bar staff about which button to press on the stereo to get it working again.

Result: They pay your invoice, offer you a free breakfast and call you back again next time they need something. It might not be enough to live on, but this is building your network and in the end, that’s what keeps you alive. Which leads us to the next point:

DON’T BE AN ARROGANT DICK

MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT PROVE THAT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING

Usually the boss is fed up with getting ripped off, so he wants somebody who knows what is going on and he doesn’t want any questions. Your job is to fix the problem, then go away. If you start complaining, you become one more person on his list of useless people to fire ASAP. You cannot survive in this business unless you make life easy and pleasant for your clients.

example 1: the soundman vs. “the architects”

Problem: An expensive hotel builds a music stage in the bar where there are flat concrete walls, ten-meter ceiling, hardwood floors, GIANT PLATE GLASS WINDOWS PARALLEL TO EACH OTHER. Check out the photos below. The complaint is that the press is giving them reviews of “bad sound”. The owners have been asking their architects to fix the acoustics, the answer comes back 10,000€ for ceiling panels and one custom-stitched thin velvet curtain on the back wall of the stage. You know this will not work.

Solution:

Be professional and don’t laugh at what other people suggested.
Suggest simple, cheap, non-destructive solutions that are easily reversible if they change their mind.
Put a carpet on stage.
Hang some curtains over those plate glass windows.
Get some portable acoustic absorber panels on the back wall of the stage.

Result: In the end the bosses take your advice because your ideas made sense to them, you removed their fear of permanent damage, and your solutions are thousands of Euros cheaper than what the architects said.

example 2: overworked restaurant owner

Problem: A club owner spends 2500€ on expensive sound treatment for the room. He goes on to connect a computer, satellite TV, unbalanced mics and a cheap four-channel mixing board through a DJ mixer, all buried under a pile of ashtrays in the DJ booth. He uses booth/zone output jacks from the DJ mixer to control the different rooms in the bar. He doesn’t know why it sounds like crap and wants to buy a subwoofer to fix everything.

Solution: In this case, if you tell the boss he’s an idiot for spending all that money on acoustics, you’re gonna have a problem. What you do is quote him a price that includes the subwoofer and a new mixing board to unite all the sources. Use the new mixer to feed all the amps and run the DJ mixer into it on a stereo channel. Bump the price up enough to include balanced cables on top of your fees, and don’t say peep about the previous mistakes.

Result: They ask you to train the staff on how to use it, everyone likes it because it’s easier now, and you end up with another working relationship for ongoing tech maintenance.

(By the way: if you’re in the music business you are either working to sell alcohol or you’re working for drug dealers. The people who think they’re gonna be on a Midas desk for a road touring company with Aerosmith are like saxophone players in music school who say they will never do a wedding.)

FIGURE OUT WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT AND SHUT UP

At every step the question is the same — where does the money come from? From people buying drinks at the bar? Sunday brunch? Fast turnaround for video? A stoner dream of nonsense?

example 1: restaurant dining room

Problem: An expensive bar wants music 18 hours a day. It could be a DJ, playlists, anything; their clientele gravitate toward the atmosphere. Boss uses a battery-powered wireless instrument mic (TS unbalanced) going into the headphone jack of a DJ mixer and over to a receiver at the bar. He complains that it’s too hard to set up and there’s too much bass in the ceiling speakers.

Solution: This one requires some finesse. Dress clean when you go in to talk with them. Seriously! Make a service agreement with your friend who owns a record shop. Your friend books classy DJs, you install a pair of wireless DI boxes with 12V adaptors, and you enjoy a nice working relationship with a posh hip new spot.

Result: The bar manager passes out free slivers of prosciutto, and the people keep buying champagne. Bingo. Your professsional network grows.

example 2: dreamy video soundtrack

Problem: Video producer calls and asks, “can you make me a thirty second piece of music for a commercial soundtrack? It should sound energetic and young and jazzy. The budget for the music will pay half your monthly rent. Can you do it by tomorrow?”

Solution: HELL YES! You crank out an eight-bar piano loop with some minor seventh chords and a simple half-funky bassline, drop a beat loop on it from your sample library, hit some reverb, bounce out a stereo mix, and send it the same day for comments. The producer asks for a few easy changes. (THEY NEVER LIKE YOUR FIRST VERSION.)

Result: You make the edits, return it the next morning and get paid. This falls into the category of “nice work if you can get it.”

example 3: star-struck managers

Problem: Budweiser books your home venue to shoot a commercial. The boss loves it, he’s taking in two days’ normal income for what will become literally three seconds in a beer commercial. He doesn’t know enough to ask if they plan to use location sound. He doesn’t know anything about lighting, one-day property lease agreements, or any of the stuff their crew expects to see in a normal day. Budweiser comes in with a generator truck, a million watts of lighting, catering, a pile of extras and a pro film crew.

Solution: You spend the day climbing your truss to turn off the moving gobo lights because their soundman can hear the fans. You silence phone ringers, printers, espresso machine steam hiss, and ice machine internal avalanches. You crawl around under the bar to turn off the refrigerators because they buzz. You turn off the fire alarm and illegally bypass it because their lighting rig sets it off every five minutes. You smile at the extras and get dissed at the catering truck; you even find a color printer for the director’s PDF of the script for his next project.

Result: In the end, you prevent catastrophic failure and get ignored by the honchos. One peon thanks you for saving his ass — it’s the location scout. Anyway, you charge your boss triple your normal day rate and go turn all the refrigerators back on.

CONCLUSION: Please be mentally smart inside your brains and notice that in nearly every example, the goal you are going for is not quick cash, it is to grow your network. Success depends on people; this is so obvious that most people miss it. After the first few years, most of your new business comes from your network, by recommendations and personal contacts. When you solve problems for other people, you get paid, and that’s the last word.

Next read Make A Living As A Sound Engineer, Part Two: How To Get Played.