The truth is, anyone can become a sound engineer.
Getting your foot in the door feels like the easy part because if you show up at the right time you could get a job immediately with no prior experience. The hard part is sticking with it and moving up.
Being a sound engineer is hard; lots of people want to mix the biggest festivals, but only a small number make it to that high level. You could say that those people are naturally better engineers than the rest of us, and maybe they are, but I think a bigger truth is that they have superior emotional intelligence and work ethic.
So how do you harness your own emotional intelligence and work ethic to set professional goals and find success? Let’s take look at Dave Swallow’s article How To Become A Sound Engineer, which asks these two questions: 1) Why do you want this job?; and 2) What do you crave?
Why do you want to become a sound engineer?
You need to work out why you want to do this job. If you are after fame and fortune, you are in the wrong job. If you want to hang around and be friends with famous people, you are in the wrong job. If you want and crave credit for the work you are doing, you are in the wrong job. If it sounds great, the band gets the credit. If it sounds terrible, you get the credit. However, if you love music and understand how it works to its core, then maybe you’ll just make it. This is a hard industry full of people who will try and stab you in the back just to get your gig because they don’t have one. And unfortunately this is the reality. -Dave Swallow
More specifically, if you love live music and crave the emotional thrill of experiencing it with a group of people, then you might make it. But those moments of musical euphoria can be few and far between. You’ll work with bands you dislike. You’ll work on corporate events with no music. In our interview, Swallow says that he doesn’t even go out to shows anymore. I’m the same way. Even when you start out with the craving, it weakens over time and your interests change. How do you maintain that drive?
Answer: Through an interest in technical proficiency and the pride of a job well done.
Part of the reason I currently take lots of corporate work that I would have declined in the past is that my craving shifted; where I used to want emotionally satisfying music, I now crave the personal satisfaction of a job well done. Even if from the outside it appears that the event is falling apart, I pride myself in remaining calm and not losing my shit. This is both a necessity for maintaining sanity and also creative problem solving.
I’ll argue with Swallow on his second point though. I’ve never had anything but respect and support from my colleagues. We look out for each other and help each other out. That being said, I’ve never worked on a top-tier concert tour, so I believe him if he says that the competition is bloodthirsty.
What do you crave?
The key to my own success is already written in the prelude and introduction in the book. And what you will find in there is only that I had a dream, and I believed I could do it. I wasn’t always able to get a job as a sound engineer at either end of the multicore. I had many different jobs in the industry including tour and production managing, driver, and merchandiser, and most of the time these jobs were doubled up even tripled up. I’d do anything, just as long as I met people. -Dave Swallow
A lot of people get depressed on tour. I know, I’ve been there. Being deprived of your normal network of relationships and habits is a great emotional challenge and that no one thinks about. While I was battering Dave Swallow with questions about how he deals with the shitty parts of being a sound engineer, the most important (and understated) thing he said to me was: “You can get stuck up your own ass, but as a sound engineer your job is to make it sound as good as you can. What are you going to do? Moan about it or get on with the job. I don’t see any point in getting stressed about it. It is what it is. These things happen and it’s part and parcel of being on the road. Things will go wrong. If you stress about them, you’re not really doing yourself any favors or anyone around you any favors, so just chill.”
That didn’t really sink in until the second time I listened to his interview, but it’s so important. I often get upset about the conditions of the job and the state of the industry, but getting upset doesn’t help anyone, and it’s a killer if you want to keep doing show. Anyone can get a job as a sound engineer, I promise you. Getting your foot in the door is the easy part. It can happen by accident. Sticking around is the hard part.
I really like this thought: “I’d do anything, just as long as I met people.” Swallow’s first tour was six months of unpaid work. Are you crazy?! Yes and no. Networking is the most important thing in our industry. Swallow repeats several times in our interview how important it was that he “got on” with his colleagues, both crew and artists. Swallow got that first tour after working at a music venue for six years because a local band liked him. I got my first concert tour with the band O’QueStrada because they liked me (and the fact that I would let them do crazy things with microphones like distance group miking in a tiny venue).
The “I’ll do anything” mentality does not just mean painting floors and making coffee, it’s also staying open to opportunities in live audio. In concert sound there are a lot more sound engineers at work than just the FOH engineer. The stage monitor engineer, the microphone tech, the stage hands, the system tech, the audio production manager, and the live recording engineer are all equal contributors to high production quality, and each position has its own set of challenges and benefits. For example, the stage monitor engineer has a far more personal relationship with the artists during the show than the FOH mixer. Once I had the opportunity to mix monitors for John McLaughlin and his band. Imagine how cool it was that everyone on stage, including McLaughlin, had to learn my name!
Every time I go to see my favorite band, Sigur Rós, I go up to the FOH engineer after the show and ask him how he got his job. He always says the same thing: “Oh, they just knew about me from other work I had done.” In college I used to read every TapeOp Magazine from cover to cover, desperate to deconstruct the sound engineer’s career path. It was always a let down, because there is no step-by-step method. Why? My guess is that the industry just isn’t that developed yet. Think about professions with well-defined career paths and guidelines. They are older and more organized, like the medical and legal industries.
This industry is still very young and, as such, is constantly changing. Just remember that if you want to make a career out of it, you must be professional, responsible, and courteous at all times. -Dave Swallow
Swallow’s career story isn’t complicated. He met someone with connections, asked for help, did well, and one thing led to another. The impressive part is that he stuck with it through all of the shitty parts of the job. Sure, he works with celebrities and great artists, but that shine wears off after about 500 miles of touring. Hear Swallow’s career path starting at 35m40s in the interview below.
Hey you, yeah, you there reading this. What drives you to continue to be a sound engineer? Comment below.
For more on career paths, read the Education chapter of Sound Design Live: Build Your Career As A Sound Engineer.
For me, I just love live performance. I left a very lucrative career as a programmer because I got a great deal more satisfaction from being part of a show. I tried being on stage several times in amateur theatre and quite enjoyed it but working backstage got me a lot more job satisfaction. Part of it is the organisational aspect: I enjoy making sense and order out of complex, sometimes opposing requirements. I also like the “secretive” or “magical” aspect: invisibly manipulating the set, lighting, sound, whatever component of the illusion that lets people tune out of real life and be entertained. Whilst I get a thrill from impressive shows with stunning effects and conspicuous great sound, I also get a much more private sense of satisfaction from creating a naturalistic feel: the challenge can be greater in some ways because everyone is familiar with the real world and will sense something doesn’t fit with a naturalistic interpretation even if they can’t put their finger on it.
So why sound engineering rather than lighting or stage management? I love music, and I enjoy listening to interviews. People are interesting and if they’ve taken the time to sing or talk about it or express that purely through music, I want to hear it. I’d rather read fiction or manuals than biographies. Maybe that’s simply because there’s a more personal engagement with someone on stage.
I find that I will enjoy a live performance of music that I wouldn’t normally choose to buy and listen to at home. I’m certain that this is because of the more personal engagement of live performance.
Hi Ian! Thanks for commenting.
I totally agree. Live performance engages all of the senses while recording only one.
So kinds of events do you work on?
Hi Nathan. I find there are phases of work with each client. I have been a chief technician at a theatre where I did the sound engineering, lighting design and rigging for a wide variety of shows, until they ran short of money and made me redundant. One of my regular clients is a promoter and until recently we were doing a lot of gigs at a club with unknown high quality bands as well as some familiar names. There was a little disquiet at that club concerning the name of the promoter’s company (which also used the word “club”) and a change of branding became unavoidable, creating an inevitable dip in attendance. The venue didn’t see the link and reversed their booking policy, much to the dismay of local music fans, and so that avenue is now closed. Right now most of my work is with churches. I miss the high energy music of the club already! Sure, there is high energy Christian music around but no sign of it in the churches that I count in my regular clients. I would say that at the minute my main work is installations. Later in the year I anticipate returning to a literature festival near my home town, where I will use all my technical skills in sound, lighting, AV and IT. It’s a pretty awesome job and the technical crew are all great guys to work with. Long hours, lots of equipment to be moved around many temmporary venues but a good working atmosphere and there are a lot of humble people talking about their passion, the passion that drove them to write their latest book.
Wow, you’ve been around.
What’s a literature festival?
Are they just doing readings from their books?
My wife and sister in-law are on the board and perform in community theater and have done since high school.
I am a musician/vocalist and computer engineer and have been for many years. I have recently been working toward creating a recording studio in my basement just for the hell of it.
My wife asked me if I would be interested in being the sound guy for a play they wanted to do called Harvey. I said yes for no other reason than I thought I could do it and I wanted to get a foot in the door as an active participant in community theater.
They gave me a pile of electronics to play with that where less than desirable (it gave me nightmares to work with) but the end result was. I was asked to be their permanent sound guy. The group was founded 5 years ago with the current board in place for the last 3. I have worked on three shows. Including Harvey we also did Nuncrackers the musical and a cabaret of songs performed by a dozen singers. The next show will be the Odd Couple which I am looking forward to because we have a new mixer and a couple of new condenser mics. I haven’t thought about doing this shit professionally however the idea of getting paid has its merits. That is a long way off if it happens at all. I am new to this and still have a lot to learn to wit your articles are helping and entertaining. Thank you Nathan Lively.
Cool! If you did do it professionally, what would you do? Theatre sound mostly?
I would really want to know more about sound engineering I am really interested in things career!!!I would want to learn more about sound engineering….
I like that,thank for your knowledge…
Brilliant. Same team same fight. Reading this after tough night at the office when the largest human in the club was dancing is ass off near me and the gear, stumbled over the stanchions i have had to place around the sound guy area to psychologically ward off drunk idiots — naturally he tripped over the base of said “protective” measures, palmed the board with fat Bigfoot Paws to recover, bent the fader of the lead vocal Channel strip, and mashed half the others to 11, kneed the rackmount EQs & compressors and set off a fun chain reaction of feedback and interesting EQ choices in the middle of famous people and Grammy winners set. This article gave me a laugh. Live sound is a warzone and you have to be an army of One and not really give a f*** half the time despite an overwhelming sense of pride and love of live music, musicians and the art of noise. It will always be the fat guy, not the 90-pound model, the live sound gods have a hilarious sense of humor Cheers! -Scotty
Thanks for checking out the article Scotty! And I totally agree. Working on live events is all about dealing with varying degrees of chaos.
I’m only 14 years old and I have been doing FOH audio with my church voluntarily every Sunday and Wednesday for about 6 months now and I absolutely love it. I’v always known that I enjoy music and I dreamed of pursuing a career in music but I didn’t know what I could do other than write music, sing music, and play music. I had an older friend who did FOH and I asked him how the soundboard works and how to create a light show and things like that. It piqued my interest and he taught me every thing he knew about the sound board. He invited me up one Wednesday to try it out live! I was so worried that I would screw something up because I only had like two real experiences on the sound board during some band practices in my free time. But I did well! And the lead singer who is the tech team organizer invited me to be a part of his crew! That was 6 months ago and I love doing this. We don’t go on tour and I don’t get paid but it gives me a thrill that makes me feel complete. After about 4 months into the job, I talked to the organizer into letting one of my friends be a part a the tech team in FOH doing lights because he had always wanted to make light shows. He got the job too and now he loves to mess with the stage crew by throwing in strobe lights into the setup. But for the sake of the show he always takes them out. I’m 14 years old and my career path is set on sound engineering. Thank you for this helpful article telling me that I am closer than I initially thought.
Thanks for sharing Graham! Keep us updated.