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Mixing Monitors from FOH: 17 lessons I learned from Grealy at Soulsound

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It doesn’t matter how good a monitor engineer you are. If you have severe halitosis you will not be asked back.

Things that I learned/re-learned from watching Mixing Monitors from FOH on Soulsound.

  • Although each physical microphone input on a mixing console can only have one headamp gain setting, each input channel on a digital desk has in input attenuator.
  • On a digital console, duplicate all inputs and setup a completely separate mix for the stage, even in small venues!
  • Listen to monitors in pairs that are near each other to verify polarity.
  • If you are going to double-up monitors on a vocal mic, make sure to aim them using the HF driver, not the center of the box.
  • Place the stage monitor as near to the musician’s head as possible.
  • If you are using the sidefills as vocal reinforcement for a singer standing center stage, everyone stage left and right is going to get blasted. Using a short stack (<1m) can help avoid this.
  • Sidefills are a good solution for the artists that want “a bit of everything,” which is basically a copy of the FOH mix.
  • Rubber strips (or a stack of Gaffe tape in a pinch) underneath a drum fill will reduce vibration and movement.
  • Moving the drummer off center can help reduce leakage into the vocal mic.
  • “Let them hang themselves.” Don’t anticipate every instance of feedback due to improper microphone technique. “I’m a good believer in allowing people to teach themselves…”
  • After soundcheck: spike monitor and stand positions and label stands with position and name of performer.
  • Glasses and hats are reflective enough to significantly reduce GBF. Nothing you can do about this. Just something to test ahead of time.
  • Make musicians sound check every instrument they are going to use. Watch out for singers with harmonicas. Huge level change!
  • Try not to irritate the musicians. “Make sure I don’t have hard boiled egg in me beard.” Breath mints and chewing gum.
  • Teach yourself pitch memory by trying to whistle 1kHz every day.
  • Start out mixing monitors with the FOH muted. Then slowly bring up FOH to assess collateral damage.
  • Bog standard = perfectly ordinary. Halitosis = bad breath.

I’ve been a member of Soulsound for 2 years and 7 months. Their videos are great quality and watching them always makes me want to go back and redo all of mine.

I learned a lot from watching this masterclass with Justin Grealy. He is very thorough and it really motivated me to up my game and deliver better service to the clients I work with. Instead of minimal effort to get the job done, prepare for every possibility and make every comfortable.

The only thing missing from this class is practical work with a band on stage, which would make a great part 2 (hint, hint).

How I do things similarly

If you have an analog console, Y-split at least the vocal channels.

I’ve done this technique a couple of times. My first question is always: What amI going to do differently to the monitor split compared to the FOH split?

Answer: EQ, dynamics, effects

One of the biggest problems I have in small concert venues is that the mix in the room can be ruined by the LF from loud stage monitors. At first you think, “Who cares, crank it up till their ears bleed if they want it.” But remember, every speaker is omni directional at some point, not to mention reflections from the back wall. So a loud stage monitor is going to give you lots of LF into the front rows as well as the stage. One way to help mitigate that is to raise the HPF on the vocal channel to something insanely high, like, as high as you can get away with. I’m talking 350Hz! And you can get away with that by splitting the vocal channels.

When it comes to dynamics, it’s likely that you don’t want as much compression on your vocals in the monitor mix as you do in the FOH mix. In most cases, on small, loud stages, you want almost no compression so that the vocalist can hear their raw performance to improve their microphone technique. In the same way that an actor learns to “find their light,” a singer must learn to find the pocket for a consistent performance.

The more you compress it, the more you affect the way the musician “actually” plans the instrument. It’s really easy to make people over play.

A gate set correctly can also be a huge advantage in the FOH mix, but tricky in the monitor mix. Vocalists will complain at the first hint of a problem, and we could get into the psychology of that, but what’s important here is that you don’t want to give them any reason to complain. It’s like when you’re on a Skype call and it mutes everyone else while you’re talking. You’d think silence would be nice, but it’s unsettling.

How I do things differently

I live in the US.

You will rarely meet an analog desk these days.

This is an interesting difference between the US and UK markets. In the US, analog mixing consoles still hold strong, especially in small rooms and hotel AV. They are cheaper and easier to train people on. Which makes me wonder, why have analog desks disappeared from the UK?

I never run a separate monitor mix.

Grealy suggests duplicating all inputs for a separate monitor mix for more control, which is ideal, but I never do that. There’s just not enough time to do both jobs comprehensively. I can imagine a situation where maybe you have some of the controls linked between layers or quickly copy and paste your settings, but I can’t imagine anyone having the patience for me to track down technical problems, setup the FOH input channels, and then setup the monitors channels for three different bands. I usually barely have enough time to do one job.

So time management is the main consideration, but hearing is another. Most venues where I’m mixing monitors from FOH are not going to include a stage monitor for me at FOH to listen to my changes. That means I’ll need to listen from across the room, on headphones, or do a lot of guessing. I might be making more problems than solutions.

I don’t use graphic EQs, especially not for system tuning.

In the video, Justin inserts graphic EQs in his monitor sends. I never do this anymore since most desks also have a parametric EQ on every output.

There are only two good reasons to use a graphic EQ: 1) ear training and 2) the war zone that is monitor world. But aren’t we in monitor land? Yes, but the reason we might want them in a war zone is the simple speed of grabbing a fader and moving it. That doesn’t work on a digital mixing board.

Check out the graphic EQ setting in the image below. It looks pretty minor. A little shaping. Maybe removing some feedback.

Then look at the shape that it’s actually creating in the measurement below. Yikes!

mixing-monitors-from-foh-grealy-soulsound-review-graphic-eq

I don’t double-up stage monitors for lead vocalists.

One thing I’ve never understood is the doubling up of stage monitors for the main vocalist. I mean, I’ve asked people about this. When I asked Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato about why Eddie Vedder has 8 stage monitors she said, “SPL and coverage,” which I still don’t quite understand. In all cases, why not just turn one speaker up louder or get a louder speaker?

Maybe someday I’ll work on a show like that and finally understand it.

I don’t say “Phase Reversal.”

The way Grealy uses polarity and phase interchangeably is confusing. Grealy says he is going to “check that all of the monitors are in-phase with each other.” He then proceeds to verify polarity. It’s important to remember that phase shift is frequency dependent and caused by delay in the signal. Polarity is frequency independent and has no time offset. So if we are checking phase we are going to need a delay line or physical offset and if we are verifying polarity we just need a polarity inversion switch or cable. So when Grealy says that on tour he found an out of phase cable, he basically discovered a time machine.  That being said, I do appreciate his quick and dirty method of listening to stage monitors in pairs. Nice!

Things that Needed Further Explanation

Pink vs. White Noise

Grealy’s explanation of pink vs white noise is a little confusing. Although white noise is statistically equal level over the frequency range, we perceive it as spectrally tilted toward the high frequencies because our ears respond on a logarithmic basis and are more sensitive in the high end. Pink noise is filtered white noise, attenuated at 3 dB/octave, to sound more even to our ears.

Audio Analyzer

Some people cheat and use an analyzer. I use these [pulling on ear], because I find that they work rather better.

You didn’t think I was going to let Grealy bash audio analyzers and get away with it did you?

Grealy goes on to say that an audio analyzer can mislead you, but fails to demonstrate how, which seems like fear mongering. There is enough misunderstanding about audio analyzers as it is without Grealy turning it into a pissing contest. An audio analyzer is a tool to supplement the two audio analyzers you already have attached to your head, not to replace it.

Things I Want to Test

If you put the stage monitor on a beer crate, do you lose all of the low end?

Grealy says that he is a big fan of decoupling the stage monitor from the stage to get it closer to the performer’s head. Somewhere along the line I learned that stage monitors are tuned for half-space loading, but I’ve never measured the effects of the change. My question is: Does removing the stage monitor from the stage require EQ compensation in the LF? My guess is yes, but I’m not sure how much.

I would test this by comparing measurements of a stage monitor on the stage and 2 ft up on a stand.

How far apart can I space two stage monitors before the bass player complains?

I like Grealy’s suggestion to keep two monitors as close as possible if you want LF coupling, but I wonder where he came up with 30cm? Two LF drivers spaced 30cm apart would give you coupling up to 755 Hz since the wavelength of 755 Hz is 45cm long and 2/3 of that is 30cm. But the fundamental range of a 4-string bass goes from about 40Hz to 400Hz. So if all you need to do is support the fundamental range, then you can get away with a wider displacement, up to 58cm. Maybe Grealy is counting the overtones, but that would go way past 755 Hz.

I would test this by pulling stage monitors apart until the bass player complained.

Random tip for watching training videos online

Are you a person that listens to business books at 1.3x speed? I am. Grealy is very well spoken, but there are enough pauses and “uhs” that I installed the Vimeo repeat & speed extension for Chrome so I wouldn’t get distracted.

SynAudCon “How Sound Systems Work” online training REVIEW

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Bottom line: “How Sound Systems Work” is a solid introductory course that is well worth the $200 price tag.

At first I thought “too expensive”, but then I compared the cost to my first semester at the Sonic Arts Center, which is basically what’s covered in this course. Let’s see, $200 vs $4,000? Now it makes more sense.

Here’s the intro video:

Things I liked

The human hearing system is quite easy to fool. -Pat Brown

I’m a big fan of step-by-step courses, so this is perfect for me. Also, most of the lessons are videos, which is good for me since I am a better audio learner who tends to skim long passages of text. Written summaries of the videos are also provided for folks who learn through reading, but I found I didn’t need those.

I like that Brown separates the art and science of audio.

The art of audio takes place in the mixing console. Not in the post-mixer signal processing. – Pat Brown

I also picked up some facts I never knew:

  • Most of the applied electrical power is lost as heat. – Pat Brown
  • Tone control and technical filters are other ways to say channel EQ and system EQ.
  • The 3:1 rule for isolating mikes to reduce phase issues.

I failed the first quiz and immediately thought, “Shut up Pat Brown, you don’t know anything!” After going over the answers I realized that a lot of this course is getting familiar with its particular vocabulary. For example, Brown uses high Q and low Q where Bob McCarthy would use first, second, and third order.

A majority of the time I felt like what was being presented was connected with the practical work I do and I could put it to use right away.

If a lot of these topics are new to you, the forum will be very valuable. I was confused by the explanation of dB usage, so I posted a question and Brown got back to me pretty quickly.

The section on common system problems is really valuable. Brown’s advice for dealing with microphone feedback is right on the money. I was happy to hear him say never to defeat the electrical ground on a piece of audio equipment. You would be surprised at how often I still see people use an AC ground lift unnecessarily.

I appreciated his advice on speaker aim for isolation and to avoid overlap when combining elements. That is one of the most common mistakes in sound system deployment.

Things I didn’t like

Never attempt to design a loudspeaker array.

What? Designing an array is fun! And it can be as easy as combining two matched subwoofers for low-frequency control. It’s also necessary. On many events I work on, I arrive to a pile of speakers on the floor. I then have to figure out how to combine them to best fit the room and the event.

One disappointing feature of this program is that you do not have lifetime access to it. Although I appreciate that a time constraint provides motivation to get it done, I would love to be able to review it again after six months or a year.

Make sure you listen to the section on precedence effect in video clip 2 of the final lesson. This is a frequently-misunderstood idea in system tuning and is not served by a rule of thumb. Afterward, make sure you listen to Sound System Design for Small Venues with Bob McCarthy at 20:54.

Things I got excited about

I’m comfortable with the inverse square law, but the inverse distance law was a completely new idea for me. I wrote to Merlijn Van Veem to make sure Brown wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on me. Here’s what Merlijn said:

The inverse distance law (aka inverse square law) is about loss rates and is often expressed in SPL level drop per doubling of distance. Normally, SPL level drop is 6dB per doubling of distance for point sources that produce a spherical wavefront. Line arrays produce cylindrical waveforms up to a certain distance, which is frequency-dependent. Beyond that point, they revert back to point source behavior. The lows fall back first, then the mids, and finally the highs. But factor in absorption by air, which acts like a HF loss rate accelerator, and effectively, only the mids adhere to cylindrical behavior. Cylindrical wavefronts drop at only 3 dB per doubling distance. This is why poorly-tuned line arrays sound harsh, like the proverbial ice pick in the forehead. Because the lows and highs can’t keep up with the mids.

Got it.

Final thoughts

This would be a great place to start if you are new to live sound. I think you will be left with more questions, but it is a great jumping off point to help you identify what you need to learn next.

Live Sound Survival: Big Sound Out Of Small Systems

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sound-design-live-sound-survival-big-sound-small-systems-ebookLive Sound Survival is an eBook that Björgvin Benediktsson sells on his excellent blog, Audio Issues. He is definitely passionate about helping sound engineers like you and me master our craft, but he also scares the shit out of me. This seems to be a common theme in pro audio media–more on that later.

Is the book for me?

Maybe. If you are a beginner or hobbyist working on open mikes or birthday parties, then yes. If you already work regularly in professional audio, then no.  The book doesn’t get into theory or explanations of science, it just provides directions and short recipes for specific situations.

That being said, this book does a great job of introducing general ideas on best practices and standards of quality. For example, instead of telling you exactly which vocal microphone to use, Benediktsson explains that there is no bad microphone. Benediktsson doesn’t explain why he chooses certain mikes or speakers in his templates, but you can trust that if you use them everything is likely to work out fine.

This is a great quick-start guide for someone who wants assistance plugging things in. I can imagine a musician who wants to put together a live system for herself or an event producer who wants to take their show on the road finding it useful.

sound-design-live-live-sound-survival-big-sound-small-systems-line-levelUnfortunately, some things Benediktsson writes in an effort to simplify and explain concepts are just plain wrong. For example, in the section on mixers he writes that the line input is for guitars. That’s a complete level and impedance mismatch! Electric guitars with passive pickups are expecting 1MΩ while most line level inputs are rated at around 10KΩ. We’re talking serious high frequency loss. You should only do that in a pinch. In our interview he explained that he is writing for an audience that is always in a pinch. I get where he’s coming from and I can even imagine a scenario where it makes sense, like with an active guitar pickup 6ft from the mixer, but I still find it a bit irresponsible.

A couple of more complaints: His explanation of channel gain makes me cringe. He also recommends a graphic EQ for system tuning and feedback reduction, which we know is a weak tool for the task (see my interview with Bob McCarthy). I could go on, but I think you get the point. Benediktsson isn’t trying to advance the state of the industry here. He has a clearly defined goal of helping those with little to no experience interact with bare bones systems, and he succeeds on that front.

Helpful and direct or just scary?

sound-design-live-sound-survival-big-sound-small-systems-turn-back

Benediktsson’s book is direct and raw. The first chapter is a list of the top reasons why being a sound engineer sucks. My hope was that he would go through each obstacle line by line and tell me how to overcome it, but instead it reads like a warning. Take a look at the opening passages from the last three books I read and see if you see a theme.

[one_third padding=”0 15px 0 0″]Live sound is difficult, frustrating, has long hours, and often commands very bad pay. Even though mixing live sound might be an awesome job, it’s just a small part of what you do as a live sound engineer. Sometimes running live sound just sucks.

Live Sound Survival by Björgvin Benediktsson[/one_third]

[one_third padding=”0 15px 0 0″]This is not a very nice book…But, it is a truthful one…Every single thing that you manage to acquire comes at a price – usually your own blood, sweat, and tears.

Getting A Foot In The Door by Darryn De La Soul[/one_third]

[one_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 0px”]If you like semi-darkness, long hours of boredom, long hours of work, no social life, no love life, heavy lifting, getting your white gloves dirty, and a good laugh, this is the job for you.

Live Audio by Dave Swallow[/one_third_last]

 

And here is the title of Benediktsson’s sales page:

How Can the Worst Job in the World Also Be the Most Fun?

It’s shitty. I get it. If you look back at everything I’ve written on Sound Design Live you will see plenty of examples of me deploring the conditions that live event professionals are forced to endure. I think we all get it. I guess I’m just getting tired of everyone bitching from the rooftops without making any real moves for change. Instead of inviting newcomers to tackle these problems with fresh eyes, we maintain the status quo.

Maybe the duality of the pleasure of musical adventure and the pain of crap working conditions is what makes the job so strange and enticing. Or, maybe we can do better. What do you think Pissy Sound Guy?

Balls Of Steel: 10 Surprising Tips For Live Audio Engineer Training

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sound-design-live-audio-engineer-training-crazyIn the live industry, audio engineer training happens on the job.

You’ll never take a college class on how to load a semi. You’ll never have to bribe a union forklift driver at the academy.

In general I believe it’s pretty easy to get started at this job and much harder to stick with it. I even said so in How To Become A Sound Engineer: “Anyone can become a sound engineer. Getting your foot in the door is easy, but it can be difficult to move up.”

Simple, right? Except if you’re the person trying to get your foot in the door for the first time. Then you might think I’m full of shit.

10: The truth hurts?

“This is not a very nice book…But, it is a truthful one.”

Right out of the gate Darryn De La Soul prepares you for pain. In her free eBook Getting A Foot In The Door: How to make your way in the Live Sound Industry, she paints a pretty bleak picture of working in pro audio. I don’t agree with her on this issue, but I respect her and what she has to say. Her experience is based on a decade of touring and doing shows.

I disagree because I’ve worked in places that have much lower barriers to entry and demand much less sacrifice than the ones she talks about in her book. I’m not going to dive into that right now, but those places include jobs in theatre and corporate AV, for example. My theory is that De La Soul has spent so much of her career working concert sound and helping others do the same that to her the entire industry looks like an uphill battle. I can’t fault her too much for her approach, because the people coming to her for help want to mix the next U2 tour and so the first thing she has to do is a reality check.

9: Climbing the career web

Unlike many careers, such as banking and law, there is no ‘ladder’ in the Live Sound industry; it’s more like a web, only a web that has a lower end and a higher end.

This is my favorite section of the book, because it puts into words something I’ve been trying describe for years. If you want to be an electrician the ladder looks like this:

  1. Training School
  2. Assistant
  3. Apprentice
  4. Journeyman
  5. Master electrician

sound-design-live-audio-engineer-training-electrician-career-ladder

If you want to be a sound engineer the process might include any combination of training schools, assistantships, apprenticeships, part-time jobs, full-time jobs, and working for free for friends. If you want, you can cut through all of those by getting your own clients. Or you might also have a job in audio but still need or want a second job, so nothing is ever black and white.

This giant gray area is the reason it can take so long to get rolling after you move to a new city, even though you have years of experience. If you use it right, it also allows you to save a lot of time, make the right connections, and launch yourself into the higher end of the web.

8: Audio Engineer Training Qualifications

Most of the degrees out there don’t really mean much because they haven’t taught you how to push the boxes and load the truck and be awake for 15 hours and still have a smile on your face.

There’s no one certification that is required to call yourself a sound engineer. Again, this is good and bad. You may excel very quickly at a job through hard work and aptitude, but the status you gain is generally not transferrable to your next job.

That being said, there are some qualifications that help. If you come in with a rigging certification, well, that’s badass and not very common. More on that in a future post. Also, everyone should be CPR and First Aid certified, because it’s easy to get and could save a life.

7: (Don’t be) A bit of a dick

Be likeable.

sound-design-live-audio-engineer-training-big-deal

This is the most helpful and the most abstract advice that De La Soul gives in her book. Without certifications or a clearly defined career ladder, first impressions are most of what we’ve got, unfortunately. How do you create a good first impression? Read The Charisma Myth, and thank me later.

De La Soul shares other behavior guidelines that that will help you play well with others. Our industry has a reputation for being disorganized and unreliable. When is the last time you went to a concert that started on time, for example? Being punctual and reliable will make you stand out by contrast.

6: How to look good on your first job

Two words: Tight pants.

Just kidding! I made that one up.

De La Soul gives a whole list of ways to be valuable on the job, but I’ll tell you a secret right now. I can always identify the inexperienced techs because they stand around waiting for someone to say go. As soon as you get in there, start putting together the missing pieces. If it’s not clear, ask whoever is in charge rather than waiting for them to tell you. If you want to look really sharp, ask for the next three steps and write them down so you won’t have to keep coming back for the next step.

5: Pushing Boxes

Seventy percent of the job is…loading trucks.

Goddammit, I hate load-in and load-out. Why didn’t I just become a flute player?? My suggestion is to ask someone more experienced, “What’s the best way to lift this?” and “Is this a two-man job or can I get it myself?” You’re not going to be the superstar you want to be with a blown disk.

4: CV, Resume, Cover Letter

De La Soul spends a couple of chapters talking about how to get these three things right. Only once have they ever gotten me a job. If it’s not a posted position, just go there. If you can’t, call. If all else fails, email. Repeat as necessary.

sound-design-live-audio-engineer-training-get-a-job

3: Now that you’ve got the job

Respond to messages and emails promptly.

Employers, clients, significant others: everyone looooooooooooves this. If you respond quickly, clients will learn to contact you first because they know that you will get back to them right away, but Molly Molasses will take two days to respond. I’m not the best role model, but a good practice I’ve developed is to write people back immediately, with the answer if I have it or to let them know I’ll get back to them in a few days.

You MUST have public liability insurance.

This was a surprise to me the first time I heard it, but it is the same in the US. If you do not have general liability insurance then your employer does and technically, you are an employee, which is fine. You just need to be clear on what your status is. Read the IRS Independent Contractor 20-Factor Test.

In my interview with Stephen Fishman, he didn’t think it was necessary since a lawsuit would most likely be filed against the venue owner or event organizer, who are more likely to have the money. When I talked to Jim Digby from the Event Safety Alliance, he said to err on the side of caution and have your own policy for protection. You can buy it online in about 30 minutes for about $40/month, so for me it’s a no-brainer.

2: It’s worth a Google.

First thing just about anyone does these days is ‘Google’ you; so make sure your Internet presence says only good things about you.

I disagree. I’ve spent a lot of time building an online presence. It’s done good things for me, but it’s never gotten me a job or stopped me from getting a job. I would love to change this, but at the moment it’s just not how things work, at least in the US.

1: Taxes!

I personally found that if I saved 10% of each and every job, that equalled – more or less – the amount of tax I owed after I had offset my business expenses. Start saving those little bits now.

Where were you ten years ago when I needed to hear this?! Pfff…

For more on this please read The Sound Engineer’s Pain-Free Guide To TurboTax.

Conclusions

Although De La Soul’s frightening description of a career that demands “total dedication and balls of steel” might turn you away, remember that it’s still just a job. Jobs are very important, but like everything else in life, ultimately they are what you make of them.

So, if you want to bust your ass interning at a recording studio for thousands of hours waiting for a break, you can do that and it will have its rewards. But you can also get a full-time job at a corporate AV company tomorrow, and it will have different rewards. Every career and audio engineer training path is unique. Don’t try to be Darryn De La Soul or Nathan Lively. Those two are taken and cannot be repeated. You do you.

sound-design-live-kevin-hart

Be Your Own Attorney: The Smart Business Guide For Freelancers

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sound-design-live-be-your-own-business-attorney-guide-freelancers-working-for-yourself-bookYou may be an amazing sound engineer. You probably are, since you read Sound Design Live. 😉

But: are you in line with the law? Are you handling your business in a professional manner, protecting yourself from loss and planning for the future? Are you sure?

Reading Stephen Fishman’s Working For Yourself is one of the best ways to make sure that you are. I’ve read this book twice and I use it as an ongoing resource. Fishman has talked to a lot of contractors like you and me, and he explains the game in an easy to understand way. Let’s take a look at some of the most helpful points for audio professionals.

The Pros & Cons Of Working For Yourself

Pros

The first chapter of Fishman’s book is dedicated to the question, “Why do people do it?”

It’s a good question. Why go out on your own where you have to run your business and do the work, when you could just work for someone else and leave the the first part to your boss?

In my interview with him, 10 Critical Tax Questions Answered For Sound Engineers, both Fishman and I agree that it’s all about control. As an employee you must follow policy and complete work in a manner specified by someone else. Independent contractors thrive on controlling all aspects of our working conditions. We want to choose our clients, when we work, how much we make, and maybe most importantly, how we do our jobs.

With more control and agility, you should be able to make more money as an independent contractor. By making the right choices, you can maximize your personal value better than any employer. If I were to fill my schedule with gigs, that would be true, but the most important aspect of control for me isn’t money, it’s time. Being a freelancer allows me time to work on other projects that I care about, like Sound Design Live. I might make more money as an employee in the short term, but I’d rather focus on building an audience of life-long readers.

sound-design-live-be-your-own-business-attorney-guide-freelancers-my-cousin-vinny

As a contractor you also have a lot more tax deductions that are not available to employees. See my article, Save $500 On Your Taxes This Year.

My favorite part about being a freelancer is that I feel agile. Any time I have a business idea I can immediately put it into action. I don’t have to convince anyone else of my idea’s validity. Does this mean that I have tried a lot of ideas that have failed? Yes. But they aren’t stuck in my brain, making me anxious and crazy with a lack of creative expression in my business.

Cons

My least favorite part about being a freelancer is the lack of support structures. When I go into the hotels and music venues where I work part-time, I get to see friends and colleagues. My favorite jobs of all time have been defined by relationships. Same with the worst jobs I’ve had. Being a freelancer means that I get a mix of the best and the worst, instead of being a member of a reliable group.

One of the biggest problems with working for yourself in the past has been the lack of health insurance. Not any more! Since October 2013 anyone can buy health insurance on the public exchange despite any preexisting conditions. Fishman predicted that many people would leave their jobs and go independent once they weren’t tied to insurance anymore, and he was right!

“So what do you do?” Do you have trouble answering this question at parties? I think more and more people are thinking of their work as a portfolio of services instead of a single job title. Many sound engineers have clients from more than one area like film and corporate AV. Some even work in completely different areas like massage and photography. I usually say that I’m a world-famous author. 😉

 sound-design-live-be-your-own-business-attorney-guide-freelancers-sound-technician

Legal Form For Your Business

You can pretty much skip the second chapter since, as confirmed by Fishman in our interview, there is really no reason for any sound engineer to be anything other than a sole proprietor, unless you have a partnership with someone else.

Pricing Your Services & Getting Paid

This is the most valuable part of the book. You have to take care of these things in a professional manner or you won’t survive. Or maybe you will, but you won’t be confident that you are protecting yourself and keeping all of the money you deserve.

Fishman includes an Hourly Rate Worksheet to help you calculate your fee, but this has never worked well for me. I usually put some unrealistic numbers into the worksheet for yearly profit. It’s more useful to just ask other local sound engineers what they charge, aka “investigating the marketplace,” which he also describes.

sound-design-live-be-your-own-business-attorney-guide-freelancers-pricing-modelFishman also explains different pricing models. You may only be familiar with charging by the hour, but the truth is that is often the weakest model because it doesn’t allow for any sort of compression. I’m in favor of a fixed and hourly fee combination. That way if work is going well I can take more breaks or finish early, therefore making my time more valuable, but I’m also protected against conditions out of my control. It usually goes something like this: Day rate $350, anything over 10 hours is billed at $50/hour. Because I really don’t want to work more than 8-10 hours, but if it has to happen, I want to feel compensated for the effort. I also try to upsell by packaging other equipment or services like live event recording and my wireless mix system.

I’ve never had a retainer agreement with any clients, but one of the people I’ve interviewed on the podcast does and enjoys it. That way you still have the control of being an independent contractor, but more of the stability with guaranteed hours like an employee.

Performance billing and taking commissions are two things I’ve always been interested in, but I don’t know anyone who is using them as a sound engineer or designer. Basically you get paid according to the value of the results you produce. No one goes to an event because of the sound engineer who is working it, so it seems impractical, but there might be a way of profit sharing that would work. Let me know if you’ve seen this anywhere.

How and when you get paid should be described in your written agreement with the client. Fishman includes a simple sample you can fill out to build your own independent contractor agreement. I’ve been using it and modifying it with my own clients since reading this book. One of my clients even adopted it for their other contractors. When you are just doing work for a day this can feel like overkill, but ignoring the details will bite you in the ass so I demand that you follow these two rules:

  1. sound-design-live-be-your-own-business-attorney-guide-freelancers-two-rulesWrite it down. If you agree on your rate and arrival time over the phone, email that client ASAP to have a written record. Simply say, “Hi Nathan, just confirming these details from our phone call.” People will appreciate your reliability. Event producers have a million details to keep track of. Don’t expect them to deliver on everything you just discussed over the phone while they were driving, drinking coffee, and thinking about their next phone call.
  2. Don’t make assumptions. Just because you have done the same event two years in a row doesn’t mean that it will pay the same or have the same responsibilities this year. You can still agree to do it over a text message, but email that client ASAP so that you know that they know that you know that they know. Otherwise, you’re going to end up working the load-out at 2am for pennies.

Fishman recommends asking for a down payment and periodic payment schedule. I typically only do this on jobs that will last for more than a week or bill for over $1,000. It’s completely reasonable to ask for ⅓ or ½ up front, especially for first-time clients.

When it comes to payment format, Fishman recommends accepting some form of electronic payment, like Paypal. I totally agree, but I’m not 100% on board with Paypal. I am still occasionally surprised by fees I wasn’t expecting and even had one client pay the wrong person. Instead, I recommend SquareCash. It’s unclear how long it will be a free service, but it’s super simple and I’ve convinced clients to use it who previously would only handle cash or checks.

Fishman’s book is also where I learned how to send invoices. You can see my process in Easy Invoicing For Sound Engineers. For example, instead of charging late fees, sometimes I will offer a discount for early payment.

Taxes & Savings

Fishman dedicates four chapters to dealing with taxes. I covered a lot of this in my last two posts: The Sound Engineer’s Pain-Free Guide To TurboTax and 10 Critical Tax Questions Answered For Sound Engineers. Fishman goes into more detail about avoiding and dealing with IRS audits in his book. He also goes into much more detail covering the deductions you can use to lower you income taxes and paying estimated taxes. I’ve never paid estimated taxes. Have you? I put 10% from all my income into a special savings account and use that to pay taxes yearly.

sound-design-live-how-to-control-feedback-in-live-sound-featured-imageThe chapter about retirement options for the self employed was helpful, but I have to admit that I haven’t taken action on any of it yet (UPDATE: I just opened a Roth IRA at Ally Bank. I already had an account so it only took five minutes. Yay!) I would guess that there are many of you who put these kinds of financial responsibilities off just like me. You probably think it’s too complicated or boring. You should watch Ramit Sethi’s guide to automating your savings.

When you watch it you are going to say, “But wait, that’s for employees who have a pay check every month. My income varies from month to month.” Ah-ha! I have an answer for you. I watched Sethi’s workshop with a bunch of freelance photographers who asked the same thing. His suggestion was to save into an account until you have six months worth of normal income, then setup the automation process to pull from that. Boom.

Read The Book

If you found any of this information helpful I encourage you to read Working For Yourself. Your situation is slightly different from mine and you should make your own business decisions. I’m sure you’ll come up with some good ideas. Let me know how it goes.