A very good friend of mine is, in my and many others opinion, one of the best sound designers in the UK; his ears are simply amazing and the quality of live sound he achieves is frankly, mind-blowing!

He is considering packing it all in and becoming a postman - the main reason - managements/producers/audience do not care anymore about what a show sounds like! It's all about bottom-line, and not about a beautiful natural sound.



Discuss!

In today's world, it's much easier to get a good sound, I don't think we can argue with that. If you look back 40 years to the equipment being used then, and compare it to what is used from 20 years ago to now there's little wonder it's easier.
General members of the public are used to sound as it is, and as it changes their taste in sound develops.

40 years ago, good sound was what today we'd laugh off as a joke. If we gave people the sound we gave them 40 years ago they certainly WOULD be bothered. However, over the last 15 or so years there has been very little progression IMO of sound quality of the equipment we use. There has however been progression of how we use it, so the overall sound quality has still risen.

I agree that people don't seem to want good sound, but I think the term "good sound" is a tricky one to grasp. Often what we as engineers class as good sound goes so far beyond a general member of the publics concept of good sound.
So why is this?
As I said, it's easier to get a good sound today, new technology, utilising computers and computer based system components likes amplifiers and crossovers give us much more flexibility. Something we wouldn't have thought possible in 1984. People who started going to events in the late 80's and still go to them today will have noticed minimal increase in the average sound quality of gigs, even though the technology has improved. Why? Because the engineers are ALSO familiar with what sounds good. I believe that alot of engineers get a good sound and stick with it, they don't progress any further. The audience are used to that, have been for years. And to them and the engineers its a good sound. And truth be known, it is a good sound.
There aren't enough engineers trying to push it beyond this good sound to shift the audiences views.

If all engineers made a system sound better than what is classed as good, on every gig, for a few years, then we'd increase the quality overall. What's classed as a good sound today would no longer be acceptable. Just as a sound from 25 years ago isn't acceptable today.

Currently, the small number of engineers that do this get a great sound at gigs, and this is memorable by alot of the audience (though perhaps they don't understand why). The rest of them continue to get a good sound.

I suppose its a bit of a "if it ain't broke" situation. It's a shame, I don't agree it should be like this, and I know it's not the only factor, but it's true.

Management and Producers are in business. They often don't have the same passion for sound (and lighting) as the engineers and the people on the stage. From experience a promoter or event organiser will save themselves a couple of hundred quid and have the system provided by cowboys an sound awful throughout the event. Just to boost their profit by some 3 or 4%. On budget events the budget for sound is the first thing to be cut. This is I'm sure partially what you're saying here. It's annoying, it's wrong, and it's downright stupid. They hire / arrange inadequate gear so they can save a few quid here and there to line their pockets.

Budget also gets passed around a bit aswell. I've been on an event where they've scrapped side fills in order to have 2 extra moving heads, scrapped a monitor split in order to have floor cans around the drum riser, and a couple of extra blinders. Had 6 stacks of a system instead of 8, in order to pay for a banner with the event name on it hung on the front of the stage.



If only you didn't have to get up so bloody early to be a postman eh........

When a good engineer decides to leave the industry that is a sad day.
We need good engineers to stay even if it's just to educate the newcomers however, I have every
sympathy with his reasons for wanting to go.

Paul wrote "It's all about bottom-line, and not about a beautiful natural sound".
It was that way some decades ago when I first used my Selmer columns and it was also that way
when The Colonel (manager of Elvis) instructed his sound company to fly the PA so he could
sell more tickets.
How difficult (or safe) was that for the engineers way back in the 50s and 60s?
Did they get any additional budget - unlikely.

Little will change and I fear that oil price rises and hence more expensive transport costs will have a
permanent effect on budgets for many shows and events.
The more efficient companies will survive and prosper whilst others will simply carry on as best they can.

Sound in general will probably not improve unless there is a definite desire amongst the majority for
it to improve.
I do however fear the sound man will face an uphill struggle over the next year or more so perhaps this is
the right time to go.

to be honest do 90% of joe public even notice if the sounds good?
so on that basis you can see why event organisers aren't too worried about it.

YES!.. they do.

They don't all know that though.

To someone who doesn't know, they get fed up with the gig if it sounds bad. its fatiguing to listen to. They aren't really aware of why, but it is the bad sound. They enjoy it more if it's good sound.

100% with Rob on that one. I think that's the big mistake event organisers make, they THINK that the overall sound quality doesn't really matter much because they and most people don't see the connection between them not enjoying the gig and the band sound quality - but it's usually always there!

Great sound is like my wife. I really miss her when she isn't there, even if sometimes I don't notice her enough.

You just have to keep flying the flag, keep gently pointing out that music is as much an art as it is an entertainment.

I think that's the point I'm also trying to make: music is ART, not entertainment, although those who make money out of entertainment probably don't care.

The audio industry is a little self-defeating, in that it has few, if any 'standards' by which to judge things, and therefore leaves itself wide open to fools who can hide behind the 'it's all subjective' argument.

I for one, do not believe it is ALL subjective.

I think we need to stand back from the equipment and start to work towards an understanding of music and how to recreate it properly...

Couldn't agree more. Could his response be more of a straw and camels back thing? Not necessarily people not careing what sounds like, just a sustained barrage of egos for x number of years. The industry is full of jerks on the management/production end, and I know so many people who've packed in/ thought about packing in because of it.

Giving up mixing live music is not that easy....

I just can't resist the buzz, when it's really cookin

I keep telling myself that all the sh.t is worth the effort
to be there when something special happens

Thinking about this a little (and looking at a much bigger picture than just "live sound"), I'm perceiving in recent years a vast increase in the number of people in any community who could claim themselves to be "sound engineers". Music Technology, Theatre Studies and other similar subjects are commonly taught at GCSE and A-level. Lower-priced and (generally) better-quality kit seems to have allowed more pubs, clubs and community events to use this technology, often ably operated by enthusiastic amateurs or freelancers with much less than "high-end" experience.

Further, I can't help but think that what was once considered a "niche" or "specialist" field has been diluted by the sheer number of people working within it, knowingly or unknowingly. For example, I'm young and yet I still remember a time when most small church services and events (weddings, funerals, study courses/workshops etc) took place with relatively little technology - perhaps a TV and video at most. Perhaps this is a reflection of where I've worked and my experience, but these days pretty much every event that takes place in anything bigger than someone's front room seems to "need" sound, lighting and AV support, and I'm needing to teach the very basics of these areas to at least 6-8 new people per year in my day-job, usually with little past technical experience or proven competence, just to keep up with the increased demand.

I'd suggest we're seeing a slow-down in progress at the high-end level, but a massive proliferation of increased quality and quantity requirements at the lower-end consumer/prosumer levels. Right now I'm happy to do what I can to help see these events run as smoothly and at the highest quality we can sensibly achieve, but I can't help but feel bad for the real high-end engineers for whom the pressure of perceptions ("But sound is simple and cheap, right? My 13-year-old does sound for xxxx at the pub - how hard can it be?") is clearly "a challenge" to say the least.

Those are just my thoughts - perhaps others disagree or have better reasoning?

Comments from Thewhirlwind such as "do 90% of joe public even notice if the sounds good" are hardly beneficial
to our industry.
I often remind my customers that you never know who's gonna be at your next gig.
OK, 99% of the crowd may not even care who you are but one person in the crowd may be looking for a decent
PA or disco for a forthcoming event - it's happened.

Solstace offered another interesting angle on (so called) sound engineers.
You can call yourself a sound engineer these days having never mixed live sound just because you've fiddled with
a tiny mixer in your bedroom.

It's the same in my business where everyone's an expert 'cos they've built their own boxes but, have they
built 20,000+ boxes - NO.
Building a pair or two doesn't give you any worthwhile experience and likewise, engineering two or three events doesn't
make you a sound technician.

We're seeing a dilution of standards throughout our daily lives where everyone has a "security" badge with their meaningless
operating title proudly presented.
I would prefer to see the title Sound Engineer continuing to be an indication of experience and professionalism.

The old saying "if it was that easy everyone would do it" is certainly true in this instance.

I agree with Ken. I have picked up an extra 5-6 shows this year from doing a better job than the last sound engineer did - according to the client. Isn't the client always 90% right? lol

I just picked up a new happy client last night, also from doing a 'better' job! quite a turnaround considering they were umming and arring at my prices beforehand..

but this dilution is so true, especially down here. because few people have the money for a good job to be done, they will always be hunting out the lowest bidder.

also, I'm always having clients trying to command their price to me (ie, I have ~£0 and want THIS MUCH SOUND), but I'm just turning away from those people now. they can have their cheap cowboy sound from someone else.

Cue the production manager who told me last weekend that he wants 3 lapel radio mics for his show, an amp that is better than the venue's existing one, and foldback for the cast and MD - and has £20 to spend on the Sound budget... Ummmm... Yeah...

Its a very odd little world we all work in! I disagree with people saying the punters don't care. I do alot of work in a 250 cap club were the owners and the punters really care about how it sounds, and will tell you if its not up to there standard to the shock of some guest engineers. I am only fairly young and inexperienced but recently I have crewed at some big gigs with some good bands with really bad engineers, for the money and scale they are working on should be doing a lot better and the crowd have noticed. One thing I have noticed with good engineers is that there never happy until there mix is CD quality and thats how I try and mix ( I havn't got there yet but Im trying)

I don't mix to cd quality. I mix to live quality. It's a completely different sound you want to achieve. If it sounds like the cd, it'll be lifeless with no dynamics. It's NOT what you want to achieve.

I agree with what others have said on this topic, however, it would be interesting to read your 'take' on it Paul. As someone who works in most aspects of this industry, AND, knows the individual personally, then you're probably one of the more qualified people to answer you're own question

It would be interesting to know if there were any specific reasons for your friend's change of heart.

I think that when the sound is good, there are very few people notice it. However when there are problems the audience notices and it damages the atmosphere of the gig.
An example to this effect would be reading festival this year.
I think a combination of less than perfect engineers and a over-zealous spl limit set by the eho made a lot of the acts pretty difficult to hear unless you were standing in front of one of the 6 delay towers. (with the exception of Metallica). With bloc Party and the Killers it was almost impossible to hear the vocals regardless of where you stood.

A lot of places seem to be scrimping on the sound kit to save money on the event. I think this is making the gigs suffer. Several places I've been recently, the band and the engineer have had to endure chants of "turn it up" between every song.

"they don't all know that though" kind of backs up my statement!
Obviously a lot of people will notice if the sound's really bad but not that many people will for example notice
if you're using a £200 reverb unit or a £1000 one. And out of the experts ( I use that term loosely ) that come and say how good it sounded at the end of the night how many of those are still sober enough to be able to judge?
That doesn't stop me wanting to get the sound as good as I can though and buying the best gear I can afford.

The sad truth is, that there's little demand for real excellence in any field of business these days; there's a far greater demand for mediocrity - just look around you

Lightnix; you underestimate the abilities of British sound and lighting manufacturers !

I often have a similar discussion with a friend of mine who used to be a #1 sound op on West End shows (Les Mis etc.) and now manages a theatre instead. She is someone who really knows how to make a musical theatre piece sound great. She can bring the lead vocal forward, mix an ensemble so everyone can be heard without overpowering the lead, pick out countermelodies in the orchestra then drop them back into the overall sound afterwards, strengthen the dynamics to really make a build work etc. etc. etc., but she would never call herself a technician as what she does is simply to mix. Someone else used to set the system up (the boffins at Autograph in her case), tune it to the room and fix it when it went wrong. Her job was to make it sound good. Nowadays she probably would never have got the job in the first place: they'd be looking for someone who knew about the system and how it works, who could do basic maintenance if it went wrong (probably on a PC) - she couldn't do that. The two are completely separate skills and that explains how we so often have people coming into our venue with lovely equipment but a really awful mix. These people will start the mix so loud they have nowhere to go with it, so dynamics don't happen and ears get tired after 10 minutes of a 2 hour show. Or they mix at a sensible level but leave you unable to hear the words (vital in musical theatre). Or they think "dealing with 20 radio mics" is synonymous with "dealing with 20 mute buttons".

An example: we both went to see a pantomime at another venue one year. By 2 songs in we were commenting to each other that "this mix is a bit ropey, isn't it?" and by the interval we were ready to shoot the sound engineer so one of us could take over and fix the mix. As we rounded the corner to walk past the desk a voice said "hello - what are you two doing here?" and it turned out we knew the person we had wanted to assassinate! He is extremely good at setting up a system and had mixed other types of show quite well for us in the past. But he was getting this one all wrong. His ear wasn't listening for the right things.

I'm not sure that's the whole story, but for me it's very true that there are 2 aspects of live sound: knowing the system and mixing a show. They are 2 jobs and if you put the wrong person on the second job then it ain't going to work no matter how well the first job was done.

I've done a couple of shows for an act called the Westenders. 6 proper west end experienced singers and a real band. Their starting point with all the faders in a row sounded pretty good, before I even balanced them. They all knew how to work the mic according to whether they were singing an inner or outer part, or were the featured vocalist for maybe just a line or two. Looking at the individual channel levels on the display quickly shows you which of the 6 is taking the lead and you can push and pull to get the balance right. I've really enjoyed these two shows as you can take the time to do the small things - panning, small effect tweaks and helping the band by softening up a synth sound that's a bit exposed. I'd actually mixed some of these numbers for amateur shows in the last year. One song I really hated was the 'hippy song' Rhythm of Life - always a mess, but this lot were so good it was simple to pick out all the countermelodies and make the thing just sit there with each line exposed.

I'm not sure if it's simply that we're often faced with people who sing, rather than proper singers who really understand dynamics and balance themselves. When you're faced with a multitude of sources all seemingly as important as each other, I can understand the bland low quality mess that passes for typical live sound. This week I totally failed to coax a decent sound from two singers and a track on the same stage with the same equipment. A mini disc with levels pegged against the end stop with no dynamics at all plus two singers who just had no concept of harmony and balance. If anyone came to that show I'd have hid - just nothing I could do. I even asked them if they could mark the set list to help me work out their swaps between lead and harmony, but they just "do it as we go along" - leaving me little choice but to guess which would take the next harmony section that knowing the songs, I knew was coming up. 50% was about he success rate - I hate it! Makes me feel useless, and when they thanked Paul on the sound, frankly, I'd rather they hadn't.


I'm convnced some of our visiting sound people are deaf or just can't be bothered. Others with very similar kit seem to really produce good results. There seems to be a can't be bothered attitude - especially when the band and turns are ar*sholes, which sadly, many are.

Along similar lines...:

I'm used to working with West End musical theatre singers, where if you have 2 girls and 2 boys they will be soprano, mezzo, high tenor and low tenor - they simply wouldn't put themselves together any other way. A couple of years ago we were inflicted with a group of singers - 2 girls, 2 boys - who'd won the Eurovision Song Contest many years previously and had had some chart success thereafter for a while. One had gone on to be a TV presenter. Having not worked with them before, in the soundcheck I was struggling to know where the melody was so I asked them "which are singing the high parts and which the low?". They looked at me bemused, not understanding the question. "We sing what we've always sung" was their eventual reply, still not really understanding what I meant. It was a completely impossible show to mix, never knowing where to find the melody next; it could switch singers several times in one song.

Give me trained singers with a good MD any day!

Very rarely is the skill and work that goes on when mixing a musical show recognised. I recently did a musical, balancing keyboard, backing tracks off a CD, four radio mics fitted with the CPC headsets mentioned in previous posts, and four short- shotguns to 'Hot spot' different areas on the stage. Nothing too complicated but had it sounding good.

A the end of the evening the dominate comment was wasn't the microphones good, have you recently bought them.

Like musicians who learn and practice their instruments, the same is true for sound engineers, we learn, practice and perform making it look simple, and that's the rub because we make it look effortless to many It's a case of I can do that.....

Another good one today - Katy Setterfield - Dusty Springfield. Decent band and two BVs who got solo spots too. I didn't mix, and as it was the first date in a tour, the first time they'd met the PA company and the op. For him, he had no idea even of the makeup of the band. Having decent musicians and top quality singers made his job so much easier - and the fairly compact Meyer system did really well.

Perhaps we should start a topic listing all the quality shows we get through the doors for the benefit of others?

Eric - I thought I knew the very band you are talking about, but I can't make my mind up?

Can't make your mind up? Trya refreshing Champagne & Orange Juice then Paul.

Not at all, it was intended as a comment on the state of the market and what it wants. That's not to say that we shouldn't continue to strive for excellence, though - even if only to maintain a higher standard of mediocrity than we would otherwise enjoy

I partially agree Lightnix.
Reading this forum and talking to some of the newer PA companies they buy what they're "told" is good.

As a manufacturer I shouldn't grumble because by the time these guys knock on our door (and those of
other Brit builders) they're ready to actually listen.

Inexperience is the biggest problem - on stage and FOH hence your correct assertion that mediocrity reigns
supreme.
But not everywhere!

I always do things to the best of my ability, and I am suprsed occasionally when at a tech/dress a producer/member of "watchers" comments on how good it sounds, when I think there is still room for improvement.

I`m quite happy when it comes to the show if nobody says anything, its great when people comment on good sound, it doesnt happen often, but I usually get 2-3 a week.
if its bad however, for whatever reason (usually just the lack of volume from the "talent" for me to do anything with!) theres usually comments by the interval, that really gets me fustrated.

I couldn't possibly say! I can only say that when skirts are ripped off 20-year-olds that's one thing, but when they're ripped off 40-something-year-olds it's another! If you do ever have the option of working with said ex-singer turned TV presenter run a bl00dy mile to avoid it.

Anyway, back on topic...

I've worked with them plenty of times over quite a few years. They've got a quite nice PA now, better than the 4 SX300s and Bose 302 subs they had ten years ago. I worked with the Bosses wife many moons ago, and have seen far more of their shows than is good for the health. They had a line-up change again recently(ish) but the two newcomers seem fine. Their expectation is that the sound ops do not balance them - and probably for the kind of venues they visit, this does make sense, so balance between them is handled by them varying their output and mouth to mic distance. They don't do it that well, but the expectation of having a decent op in some venues is rare - however, they now have a touring op, and I can say the sound is much better than before.