Live Intensive

With the second intensive being Live Sound, I am looking forward to learning the ins and outs of audio for live gigs. I hope that by the end of the intensive I have enough knowledge and a basic understanding of the workflow required

to pull together a live show. With a group of nine, communication between each part of the show is going to be a huge factor in making sure that everyone is on the same page and knows their role. From what I know, there is a big difference in how everything operates. From signal paths to tuning speakers and doing everything on the fly. But I don't have a real understanding of the fundamentals of working with live sound. I am familiar with some of the positions of live sound and where they would usually be located during a gig, like the front of house engineer and stage monitor engineer, but that's about it.

I don’t really know of any notable live engineers, from the outside it seems like a very niche area of audio. But I have seen some videos online that have a good insight into the world of live music. It seems as a lot of engineers are booked on a tour alongside the artists and on bigger tours, there are a lot of assistants with roles such as the monitor tech and engineer’s assistant. I can imagine communication is one of the most important skills to have in a job like that as it seems on edge all the time and you may need to relay information quickly and concisely.

Recently a band called While She Sleeps released an alternative version of their song “Silences Speaks” which was played in a small church in the UK. Although it has been mixed after the fact, I thought it was quite interesting how they captured such an aggressive song in such a different way.