So You Wanna Be A Sound Guy

By Mike Lockrem

This book is intended to give anyone a basic understanding of how to be a sound guy/girl in a club setting. It describes in very straight forward terms, the parts of a PA system, how to operate the these parts and how the equipment works together. It also discusses how to deal with bands and how to run a show. This book does not delve deep into the science of sound or electronics. This is a quick start, nuts and bolts, real world guide to get you started doing sound. It covers everything from what tools and supplies you should bring with you to cleaning up at the end of the night. It illustrates signal flow through 3 different scenarios from a small coffee shop set up to a huge, outdoor festival set up. It also covers how to test and prepare a PA before using it. It explains the process of "ringing out" the house and monitors. It explains the process of micing the band and setting up the board and how to go through a sound check. It gives a simple overview of mixing boards and how to use the main dynamic processors, gates and compression, as well as a brief guide to effects and how they should be set up. There's also lots of advice that will help you work with the bands and not against them and how to read an audience to provide them with the best show possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Lockrem
• Release date: Jan 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311280091

Mike Lockrem

I've been a professional audio engineer in Southern California for the last 10 years. I've also been in bands for 20+ years and have played well over 1000 shows. I've worked in the punk clubs that are total dive bars to large venues over 1000 person capacity and everything in between. I'm not a writer, I'm a sound guy!

Book preview

So You Wanna Be A Sound Guy

By Mike Lockrem

Copyright 2016 Mike Lockrem

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Sound Guys Backpack

Chapter 2 Signal Flow

Chapter 3 PA Prep

Chapter 4 Micing The Band

Chapter 5 Sound Check

Chapter 6 Mixing

Chapter 7 Sound Reinforcement

Chapter 8 Stage Management and the Psychology of the Bands

Introduction

This book is for anyone who wants to know how to be a sound guy in a club. This is not going to go into the science and physics of sound or deep into the inner workings of the equipment you will be using. This is intended to be a nuts and bolts, how to, quick start instructional guide.

This is also for people playing in bands that end up being their own sound guy. For whatever reason, one person in the band tends to be the tech guy. If that happens to be you, this will help you have a better understanding of how the equipment works and what it’s like to be on the other side of the board. It should also help you to better work with sound guys when you do have one.

By the end of this book, you should be able to walk into almost any club setting and at least have an idea about how to do this job. Will this book make you a good engineer? Impossible. Only experience and talent can do that. What it will do is give you a jumping off point and a basic understanding.

Depending on your level of knowledge or skill, undoubtedly some of this content will seem obvious and elementary. I just wanted to talk in straight forward terms on what to expect if you are starting out doing sound and to explain how the basic parts of a PA works.

I know when I started out, I had been around a lot of PA’s from playing in bands for years. However there were definitely some holes in my understanding. Hopefully with this book I can walk anyone through the parts of a PA and how to deal with bands.

I am especially writing this for recent Music Production graduates or people looking for their first internship. During my career I’ve seen lots of people coming out of school who seem to know almost nothing about live sound production. Many have told me that they had maybe one class on live sound. However, every person I know in this industry’s first legit paying gig was as a live sound guy. I understand that many of you want to work in studios and that’s great. The one thing to remember is that bands make maybe one album a year…maybe. They do, however, play LOTS of shows. If you’re looking to make a living in this business, being comfortable in a live setting is a huge advantage to the guys who only know computers and ProTools.

This is not the only way to go about doing sound. I am not the most experienced engineer. There are plenty of guys out there that have done this way longer than me. Although, I have found a fair amount of success in a short amount of time. In my ten years as a full time engineer, I’ve gone from recording bands in my bedroom to being a full time, first call sound guy at an 1100 capacity venue owned by the largest concert promotion company on earth. And I passed through almost every level of venue on the way.

I’ve always said, I could teach someone this job in a weekend. Well that’s what this is. Read it and avoid feeling lost or overwhelmed by what you’re about to do.

One more quick thing. I refer to this profession