Pro Sound Web: At live events (church services, weddings, concerts and so on), it’s definitely not my favorite thing to tell sound operators how to fix their mixes.
But when there is basic stuff happening like constant feedback, the monitors turned up louder than the mains, EQ that has taken the vocals out of the mix, and so on, I feel compelled to help, and also to spare the ears of those in the audience.
5 comments:
I think it is interesting to talk about how people react to getting advice on something they are working on. A lot of the time people do not want to be corrected or told they are wrong unless they asked for it. In the professional world most people are supposed to be “experts” in their area and they do not like being told they are doing something wrong. It is important for everyone to be open to criticism and improvement. There is no one that is absolutely perfect at their job. I understand that it is frustrating when a random person comes up to you and tries to help you do your job better. I might not respond that well to it at first either. People get so defensive when they feel like they or their work is being attacked. It is necessary to take a step back and think about what the person is actually telling you to fix or what might help your situation. They might have a valid point and in turn make you look better to everyone else.
I have definitely been to events with professional sound companies and wondered “what is the sound engineer doing?” Oftentimes I’ll be at an event that isn’t a full-out concert and just be struck by how unnecessarily loud the engineer thinks it needs to be. Or sometimes the mix just seems off. Just recently I walked by an outdoor concert where the audio had ear-splitting high-end. It seemed partially caused by the guitarist’s pedal set-up, but also definitely the mixing of the engineer. I have never actually gone up and said anything though, probably because I am a young’in and I either assume they know what they’re doing, or walk away. The author does a good job of capturing both sides of the story, from both the advice giver and receiver point of view. Most of my mixing work has been in the presence of other sound people I am working with, so any advice is matter-of-fact and not a big deal. Sometimes at an event I’ll have someone ask me to turn it up and someone else ask me to turn it down while at the same volume level, so all advice can be pretty subjective. I usually try and give consideration to any request or comment that I get, since I know what it’s like to be at an event and have a similar opinion about the mix. I think anyone working in sound needs to remember this and try and be less defensive when receiving criticism, despite how instinctive it is to do so.
I think a big problem especially with sound is that so many people feel qualified to me comments. At least in my highschool theatre so many random audience members would come back to the booth and request specific mics be turned up, or that the whole band was too loud for the actors, only to be followed by someone saying the actors were too loud. I wasn’t ever even a sound board operator and that’s annoying. I almost feel like in situations like those if you don’t have any idea about what it takes to ramify the issue then you shouldn’t bring it up, but at the same time it doesn’t take a sound engineer to know when the audio is strange. Honestly there’s such a thin line. In a broader aspect than sound, it is interesting to consider how people take criticism in general. I think the key is to distance yourself from your work, I mean for me every single thing I do here is a learning process, so even when I get harsh unrequested criticism I try to look at my project as a project, momentarily erasing my ties to it, and consider the comments being made.
This article gets at something that’s important no matter what field you go into. Be it any facet of design, acting, directing, or even non theatrical or non artistic jobs. Being able to take criticism, especially when you feel like you shouldn’t have to. Sometimes a set of fresh ears, or eyes, or any other new input you can gather. It’s a really hard thing to do, as the author of this article clearly explained. He was even aware of the defensive tendencies people have when he gives them feedback, and he fell to defensiveness just as quickly as those who tried to help.
Though I understand why it would be hard to take that kind of feedback, feedback from a complete stranger who presumably has no idea what they’re talking about, but even if that’s true, you should at least take note and see what they’re talking about. If you think something needs to be fixed, then you can act upon it, if not, you’ve wasted not 5 seconds of your time.
While I think the author's point about being open to feedback (hah, get it! I made a sound joke!) is good, he kind of set himself up for failure by not showing up for check, not preparing for the gig, etc. To me, the fact that a patron had to come up to him three times to tell him a very specific problem was painful to him and his friends speaks to a much larger issue than being shut down to feedback. I understand that patrons are finicky and it's impossible to make everybody happy all the time, but I find that there is a certain laziness and entitlement that often creeps in to people's work when they start to feel comfortable with a job in a particular place, and that's really counterproductive to the industry as a whole.
As I move into the professional world a little bit more, I am struck by how myopic, and frankly whiny, a lot of people who work in theater can be. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that we all work in an industry that is effectively a luxury, and the fact that we have the luxury of doing a job that exists exclusively for pleasure and entertainment. We kind of should have to work harder than the corporate drones who facilitate government things and keep the economy going (or whatever they do at real people jobs). I know this article is a very small example and the author seems to be generally professional and not a whiny jerk, but I think his article addresses a symptom of a vastly larger problem that, as the economy moves forward, we as an industry may need to grapple with.
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