mike257

There's definitely viable careers to be had, and while you're young and have no significant financial commitments or dependents is the best time to have a proper crack at it. I came the long way round, and after dabbling in the industry when younger, I left a "sensible" job of 7 years at the age of 28 to come back to working in the music industry. Its a lot of hustling and you have to have a bit of a "portfolio career" and be open to doing different things. I started out with a mix of function band playing, sound engineering and driving vans for bands. Got busy enough with both that one had to give, so I stepped back from playing and shifted to the production side fully, and I now predominantly work as a tour manager, production manager and monitor engineer (with occasional bits of stage management, backline teching and FOH). Whatever you're doing, it takes a few years to build a network and professional reputation but there's work out there for the taking. I'm typing this from a dressing room at Reading Festival now, waiting around to look after a headliner on one of the stages here, and I'm just a blagger from Liverpool who got lucky, so if she's actually talented, the world is her oyster 😉

What era do you come from? They've been an option since the 80s at least.

Been at the mercy of festival house consoles for the last few weekends. Lots of the larger frame dLives, which was nice. Hadn't spent a ton of time with them in monitor world, I'd mainly used them at FOH, but I'm seriously considering making the jump from Digico for my next couple of tours.

Don't see those very often at all! Panasonic/Ramsa have all but vanished from the pro audio world outside of Japan. Heard the DA7 was a cracking console for its time though.

IEMs are great (when well set up) but Bluetooth is completely inadequate for them. The latency is way beyond anything vaguely acceptable for monitoring live performance. If you could do it with cheap Bluetooth buds, everyone would be doing it instead of spending hundreds on proper radio systems.

I made a living predominantly from playing for a few years, but supplemented it with bits of sound engineering, driving bands about on tour, that sort of thing. All the full timers I know are doing a mix of functions, more frequent but lower paid bar gigs, bits of teaching or studio work, and various bits to fill in the gaps. I went the other way, hung up the bass (from a professional standpoint - I still play for pleasure) and threw myself in to the backstage side of it, and I'm now fairly busy all year round straddling multiple roles in live production on fairly decent sized shows - tour management, production management, sound engineering and backline teching. There's decent living to be made from music, but it's hard graft, you've got to build a good network of people and a reputation for being decent at your job and pleasant to work with, and be good at sniffing out opportunities to do things. It's also very tough on family life and if you've got a family, requires huge compromise and sacrifice from yourself and and your partner to make it work. It's not for everyone, but it's out there if you really want it.

Scott Dixon's do, over time, take a beating and the lids start to get a little out of shape and become a faff to put back on. That said, I've never seen a guitar come out of one damaged, and I work as a tech with multiple artists who use them and they've all earned their dents and bumps on huge numbers of flights and truck rides. Toured with an artist who had their basses in an Enki last year and was very impressed, it's a great case and a snug fit, and we flew it around Europe for a busy summer of festivals with no issues. Haven't seen one that's been in use for as long as some of the Scott Dixons I see though, so can't speak for the longevity in the same way.

Thanks! Won't be slinging a bass there, I'm afraid. I'm there as a production manager with an artist. Hoping for a slightly more relaxed visit than last year when I did six shows over three days, doing three different job roles 🤣

I'm staying on an extra day after the show I'm doing at Glasto and hoping to catch him there. They've (very inconsiderately) scheduled Queens Of The Stone Age to clash with him, but they'll be back again, and he won't, so I think I'll be sticking around for Reg.

You'd be correct. The Ui16 is particularly dreadful. A company I used to freelance for had one that they'd send out on small corporate events when it was just a couple of mics and some playback, and I had such horrendous, show stopping issues with the control interface seizing up (even with a wired network connection to my laptop, sometimes) that I stopped taking it on shows at all. I wouldn't trust the built in WiFi on any mixer from any brand in a show critical situation.

And on the Yamaha front, I had the great displeasure of a very tired PM5D as a festival monitor console that I had to throw and go on the other week. Had an absolute stinker of a gig for various reasons, but that old dinosaur definitely didn't help 🤣

Looks like a good run! Every time I get behind a Midas Pro and hear how bloody great they sound, I (almost) forgive them for the bloody trackball and the patching screen 🤣 Spent today prepping an SD12 package for a couple of weeks touring with Circa Waves. Had to do some chicanery to make it work, but have squeezed my SD Rack, the FOH dLive rack, split/patch and all the IEM in to a double wide, so it'll be a nice easy build each day! We're in production rehearsals tomorrow so I'll try and snap a couple of pictures. Haven't had many chances for desk photos for a while, been pretty solidly in tour manager/production manager mode and doing less audio, although I did just have my SQ5 out for a few weeks round the UK with Bad Boy Chiller Crew. Even more compact package with my stage rack, splits, power distro, RF and battery chargers all tucked in to a little 12u.

Got a lovely unsealed maple neck on my '04 Stingray. It's got a mildly grimy vibe to it that it's had for many, many years. Don't think it's going to go away any time soon, I'd just embrace it if I were you!

Stereo DI boxes are just two mono DIs in a single enclosure so you shouldn't have any issues caused by the DI itself. Any phase differences incurred by the blending of your two signals as discussed above would be the same whether you used two individual DIs or one stereo.

The general rule of thumb is tone and then time - so your chorus, being a time-based effect, is probably best at the end. Effects that depend on pitch tracking tend to work best with a clean and consistent signal, so on that basis I'd try the synth right at the front. The preamp is simulating the front end of an amp, so I'd start with having that after the drive. Tuner > Synth > OD > Preamp > Chorus would be how I'd start, but it's always fun to move things around and see how different pedals interact with one another.

This film was a gateway drug for me and plays a big part in my love of this sort of music. Have played a bunch of the songs with a soul band I used to be in. Great lines, great grooves. A drummer friend of mine plays in a touring Blues Brothers show and has an absolute ball doing it.

As a live sound guy and a bassist, I'd absolutely prefer that to be two lines. As others have said, both sources will have a different sonic character and need treating differently in the mix. As for DI boxes, my go-to recommendation is always Orchid Electronics. Small UK based company, hand assembled kit for a very, very good price. Old school website, you have to actually email to place an order, but you're dealing directly with the guy who's building the kit! http://orchid-electronics.co.uk

For my sins, I've never owned a really good Precision, so the nicest P I could get my hands on, black/black/maple, job done.

Usual advice is that you need fresh moulds every 4-5 years, as your ear shape continues to change over time.

Band I've done a lot of work with this year had two basses in an Enki double and it's been rock solid. Much prefer them to the Scott Dixon's. I've yet to see a well-toured one that isn't bashed in and struggling to fit together.

I'm currently touring with this show. All of the string players playing custom electric instruments through guitar effects pedals. Hearing our lead violin flawlessly knock out the solos to Killing In The Name, Sweet Child Of Mine and Master Of Puppets is quite something!

Played a wedding gig with a hideous case of Norovirus once. Wouldn't recommend it!

Monitor engineer here. I mix very few shows that are fully on wedges these days. Did a first show with a new client the other week who were on wedges and genuinely had a "how long is it since I've done this?" moment! Of my regular touring clients, there's a handful where one or two members still use a wedge, but it's becoming the exception. It gives the FOH engineer more control as they're not fighting tons of stage noise, protects the ears of the artist from damage, means I can give them studio levels of clarity and separation in the mix (if that's what they want) and is a much more consistent experience from venue to venue than wedges will ever be.

You can already get 1/2 rack cases - lots of pro radio mic receivers, IEM transmitters etc are half rack width (for mounting two side by side) and the cases are pretty widely available. Just manufacturers not bothering to look if an existing standard would have done the job!

I stood in for the guitar tech at Glasto. Band had chops for days and the girls were on top form. Great show!