“Old drummers never die, they just become audio engineers,that mix really loud.”-Anonymous.
I grew up in an environment almost predestined to produce a musician with a passion for audio engineering and production. My mother was a self-taught musician with a beautiful voice. She played guitar and dulcimer and sang to us often. I remember sitting in the floor listening to her sing and play songs from Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams. My father couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, as they say. He was an electronic engineer and amateur HAM radio enthusiast. While my love of music was inspired by my mom at a very early age, my father introduced me to technology almost as early, via microphones, headphones, and amplifiers. Some of my fondest memories are of records playing on our little home stereo and the smell of heated dust and ozone coming from vacuum tubes on Dad’s latest project. Later, he would build basic audio mixers, PA speakers, metronomes, and even a rudimentary synthesizer for me and my musician friends.
I studied music all through school and dabbled in as much technology as I could, limited as it was in those days. As I began to work towards a career in the music industry, it was almost happenstance that I became a professional musician, rather than an audio engineer. Over the many years I thoroughly enjoyed touring and making albums but I always enjoyed my time in front of a mixing console more than playing.
Being a drummer with a solid understanding of theory, who could actually read music, was not a requirement when I began working in the industry. But it definitely helped sustain my career. As I began to work with producers and a variety of artists, being able to speak and understand the language of music was a huge asset.
Ultimately, as my musical career came to a close it was a natural progression into audio producing and engineering. So as I ask myself, “Do musicians make better engineers?” Of course I like to think so. But I have immersed myself in the technology of reproducing music since my childhood. It’s very likely that others who have loved and studied the technology, with no musical training or experience, are just as skilled and talented as those with a musical background.
I have known a lot of great engineers with varying degrees of musical knowledge. I know others, who admittedly have zero musical background but they do excellent work. There are also engineers whose work I admire, andI have no idea whether they have musical experience or not.
I work hard to develop a trusting productive relationship with the musicians I work with. In doing so, I have found that being able to communicate on their musical level is very helpful. Especially when working with volunteers, often you need to help them adapt to what works best in a song. You’ll have more credibility when speaking into their contribution if you understand a little bit about what they’re doing. For example, saying to a drummer, “When you change to the sixteenth notes on the hi-hats…..” makes more sense than, “When you change to the fasty fasty part on the hi-hats…..”
When mixing multiple vocals, it’s important to be able to quickly determine who is singing melody and what other parts are present. If your church uses autotune, having an understanding of key signatures and how to handle key changes can be very tricky.
One of my pet-peeves is the ubiquitous use of the tap-tempo button on a digital console. It’s usually internally mapped to the digital delay effect on vocals. It’s a handy function that most of us use frequently. But often engineers absentmindedly tap in the beat of the song with no consideration on the output timing. Is the delay unit’s return set to: quarter-notes, all in mono, or a dotted-eighth/sixteenth stereo, or triplets? Is the song in 4/4 or 6/8? These are areas where an understanding of how time signatures, rhythm and beats-per-minute are very important.
I’m not saying someone lacking knowledge of musical theory can’t produce a great mix. Audio people talk a lot about the musicality of a mix. These are just a few examples of what separates a good mix from a musical mix.
As a musician-mixer I think sometimes we rely too heavily on our intuition when building a mix. Some of my non-musical engineer friends are more technically savvy than I am, and are more adept at integrating processing that I may have never considered to solve audio problems.
While we’re on the subject, I think it’s worth asking, Do musicians with a background in audio engineering fare better than those who don’t?
I know some great musicians who claim to be completely ignorant in all things audio. I find this a little hard to understand, but I respect someone so dedicated to their craft that they spare little bandwidth for anything else.
Some of my favorite musicians to work with are also quite talented and skilled producer/engineers. I think they have a deeper appreciation of what it takes to produce music effectively. They understand that those who deliver the art are also artists themselves.
Whether you have musical experience or not, I don’t think audio engineers need to broadcast their resume highlights while working. If you’re good at what you do, no one will care what path brought you to the mixing position.
You don’t have to be a musical virtuoso to be a good audio engineer. And you don’t have to be a skilled engineer to be a great musician. If you’re a non-musician engineer, consider expanding your horizons by taking piano lessons, or learning guitar. If you’re a non-engineer musician, sit with your favorite audio guy at the console for a while. You’ll both learn a lot.
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to listen!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on musicians and engineers and how they work together in your church. You can contact me at rcochran@worshipfacility.com.
