Failure is part of this business. I’ve said many times that mixing a live show is “screwing up and fixing it a million times, very quickly.”

Some failures are worse than others, though. I’d even categorize failures into acceptable and unacceptable groups. Acceptable failures have the geometry of what I described above: Something that you can fix very quickly, and is really not noticeable to most observers. A mix not being absolutely perfect at any given point is an easy example of that.

Unacceptable failures, on the other hand, may not be correctable swiftly, and/ or are very noticeable, and at the extreme end of the spectrum can put people in physical danger. (A serious-injury-producing safety compromise automatically earns an “unacceptable” rating, no matter what.) If safety issues are excluded, though, what’s the worst kind of unacceptable failure?

The one where your employer looks bad – not just you. When the folks writing the checks are embarrassed because of something you did or failed to do, when other people regard them poorly because of their association with your lack of execution.

Ick. That’s an awful feeling. It’s like burning to a crisp from the inside, except that actually turning into charcoal would put you out of your misery.

How do you avoid that eventuality? It’s just like everything else: Do your homework. Resist the temptation to cut corners. Insist on a schedule that’s actually achievable in real life. Have a backup plan. (Especially if anything you’re doing involves wireless anything. Mics. In-ears. Remote console control. ANYTHING.) Assiduously refrain from making a promise that you don’t have a clear pathway for executing on. (“Tell ‘em whatever to get the job, and we’ll just figure it out later” is not an appropriate strategy for anything at any time.)

And what happens when you inevitably encounter a situation where you can’t avoid that feeling? If you’re in this long enough, you’re going to live through a trainwreck of some severity.

I can only recommend that you try to own your mistakes. Don’t attempt to BS your way out of trouble. Apologize, explain what went wrong, and how you didn’t account for it. In the most extreme cases, a reputation for honesty and humility may be all you have left to salvage. If that’s what you’re left with, then hold onto it. You’ll need it later.

The previous is not easy. I’ve been doing this for decades, and I still can’t always fight against the urge to justify myself. We have a powerful need for that as people, and beyond that baseline I think audio humans often develop a special need to be validated. We all have this latent desire to be seen as “the best,” and pretty much everything (including ourselves) threatens that desire.

But, as I said: Try. Practice owning your small mistakes so that a big one isn’t a completely novel experience. It’s just like anything. Running simulations makes you less likely to panic during the real thing.

There’s a bit of a story here.

Almost twenty years ago, I was a recent graduate of The Conservatory Of Recording Arts And Sciences. I loved the place, had done very well academically, and was ready to “go out there.” Take over the world. It was at that place I had met a man that I’ll call “The Guitar Player,” or TGP for short. We spoke at length and became friendly.

TGP was a middle-aged musician who had reached a certain amount of success as a younger player. Now, he said, he was ready to get back in the game. He wanted to start a record company with its own recording facilities – and would I like to run the technical side of things?

I couldn’t have possibly said no to that.

Now, you have to remember that this was right at the turn of the century. The Internet hadn’t upended everything yet, and the recording arm of the music industry still supported “the big studio” in a way that is much more in the realm of memory now. In my mind, the business was at a kind of peak that is unlikely to be repeated. It seemed entirely plausible that a kid just barely into his 20s could get snapped up and put in such a position as was being offered. I was hooked.

What followed was a tremendous amount of initial excitement and the slow unraveling of a dream. I saw a lot of warning signs, but talked myself and everyone around me out of interpreting them correctly. Meetings that would truly move the project forward always fell through. Deals would always be finished “in a couple of weeks.” When I got to the point of asking tough questions, TGP would get agitated and I would back off.

In the end, I was always complimented. Honored, even. Introduced as the guy who would be in charge of the coolest studio in Phoenix. There was a dinner at TGP’s apartment where I was treated like family. I think my presence was necessary for TGP to keep selling his story. In a way, my guess is that he was desperate to put something together that would work, and justify all the hype he was building. It was a Ponzi scheme, but the currency was life itself. The magic would happen, it just needed more time. More time. A little more time.

I couldn’t bail out. No sir. The music industry was full of stories where somebody took off, and a month later all the folks who stayed had hit it big. There was always exactly enough hope for me to hold on, until someone from the school finally showed me how all the pieces couldn’t possibly hold together. I can’t exactly remember how I felt, although I think a mixture of crushing disappointment and vague relief were the cocktail on offer. I said that I had to attend to some family business in California, and I was sorry I couldn’t stay on. I packed up my one-room apartment and moved to my Grandma’s place near the coast.

TGP said that family was the most important thing, and that he’d get me paid for my work. The money didn’t come, but I didn’t expect it to.

In the course of the saga, I was asked to create designs for the grand facility that would get built “once the lawyers had signed all the papers.” I took a couple of days and poured out my vision of what could be. Recently, in the process of cleaning out a bunch of old documents, I ran across my drawings again. I still have a sense of pride in them. You’ll see a bunch of monitor speakers laid out for 5.1 surround mixing. (The music industry was still pushing for higher fidelity and more playback channels, not realizing that convenient portability would win every battle for the hearts and minds of listeners in just a few years.)

Control Room A

Control Room B

Preproduction/ Songwriting

Studio Proper

When I post this article to Patreon, I’ll get a bit of money from my supporters. That means I’ll finally get paid for these designs after almost 20 years.

I also recently learned that TGP passed away. I think he managed to get a band together and play shows after the parting of our ways. I don’t know if he ever recaptured that sense of glory and triumph he had when he was young. But maybe he did.

In whatever case, I hope he sailed into the West and that he’s drenched in joy, playing a soaring solos at the great gig in the sky. I can’t be angry with him. The circle is closed.

At this point in my career, I am far more willing to turn down work than I used to be. A foundational part of that is due to how fortunate and privileged I am: As a dual-career (software-engineering is my other job), I simply am not 100% reliant on show production to pay the bills. Not everyone is as lucky as I am, and I need to acknowledge that immediately.

The next chunk of the foundation is that I believe very strongly in high-quality clients being a HUGE factor in becoming (and staying) a high-quality craftsperson. The evaluation of the quality of a client is not necessarily a set of hard-and-fast rules, but there are several metrics that come together in making a decision that is – at the very least – well informed.

• Is the effective day-rate worth the trouble?

  I’m in the camp that says, “Any show basically requires a whole day.” If the pay isn’t enough to compensate for a day’s worth of effort, then either other metrics fill the gap or the gig is declined.

• Regardless of any promised amount, was it easy or hard to get paid?

  This one’s a bit tough, due to it often being a bit of “ex post facto” experience, but it’s a great determinant for sticking with something or moving on. You can sometimes be surprised here. I once landed a house gig in a well-appointed venue sitting in the very fancy town around these parts. (The place where they have that big film festival every year.) Things seemed okay for a bit, and then my payroll check bounced. I was a bit shocked…and I didn’t hang around long. In contrast, my not-fancy-but-filled-with-love neighborhood-venue job that I had before? They never, ever failed to pay me on time and in full, even when they were just barely hanging on by their fingernails. I did five years there, and I miss that place.

• Is this going to be a repeat client that I can build a real relationship with?

  You can’t always know if a one-off will turn into something else, but you can take a guess. Established acts and arts organizations are better bets than random callers. The best “initial contacts” are the ones that say, “we want to hire you for a series of shows.” Gigs where they just need you to fill in can sometimes turn out well, but tend to be pretty weak in regard to this measure.

• If the gig involves an installed system, is the install decent?

  An in-house system need not be the latest and greatest, but it should be something that you’re interested in working with and fits your workflow. If the install doesn’t contribute to your success, or worse, is built in a way that impedes your ability to execute, that’s a big reason to walk away from a potential job.

• Are the people going to be great to work with?

  Great people make jobs of lesser swankiness anywhere from tolerable to desirable. One bad attitude makes the “room you’ve heard of with a band you’ve heard of” into a situation that I ignore calls for. The quality of the people involved with a gig is so critical that, in the cases of folks I’d rather not work with, they could offer me three times my day rate and I’d still have to think long and hard about taking the job.

• Am I able to bring a sense of quality to the table?

  The very best prospects are the ones where I can make improvements and take the show to a level where it hasn’t been before. If they just want someone to push the same buttons in the same ways as the last person, that’s far less worthwhile.

• Do they want to work with me, or just “generic A/V operator 975623?”

  This is very similar to the previous point. If you’re being brought into an opportunity where your specific talents are needed and desired, that’s an excellent possibility. If a client merely desires that you step in as an equivalent replacement, that’s not so enticing.

• Are the events going to be a blast?

  If you’re going to work with new technologies, do interesting work, learn a lot, and create art you can be proud of, that can be worth significant tradeoffs on the monetary side. On the other hand, a gig with decent pay that’s a grind will soon not seem to be a decent situation at all. If the day is going to be un-fun and not pay very well, there’s no reason to bother.

Please understand that none of this is meant to be “snooty.” I think it’s good to work some less-than-awesome gigs in order to get a sense of appreciation for the great shows. At the same time, the faster you learn that high-quality work is done for high-quality clients, the better.

When I compare January – September 2019 with January – September 2020, there’s a stark reality that emerges: My audio-human revenue is down 64%.

Yeowch.

But I’m still getting some shows and some work on that front, while big pieces of our industry are at a dead stop. It’s a bit surprising to me, but not without plausible explanation.

It has to do with my understanding of how the dinosaurs died out.

When the asteroid hit and the environment changed, being a huge creature with huge energy needs was no longer an asset. It was a liability. You might have been monstrously vigorous. You might have had oceanic reserves of nutrition.

But your size meant you burned through those reserves at a terrifying pace, and when the resources you relied on suddenly disappeared you were stuck. Stuck with being enormous and resource-hungry. Stuck with seeming so strong, yet being deceivingly fragile: Your environment was the source of your strength, not yourself, and when that environment ceased to serve, you quickly found your end.

I feel badly for the folks running a kind of shop that absolutely, positively requires large-attendance gigs in order to pay the bills. That sort of outfit has big resources, but also tends to have big outlays – outlays that often can’t be shut off easily. Big venues can’t simply offload a building and then get it back when it’s convenient, for example.

But, for those of us who are smaller and scrappier, who can find a market connected with house-shows and DIY, our troubles aren’t as existential. It’s not that there isn’t a famine in the land, it’s just that we can hold on with what’s available for a longer stretch of time. It’s not a guarantee that we’ll make it, but we may have better chances in a proportional sense.

I’m a lot less gloomy than I used to be. In some ways, I’m excited. An event that causes so much disruption to an industry can be a surprising source of opportunity for the folks who can look down the reshaped waterways of the business and go, “That looks interesting down there.”

I have real hopes of being one of the little creatures that emerges as the Earth warms again, blinking at the light of the sun.