Why I Stay and Audio Engineer

Why I stay an audio engineer

In the words of Bob Ross sometimes at best life is a series of happy accidents, and even on my worst days I’ve learned that perhaps that sometimes I’d rather be lucky than good.

But what’s the point of saying that?

Well this year I turned 25. Which as someone who has been working on the same shows since I was 21 is a little terrifying. Realizing that you’ve spent your entire career being the youngest person in the room, to then looking around and now seeing you’re running a department and are running teams on larger and larger scale shows.

I’ve spent a lot of my career being very lucky. I’ve had a lot of conversations on podcasts, in print about how I got started and how I got to where I am. Those conversations I think are incredibly important and they are often intriguing in an industry that is often little understood, and quite frankly has an insanely high barrier to entry. 

But I also want to talk about why I choose to stay where I am, and why I continue to choose to be an audio engineer. 

I don’t often mix. That’s okay. I enjoy teching. There are inherently a few people in this industry who often think if you aren’t mixing you haven’t “made it” or lack some technical skills. If you love mixing that’s wonderful. However, the reality is that those of us who don’t want to mix often have more work opportunities in speciality tech areas and can often make the same or a slightly higher rate depending on the person, role and scale of the show. 

When I first started touring I said to myself, “I’ll take 5 years and see how far I can get. Then, after that I’ll re-evaluate and see if I want to continue down this path.” Well ladies and gentleman, it’s been five years. So, I intend to give myself 5 more before I fully re-evaluate again and here’s why. 

Sometimes I feel like I’m just now getting to the good part. 

You know first starting out you have to work your way up from the bottom. I’m incredibly grateful for these experiences. This year alone I have worked as a comms tech, A2/mon tech, System engineer, and monitor engineer. I have toured shows this year alone in clubs, theaters, 360 arenas, stadiums, and 70,000+ person festivals. You’d think as the shows got bigger, the role would have gotten smaller. But the reality is that on the biggest shows I have done this year I have been the SE/Crew chief, and on the smallest show’s I’ve done this year I’ve been the A2 or random audio tech. What I’ve learned from this experience is that I have no interest in being in the wrong place. Sometimes you just aren’t a good personality fit and that’s okay. But the real magic happens when you put the right people in the right places and that starts with putting yourself in the right place for you. 

I often get asked why I choose to not mix, despite having started my career and entering the industry as a mixer. But the reality is that there’s the type of stress that brings you joy, and pushes you to be better, and then there’s the type of stress that stresses you out and isn’t healthy to live in long term. Problem solving, supporting engineers, and getting to advocate for the kid in the last row of the arena seeing a concert for the first time are all things that bring me great joy. That’s where my heart is. At the end of the day my heart isn’t in being in the drivers seat, it’s running the pit crew. So I choose not to mix and I’m happy. 

I continue to tour and to keep on this path as I choose to “reup” my contract with myself to continue to pursue this career for the next five years, at which point I may decide to transition into something else or to continue on this path. But regardless I’m not done yet. I have goals I haven’t achieved yet. Things I don’t understand as well as I’d like to. Places I still want to go (namely Asia and South America), and until I can say that I am no longer in the right place or receiving the opportunities I have been looking for I will continue on this path to see where life takes me because even on my worst days I still love it. If I could bottle up the energy of thousands of people in a room when the lights go out, and the band starts to play, I’d be drunk on it. 

That moment, that adrenaline is why we all tour. Long days, longer nights, hours upon hours of logistics, planning, drawing. It’s all worth it for that moment if that’s the thing that makes you feel alive.

Until the day comes where I stand in front of a system, and in that moment for a second I don’t feel like I’m flying. When I can say I have done everything I wanted to do. That’s when I’ll be done.