The job of the average, reasonably successful multitrack recording engineer is undoubtedly a very cerebral one. He spends most of his time stuck in the same airless, artificially lit room concentrating great effort on perfecting small sections of a production at a time. Precision is all, especially now with the extra domestic fidelity of CD's, and days on end will be spent trying to get a drum sound, or waiting for an incompetent star to get a solo right, or making a mix 'work' etc. But at least it's dry and warm, the food is usually good and it can be very creative and rewarding.

The roadies life couldn't be more different. He exists in a never ending stream of mild discomfort. Perennially away from home, with virtually no privacy, it's something like being on boy scouts' camp for a living. The job is hardly glamourous, physically quite taxing and allows little room for high creativity. On the other hand, it's an unfussy way of life, you get to see the world and if you're in with a good crew, the camaraderie can be great.

The job of the FOH (Front of House) engineer falls somewhere between these two extremes. A really good engineer has to be robust enough to take the rigours of life on the road in his stride whilst also having a musical sensibility with which to interpret the band's sound, plus the technical know-how to ensure that the system is assembled and aligned correctly. It's a great responsibility and quite a tall order. With those criteria in mind, there aren't many really good live engineers around. It's possibly too much to expect from one person, and in practise they will often fall into two groups. John Newsham of Turbosound explains:

The Two Types

"There are two basic types of sound engineer each very different to the other. There's the type who works for a PA hire company, and goes out with the rig, sets it up and tunes it for the hall, and then more or less hands it over to the band's own engineer to actually get the sounds. Then there's being telephoned by a band and being asked to do their sound. In that case you'll be in there with the band right from rehearsals.

"Years ago, when I first joined Turbosound and we were still proving the quality of the system, I did tour after tour setting the system up and assisting the band's engineer. It can be very frustrating because you know the gear so well, and what the system is capable of, and communicating that to someone else isn't always easy. Some engineers are gems, and they'll be totally open to suggestions, but others can be — pig headed twits."

A most commendably restrained use of descriptives, I thought. John went on to give an example.

"A good example that almost covers both angles is Kool and the Gang. The first time they came over here they brought their own engineer with them, and it turned out that this guy had been used to having someone in the States, from Showco or Db Sound to set the mix up, and actually get everything happening for him, so that all he did was just push a few faders during the show. It's not very satisfying to have to do all the hard work, 90% of the job, and then hand the final 10% over to someone else. Kool and the Gang are now one of our main accounts, and they're very happy for me to do the sound on my own."

So what of life on the road? It's undoubtedly a young, single person's occupation. The records suggest that long tours have a singularly adverse effect on one's personal life. Specialising in Heavy Rock acts, Gordon Patterson has spent about 11 months a year, of the last five years, on the road, and therefore has no permanent place of residence anywhere. He has been on the road during various serious illnesses, and about three years ago he collapsed three times in the space of a year. Things are geting easier as his status as an engineer increases, and he continues to do it because he enjoys it.

The Schedule

"The last (Judas) Priest tour I did was almost ten months, and I've been out with Purple now since the end of November and that's going to stretch through to September. With Purple it's fairly easy, we'll do four to four-and-a-half shows a week, on average, and that's a different venue for each gig. With Priest the average is five to five-and-a-half a week, which makes things a little harder.

"Before we start a tour we'll normally do quite a bit of prep work: looming up cables, making up the flying looms, etc; that's all done in rehearsals or in the shop before you go out. So the first gig is sorting out between the lighting designer and yourself the flying points for the sound system, so that you can get as near to the configuration you want, also bearing in mind audience sightlines. The rigger will talk to each venue's management before we arrive, but actually most of the big venues, especially in America, are more or less the same, and once it's worked out I try to stick to the same basic configuration. On the morning of each show I'll talk to the management of the venue to find out what ticket sales are going to be like, because there's no point in pointing speakers at seats that are going to be empty.

"The riggers will come in early and hang all the winch motors, normally between 8 and ten of them, and then the sound crew will come in at around 9.30, 10 o'clock in the morning to hang the beams and cabinet configurations. With a 35-40kw system, which is what I normally use, it'll be a five man crew, and so the four of them will get on with hanging the cabinets and I'll start to put the front riser together with the desks and control gear, and I also normally do the power and multicore cables. Then by about 1.30 in the afternoon we'll be ready to turn it on and check it through, making sure that each amplifier is sending the correct signal up the correct line, in phase.

"Normally I don't soundcheck because, especially with the heavier bands, where they are loud on stage, the difference between them a) not playing as hard as they will do for the gig, and b) playing in a 15-20,000 seater with no audience in, will give a very false impression and upset the band. So they will get themselves set-up happily with the monitors and stage sound, and I'll get my rough balance with the band's personal crew playing the instruments. I have to estimate how the sound will change for the actual performance, and then make any slight corrections during the first number.

"After the gig, the load out will normally take three or four hours in all, and it's onto the next gig."

On the road again — John Newsham: "These days we're looked after a lot better than we used to be. In terms of transport we usually have a sleeper coach which won't offer much privacy but it will have a small kitchen, a video, a sound system, a toilet and maybe a shower; whereas we used to have to drive the three tonner and overnight ourselves. We'd maybe get to the hotel at five or six o'clock in the morning, sleep until midday and then we'd be loading in again. Now we just load out, jump on the bus and effectively our time's our own until the next load in.

"On the road catering, people like Flying Saucers and Eat Your Heart Out, have made our lives completely different. And another good thing about that is that there are a couple of girls on the road with you, which tends to diffuse the macho lads attitude a little bit, and make it more of a family."

The Way In

If you want to be an FOH engineer, the idea of setting up your own company doesn't come strongly recommended. Chris Beale of SSE: "The days of making a decent living out of humping a 16:2 and a 3kw rig around in a box van are behind us. To make good money you need to have a much larger organisation, and the capital investment is so huge that you would be foolish to try setting it up without experience. A mistake could cost you a fortune, and there are a very few PA hire companies today making real money."

Robby Williams of Hill Audio had this to say. "It's a kind of Catch-22 in that no one's going to let you loose on a system unless you've had some experience and you can't get any experience unless someone will give you a chance. The only ways I see of becoming an engineer are to join a big company anyway you can, maybe in the warehouse or something, and then work your way up. Either that or you might work with a few up and coming local bands for nothing, and hope that they make it big and take you with them. There are more engineers around than there are top jobs, and either way, you have to start off doing it for the love of it."