Freelance Sound engineer

[soundiesam]

Hey all,
Ive just been made redundant and joining the rank of Freelancers. if anybody has any work going please let me know.
thanks
sam

[jimthedrum]

sorry to hear that. What part of the world are you at? i'm hopefully going to be very busy sound wise until christmas if your fairly close by, but after then i might be in your situation too

[soundiesam]

Im in Leicestershire

[soundmanjim]

join the club. dead around here apart from the local jobs im doing. what doesnt help is lots of people undercharging ridiculously to get the jobs - one guy complained that i brouight him in a system (at the last minute) for £150 saying his usual guy charges £100. sheesh.

[micmk]

Well i've got fed up with promoters hedging their bets cancelling gigs at the last minute so i've started promoting gigs in central london at 100 +capacity venues booking indie /rock stuff mainly
If you know any bands who want to play post their myspace link and i'll give it a whirl
I've still got the odd job supplying PA for 200 capacity gigs for mainly touring US/european acts who can't get into the bigger venues and some engineering in camden and the west end at the usual toilet dives
This credit crunch is starting to bite in the nether regions

[gingerbiscuit69]

try and get a club tech recidency, clubs around my area are booming, and im working 6nights a week at the moment on reasonable money.

[John Bell]

We have been loosing our live music venues in my area for several years. They either give up live music and concentrate on hiring for functions or get bought out by property developers for housing.

Our last good venue, The Blue Moon Club, (Hayes Football Club), will be closing next year.
We have already lost the use of The Anglers' Retreat, in West Drayton, The Tithe Barn and The Rayner's Hotel in Rayner's Lane.

Also, a lot of our local pubs stopped live music, due to noise complaints by local residents.
Several of them are now boarded-up, including The Stations,
(formally The Engine), in West Drayton, which has been a small live music venue for a very long time.

Now with the recession/credit crunch biting hard, the future looks bleak. John.

[gingerbiscuit69]

personally i believe its a change in society rather than anything else.

Ive been to literally loads of these types of gigs, in small pub function rooms and the like. There is hardly ever a crowd, and the bands are rarely worth seeing.

However, seeing larger gigs of say 800+ people, with 'headline' bands headlining rather than the usual local crap, they are usually a great success promotions depending.

also, look at the shift of chart music. its all disco and club type stuff. Going to a local club for £4 will give you a nights uninterupted dancing to good music you know, and assuming the clubs ok, good sound etc....

look at a night at a gig, most are £5+, support bands are often pants (often due to the engineers mix them badly, making the main act sound better), theres changovers, drinks are expensive and so on....

some noise complaints are also quite valid, many of the local pubs here have no sound insulation at all, have rediculously loud karaoke and discos in the weekends, and no wonder people complain. I regularily am kept up by tarmacers singing at the top of their voices to karaoke in the pub down the street on thursday night, and theres a good 40 houses between me and the pub. its only a matter of time before they get shut down.

also looking at the landlords side, good bands are hard to find, cost lots, take more space, etc etc.....

anyone here involved in the club market, especially around student areas, will know that our industry is booming. its just change of times adapting to how things are rather than much to do with the credit crunch.

a lil note to add here, theres millions of 'sound technicians' out there already, with more appearing daily, and on a declining industry, its no wonder theres so many unemployed.

thats my view on all this.... hope to cause no offence here, im just being frank about my views. cheers, Pat

[soundmanjim]

Totally agree with you pat.

i did before but i flippin' pressed the wrong button and deleted everything i just typed! lol. ah well, thats perc coffee for you!!

anyway - back to what you said.

i was in a band, we thought we were good, but in reality, we werent (i know, ive watched the videos, all in hi8 mind, spandex trousers, oh dear) and we were always encouraged by local promoters that really didnt care about anything but beer money - and we fell for it, like loads of other bands.

the whole reason why we are in this 'credit crunch' mess in the first place is because of greed. fallout from the 80's where everyone could make a packet for basically doing nothing. knew it would catch up with us eventually, but like everyone else i just hitched a ride on the false wave of prosperity and drank myself into oblivion.

Yes, loads of 'techies' that think they can do the job...(wait a minute...they can now, mixing desks are sooo easy to drive - the gears better...less feedback..perhaps we have inadvertantly engineered ourselves out -) will always be here, and im not saying we should knock them - it's very rewarding when YOU KNOW you've done a good job - even though you only got paid £50.

anyway, back to the subject - pat you are right, we have got to adapt and not just sit back and take it.

My first thought was to approach local or semi local pa companies and see if i couldnt get on their books - but then i remembered i'd tried that before to no avail - people stick with who they know.

i thought of some sort of sound engineers alliance, then i remembered we have this forum, and although it's a mine of information and a great place to start it doesnt help when you look for work - so whats the answer?

I hate to say this, as it sounds a bit overly political BUT - its SOLIDARITY.

Perhaps some of these unions have the right idea.
If you arent a member of, say, a recognised sound engineering group or union, you wont get the work.

the problem here is that people get greedy again and artificially hold the prices up, causing the venues to search for cheaper techies that arent in any kind of hurry to help anyone else and go for the work at any cost - thereby perpetuating the problem of bad sound, crap bands, frustrated promoters, hacked-off neighbours and dissapointed punters, who after all, are just looking for somewhere to go / something to do with their spare hard earned cash.

Punters are the people that are lining our pockets and they get the worst deal of all, next to the band, who just get drunk and think theyve had a good gig.

how many times have any of you guys said 'good gig lads' to a band of youngsters who were totally crap but you couldnt bring yourself to be honest and tell them straight. Me included.

Ive sat here for some time trying to find an answer to this but i fear there may not be - i'm seriously considering doing an electricians course and getting some work as a sparks, even though i thought this was the job i always wanted to do.

perhaps its not.

If its any consolation, it cant possibly get much worse, because the media NEED new talent and coldplay and U2 cant keep turning out stuff to order.

I think now is the time to hang tough. busy yourselves with other things that keeps your fingers in the buisness without burning them - for me, its touring with bands who ask.
i dont get very much out of it but hopefully i'll meet enough people to make some sort of impression and get on a higher rung.

The people who think doing sound is a walk in the park will fall by the wayside, the economy will pick up again (as there'll be so many people lounging around doing nothing they'll have to find something to keep them occupied) and the work WILL come back.

Just not at the moment.

Hopefully, this 'credit crunch' will bring everyone back down to earth and make people start charging realistic prices, instead of hiking them up a bit 'just in case the turn-out isnt good'.

Blimey, ive made myself feel really rubbish now!!

[soundmanjim]

Meant to add...Pat, you say about the racket from these venues - you know as well as i do that a lot of dance and garage et all all rely on a hell of a lot of bass - and that carries a lot further than the sound of an electric guitar and vocals (even if they are shocking) and although i love most electronica and anything involving vinyl i really hate being disturbed by bass where i cant hear the melody.

The real problem is AMBIENT NOISE.

I've thought about this, and the trouble started when we joined (or sort of joined) the EU, and started turning out planes, cars and motorcycles that were much quieter.
Once upon a time i could stand outside my dads house and hear and possibly identify all the cars and bikes in the area, some belonging to my mates (including a particularly noisy BSA my mate had, LOL) but NOW the overall noise has gone, leaving just the tyre noise of cars and the occasional bellend with a drainpipe for an exhaust.
People are just HEARING this stuff more, they never noticed it before, we were all used to it.

one venue i heard of sussed it completely, making all the punters wear wireless headphones, and all u needed to do was select whatever DJ you wanted and boogie away to it in your own world. brilliant idea, but i fear not too practical - BUT the rate things are going, that could become a reality if we all don't start turning things down a bit.

perhaps thats all we need to do for now.

[John Bell]

One of the noise problems is probably due to being able to pack a real punch with much smaller gear these days.

Small back-line guitar and bass combos are now so efficient, with their emulation software and high clean output, that the vocals have come up more to match them.

Small powered PA subs and Mid/High cabs sound very clean even at very high levels.

With no distortion to limit how far you can push the sound, it's easy to get carried away.

I am all for keeping the sound levels to where you can really enjoy powerful music without ear damage, or being a real nuisance to the local community.

Maybe realistically set-up noise limiters is the way forward, then they wouldn't be bypassed to stop them tripping during the guitar tuning. John.

[soundmanjim]

i hear that! (no pun intended!)