mysticism

It seems that people attribute a lot more to the sound engineer than what is actually his/her capabilities. Its like all forms of common sense just go out the window and this mysticism sort of guru-likeness is placed on us.

If the person doesn't sound good, we can magically make them better. Yea, there are certain tools for pitch correction now and anybody sounds better with some effects on their voice. Its like the engineer is the crutch for the performer and therefore the reason for all things when its not good either.

I can't make a player play a different note. I can't make a singer sing the correct intonation. But it is assumed that I can. Admittedly, the studio does let you mess with things more but in a live situation, there are limitations.

I see the engineer like a painter or a cook. I am presented with a palette of colors or a pile of ingredients. I then start making the best thing I can out of the ingredients/color choices that I have. Musicians are creators of these things and I am limited to what the musicians create. Like a good cook/painter, I can combine things to make a "whole" that seems better than the "parts", hence the mysticism.

But certain flavors and colors just don't work well. It is always frustrating while mixing sound to have a band that just doesn't get the concept of arranging. I have done so many bands (church's seem to be worst at this) where the instrumentalists just are listening to each other. So I have to spend a lot of time hiding things under things or just flat out not using them. This is not only frustrating to the musicians but also to me since I want them to succeed in their endeavors. But garbage is garbage, all I can do is to try to make it look like nice garbage or just call it "found art".

The actual physical part of my job, I learned while still in a crib. Slide this, turn that. The thing that makes me valuable is to know what to push or turn, when and how much. It always blows people away when they look at a large console. So many knobs. I always try to point out that the bulk of the console is just a repetition of one set of knobs, but people rather like believing that there is a supernatural thing going on around me.

I had this lady in a black gospel church that I worked with years ago come up and tell me that she could feel the angel wings brushing on her shoulders during the music. I asked where she sat. Come to find out, she was right in front of the subs that were soffit mounted in the walls left and right of the stage. I tried to explain that the physics of sound tells us that when a frequency is longer than the object it encounters, it bends around it. Therefore she was feeling the low end push on her. She just ignored that and left me saying how much she appreciated me helping the angels show up.