Live sound engineers work primarily in the music industry, with a wide range of roles to play involved in the live performance of music in the forms of concerts, theatre, or anything else in which sound needs to be played throughout a venue. Some work of Live sound engineers can sometimes be outside of the music industry working in more commercial settings for large meetings and lectures in large areas, however most primarily work in the music industry.
To become a live sound engineer, an individual must first enter into the industry through either apprenticeships or university courses on relevant subjects to the requirements of being a live sound engineer with dedicated diplomas to sound engineering being offered by certain universities. For these university courses, the requirements for entry is 1 to 3 A level qualifications. These university courses will offer massive boosts to employability in this field. To acquire apprenticeships in live sound engineering most would need 4 to 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4, including English and maths for an advanced apprenticeship, as said on the national careers government website. It is important to note that other paths into this career are possible through volunteering and mentorship programmes.
Above the qualifications, as is the case for most jobs in the music industry, networking is far more essential to securing positions and jobs as a live sound engineer as if your name is known to the owner of a venue and they need an extra engineer, they would be able to call on you for the job before making a public job listing, increasing the chances of securing a job. Having strong networking connections would also allow you to shadow other live sound engineers when you are getting started, giving you more experience and knowledge of how the job works and what it requires. This would also make your name known to other live sound engineers if they were to give a recommendation as well as them offering tips and advice for engineers who are just starting out.
To succeed as a live sound engineer, the individual must have a wide range of skills and knowledge such as possessing a detailed understanding of music technologies as the use of microphones, mixing desks, controlling signal flows, and other similar things is essential to the job of being a live sound engineer. The live sound engineer should understand which microphones to use for their desired sound quality from a live sound source such as a guitar speaker and what gain levels to set to ensure a healthy mix. In addition, a live sound engineer would need to have skills in communications with the talent on stage and other engineers to ensure that they are following orders of what they want to come out of the mix as well as orders from more senior engineers if instructions are given, this is vital to being a live sound engineer. Furthermore the live sound engineers have to be highly adaptable to new equipment as not all venues will have the same equipment and set ups, meaning a lot of their skills should be transferable.
Some of the responsibilities of a live sound engineer is to do a vast number of equipment checks such as making sure the microphones and cables that will be used work well in advance to whatever performer is scheduled arriving to the venue. Pre-planning is incredibly important as good live sound engineers should have everything set up and ready well before the talent arrive: this typically means being there and working hours before they are scheduled to arrive because if everything goes smoothly it should all be set up and ready before the doors open to the public to ensure both the performer and the audience have a smooth experience at whatever event is being held. However some issues can rear their heads in the early stage checks that may cause slight delays, such as faulty cables, a broken microphone, etc. It is for these reasons that the live sound engineer is typically working hours before the doors open to the public. As well as the equipment checks, a live sound engineer must also work at setting levels and making sure they understand what the mix sounds like in the venue, and to achieve this most live sound engineers will have a playlist of songs that have particular qualities in their mixes that they would like to identify in how it’d reflect through the venue speakers and environment to ensure quality that the playback is not muddy or lacks any clarity or depth.
Additionally, the live sound engineers will do checks with the audio beforehand about the levels that everything is being set at. This is because they would have a legal responsibility to ensure that the noise isn’t disruptive to the surrounding environments and thus could disturb people outside of the performance. This is because loud sounds can be seen as a nuisance to some people, especially late at night. This responsibility is more held towards the venue owners than the live sound engineers but ultimately it is the live sound engineers that ensure the level is reasonable. Another area for legal concern for live sound engineers is that very loud sounds can be hazardous and cause damage to the hearing of those in attendance. An unamplified snare drum can reach levels of 120dB and most mixes and performances have vocals sitting over the snare in level, and vocals are at the ears most sensitive hearing ranges in frequencies which can cause quite significant damage over time. To counter this the live sound engineers should be wearing ear protection to protect from long lengths of exposure to high sound pressure levels (SPLs) as well as making sure the mix isn’t too loud while still being loud enough for a venue filled with people. This step can be done using SPL detectors that reduce the power being sent to the amplifiers to make them unable to surpass a certain threshold, however not all venues have this installed to their sound systems and thus make it the live sound engineer’s responsibility. This has been seen to cause serious effects when not taken seriously as seen by various anecdotal evidence of hearing damage being done in some venues due to the amplification of sound (Brignall, 2011).
Financially, a live sound engineer typically doesn’t need to worry much about their personal finances and budgetting as the equipment is mostly bought by the venues they will work at or will be provided by the performers, meaning live sound engineers don’t need to bring any of their own equipment in, however the lack of a need to bring equipment in will not stop live sound engineers from doing so, if they have a particular set of microphones they really like the sound of or anything that could help them feel more comfortable doing their job and give them more of a flow, they will and should bring those in which will cause extra financial cost to the people in the profession.
Live sound engineers can work in one of three ways; in-house, freelance, or touring. An in-house live sound engineer will typically stick to one venue and work on a salary, meaning a more stable income overall. This is more common for pub gigs and smaller venues that deal with some elements of live sound. Freelancing, which is very common for this profession, is where they will be called into jobs around various different venues and work with a number of different artists and get paid per gig, which often brings some uncertainty around money and unclear schedules; which this essay will touch upon shortly. Finally, a travelling live sound engineer who works with one specific artist or band and does their live sound checks and mixing for that band. called travelling since they go with the artist to whatever venues or areas they play. While they stick with one artist primarily, they aren’t only limited to one artist to work for and can be working for multiple, but the job requirements stay very consistent.
Live sound engineers will market their work to venues through their networking, being known as reliable and easy to work with by artists and venues alike will increase the chances that you are brought onto other gigs and jobs to work. Other ways a live sound engineer can market their work is through a social media presence, perhaps talking about and showcasing the work they have done in the field or more professional social media platforms such as linkedin to make your job and what you do clear to others and be easily discovered by those looking for live sound engineers. It is important that live sound engineers work hard and do reliable and consistent work for the jobs they are involved in so that they have better chances of being picked up for a job again or to be recommended for another gig.
Being a live sound engineer would come with its wide array of challenges that someone would have to consider, for example: having a stable work-life balance can be rather difficult for live sound engineers due to their unpredictable and busy working schedules, as some venues/artists could call them in last minute to work, and since most live sound engineers are freelancers, Their pay would be based on the amount of gigs they would do as well as other factors, like experience, location, and specialisations (Yellowbrick, 2023). This means that missing a job because of personal life reasons may be financially detrimental, making balancing work and life a challenge. Other than this balance, a live sound engineer will be faced with many issues and technical setbacks which would require quick thinking, problem solving skills and deep knowledge and understanding of the technology they work with. These skills and the knowledge required become more tuned and adept to the problem solving nature of the job the more experience the engineer has. One example could be that one of the toms for a drum kit isn’t being picked up on the microphone clearly in the middle of a live set. This would present the challenge of figuring out what could be causing it; the microphones, a cable connection, something in the signal flow that is reducing the level or clarity of the tom, or a number of other issues, and after identifying the problem would need to find a quick fix that doesn’t disrupt the live show. These sorts of challenges means that problem solving is a necessary skill to succeed as a live sound engineers and that being faced with technical issues is not only common but should be prepared for in advance.
The pay for live sound engineers can vary through many different factors: on the national careers service website the pay rate for a live sound engineer is listed as £25,000 a year to £40,000 a year with typical working hours being 39 to 41 hours per week, although it is noted as being variable to change. This is corroborated by other sources saying similar things such as a starting salary for a live sound engineer can be £20,000 a year with more experienced engineers getting a salary of £40,000 a year. (Willis, 2024). This only accounts for how much a salaried live sound engineer would be making, so the rates for freelance live sound engineers may differ based on a number of factors, according to the musicians union website, it is said that pay for a live sound engineer’s gig should be either: a guaranteed fee (either payed in advance, on the night or an agreed timeframe), a guaranteed fee plus a percentage of door / box office takings, the entire door take, or a split of the gig’s profits. While these are more generalised to anyone involved in live gig work, it should still apply to live sound engineers as well.
With time and experience, Live sound engineers can be promoted to a number of similar, but slightly bigger roles such as senior engineer, whose responsibilities would involve a much wider range of managing equipment, people, and timings. Other pathways also exist through this career such as chief sound designer, this role would involve making decisions about how live sound should be and giving instructions to junior live sound engineers about what tones they want, how to achieve certain effects, and more. Another option is to go independent and start their own sound service company, offering their expertise to venue owners and artists that may need it and wish to hire them out.
Bibliography
Career spotlight: Live sound engineer: DBS Institute of Sound & Digital Technologies (no date) dBs Institute. Available at: https://www.dbsinstitute.ac.uk/career-spotlights/live-sound-engineer (Accessed: 08 January 2025).
Live sound engineer (no date) Live sound engineer | Explore careers | National Careers Service. Available at: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/live-sound-engineer (Accessed: 08 January 2025).
Recommended minimum rates for live musicians (no date) The Musicians’ Union. Available at: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/working-performing/gigs-and-live-performances/live-engagement-rates-of-pay (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
Soprano Bella Lose Court case over Earsplitting wedding performance (2011) The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/oct/21/soprano-bella-court-case-wedding (Accessed: 10 January 2025).
Sound and the law (no date) Sound and The Law. Available at: https://www.astralsound.com/the-law.htm (Accessed: 08 January 2025).
Willis, S. (2024) What is a live sound engineer and what do they do? our ultimate guide, dBs Insider. Available at: https://insider.dbsinstitute.ac.uk/what-is-a-live-sound-engineer-and-what-do-they-do-our-ultimate-guide (Accessed: 09 January 2025).
Yellowbrick (2024) Sound engineer salary: Factors, range & career advice, Yellowbrick. Available at: https://www.yellowbrick.co/blog/music/sound-engineer-salary-factors-range-career-advice (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
