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Sound Engineer

Darren has always been involved with music and was encouraged to play the keyboard and classical guitar from an early age. Eighteen years on Darren works as a Sound Engineer, drawing on his years of experience to create music using a computer.

I compose and record Hip Hop in a band called Downsyde. Sound Engineering isn’t just recording as you have the live side of the work as well. Producing live sound is very different to recording sound in a studio.

My grandfather first taught me how to play keyboard and later I learnt classical guitar and then drums in school. Now I’ve been able to merge all those things using my computer. My whole family is a bunch of musos and everyone has their own instrument, I just happened to find that my instrument was a computer.

Since it’s my studio I’m my own boss but music is never a nine-to-five thing. The best part of the job is composing, I find the creativity very rewarding. But at the same time it’s just one aspect of the job and without the big picture I couldn’t compose well. So while I don’t like the recording aspect of the work, I understand that I have to be able to do it if I want the band to produce their best sound.

The problems that arise during work are mainly to do with equipment failure. If it’s the computer, you have to use trial and error to figure out what’s wrong. It’s the same with the live stuff. There are so many lines going on stage that if you have a problem you have to check them all to fix it. Sometimes it takes an hour sometimes it takes five minutes. Usually the problem is just a line of signal not working.

I often write lyrics with the band as we sort of feed off each other’s ideas. The live performances can be pretty nervy and hanging backstage before a gig is always hard. But once you’re up on stage it’s the best fun.
 
To start I did a Certificate III in Basic Music Industry Skills at TAFE. To get good at Sound Engineering a TAFE course is helpful and so is talking to friends who do similar work. But the most important thing is to get good, practical skills in using the computer programs. The skills I picked up along the way are mainly to do with live work and other practical skills that you don’t learn about just using courseware.

When you do get into the industry the potential to advance is up to you. The more you put into it the more you’ll get out of it. A big part of this industry is to be able to learn as you go and to be able to adapt and find solutions to new problems. The best advice I can give is to always listen to other Engineers and respect their experience but don’t be afraid to experiment yourself.

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