The Importance of Really Understanding How Audio Works?

Back in the 1970's, when I first started out in Audio doing some Front Of House (FOH) sound work (FOH, you know, the guy hidden in the back with all the switches and knobs!), I would frequently show up the first time at a venue, be shown around a bit, then expected to figure out how everything worked and be ready before the performance began in a couple of hours.

Initially, I had expected going into a well-maintained Recording Studio type of environment, but instead, it was frequently a tiny space, with raw plywood walls, a rickety chair (or was it just a wooden box?), and some type of old, goofy mixer that was covered in dust, had frequent soft drinks, beer, or other? liquids spilled on it over the years, and many faders and potentiometers (pots) had missing knobs! Cables were not labelled. Frequently, it was just a 'rat's nest' of tangled wires.

Fortunately, I had a good understanding of Electronics, Signal Flow, Gain Staging, and Cable Management, and was able to get things working well enough to be ready to do sound checks when the band arrived.

On one of my first gigs, I had been asked to do the sound at the "House Club" where one of my friends, who had a well-known touring band, would perform regularly when they weren't on the road. Apparently, their sound guy quit unexpectantly!!!

The venue was pretty much like the place I described before but had slightly better equipment. However, the board and other gear was setup in really strange ways. I didn't think anything about it and put everything back to their 'normal' (nominal) settings, patched the outboard gear in a straightforward manner and was ready for the sound check. Little did I know that everything had been specially setup by the previous sound guy and most everyone knew not to touch anything!

The band arrived late (as usual) and we were only able to do a very short sound check. I had to 'tweak' things quickly during the first couple of songs, but in a way that no one would notice. Considering the situation, I thought it sounded OK.

After the first set, the entire band came up into the sound booth with rather grim looking faces! Oops, did I mess something up? The band leader said, "What did you do???!!???" My heart sank. He smiled and continued, "My God! What did you do? We've NEVER sounded that good in this place before!"

The point of this story is that no matter how bad the equipment is, or how 'special' someone's setup and patching might be, going back to the basic fundamentals, and applying straight forward approaches to gain settings and effects, will generally produce the best results, in the least amount of time, and with minimal expense.