Confusion

Me and J studying hard..? 😉

So, here goes my first post. I haven’t set up any rules for my learning, except that I’m going to learn something every day. My boyfriend has bought me a few books and one of them really is a gold mine. It is divided into four parts that explains everything from theory about sound and electricity to the work of a sound engineer to how you set up a PA and do your gig.

I am reading in that book and looking at every video I can find. Aside from that my boyfrend (we can refer to him as J) try to teach me something new every day. It’s not an easy task because I don’t seem to be able to stick to what we talk about. I have a thousand of questions about everyting. It all goes hand in hand. I’ts close to impossible just to focus on one detail, you have to see the larger picture.

It’s not such a good idea to just read, so me and J have visited his studio several times to actually look at some stuff. What confuses me is that there are so many versions of everyting. At the moment it would be easier if there were just one pre amp, one di-box, one mixer and so on, but there are a million! Mixers with extra buttons, whit the same buttons that are called different things, with extra line-ins and/or missing line-outs, digital and analog. Where should you start? Do you have to know everyting? Is it eaven humanly possible to know everything about everything? I doubt it. When J sometimes says that he doesn’t know something I sigh out in relief. It’s not just me who is confused. People in this profession have to keep learning new things all the time..

Anyway, aside from all the confusion and the shock I am still enjoying learning this.
On saturday we are going to do a gig with Rizzle (the celtic folk rock band I play in). We don’t have our own PA this time, but I’m going to observe everything I can. Hopefully I will learn something. It’s always interesting when the event is providing a sound engineer. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I almost always feel that they aren’t prepared enough. We shall see if this time is any different. Hopefully it is! I will blog about it after or during the weekend.

/P