I was raised in a very musical family with my parents, grandparents, sisters and cousins all being able to play instruments or sing. I started as a drummer in my grandfather's church when I was 10 years old and since then I've always felt a deep connection with music.
In 2011, my church asked me if I would be willing to learn the mixing desk and I immediately fell in love with mixing and the technical side of things. Like most kids, I started helping with school productions, setting up sports events and getting to learn this art a bit more.
Even with this love and passion for the arts, it never occurred to me that I would be able to do this full time.
Once I finished high school, my father told me about an arts college call the Academy of Sound Engineering (ASE), where I could studio audio engineering. Of course, I was delighted with this news. We went there for the Open Day and it was only then when I realised how vast the industry really is. My dreams were starting to come true...
I made a lot of industry contacts during my studies at ASE (or as we call it, The Academy) and I was freelancing as a live sound engineer for 6 productions houses during my 3 years at ASE.
It was during my 2nd year that I found a passion for the studio (2016) and by then we were doing a lot of studio work. I did projects in band mixing, song reconstructions, radio adverts, voice-overs, basic mixing, and mastering techniques.
The studio life gave me more insight into equipment used, the sound of different instruments and different microphone techniques. In the studio you would have more control over in-depth learning on how EQ, compressions, and different processing techniques work. Things you would not normally have time to learn during live shows.
From that point on, I decided to try and get work, but I never could find a studio that would take me on, so I started taking on clients, doing personal recording projects, editing them, mixing them and mastering them using ASE's recording facilities (by this time I was busy studying for my international Pro Tools 210M exam).
After completing my 3 years at ASE, I partnered up with a studio owner in Pretoria. During this time, I could not afford Pro Tools, so I used another software program and Pro Tools First to record, mix and master projects.
Most of the genres I've worked on were Rock, Pop, Country, Classical, and Afrikaans as these are the genres that I have most of my experience in, but an old friend once told me "You need to be able to do it all to accomplish more". So I made it my mission to work on all genres and develop that craft. From then, I started to receive more Hip-Hop and R'n'B requests.
A few months later I received a job offer to work overseas for 6 months. When I can back to South Africa, I had enough money saved up to buy Pro Tools and a brand new laptop to run it with.
I started working live shows again and it was during this time that I had to record, edit, mix, and master school productions, live band performances, church services and songs for wedding dances which was all great experience and a lot of fun.
You would not believe the mixes people ask for wedding dance sequences, one moment you would have a pop song playing and then suddenly you must edit and mix a jazz song into that and some crazy things which I love.
Editing church bands and live performances opened my eyes up to a whole new world in the industry. At this point I was fortunate enough to have the best of both worlds in my skill set (live sound and studio work).
Better yet, Pro Tools made this much easier for me to accomplish. I had to use Pro Tools once to help a tired vocalist on stage perform live by routing the vocals into Pro Tools, processing it, and re-sending it back to Front of House (FOH). I've had to use Pro Tools to capture a stereo signal from analogue desks, process them a bit and send them for live broadcast and many things I never knew I could accomplish with Pro Tools. I take my hat off to the guys at AVID!
My biggest aspiration is to one day work with record labels, to edit and mix for them, building a professional relationship with new producers and "picking the brains" of more experienced senior technicians, hopefully one day to work side by side with South Africa's music labels: "Die Broers and Select Music", and one day with international giants like Sony and Universal Music.
Original article at Wild & Marr.
