059 – Pro Engineer Feature: Alice Wilder
Alice shares some of her experiences working as a live sound engineer.
Written by Scott Adamson
I love discussing sound and music and travel with my fellow touring professionals. For this post, I asked touring pro Alice Wilder to share some of her experiences as an audio engineer, and in the middle of her busy schedule she was nice enough to oblige!
Can you tell us about how you got into live sound and about some of your favorite touring/traveling experiences?
I got into live sound when I realized I loved being behind the scenes and what goes along with show production rather than being on stage playing guitar. Also, the likelihood of making a career in music is much more feasible this way, so that really works out.
I started around 2006 at venue called Neumo’s doing house monitors. This is where I learned all about routing and signal chain, which are essential in the foundation of live sound. There is a bit more of learning curve here than mixing alone. Mixing is like eating the cake after you’ve mixed up all the batter … weird metaphor for ya!
I actually went to school for accounting and realized there was no way in hell I could live my entire life doing something as simplistic as that (no offense to accountants, to each their own:) I started touring around 2009 or so and would say that I’m a full-timer now and LOVE IT.
My favorite moments on the road are hotel fitness centers and eating at the best local restaurants. Unfortunately, I never really have enough time to indulge in touristy type activities, but I do feel like doing something that someone that lives in that town would normally do is pretty satisfying. I know it seems boring.
What’s your current job on tour?
Most of my experience lies in FOH, but I’ve actually been dipping into monitors lately for a change of pace and to give my ears a break, and it’s been very different, but equally as enjoyable.
Mixing monitors is completely different from mixing FOH because you are mixing for the band and you have to be aware of how things will sound for each individual, whether it be where they’re standing on stage (different types/amounts of panning for each input), to what kind of in ear molds they have.
What you’re hearing may totally vary from what they’re hearing. A lot of working monitors involves teaching as well to a certain degree. You may have the challenge of finding clean RF signals for anything that runs wirelessly and/or you may have to set up TB’s (talkbacks) for band members to crew members.
In other words, working monitors is more about working with the bands and being able to make them happy and meet their specific mix requirements, whereas mixing FOH is more about making sure you are conveying what the artist wants you to, to the audience.
Both have their challenges, but I do think that monitoring is a more aggressive challenge than mixing FOH, as you are very present and on stage with a lot of people that usually need something from you.
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When I started out it was essentially only men behind the soundboard, at pretty much every venue. Thankfully, that’s changing. You even mentioned to me that the sexist attitude in general has improved since you started out. Can you talk about dealing with sexism in your career and how the attitudes toward women in sound have changed/not changed? And how do you deal with the haters?
Yes! The sexism in the field seems to be diminishing with time, which is so awesome because it’s making way for more and more ladies or female identifying persons to join!
I have some pretty gnarly stories from my early touring days that seem almost irrelevant to tell now, but let’s say that I did physically smack a man’s hand away from the faders while I was line checking Austra (the band) in Spain. I dealt with a ton of mansplaining and constantly had to kind of over-sell myself just to get treated regularly, which is totally exhausting.
The post-show treatment changed considerably in comparison to what I dealt with on arrival to whatever venue or site I was at for the day. They realized I knew what I was doing and decided to respect me, just in time for load out (haha). Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with sexual harassment much, because I am quite gay in appearance. I can’t even imagine being in a place of needing to overcome an element like that.
What’s a good resource for those who want to connect with other female/non-binary audio engineers? I’m a big fan of Soundgirls.org.
Definitely soundgirls.org!
They have an incredible database of female touring engineers. You can pretty much find whatever you’re looking for there. The Facebook group is wonderful.
