Live Sound – The Kenyan Tale Part One: The Problem?

As many of you might know, other than my passion for studios, recoding gibberish and rock and roll; live sound is one of my main things.
this is also known as being the ‘sound man’, ‘sound engineer’, ‘manning the desk’ or in this part of the world, the ‘technician’ and sometimes mistaken for the ‘dj’; feel free to add to my list!

Live sound engineering is like being an audio traffic cop. Typically, a musical group will direct a variety of sounds at the audience, usually through amplifiers. These different sounds must be managed correctly to make sure the audience receives what the group is sending. Managing these sounds is concert sound engineering. (http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/live-sound-engineering1.htm)

I HAVE HAD IT! And I am totally disgusted by the sound quality we here in Kenya are giving audiences, weather in live concerts or live music on TV to small unplugged gigs! It is ridiculous! And I say this because ignorance is no longer an excuse!
Put it this way, we are all human beings, and the matter between our ears is exactly the same! We have the talent in Kenya as far as artists and performers go! World class talent I tell you! We have aces to quality equipment, audio and lighting gear! But most importantly we have access to INFORMATION.

I will support this by saying that we see the quality brought by international artist at many gigs in Kenya. But why is it that the half dozen local opening acts (that are brilliant as artists in their own right) offer a poor so that, yes, as cliché as it ‘sounds’, BLAME IT ON THE POOR SOUND! Why does this happen time and time again. How can something as important as sound have such low priority? Even from the basic organizational level? For a music concert especially? Ai?
do we never notice the 10-15 minutes the main international act takes before coming on stage and the ‘punky’ looking guy that goes on stage moves things around, presses a few buttons on the board, and alas! Then we all ask ourselves why they sounded so different from the local acts?

- never let your reputation overshadow your performance -

This is something my father told me and I feel it applies to many things including this. We must realize that sound engineering is an essential part of the performance because an artist is their sound. Their sound is their sound man!

Make your sound a priority.
LongHorn ([(-_-)])