7 MUST HAVE Skillsets Of A World Class Live Audio Engineer 

As a technician myself, when I saw the title and thumbnail my first thought was "Ah yes, how to properly coil cables, I see a man of culture"

I have been a sound engineer at a theater for 15 years. Sometimes I am FOH and sometimes I become SE for the band's FOH guy. I also run monitors occasionally. In my humble opinion, people skills are more important than nearly anything else. The band rolls out of the bus, sometimes tired or in a bad mood. A little quiet intervention and the ability to listen can go a long way. We are constantly sent the OLD stage plot and rider, or they show up with a different setup and different personnel, or they have special needs no one told us about, and we can't provide something they wanted. For the most part, these issues can be resolved with some good people skills. Getting your feathers ruffled does not help anything. Arguing does not help anything. People skills are harder for some than for others. It's worth the time and effort to develop these skills.

I got my start in audio as a young musician in Hollywood, in 1960. I later learned to move speakers around, and even to connect the wires together! Fast forward many decades - many hundreds of gigs later - mixing rock bands, outdoor symphony orchestra concerts, big bands, magic acts, jazz combos, many famous people, etc., and... all I can say is that Michael Curtis knows what he is talking about. Watch these videos! I've learned a lot myself, studying what maestro Curtis is showing us, correcting some of my own bad habits along the way.

Remember that some of these brands he's talking about are very america-concentric. We in Europe have our own brands for many things that we prefer to use and those are everywhere. Make some research into what are common equipment for the same function here. :)

Word of advice - always, ALWAYS get the tech rider. Even if the person who booked the artist says they are bringing their own equipment and that you, as the house manager, won't have to do anything. Trust me. Have them either provide you with the artist's rider or put you in touch with the tour manager. That way you don't get cussed out by the artist when they show up and things aren't in place where they expected. I mean, so I've heard. 🙂

Just did sound for a music festival this weekend... Quick thinking, knowledge of the equipment and being accommodating can be funny at times. One of the larger bands asked, "Can we just have the main mix in our monitors?" (They usually use their own mixer and send the FOH guy a LR mix so the main mix is their usual monitor, but I had all their inputs and provided the monitor mixes.) I replied through the talkback mic, "Yes, of course." Then I said out loud, "Now how am I going to do that?!", which got a chuckle from the other tech guys. I talked through it to myself for :15 seconds, patched and routed it in :10 seconds and within :30 seconds of the request I replied through the TB mic, "There you go." One of the best compliments came from one of the drummers while he watched me sound check another band. He said, "Dude, you are a black belt at this." Not tooting my own horn here, but confirming that Michael's points are spot on, and when you have the skill set, people notice. Thanks again Michael!!

Best intro yet? Loved every minute. Strongest: business sense. Weakest: System Knowledge. Thanks again for sharing!

I love your videos! Please don't stop publishing! 🙂

Glad to see more resources for the live audio world. I'm relatively new to the professional world still. Been doing FoH for couple years, and I just started Production Managing in 2024. I'm always looking to go back and fill in the gaps in my fundamental skills and knowledge, as well as improve and learn new things so that I can level up the show and artist I'm working for. Keep up the awesome videos man!

SO MUCH ! information to learn from you Michael . Always a fan to watch your videos with my mouth open .

Excellent info! Thanks for making this.

Excellent Check-List! for the Professional. Thank you for your Awesome Advise Curtis. Cheers Mate!

thank you for the best advice, "slow down a sec."

Thank You Michael!

This is a simple one, but one that causes tons of lost time, and that is can you wrap a cable properly? Not only that, but will you wrap it properly when it is the end of a long day? I can't even begin to convey how much time is wasted on a set because someone did a half wrap. The other thing is labeling and clean runs.

Hey Mike, as a hobby DJ (weekends) largely for private functions, I found this video really interesting, informative and inspiring. While not all the 7 areas relate to what I do or situations I find myself in, a fair number do. Essentially, what you have set out relates as much to professional and amateur’s involved in the music and entertainment business, including DJ’s. 95%of the time I use my own equipment, and while very small scale, I face situations where I do the whole set up, including, setting up equipment for musicians, speeches, working with videographers, multiple rooms, indoors and outdoors, crisis management all sorts. One ends up developing or appreciating skills you didn’t set out to learn, but you end up needing to at least appreciate them. Your 7 skill sets has really brought it home to me (I have just woke up having been at a family cultural day yesterday for the local community which started at 3pm and finished at 11pm) so, some of what you have said I found highly relevant and is making me reflect on the event (which went really) in a slightly way; where I was strong/weak etc. thanks again for such informative and inspiring video’s.

Thank you for sharing Micheal Curtis.

Very nice and concise.

Hey, Michael. Great video!! Its really nice to have an experienced guy teaching as clearly as you do on this platform. Keep it up!!! And also I'd like to know how/when/why is it useful to monitor on headphones or a pair of close field monitors when you're doing live sound. I tend to think bleed would be a huge problem in that situation. When I see a pair of monitors above the desk I think "how on earth are you going to make good use of those in a venue this big sounding this loud". Thanks!!

So you don’t have to know how to wind cables, which I thought would be one of them because of the thumbnail

Excellent!

Nice guitar collection sir

I haven't watched yet, but I saw your cover shot and thought, "Yep. You should know how to coil cables" :)

Learning everyone’s names. Simple most effective skill in the world.

With just twenty years and a passion for mixing and event technology I want to learn skills and new gear everyday. So thankfully to have found your channel which really helps me to choose a new PA System for our Church. I think my most pronounced skill is the nija (have done a lot of management in the past and had to keep whole productions together) The sadly weakest part could be some fundamentals and the feel for frequency’s and loudness levels,… Giving my best to improve this. Thanks Michael and God bless!

Okay, I'm just gonna take out my boombox and blast it loud bro 👍🤣

I REALLY NEEDED THIS IM TAKING NEXT TO FREE WORK FOR EXP AND JUST FIGURING OUT WHAT IM WEAK ON.

This is all SOLID advice. Well presented, well explained, and no bullshit. So much good information. To answer your question, yes, I am solid behind the board, extremely adaptable in terms of music stylers and venues, and my tuning abilities excellent. I'm usually the guy folks call at the last minute to fill in or handle extremely challenging acts, venues, and systems, because I keep my cool when things are going crazy and can quickly build a good mix from nothing more than a line check on most any console you throw at me. I'm also very skilled in things like experimental sound performances, immersive sonic environments and sonic containment (endfire, cardioid, and even full containment). My shortcoming would probably be my soft skills, though they have improved over the years, but I have to confess, my patience with folks who ignore my requests for lower stage volumes, especially bassists who refuse to turn down because they can't *feel it* through the monitors, is quite lacking. This is easily attributable to the fact that when not engineering, I am a bassist myself, so I know both sides of the argument all too well, know the outcomes, know the solutions, (like using a bass board) so it REALLY pisses me off when a bassist turns up so loud that his low end is fighting the PA, because I'm the one who the audience blames and as a professional, I can't just get on the mic and say "Yeah, I know it sounds f***ed up, blame the bassist who can't turn the f*** down and is ruining it for everyone. I'm doing the best I can, but s*** in, s*** out!" The other one is electronic acts that either 1) are trying to do too much engineering and not enough performing then mess their show up, and make it out to be my fault when they are say... running their vocals through a ton of processing onstage that they did't work the kinks out of, and what they had planned on being this amazing otherworldly passage turned into unintelligible mush because they inadvertently ran their vocals 100% wet, can't figure it out, and give me the dirty look like I am supposed to fix what I did to them and apologize for it; or 2) only work in headphones or in-ears and don't test their material on speakers ahead of each show, then send me stuff with so many catastrophic phasing issues that I have to mute one side of their mix, and pan the other side dead center, then take the heat for it from all sides because, as we all know, it HAS to be the sound guy's fault. I mean that s*** just sucks because it destroys an engineer's reputation through absolutely no fault of their own, and there's no easy way to fix it. In the best case scenario, you manage to get a few moments with the performers after the show to try your best to calmly explain what went wrong, how to fix it in the future, and hope they listen and take it to heart, but that pretty much never happens, and at no point are they going to make any effort or statement to exonerate you to ANYONE, and if you try to exonerate yourself to anyone except maybe another engineer, you're just a complainer, trying to shift the blame, and they don't want to work with you again, or go to a show that you are engineering. If not a weak engineer, then a hit or miss one, which might as well be the same thing. To solve the first one, after getting bit too many times like that, I insist that the performer's mic line has a split which gives me a dry feed that I can then independently process, and throw in no matter what processing they insist on running their vocals through themselves. However, if you have any suggestions on how to effectively deal with performers sending you F***ED UP signals that you simply cannot fix, and how to professionally, and respectfully address these issues in a way that leaves you looking like you still did a good job, and not some jealous a**hole that is trying to kill the heroes onstage, I would LOVE to hear them. I cannot possibly imagine that I am the only one to ever deal with such issues.

Any suggestions on courses or training for the covered topics?

For me the gear part is easy. The hard part is oral persuasiveness - cold calling people and convincing them that they should hire me. It can be an emotional drain sometimes. One thing to remember - potential clients are not thinking about your mixer or speakers, they are thinking about YOU.

Greetings Mr Curtis. Thank you for all the work you do to help us the novices. Off topic question. Hope you can help. When it comes to Opensoundmeter, I want to download the Macos version but there are 2 choices ( x64 and arm64) I don't know the difference and I'm not sure whichone to download... Hope you can help.

Hi! I recently bought a Audient Evo 8, but sadly I found that when my laptop is charging it has buzz when i engage 48V and max gain, Like i normally would for measuring, how can I fix this problem? If I touch the xlr connector from the outside just the palstic it makes buzz and also if I bring my phone close to it same plusz extreme digital crazyness, like if I could hear 4G :(

knowing the weather & the speed of sound in it helps. ;-) are there any instrument tuning adjustments needed performing a mile or more above sea level vs. sea level? thanks

Good info. I'll order The Green Bible.

weak at acting after reading people, strong at keeping things neat

uS, sOU ND eNGINEER Guys, are QUITE a RECKLESSS LOT!!!!

ACOUNTING. I DONT EVEN KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT OR NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPS

The industry is gone. Unless we can fix the economy and price of fuel..none of this matters when nobody can afford to see live shows.