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[Sam Feine]

Currently I am in the great white north studying electrical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

I still however call Houston home and it is in Houston that I work over the summers with a moderately large sound company (Southern Sound Systems).

Here in Rochester I mostly work with clubs at the school helping them out with their sound needs, and it is here where all of my personal equipment is kept (bet you've never seen a Midas sitting on a desk in a dorm room...).

[David Kaiser]

I live and work in Addison, Il, 30 miles from Chicago, I work full time as an address corrections clerk and sorter at UPS in Addison.  UPS for 18 years so far. Audio about the same.
I got started in audio when I realized that no one was recording the evening Youth meetings at the multiple annual conferences that I attend each year around the country. I currently have two complete speech oriented sound systems in two states and a third system that I carry for Youth events and recording of health seminars. I have suoplied for 8 weddings in several states and have three regular conferences, two health seminars, a theatrical gig, and a small organic fair in Naperville, IL, I am a weekend sound man and loving it.
 My mother runs theglutensyndrome.net which is how I got involved in health seminar recording. I also help my mother with an informational display about the gluten sensitivity/intolerances issues that are gaining more prominence in out society.

[Gus Housen]

I Own a small rental and production shop about an hour outside of Seattle. I currently have around 100K of inventory. We are a "jack of all trades type service" We have 1 fulltime tech on staff (besides myself) and 3 part time, and a Dj service with 5 dj's and a wedding  salesperson/consultant. We do County fairs, punk rawk shows, corporate events, festivals, stages and pipe and drape.

Oddly enough I got into it because I got arrested when I was 16 and my dad got me a job with a buddy who owned a small PA rental and TV repair business. I had always been fascinated by electronics but didn't have a mentor. Around 91 The previous owner , my mentor decided TV repair wasn't profitable ( he had investment rental properties) and semi retired offering me the opportunity to take over. I lived in the back of the shop ate saltines and sardines for many years, so I could afford to buy gear.



1. Where are you located
2. Is this all you do or do you have other business
3. How'd you get into it

[Michael Ardai, N1IST]

1. Just north of Boston.
2. In real life, I'm a hardware and software engineer designing lighting controls.  Currently deep inside a light dimmer, trying to get all the features they want to stop fighting each other for space and interrupt cycles.
3. I started doing lighting for my daughters' dance recitals; since then, I do lighting and sound for two local dance studios and sound for their skating recital.  I also have inherited the 'quality' Rauland-Borg PA at our temple and am slowly converting it over to a system designed for voice and music rather than paging...
/mike

[Jerry Turnbow]

1.  From the Gateway City, St. Louis, MO right here in the heartland.

2.  Mostly do live sound, live and studio recording, installations (not enough, though), and some Informations Systems consulting.

3. Quite a convoluted path.

Played music from an early age (2nd grade on) piano, violin, and voice. (Don't think the voice lessons "took")
Played mostly classical music until high school.

Got into rock 'n roll in high school (late '60's).  Joined the A/V club, started a rock and roll band, playing  bass guitar. (Not very well, in retrospect).  Then got into folk music.

Saw a mainframe computer demonstration at University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana campus in my senior year of high school, and decided I wanted to work with computers.  Options at that time to get into computers were a) business major (bor-ing!), b) math major (makes my head hurt), or c) electrical engineering (cool stuff - electronics, circuits, etc.)

Chose "C".  Went to engineering school in St. Louis, and Rolla, MO. Supported myself by playing in a folk-rock band on the weekends.

Ran out of money in my senior year.  Went to work for a shop that specialzed in repairing electronic musical equipment.  Electronic organs, guitar amplifiers, PA gear, Mellotrons, electronic synthesizers (Arp, Moog, etc.)  In fact, I still get mail from one of the synthesizer companies, but they spell it "AARP" now for some reason . . .

Continued playing music - folk rock (guitar, banjo, fiddle)

Found out I enjoyed working and making money and playing music more than I enjoyed going to school.

Got an offer and went to work for a systems integrator that did everything from PBX telephone systems to nurses call and fire alarm systems to professional audio, including systems at the Arena (later the "Checkerdome", and Busch Stadium, along with a ton of churches.  Got my first taste of real professional audio after going from Bogen amps and Atlas horns, to Shure Vocalmaster to Kustom PA's in my bands.

Worked my way up from service manager to director of operations and engineering over the course of 16 years or so.  I also was instrumental in automating the business along with another manager, first with Apple PC's, then IBM PC's, then an NCR Minicomputer.  Acted as IT Manager along with other responsibilities.  (You wear a lot of hats in a smaller company, which keeps it interesting for me)

Still playing music - by now, keyboards, guitar, and fiddle doing contemporary C&W (George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, etc.), along with a small bluegrass/folk/gospel quartet.

Got an offer to join a local manufacturer of several well-known brands of musical gear (Crate, Ampeg) as director of engineering for the product development group.  Sounded like a perfect match for a musician/engineer/manager.  Took the offer.  Also acted as facilities manager for one manufacturing site and the R&D/Service Department buildings for a time.  Helped the IT department install and set up a local area network, migrating from "sneakernet", where you run around with floppy disks to exchange info.  Created a database and work management system for the engineering department, which later grew to encompass the service and manufacturing departments.

in 1999, the information systems manager quit.  I took over the position of Information Systems manager.  (The original goal of studying electrical engineering some 30 years earlier)

Company was bought out by a large manufacturer of audio equipment (both MI and later, professional sound gear).  Manufacturing, service, sales, and product development teams were let go.  My switch to IT kept me employed for about 5 years after the folks I had managed were gone.

Still playing music - now in a "trop rock" band, playing for the "Parrothead" circuit. (Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, Zac Browne, etc.), as well as doing sound for live events on an occasional basis.

When the remaining segments of the original company were spun off, around 5-6 years ago, I hung out a shingle and started making my living doing a combination of live and installed sound, recording, playing music, and information systems consulting for a handful of small businesses.

Haven't looked back since.

[Jesse gray]

1. Originally from Ohio but now I live in Nashville. Been here about two years, but I am going to be moving back to Ohio at the end if this year ..... (the folks are selling the house.)

2. I am the head sound tech( there are two of us.....) for a non-profit ministry in downtown Nashville. So depending on the day I am either ripping apart a twenty year old system to upgrade the various pieces and parts, or serving the local community.

3. Got started mixing for my church in Ohio when I was 12. (not a typo) came to Nashville for a music intensive/internship, knew a bit about sound so I said I could help. Been running the sound department because I opened my big mouth. Because I was the head tech I thought I knew stuff. Stumbled upon this forum and realized how little I actually knew. Ive been reading articles on here for three weeks now, and I have doubled if not tripled my knowledge of sound engineering. ( I finally know about 1 percent now!)

[Tom Roche]

1. Where are you located?  I'm originally from Northern Virginia and currently live behind the Zion Curtain, about an hour north of SLC, Utah.

2. Is this all you do or do you have other business?  My day job has me riding a desk at an F-16 fighter wing.  During my off time I drum in a country/classic rock band and occasionally sub in other bands.

3. How'd you get into it?  I was initially drawn to the performing side of live music, which led to taking up drums.  I already had a love for hi-fi, so I think it was a natural progression to be interested in and have a knack for the pro sound part when I started playing in a band in the late '70s.

Like many of you, I got a lot more involved with sound through church.  It was also a learning experience in the frustration many of us come to know when trying to secure any kind of budget from church leaders.  I learned to be resourceful, find good deals, tactfully lobby for funds, and do some of the install work myself, like the time I wired a 32-channel snake and eight monitor drops into custom stage boxes in a new stage.  Being formally trained in soldering helped.  I found PSW early on when it was fairly new.  Despite my low post count, I used to spend a lot of time on the forums soaking up knowledge & lessons learned from the experienced guys and learning about gear.  I ran sound at a local venue for a while, but it no longer hosts events.  Today, my "sound clerk" duties are limited to my band and my small system at home I used for practice.

[Johan Molund]

1 I'm located in Stockholm, Sweden

2 I am fortunate to have sound as my full-time job

3 I started out playing drums in a local bands when I was in school, did some recording with a couple bands and realized that that it was more fun to do sound than to play drums.
My older brother (17 years older) works as a sound engineer and had worked as a sound engineer since the early 80s. In the mid 90 he was president and owner of one of Swedens largest rental companies for sound and light. I used to go to shows and hang out at the warehouse and was amazed at how much hard work it took to be a live sound engineer. I also wanted to work as a sound engineer but since I had seen how hard people in the live sound industry had to work just to mix for maby one or two hours during a show I decided to try to become a studio engineer instead. It seemed much nicer to go to a studio and just sit down and work your magic instead of unloading trailers, hang PA systems, eat shitty food, be away from your family, living in a bus and basically work your ass off for that short reward of mixing a live show

I had the fortune to get admitted to a college in sweden that has a two year education in sound. I studied there and had a goal to eventually work in a studio making records. I graduated in -99 when the music business started to have a decline in record sales and realized that no studios were hiring any personnel at all, not even people making coffee.
I eventually got a job at the national Swedish radio as a temp shortly after my education, it lasted for a year and a half.

When my job at the radio ended a friend of mine asked me to fill in for him working in a club in Stockholm while he went on tour. The first night at that club I was so nervous and somehow did mange to do decent sound for the band that were playing and it was the best feeling I have ever had. I started to do live sound, the one thing I thought I didn't want to do and in that club I realized that this was exactly what I wanted to do.
When my friend came back from touring and I didn't have my job at the club anymore I ended up calling my brother asking him for a job. He had an opening at his company and I started to work for him.

I worked at that company for almost 10 years, setting up systems, loading trailers, soldering snakes, building cases, maintaining equipment, touring and mixing shows both monitors and FOH.
6 years ago I quit and started to freelance as a band engineer and nowadays I'm touring  with bands mostly in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland but also throughout Europe.

[Jamin Lynch]

Corpus Christi, TX. here. About 200 miles south of Houston. 100 miles or so from the southern border. I'm only a stones throw from the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm a retired control systems engr. after 38 years in the petro-chemical business. Had my live sound company on the side since 1985. We provided sound and lights for small touring bands that came to town on one-offs. After being retired for a while, I got tired of playing golf and fishing every day so I started doing installs in churches about 8 years ago and it has exploded. Can hardly keep up. Opened a pro audio retail store about 2 years ago and has been doing well.

[Jared Koopman]

1. Loveland, CO (I would love to find someone from this board that is local to me that I could mentor with)

2. My day job I am a sales admin for IBM. I do not work for or own a sound business (though I would like to). My experience in sound is serving at Churches, and therefore limited experience. Everyday I try to learn something new and I love being a part of this forum as well as others.

3. When I was 14 a friend of mine needed help loading his drum kit for gigs. I started helping do that and eventually started mixing for his band. I had no clue what I was doing but I had fun. I moved away to college and became the sound guy for the university singers (drummer, bass, keys, guitar and 22 singers). We did a couple tours around the country over spring breaks which were a lot of fun. Again I really had no clue but it worked. I ended up making  a change after my second year at college and decided to go to another school and got my degree in criminal justice. Worked full time to get through college installing home theater systems and as a hotel desk clerk. I "ran the sound" at my church during that time, but it wasn't anything more than 1 vocal mic and a guitar. I then met my wife and we have since moved to Colorado raising our 2.7 children. I have served as the lead sound technician at my current church for 2 years now. I also volunteer at another local church when I have time.

I know it is not an easy business and frankly wouldn't be very profitable. But I still would like to get my own rig and provide sound for bands and musicians. I am currently working on putting together a business plan (starting small and realistic) and I would love any advice I can get. I want to do this for a couple of reasons...because I love working behind the mixer and I want the experience.

Jared

Well I did jump into the business. I started a production company with a friend. We are small but having fun doing it. I would love to make it full time.

www.onefiftyproductions.com

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