Modesto workshop teaches ropes of being live sound engineer

Sound advice isn’t easy to get.

That’s why two participants traveled from out of state to take part in the Live Sound Workshop, offered last week in Modesto by the Northern California Women’s Music Festival and SoundGirls.org.

Meghan Holderby works in event production at the University of Oregon in Eugene. To become more of an asset, she realized she needed to improve her tech skills set. “There aren’t training programs in live sound,” she said she discovered. “There are a few community college programs and lots of online resources, but it’s really hard to get hands-on experience.”

She and her manager were looking for workshops and conferences and found the five-day program held at the Valley Music Institute warehouse on Bitritto Way, off Kiernan Avenue.

The workshop was open to women and men of all ages but had the goal of giving insight and hands-on experience in sound engineering to young women in particular. It was led by SoundGirls co-founder Karrie Keyes, an industry veteran who has worked on tour with bands including Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Over the week, 11 people – a couple of them just 10 and 12 years old – participated in the workshop. As Keyes sat with a few young women around a sound board during Thursday afternoon’s session, talking about such things as faders and boosting or cutting frequencies, it was clear they came to the workshop with at least a grasp of the fundamentals.

“This sounded perfect because I’m a beginner,” Holderby said. “It’s been awesome, being able to ask questions of people who do this professionally.” The instruction she received has helped her fill some of the “large gaps in my knowledge base,” she said.

Anastatia Ricketts came to the workshop from Denver. Her background is in stage management for theater, but she’s “converting my skill set over closer to tour management.” In theater, she’d always gravitated to running the lights for shows, but her tour management goal includes being able to mix sound.

“It’s been fantastic,” she said of the workshop. In deciding whether to attend, she liked that it was geared toward women and youths. She might have felt uncomfortable sitting among a bunch of guys just brushing up on their skills, she said, but figured the SoundGirls workshop likely would include at least “a 14-year-old girl who didn’t know some of the same things I didn’t know.”

She also liked that Keyes and fellow workshop instructor Tiffany Hendren complemented each other. Veteran Keyes primarily does tour work, Ricketts said, while relative newcomer Hendren mainly works with one music venue.

One local workshop participant was Modestan Josh Hoffler, a promoter working primarily on comedy shows. He said he frequently gets calls to work for entertainer and promoter friends but aims to improve his skills to the point at which he can have his own business and “can run a whole show from soup to nuts.”

Coming into the workshop, Hoffler said, he really didn’t have down even all the basics of running cables, setting up speakers, using his sound board, etc. But by Thursday, he said, “I feel like I could do a show much bigger than I even have the equipment to run.”

As the workshop wrapped up Friday, participants had the opportunity to work with Modesto Sound to run the sound at the Respect on the River Festival. They also will be eligible to do sound work at the Northern California Women’s Music Festival in October.

Having completed the workshop, “they have enough knowledge to find a path to pursue whatever they want, whether that’s going to a community college program, a four-year university or a trade school,” Keyes said. She said she was impressed with the fearlessness, the “Let’s do this” attitude of participants.

“The younger women weren’t intimidated, and that’s what we want,” she said. “They shouldn’t be intimidated, but it happens.”

Keyes said SoundGirls and the Northern California Women’s Music Festival have formed a strong partnership, with the nonprofit festival organization acting as SoundGirls’ fiscal sponsor.

She and festival founder Victoria Boyington would like to run two Live Sound Workshops a year. “We haven’t decompressed from this one yet,” Keyes said, “but there were several women who wanted to do this but work during the day.” The early thought is that future workshops could have afternoon sessions for students, evening sessions for those with day jobs.

This story was originally published August 2, 2015 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Modesto workshop teaches ropes of being live sound engineer."