How to become an audio engineer: Tommy's story

Tommy:

I'm Tommy. I'm 24 years old. I'm a freelance audio engineer and musician.

I first became interested in music when I was maybe 12 years old. I did guitar lessons at school, but found them quite challenging. I did Music at GCSE, but didn't really want to do it at A-level. There I did Politics, History and English Literature. I got a place to do Politics at university. I deferred entry and ended up volunteering at a local community organisation, where I ended up teaching music to young people. From there I decided to change my place and study Music at university. My band formed at university whilst I was on the same course as the guitarist. I'm the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of an alternative rock band called New Luna from Manchester. I find music a really great way to express myself. And then when you're on stage, performing in front of an audience can be really nerve-racking, but when you have a moment where you get to really connect with an audience, there is really nothing like it.

After university, I did an internship at a music studio which led on to me being employed as an audio engineer at the same studio. Being a freelance audio engineer means that I gain different skills in regards to recording various projects and that kind of applies to my musicianship, because I'm able to produce my own band's work. This means we're able to do our own recordings. The process for recording a song is quite varied, depending on the artist. Recording a band often involves making sure the instruments are in tune and then setting up various microphones. We then go through to make sure all the signal levels are correct so that the microphones are hearing what's going on correctly and that this sounds good. We then go through various different takes until the band are happy. We then review these takes and sometimes edit them and then usually layer vocals on top.

After all the recording is done, there's usually a mixing or editing process where we use a digital audio software to kind of polish off the individual audio files and make the tracks sound great. The audio editing software that I've used so far in my career, I taught myself purely off of videos online. Being in a semi-professional band is hard and you have to be really, really organised. We have a shared calendar that we regularly update weekly with our shifts or anything that will affect when we can't rehearse. We try and rehearse twice a week, in order to stay up-to-date and to keep on top of our performances and prep for recordings, but even we find it hard. Despite the challenges that come with being self-employed in the creative industry, I really love what I do and the year coming up is exciting. I have a lot of interesting projects lined up at the studio and the band seems to be really moving in the right direction.