Freelance audio engineer: What I do and how much I make

0:00My name is Kelly Kramarik. I'm 25 years old, and I'm a freelance audio engineer, and I'm set to make about $40,000 this year. Some people just stay in one trade, one part of audio. I like to do a little bit of everything, so I work in a studio as a recording and mixing engineer.

0:18I work in live sound as a monitor and front house engineer. In film, I'm a production sound mixer, so my main goal is to get the dialogue on set. Then in post-production, that's when we focus on sound effects, creating them, taking them from a library, Foley, recording that, footsteps, basically re-creating the world that we already recorded in a studio setting so we have more control over it, and I also am a graduate student, and I'm in the recording arts program.

0:47So I'll be graduating soon. It was only a two-year program, but just fine tuning all of my skills for the real world. One of my favorite projects so far has been I was working monitors at a festival, and so one of the bands that I worked for, I just absolutely love them.

1:08They were awesome, their music, everything about them, and so I gave them my card and said, "You know, if you ever want to record, "I work at a studio, and it'd be cool if you came on down," and they contacted me, and so I brought them into the studio, and it was their first time in a studio, and they were so excited.

1:26So the extra cool part is that we're making an EP, a three-song EP, and once it's mixed, fully recorded, they're gonna bring that out on their live tour this summer, and then I'll probably mix them again this summer. So it's really cool to work in live and in the studio just because I get the opportunity to find artists that maybe didn't think that the studio was a possibility.

1:51When people have an idea to make music, even from the smallest part, like the beginning, they just have a guitar with a couple of chords and some lyrics, helping them make it into a song, record it, mix it, produce it, that whole process is just super rewarding because then they have something for the rest of their lives, and it helps music in general.

2:16You know, it's meant to invoke feelings in people, and that's awesome. That's why I love music is because I get goosebumps. You know, when you listen to a seven-minute rock ballad, it's like, "Oh my God, this is epic," and that I want to help make other people feel that on the other side of things.

2:34Having a good ear is obviously very important in audio engineering. You just have to know good rhythm. You have to know the different frequencies, the different frequency ranges that instruments live in, and that's just kind of the basis of audio engineering. If you're in a live sound setting, you know, frequencies that pop out feedback, feedback is when the speaker picks up the signal from the microphone.

3:02It creates a loop, and that's when you hear that like screeching, high-frequency noise. That's my biggest enemy as a monitor engineer. If one of those pitches starts ringing out, I have to be able to know exactly what frequency that is and then pull it out immediately because once it happens and it starts going it's just gonna get worse and louder, and it'll just ruin the performance.

3:25So I have to be able to exactly know what frequency that is to pull it out fast, and that's why it's super important to know all of your frequencies exactly what they sound like, and that can be taught, I think. If you just sit with headphones on, it's really annoying, but if you just sit there and listen to different pitches, that's how you learn how.

3:46I mean, that's how I did it. Other skills that are super important is just having a great personality, being easy to talk to. When I'm a monitor engineer in a festival setting, I have 15-minute changeovers from one band to the next and no sound check basically.

4:01You just have a line check to make sure that the signal's coming through, and in that 15 minutes, we have to get the other band off, the new band on, and then maybe while they're walking on stage they say, "I want kick, snare, and bass in my mix," and I say, "Okay," and then I just kind of pull it up a little bit, and then for the first song, they're looking at me and saying, like...

4:21It's all about hand signals, which is funny 'cause everyone's different, but you know, the guitar player will point to the bass and be like, "Up," and I'm like, "Okay," and then I have to like look at them. I'm always like the weirdest person when I'm a monitor engineer 'cause I'm always like...

4:36Like constantly just like seeing who I can help and how because when you're dialing it in, I mean, you want to make their performance go off without a hitch. If they can't hear everything, that's just not gonna happen. Sometimes you have to make a mistake to learn something for real, and it's usually big mistakes that you learn something, and you're like, "I will never do that again," you know.

4:58So making a mistake in live sound is something that I haven't done yet, and I know it's gonna happen, so that's like really scary for me. I just don't... Maybe it won't ever happen. I'll knock on wood, but that's really scary because in these high-stakes settings, you know, when you make a mistake it's big, but that's also another part of coming back from that mistake, how fast you can fix your mistake, and if the artist even knows that you made a mistake is another part of it.

5:27In Denver, Colorado, being a freelance engineer, there's a ton of live work all over the place. In the studio world, everybody is mostly freelance unless you own a studio, and that means that you have to bring your own clients in. My boss is awesome, and I get studio leads from him, but for the most part, you're expected to bring your own work in if you want to make money.

5:49You can make anywhere from 30,000 or less, depending on how often you do this, up to $200,000 or, you know, millions every year. It just depends on who you record, who you work for. If I were to get picked up by a national touring act and then go on tour with them for a year, I would be in that higher bracket.

6:15If I landed someone in the studio and I recorded their first album and then it went platinum, you know, I would make money off of that, not necessarily, because once my job is done in the studio with that album, I don't continue to make money off of it, but I would hope that that artist would bring me back for the next one, and then you know, you get your name out there, and you keep going from there.

6:38The way that I have gotten where I am is just going to meet people all the time. I know everybody that is an engineer in Denver. I've been to every studio in Denver. I'm a very friendly and outgoing. If I ever meet someone, I ask them how their studio works, who they hire, how all of that goes, and if they have any opportunities.

7:03I'm always looking for new opportunities, and if someone ever brings one my way, I say, "Yes." Even if it's unpaid, I end up saying, "Yes." It could lead to just a new connection with someone, and that's huge in this industry because I don't really want to have to advertise myself.

7:22I think it would be cool to just keep getting gigs by word of mouth.