Seattle is one of my favorite cities. It's also the place where I made the biggest mistake of my audio engineering career. It still haunts me to this day.
I had been doing monitors for a tour that took me around the country. It was with a great group of people and I really loved the music. The venue was a great listening room in downtown Seattle not far from the famous Pike Place Market.
Things were going smoothly as we got into the venue and started the sound check. I could tell the house audio engineer knew his system and the room. The venue had only the one console at FOH. The monitor engineer (that's me) had to use tablet PC with a stylus on stage to mix monitors.
Obviously I was a bit nervous with this setup because A: I didn't have my own console and B: I had never used this particular tablet/stylus method. However I was careful to test the method, and talk through things with the house engineer (who was used to doing this everyday) before the artists took stage.
I was as prepared as I could be. Most of sound check went well. The entire band was on IEM's and we were well into the tour so I knew what people wanted to hear. I moved slower than normal, careful to use the unfamiliar technology with caution. I got through most of the mix and the band was happy.
I was just starting to feel like things were going to be fine when it happened. I took my IEM out because a crewmember had asked me a question. Then the lead singer asked for a change in the vocal level so I pressed my stylus to the screen make the change. I carefully moved the level up one, and then two dB when I watched the digital pot that I was controlling suddenly jumped to 100%. It was a glitch --- a problem with the screen that misread the movement of my hand.
The results were instant and horrifying. The absurd amount of gain that had been applied to the vocal channel actually created a feedback loop between the IEM and the singer's microphone. I heard a perfect high-frequency sine wave from my IEM's that were hanging around my neck. I immediately heard the singer scream. Everything happened so fast that I didn't register how this happened, but I muted the channel as quickly as I could. The entire event only lasted two, maybe three seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
In the split second between shutting off the channel and apologizing to the artist, the thought came to the front of my mind, "I am going to be fired today."
Signal spikes happen. Some are outside of our control --- like a cable that goes bad, someone drops a mic, or a player turns on a pedal with too much gain. Other times an engineer makes the mistake of turning up the wrong channel in a player's IEM. I've experienced those situations before, but nothing had ever been this bad. I was seriously worried that there was permanent hearing damage done to the performer.
The vocalist had to take a break just to shake off what had happened.
Obviously they were frustrated and rightfully so. My apology felt inadequate, I felt small - even sick to my stomach -- because I knew how bad it was.
In that moment in time I had no desire to finish sound check, mix the show and I questioned if my career as an audio engineer would continue after this day.
We took a 10-minute break and then came back to finish a very somber sound check. Seeing the defeat in my face, the FOH engineer who was traveling with us tried to cheer me up. "It'll be fine," he said.
It didn't work and I replayed what had happened the rest of the day while I expected to meet my fate and be sent home that night. Fortunately that never happened.
The vocalist and I were able to talk before the show. I explained what had happened and apologized once again. Understanding that it had been a fault in the equipment seemed to help us move past the event, and the show that night went well. I finished out that tour and over the years I was invited back to other tours with the same band.
It was a relief to know that my mistake did not carry the consequences that I expected. Still, the event replays in my mind from time to time. I can still feel the dread that I held that day.
Mistakes happen, and when they occur it's best to own up to them fix them and move on. That's what professionals do, and that's how you serve your team. Living in fear and defeat is not healthy. It only breeds insecurity in the people around you and in your ability.
It would have been easy to let that mistake define me and give up. But if I had decided to hang it up after the incident in Seattle, I would have missed out on thousands of other amazing moments my career audio engineer has allowed me to experience.
There's an obvious spiritual application here. There is an accuser who makes a conscious effort to remind us of who we used to be and the mistakes we have made. When we listen to those lies, we forget who we are and that we've been adopted into a royal family. We serve a King, our Father, who defines us by our relationship in Him --- not by our past. To focus on our mistakes and live in our past is to refuse the gift He has given us. It focuses our attention on ourselves and not His redeeming sacrifice. This is lived out not only in our relationship with Him, but in our relationship with others. Mistakes happen, and there may be unpleasant consequences. But they can present a tangible opportunity to live out our identity in Christ in the community in which we exist, and with those we with whom we serve with on Sunday.
