Toby Francis is a front of house engineer who has worked with stadium-level artists such as Ariana Grande, Aerosmith, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Kanye West, and so many more. While he was writing his excellent Live Event Sound Engineering and Concert Production 101<\/a><\/em> course for the past six months, he was touring with Red Hot Chili Peppers, which meant that he wrote outside of the US work hours that many of us at Berklee Online keep, and as I was editing his course, we were often ships passing in the night of the Google doc, and didn\u2019t get a chance to connect on a personal level. Yet what he shares in his course is not only terrific technical advice for setting up sound for musicians in almost any sized venue, but the course material is also rife with anecdotes from his decades of experience with some of your favorite musicians. So after the first semester of the course concluded, I wanted to get him on a Zoom call for a few follow-up questions. We had blocked off an hour for the call, but it ended up being closer to two. Here are some of the highlights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been talking to the Peppers for like five years. They reached out and wanted some help with some stuff, which eventually led to me having this job. So this tour is the first time I\u2019ve actually worked for them. I\u2019ve worked with their production manager and their tour manager off and on for quite a while, and they\u2019re the ones that brought me to the band\u2019s attention. It was a strange process: Interviewing for this band was one of the weirdest I\u2019ve ever experienced, but also one of the coolest. They\u2019re a true band, all four guys have a say in everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tour manager talked to me. We talked about what the deal would look like if I did it. The production manager talked to me about what equipment we would use and on and on. And then I was supposed to go interview with each of the four band guys, starting with Chad [Smith, drummer]. I went to Chad\u2019s house in Malibu and we talked about music for three hours. We started out talking about drums, which led to drummers, the drummers that had impressed me and why. And we talked about Frank Zappa for probably two of those three hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of the three hours, he said, \u201cLook, this is great. I hope it works out.\u201d So on the drive back over, the tour manager called me and he goes, \u201cdon\u2019t worry about meeting the other guys tomorrow. Chad called them and said that you\u2019re the guy.\u201d He pitched me to them and they all signed off on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started talking to John [Frusciante, guitarist] regularly right after that. He wanted to feel me out and see what I thought sounded good, and what didn\u2019t sound good. John\u2019s kind of the heart and soul of this band right now; he\u2019s very involved in the overall approach that we took. I mean, we\u2019re mixing analog at his request. He basically told us we could do whatever, just make it sound as good as that band can sound to stay true to the records, which hadn\u2019t been the approach they had taken over the years. I think he had realized that technology exists now where you can really replicate a record sound in a large live event like that; the speaker systems will do it now. And I haven\u2019t mixed analog in probably 12 or 13 years; I mixed a Prince tour where he was adamant it be done that way, which was also weird because he chose all the gear and we had to make it work to his liking. But I\u2019ve learned from that and I\u2019ve also learned so much from John and what he\u2019s tasked me to do. I\u2019ve learned through that process. It\u2019s so easy for people to get complacent in this field. At a festival the other day, some guy told me he was an Avid man. So I went, \u201cWell, what exactly does that mean?\u201d And he said, \u201cWell, I only use Avid consoles.\u201d And I go, \u201cWow, why? Why would you do that? \u2026 Why would you limit yourself? Are you that blown away by what they have to offer? Or are you just doing the same thing all the time anyway? And that makes it easier for you to do?\u201d I had one console stop functioning as I was in <\/em>the show, and you can\u2019t unfreeze it without turning it off and back on. Luckily it was a couple songs before the end, and enough stuff was on\u2014I mean, it was presentable and it was better than interrupting the whole show\u2014but that really scared me. And I\u2019ve reacted to every big failure. Like I had a DiGiCo-SD7 fail twice in shows, and once it shut down completely at an Ariana Grande show. The console just died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s very rare to have a backup system for that sort of thing. I\u2019ve seen people take mixes for monitors and put it in the PA, but honestly it sounds horrible. When you do that, you\u2019re better off to just stop, fix the problem, and resume the show, which is what we did. But they couldn\u2019t get it to come back on! I honestly punched the back of it in anger. And it pushed the card back in and the console came back on. Ari\u2019s mom was standing there and saw that and went \u201cThank God you knew what to do!\u201d I didn\u2019t have the heart to tell her that I didn\u2019t know what to do. I Fonz<\/a>-ed it back in! I ended up with a Yamaha Rivage console, but I went to DiGiCo\u2019s shop in England and met with James Gordon, the guy that runs the whole company now, and said, \u201cLook, you\u2019ve gotta fix this problem. Here\u2019s a list of failures.\u201d This is the most popular console brand amongst any of the top level mixers, but I just left because I can\u2019t sleep at night knowing that this might happen to me again. I don\u2019t know if I can ever be convinced enough to trust it. So I just pushed him hard to ensure they\u2019d fix it. And they worked on the three issues that we had identified, which they did indeed fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new version of the console is very reliable. And I have started using them again when it\u2019s the best option. Like the Kanye West stuff I\u2019ve done. Some of that was well over 200 input channels, and it\u2019s the easiest console to do something like that. You don\u2019t always have the time to do stuff in advance. I have done a lot of stuff on the fly with him. We did the DMX funeral. There\u2019s a livestream of it if you go on YouTube<\/a>. We started probably two hours before we should have. We hadn\u2019t checked anything. I had literally checked the two principle vocal mics when we started the show, and you hear the mix come together. There\u2019s over 100 choir members individually miked and a huge band. It was almost 200 inputs, but just with copying and pasting and knowing how to do that stuff on that desk, it was shocking how fast it came together. I listened to it too after. It\u2019s hard to hear your work when it\u2019s not right, but it was interesting to hear it become<\/em> right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was at Astroworld in Texas. For two hours I thought we were all gonna die. Honestly, it was so out of control. There was no security at all, and a crowd just out of their minds with rage. I think my count now is up to 37 people I\u2019ve seen perish at concerts I was involved in. But Astroworld, that\u2019s 10 in one event. Let me share with you a story of how my career was helped by people you wouldn\u2019t think would be in the position to do so. I was put in the odd position to mix two large shows for Aerosmith in the mid 1980s. The band had stopped a tour early due to substance abuse problems. To make some fast cash to hold them over through the recording of their next record, they had agreed to do two stadium shows in the New England area: Syracuse in New York first, then Sullivan Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., which is now where a venue called Gillette Stadium has been built in its place. I\u2019d wanted to be in the military my whole life, growing up. I had a grandfather that was a career military officer, and I wanted to emulate him, and this was just post-Vietnam. They stopped sending people over, I think in 1971 or \u201972. And this was about \u201974 when this conversation took place. And he told me \u201cdon’t do it,\u201d and if I was expecting the experience he\u2019d had, I would be very disappointed. The world was not the same. And he compelled me to pick something else. I loved school band; I played trumpet. I was a horrible trumpet player. But I loved the whole band experience, the large group of people performing together, each doing their little part. And I particularly loved to conduct the band, which I was fortunate enough that the teacher liked to let students do, which means he didn\u2019t really want to. Since nobody else wanted to do it, I got to do it a lot. And honestly what introduced me to the concept of sound engineering was literally that. Because when you\u2019re the conductor, if you\u2019re really good, you\u2019re mixing the show too. You create the stereo spread and how you place everything, the arrangement. All in all, the end result is a mixed, mastered, audio experience and performance. I started working for a local band not long after that, just carrying gear around and the guy that mixed that band, his name was Rick Watts. His nickname was Hundred Watts, because in 1974, a hundred watts was a lot of power. If he lived today, he\u2019d be Thousand Watts. But he was very knowledgeable, a really good teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He taught me some of the basic points we emphasized through the Live Event Sound Engineering<\/a><\/em> course, like phase coherence, and the fact that it\u2019s time-based. Rick told me that stuff. I didn\u2019t hear anybody else talk to me like that for the next 15 years. I started reading about it, but still it was the era that I came up in that was so different. You did not have schools that specialized in anything to do with sound engineering other than NYU. They had a program, but it wasn\u2019t aimed at live music. Live sound was frowned upon because it was so primitive in nature and the limitations were such that the Beatles stopped touring because technology did not exist to present them in an acceptable way. Anybody that says they heard the Beatles at Shea Stadium is lying. No one heard the Beatles at Shea Stadium. <\/strong>They heard screaming. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s horrible about this career is that the better you do, the worse it gets and the harder your job becomes. We\u2019re playing festivals and stadiums on this leg of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tour and we get into the big open fields like the last show we did, and it\u2019s crazy how good it sounds, like all the detail that\u2019s in there. Because you lose some of that in the bigger rooms. But like I was saying, the still level of clarity is so much higher now with all the modern PAs, if you deploy it the right way. But with Watts helping me understand that it\u2019s time-based and the role that time plays in the entire process makes it so much easier. I know people that have whole careers who never completely grasp that part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It makes tuning the PA easier, deploying the PA. And every part of it becomes easier when you gain that understanding. I remember when I started time-aligning the subs to the PA and how much tighter it sounded. And other engineers, they\u2019d be looking at the console and I\u2019m like, \u201cGod there\u2019s nothing on the console that can create what you\u2019re hearing.\u201d Because before that people either physically placed them where they were somewhat time-aligned, or they just ignored it. And most people ignored it. But most of the PAs were breaking every rule that we live by now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And I kept having experiences that backed up the concepts that Rick had instilled in me. And it was all pretty basic stuff because back then digital did not exist in audio at all. If you were time-delaying something, you were using a tape machine to create the delay. As early in the process as possible, I try to convince everybody involved that I care as much about it as they do. When we first start rehearsing, I always like to record. I multitrack the performance, but I don\u2019t go to my console. I sit as close as I can to the band and I watch what they\u2019re doing. I watch how the drummer fidgets, what they like to do, and their nervous habits. And they all have nervous habits! So I kind of identify what that is and I can tell by the fidgeting what they\u2019re really concerned with. With a lot of them it\u2019s either the snare drum or certain cymbals: they fixate on the weirdest things and that becomes incredibly important to their process. And if I pinpoint enough of those details to initiate the conversations, they know really quickly that I know quite a bit about whatever it is they\u2019re doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So by the end of the first week, we\u2019re pretty much solidifying the relationships so we then can really start getting work done. And then if I need them to do something a little bit differently to help the end result, they\u2019ll do it. I\u2019ve enjoyed this teaching more than I ever would have imagined. I\u2019m really looking forward to this semester because I\u2019ll have more time to interact in the discussions and kind of nudge people. And I was shocked at how good some of the students were. One of the students was like \u201cGod, this was so hard. I hope this is even presentable.\u201d When I graded it, I told her \u201cWhat are you saying? This is probably the best mix. You\u2019re being too hard on yourself. Don\u2019t stop. Because it\u2019s working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel that I\u2019m an advocate for the audience and for the band\u2019s creative vision. But I also have to be an advocate for myself and for my family. If I knew what I know now 50 years ago when I was starting the journey, I would take a different journey. My loved ones have paid the price for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even now that I work with my wife, I\u2019m lucky enough to not be away from her, but I bring work home to me. If I\u2019m struggling with something, it shows, I get distant. I put a lot into that. It\u2019s the nature of it. You kind of have to, and each person does it differently. And I\u2019m sure there\u2019s people who do it that don\u2019t have any of those side effects, but just from my experience in it, I would wish that I could have done it differently so I wasn\u2019t away and distant as much as I\u2019ve been because of the responsibilities. I mean, there are projects I\u2019ve done with Kanye where I was awake for days at a time. Because we were doing it so last-minute and then we had to start the show at a point of complete mental exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a tricky subject. There\u2019s more to what happened than what the public is aware of. I don\u2019t want to condone in any way anything he said or did, and I was not present for any of that, nor would I have wanted to be. That\u2019s not the person that I got to know when I worked there, and I do not believe that he truly feels that way. He\u2019s probably the most generous person that I\u2019ve known in my life. I\u2019ve seen Kanye personally give away more money and goods and services than anyone, and when the pandemic first hit, Kanye was the first celebrity I know that got Covid because he was downtown, passing out food to the homeless once he realized who was really going to have the hardest time with the pandemic. He took a million dollars worth of goods and stuff that was needed and personally distributed it and then ended up in the hospital sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a vast bag of tricks that I draw from. I see it as detrimental to your career to be typecast in any way. If your drums always sound a certain way, well they may not work with certain genres. A rock drum sound and an R&B drum sound are totally different. And all of those minute details matter. So you\u2019ve got to be respectful of literally every aspect of it. And it\u2019s a lot to manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A song resonates with each person in a different way. Each song to a degree is an open letter to whoever reads it. And they each get a different meaning out of it. And sometimes that meaning means the world to that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll never get tired of experiencing the Chili Peppers. Every show is totally unique. The experience that you get at tonight\u2019s show vs. next week\u2019s vs. a year from now is completely and utterly different, different set list, different solos, different everything. They create a unique experience each time they hit that stage. They know the value of that. And they know the value of that. They\u2019re truly not pandering to the audience in any way. They\u2019re doing what they feel and it upholds their legacy in the right way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With these older bands there\u2019s a sense of pride at the accomplishment. The older musicians appreciate this on a whole other level because they\u2019ve already accomplished it all. They\u2019ve already met the queen. They\u2019ve already made a quarter of a billion dollars. They\u2019ve already had a yacht. They\u2019ve already had everything that you could ever want. And then they realize that the one thing they won\u2019t be able to buy is that feeling that they get when that spotlight hits them, and the energy of the crowd is totally focused on them. Because that\u2019s the biggest hug you\u2019re ever going to get in your life. And that the older you get, the human side of it becomes so much more important than all of the rest of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My wife, my brother, and I bought a Neumann lathe. I\u2019m gonna learn vinyl mastering and we\u2019re gonna buy some record presses. Start something else interesting that we can keep going and pass this on to our kids. My son is in the business. He plays in a band called Soft Kill. My daughter\u2019s graduating college. She wants to be a music manager, and that she will. I can already tell. Toby Francis wrote his Berklee Online sound engineering course between front-of-house gigs for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In this extensive discussion he shares tales that were a little too gritty for the course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":19781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9564,35,9588,9563,9560],"tags":[69,9215,7900,9218,9214,9217,9223,541,9222,9221,7697,9216,769,6798,9220,6743,9219],"class_list":["post-19779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-features-articles","category-instructor-profiles","category-music-career-advice-articles","category-music-production-articles","category-spotlight","tag-aerosmith","tag-anthony-kiedis","tag-ariana-grande","tag-astroworld","tag-chad-smith","tag-flea","tag-foh","tag-frank-zappa","tag-front-of-house","tag-front-of-house-engineer","tag-joe-perry","tag-john-frusciante","tag-kanye-west","tag-katy-perry","tag-live-event-sound-engineering","tag-red-hot-chili-peppers","tag-toby-francis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn how he landed the FOH engineer gig with the current Red Hot Chili Peppers Unlimited Love tour:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn his relationship with mixing consoles and how it has changed with the advent of new technology:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Which I think he kind of took offense to! But honestly, I think he took offense to it because I nailed it. And a lot of people are like that. Don\u2019t get me wrong, there are people that use the same console all the time and get absolutely amazing results. They do it because they want to totally know everything it can do and take it to its limits. I just don\u2019t really usually approach it that way. I did at one point because there weren\u2019t as many options 10 years ago. If you could find one digital console option that you could actually rely on, that was a big deal, and I chose reliability over everything back then. Because what I learned very early on with digital consoles is that those things don\u2019t always turn on.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn what happens when your console freezes during a sound engineering gig:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn what he did after the second time his console froze (which happened during a Katy Perry set at Glastonbury): <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On how being an FOH engineer can carry other risks as well: [Trigger warning: this next passage contains descriptions of violence and death.]<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>When I was touring with Guns N\u2019 Roses, we had a meeting every night for what we were going to do when the wheels came off, an evacuation plan. I worked for Aerosmith when GnR just started and we had a few incidents on that tour because of their audience: the excitement of them being new and the record being big. And it\u2019s just like sports, the fans. \u201cFan\u201d is short for \u201cfanatic.\u201d People think that \u201cfan\u201d is a great word. Well, \u201cfanatic\u201d is not<\/em> really a good word, or a good label to put on somebody. And if you have thousands of fanatics, all worked up over something . . . what I don\u2019t like about it is how helpless that makes you feel, to help others or to be able to protect yourself. In that situation, I\u2019ve been hit with thrown items. You know, I got hit with a bottle in the back of the head at the first note of the Skid Row \u201cSlave to the Grind\u201d tour. The very first downbeat I got hit in the back of the head with a bottle that broke on me. It was thrown hard enough to break when it hit me. Then I had to do the show with blood pouring down my back.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nLive Event Sound Engineering and Concert Production 101<\/a><\/em><\/strong> excerpt:<\/strong><\/h2>
Aerosmith\u2019s regular FOH engineer was not available and due to the band\u2019s very well known substance abuse issues, none of the established engineers they had used in the past wanted anything to do with them. Because I had recorded them several times in the studio I was asked to mix those two live shows. I had never mixed sound in an arena or stadium in my career, so I simplified the approach to something I felt I could handle and did the best job I was capable of doing.
I was nervous\u2014as you would imagine\u2014but managed to do what I felt was a good solid mix. After the first show, as soon as the house lights came on, I was summoned to the dressing room. I wasn\u2019t sure if this was a good or bad sign being called in so quickly. As it turned out Joe Perry\u2019s mother had met the band coming off the stage and had told them it was the best sounding show she had ever heard them do. And being Joe\u2019s mother, she had been to lots of their shows.
To make a long story short(er), the band sobered up, became very successful for a second time, and I became their FOH mixer. That began my career of being asked to mix bands like Guns N\u2019 Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, KISS, ZZ Top, and on and on. All because Joe Perry\u2019s mother not only liked my work, but also because she had the band\u2019s ear. So my advice is to do as good a job as possible and be nice to everyone.<\/em><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\nOn his original career aspirations: <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn how he got into live sound engineering:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On the double-edged sword of success in the field of sound engineering:<\/strong>
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn how he creates a solid relationship with the artists who he works with: <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn how the relationship-building he has done over the years has resonated across his teaching in Live Event Sound Engineering<\/a><\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On balancing work life and home life when the work life of a FOH engineer requires him to be away from home for extended periods:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On how having his wife\u2014tour accountant Gwen MacQueen\u2014on the road has been helpful, but he still takes work home with him, even if home isn\u2019t, well, home:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On Kanye West:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On maintaining variety in who he will do sound engineering for:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On why the music still matters to him all of these years later:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On the real value of the live music experience:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On what\u2019s next:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"