Sound Check
I have a gift for time travel
Do you know that I have a gift? I am able, whenever I feel like it, to travel in 2007. It happened again the other night.
All I have to do is launch “Fields of Gold” from Sting and here I am standing behind the big mixing console of a small jazz club a stone’s throw from the Montparnasse Tower in Paris. It’s around 4 pm, and the sound engineer in residence, my trainer, starts the sound check for the concert that will take place around 9 pm.
Sting’s classic is his favorite title for setting up the console. The music resonates in the speakers suspended from the ceiling and the huge subwoofers hidden under the stage make the still-empty auditorium vibrate. I’m here for several months, a few days a week while the other days I’m training as a sound engineer.
As a jazz lover, I am thrilled to be able to learn and sometimes take the lead in concerts that I will always remember, like those of Manu Dibango and Claude Bolling. Shaping the sound of a jazz big band, I realize that I am living one of the best experiences of my life. There are so many different instruments, so many different sounds, so many subtleties to hear and so many buttons to push, pull or turn to make the music even more beautiful.
Sound checks with Sting are multiplying, and I have the chance to enjoy dozens of…
