Andy is a Backline Technician with Jonas Productions, an corporate and concert audio production company that specializes in supplying the audio and backline instruments for events. Andy has a full plate when at a gig, from load-in and setup to monitoring and possible equipment repairs. Andy suggests students major in media production but emphasizes that on-stage experience is the best way to prepare for a life in audio.
Transcript
I'm Andy Annicks, I work for Jonas Productions. I'm a repair technician. Jonas Productions is a full service back line company. We provide band gear for concerts from festivals to cruises to one off shows. We actually take equipment to shows and there's a tech on site to make sure that everything is going well, so it's not so much one off, you know, send a person with gear, more like sending a truck full of gear. The repairs are anywhere from someone just pressed the wrong button to days where we're waiting on the right components to be brought in and all that sort of thing, so. Day in and day out I show up and fix whatever's broken from vintage keyboards, synthesizers, guitar amps, electronic keyboards, stuff like that. I do anything from just routine swapping out reverb tanks or tube issues to service mount component troubleshooting and things like that. So it depends a lot, that I've done all kinds of stuff from like, they call them briefcase gigs, you show up to the venue, everything's in place, you just run the show, to when I'd work freelance with a production company, we're bringing in a small line array, we set up the stage, we fly the speakers, we pin everything and make sure all the channels work. And then the show, we gotta set up for the band and then run the show, you know, mixing live and making sure everything sounds good and the artists have what they need. We're national, somewhat international. We do cruises and festivals, we'll provide all of the back line for a cruise or festival and going across borders and doing cruises and things we have to have manifests of all the gear that's going and so it's very organized chaos.
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