in the audio booth #31days

Last week I instagrammed (a square crop of) this picture to mark my first day in the audio booth at church.  I'd done audio years ago elsewhere, back when we were burning messages to CDs.  Ghastly. 

This week, after the whole geek v. nerd discussion, I realized why I love managing slides but don't love doing sound. Slides are software (geek), and audio is hardware (nerd).  Audio problems are rarely about moving a lever (software).  It's always that something wasn't plugged in, or a wire's loose, or equipment's missing.  And that was just today!  Audio production requires not only nerdiness, but intuitive nerdiness, and that's a unique combination.  Even someone who can figure out a hardware problem may not also have The Golden Ear.  That's what audiophiles call that innate ability to hear exactly what's wrong in an audio mix.  It's an art, and a Golden Ear belongs to only true audio geeks.  So really I don't qualify as audio geek or audio nerd.  I'm basically a monkey in the booth.  But maybe I can stick to slides and no one will notice. 

Do you know anyone with a Golden Ear?    

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