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© 2025 Live Sound Bootcamp
Description
Hosted by a trio of touring engineers, Live Sound Bootcamp (LSBC) is meant to help new engineers to learn live sound from the ground up, and also maybe provide some insight and humor to seasoned professionals. It is a primer on all topics in live sound.
Ryan O John is a musician turned engineer, turned product designer, turned podcast host. He was playing instruments by 5 years old, with his first shows at age 12, recording his own albums by 13, and touring by 16 -- he leans heavily toward the geeky side of sound. From small local clubs to international stadiums, metal to pop, Ryan's career in live sound mixing has covered a lot of ground traveling the world with a ton of artists including Jessie J, Andy Grammer, Tove Lo, Banks, Liam Payne, Capital Cities and many more. Beyond just touring with pop and rock acts, he also designs audio consoles and software, mix records, and race cars.
After Brendan Dreaper picked up the drums in middle school, live music became an important part of his life. With a number of diversions under his belt, which included studying economics and working as a professional glassblower, he returned to music and found his footing behind the mixing console. Working from bar gigs to local festivals and eventually to touring with Magic! and Snoh Aalegra, Brendan has had the pleasure of making live music happen. Outside of geeking out about live sound on a podcast, he likes to play drums with the band vverevvolf, produce music and get real nerdy about anything Lord of the Rings related.
The third member of the trio, Joe Santarpia, is a live sound and recording/mixing engineer of 15 years, Tour Manager, Musician and Producer. His touring resume includes Mac Demarco, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Connan Mockasin, Best Coast, Surfer Blood, Inner Circle and others. Joe was a former staff engineer at Circle House Studios in Miami, FL and Faultline Studios (RIP) in San Francisco. during his free time he is an electronics hobbyist and recreational ice hockey player.
49 Episodes
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Remember last episode when we said we would land in the concept of Season 3, answering listener questions, well we screwed that up. In this episode we answer a question that we had, about how best to go about capturing and mixing orchestral instruments, in classical environments, and also in the context of adding strings to a pop or rock act. One would think this would be a short and simple episode, but nope, as usual, we go on and on. This Episode features guest host Aram P...
So finally we fall into the concept of Season 3, answering listener questions. In this episode we answer a question that digs into dialogue, corporate events, house of worship, expectations, auto mixing, noise reduction, how to make a talking human sound like what the audience expects. One would think this would be a short and simple episode, but nope, as usual, we go on and on.
Lies and lies, we told you that we would have shorter episodes, and we told you that Season three would be dedicated to digging directly into listener questions, but this episode ended up being the very long answer to some in-person questions that we had run into recently. In this episode we talk about how to start your day when arriving at a new venue, all the way through how to get through your load out. There are quite a few interesting tidbits on how to move through your daily check...
As we enter season three of this podcast, we've decided it makes sense to finally really dig directly into listener questions. We also had realized that while we had touched on this in many other episodes, we didn't actually ever make an episode dedicated to one of the most important skills in live audio: Troubleshooting. We knock on a few of the most common issues one may come across, and some of the most likely fixes!
Sticking to the "wall of sound" instruments we chat about strings and some of the various methods for getting them to sound cohesive, or stick out as solo instruments. While this may not be the most common input an average live sound engineer may come across, the methods for achieving natural sounds with unnatural micing are somewhat easy to transfer to other similar instrument types. We chat about how to best capture strings, and we dig into monitoring, equalization, dynamics pro...
We gave up on the idea that we would cover multiple topics in this one episode, but in this extra-long episode we knock out one! Choirs and background vocalists, why did we even think that this was similar to horns and strings? Because the goal is often a "wall of sound." We chat about how to best capture groups of singers, and we dig into monitoring, equalization, dynamics processing, and more!
We really really did think that we would cover multiple topics in this one episode, but in this extra-long episode we barely covered one! Not the most common input but brass instruments can be challenging to get right. We chat about how to best capture live various brass instruments, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, isolation, effects and a lot more.
Since it's been ages since we've done an episode, in this extra-long episode we try to make up for lost time! Continuing down the path of the channel by channel season, we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture live pianos, how to set up patches in pianos and synths, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation, effects and a lot more.
In this extra-long episode we skip ahead a bit, and dig into arguably the most important input, vocals. Like all of the previous episodes we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture the sound, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation, effects and a lot more, but we also talk a lot about goals and intent with vocal sounds. This episode also features a special guest host, studio owner, producer, and touring musician Greg Karas.
A whole family of inputs in the channel list, this episode we dig into an assortment of instruments that come up in many genres. Acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments can be a pain. A pain to get cleanly into wedges for monitoring, and a pain to make sound good given how dynamic they can be, but they're such commonly played instruments. Like the previous episodes we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture the sound, and we dig into equalization, dyna...
Throwing the hosts for a loop, this episode is an off-the-cuff dive into how routing affects your line check. We dig into the idea of using grouping for drums, bass, and other instruments, talk about when to get this routing going, and what the benefits can be. We really dig into idea of when and why to use group bussing, and also the processing that an engineer might use on a group versus a channel.
Guitars, often the next input in the list, can be quite complicated to manage. This episode dives into how to capture the tones, how to process them, and even how to approach conversations with the players themselves to achieve tones that are best fit for the mix. We touch on microphones, placement, and some options on what to do when you have one guitar player, versus two, versus three!
The next input in the channel list: Bass Guitar. Weirdly, we don't actually talk much about basses pedals and amps, but man we really dig into the processing that an engineer can use to get the most out of this instrument. Like the previous episodes we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation and a lot more. I'd also like to call out, that your subwoofer to mains to room relationship has a lot to do with how your bass instruments will sound in your space, be su...
We honestly thought this might be a boring episode, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting discussions. In this episode we chat about cymbal selection, microphones, mic positions, processing, and a heck of a lot more. This is a set of inputs that honestly took the three of us years to figure out how to use effectively and creatively.
In this episode we bring in a guest-expert Emmanuel “E-MAN” Cervantes (this guy literally started playing drums at age 3!), and hit the next set of inputs in the channel list: Toms. Like the previous episodes we talk about drums types, tuning, microphones, mic positions, and a heck of a lot more. In fact we probably overshare in this 70+ minute episode getting seriously detailed about how to make toms sound good in a mix.
As we continue through the line-check, we hit input number 2, commonly the loudest thing on stage, the snare drum. Much like the first episode in the line-check, we dig into the drum sizes, the heads, the tuning, mics positions and processing.
Season 2 is here! In this season we dig into each input, one at a time. It's like the podcast of a line check. Input 1, the infamous kick drum. We deep dive into the drum sizes, heads, tuning, mics, eq, dynamics and more, an entire episode dedicated to the biggest drum.
How many times have you walked into a venue or event space and found a system that's severely underpowered for the gig? Sometimes that scenario is a PA thats just too small, speakers on sticks for a big rock show, sometimes it's a system that doesn't even cover the whole audience.... In this episode we talk through some of the options and tools you have as an engineer to get the most out of a system thats 'too small for the gig.'
We ask the age-old question, What can I do to make my mix feel loud without actually just turning it up? And what about streaming, how do I make a livestream seem loud? What defines impact, and what are some tools we can use to maximize the feeling of impact without having to simply make the show push more SPL?
So we've talked a lot about what each of the mixing tools do, but what happens when you simply don't have enough hands to make the changes from song-to song quickly enough? In this episode we break down 'Snapshots,' what they are, when to use them, and even why they're absolutely terrifying!
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