Early days

I flunked some classes in high school. I had been a working actor growing up, and I was supposed to play an important role in "Sweeney Todd." And I flunked these classes. They wanted to keep me involved because I'm a creative person, but the only position they could offer me was sound. It was the first time I ever got to mix anything. It was a big giant thrill, because I got to control ten wireless microphones, and I didn't know a single thing, I didn't know what gain structure was, I didn't know what EQ was.

I was just turning knobs and trying to make it sound okay. And catching cues, I got to do a little sound design. It was funny, because they wouldn't let me be in the play but they'd let me run the sound for the play. To this day, it doesn't make sense to me. It was kind of fate, because it pulled me out of acting. Within two years, I had stopped what I had been training since I was six years old to do. I had my SAG card and AFTRA card by the time I was seven. Of course, all my friends were playing music and so many more girls were interested in that rather than actors.

Aron Mandelbaum at FOH

(Aron went on to become a touring mixer and also work at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. He remembers some highlights of those days.) Well, getting smooched by Edda James when you fix her fan as it falls down, that's always fun. Getting a timbale lesson from Tito Puente while doing monitors, that was interesting.

On the road with Snoop Doggy Dogg

When I went out on tour with Snoop, I learned a lot about being able to take care of anything that can possibly happen. A lot of crazy things happened on that tour. For example, during one show, a lot of our crew quit and I ended up leading trucks into the bay, and helping to put together a set that I had never put together before. I had to be thankful for my theater background or I wouldn't have known what to do. That was an exciting event.

Also, I really learned that there are many different ways to mix, to put together sound systems. There is no one right way. There are a lot of people out there who really know what they're doing, and at the same time there's a whole bunch of these same engineers who complain that nobody else knows what they're doing. Going out with Snoop Dogg and being in the midst of absolute anarchy, seeing a lot of different systems, and having to do a guerilla war mix. You've gotta just jump in and do what you can with the space. For instance, with Snoop we had sixteen mixes with his original band, nine wireless microphones, six back-up singers, DJs, and a full band which was often at the opposite side of the stage from the monitor console. You learn a lot about how to make things happen even when they shouldn't happen.

Troubleshooting a long way from home

One time, we were at the Pyramid in Memphis and when we got to the sound check, things were buzzing and making noises. They had an old monitor console and a pretty large monitor system. I worked with the sound company to try to fix it for about four hours and then leaned over this patch bay that's up in the right hand corner. The funny thing is that never before and never since have I seen a patch bay on a monitor console. As I was leaning over the patch bay, I touched some cable and the buzzing got four times worse. I threw up my hands and said "fix this!" I really didn't have any time to work on it any longer, I was getting frustrated, and it wasn't my system.

I went for my dinner break and when I came back the sound crew had quit (working) and said they'd come back the next day and fix it. I hadn't gotten a sound check. Also, the artist had been there for a long time too, and he wasn't happy. We come back the next morning. I get there a little later, expecting things to be handled by two thirty in the afternoon, and they're still working on the same problem. I still can't do a sound check. At this point in time the crew is pretty infamous for beating up monitor engineers. All I wanted was for them to have a great, professional event, which I knew they had not yet experienced. So finally I told them to get rid of the console. They went and found another one in the city and everything was fine.

I ended up running around with nine wireless microphones sound checking a whole stage, sixteen mixes and back side fills with no band. It was the second gig I had done with them. It worked out only because I was able to say "What's the problem? How can we fix it?" If I had gone with the suggestions of the sound company we would have still had the same console there that night. You've gotta put your foot down and get things done. You can't give in to what people are saying around you. There were a lot of engineers around that day giving me flack the whole time about what I was doing and how I was doing it. Meanwhile they had spent a whole day dicking around with the sound system and not fixing it. These are guys who are fifteen or twenty years older than me. That's another thing I learned on that tour, it doesn't matter how old you are.

I also learned that it's important to know what equipment to ask for in a pinch. Simplicity is the key to live audio. Making things happen quickly with very little trouble getting to the pieces that you need. Everybody likes their high tech equipment (I do too, a SMAART system is definitely a beautiful function) but when you've got very little time, it doesn't make a lot of sense because you've got an audience walking in, or in the worst case scenario it's just not the item to be using, whereas in this case I asked for a TAC Scorpion and Yamaha EQs. Something straight ahead, simple, and a combination I knew would work. I wouldn't have traded it for a Midas or a Yamaha 4KM.