What’s Most Important: The Career & Influences Of Monitor Engineer Whitney Olpin

Foot In The Door

Boston proved to be tough going. Between bartending full-time, late-night studio sessions and going to classes, Olpin was burning out. “I had to go home. So I went back to LA, slept on my mom’s couch, paid off bills, and tried to figure out my next move.”

Then the phone rang – a friend from Boston with a lead on an audio technician gig. “I called them. I was book smart but didn’t know how to apply that in a live setting, but they just said, ‘It’s 75 bucks a day. Can you start in two weeks?’ So I got in the car and drove back east.

Luckily the bar I worked at before liked me, so I worked there again and that really did support my audio addiction. Without that job I would never have been able to keep my head above water.”

Over the next two years she received a hands-on education in audio before returning to LA to be near her brother as he recovered from a life-threatening motorcycle accident. Again, she stayed afloat by bartending and doing audio at venues like House of Blues on Sunset and Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach, constantly honing her chops. Again, the schedule became a tough slog. “I was like, what’s it going to take for me to get ahead?”

Again there was a phone call, this time an offer to work as monitor engineer for jazz artist Melody Gardot’s 2015 U.S. tour. “I was so excited. She’s talented, and huge – she was selling out arenas in Europe,” Olpin says. “The band was exceptional. The guitar player would say, ‘Can I have 1 dB less of 400 Hz?’ And he’d know, and he’d look at me if I didn’t pull it.”

Her background as a pianist also came in handy: “It was a different piano in every city, and sometimes just whatever they had in the back. I spent all day on stage. They’d do a two-hour sound check, rehearsing, and they played for two hours.”

Since then the phone has kept on ringing for multiple gigs like a one-off filling in for Grace Royse on a Fitz and The Tantrums show, which turned into a long-term job after Royse moved on. Olpin has also toured extensively with Marian Hill and last year took to the high seas for a pair of music festival cruises. “The first was ‘90s alternative rock, and the second was folk and Americana; people jamming in the round, everybody on wedges. It was really fun, but it feels a bit like a tour bus you can’t get off,” she adds with laugh.

Many Routes

Even while she’s on the road, Olpin is always on the lookout for new paths to travel – or, more accurately, new trails to head down. “I’m a big hiker. Right now my sister and I are talking about doing the High Sierra Trail. My mom’s side of the family is from the Pacific Northwest and they’re huge into it, so it trickled down. Every time I get a new tour schedule, I look at it and go, where am I going to hike?”

Currently she’s freelancing from home and doing occasional fly dates. When Fitz goes out next, she’s considering moving to a DiGiCo SD Series console. “We use a Soundcraft Vi6, which I like, but they’re hard to source and not many people actually use them, so I’m always troubleshooting,” she notes. “I took a DiGiCo out with Marian Hill and really liked the way it sounded. I feel like it’s built just for monitors, almost. And the SD12 has a smaller footprint. The Vi6 is huge.”

As for her own next move, given how often she’s relocated, I wonder, would she consider working the other end of the split? “For a while I thought I wanted to,” she says. “I did FOH in clubs, but on tour, I’ve only done it for an opening act. Fitz’s front of house engineer, Aaron (Glas), just purchased an Avid VENUE | S6L and I really wanted to try it. I was nervous; he’s a hell of a FOH engineer, and I was like, he’s going to hear me mix on a desk I don’t know.”

Unsurprisingly, she went right ahead and asked the opening act if they’d like her to mix. “They’d been using house engineers and I’d watched them and was like, this band is so fun. They were right up my alley. I ended up mixing them for the whole tour, just four weeks or so. I liked it a lot, but I’ve found my home at monitors. Personality wise I was meant to deal with the artist.”

Working an outdoor gig with friends Amy Truong (left), patch tech for Rat Sound Systems and Zee Nolan (right), stage tech for Eighth Day Sound.

She also loves the ongoing dialog – before, during and after shows – and making performers feel comfortable and confident. “That’s the most important thing, but it definitely has to be a personality fit,” she explains. “I’ll use Marian Hill as an example. Sam, their singer, is the sweetest thing ever. To the point where she wouldn’t tell me what she needed. I was new, so it took a couple shows before I was like, trust me, girl. I can take it. This is your show. Tell me what you want. We got comfortable.”

Know Your Exit

Olpin’s approach is also a product of her having started out working on less than-ideal-gear and making sure she’s ready to deal with anything. “I try to provide attention where it’s needed. It’s absolutely about trust. I also always say, know your exit. I’ve become kind of OCD about that. I lay out everything, make sure I have what I need, check the talkback mics multiple times during sound check, check the track and click a few times.

“That’s from when I was the only person working in a club and it was usually four bands in a row. Something always went wrong. I was always troubleshooting, but because I was alone I had to get ahead of it. I just learned that way and it bled into how I run everything.”

Coming back to the personality fit, she continues: “If you’re not happy in a gig or don’t have a family on the gig… I mean I’ve had engineer friends tell me about a big tour and I say that’s so exciting. How was it? And they’ve hated it. They didn’t get along with the artist. They didn’t have any buddies on the crew. It can be lonely on tour. No matter how cool it is and how much they pay you, it’s a job. You really are on an island at that point. I’ve seen people take what some people might consider a lesser gig just because they get to do it with their friends and with an artist they really enjoy working for.”

As for what’s next, she concludes, “I think that’s where I aim; to be happy wherever I land. That, I’ve learned, is what’s most important.”