Organisers of music concerts stand the risk of making performing artistes flop and seem amateur on stage if the sound quality is below standard, Axzy Banky, Chief Executive of Achimrest Events Management, has stated.
“You can measure sound quality by looking at accuracy, enjoy ability and intelligibility of the audio output and the mishandling of these have caused many artistes to flop in their performance or come out a bad performers.
“Sound is everything in the production of an event and getting the sound right is not by accident. You need professionals to handle it. It is a specialised field that many event organisers take for granted,” Banky told NEWS-ONE.
He was explaining to the paper the importance of investing in quality sounds, professional lighting and the general ambiance in which music concerts are organised.
“If you have everything and your sound is bad, you have killed the vim of the artiste. It is not the distance that the sound can reach, but the quality within the range of your audience. Sometimes, it is also about bad equipment and we have seen instances where the musician gets frustrated because of the microphone, abandons the stage and walks away in anger because of bad sound,” Banky stated and gave clues as to how to get good sound quality.
“You look at the audience. Some require hard base, some want solid base, some want mid range. The setting for event counts a lot and the person in the control room should know the type of audience and what to give them. The sound setting for a high school jams is certainly different from the sound setting at the breakfast meeting for a group of bankers.
“Sometimes too, the quality of the sounds on the song itself creates problems for us. It is possible that you have been hired to play at an event; you set your sounds with a good song from an original CD. By the time you slot in another CD, you realise that the sound has changed because the sound quality on the second CD is below standard and done by an amateur
“There are many amateur sound producers all over and it becomes a problem to put out songs with good sounds because they are mostly half-baked and have not taken their time to learn well. Even playing songs from their studios puts the reputation of the DJ at stake.
“There are also others who are very, very good and when you play songs from their studios, you feel good. You find such quality sounds from the likes of Last Two, JQ, Appiatus, Zapp and some of the new guys who are doing very well when it comes to sound,” he added.
Banky has worked as a sound engineer and a DJ for a little over 16 years and his company, Achimrest Events Management, established some six years ago, is into events management and the rentals of sounds for outdoor and indoor events, stage of all sizes, events lights, generators and basically all the logistics which go into the production of outdoor events.
He explained that “there is tough competition and job is mostly on whom you know bases rather than merit. And even among ourselves, we get greedy and even when you know that your set of equipment can play just one gig, we split the sounds and take two contracts. Instead of telling another sound company to take the contract. I get a lot of links from Kaya Tours and Abeiku Santana and Kojo Mensah Bakayoko for instance, so I am always busy.
“At least, you get two major shows each month. Sometimes, you get major shows each week but even when there is not a major show, you have one wedding, or one church event or one private party to play at and earn some money,” Banky mentioned.
He had some advice for the youth, saying, “These days, I hear the youth complain that no one is helping them. It makes me laugh because you have to start something and be seen to be serious before someone would help you. But if you have not educated yourself, you have not learnt any craft or skill and you are not even doing anything, how can you expect someone to help you or even link you up.”