As I am already employed in a busy recording studio I used this job as my “placement” for the purposes of this assignment.
2018
In October of 2018 I had already been doing live sound engineering as a volunteer in various venues and churches when I decided I wanted to more experience of the industry, specifically recording classical music. I got in contact with a freelance recording engineer who was doing a lot work at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) and arranged a date that I could shadow him on.
The shadowing took place at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall over a weekend and involved learning how to set up microphones for recording a live orchestral concert on the Saturday and then the microphones were left in place for a recording session in the concert hall on the Sunday followed by the derig. The engineer seemed impressed with me and invited me back on a semi regular basis to assist with the archive recordings of RSNO concerts.
2019
Over the next year while working freelance as a student recording assistant at the RSNO I learned more about recording orchestras and gained skills in: microphone placement, analogue and digital signal routing and even how to set up network controlled PTZ cameras for capturing video of the concerts as well.
Around this time I also started to design and 3D print microphone accessories including an adapter that holds two Schoeps CCM4 cardioid microphones in an ORTF arrangement that can be slung from the roof of the concert hall and has been used on many RSNO recordings to this day.
2020
The experience I had gained over the last couple of years showed me that I wanted to work in the recording industry and led to my decision to drop out of a Naval Architecture degree at Strathclyde University to study Audio Engineering. It also meant that I was ready to take on one of the RSNO concert archive recordings myself. Unfortunately this was not to be…
In March 2020 the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced. This meant that all RSNO concerts were cancelled for the foreseeable future.
In June 2020, I was asked to work as a freelance recording engineer again. This time for the Edinburgh International festival (EIF) although involving the RSNO. Because of the covid restrictions the festival would not be able to go ahead with a live audience, so the decision was made to film two concerts with socially distanced musicians in an empty Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. Over a week I assisted teams from the RSNO, Stagecast (a company specialising in filming orchestral concerts) and Linn Records to record the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) and the RSNO to record concerts that would be released for free on YouTube in August when the festival would have occurred.
From this work in Edinburgh I made new contacts which led to more work from Stagecast recording concerts for the SCO in and empty Perth Concert Hall and work from Linn Records assisting on several classical recording releases.
2021
Over the next few months I continued working as a freelance recording assistant on covid lockdown recordings for several Scottish orchestras (RSNO, SCO, Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet) until I saw a the RSNO put up a job listing for an audio engineer intern and a video production intern. I saw the audio engineer intern job listed in several places including the RSNO’s website and social media, the Creative Scotland “Opportunities” web page and the “Scottish Event Technicians and Crew” Facebook page.
After updating my CV and writing a cover page I applied to the internship.
Below you can read my CV from the time and the cover letter I sent along with it.
Out of 82 applicants, 10 were offered an interview.
My interview took place on the 7th April and later on the same day I received a phone call offering me the job which started on the 19th April.