Beijing's state of sound
By admin on 2015-01-09

China has a profusion of new bands and clubs featuring a wide variety of music. Most of the music business is in Beijing and Shanghai. However, with the music and live performance industry rapidly expanding, support crews such as audio engineers and equipment manufacturers are lagging far behind, creating a great entry point into the market for those in the know.

Clear and properly-mixed live sound is the key to a good stage show, along with quality instruments and of course a fine performance. It is even more crucial in the recording studio.

Many show promoters appear to be concerned mostly about ticket sales and less about the sound. Equipment is sometimes rushed into service and sound crews are inexperienced.

Even in Hong Kong at an Eric Clapton show, many concertgoers left early because of the poor sound quality. A growing number of enterprises have sprung up in Beijing to meet the increasing demands and sophistications of the audience and musicians.

The engineer and the equipment acting together with the music, creates what makes for a memorable show. Sound engineering is an art as well as a science, with no substitute for instinct and experience.

After hearing systems around Beijing from studios to live venues, Reuben Rodriquez and Jon Oliphant decided to form Masque Audio Gear.

Masque is the main distributor of custom designed V-Acoustics speakers. They also rent and sell pro-audio equipment for live concerts and events, provide technical and production support and offer practice and recording studios.

This new enterprise aims to ramp up what is heard around town in studios, clubs and concert halls by producing pro-audio speakers of the highest sonic quality and providing creative sound mixing and cutting-edge recording techniques.

Oliphant adds nearly 15 years of business experience in China to the partnership and also has a background in music and performance. Although new on the Beijing scene, Masque already has some high profile clients.

The creation of V-Acoustics was based upon Rodriquez's years of pro-audio engineering experi-ence working with Grammy award winners and platinum selling bands and artists such as Santana, Christina Aguilera, Depeche Mode, The Beach Boys and James Brown.

When asked about the sound quality of live performances he said that most of the live shows he has seen in China are substandard and it is not for the lack of good audio gear. It is the lack of experience and creativity of the engineers and many Chinese artists agree.

Rodriquez added that also disappointing was working with a few well-known Chinese sound engineers who didn't deliver as promised.

Rodriquez and Oliphant are committed to making a real difference in the industry and feel that audio is both a passion and art. Their motto is that you can be an audio engineer for the money, but you have to have a passion for it 100 percent to be able to understand it completely. Having unflinching dedication to this art and keeping up with technology or inventing it and using it to the maximum is the key to success, according to the duo.

Jack Guo is an Australian sound engineer and professor of audio engineering at the Midi School of Music in Beijing. He does sound for The Verse and MTV and is an experienced musician in his own right. He has worked with many top Chinese bands and artists including Cui Jian, Zhang Chu and Dou Wei.

Regarding the overall quality of recording in China he said that he doesn't listen to many Chinese records and that most people nowadays listen to MP3s with earplugs and tiny desktop multimedia speakers.

For live performances, he figures that in Beijing and Shanghai, for some serious events and venues, the sound quality can go as high as eight or even nine out of 10, but that's not average. Most of the time, you will be lucky when you hear six to seven out of 10 sound. The other cities, according to Guo, have a long way to come.

Guo said that a lot could be improved with more basic knowledge about sound systems, concepts about live sounds and well-trained technicians. The quality of equipment is the last thing to be worried about in Beijing and Shanghai for almost all of the top-notch branded gear can be found. If you have the money and connections almost everything is available, plus home-grown Chinese audio equipment brands are getting much better.

In other cities, not having the correct and quality tools for the job is a main concern, as well as poor engineering.

In terms of musicians, Gou said that many Chinese acts are pretty good and although the quality is a lot better than 10 years ago, it is far from perfect.

Huangbo is the veteran lead vocalist/guitarist for The Verse, a seminal Beijing-based, 10-piece Chinese funk band. They have played hundreds of venues over the past 10 years with rarely any decent sound quality, but he said that the live houses; Yugongyishan, The One and Mao (currently closed), in Beijing, are outstanding.

Things are getting better and the music scene bigger. With dedicated engineers, innovative equipment and musicians, the state of the sound is sure to rise with new red hot talent on both sides of the stage, finally creating a definitive a Beijing sound.