//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Soundcheck // Story: The Life and Advantages of Being Famous // by capekall //------------------------------// Octavia grabbed her cello and made her way to the stage. The room was way bigger then she had expected. ‘About thousand ponies will be out there to look at the show’ she thought. Her mind produced an image of her playing the cello in this room. The room's lights were off, but a few spotlights pointed at her. The crowd was eager for her play and excitement came up in every face, as she started to play. Everypony was stunned for the whole song, but started to clap as loud as possible as soon as it is over. “Play something and tell me, when you need more volume on your monitor” it shouted from the other side of the room. This had no concert atmosphere like that. Every light shone at its maximum power and the room was lit comepletely. The walls were made out of concrete, just like the backstage room, although no posters were hung up. The floor had some hoof prints on it and it was obviously dirty. Some cleaning ponies were doing their job and rushed through the great hall to clean the stains of the last party. The pony which shouted at her was the mixing engineer. He had his desk at the backside of the hall. Just in the middle to get the full bandwidth of sound in the stage room. He was a little corpulent and looked as if he hadn’t slept in 3 day, or even longer. “Ya wanna play something, or are you just looking ‘round the room?” “Oh… I.. I just need to tune my cello.” Octavia replied. “Darnit, couldn’t you do this before you get here?” the colt bugged. “Sorry!” She took out her cello and began to tune, while the engineer whistled something to show his impatientness. “Alright, we can start” She shouted a few minutes later. “Finally! Okay, take that mic and play something.” An assistant came from behind and placed a dynamic microphone in front of her cello. It looked like a black stick with a net at one end. It had no ball as the microphones for singers. It was just a flat stick. The assistant placed it slightly right and pointed it at the space where the bow touches the strings. She began to play a sweet melody she had written yesterday. No pony had ever heard it before. She didn’t know why, but she felt like she had to play it. Maybe it was because she thought that the other ponies in the room would say something afterwards. It sounded like small butterflies flew down an astonishing nature. If the music was an image, you could see meadows with flowers in every color and a stream dividing one side from another. But the cleaning ponies didn’t care. They just did their job without really listening. The mixing engineer started to turn some wheels, move some faders and pushed a button here and there. His hooves rushed from left to right, from one side to another, stopping every now and then to hear the differences and think about, what to do next. Octavia heard that the sound changed, but she couldn’t identify how it changed. She didn’t really hear anything. The music filled the entire hall, but you couldn’t hear anything on stage except some quiet reverb coming from the other side of the room. Before even two minutes had passed he was already done. Ocatavia was impressed by his skills and in combination with her playing, she seemed a little absent. “Okay, do you hear yourself loud enough?” He shouted to interrupt Octavia’s melody. She woke from her trance. “Ehhhm.. well… to be honest: I don’t hear anything except the sound coming out of my cello.” “Errgh” he sighed irritated. “You wanna tell me the monitors do not work?” “I don’t know whether they do not work or there is just a cable missing, but I can’t hear anything.” The engineer trotted through the hall towards the stage to identify the problem. It was pretty simple – the monitors were turned off. “Next time ya turn dem on before asking for help” he told in a grumpy manner, while making his way back to the mixing console. “Ohh, sorry… I didn’t know I needed to. I thought they were online the whole time.” “Okay, then play something again and tell me when it is loud enough on stage.” She continued her song and the volume slowly started to increase. “I think it is fine like that” She said a little irritated, trying to get help from the engineer. She didn’t know if everything was set up like this in the real gig. But the mixing engineer didn’t get her allusion. “Fine that’s all, you can go back to the backstage room.” “NEXT PONY” he shouted towards one of his assistants. Octavia felt a little left alone, because she had no idea if she did everything right. Was it really loud enough? She put her cello back in its case and wondered why the mixer was so grumpy. She came to the conclusion that it was because he mixed too many ponies in a row without getting a break. She took her case and made her way back to the backstage room. The anticipation she had felt before was completely gone and she couldn’t remember why she had felt it. ----- She took a seat next to the silvern mare and tried to start a conversation. "You're Amelia, right?" "Amalia, actually. You must be Octavia if I'm not mistaken" the mare said in a very elegant and enjoyable way. Her voice sounded very warm and Octavia felt amused for the first time. Everything else here was so depressive and frantic, she wished to let this conversation never stop. “Yeah.” “Nice to meet you.” Amalia raised her hoof, ready to perform a brohhoof. Octavia got the sign but answered with a hoofshake. “You’re new to music buis, aren’t you?” Amalia asked. “Yeah, how do you know?” “Well, it isn’t that difficult. I haven’t seen you here before and you look a little distracted. Furthermore, musicians do mostly greet in an amicable way with a brohoof or somthing like that.” She said with a smile. “Oh yeah, that’s just because everything is so new for me. And so different. I thought the backstage room is more comfortable, the ponies are more groomed and the hall was full of people. Like you see in movies.” she responded with a disappointed look on her face. Amalia laughed. “Ohh yeah, the classical image of music. I assure you: it isn’t like you see it in movies. Most of the backstage rooms are just as simple as this one. Maybe even more spartan. Sometimes you don’t have a fridge and just some chairs to sit.” “Okay. But why is everypony so harsh? And where is the audience?” “Look, they aren’t harsh. They are just stressed. For example the mixing engineer. He has a very tough job. He needs to hear about 20 different artists in such a short amount of time. And everytime he needs to hear everything right. One mistake and the sound will be awful at the gig. That’s exhausting for him and his ears. And when you are done, the next artist is coming in and your ears need to be fresh to do the same procedure again. I think you would be just the same if you had the job.” She smiled again. “The mixers you see in movies are mostly private sound engineers who are hired to mix one band. That is way more comfortable. You just need to hear one artist and once your job is done, it’s home time. That’s why they look a lot more relaxed. And why should here be an audience? By now it is just the soundcheck. They will come later, for the main gig.” “Ohhh, I see. I didn’t know all this. That’s my first big show. I just played in my small living room before. Sometimes at small parties, but there were not more than 10 ponies.” This time she smiled at the silver pony. “Sorry if I destroy your imagination, but this show isn’t really big. Normally 20 to 50 ponies would come here. Although the room provides enough space for more. But those classic concerts aren’t well patronized. By the way which instrument do you play?” “I play cello.” “Oh cool, I'm a pianist.” Both sat there talking about music. Octavia asked some questions she wanted to know and Amalia replied, to show her the real side of music business and not the sight showed in the media. Minute after minute passed by and they lost themselves in each others words. It looked like Octavia found a friend in this new and odd environment.