There was a time when I could roll into almost any venue, never seen the board before, and still run the show. Not because I was some technical wizard—but because being a sound guy was more about feel than formulas. You touched the faders. You felt the pulse of the room. You listened—not just with your ears, but with your spine. You could smell when something was about to blow.

I never made it into the band, but I got close enough to breathe the same air. I was the guy behind the console. The guy who made them sound like gods for 45 minutes. And yeah, like they said in Empire Records, I just wanted to be in the band. But I couldn’t sing. Couldn’t play. So I twisted knobs. Ran cables. Hauled gear. And found religion in every perfectly timed delay.

My first setup was all analog:

• A Samick SM-1200 12-channel desk
• A QSC RMX2450 power amp
• A mess of mismatched speakers, XLR cables, ¼-inch adapters, and duct-taped road cases

It wasn’t fancy. It was barely reliable. But it had soul. You learned to work around the hums, the ground loops, the quirks in the EQ bands. Half the art was managing problems that didn’t have a fix.

And then I stepped away.

You can’t tour forever. Life doesn’t care how much you love the gig. Bodies break down. The road gets old. The bar starts smelling less like adventure and more like regret. So I moved on. At least, I tried to.

And right around the time I packed up my cables for good, something funny happened: the studio hit the road.

Suddenly, everything was digital. Boards shrunk down to a single surface. Mixers turned into touchscreens. Racks were replaced by laptops. The gear I used to lust over in Mix magazine could now fit in a backpack. And I couldn’t help but wonder—if all this had come a few years earlier, would I have stuck it out?

Maybe.

But maybe not. Because what I really miss isn’t the gear. It’s the chaos. The ritual. The wildness. I miss rolling into a venue and having no idea what I was about to face—and knowing I could still make it work. I miss the unspoken bond with the other weirdos in black shirts who smelled like cigarettes and solder. I miss the hum.

A few months back, I stumbled into a YouTube channel that stirred it all up again: Nick DeLaCruz. Here’s this dude doing interviews with front-of-house engineers from some of the biggest tours in the world—Metallica, Pearl Jam, Billie Eilish, everyone. But what makes it special is how not flashy it is. He’s just there to shine a light on the people behind the faders. The ones who never take a bow.

And man, it hit me.

I’ve been out of the game for years. But watching Nick talk shop with these FOH legends, I realized: we’re all just chasing the same high. That moment when the band locks in, the PA behaves, and you feel the whole crowd lean forward. That’s the drug.

And like any true addict, I went deeper. Found Chris Hammill Audio, a guy doing gear walkthroughs for churches. I’m not religious, but church tech is wild now. Digital boards. Wireless rigs. Virtual soundchecks. Budget builds that would’ve melted my face 20 years ago. I watch it all. Why? Because it’s gear porn. And I am not in recovery.

Is it too geeky to want to hear from the people behind the console on the biggest tours in the world? Probably. But there are worse things to do on the internet.

But here’s the philosophical part: I think part of me misses the dirt. The grime. The unpredictability. All this digital stuff? It’s beautiful. But it’s clean. Precise. Logical. The board doesn’t lie anymore. It doesn’t drift. Doesn’t fight you. And that’s… weird. Because being a sound guy used to mean wrestling with chaos. And sometimes the chaos won.

Now, it’s more like managing a spreadsheet. It works. It’s smarter. But it doesn’t bleed.

Still, I can’t help but smile. Because in a weird way, this new wave of portable, intelligent gear feels like a second chance. If I ever get back behind a board—and I might—I know the rules have changed. But the game? The game is still sound. Still energy. Still electricity and instinct and timing.

And if you know what that feels like… you never really roll away.

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