Sound Profiles: The Journeys of Deanne Franklin
A mixer in determined pursuit of doing what she
loves
Awhile ago I saw a film industry T-shirt exclaiming “Do what you love!”
On the back of the shirt, though, the assistant director really wanted
to be the director, and the director really wanted to be the producer,
and so on.
If the audio industry had a similar T-shirt, it would be the wrong size
for Deanne Franklin, a sound engineer based in San Francisco, because
she’s already doing what she loves. She’s mixed numerous artists with
styles ranging across the music spectrum and has traveled down-under,
up and over, and around the world.
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Like many sound engineers, Franklin entered the audio industry from another career. Raised in southern California, she did her first “tour” with a pair of scissors and a comb as she styled her way across Europe, working as a hairdresser. Following a two-year period in England, Greece, France, and a few other European locations, she returned to Los Angeles and made friends with some recording engineers, and then embarked on a study of sound. Moving along to San Francisco, she began her new career as second engineer at a recording studio. |
While the studio job didn’t pay anything, the time spent there paid off
substantially. In addition to gaining knowledge, she began trading her
time working in the studio for “off-peak” time to record her own projects,
recording bands like MDC, Sugar Babylon, and the Sea Hags. She also began
fielding requests from bands to mix their live performances, and this
led to venue owners asking her to fill in on other nights. Before long,
she was mixing live bands seven nights a week.
“I really feel fortunate to have had such a great opportunity. A lot of
the up-and-coming ‘90s bands were playing the clubs where I worked at
the time,” says Franklin.
SKILLS & PHILOSOPHIES
In 1987, Franklin landed her first official tour, mixing Game Theory in
three separate stints across the U.S. She subsequently joined GWAR for
a U.S. and European swing, and since then, she’s worked numerous tours
with acts such as The Breeders, Tom Waits, and Pink. Generally, she loves
being out on the road.
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“There are good tours and bad tours, and you always hope you get
on a good tour. A good tour is one where everyone enjoys being out
on the road and likes touring itself, rather than just doing it
for the money,” she notes. |
“At any given show, you may have a girl who is really into the drums and
just has to feel that beat, while the person next to her is mainly interested
in the vocals and wants to hear every word,” she explains. “Then, the
person next to that person is studying violin and is wondering about the
fingerings and is really focusing on the violin sound. And a person behind
them just wants to relax and soak in the overall sound.”
Franklin has been able to mix artists of greatly divergent styles with
equally diverse views on how much control they exercise over their sound.
“When I mix Tom Waits, I record each show with two microphones at front
of house so Tom can listen to what the audience heard,” she says. “He
reviews the tapes after each performance and can detect subtle differences
between each show. If he notices the guitar get a little louder during
a point in the show, he’ll ask ‘Did the guitar player turn up, or was
that you?’”
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GETTING INTO GEAR |
She also likes to have an old-school dbx 120x sub-harmonic synthesizer on hand (if available). Having used digital consoles a few times, she still feels more an analog person.
“I like to see what’s going on with everything all of the time,” she notes. “If I have 2K pulled down a bit on several channels, I like to be able to glance at the board and see that and not have to click through each channel to see what’s going on.”
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Perhaps some reservations about digital consoles can be related to an experience at the 1998 South-by-Southwest festival in Austin, mixing Liz Phair. Early in the show, the console froze and the PA went completely silent. Because the monitors were still up and running, Phair kept playing, but the FOH board and system remained down until the last song. “Since it was SXSW, and the schedule was tight, you only got to play for your allotted amount of time. I was furious about the situation, and the record company was also very upset that they had paid to fly in an engineer to mix their artist and then had no PA.” |
“THEN DO IT”
Because Franklin is a woman at the helm for so many large shows, she draws
notice, most frequently from women who approach her and say, “You’re so
lucky to be doing this. I wish I could.” To that, Franklin responds, “Then
do it. If you want to do it, you can.”
She advises anyone interested in sound to get involved in related areas.
“Go to a venue and get a job being a loader, and when you’re finished
unloading the trucks, hang around and watch what the sound people are
doing. Ask them questions, and if they’re not too busy, they may let you
help. Most people are willing to share their knowledge, and you can really
learn a lot.”
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Further, she encourages women in particular to not worry that they don’t know enough. Although she admits that when a guy and a girl with the same level of experience are asked “Who can do this?”, the guy is more likely to say, “I’ll do it,” she has heartening words for women. “Even if you feel there’s something you don’t know, there’ll be something else that you do know that the other person doesn’t. For example, the guy may have more technical knowledge starting out, but you might be able to get the band to turn down, and he can’t. So it all balances out.” |
Speaking from experience, she’s encountered a few individuals along
the way who’ve tried to discourage her from pursuing a mixing career.
Way back in the beginning, the female manager of a recording studio asked
her, “What’s wrong with being a hairdresser? Hairdressers make good money!
You should stick with that.”
Franklin, however, wanted to be a sound engineer, and doggedly continued
the quest. It’s an effort that continues to undeniably pay off. And after
all, Deanne Franklin is simply doing what she loves.
A partial list of Deanne Franklin's clients
JACK JOHNSON
TOM WAITS
PINK
DAVID BYRNE
AIMEE MANN
HERBERT GROENEMEYER
BETH ORTON
SONIC YOUTH
BRAN VAN 3000
CHRIS ISAAK
LUNA
CIBO MATTO
NATALIE MERCHANT
THE AMPS
LIZ PHAIR
THE BREEDERS
L7
POI DOG PONDERING,
SISTER DOUBLE HAPPINESS
Staff engineer at the Fillmore, the Warfield, Slim's, Bimbo's, and the I-Beam, all venues located in San Francisco.
Chris Bushick, an engineer and writer based in Austin, TX, can be reached at cbushick@hotmail.com
July 2003 Live Sound International