Dave Taylor

Freelance Sound Engineer and System Tec with 20+ year experience working in the live events industry covering concerts, conferences, festivals, musical theatre and Pantomime.

Available for Musical Theatre, Rock n Roll, Awards Ceremonies, conferences, festival tours and one-off events.

A Brief Introduction

Dave has been working in the live events industry for over 25 years. His experience is broad and wide-ranging, from touring national musical theatre and one night concert shows to working on festivals and corporate events as well as high profile awards ceremonies. Although primarily specialising in audio, Dave also has a firm grasp of modern lighting systems, pyrotechnics, video, rigging and computer networking.

Dave also holds a full, clean UK driving licence including category C (Class 2 HGV rigid) and current Digi Tacho and CPC cards.

Sound Engineer

As a sound engineer, Dave has toured extensively throughout the UK and into Europe with countless shows including musical theatre, touring pantomimes and one-night rock n roll shows.
When not touring Dave can be found behind the desk on anything from local festivals, large scale corporate events and high-end awards ceremonies, local short-run theatre shows, small corporate events and at Christmas time – Pantomime!
Shows that Dave has engineered include; Songs of Sister Act, Celtic Legends, RedRose BusinessAwards, NHS Celebrating success awards, Darlington Hipadrom Pantomime.

System Design and Tuning

Throughout his carrier, Dave has always had an interest in system design and particularly directional sub-array techniques.
Dave is proficient using modern prediction software, including Soundvision and easy focus, to pre-plan the deployment of PA systems large and small.
Deploying a system is only half the story; it also needs to be correctly tuned. To this end, Dave uses industry standard software such as SMAART to take accurate realtime measurements before interpreting the results and making system control changes. This ensures smooth and even coverage of the PA throughout the audience listening area.

System Tech

As a system tech Dave is quite at home setting up and monitoring systems for others to operate – making changes to system settings at the visiting engineers request quickly and efficiently, as well as offering advice and guidance where an engineer may not be overly familiar with the specific equipment that has been provided for their show that evening.

RF Environment Management

As shows and technology has evolved over the last decade, the call for wireless solutions has increased exponentially. Wireless microphones, wireless IEM systems, wireless Comms, site radios and even TV broadcast, to name but a few, can all interact with each other in the RF spectrum causing interference and dropout. 30 or more channels of radio mics alone are now not uncommon in musical theatre.

Dave has a very good understanding of fundamental RF principles and usees tools such as Shure Wireless Workbench and RF Explorer combined with many years of experience to provide multi-channel RF systems that will work alongside each other in harmony.

Dave also has a firm grasp on UK licencing laws for radio and IEM use within the entertainment industry, as well as the knowledge of where and how to obtain relevant licences when additional RF spectrum is required over and above the standard channel 38 UK licence.

Audio 2

Audio 2 is a title that has evolved out of Musical Theatre, and usually includes ‘a bit of everything’. Rf management, system tec, band patching, instrument tech, load in, load out, radio mic fitting and maintenance, cast and stage management liaison, running comms, system networking and relief engineer for FOH all come under the responsibility of the Audio 2.
As an engineer that has grown up in Musical Theatre, Dave thrives in the highly technical and multi-skilled role that has become the modern Audio 2 – It is not just putting new batteries in the radio mics every day anymore.

Rigging and Crewing

Having worked in the entertainment industry for over 25 years, and full time for a production company for half of those, Dave has developed many cross-department skills. The ability to read a lighting plan and rig it, being able to put a set together, knowing how to send an HD video signal from one end of an arena to another, comfortable working at hight, competent working with pyrotechnics, being strong fit and able, good problem solving and critical thinking plus 20+ years of playing truck Tetris all make Dave an ideal candidate for non-audio specific job rolls.

Playback Programming

Modern show sound design is more and more reliant on automation. Midi Show Control and timecode are vital to modern show to ensure precise timings. As computer playback devices have evolved over the years Dave has kept up with the technology and can quickly and efficiently build show que files that are large and complex sending and receiving control signals for automation and producing sound designs that would not be possible without computer playback, yet are intuitive and simple to operate. A modern Pantomine can have over 100 ‘GO’ ques, and countless more ques that trigger automatically in the background. Dave has over the years worked very hard to develop failover redundancy systems that will automatically switch seamlessly to a second machine in the event of a computer hardware or software failer mid-show.

Transport Logistics, Driving

Dave Has toured extensively throughout the last 2 decades, and so is no stranger to long drives to move a show from one venue to another. Dave has a full, clean UK driving licence along with current CPC and Digi Tacho cards. Driveing licence categories held include C (Class 2, Ridged HGV) and B1E (car/van with heavy trailer).
Dave has very good geographical knowledge of the countrys road network, and has been driving large vans and truck to just about every theatre in the country for the last 20 years.

Contact Me

David Taylor Contact Information

Dave Taylor

A Brief Introduction

Sound Engineer

System Design and Tuning

System Tech

RF Environment Management

Audio 2

Rigging and Crewing

Playback Programming

Transport Logistics, Driving

Contact Me

Phone

E-Mail

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