PROFILE
Amy Fort
By Maxime Brunet
A
my Fort is an FOH and record-
ing engineer and tour manager.
She was born in Kingston,
ON, and though she has lived
all over Canada and the U.S., it
was there, at Queen’s Univer-
sity’s CFRC campus station, that she began
her journey in audio.
Upon moving to Montreal in 2010, Fort
continued working in community radio
at CKUT FM. While there, she got involved
with the independent booking collective
Loose Fit, and it was at their shows that she
would eventually get her first experience
in mixing live sound.
In 2012, she decided to formalize her
interest in audio and enrolled at Montreal’s
Trebas Institute. She recalls the experience
as a humbling one: “I had never played
music, really, except for the banjo, and I
had no foundation or clue how anything
worked,” she admits. “I didn’t even know
how to plug in pedals, so I really needed a
comprehensive base starting from the sig-
nal chain to … everything and anything. I
was older than most of my classmates who
were mostly boys in their early 20s, and it
was a pretty funny learning environment
because most of them had a much better
understanding of the basics than I did, but
I had a lot more life experience. I learned
a lot in that year, which was incredibly
helpful, but it’s definitely not a job where
you need school if you can attack learn-
ing about the fundamental elements and
putting yourself out there with a personal
intensity. I think you can 100 per cent get
an equal education for free, which is an
amazing thing to be able to attribute to
a profession.”
Upon graduating, she moved to Toron-
to and went on tour as the FOH engineer
for Juno Award-winning band Wake Owl.
Fort initially wanted to focus on radio and
studio engineering, but ended up falling
into the live sound world.
She was offered the house technician
and production manager job at The Bur-
dock Music Hall in Toronto when it first
opened in 2013 – a position she held for five
years. As a production manager, Fort made
a conscious effort to hire fellow female en-
gineers, who are often underrepresented
in the audio engineering world. By the end
of her time at the venue, she had a tech-
nician call list that was primarily women.
As a touring technician, she has worked as
either a tour manager or live engineer for Ca-
nadian and American artists such as Ought,
U.S. Girls, Snail Mail, Japanese Breakfast, Lido
Pimienta, and Tim Darcy. Fort has also mixed
monitors for Alvvays and Andy Shauf, though
considers herself primarily an FOH engineer:
“I’m really passionate about working FOH,”
she enthuses. “I love the creativity. I’m slowly
venturing more into monitor world, which is
a position I have a lot of respect for but defi-
nitely find more challenging. It’s a position I
find I can enjoy more when I can work with
a band repeatedly.”
Though she doesn’t consider herself a
gearhead, she does enjoy working with her
own microphones while on the road. “I’ve
been really lucky with getting some pretty
amazing mics, including some very hearty
active ribbon mics made by AEA,” she shares.
“Unlike most ribbon mics, the N8s and N22s
are really road-savvy without compromising
the handmade delicacy put into each ribbon.
I also love my Sennheiser 441.”
The live sound field is one that is con-
stantly evolving, with the rollout of new
technologies and mixing consoles on an
almost monthly basis. Fort mentions that it
can be daunting to have to constantly keep
working on her technical skills, but that she
faces this challenge with curiosity: “When
I take a minute to realize that I’d rather be
curious than afraid, it frees me to dive into
learning more and being proud of my ef-
forts. It’s good to defend your choices while
acknowledging you might change how you
work once you learn something new.”
For those looking to get into audio
engineering, Fort recommends a strong
handle on signal flow and a positive attitude.
“Beyond a strong comprehension of your
technical basics, I think there are a lot of
attitude skills that can make your workflow
better,” she offers – “finding confidence in
your style of mixing, asking questions about
concepts you don’t know or haven’t got-
ten the grasp of, helping out other techs
when you can... Also having a sense of calm,
humour, and integrity. It’s an incredible pro-
fession because you’re usually some kind of
perfectionist and you’re working in technical
systems, but you’re also striving towards a
very human, very creative outcome – a pretty
thrilling blend.”
In 2019, Fort will be splitting her time
between Los Angeles and Toronto. She has
work lined up as the FOH engineer for Snail
Mail and tour manager for U.S. Girls. Beyond
touring, she will also be doing some studio
mixing and recording with Dave Benton of
LVL UP and Toronto-based artists Dorothea
Paas and Matt Bailey.
In the future, she hopes to learn more
about being a systems technician while con-
tinuing to hone her mixing skills by working
with acts that inspire her.
Maxime Brunet was introduced to audio at the age of 17 through community radio. She now works as both a club and touring FOH engineer.
She developed an introduction to sound class, The DIY Audio Tech Workshop for Women+ , which she has taught throughout Ontario.
20 PROFESSIONAL SOUND