AUDIO
TYLER KERPSACK- ENGINEER INSIGHTS, PART 1 | Jeff Hawley
I am excited to present the first of a threepart series with‘ hot hands’ worship mixing engineer and burgeoning social media star Tyler Kerpsack. Part one of our interview will present a bit of his background and highlight where you can go to check out his awesome content. We’ ll follow next month with his first impressions of the latest Allen & Heath dLive RackUltra FX engine and his approach to inthe-box and outboard mixing techniques. We’ ll wrap part three with some advice he has to share to the house of worship audio community— and an interesting deep dive into his thoughts on the future of AI and live sound. Let’ s dig in!
[ Jeff Hawley ] Howdy, Tyler! Tell us who you are and why we should definitely go check out your content online?
[ Tyler Kerpsack ] Thanks, Jeff! I grew up as a kid in the cornfield out in Ohio, and we had a small school and a small church. And at the time, I was just fascinated by technology. I remember all the way back to being in fifth grade and begging the teacher to let me pull out a little 6-channel board and like get some wedges on the stage for a talking-head event that night. And that just really sparked a lot of fascination.
I was also always a musician. I’ d taken piano all my life and play guitar. And so, as I was figuring that part out in my life and learning recording I just fell in love with the technical side of it, too— but with a creative stamp on it. I think that was really important to me growing up. Interestingly, I’ d say my experience buying and flipping music gear was also a key part of my background. I had my hands on a lot of equipment and what I would do for the week or two I would have it is just learn everything about it. I was just obsessed with gear. And so, it was fun at the time.
I also recall an important part of my story coming up that connected my musical background and technical growth. We had this local bar, and I would beg them to just let me play guitar. And they’ re like,“ OK, we’ ll let you play one song for the night, but you have to mix the rest of the night.” And so, I was 13 years old, sitting on a little Allen & Heath MixWizard so I could get to the‘ real’ part of the gig playing guitar. I knew I had to do a good job mixing because I wanted them to have me back to play guitar more.( laughs)
Then I moved to Florida and I got involved really quickly at a very large church that had serial number 0002 of the then-new DigiDesign
Profile desk. The D-Show Profile! So, I went from cornfields and analog MixWizards and Mackie VLZ sorts of desks to literally the flagship console that was in the touring scene then, and I just fell in love with it. I begged them to let me stay there. Like literally stay there at the desk! I could have lived there under the console if they would have let me. I was there all summer cleaning up backstage, just doing random chores so I could just practice virtual sound check at night and it was a really cool experience that got me really involved with plugin mixing.
Then I did a lot of studio work for many years and so I got really intimate with all the processors and just really understanding sound at a critical level. I’ m a little ADHD, though. So that level of just meticulous studio editing was starting to bore me, and I picked back up on the live sound side of things. I like the“ once it’ s done, it’ s done” approach you have to take with live vs. studio.
I helped out with that church for a long time that had that DigiDesign desk, and I remember very, very specifically in 2018, the console was failing. We needed a new option. I show up one day and they had a brand-new Allen & Heath dLive S7000 there and the line was“ you’ re
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