Marinus Visser and Blue Array have been making quite a name for themselves in the South African live music market as of late. From a fledgling audio student and musician to one of South Africa’s most sought after live sound engineers. Marinus has grown from strength to strength with such shows under his belt as Muse, Prodigy, Oppikoppi and Ramfest, to name a very select few. Pro Systems journalist Greg Bester caught up with Marinus to discuss his past, present, and future.
What is you background? Did you study sound?
Marinus: Yes, I studied sound at the Academy of Sound Engineering. I also studied music before that. I’ve got a degree in piano from Stellenbosch University, too.
What did you study at ASE?
Marinus: I studied a diploma in Sound Engineering, specialising in music production and I accomplished a Pro Tools 210 accreditation.
Did you do any live sound modules?
Marinus: I did do some live stuff. It wasn’t officially part of the course but in my spare time I sat in on the live classes. But I did live sound before I went to ASE as well. I had my own little company in Rustenburg where I was from and went to school. It started off as a studio, actually, and then progressed to the point where the artists that I was working with needed someone to do their sound at their shows. That’s kind of where it all started for me. I started working in a studio in standard six doing MIDI programming and small sessions, and then in standard eight I started my company doing back-tracks for artists, and those kind of things. When I went to study music production, I stopped doing studio work because there was just too much live stuff happening.
What happened after that?
Marinus: I also did a year course in a studio with Johan Kelder, which was a small informal weekly thing where we’d go every Friday to his studio and do sessions and pro tools training.
Do you think having a musical background was a good grounding for moving into sound?
Marinus: Absolutely. It makes me a better engineer.
How so? Do you think other guys who don’t have a musical background struggle a little more?
Marinus: I think that it differs from person to person but to be honest, if you don’t have that musical knowledge or understanding in your head, you’ll never really get to a level where you can communicate with the artist in his terms and portray what he wants you to. I also think that if you can play an instrument it helps develop your ears in being able to differentiate frequency and knowing how an instrument should sound. The biggest thing for me is just ears. A musician has better ears. His brain is more developed for listening.
What was your first break getting into live sound?
Marinus: I was doing live sound throughout my life but I think my biggest break to work on serious shows was through Daryl Torr who started using me with Harris Tweed, (now Dear Reader). That opened up the industry to me because I got to work on Oppikoppi, Splashy Fen, etc.
As a white glove engineer?
Marinus: Well, a lot of times. Dear Reader had their own VRX system that they bought so for most of their shows, yes, we used their own gear but for bigger shows I just walked in, mixed, and left. I actually met Gearhouse, Sound Stylists, etc. All the big names through that experience as well. Eventually I hooked up with Kobus from Blue Array.
Can you elaborate on how you got involved with Blue Array?
Marinus: The thing was, we had a limited amount of VRX boxes and we always needed more so I called Wild and Marr, asked them who else had more and would be willing to dry hire them and they told me about Blue Array. So I rented from them for a while until Kobus (owner of Blue Array) started booking me for some of his gigs and eventually after about two years of him nagging me to come on board with him, I joined. He liked my technical approach and the advantage for me was that he is a brilliant business man, which is not my strong point, because I am an artist. That relationship just got better and better and that is how it all started.
If there was one invention that would make your life easier that we don’t currently have, what would it be?
Marinus: (Laughs) A crew that can work 24 hours that won’t ever be late! Ag, but you know, I think, to be perfectly honest, if there was a tool like SMAART that could integrate with your system processor that would help me a lot. Right now you have to measure the parameters and enter them manually.
What is your favourite food?
Marinus: That’s tough. I like food in general! Eating is my second favourite hobby. I really enjoy Asian food, but healthy food in genera
l.
Holiday destination?
Marinus: Amsterdam. I was just there in January and it’s such a cool place and the people are so awesome there.
