Tag: engineering

I Earned the Stage Sound Engineer Level 3 Certification

Hello, this is Jooyoung Kim—sound engineer and music producer.

In Korea, there is a government-issued certification called Stage Sound Engineer (Level 3, 3 is the first (or beginner) level, followed by 2 and 1.).
It doesn’t have a direct equivalent in the US, UK, or Canada, but you can think of it as something like a formal audio engineering license, proving both practical and theoretical knowledge in live sound.

As I’ve been working in the audio field, I realized that while practical skills are essential, having an official certification also helps when listing credentials on a résumé. For a long time, I wasn’t sure if it was worth pursuing—but I figured if I didn’t get it this year, it would only become harder later. So, I decided to take the exam.

Studying for the Written Exam

I had already bought some textbooks back when I ambitiously wanted to “master all of audio engineering.”
Unfortunately, the exam content had been updated recently, which meant my older materials were out of date.

At first, I tried to get by without buying the new edition, but after checking last year’s exam questions, I realized too many things had changed. So, I finally bought the updated books just two days before the exam and studied them intensely.

In total, I prepared for about ten days—definitely a crash course. The audio-related parts were manageable thanks to my background, but the legal regulations and stage-specific terminology were quite difficult. Memorization has never been my strong suit (even in English vocabulary study these days, I struggle a lot!).

I didn’t go through the entire book cover to cover, but I solved past exams one set per day and focused on reviewing the parts I got wrong. It was a very “efficient cramming” strategy.

The Practical Exam

Since much of the practical portion overlapped with my usual work, I didn’t need to prepare too heavily.

The main part was a listening test: adjusting pink noise with a 15-band graphic EQ to balance different frequency ranges, and identifying test tones across the EQ bands.

Because I couldn’t find a simple 15-band graphic EQ plugin anywhere, I actually built one myself as a VST3 and AU plugin. If anyone needs it, I uploaded it here:

🔗 GitHub – JYKlabs/15-Band-Graphic-EQ

Mac users can simply extract the files and place them in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 and /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components.

Windows users can place the VST3 file in their VST3 plugin directory. (Since I only built it on Mac, I haven’t tested it on Windows yet.)

The plugin is extremely minimal—no extra features, just a straightforward EQ.

During the actual exam, there were 10 listening questions in total. The first five (identifying effects) were fairly easy, but the last five (detecting EQ adjustments applied to music or noise) were much harder. Since the exam environment was different from my usual studio setup, I struggled a bit.

Also, I tend to think of EQ in terms of musical intervals, but the test was structured entirely in octave relationships, which threw me off at first.

Still, since passing only required 6 correct answers out of 10, I managed to make it through. Thankfully, my hearing was in decent condition that day (sometimes ear fatigue can really mess me up).

Final Thoughts

Unlike in South Korea, many Western countries don’t offer official government-issued certifications specifically for live or stage sound engineering. Instead, recognition and credibility often come from trusted industry certifications, educational credentials, or portfolio evidence.

For example, the Certified Audio Engineer (CEA) credential from the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) is well-regarded and requires both experience and passing a technical exam. For those focused on live sound, programs like Berklee’s Live Events Sound Engineering Professional Certificate offer structured, practical training.

Even if you already have solid skills, it can sometimes be difficult to secure projects or convince clients without something official to show. That’s where certifications and structured programs help: they provide a clear, external validation of your abilities and open doors that pure experience alone may not.

At the end of the day, audio work is unpredictable: sometimes you’re mixing in a studio, other times you’re troubleshooting live sound under pressure. The more prepared you are, the easier it is to adapt.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next post!

Life Update (May 27, 2025)

Hey there! I’m Jooyoung Kim, a mixing engineer, music producer, and computer music researcher.

Lately, I’ve been living like a hermit… haha.

A while back, I think I mentioned grumbling about an “Editor Invited” status dragging on for over a month. Well, good news—it’s finally moved to “Under Review”! I’m keeping my fingers crossed because I really need this to wrap up soon so I can secure some thesis funding from my university to keep things afloat. The timeline’s tight, so I’m a bit on edge.

Oh, and I believe I once mentioned working on digitally recreating the SA-2A on this blog.

Here’s how that went down:

  1. Analog recording grind (plus building a recording program from scratch… ugh). That recording program UI still gives me nightmares. I built it with Qt Creator, and… let’s just say it was a few days of pure torment.
  2. Training with deep learning using CNN and RNN (LSTM) methods (which meant coding up some PyTorch for the training process…).
  3. Implementing the compressor with that training data (cue JUCE and Python code-building…).

And, well, it spectacularly flopped. 😭

Just looking at the spectrogram tells you all you need to know, right?

I built a recording program in C++, slogged through endless recording sessions, spent ages training the model, and then tried real-time processing with JUCE—only to realize real-time processing wasn’t happening, so I switched to Python. After pouring over a month into this, it feels like such a letdown.

The RNN (LSTM) approach might still have some potential with more time, but CNN? Total dead end. My original idea would take way too long to execute, so I’ve shelved it for now. That said, the program set itself isn’t half bad, so I’m planning to polish it up and eventually share it on GitHub.

Meanwhile, I’ve pivoted to experimenting with a new topic. For this, I’ve been measuring THD, crosstalk, and frequency response, and I wrote a Python program to store the data and generate graphs.

This one actually turned out pretty well! I’m thinking of sharing some of the code and distributing the program around the time I submit my next paper. It might need a bit more refinement before I consider selling it, though.

https://github.com/JYKlabs

Oops, this is starting to sound like a GitHub channel plug, isn’t it?

The first half of this year has been consumed by experiments and coding for my thesis, leaving me with barely any time to work on my own music. 😢 But I’ve got something in the works, and I’m determined to release at least one track next month. I really need to get into a groove and churn stuff out consistently instead of these sporadic bursts… sigh.

I’ve always been drawn to niche things—studying physics as a kid, making music, diving into audio engineering, and now coding for obscure projects. Guess I’m just wired to love the less mainstream stuff, haha.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. With grad school graduation looming, I’m feeling a bit lost and anxious about what’s next. But I’m choosing to believe things will work out and keep pushing forward.

Catch you in the next post! 😊