What is the Silver Award for Sound Engineers?

The Silver Award is a five day course which gives candidates more in-depth knowledge and understanding of best practice in Theatre Sound Engineering. It allows candidates to specialise further and validate experience in a specific area whilst progressing on from the Bronze Award.

Who can do the course?

Candidates wanting to pursue a Silver Award in Theatre Sound Engineering should have gained equivalent knowledge and skills covered by the Bronze Award prior to considering undertaking this course.

How is the course structured?

The course is split into five sections, these include:
1. In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment (PAT)
2. Sound Essentials,
3. Sound, Acoustics & Design,
4. Electronics Fundamentals – Part 1,
5. Electronics Fundamentals – Part 2
The training is followed by the Silver Award Test.

What is covered in the course?

Module 1: will set out systems to organise the in-service inspection and testing of theatre electrical equipment and how to comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations. The course includes visual inspection and electrical testing; testing periods; record keeping; system of inspection and testing; selection of suitable testing instruments, inspection requirements and the need to ‘risk assess’ the requirement for inspections and test.

Module 2 and 3: cover important theoretical and practical skills you need to understand, such as fundamentals of sound, making the right connections, gain structure, signal to noise ratio, loudspeaker impedance, microphone types & digital theory. This also includes sound wave theory, digital theory, MIDI, harmonic series, acoustics, reverberation time, Haas effect, drawing sound system plans, computerised playback systems and the knowledge to design sound systems for musical theatre. We will also cover communication systems in theatre required to run shows. Wired headsets systems, show relay and paging, cue lights, CCTV, analogue and digital wireless talkback systems
and how to interface several systems together. (Module 3 will include an evening session between 6pm-8pm).

Module 4 and 5: teach basic electronic theory and soldering skills, passive-basic semiconductor components ,simple circuits ,common power components and fuses. Kirchoff’s Laws, AC/DC, power, energy, Ohm’s Law, resistor networks, capacitor networks, inductors, transformers, switches and electronic switches, potential divider circuits, passive filters, impedance, diodes & LEDs, AC rectification, fuses, MCBs, RCDs. Sensors and actuators and Boolean logic.

How do I progress after this course?

Once a Silver Award has been achieved, many students decide that they wish to broaden their skill set and do a further “Silver Award” course in a different area. Alternatively – some decide they want to progress on the final Gold Award Course once they have moved in to managerial roles.

We offer the Gold Award Course to support the candidate in managerial roles within the Industry. Candidates should have responsibility for the management of the working environment and the practices therein.