Who is Blair Halver?

Book Smarts meets Street Smarts…

Robin and Blair

Robin & Blair at The Emmy’s

Sound Guy School was created and is run by Blair Halver,
an active Production Sound Mixer who’s out there
working his butt off to give you the best audio for TV
education available… at a mere fraction of the cost
of traditional recording schools!

Blair Halver has been in the world of
Sound since 1999. He received his formal training in Music
Business and Recording Technology at Belmont University
in Nashville, TN, where he graduated with honors. His credits
now include:

  • Entertainment Tonight
  • The Insider
  • MTV’s “Yo Momma”
  • PBS’ “Texas Ranch House”
  • The Dr. Phil Show, Commercials, and Primetime Specials
  • Match.com Web Content
  • VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club”
  • Mun2 Music Channel
  • America’s Most Wanted
  • TLC’s “Faking It”
  • TLC’s “America’s Ugliest”
  • Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency
  • WE’s “Dirty Dancing”
  • World Poker Tour
  • The History Channel’s “Blood Sweat and Gears”
  • Fox’s “Renovate My Family”
  • TV Guide Channel
  • The Emmy’s Awards Show (3 times!)
  • The Academy Awards Show
  • The Golden Globes Awards Show
  • V-Twin TV for the Speed Channel
  • ABC’s “Moochers”
This is his story:

“By the end of High School, I knew that all I wanted to
do was be an Audio Engineer.

I sought, found, and attended the best Music Business
and Recording Technology school in the nation –
Belmont University in Nashville, TN, where I got four
years of a great education in music business, sound mixing,
and engineering. I worked as FOH mixer for the school’s
auditorium and mixed a record 32 bands in one day!
I also worked as a Staff Engineer in the school’s
recording studios, maintaining several studios and lots
of gear, as well as helping students with their own recording
projects.

But by my senior year, I could tell something was wrong
with the path I was on…

First of all, my fellow alum that started graduating
a year ahead of me were expressing their difficulty in
finding gainful employment as an Audio Engineer in Nashville,
TN. I had one friend who took an entry level position
at a major recording studio in town, and for months they
had him painting doors, picking up sticks out of the yard,
and other monotonous maintenance work. Not the
kind of inspiring story you want to hear a semester before
you graduate with the same degree!

Second, after four years in the recording studio at school,
I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my
life in a basement recording studio, 16 hours at a time.
I happen to like a little sunshine now and again!

Discouraged and disillusioned, I decided Nashville didn’t have what I
was looking for, so I moved to Los Angeles, CA and got
a job as a Production Assistant on the Dr. Phil Show through
a friend at Paramount Studios.

I worked a full season on the show and met a ton of great
people, including the main cameraman for the show’s
field shoots, Robin, and his sound guy, DJ. I must have
mentioned that I went to recording school one day, and
Robin said, “wait, you know audio? What are you
doing working in the office here? You should be working
with my company doing these field shoots.”

It had never occurred to me that they would need sound
mixers for television. Well, maybe it did, but
I was so disheartened by my experience in the music industry,
I didn’t even realize there was a whole other market
for Audio Engineers out there in the world of Television.

Dig that boom!

Blair digging hard!

As it turns out, Robin owned Imagecraft Productions, the gear rental company
that did all the field shoots for the Dr. Phil Show, as
well as several other shows and production companies.
So after that season of Dr. Phil ended, I went to work
at their gear house for a month before one of the other
owners of the company, Jason, who was a well-known Audio
Supervisor, came in the room where I was prepping some
gear and said, “alright, you’re going to Chicago
with me next week.”

That gig in Chicago on a Fox Reality Show turned
into a 6-month road trip, shooting all over the country,
flying in and out of cities, setting up all the gear,
doing the shoot, tearing it down, and setting it up again
at the next location.

By the end of that trial by fire, I had officially
become a “TV Sound Guy”!

From there I went on to work more and more as a freelance sound mixer, and
on to becoming a Sound Supervisor for several shows. But
I would not have been able to get where I am today without
the help of those guys who took me under their wing and
taught me everything I know about TV Sound.

That’s why I wanted to create Sound Guy
School so that I could do the same for others, not
only on a one-on-one basis, but on a larger scale using
the power of the internet.

I am positive that you will find Sound Guy School to
be the best education in audio engineering for television
available because it is born out of a sincere desire to
see other newcomers to the field succeed in ways they
never thought possible, just as I have done in my own
career. Except with this training ,you’ll
be able to learn from my years of experience and mistakes
in a much shorter time! In fact – I guarantee it.”

Blair with the Comanche Indians in Texas

Blair with the Comanche Indians
in Texas