Craft Interview: Steve Koubridis

After a life-changing car crash, Canadian Live TV Sports Mixer & Comms Engineer Steve Koubridis started out as a volunteer in audio and has spent the last 30 years travelling far and wide working with some of the most talented mixing & comms specialists in the industry!

He has worked for ESPN, NBC and the NFL Network across NHL hockey, Olympics, and the Super Bowl to name but a few. Here he talks to Calrec about how he got started, meat and potatoes and his keep it simple philosophies on audio.

How did you get into professional audio and what led you into this field?

In high school, I was going to be an auto mechanic. All my life I loved assembling things, and I loved cars. In high school, I helped a friend restore his 64 Stingray and helped another friend restore his old Hemi-powered 64 Dodge Polara and his 69 Mach 1 Mustang. In 1988, as I was about to graduate high school, I was involved in a life-changing car crash where I was hit head-on by another car. I was not able to work for a while, so I decided to go back to school. That's where I met a new friend who invited me to volunteer at a local cable station working on junior hockey games for community cable. Ah, the allure of junior hockey on Friday nights with pizza and beer post-game! How could I resist?

I started doing handheld camera work, but I wasn't very good because of my car crash injuries. The camera was heavy and painful for me to have on my shoulder for so long. Being a lover of rock and roll music, an acquaintance suggested I try audio because it's an in-the-truck job with much less physical exertion. I volunteered at Trillium Cable in Pickering and Scarborough Ontario, Canada, from 1990 until 1994/1995 and I really enjoyed it and quickly became hooked on live sports TV. During that time, I tried to get a few jobs with TV stations without really understanding how the business worked outside of community cable. In 1992, I started college on a TV Broadcasting Course at Loyalist College in Belleville Ontario. With a college degree in-hand I was able to go out and look for an apprenticeship pretty much anywhere. This took me back to Toronto and Dome Productions.

I did a one-month internship there in the spring of 1994, working on Blue Jays Baseball, and started working games right after as an Audio Assistant. It was the time of my life; I was getting paid to watch the Blue Jays - a team that had just won back-to-back World Series. Well then August 11th rolled around and MLB went on strike. I thought no big deal, right? Hockey season was just around the corner.

We know you have a lot of experience working as both a comms engineer as well as a sound mixer. Which role do you prefer and why?

This has never been an easy question to answer. I love mixing and I love the Audio Guarantee role for its engineering aspect, but I think I enjoy my role as a comms engineer a little more. One reason is that I have kind of become one of the go-to-guys when it comes to comms, especially in Canada. At the start, I worked really hard to understand intercom and the equipment and how to use it effectively. I was fortunate to have been taught by some of the pioneers and the best in the comms business. Though I truly didn't excel until I broke into the US market where I was really immersed in comms.

It started when an engineer friend of mine, Derrick Whittington, recommended me to Steve Raymond at ESPN to be a part of the comms team for the Winter X Games. Steve gave my name to Henry Rousseau (Associate Director ESPN Remote Production Operations) and things quickly developed for me. Henry put me to work with Jessie Heimlich, aka Mr. Intercom and I learned so much from him. This opened many doors for me and I have since worked the X Games, National College Championships, Olympics, and the Super Bowl. Comms challenges you every second of the day. I love the pressure and the challenges of giving production and all its people exactly what they want. You have to be reliable, and failure isn't an option. I would imagine Calrec's philosophy is similar.

We understand that much of your background and recent work is in live sports. Can you talk us through your current role?

In normal working times, I spend most winters mixing NHL hockey; I am one of those rare breeds where I don't travel with one team. One day I could be in Winnipeg Manitoba mixing the Jets game on Fox for the Arizona Coyotes' feed and the next day I could be in Calgary mixing the home feed SNET show for the Calgary Flames vs. the Vegas Golden Knights. I love the variety of my work. If you look at my schedule from January to April, I will typically go from mixing the B pool for the World Junior Hockey Championships to doing comms for the National Football Championships on ESPN, then to NHL Hockey on TSN or SNET or even Hockey Night in Canada to comms on the Super Bowl show for NFL Network. Then it's back to the NHL until the end of March and from there I'll go to Georgia to work on the Masters as an AG for TBS (Tokyo Broadcast System) with the Japanese broadcaster. This variety has allowed me to meet and interact with so many talented people with whom I talk shop and philosophies on mixing and comms with some of the best in the world.

What was it about audio broadcast that attracted you and what keeps you interested?

As I've said, I like the variety and the people. I genuinely like meeting new people and hearing their stories and sharing mine. I feel the bonds and friendships I've made will last a lifetime. Then there's the travel part of the job; I love the travel. This job has taken me all over the world, from South America to Moscow to Korea and all over my beautiful home country of Canada.

Can you describe a typical broadcast audio setup that you use?

People have different philosophies about this. I try to keep it si

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