From Audio Equations to Formula 1

Last week George Hirst, audio engineer and Live Sound graduate at F1 gave a guest lecture on what happens in a typical race week.

George graduated in 2015 and was originally a freelancer with other outside broadcast companies such as CTV. He has now worked for Formula 1 for three years, having started as a sound assistant and quickly worked his way up to an audio engineer. He works across multiple areas within the audio department, including sound mixing, as guarantee engineer for the systems, overseeing the Riedel communications, rigging microphones around the track, and working with the radio editing team for live broadcast. It’s an incredibly varied role and George spoke passionately about the range of technical challenges that he faces and the satisfaction that comes from applying his knowledge and skill to help to solve them.

Lecturer Polly Hickling commented: “The students found the session really engaging, especially hearing some of the complex methods used to deliver such high profile sport all over the world!”

The Media Technology programme greatly values having our graduates and other industry contacts return to pass their experiences onto the next generation. It allows us to embed real world learning into our degrees and helps to keep the content relevant. Many thanks to George and F1 for giving up his time.