Magali Couturier didn’t plan to become a live sound engineer. In fact, she didn’t plan much at all. Except, perhaps, to not follow expectations. “I was an angry teenager with a big issue with authority,” she recalls. “I was good at school, and my parents expected me to pursue long studies. But I didn’t want anybody telling me what to do.”

What she did want, she didn’t quite know, until she stumbled across someone setting up a stage for a local gig near her hometown in France. He wasn’t performing. He was laying cables. Adjusting gear. Setting a scene. And, most importantly, he said it was his job. Magali did not know that this job even exists.  “Of all the jobs I heard of this one sounded the most interesting”, she says with a laugh.

She was 16, had never touched a console, and didn’t know what being a sound engineer entailed. But from that afternoon on, she was determined to find out.

Couturier's path didn’t follow a clear ladder. She enrolled in a two-year technical program for audiovisual production—not exactly live music, but close enough to get her started. She did internships at a club in Paris (where she caught Radiohead before they were famous), at a recording studio (which she quickly ruled out), and at the iconic French TV station Canal+. “That’s where I started making real connections,” she says.

But the real shift came when she joined a European work experience program that landed her (against the rules, technically) in England. “I was 19. The program was meant for unemployed people over 25, and I had never worked,” she laughs. “I still don’t know how I got in.”

She found her own work placement by cold-calling venues listed in Melody Maker and NME. After a false start involving more drinking than mixing, a contact from her Paris days connected her to an audio rental company in Daventry. They let her in the door, but not straight to the mixing board.

“You learn to make tea. Then you clean cables. Wash cases. It’s manual. It’s dirty. I didn’t know I had to do it, and I didn’t know I could do it. But I learned.”

Respect didn’t come with her credentials. Nor with time. It came, slowly, through performance. “For years, none of that happened,” she says. “You’re rolling cables, you’re plugging microphones, and if you’re lucky, someone lets you touch the console.”

What changed wasn’t the job, it was her reputation. “When I started getting hired by bands, people began to treat me differently. That was the proof I could do the job.”

Her big break came almost by chance. Working a show for The Dandy Warhols – without a monitor engineer on their team, she stepped in. “I didn’t think they were serious when they asked me to tour. People say that kind of thing all the time.” But they followed up the next day. “That was 27 years ago. I still work with them.”

If you ask Couturier what makes a good monitor engineer, don’t expect a list of gear specs or favorite plugins. Her mantra is simple: “You have to get into the artist's head . You need to know what they need before they do. Without, you know, overstepping the mark of thinking  you know more than they do. Because you don't.”

Monitor engineering, she says, isn’t about fixing problems as they happen. It’s about understanding the artist’s perspective, anticipating shifts in mood, motion, tone. “Even A list artists might tell me, ‘Just make it sound like the album.’ And of course, it never is the album on stage. But I try to give them what they need to feel safe and inspired. It is my job to translate that into something that helps.”
One of her proudest compliments? “An artist once told me, ‘Thanks for being my ears.’ That’s exactly what it is.”

For her, it's never been about brands or gadgets. “I mix music. I mix tones. I mix energy. Not just sound. You can learn the tech. But the rest, the connection, the sensitivity; you need to earn that by being present. By caring.”

That care has a price. Back in the early years, Couturier worked unpaid. “And I didn’t go on holiday from 20 to 35,” she admits. “I worked every day. I didn’t ask how much I’d get. I just wanted to be good.”
She’s skeptical of newer generations who start out asking for money or who rely on tablets to mix from afar. “You have to be close to the stage. Watch the band. Read the room. You can’t learn this job on an iPad.”
It’s not bitterness. It’s reverence for a craft that has shaped her life. “This job gave me everything. It also took everything. You need to know why you're doing it.”

For those wanting to follow in her footsteps, she offers no pep talk, no glittering promises. “You have to start by knowing you don’t know anything. And you need to be OK with that.”
She’s not against formal education, but she swears by learning on the job. “The best lessons I had were watching people who knew their craft. Asking questions. Adapting. Being humbled.”
And when things go right, when an artist looks up mid-show with a smile, when a soundcheck locks into place, when the mix sings: it’s still magic. “There’s nothing like it. It’s art. And I’m lucky to be a part of it.”

Magali Couturier (Mags) is an independent monitor engineer from France.. She works with artists and bands like PJ Harvey, My Bloody Valentine, Rufus Wainwright, Courtney Barnett, Marianne Faithfull, Gary Numan and many more and many more.