SoundGirls Presents NAMM Mentoring Session
Join us for a Mentoring Session with Women Leaders in Professional Audio
You must be a member of SoundGirls, and you must register for the event. Space is Extremely Limited. You will receive venue address (venue is in Anaheim) with your confirmation.
This event will be a casual mentoring session – where you can get advice and answers to your questions. Groups will rotate between leaders specializing in Live Sound, Recording and Mastering, Broadcast Engineering and Professional Audio Sales.
Jeri Palumbo, a broadcast engineer, audio mixer and RF (radio frequency) tech
Jeri is a broadcast engineer, audio mixer and RF (radio frequency) tech who, for the past 25 years, has specialized in working on high-profile sports shows. Jeri is a technical whiz and a regular on the frontlines of events like the Super Bowl, NBA, NHL playoffs and most recently the World Series. Jeri is part of the RF Coordination Team each year for the Rose Bowl. She has also worked entertainment broadcasts including The Oscars, The Tonight Show, American Idol and others.
Karrie Keyes – Monitor Engineer for Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder – Executive Director and Co-Founder of SoundGirls.Org
Karrie has spent the last 25 plus years as the monitor engineer for Pearl Jam. Karrie started out doing sound for punk bands in Los Angeles in 1986 under the tutelage of Dave Rat of Rat Sound, where she spent twenty years helping to establish the company. She was able to gain an immense amount of hands-on experience and technical knowledge at Rat, which eventually led to her becoming the monitor engineer for The Red Hot Chili Peppers from 1990-2000. She first met and started working with Pearl Jam who opened for RHCP on their 1991-1992 Blood Sugar Sex Magic Tour. She has worked with Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and Neil Young.
Erika Earl – Director of Hardware Engineering for Slate Digital and Slate Media Technology
From pulling out the soldering iron to setting up microphones around a drum kit, Erika Earl brings experience from all sides of the professional audio business. Her understanding of audio electronics was earned through more than a decade of experience repairing, servicing, and performing quality control for a wide range of top manufacturers, including Tube-Tech, Drawmer, Focusrite, Daking, Bock Audio, Avid, Little Labs, and many others.
She has also engineered for studios and run FOH throughout Arizona and California. Erika served as Head of Technology and Chief Technician for LA’s landmark studio The Village. When she’s not thinking through a schematic or evaluating the subtleties of a tube compressor, you’re likely to find her sifting through her collection of vintage records and rare books.
Leslie Gaston-Bird Vice President for the Audio Engineering Society’s Western Region & Associate Professor of Recording Arts at the University of Colorado Denver
Leslie Gaston-Bird Vice President for the Audio Engineering Society’s Western Region & Associate Professor of Recording Arts at the University of Colorado Denver. Leslie is also proud to chair the AES’ Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has almost 30 years of experience in audio for film and video, music recording, and radio. She graduated from the Audio Technology program at Indiana University in 1989. She also holds a BA in telecommunications and an MS in recording arts. She has worked for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., Colorado Public Radio in Denver, as recording engineer for the Colorado Symphony and as a sound editor for Post Modern Company in Denver. She has performed soundtrack restoration on films from the Sony/Columbia Pictures archives and is one of the pioneers of a music video production style she calls “Music Video Vérité”. She runs her own freelance audio post-production company, Mix Messiah Productions, LLC. She is also a Fulbright Scholar.
Katy Templeman-Holmes is the Director of Marketing for Professional, at HARMAN
At Harman, she has held several roles including; as a Product Manager based in Switzerland, running US Sales for Recording & Broadcast, training FOH & monitor engineers taking consoles on tour, running product development for a handful of different industries, and Director of Solutions and Marketing for Hospitality and Broadcast.
Grace Royse – Live Sound Engineer and Production Manager
Grace Royse is a Live Sound Engineer and Production Manager with 11 years of experience in world touring.Clients include Sublime with Rome, Fitz and the Tantrums, Maintaining a background in studio productions, business management, and artist development, she has mentored several young men and women over the years, all successfully working within the industry today.”
Vanessa Silberman is a National DIY Touring Singer (playing over 330 shows in 2015-2017), Guitarist, Songwriter, Record Producer-Engineer-Mixer, Independent A&R and has an Artist Development Label called A Diamond Heart Production (Down & Outlaws, The Punch) from Los Angeles. She was also the founding member of the LA band Diamonds Under Fire (2002-2013).
Jett Galindo Audio and Vinyl Mastering Engineer at The Bakery
Jett Galindo is an audio & vinyl mastering engineer from The Bakery, located on the Sony Pictures Lot in Culver City. With credits spanning different genres and legendary artists (Bette Midler, Nile Rodgers, Colbie Caillat, to name a few), Jett carries on the legacy left behind by her late mentor, mastering legend Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab.
A GRAMMY Voting Member (P&E Wing) & Latin GRAMMY nominee, Jett is also an accomplished soprano who specializes in choral ensemble music. Jett also devotes part of her time writing for SoundGirls and volunteering for Berklee College of Music as an Alumni Ambassador.
Ali “A MAC” McGuire has worked worldwide on albums, International/ US Tours, and charity projects alongside internationally recognized artists. Ali required recording, mixing, production, and live sound skills through a combination of experience and certification. Ali has worked with such artist as Fetty Wap, Post Malone, Hed PE, Big Daddy Kane, Dick Van Dyke, Whitney Peyton and more. Ali recently moved from Philadelphia to LA to take her business, Amaculent Entertainment LLC, to the next level. Ali is currently working out of a few great studio’s and venues in LA; recording, mixing and producing for the next generation of artists and more.
Sara Elliot VP of Operations and CoFounder of VUE Audiotechnik
With more than 20 years of experience in professional audio, Sara has held strategic marketing and operational positions with numerous sound production companies including Burns Audio, A-1 Audio, and PRG. Sara also served as Director of Marketing and Sales for Live Sound International Magazine and ProSoundweb.com, two of the industry’s most respected news and technical information sources. Sara brings to VUE Audiotechnik a wealth of industry relationships and a deep understanding of business operations.
Fela Davis Sound Engineer and Owner of 23db Productions
Fela Davis is a co-owner at 23db Productions based out of New York City. She’s a graduate of Full Sail University and has over a decade of experience in audio engineering. Her past experiences include working with industry powerhouses Clair Broadcast and House of Blues. When she’s not mixing or mastering songs for 23db Productions, she’s mixing front of house engineer for the 5-time Grammy award winning jazz artist Christian McBride, and Grammy-nominated Ottmar Liebert.
Claire holds a Bachelors degree in Music Technology from Hertfordshire University in the UK. She has 8 years of professional touring experience as both guitar/backline tech and as Tour Manager. She now lives in Los Angeles, having relocated from London and tours exclusively as a guitar tech. She has a business in the UK providing storage for bands and local companies in London, and previously provided rental sprinter vans.
Catharine Wood Recording – Mix Engineer – Owner Planetwood Studios – Catharine is a Los Angeles-based composer/producer/engineer with a recording studio in Los Angeles. With a background in audio post-production for commercials, Catharine engineered on the first iPhone commercial among hundreds of national and international campaigns – including the Geico Caveman and Priceline Negotiator spots. As a mix and mastering engineer, she has engineered on over 300 commercially released songs – including her own custom compositions which have aired on NBC, ABC, BBC, ESPN and more – both nationally and abroad. She is a GRAMMY® Voting Member and Producers & Engineers Wing member. Catharine currently holds a position on the LA Recording School’s Recording Arts Program Advisory Committee and is the former Director of Southern California for the West Coast Songwriters organization. She is a voting member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, a Board Member of the California Copyright Conference and longtime professional member of NARIP and AIMP. Her company, Planetwood Studios, LLC (parent company of Planetwood Productions, established 2002) specializes in producing singer-songwriters and providing engineering, production and composition services to the TV, Film and Recording industries.
Tiffany Hendren Live Sound FOH and Monitor Engineer
Tiffany Hendren is a monitor engineer at The Pageant in St. Louis and the House Engineer for the Del Mar. She tours as the FOH Engineer for “A Silent Film.” She has been involved in sound professionally for around seven years, full-time about five. Tiffany is the Co-Director of SoundGirls.Org.
Jessica Berg – Tour Manager and Live Sound Engineer
Jessica is a freelance TM/FOH/MON engineer and is currently touring as the TM for Phoebe Ryan. Jessica is SoundGirls.Org’s Director of Development. She is honored and excited to be volunteering with a growing organization and community that is achieving its mission – to help empower the next generation of women in audio, expanding opportunities for girls and women in the audio and music production fields, and sharing resources and knowledge through cooperation, collaboration, and diversity.
Daniella Peters – Head of Sales and Management Team at Rat Sound Systems
Daniella has been with Rat Sound for over 15 years building their sales dept from a concept to a multi-million dollar part of their business. She started off her career working for an international cosmetics company doing their live event production. She then transitioned to HHB Audio and Ashdown Music, Emap Performance (Kerrang and Q magazines) in London and now with Rat Sound.
She is passionate about women’s issues and spends a good portion of her spare time using her production skills to produce and host music and fashion fundraising events for various women’s non-profits.
Mary Broadbent is a Tour Manager and Backline Tech. Mary is the Tour Manager and Backline/Guitar Tech for The Mowgli’s and The Staves. She’s also worked with Chris Isaak, Fitz and the Tantrums, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Most recently she jumped behind the soundboard for the first time on tour with Wrabel as TM/FOH.
SoundGirls is a non-profit dedicated to empowering the next generation of women in audio. SoundGirls has grown to over 4,000 members worldwide and we could not have done it without the support of our community. We thank all of our members who have supported us for the past five years. We hope you will consider us on #GivingTuesday.
For every tax-deductible donation of $15 or more, you will receive a SoundGirls button and sticker. Make a donation here
Kelly Sayer, the young and passionate recording engineer at KIDinaKORNER studios, discusses who inspires her to keep striving for success in a male-dominated industry
Who can aspiring female engineers look up to?
Every engineer has role models that they can aspire to be like. And as a Berklee College of Music graduate who works for a Grammy-award winning producer, I’ve been lucky to learn directly from some of my own. The trouble is that, since there are so few females in this industry, it’s no surprise that most of our role models are male.
Aspiring female engineers need successful female role models
Since women seem to need to work twice as hard to prove ourselves as we start to break through the prejudices of the engineering world. So I want to give praise to two of my own greatest inspirations, in the hopes that their successes might inspire some of the other determined women out there.
In an interview with Tape Op in 2002, Leanne explained that music is an emotional art that desperately calls for the participation of more females. With over 30 years of experience as both an engineer and a producer, Leanne’s remarkable discography prove that women can break the mold.
She is best known for the seven albums that she produced and engineered with Leonard Cohen as well as having worked with Laurie Anderson, The Temptations, and Tom Jones, to name just a few.
As my professor in college, Leanne encouraged me not to connect every struggle I face in the studio with being a girl. She reminded me that there would be difficult sessions and difficult people, who might even be equally as difficult towards a male engineer, but at the end of the day, it is going to matter most that I can believe in myself and be proud of the work that I create.
Susan Rogers: Another highly successful woman in the industry, Susan is internationally recognized for her work with Prince on albums such as Purple Rain, Sign o’ the Times, Around the World in a Day, Parade, and The Black Album.
From establishing herself as a tech in Los Angeles to solidifying her reputation as one of the most successful recording engineers in the world, all the way to acquiring her doctorate in music cognition and psychoacoustics, Susan has not let the bias’ of the industry slow her down for even one moment.
When seeking production advice from her on an EP that I produced earlier this year, Susan told me to let the song drive me – the arrangement has to serve the song (and often, the vocal), not detract from it. Her philosophy also reminded me that if you keep your focus on the music (which is what drew most of us into this line of work, to begin with), everything else falls into place. When you are making good music – music that you love – that’s what really matters and prejudices that might usually get in the way of the creative process become irrelevant.
These two incredible women are both examples that show how we as women can defy the odds and make a name for ourselves as successful engineers if we set our minds to it. And there are many others like them. So I encourage you to go out and seek female role models, whether you know them on a personal level or not, who can inspire you to keep pushing boundaries and persevere they way that they did.
“I like to approach engineering from the eye’s (and ears) of a musician. Having trained as a singer myself, it has been invaluable for me to know what it feels like to be on both sides of the microphone”.
To Find More Role Models and Inspiration Check Out SoundGirls Profiles on the 5%
Kelly Sayer is a passionate audio engineer, songwriter, and vocal producer. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, she is currently based in Los Angeles, where she is employed as head engineer for platinum-selling record producer Alex Da Kid.
It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org
One Simple Tool to Find the Right Size Speaker for Any Space
https://soundgirls.org/holiday/
While I was pregnant (The Audio Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy) my plan was to take off a couple of months off after the baby was born then go back to work part-time for a while. My husband, who also works in audio, planned to work from our home studio. We figured between the two of us we wouldn’t need a babysitter or daycare. How hard can it be to mix and watch a baby?
Things didn’t quite go as planned.
Before having a baby, I thought I’d be better prepared for parenthood than some of my non-industry friends because I had survived studio life. I’ve worked the night shift for years, and most of my career has been irregular schedules and over 40 hours a week. What I discovered, though, is in my pre-parenthood days working a double shift meant you deserve a day off and a cocktail. With a newborn, Golden Time (working beyond 16 hours) is just called Monday. And Tuesday. And there’s no weekend or days off. The recovery time you get really depends on how much help you have – and the sleep patterns (or non-sleeping patterns) of your baby.
It’s true you can have time to yourself while an infant sleeps but in actuality that “free time” can quickly get taken up by basic needs like eating, showering, or catching up on sleep. My grandiose plans for bringing Baby J to work at night or updating my plugins while he slept was never even an option (although some parents do manage to do it!)
The first work project I took on didn’t go as planned. It was a Sundance Film when Baby J was two months old. It took me two weeks to do EIGHT HOURS of sound design. I expected it to be difficult but it went so much deeper than just being sleep-deprived! I later learned about factors like mom brain or mom fog (a real condition due to hormone changes during and after pregnancy). It makes it difficult to focus long periods or remember details. Also, women’s brains change attention when a hungry baby cries (which doesn’t happen to men) The two combined make it incredibly difficult to get into a flow or stay focused on a single task. Like everything else, it gets better over time.
After ten weeks of maternity leave, I went back to work part-time. I could have easily taken off another month, but it was nice to have a few nights a week to talk about compressors and upmix plugins instead of diapers and swaddles. By six months I felt comfortable working from home on occasion. It was only possible with someone else handling child care (husband, babysitter, etc.). Now that Baby J is a year old it’s much more manageable to take on more complicated gigs or even gigs out of town.
I did learn some things that saved me as a working parent:
I used to wonder how I would manage to be a parent and having a career or if it’s even possible. It’s definitely possible – it just takes being flexible, patience, and accepting things won’t always go to plan. There’s also times you’ll have to put your family first or have someone available who can in those moments (like an unexpected doctor visit or illness).
The one thing I didn’t expect about becoming a parent is how rewarding it is. I’m still proud of my career accomplishments, but they don’t carry the same significance as they did before. Watching someone smile the first time or recognize that the sound of an airplane means there’s something in the sky is pretty amazing. It’s a challenge but worth the effort.
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There are so many rules that as adults we must follow. Things we can get in real trouble for if we don’t pay our taxes, but then there are other rules such as eating a salad for lunch. Who came up with that rule anyway? This can be a stigma for women – all we eat are salads all the time. Well good for you if you really do, but it’s ok to eat the burger too. Now I get where the taxes come in, but who decided salad was the prime meal, a sundae for lunch wouldn’t hurt and it’s a whole lot more fun, too!
Anyway, things around the world are a bit rough right now so I thought I would write about a way to build in some fun. Especially since so many of us work long hours; we need to make sure to balance the seriousness of life and work with some fun. For instance, just the other day I got into work and immediately there was too much to do with not enough time. Story of our lives sometimes, right? Well, when things finally calmed down and I got to start wrapping up the crazy week my coworker, and I were a little burnt out. We decided to add a little fun into the end of our workday. The best part was there was a third person in the office that had no idea why there were peanut butter cups and paper airplanes flying across the room. (Sorry Ann!) But, it was a blast, and we laughed super hard about it, which made it easier to make it to the end of the day and week. Something so simple made a rough day a little easier to finish. We decided to break the so-called work rules and had a little fun. Something so simple can make such a difference.
A few years ago, I had a fantastic speaker come through my venue where he shared their philosophy with me. His name is Jason Kotecki, and he is all about breaking the rules of life and bringing some fun back into every day. Jason calls this fighting Adultitis. You can check out his work here http://escapeadulthood.com/blog/ for some inspiration and for further explanation of his idea about breaking the adult rules that don’t matter and bringing some fun back to life and work.
It can be simple things such as paper airplanes to things like trying your hand at stand-up comedy during a soundcheck or at least switching it up. Next time you are about to say check one, two, change it up, try some of your best movie lines. Or something like wearing a bright color one day instead of black, have breakfast food for dinner, dye your hair purple, and so much more. I personally like to break the unspoken rule of not having fun at work.
A while back my crew adopted a cartoon movie figurine. We named it Rex and decided to hide it within our staff-only areas for our co-workers to find. People got a kick out of looking for Rex and hiding it again. People would see it on top of work lights or buried under cables, and it always brought a smile to their face, and they would quickly hide it again. It was something so simple that the entire team had fun. What have you done to break the adult rules? How do you have fun or be silly once in a while?
On Jason’s website, he has a saying – “Don’t settle for the life you’ve been told to live. Create the one you were made for.” I feel this is a true motto that many SoundGirls can relate to; I know I do as I have worked hard to get where I am today. Women are told every day what they should be or how they should act, but as SoundGirls we are following our passions and creating the lives we want to live.
Do you usually choose speakers by guessing? I want to show you one simple tool to find the exact right speaker for any space.
It is called Forward Aspect Ratio (FAR) and it is simply the shape a speaker makes, defined by length and width. Here’s how you can reverse engineer it to master the universe.
Let’s walk through it together.
50 ÷ 40 = 1.25
FAR = 1.25
2 × arcsin(1 ÷ 1.25) = 106º
We need a 106º speaker.
Easy. Search google.com for calculator. Make sure you are in degrees. Click inside the calculator input window and type 2 [shift + 8] [shift + s] 1 / 1.25 [enter]. On a mobile device, turn to landscape mode and use the Inv button to show sin-1.
Don’t worry. As long as you have no more than a 3 dB error on each side, you’ll be fine.
Drop this into Google: ABS((20 × log(FAR A))-(20 × log(FAR B))) where FAR A is the speaker you need and FAR B is the speaker you have. As long as the result is less than 3, you’re good.
What if the result is more than 3?
If your speaker is too wide, just know you’re going to get some extra wall reflections.
If your speaker is too narrow, consider subdividing the space. Take your FAR, cut it in half, and redo your calculations.
Click here to download my free book, 105 Questions about Sound System Tuning. It’s everything you wanted to know about live sound system setup but were afraid to ask.
Nathan Lively is a Sound Engineer, Pro Audio Career Coach, and Author. His goal is to help you grow your business through:
Check out Sound Design Live
SoundGirls members will receive 1-to-1 training in audio for live theatre, including QLab programming. This is a *unpaid* internship, but the SoundGirl will be fully credited on program materials, for example as ‘Sound Design Assistant,’ ‘Technical Assistant,’ ‘Sound Operator’ etc. depending on their area of interest.
These are both unpaid internships, they are targeted towards students or early-career practitioners, and there is no expectation that the participating SG members would decline paid work in favour of the internship role. The internship will be tailored to participant’s interests and training needs – this is *not* a call-out for an unpaid lackey.
This internship for SoundGirls Members is provided by Chris Wenn, a sound designer for theatre and contemporary performance. Chris has been employed as a tutor and lecturer at Monash University, the University of Melbourne, and the Victorian College of the Arts. In January 2018 he will be taking a part-time role teaching technical sound at the University of Melbourne. He lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Two shows available – If interested, please send cover letters and resumes/CV to soundgirls@soundgirls.org.
Show 1: ‘AntigoneX’ at Theatre Works, 14 Acland St, St Kilda
Dates: 31 January to 04 February 2018. Rehearsals from November 2017
Show: ‘AntigoneX’ by Zachary Dunbar, directed by Zachary Dunbar
Venue: http://theatreworks.
Hours: negotiable, depending on the individual’s area of interest and other commitments. Critical times would be bump-in & tech rehearsals in late January (times TBC), approx 20 hrs.
What it entails: The interested SG member would observe and participate in the creative design process of a new work of theatre, from early rehearsals and creative meetings to bump-in, tech rehearsals, and performance. Actual tasks can be tailored to the SG member’s own area of interest (technical audio, composition, Foley work, live operation, etc.). The show is not yet in rehearsal, but initial concepts include live microphone/instrument mixing, multiple on stage speakers, and a fully scored atmospheric sound world. The SG member will receive 1-to-1 training in audio for live theatre, including QLab programming. This is a *unpaid* internship, but the SG member will be fully credited on program materials, for example as ‘Sound Design Assistant,’ ‘Technical Assistant,’ ‘Sound Operator’ etc. depending on their area of interest.
How many can attend: 1 member, possibly 2
Show 2: ‘Colder’ at Red Stitch Actors Theatre, Rear 2 Chapel Street, St Kilda
Dates: March 2018, schedule TBA. Rehearsals from January 2018.
Show: ‘Colder’ by Lachlan Philpott, directed by Alyson Campbell
Venue: https://redstitch.net/
Hours: negotiable, depending on the individual’s area of interest and other commitments. Critical times would be bump-in & tech rehearsals in late February/early March (times TBC), approx 20 hrs.
What it entails: The interested SG member would observe and participate in the creative sound design of a work in Red Stitch Actors Theatre’s 2018 season, from early rehearsals and creative meetings to bump-in, tech rehearsals, and performance. Actual tasks can be tailored to the SG member’s own area of interest (technical audio, composition, Foley work, etc.). This show will not have a live audio component. The SG member will receive 1-to-1 training in audio for live theatre, including QLab programming. This is a *unpaid* internship, but the SG member will be fully credited on program materials, for example as ‘Sound Design Assistant,’ ‘Technical Assistant,’ etc. depending on their area of interest.
How many can attend: 1 member, possibly 2