SoundGirls Members have the chance to receive a 1000 euro scholarship provided to SoundGirls members from Mix With The Masters. There are two scholarships available for the week-long session with Leslie Braithwaite (Cardi B, Rick Ross, Pharrell Williams..)
This is a week-long seminar valued approximately at 4,000 euros and includes lectures and workshops, accommodation within the mansion, catering (breakfast, lunch, dinner) the fitness room, swimming pool and shuttles from Avignon to the studio.
You must have an advanced understanding of audio and work as producer/mixer/engineer to attend Mix with the Masters.
private bedroom, on site within the mansion for 6 nights
Full-board accommodation with meals prepared by gourmet chefs on-site
Return shuttle services from Avignon to Studios La Fabrique
Unlimited drinks and snacks throughout the week
Approximately 50 hours in the studio with the guest speaker
One-on-one time between you and the master to assess and work on your own material
Professional photography done throughout the week, including portrait shots of you with the Master
Hundreds of full-resolution photos shared with you afterwards via download link, to keep and use as you please
A certificate of completion issued on behalf of Mix With the Masters and Studios La Fabrique, signed by the Master if you wish
Exclusive MWTM merchandise given only to seminar attendees: embossed Moleskine notepads, pens, mugs, t-shirts, USB keys and stickers.
Use of the La Fabrique swimming pool, garden, fitness centre, and scenic walks
Nearby access to the enchanting town of St. Rémy de Provence
About LeslieBraithwaite
Leslie’s impressive list of GRAMMY awards include TLC’s Fanmail (Best Rap Album), Brandy and Monica’s single, “The Boy is Mine” (Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group), Outkast’s Stankonia (Best Rap Album), Pharrell Williams’ G I R L (Best Urban Contemporary Album) and “Happy” (Best Pop Solo Performance, 2015) . He’s still based in Atlanta today, where he continues to craft his signature sound and grow his admirable résumé.
Credits:
Pharrell Williams, Outkast, Björk, TLC, Jay Z, Madonna, Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Akon, T.I., Monica, Michael Jackson, Cher, Mary J. Blige, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., GRAMMY Awards for Best R&B performance by Duo or Group – Brandy and Monica The Boy Is Mine (1999), Best R&B Album – TLC, FanMail (2000), Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group – TLC, No Scrubs (2000), Best Rap Album – OUTKAST, Stankonia (2002), Best Urban Contemporary Album – Pharrell Williams, GIRL (2015), Best Pop Solo Performance – Pharrell Williams, Happy (2015)
Program
The process of greatness fostering greatness has long been recognized and is the reason why master classes are organized. The Mix With The Master’s seminars is part of this tradition, offering an exchange of in-depth first-hand studio experience and knowledge that is unparalleled and not available anywhere else. Each seminar is conducted by one of the world’s top music mixers and producers, ready to share their professional secrets with a select group of a maximum of 14 carefully-screened, professional-level participants, who come from all over the world.
One factor that contributes to the enormous success of the seminars is that all tutors support the general MWTM ethos, which is about the love of music, music technology and wanting to help others. Participants also are in part selected on displaying similar, positive attitudes. The fact that the seminars last a full week is another major contributory factor because it offers tutors the time and space to go into real depth, and the participants the opportunity to spend a prolonged time watching a master at his peak, and to ask any question they can think of.
The tutors share exclusive, insider-information on any subject: detailed technical knowledge, how to run sessions, how to handle artists, how to manage a career, the right attitude, how to remain successful, and more. The tutors also assess the work of the participants, by listening to their mixes and mixing recording sessions that they bring, and providing extensive feedback to each participant on where they are at, and how they can get to where they want to be. This is invaluable and offers participants wanting to become world-class professionals in their own right a unique advantage.
Another primary factor in making the MWTM seminars exceptional is that they take place at La Fabrique, a large, comfortable, high-end recording studio located in a picturesque historic building, surrounded by huge, lush grounds, and set in the south-east for France in one of the world’s most beautiful environments. The secluded and idyllic location offers the participants and tutors a lot of space to relax and recharge, far away from the hustle and bustle of daily life and the all-demanding intensity of their regular professional environments.
Because the courses are residential, the participants and tutor work, eat, socialize, and sleep in the same environment. While tutors, and participants, will at times opt to retire to their private quarters, there is ample opportunity for social interaction outside of the studio environment. Participants interact extensively with each other and the tutor, making it easier to assimilate the intangible qualities necessary to be successful at the highest level—presence, focus, social skills, intelligence, creativity, the right attitude, and so on.
In short, for seven days participants can experience mixing with a master in both senses of the phrase, mixing and interacting with them. Get more information about Studio La Fabrique
Mary Shipman Howard
Mary Shipman Howard was one of the earliest known female recording engineers and one of the earliest women studio owners (in the 1940s). Mary worked with great musicians and composers of the era such as Glenn Miller, Arturo Toscanini, Charles Ives, and Samuel Barber.
From Audio Record Feb. 1948
Mary was born in 1911 in Hartford, Connecticut to an affluent family who supported the local arts. She played viola but got arthritis at an early age. In an interview with Vivian Perlis (part of the OHAM Charles Ives collection), Mary said, “Since I always loved acoustical, mechanical things – the process of translating a sound wave into an electrical impulse and back into sound – I got really into recording.” Mary was intrigued by records, and she bought a recording machine and started learning about record cutting on her own.
NBC Years
NBC Symphony Orchestra 1944
She came to New York in 1940 and applied for an engineering job at NBC. At the time, women weren’t allowed in the union, so Mary was hired as a secretary. When NBC became short on staff during World Word II, the union decided to let women engineer. Mary was the only woman at the NBC studios for around six months, but it didn’t take her long to make a name as a master recording engineer.
Her first assignment was Glenn Miller, whose music she liked even though she had a classical music background. She was assigned to recording sessions for Toscanini at RCA. There was a union deal between NBC and RCA which required an NBC studio engineer to be at RCA Victor. Mary couldn’t work, but the RCA Victor engineer couldn’t work without her there. Mary said (in her Perlis interview) she “didn’t do anything except sit with my eyes falling out of my head, and my ears dropping off.” Mary worked with Toscanini for eight years.
Mary Howard Recordings
Mary Howard Recordings record; Photo from Discogs
While Mary was at NBC (around 1945-46), she started a small studio in the same building she lived in called “Mary Howard Recordings.” It was three blocks from NBC (37 East 49th Street), and she worked at the studio part-time. She left NBC after the war (because of the long hours). But, by then, she found her studio was in high demand. She told Perlis, “I had all the best Ampex equipment, and I was the first private person ever to own a Scully lathe. Nobody else could afford it. I couldn’t afford it, either, but I got a loan from the bank. It was wonderful fun while it lasted, and the most fun were the people who suddenly, by word of mouth only, came to have me make recordings for them.” Time Magazine even did an article about Mary and her studio in 1947.
One of Mary’s clients was composer Charles Ives who asked her to do all his recordings of rehearsals and broadcasts. Ives would get letters from people asking how to interpret his music, and he would send them a recording instead of explaining it on the phone (part of Mary’s job was labeling and sometimes mailing). Mary had other clients who recorded for personal use or came to the studio for late-night listening sessions (like William Schumann and Alan Hovhaness).
In 1947, Mary started releasing her own commercial recordings under the MHR label. Artists included The Herman Chittison Trio, Ethel Waters, Lucille Turner, and Dale Belmont.
Over time, her studio grew to have multiple engineers and additional staff. Donald Plunkett, an engineer who worked at Mary’s studio, described her in an interview (with Susan Schmidt Horning):
Mary was very unique. She was a musician who understood musicians and understood a good deal about recording and how to marry the two – both the personalities of the musicians and the temperament of recording equipment.
Musicians are few and far between in our business . . . She had two portable recording lathes and a station wagon and did a lot of recording of prominent musicians.
Van Eps Cutting Head
Mary was featured in Audio Record Magazine in 1948. At the time, some of the studio’s recording equipment included Van Eps lathe, Allied Cutting lathe, Presto 1-D Heads, and Langevin 101-A Amplifiers (the preamps and program amps were Langevin).
When asked what they do to ensure good recordings, Mary showed her technical expertise and a strong understanding of audio:
“We are of the opinion that a compact, consolidated recording and control room, combined adjacent to and visible to the studio is the best method of recording. With this setup a recording technician can actually ‘ride gain’ but what is more important can see what actual level is imposed on the disc. We feel that the term ‘riding gain’ is a poor description of the operation involved. The more dynamics achieved in a fidelity recording, even if the frequency response is limited, the more the sound originating in the studio will be approximated. We feel that too much emphasis can be put on the word ‘fidelity’ and that some of the pre-emphasized and over emphasized high frequencies often result in a sound unpleasing to the ear, which after all is the final judge.
Recording information about cutting characteristics, recording head designs, styli and quality of response equipment is easily obtained. These all enter into the final results. Unfortunately, the interest and ingenuity of the recordist has often been overlooked. Recording is not a dull craft at all if engaged in all its technical phases. There seems to be a prevalence in large organizations for specialization – cutting technicians, studio technicians, maintenance, etc – which often results in poor recording because of lack of interest or information in all phases of the recording operation. If interest and enthusiasm were carried all the way through the recording organization, and management, perhaps time might be found to raise the general recording standards in America. We have tried to incorporate these methods in our operation and have had success… or some such thing.”
Leaving the Business
Mary closed the studio in 1955 when she grew tired of being in the city. She tried to split time in and out of New York, but it eventually seemed silly. She wanted to spend time outdoors, garden, and “try to make weekends meet.” (Perlis interview) She married Edwin Pickhardt (date unknown) and changed her name to Mary Howard Pickhardt.
Dog Breeder
American Kennel Gazette Dec 1963; Ch. Sabbaday Echo Best of Breed
After her recording career, Mary became a breeder of pugs under the name Sabbaday Kennels (named after the street her home was on in Connecticut). Her pug, Ch. Sabbaday Echo, won best of breed in 1963. Mary was recognized by her colleagues for her commitment to the breed (including helping give the national pug exposure).
Ch. Sabbaday Echo. Photo by Evelyn M. Shafer; Courtesy of AKC Library and Archives
She was active with the Pug Dog Club of America and Mary (and her husband) were respected judges at dog shows across the US. Sylvia Sidney, a stage and screen actor who owned and showed pugs said in the New York Times, “Mary was probably the best breeder and exhibitor of pugs on the Eastern seaboard.” Sylvia mentioned one of Mary’s dogs was on the cover of the American Kennel Gazette (likely the December 1963 issue; the pug on the cover was not identified).
In a tribute by the Pug Dog Club of America after her death, it was said Mary “was a tremendous supporter of all Pug clubs, an outstanding judge of Pugs and a woman of great courage.”
Mary died in 1976 (at age 65). She had a son, Arthur Shipman Howard, and four grandchildren.
Select References
Plunkett, Don Interview by Susan Schmidt Horning. 09 Feb. 1999. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
The War Gave Mary Howard Her Big Chance to Make Good in Recording; She Did – And How! Feb. 1948. Audio Record (by Audio Devices, Inc.)
Pickhardt, Mary Shipman Interview by Vivian Perlis. (Washington, CT; Sep 24, 1969). Oral History of American Music Collections Guide: Charles Ives, Yale University Library.
Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!
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
Women & The Grammy For “Producer of The Year, Classical”
The Grammy for Producer of the Year, Classical (originally Classical Producer of the Year) was introduced in 1979. This particular category distinguishes itself as the first technical award where a woman was nominated on the ground floor, during the category’s inaugural year.
That woman was Joanna Nickrenz.
Not only was Nickrenz the first woman to receive a nod in Production (Classical Producer of the Year – 1979), she’s also the first woman I’ve found on record to be nominated for a Grammy in Engineering (Best Engineered Recording, Classical for Edgard Varése’s “Percussion Music” – 1974).
A classically trained pianist, Ms. Nickrenz took a strong interest in the recording process during her first studio sessions. This led to her taking an assistant position at Elite Recordings, where she worked as an editor, producer, and eventually full partner to Elite founder, recording engineer Marc Aubort. Records made under the Aubort/Nickrenz umbrella carry a legacy among audiophiles as being some of the best orchestral recordings ever produced.
Affectionately dubbed “Miss Razor Ears,” Joanna was fiercely dedicated to preserving the integrity of the score. She was known to admonish musicians if they played any part of a work incorrectly or dared to improvise. When she passed away in 2002, her urn was humorously engraved with an oft-used corrective phrase: “What’s written is also nice.”
Ms. Nickrenz received 8 Producer of the Year, Classical nominations and won the award twice. In 1983, she shared the win with Aubort. In 1996, she was the sole recipient. She was additionally nominated in 1984, 1986, and 2001, but did not win during those years.
If she is indeed the first woman to break through the Grammy glass ceiling in both production and engineering, how is it that Joanna Nickrenz doesn’t even have her own Wikipedia page? Why can’t I find a single photograph of this pioneering lady?
Women account for around 14% of those nominated for Producer of the Year, Classical. A total of eight Grammys have been handed to women in the category’s 39-year history.
Five of these trophies have gone to Judith Sherman.
Nominated a whopping 12 times, Judith is a major contributor to the catalog of recorded classical music. She got her start as a broadcast engineer at WBAI-FM in New York City, working up to positions as a producer and musical director. She started her own production company, Judith Sherman Productions, in 1976. She is the second woman to be nominated for a Grammy in Engineering, receiving a Best Engineered Recording, Classical nod in 1990.
Though she’s established a long and fruitful legacy, Ms. Sherman remains a force to be reckoned with to this day. She has been nominated for Producer of the Year, Classical for the past five years in a row.
Being prolific seems almost a prerequisite when you look at the women in this category, most of whom have been nominated multiple times.
Robina G. Young has received ten nominations for Producer of the Year, Classical. Marina A. Ledin has received eight. Young and Ledin have not yet crossed the stage to collect a trophy, but they show no signs of slowing down. 2006 winner Elaine Martone has managed over 1500 projects and offers a staggering biography. Nominee Elizabeth Ostrow is still going strong on a career spanning over 40 years. Anna Barry, who has over 500 recordings in her discography, was recently tasked to be the official recordist for the Royal Wedding. The late Patti Laursen was another important trailblazer, producing the first digital recordings made by Capitol Records in 1979.
Women in production have fared much better in the Classical division than in the category’s Non-Classical equivalent, with the percentage of wins landing at about 20%. The percentage of women who’ve won Producer of the Year, Non-Classical is still zero.
Though popular music will always have better PR, some of the most crucial and groundbreaking work has been done by women operating under the Classical umbrella. Seeing that the Recording Academy is pushing #WomenInTheMix and that March is Women’s History Month, the accomplishments of these producers should be loudly celebrated.
I invite you to dive deeper into the stories of the women nominated for Producer of the Year, Classical. Personally, I’ll be ensuring that Ms. Nickrenz finally gets her Wiki page. If anyone out there can find a picture of her, I sure would be glad to finally see it.
Lillian McMurry – Record Producer & Owner of Trumpet Records
In 1949, Lillian Shedd McMurry heard a record that changed her life. A woman with no prior experience in the music industry started a record store, record label, and recording studio where she produced, promoted, and engineered songs – many of which became rhythm and blues classics. Some of her artists went on to hit records and career success such as Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, and Big Joe Williams. At its peak, Lillian calculated Trumpet Records to be the fifth-largest independent record label in the US.
She was born Lillian Shedd in 1921 in Purvis, Mississippi. During the Great Depression, Lillian’s family experienced extreme poverty. For years, they couldn’t afford a radio, so the family entertained themselves by singing together. She had seven male cousins who were like brothers to her. Lillian, a self-described tomboy, could “whip any three” of her cousins.
At age 13, she worked part-time after school. She graduated high school with experience in bookkeeping and secretarial work. In the early 1940s, she worked the counter at a pharmacy from 7 am to 10 pm 7 days a week, and was later promoted to manager. She met her future husband, Willard McMurray when she inquired about a beautiful concert grand piano for sale in his furniture store. The two were married in 1945 and had a daughter, Kathryn Vitrice, in 1947.
Willard and Lillian purchased a hardware store in 1949 (at 309 Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi) with the plan to turn it into a furniture outlet. It was located on the boundary of white and black businesses and entertainment districts. While sorting through what was left behind in the building, workers came across a stack of unsold 78s (at the time, you could find records for sale at hardware stores in addition to grocery stores, service stations, and beauty parlors). One of the workers put on a record, Wynonie Harris’s recording of “All She Wants to Do Is Rock,” and Lillian was transfixed. “’It was the most unusual, sincere and solid sound I’d ever heard,” she said. ”I’d never heard a black record before. I’d never heard anything with such rhythm and freedom.’”
The workers (one who was a part-time bassist) knew these “race” records could only be ordered from wholesale houses in New Orleans. Lillian was going there on business soon and asked them to help make up a list of records to buy. In New Orleans, some of the distributors laughed at Lillian’s lack of knowledge but still told her where to get the records. She asked Willard if they could turn the store into a combination record and furniture store and he agreed.
Record Mart
The store had a sign that said Record Mart and the record shelves were on the walls (the center of the store had furniture for sale). She quickly sold out of her new records and the stock the workers had found. Lillian advertised three hours a day on a local radio show that featured a lot of music aimed at the black audience (R&B, blues, and gospel music). Lillian then expanded to the mail-order business, growing to as many as 1,500 orders a day. Most of the orders were coming from rural areas which had no record shops.
Record Mart also had listening booths which brought customers to the store to listen to new releases. Vocal groups would come in to hear new releases and sing along. This was the first time Lillian heard a live black vocal performance. Marc Ryan says in his book, “Trumpet Records: An Illustrated History with Discography”:
In the segregated society of Mississippi, it had been possible for Lillian McMurry to live nearly thirty years without having heard live or recorded black music. Segregation worked both ways, and the places where black musical forms flourished were pretty much off limits for whites.
Trumpet Records
The success of record sales at the store and her encounters with local musicians made Lillian want to create her own records. 28-year-old Lillian formed Trumpet Records and its parent company, The Diamond Record Company (DRC). Her first two signed artists were black gospel groups she met in the store (over time, word traveled that Lillian would audition walk-in talent at Record Mart). On April 3, 1950, Lillian produced her first recording session with a local group called the St. Andres Gospelaires. The session was at a local radio studio (WRBC). Lillian signed a second artist, the Southern Suns, to an exclusive contract on May 30, 1950, and had their first recording session at WRBC the next night.
Even with her lack of experience, Lillian already had the instinct of a producer. She went looking for local country, western, and blues artists to expand the label. While she didn’t have any marketing data to know it would sell, she saw how Hank Williams’ records performed at Record Mart (she had never heard of Hank Williams until the prior year when her workers wrote up the list of records for her to buy). Lillian arranged for a recording with Kay Kellum, a well-known local singer-accordionist, and paired him with two brothers she heard on the radio (Sam and Westley Tolars who played bass and fiddle).
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Lillian heard about a blues singer who played the harmonica (or the “harp” as it’s known in the blues circle) and tracked him down in a neighboring community. Sonny Boy Williamson had been performing locally and on the radio for almost 20 years. They signed a contract in December 1950 and in January they recorded the label’s first hit, “Eyesight to the Blind.” The recording was at Ivan Scott’s Radio Service Studio in Jackson. He used one microphone and a direct-to-disc recording process.
It turns out Sonny was not the artist’s real name – he was an escaped convict who needed a new name. Sonny recorded hits for the label including “Dust My Broom” and became one of Trumpet’s most successful artists.
In 1951, the label got the news that all of their masters, which had been sent to the Master Record Company in Chicago, were lost in a fire. Lillian powered forward by finding a new firm to handle her mastering and getting her artists back in the studio to re-record songs.
Lillian had high standards in the studio. She recalled 120 rejected takes on one title. Since Ivan Scott’s studio was direct-to-disc, they couldn’t edit, and a new disc was required for each take. Whether it was a balance issue, audio problem, or an artist’s flaw in performance, Lillian only wanted to release the best.
Lillian was honest and direct with her artists. In a later letter to Joseph Curtis Almond (after he skipped a session), she said, “We are very disappointed with your slow tunes . . . Your voice is cracked all through; you blast and then drop your voice, and the whole dark vocal comes out a mess. . . If you had come to Jackson as planned on Thursday, we could have put you on the mike and corrected anything that was wrong with the songs or your voice; then you could have rehearsed from Thursday until Sunday.” She told Sherman “Blues” Johnson in a letter, “You are about the nicest guy, and we do appreciate your attitude. .We are not discouraged, and we don’t want you to be. . . I’m going to give you a swift kick in the pants next time I see you if you don’t keep on trying.”
Recording to Tape
Bill Holford, ACA Studios
A year into operations, Lillian discovered Bill Holford, a recording engineer who owned the Audio Company of America (ACA) in Houston. Bill was willing to work remotely and worked with analog tape (new technology at the time) which gave the ability to edit takes. Bill was an Oklahoma native who trained in the Air Force (where he learned electronics) during World War II. He had a 1948 Raytheon four-channel mixer and an Ampex 300 mono recorder. Lillian booked him in December 1951 for a marathon series of sessions (four days, three nights) and scheduled nearly all of her contracted talent. The sessions were booked at the local Musicians’ Union Hall.
With Bill busy setting up mics and Lillian doing last-minute preparations, they didn’t notice what was going on with the union folks at the hall. At the time, Mississippi was one of the most openly segregated areas of the entire country, and the musician’s union had a ‘whites only’ policy. According to Marc Ryan, “Lillian had naively assumed that the union would welcome such a flurry of activity for the Jackson musicians. As a relative novice in the recording field, she had little knowledge about the attitudes and policies of the rank-and-file white leadership towards black musicians. When the union bosses finally sized up the situation, turmoil erupted.”
Lillian and Bill captured a few tracks while the union bosses bothered the black musicians waiting to record. “I wasn’t going to have those musicians harassed,” she said in Ryan’s book. “They got so nasty that we just moved our equipment out.” She quickly located a vacant club hall, the Cedars of Lebanon, and rented it for the rest of the sessions. Ryan wrote, “Beset with coffee nerves and talking herself hoarse; the crusading producer forged on into the third night, then the fourth day, of the marathon. Holford, ever calm and self-possessed, aided and comforted by his wife Kay, kept the reels of his Ampex rolling as the final round of recordings built to a remarkable climax.” In the end, they had 42 usable takes and Lillian was confident there were hits in the bunch.
Lawsuit
In January 1952, Lillian received news that “a pair of big shots from Hollywood” were in the Jackson area trying to sign artists by promising fame and fortune. Many of the artists the Bihari brothers (Jules and Joe) were going after were Trumpet artists – with no regard to their Trumpet contacts. Lillian quickly contacted a lawyer and the local Sheriff. The Sheriff issuing a restraining order to the Bihari brothers during a demo recording at a local nightclub. Trumpet artist Lonnie Holmes was about to audition when the Sheriff came in. The session ended, and the Biharis were served papers to appear in court. Diamond Record Company was suing Modern Records for “inducing artists who were under exclusive contract” and asking $1 million in damages.
The lawsuit made national news and the case was in the courts for over two years. In 1954, a judge ruled in Lillian’s favor. The Biharis were guilty of “violating a state statute forbidding willful and knowing interference between parties of an employment contract.” The damages awarded were a disappointing $2,500 and the Biharis continued to record with one of the artists they took from Lillian, “Mister” Elmore James. Lonnie Holmes, the artist whose audition, was stopped, had his contract voided and his first Trumpet release (which was about to ship) was canceled. He never recorded again.
Moving Ahead
Lillian continued to look for new talent and sign new artists. The Southern Sons recorded some tracks with the Argo Singers, an all-female gospel group based in Chicago.
Their first session was at the RCA Victor Studio in Chicago then one at Universal Recording (while Bill Putnam was still based in Chicago).Lillian held Gospel concerts at some of Jackson’s small theaters and used that to help promote the label and the store. These shows were advertised on local radio and usually had a full house.
On the country music side, Lillian was gaining recognition for her ear for artists. Producers from MGM and Capitol started to call her to talk shop and market trends. After Hank Williams’ death in 1953, she recognized a hole in the market and arranged sessions with existing and new Trumpet artists. She helped shape part of the early Rockabilly sound with artist Joseph Curtis Almond.
She hired top musicians for some recordings including B.B. King, Little Milton Campbell, and Joe Willie Wilkins. Even though the city of Jackson’s musician’s union had segregation requirements, she refused to adhere and mixed black and white musicians. Lillian said later, “Because we recorded some black blues and spirituals, I was treated rather ugly sometimes by certain people… I acted like a lady, as a businessperson, and that’s the way it should have been.”
Lillian’s devotion to her artists went outside the studio, too. She offered everything from encouragement and advice to money management and cab rides. She got notified by the police that artist Bobo “Catfish Slim” Thomas had been in jail for eight months. The year prior, Lillian had loaned him an amp and a guitar to write a b-side to a song, and he hadn’t been heard from since. Lillian wasn’t concerned about the broken and muddy guitar and amp the police were returning to her. She was more concerned that Bobo didn’t have a single hearing in eight months. She hired a lawyer for him for $125 (for perspective, a 125-mile taxi ride would cost you $6 at the time). Lillian was at the trial where she spent two hours in a room behind the judge’s bench trying to talk Bobo into pleading “not guilty” so the judge would let him go. A couple of years later, Lillian sent her family doctor to check on Trumpet artist Willie Love as his health was failing. She visited Willie in the hospital in his final days, and DRC paid for his funeral.
Recording Studios
Lillian tried a few tape-based studios once she made the jump from recording vinyl. She connected with Sam Phillips, engineer, and owner of Memphis Recording Service (where Marion Keisker worked). Lillian knew that Sam’s interest was the blues and trusted his instinct and sent some of her artists for sessions at his studio. She also continued to send artists to ACA in Houston. But, eventually, a new idea came about: The furniture store. In the summer of 1953, Lillian’s dad built the Diamond Recording Studio (designed by Bill Holford of ACA) in the 309 building. The Record Mart ceased operations.
Ryan’s book explains her gear:
She bought a new Macintosh pre-amp and amplifier, a big Altec Lansing monitor, RCA 77 DX and 44 BX microphones, and a Magnecord tape deck. She had mattresses hung on the walls and ceiling, covering them with huge theatre drapes for acoustical effect.
Lillian began experimenting as an engineer, using her observations from being in sessions with engineers like Holford and others. Ryan said,
She discovered the wisdom in recording everything “flat”, with no “echo”, which could then be added later as needed. She studied balance, striving always to keep the voice “out front.” With her usual dynamism, she soon was obtaining professional standards in her temporary studio in the furniture store. The first DRC studio session to be released on the Trumpet label was Jerry McCain in October 1953.
Lillian engineered tracks at the studio such as Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Red Hot Kisses” and ‘Lucky’ Joe Almond’s “Every Day of the Week.” Most (but not all) of DRC’s catalog starting DRC 185 were recorded by Lillian.
The End of Trumpet
By the end of 1954, the DRC was losing money, and Lillian’s enthusiasm was starting to dwindle. Willard’s furniture business was subsidizing the studio in hopes a new release would be a big success and help put the studio and label finances back on track. It had been nearly two years since Trumpet had a big hit. The label faced a number of struggles – unfaithful artists, the failure to find new artists that could grab hold of the market, distributors that took merchandise on advance then went bankrupt, and other distributors that ignored invoices completely.
At the same time, R&B music was starting to reach the mainstream. The major labels were enveloped by it. It wasn’t practical for Lillian to release music for local consumption but competing with the majors was going to be a challenge. Lillian, in a fight to the end, started Globe Records in an attempt to reach a new market (she also engineered all the recordings, as well).
Trumpet was done (in 1955). But, the growing debt of the organization lead to fewer recording sessions. Lillian even traded away Sonny Boy’s recording contract to their pressing plant, Plastic Products, to cancel a huge debt. The last recording was Lucky Joe Almond on St. Patrick’s Day in 1956.
Ryan says in his book, Lillian “had grown from a musically naive dilettante to an accomplished professional, whose tiny label had blossomed to become, for a few years at least, the second-largest independent label based in the South. To have remained in the field into the second half of the decade would have required a greater stake than the McMurrys were willing to gamble. The furniture business was still booming, and there was certainly no need to pursue the chimerical forms of fame and fortune that tantalized so many of DRC’s contemporaries.”
Lillian continued to keep the books and sell off old record stock for years at the furniture stores. She kept Globe Music, the publishing company where most of Trumpet’s catalog (and some unreleased tracks) went. She kept protecting her business-like in 1963 when a record-producer reissued some of Sonny Boy’s Trumpet recordings without Lillian’s blessing (she immediately sued the label owner). Federal copyright did not protect sound recordings until 1972. She protected her artists, too, who she diligently paid royalties on-time for years.
The rights to many Globe and Trumpet releases were sold to other labels (major and small). In 1985, the remaining masters and rights were donated to the Centre for the Study of Southern Culture (at the University of Mississippi in Oxford).
Lillian was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1998 (one of a few record producers at the time to have that honor). She died a year later at age 77.
In 2007, Lillian and Willard McMurry were posthumously honored with a historical marker at 309 Farish Street in Jackson. It was the first record company in Mississippi to achieve this type of recognition. Unfortunately, the site of the studio has since decayed – but Lillian’s most important contribution to the music industry will live on.
Further reading/listening
Ryan, Marc. Trumpet Records: an Illustrated History, with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1992.
Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!
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
Working toward a career goal in entertainment comes with a lot of baggage. Movies depict a certain sequence of events, ads promise a kind of instant gratification, and our elders say they were able to work their way up the ladder, buy a house, pay for college for the kids and retire. Never mind that movies aren’t real, that ads are intended to manipulate (at worst) and influence (at best) our spending habits, and that the jobs our elders had no longer exist. In spite of widespread understanding of these facts, our careers are still prodded and picked at by well-meaning friends, family, and even other creative professionals. The unspoken assumption is that there is a correct way to build a career and that if you do it that way then you will predictably meet a series of milestones on your course of upward growth.
Maybe there was a golden era of the American workplace in which upward growth was essentially frictionless. My grandfather started at IBM in the 1960s as a computer engineer and worked for 30 years, during which time he bought a house, supported a family of four, put two children through four-year college programs, saved for retirement, and had access to legitimate health benefits. It wasn’t easy, but his job did make it all possible.
My grandparents on my dad’s side, 1982, on the last day of their first international trip. Their oldest child (my dad) had just graduated from college, a state school which they were able to pay for, and their youngest was 15 and stayed with her grandmother. This was the first of many trips they have taken over the years since their kids have grown up.
The people I know whose careers fell on a similar timeline to his have similar experiences. But the years before this “gold era” were similar to how things are now: people with socio-economic advantages are able to move upward at a fairly rapid pace, and everyone without socio-economic advantages is able to exercise upward mobility only after figuring out how to catch up. The college student with a job that pays her rent does not have access to the same opportunities as her classmate whose rent is paid by his parents so he can attend an unpaid internship for a semester.
I mention this because we now live in a free labor economy. Companies and individuals in power positions have a bad habit of bullying workers for free labor, even when it’s technically illegal. Perhaps this fear mechanism was born out of the crash of 2008 (when many of the people in power positions were still in college), or perhaps we are becoming exponentially shameless in our power hunger, with each passing year putting greater distance between the richest and poorest among us and more attention is given to the loudest people with the greatest number of followers. It is money and popularity, not skills and experience, that are winning in the job market right now.
So what can we do to combat this?
Prioritize fair pay in your business. Even if you are relying on the generosity of a friend at the moment, make it a priority to pay them what their work is worth as soon as you are able to.
Name your price and back it up. I hope you never have to experience someone in the music business bullying you, but it can happen to anyone. Someone will tell you that they can get someone else to do it for free. Often this is just a negotiation tactic. You’re worth more than nothing, so make a case for you over this imaginary free laborer. (One exception to this rule is when you are being generous to a friend!)
When money is tight, consider an exchange of skills instead. Are you an audio engineer who wants production experience? The more that you develop your skills the more bartering power you will have when you want to acquire new ones.
Jordan Cantor engineering and I producing at Killphonic Studios in Los Angeles last year. We are in our second year of her engineering me in exchange for me engineering her.
Communicate. This is very important. Your communication style will be different from other peoples’, and will likely evolve over time. You want to be as clear as possible. With experience, you’ll be able to read situations quickly and avoid problems before they become too big to solve.
Decide what your values as a business owner (and/or colleague) are, and resolve to never be lazy about upholding them. If someone you work with is not meeting those standards, don’t be afraid to talk about it and challenge them to do better. (The flip side of this is, obviously, that you must live by these standards as well!)
It is my hope that through the shifting tides of our current economy, we develop new and effective ways to uphold fair business practices. I’m always curious to hear from others about their experiences doing this (positive and negative), so please feel free to leave comments or email your stories to me at elanabellecarroll@gmail.com!
Killphonic Studios
Five Things I’ve Learned About Editing from Mixing
I have been a sound effects editor and supervising sound editor for a long time now. But, I have recently begun mixing a television series here at Boom Box Post. I am enjoying how much I learn each and every time that I sit down at the board, and I am by no means ready to start spouting mixing advice to anyone. But, I can say that I’ve come to appreciate certain editorial practices (and absolutely abhor others!) through my new vantage point as a mixer. Things that I thought of like a nice way to make your mixer happy have turned into practices that are essential to me being able to start my mixing day right. Seriously, these five things can be the difference of hours added to my predub day. So, here are five editorial practices that I’ve realized are absolutely essential to a smooth mix.
#1: Stick to the template.
In short, don’t add tracks! Adding tracks to an established template causes numerous headaches for your mixer during the setup, and it’s easy for issues to crop up later without him or her realizing it. Every time a track is added, your mixer needs to adjust his or her inserts, sends, groups, VCAs, markers, and more. That is a ton of extra work, and if one of those hasn’t been checked and adjusted before beginning to mix, issues can crop up along the way.
Adding more tracks to your session to squeeze in those 18 dirt debris sound effects that you added to a car peel out is a huge no-no. I am especially annoyed when I see that tracks were added just to put one or two sound files on them in the entire session. Your mixer or supervising sound editor has thoroughly thought through the needs of the project before creating your template. So, if you feel that you need more space to spread out, you probably need to re-think the way you’re approaching your builds (see number four below…). But, if having more tracks seems absolutely essential to you, make sure that you reach out to your mixer ahead of time and clear the change with him or her.
#2: Cut foley in perspective.
Foley is often one of the things that makes a project really come to life. It truly helps the action to feel more real. But, it’s also something that is often mixed so that we feel it instead of truly recognizing it with our ears. Your mixer probably won’t be using the footsteps to make a sonic statement during a big monologue or music montage. But, it does often make sense to feature them when characters are moving in or out of a scene. It helps the audience to track where they are located in the story and aids the flow between shots.
In these instances, the panning is often at least as important than the volume. And in order to pan people walking, for instance, off screen-right and then immediately into the next shot from screen-left, the foley needs to have been cut for perspective! I’ve had numerous foley editors say that they’re uncomfortable cutting in perspective because they want to give the mixer options. But, you’re truly not giving your mixer options. Instead, you’re tying his or her hands (or, rather, making them need to scoot over to the computer and recut it themselves when they’d rather focus on mixing)!
But perspective cutting for foley can be a bit confusing. So, let me break it down for you: you should cut your foley in perspective if there is a drastic change in volume necessary, or if characters need to be panned in our out of a shot. Panning within a shot does not require perspective changes (e.g., a character walks around a room during the same shot). Zooming in does not require a perspective change (this can be done with a fader move and is not a change between shots). Here are some examples that would require perspective changes:
Perspective change for volume: We start on a long shot of a character dancing on stage, shot from deep in the audience. Then, we cut into an extreme close-up on his feet. Bam! Perspective change!
Perspective change for panning: Two characters and standing around talking, and they realize they’re late for an important meeting. They run off screen-right. Then, we immediately cut to them running into a different room from screen left. Give that sucker a perspective change!
#3: Color code your builds.
This is not by any means an industry standard, but I seriously appreciate it. I see it! Want your mixer to love you now and forever? Then color-code your builds! I would recommend color-coding the regions that make up each BG location the same color each time that location is used as well as color-coding the regions within each FX build.
For BGs this is helpful to your mixer because he or she can easily copy and paste the volume automation onto each instance of the same location in just minutes! This is such a great time-saver for getting to a reasonable starting point on BG balance.
For FX, make sure to color-code your regions according to what the build is covering on-screen rather than the kind of elements they are. That way, it’s easy for your mixer to identify what to adjust by just glancing at your session (without necessarily soloing every single file). For example, when cutting a door open, you may have a handle turn, a wood door open, and a long creak. Color-code all three of those suckers brown! Extra points go to color-coding something that makes sense for the thing you’re covering (blue for water, brown for a wooden door, yellow for a yellow remote-control truck, etc.). And make sure that each time that same door opens happens, you color code it the same way. By doing that, your mixer can easily find a balance he or she likes and then paste it onto every instance. That makes adjusting it to work in a specific scene so much easier.
#4: Choose fewer, better FX.
Let me say this: more is not better. Not by a long shot. Yes, in a lot of cases, you should cut more than one layer to get a textured and full sound without tying the hands of your mixer. But, you also don’t want to veer too far in the opposite direction and cut way too many elements. Sound effects editorial is an art-form, and like any true art, it takes forethought and vision to do it well. That means deciding which layers you want before you start digging through your library, and then editing yourself to create the most robust but clear and simple build possible. I never start pulling sounds without a game plan, no matter how simple the build might seem.
In general, I like to stick with a rule of three: choose three files max that cover three frequency ranges (low, medium, and high) and also three different sonic textures. For example, when cutting a steady forest fire, I would choose a low-end rumble element to give it size, a mid-range thick whooshy element (maybe with a little phase for motion) for fullness, and a high-frequency steady crackle to give it motion, life, and to help it poke through the mix without needing to turn the volume way up. Without a game plan, I might be left throwing in a dozen elements because they seem like good choices. But with a little forethought, I can easily cut down the number of elements I use and make each one count. Honestly, it also makes things sound a lot better.
Sticking with the rule of three also helps your mixer! After all, he or she can easily grab up to four faders (three is even easier!) and adjust the volume without needing to create a group and then disable it after making the adjustment. So, there’s basically no reason not to cut like this. It helps you and your mixer to work better, smarter, and faster!
#5: Use clip gain instead of volume automation to balance FX builds.
So, you’ve toiled over creating the perfect balance between your elements in a single build. And mixers love it when you do some of the work for them! They’ll definitely want to adjust that balance to make it work within the mix, but having a solid starting point is key. The problem with adjusting your balance during editorial with volume automation is that as soon as your mixer grabs the faders, that balance is completely erased and replace with whatever his or her fingers do. So, do yourself and your mixer a favor and balance within builds using clip gain. That lets your mixer have all faders sitting at zero (and not popping up and down all over the place during playback), and thus each adjustment he or she makes is on top of what you’ve already accomplished.
A few caveats on this:
Make sure to use volume automation rather than clip gain when adjusting volume for perspective changes. Always first balance your build with clip gain, then cut it in perspective and make any volume changes for perspective with the volume bars.
Do not ever clip gain a sound down to the point of being inaudible. That makes it impossible for your mixer to turn up the volume with a fader without seriously compromising the signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, if you find yourself turning anything down that much, just delete it! You obviously don’t actually like it, and you need the space so you can follow #1 and #4! Take the opportunity to edit yourself!
Do not clip gain BGs. Use volume bars instead to adjust the balance. This is a good practice for two reasons: First, BGs often need to be super low in volume, and if you use clip gain, your mixer won’t be able to turn them up enough with the fader. Second, since these are long, steady elements, it’s nice to see where the volumes are on the faders rather than having them all at zero. But mostly, this is a signal-to-noise ratio issue.
Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!
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
“Part of what Sound Girls is trying to do is just show that, ‘Hey there’s other women out here doing what we’re doing. We exist and we’re doing the job well,’” Tucker said.
“It’s a matter of representation,” Jett Galindo said. “Just seeing themselves on these websites, on the Academy Awards, on the Grammys, succeeding…it reminds them that it’s doable.”
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SoundGirls Members have the chance to receive a 1000 euro scholarship provided to SoundGirls members from Mix With The Masters. There are two scholarships available for the week-long session with Leslie Braithwaite (Cardi B, Rick Ross, Pharrell Williams..)
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Behind the console: women working in audio and changing the game
