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The Sound of “Silence”

 

Did you know that not all silence or room tones are made equal? While I would never advocate listening to things loudly, you do need to make sure you are listening loud enough to hear certain issues in your room tone. This was a mistake I made when I first started. Part of my first job archiving and restoring for the Metropolitan Opera with LongTail Audio (RIP) was to audition (listen to) the tapes as we transferred them. This had several motives. One– to make sure all the music was there (so that means we used a score), and Two– to document any noises or grave issues with the sound (heavy use of markers).

Because I was a newbie at things like this, I was super paranoid about damaging my hearing. I knew I was going to be listening on headphones for 8 hours or more a day, so naturally, I tried to make sure I didn’t overdo it. But, when you first start, everyone is watching your work (as they should be). And one of the main things that I was missing was dropouts. Dropouts happen in analog tape with anything from tape damage to the age of the tapes to how they play back on the machine. This is what they look like if you view the spectral content.

 

By looking at it, you would think it’s impossible that you wouldn’t hear this. (To be fair this picture is probably a digital dropout which means you lose everything even for a few ms). But a lot of times, the dropout doesn’t manifest like a loss of programming. Sometimes it’s a momentary drop of tape hiss. Sometimes it actually sounds like a thud.

 

 

The good thing is there are ways to fix them if you have programs that can interpolate – like Izotope RX’s Spectral Repair or Cedar, etc. But my main point of this blog is that you need to be able to hear them.

The engineer that trained me on this job was someone I really admired and looked up to, I-hua Tseng. She was an amazing engineer who left us too soon, and I’m happy that I had the opportunity to work and learn from her. What she told me was to focus on the hiss. Most artifacts would jump out at you, but if you focus on the hiss, any momentary change or loss of signal will also jump out at you since your ear becomes accustomed to the noise floor. So your ear will detect a change if there is a loss. Your ears are amazing, so make sure you use them to their full capacity!

This brings me to the next important piece of “silence” which is room tone.

Do you know that not all room tone sounds the same? We worked with an entire folder of different room tones to fix things when they were needed. We had mono room tone, stereo room tone, dark room tone, bright room tone, room tone from the 70s, 60s, 30s, 40s, Dolby encoded, not. (Feeling like Bubba Gump here, but you get the idea) Anytime we ran into a good length or room tone, we would cut and export and drop it in the folder for the future.

Why would you need room tone? Because you don’t always go to digital black after something ends. Let’s say you’re in between movements of something or the tape ends and the room tone cuts off abruptly so you just need a little more to create a nice fade out, these are some of the reasons you would need room tone.

As I said, not all room tones are equal. The reason we had folders of room tone is that sometimes the programming wouldn’t contain anything you could work with. In this case, you would find the one that matched the best, and crossfade that into the other. And listen, sometimes you couldn’t find a perfect match, so instead of fading the existing room tone with another not as closely sounding one, you just replace it with the new one. It’s like trying to match navy and black; if you can’t get them to match exactly, you will notice. So just stick with one.

Did you know you also need room tone in podcasting? If you have a reporter who was done a lot of field recording, you also need room tone. Sometimes the interviews are done in less-than-ideal environments, so once that interview is edited, you’ll need room tone so that the noise floor doesn’t drop right away. This may seem tedious sometimes if there is a lot from this interview, but it does wonders when you are listening to a podcast and you don’t have someone’s quote just cut off because there is not a nice smooth fade. You can help your producers by asking them to ALWAYS record room tone any time they are out in the field reporting. This way you’re not scrambling to fake and create things out of nothing.

This may seem like a no-brainer and you’re now questioning why I’m even bothering to write this blog, but you would be surprised how much sloppy room tone I’ve heard and/or received. Creating a nice unnoticeable room tone to the listener is an art – an art many people in this industry take for granted because they think they should be doing more important things. But even something as small as room tone should be done with care.

 

Above I said we would look for a good length of room tone when we found and save that. That’s because if you grab less than one second and loop it if there is one tiny little bump, it will look like the above. And anyone will hear that. It sounds like a rattle or even a weird stutter sound effect (which may be cool in your pop track but not here). The fact that someone sent this to me to finalize says to me this person was not listening at a level that you could hear this OR this person only listened on speakers. I know in our field people constantly tell you to listen on speakers and “mixing on headphones is a no-no,” but critical listening really is better on headphones (IMHO). I *always* listen to my work and my mixes with headphones at some point – usually at consistent intervals just for checks and balances.

You do learn to look (listen) out for these things, so nowadays after having done this for 15 years, I can identify them quickly. But it’s important to train your ears. Whether it’s identifying anomalies or learning what 250 hz sounds like, invest in your craft – and by invest I mean your time! Not everything has a price on it. The better you are at hearing things, the better engineer you will be.

This was a great tool when I started: Golden Ears by Moulton Laboratories. They were several CDs (lol CDs) that had exercises to train you to identify different frequencies, EQs, and different processing. (Someone also conveniently uploaded some to Soundcloud here, so get your listen on).

Nowadays there are lots of A.I. ways to create room tone. Izotope RX10 has Ambience Match which generates and matches the noise floor. But make sure you listen to your room tone, don’t settle because you’re in a hurry. Having attention to detail and seamless editing will set you apart from everyone else.

This is Angela Piva

 

Angela Piva was at a holiday party many years before Covid was ever a thing. This holiday party was a who’s who of audio royalty. A circle Angela was privy to, but yet… at the end of the night, someone decides to take a group photo – a photo of all the engineers. As she walks up, someone jokes “hey, no wives!” Someone comes to defend her, “She’s an engineer!” The echo reverberated in slow motion throughout the room. “I started laughing, because, you know, you have to laugh at those things because you can’t get mad, you can’t get upset… not cry…Like, Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. [My friend] pushes me up there and I’m like, going up there anyway.”

AES Heroes Dinner

 

Today, I reiterate the importance of knowing the women who came before you. And so I’m dedicating this blog to the one and only Angela Piva. You may have heard of her. You may not have. But I guarantee you’ve heard some of her work. Her credits span from Michael Jackson, Run DMC, and Naughty By Nature, to Color Me Badd, Mary J. Blige, Ronnie Spector, and more. She broke into the business at a time when you really just didn’t see women in the game. So here’s (some of) her story.

When Angela walked into Berklee College of Music, the program was just getting started. In 1982, the school had this fancy new Mac Plus and had invested in state-of-the-art gear. She started college young and had a particular interest in synthesis but was also open to trying lots of different things. “I was like, well, let me try this and see what happens because I have plenty of time to change gears and maybe do something else. But if I don’t try it, I’ll never know, you know?” And so Angela set herself apart. She landed a job as a work-study overseeing the recording studio and then quickly got an internship at Mission Control in Boston, a studio owned by Michael Johnson and Maurice Starr. Yes, the producers for New Kids on the Block. This studio had an SSL console, which at the time was a big deal, and Angela got to learn the ropes.

These ropes would eventually lead her to Unique recording in NYC. Unique Recording Studio was a five-room studio in Times Square that ran from about 1978 to 2004. Anyone from Madonna to 2pac to Quincy Jones could be found there on any given day. It was owned by a married couple, Bobby and Joanne Nathan, and Angela says having a woman co-founder really made a difference. She says, “They were very open. There was no discrimination of any kind, you know, whereas there was at other studios and that was blatant at that time. I mean, there was one studio manager that literally told me to my face he would never hire a woman.”

Angela quickly moved up to assistant engineer. Since Unique was a 24-hour facility, she found it was a good training ground for an engineer. “You got tons of experience nonstop and the number of sessions I was on just as an assistant with well-known people, artists, and session musicians. It was so not just learning about technology, but the art of recording production. And it really trained me to be a good vocal coach for a lot of the sessions,” says Angela.

Unique’s specialty was MIDI equipment and programming. This is where Angela carved out her niche and became an asset. “I really worked my way in as an engineer through synth and MIDI programming, so we didn’t have the kind of libraries, etc. that you have nowadays…we would sample. We had drum machines and things; we used the 808, 909, you know, Kurzweil and other things. But you know, I was always working on it and synth patches. So a lot of clients had to try to hire two people. So by doing those two jobs, which I loved anyway… creating my own library and being valuable in that way too, is how I worked my way in.”

In the beginning, she assisted a lot of the big sessions, but as she says when you’re just starting out, you don’t get the top of the line. This changed over time. She developed a reputation for her programming and engineering abilities. She did a lot of indie records and one of her first radio-friendly records was with Heavy D, Somebody for Me. This then landed her a session with a little-known group at the time, Naughty by Nature who we all know would become a Grammy Award-winning hip hop trio. “They liked the work that I did with Heavy D a lot, and so they met with me and they played me some of their stuff. So I ended up engineering their first record, and O.P.P.,” says Piva.

 

The Show Documentary (Russell Simmons)

At the same time, Angela got a gig with another “unknown” group. Angela’s colleague and friend, Dr. Freeze were producing them. “I had worked with him a lot, and he wrote the song I Want to Sex You Up. So I recorded that with him and Color Me Badd.” Color Me Badd went on to sell over 12 million records, but back then, Angela says they had never been in the studio before. So she worked with them to teach them how to sing on the mic. Recording both at Unique and Quad Studios, the vocal sessions would last all night long starting at midnight.

Both Naughty by Nature and Color Me Badd’s albums went on to be double platinum in the next year. Angela remembers what that moment was like fondly. “I kept watching Billboard every week and then watching it rise. I remember being out in the street and just hearing people blasting out of their cars. [Then later] I remember once going to a club on the Upper East Side a long time ago. And I saw like a couple of hundred white people dancing to O.P.P., you know, and I almost fainted. I’m like, wow. … That was kind of the moment everything kicked off. Everything sort of changed a bit. And I was gaining more notoriety. A lot of folks contacting me, and starting to do different things. I started to work with other groups. But that really gave me the jumping point to kind of go from there.”

Angela eventually struck out on her own to begin engineering her own clients. While it was hard at first, it was a necessary move since assisting didn’t pay much, so going out on your own was necessary. She found people were really supportive. Angela says, “Run-D.M.C. was very supportive of me. When they saw me start to become an engineer, they’re like, you know, ‘Angela, you made it. You were just the little assistant. Now, look at you’… You know, for minority folks, too, like they know what it’s like to be discriminated against. So I think that’s why they were pushing for me…It felt good, positive, and uplifting when that happened when people see how far you’ve come. It’s hard to get acknowledgment from your peers.”

As the years rolled on and the economy changed, Angela began to diversify her portfolio. “If you want to be in this kind of field, you may have to wear different hats a lot. So you have to be versatile and kind of skilled in different areas.” She worked in audiobooks for a while, voiceovers, and got into the podcasting game before it was cool. While it can be difficult to break into these gigs when you start out in music, Angela says having good contacts and good recommendations really helped her. She had a colleague at Harper Collins get her first gig.

Eventually, in 2011, she landed her current position as part of the staff and faculty at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema@Steiner Studios – part of the City University of New York. “I teach advanced recording and mixing techniques and a lot about music production. I like to teach about techniques in general and how to apply them to different situations. Because I feel like, you never know where people are going to end up, what they’re going to love or what opportunities they’re going to get.”

Angela paved the way for many of us. I asked her about any challenges she faced as a woman, but she said while things weren’t always easy, she was always respected because of her work ethic. Hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and discipline are words that Angela has lived by in her decades-long career. “Being different gave me an edge. It helped me. I think it was more helpful than it ever was hurtful. Maybe there were people that didn’t work with me because I’m a woman, but I’ll never know because they didn’t really tell me. [But more importantly], don’t go where you’re not wanted. You need to be in the right place in order to get to the next level… If you love something, if you work hard, if you put a lot of energy into it, positive energy, you’re going to find your way somehow. The path will keep leading you somewhere.”

 

Angela Piva is the current president of the New York Section of the Audio Engineering Society and was also recently elected Vice President of Eastern Region, USA/Canada.

Make sure you get to know the people who paved the way for the rest of us. You will inevitably learn from them, be inspired, and also maybe make a new friend! Cheers, Angela!

 

 

 

I hate my job. What do I do?

I’m going to go deeper this time around and combine some of the things I’ve discussed in previous blogs. I’ve mentioned you should always be willing to take the job on the table, even if it’s not the one you thought or dreamed of. But what happens when you do that, and you absolutely hate that job and it’s a toxic environment? There are ways and there are ways to deal with this.

My Story

I’ve only once ever completely walked away from a job because I couldn’t take it anymore, but I stayed there for a year and a half. I knew when I signed the paperwork that it wasn’t for me, but I needed a job. And I needed an in, and this was it. In fact, I kept going to job interviews after I signed the papers. I hated the hours, the corporate structure, and I had a really, really horrible relationship with the executive producer (I wouldn’t find that out until later). Up front, I will say, I wouldn’t change the experience since I got my next job because I had that on my resume. I also was trying to conceive, they had full fertility coverage, and I was struggling to get pregnant.

Things came to a head several times. I had ambitions to grow and do other things, and this person was not letting me do that aside from being a person who really had to micromanage every little thing you did. I tried really hard to move to another department, to get away from the EP, and to also have better hours. It was considered a no-go because it would look like “poaching” within different departments. I spoke to my manager about it; I was not the only one who had issues with this person, but it was deemed we were both adults and we needed to find a way to deal for the good of the show.

I went on job interview after job interview and got no after no. So I stayed with it and worked every holiday. I focused on the work itself, and I did things I was proud of. After a while, I made friends with the hosts and some of the other folks on other shows. One of the hosts let me start writing the box office reports on Sundays, and another producer right towards the end let me put together a story (which aired on my last day there). But after one year and a half of stress, migraines, difficulty getting pregnant, and several SEVERAL conversations with management, I quit. I did it elegantly. I wrote a great resignation letter, offered more than the expected notice, and left on a high note.

I’ve never left a job with nothing on the horizon. I had enough money to get by for one month, and I was fortunate because I had a partner who also had a job. We didn’t have kids at that point, and we were in an apartment in Queens, so let’s say the stakes weren’t that high. It was terrifying, but I also knew I couldn’t take it anymore.

I sometimes believe that there’s an energy that keeps us from attracting the things we need, and for me, after I left this place, it felt like I’d liberated something. I received 2 offers within the month I left and actually had to choose. I landed at Futuro Media (home to Latino USA, etc) where I still work, and got pregnant like 3 months later.

I’ve made it a point not to burn bridges throughout my career and because of that, I’m able to check-in with old bosses and companies if I need work. Remember the audio world is small – everyone is connected, so don’t burn the bridge unless you plan on never looking back.

Tips for dealing with toxic workplaces

I hate my job, but I need the money.

First off, you should always give yourself some time to get used to a job. Don’t decide on the very first day or week that this job isn’t for you and you need to go. Every change in life needs time to adjust. For me, that’s about 6 months (could be less for you). It may seem like a long time when you’re miserable, but maybe you just need a minute to get in the groove. I came home from the first day of a new job crying; you may know it’s not for you, but you need to give it time to see how things play out.

So what do you do? Buckle down and focus on the job you were hired to do – you will inevitably learn something there. Try to find things outside of work that fills you with joy and helps you to decompress. Money is unfortunately an important factor, and unless you are able to just walk away, you need to put blinders on and just stick with it until you can find something else.

If after 6 months (or whatever number that is for you), you cannot fathom another day at this place, time to start thinking about your next move.

The environment is toxic.

A toxic work environment will wreak havoc on your mental (or physical) health. Whether it’s a specific person, being overworked and burnout, or physically damaging to your health, there are cases where you have to evaluate what this job is doing to you and figure out the quickest way out.

Some of these issues can be handled by being open and having conversations with your manager. If it’s a person, can you request to be moved to a different department? Ask to work on a different team? Have you had a direct conversation with this person as two adults willing to find a way to work together? Is your team understaffed, and you’re super burnt out? Do you work overnights and it’s affecting your health to do so? Those conversations are difficult, but you need to have them – especially if like point one, you need the money. It’s in your interest to find an immediate solution to make things better.

But, never have a conversation in the heat of the moment. (Or write an email for that matter). When you’re angry, your emotions get the best of you, and we end up seeming less professional. You need to have a plan of action, documentation, and propose different solutions to the issue. I’ve often written emails when I’m angry addressed to no one, saved them as a draft, and then come back to it the next day. It serves as a way to get things off my chest, without potentially having a falling out with its intended subject. I’ve written a lot of angry emails and have never sent them. No matter how #&*#$^ a place is, you have to manage things calmly and as a boss. A boss has a plan and a solution to everything, and that often comes from time to cool off so you can see things from another perspective.

The job is affecting my physical health

In this case, it’s important to find solutions quickly. No job is worth risking your physical (or mental) health. Be familiar with your company handbook and see what options are available to you. Can you take a leave of absence? It is really important to have some savings. I say this as a person who is horrible with finances, but you really need to have a small, humble cushion. Not talking about “retiring at 40” type savings, just enough to keep you safe during emergencies. Can you walk away and stay afloat for a month while you have time to find something else?

Overall advice

No matter what the issue is, make sure you find someone outside of work to talk to. Is that a therapist? best friend? Family member? You want to be careful of not sounding like a broken record on how horrible something is without actually doing something about it, but you do need to find someone to be able to unwind and let go. Sometimes just talking things out helps provide you with your own solutions. Otherwise, your fuse will burst a lot quicker.

The Importance of Being a Good Networker

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. You’ve got to network. You’ve got to get involved. You’ve got to meet the right people. Well, here it is again. It’s really important to network. And get involved. And meet the right people. Because your skill will only take you so far, knowing the right people will take you farther.

This might seem intimidating at first, especially if you’re a bit of an introvert. But you can be the most amazing engineer on the planet, and if nobody knows it, you will continue to be the most amazing engineer on the planet without any leads. This is not to be confused with shouting from the rooftops that you are the bomb, this is about going out and making healthy human connections (which let’s face it a lot of times these days this is virtual).

When I first started, I would go up and introduce myself to ANYONE – and I was kind of shy, so that took a lot. I would think of any, and I mean any question – even one I knew the answer to, and I would go ask. If I went to a concert, I would locate the sound person. And if there was a free moment, I would go ask my question. If I loved an album, I checked the credits, found the engineer, and wrote them on Myspace (I just dated myself with that but anyway).

But the biggest and most important place to network and meet people is through professional organizations. Going to conferences, and signing up for meetings, for workshops – i.e. getting involved in your community is the best way to get ahead. Meeting people will not replace skill, so it’s a delicate balance. You have to meet people AND hone your craft because you have to be ready for the opportunity to knock on your door. But those connections you make are the things that will bring those opportunities knocking. You recall I said it wasn’t so much who you know, but who knows you? Well, that’s going to require getting out there and meeting people.

I know this looks a lot different these days since a lot of this happens virtually. But it’s not to say you can’t pop questions in the chat, or reach out after the fact. Some of the conferences I’ve seen have smaller breakout rooms that allow you to have closer one-on-one chats. And from what I’ve seen most people on panels are open to people reaching out and often give their social media.

Don’t be discouraged if nothing happens immediately. I remember one year I must have applied for what felt like hundreds of jobs, and I got no after no or just ghosted. I sat down with my therapist (therapy is important), and she said it’s ok, you’re planting seeds. At the time, I was angry, because I was like whatever, I want change – I want a job now. But, I’ve never forgotten that because you eventually do see results. See the interview process is almost in a way networking. I had tons of emails and direct contacts for interviews I had been on which resulted in jobs later on. Because instead of going through the internet, if I saw the job posted a year later, guess what – I had the email of the person I interviewed a year ago, so I just wrote them directly. Also, if you make a good impression on the recruiters/employers, it’s not to say they won’t contact you later.

This is why it’s so important to be cordial. Be careful how you speak and treat people because you never know when or where those people may pop back up in your future. You don’t want to burn any bridges. How you speak and treat people will follow you everywhere you go. There may be a lot of people across the globe, but the audio community is in fact very small.

They say that success happens when opportunity meets preparation. So make sure you’re ready,  and get out there (in person or virtually) and make some connections.

Jeanne Montalvo – Grammy-Nominated Audio Engineer and Radio producer

 

Jeanne Montalvo is a Grammy-nominated audio engineer and radio producer. In 2017, she was nominated for a Grammy Award as Mastering Engineer for Vladimir Horowitz: The Unreleased Live Recordings, and her recording of Multiverse by Bobby Sanabria’s Latin Jazz Big Band was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 2012 Grammy Awards. In 2018 Spotify awarded her a residency at Spotify Studios and Electric Lady Studios in NY, where she assisted on recordings for  John Legend, Cultura Profética, Alessia Cara, Anitta, and many more. She has worked at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Tanglewood Music Festival, and has also worked on live recordings with Spike Lee and Al Kooper.

She broke into radio after receiving her Masters in Music Technology from New York University, working as an audio engineer and producer for National Public Radio, Bloomberg Radio, the Duolingo podcast, and projects for the New York Times and Sony. She is also a creator of “Live from Latino USA” a live and (mostly) unplugged video series that features Latinx talent from Jessie Reyez to Jose Feliciano. She is currently freelancing in the city and the treasurer of the New York Section of the Audio Engineering Society.

Jeanne attended The University of Central Florida, where she minored in music and mass communications and was looking into a Master’s in Music Business when she saw a brochure with music business on one side and music engineering on the other. Jeanne says a light bulb went off. Now I look back and it was obvious. I used to edit for fun on cassette tapes as a kid, stay home to record the radio, play with microphones, and then in college got a copy of Cool Edit Pro and started doing digital editing for dance groups and school projects. But it wasn’t a job I saw really, so how would I have known?” Jeanne would go on to attend Microfusa for audio and enrolled at NYU for a Master’s in Music Tech.

What did you learn interning or on your early gigs?

I learned work ethic early on. When I didn’t understand things, I asked, but if I had a bigger learning curve, I stayed late or came in early to do extra time to try to figure things out. If it was allowed I’d come on weekends. After a while, I caught up to the workflow, but it was on me to make sure I could stay on point. At the beginning of my career especially because I was working in older technology, analog tape, and sometimes tapes from the 1930s I was always really nervous about breaking things. It’s one thing to make mistakes at school, but real life has real-life consequences. So I was always focused, I paid extra special attention to detail, and if something didn’t sit right with me, I went to someone to ask for help. And eventually, that became less and less.

In 2016, I landed the engineering gig at Futuro Media home to NPR’s Latino USA (now on PRX). It was a breath of fresh air. I really refined my skills in podcast mixing and mastering, and eventually became a senior engineer. As time wore on, the creativity itch started to take over, and when I came back from the Spotify residency, I dug into production full on. I was tapped to work on Loud: The History of Reggaeton because the bulk of my productions were all music stories, and I go heavy with music sound design. The project was 10 episodes and spanned about two years – I even had a baby in the middle of it! My maternity leave ended just in time to sound design and help produce all 10 episodes. It has been some of my most rewarding work there, and the podcast itself has received reviews in some of the biggest news outlets which has been really exciting to see.
Producing has really connected a lot of dots for me of work I’ve done in the past and the research I love to just nerd out on. It just goes to show why it’s important to do a lot of things. It took me a while to get here, but I was using Izotope and denoising software back in 2007 when I was archiving and restoring old opera recordings. So you really never know!

Career Now:

What is a typical day like?

Depends on the day, but I am still very much working from home. If I’m sound designing or producing podcasts, I may be getting music from a sound library and efx and going through scripts. I tend to work best hearing things, so while I do use scripts, I will score and put sound efx in on the fly as I hear things. If it’s music, lately I’ve been more on the post side. So it usually involves receiving tracks, organizing my session, and mix prepping. Then mixing of course!

How do you stay organized and focused?

I have a lot of Excel spreadsheets, and to-do lists, and I use Trello. Because I tend to do a lot of different things, I start to get scattered if I’m not organized. And for me, that means seeing things written out.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

I love seeing people do what they do best. I never aspired to be a performer, but I love helping talented musicians produce the best version of themselves. It’s important they don’t have to worry about the tech, so they can just focus on their craft. And I get to be the one that captures that moment. And with podcasts, I love hearing a story come to life with music and efx. It’s the best moment when a piece is scored and you listen back and all of a sudden you can see everything in your mind.

What do you like least?

I hate that I can’t turn that off. Sometimes I go to bed still thinking about things or reading about something. If I could work all the time, I would because I enjoy it. But that’s not necessarily good for you as a human being.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

I love to spend time with my family. I have 2 young kids, so anytime I can, I am with them and my spouse.

What are your long-term goals?

I would love to be able to do more music, so I try to take as much of that as I can. My husband is a singer/songwriter and we also would love to build out our own studio to be able to produce and do more work.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I think the main thing I dealt with in the beginning was being taken seriously – having to prove to someone I knew what I was doing.

How have you dealt with them?

I just did the work. I didn’t let it get to me, and I worked hard. And eventually, those people grew to respect me because they realized that I could in fact do what I was hired to do. The work speaks for itself. If you get too much in your head about things, it’s easy to think that people are against you. But if you do good work, then actions speak louder than words.

Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Keep at it. Don’t give up. There will be time to do everything you want to do, so don’t feel like you’re not where you’re supposed to be. Take the job that’s on the table. It may not be the one you want, but it’s the job that may take you to the one you want. You will inevitably learn something there and those are the building blocks to being the badass engineer you are. The dots will connect.

Must have skills?

Attention to detail.

Desire to learn. You never stop learning.

Quick thinker/ability to react and troubleshoot quickly

Favorite gear?

I think Izotope RX is the best and I’ve been using them for years.

I also have been using my Sony MDR-7506 for over 15 years!

More on Jeanne

Jeanne Montalvo on The SoundGirls Podcast

Jeanne Montalvo-Grammy nominated audio engineer and radio producer talks about music, mother & more!

 

Maria Grever: The Most Famous Unknown Person You Know

 

Around two years ago, I discovered Maria Grever. She was a Mexican composer whose career started around the early to late 20s and continued up until her death in 1951. If you google her, you will find the same impressive stats. She composed around 800 songs (some places say 1000). Not only contemporary songs for the big movie houses – Paramount, MGM, Fox, but she wrote musicals, operas, and here’s where the light bulb will go off for some of you: She is the composer of “What a Difference a Day Makes”  Is your mind blown yet? Mine was. What a Difference a Day Makes is one of my favorite songs, so why didn’t I know a woman, a Mexican woman, had composed this song in 1934? And so I began a quest to learn everything I could about her.

It was very random how I happened upon Mrs. Grever. My son who at the time was two years old was Face-Timing, my mom, a lot during the pandemic. She was singing this lullaby whose melody was familiar to me, but I don’t ever remember singing it. My son has this crazy ability to retain melodies and lyrics, so I had to dig around the internet for the lyrics so I could sing them with him. I eventually found it, Te Quiero Dijiste aka Muñequita Linda – music and lyrics by Maria Grever. I remember being excited it was a woman, but Grever didn’t automatically say Latina to me. When I realized she was Mexican, I became obsessed. If you’ve been following along with my blogs, you’ll know that my parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic. So that whole, “If you can see it, you can be it?” Right there! A Latina in NYC with two kids in the early part of the 20th century. What a discovery!

So who was Maria Grever?

Maria Joaquina de la Portilla Torres was born in 1885. (You’ll find various dates online, but according to official sources and public records, this is the most accurate). She was half Spanish and half Mexican and spent most of her childhood traveling back and forth between Spain and Mexico. She was a child prodigy. It’s documented she wrote a simple Christmas carol at the age of four. Nothing official, but it showed she had talent from a young age. She studied with Claude Debussy and Franz Lehar; her parents were supportive of learning from the best. They were a wealthy family, so they had the means for her to travel. Once her father passed, the family moved permanently back to Mexico. Maria Joaquina was about 15 years old.

In 1907, she married Leon Grever, an American businessman, and they had four children, only two of which survived past childhood. Maria Grever was writing some music in Mexico, but in 1916, everything changed as she took her two children to New York City. Leon stayed behind for work. This is right in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, so you can imagine it was a difficult moment in history to travel. The Mexican Revolution was primarily a civil war, but the United States got involved. So there was a lot of tension between the U.S. and Mexico. Nevertheless, Maria Grever arrives in the big apple, an immigrant, a woman, and a single mom (sort of).

Remember this is 1916, women still didn’t have the right to vote. And even when they did in 1920, Maria Grever was still an immigrant. If you do some digging, her leaving Mexico is documented as having fled due to political instability during the Revolution. But New York City isn’t a random target as an artist – especially a talent like Maria Grever. You went to New York City because you want to make it here. Because that’s where Tin Pan Alley was. Because that’s where the record companies were. Because everything was happening here. There was no internet then; you had to be physically here. So as I began to research, I started to piece together so much more. I’ll get to that a little later.

For now, here are some more facts on Maria Grever

She started performing in NYC fairly quickly. The earliest Newspaper clipping I found was from 1919 in the New York Tribune. It’s a review of a performance at the Princess Theater.

Newspapers.com Spanish Soprano plays Recital

 

She’s getting her name out there, not really performing her music just yet, but as anyone who is a musician knows, the best way to get heard is to make a name for yourself. And that she did. According to a book written by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee titled Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora, she was writing between 1920-25, but the manuscripts have been lost. The first song to really make international headway, is a bolero titled “Jurame” published by G. Schirmer in 1926. Getting your song published was a big deal back then, since sheet music ruled the industry. It was basically the MP3 or LP of the day.  The song gets picked up at a music shop by a famous Mexican tenor, Jose Mojica, and he releases his recording of the song in 1927 which fully establishes Maria Grever.

https://archive.org/details/78_jurame_jose-mojica-maria-grever_gbia0034799a]

From there she begins to get published with more frequency. She wrote “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” in 1934 which was translated into English by Stanley Adams as “What A Difference A Day Makes.” This gets recorded by some of the biggest artists of the time – even artists like Bing Crosby

At this point, she joined ASCAP in 1935 and was a very active member according to newspaper clippings. Here she collaborated with some of the biggest lyricists of the day to translate her songs. Lyricists like Raymond Laveen. (Note just for translation! Maria Grever wrote all of her music AND lyrics!) Her biggest hit was “Ti pi Tin” released in 1938 translated into English by none other than Raymond Laveen.

 

 

It spent 6 weeks on Your Hit Parade which was that time’s Billboard Hot 100.

NYPL Horace Heidt sensation

Ti pi tin is actually fascinating because despite the success Maria Grever already had at that point, the publishers didn’t want to publish it. So Maria Grever created her own publishing company, Portilla Music publishing. What do you do when someone says no? You do it yourself. In the book by Rodriguez Lee Maria Grever is quoted as having said:

I had such a strong faith in the song, but the publishers thought I was crazy. I have been 20 years before an audience, and as a sensitive artist, I feel the vibrations of the public. I knew this song would be a success. So I published it myself (Lee 59)

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At this point, Maria Grever was everywhere. She’s sought out by the big movie houses and starts composing for them. She’s getting radio play all over the country.

Radio Transcripts

She’s performing at Carnegie Hall, and in 1941 she writes the music for a Broadway Musical called “Viva O’Brien” The producers spent something like $80,000 on this musical – which in inflation translates to $1.5 million, but the play bombed. It was not open for long. The only thing that didn’t bomb was the praise for the music.

The new and outstanding personality of the production appears to be Marie Grever who wrote the music… Her dance numbers are lively and original and I suspect you will be hearing a good deal from her songs. [New York Daily News October 10, 1941]

In 1944, her song, Te Quiero Dijiste, the lullaby I discovered, was picked up for a movie called Bathing Beauty starring Red Skelton and Ester Williams. The tune, renamed as Magic is the Moonlight, is used throughout the movie as the theme, not just a part of the soundtrack, and it was a commercial success. She translated songs for Cole Porter. She even developed a program to teach singers Spanish through song – helping them with their diction. Maria Grever really did it all.

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At the end of the 40s, she suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side. She traveled to Mexico in 1949 to receive honors, the medal of Civil Merit, and the Medal of the Heart of Mexico. She remained active until her death in 1951 and in 1952 was declared Woman of the Americas by the Union of Women of the Americas. Mexico made a biopic about her in 1954 starring a very famous Latina actress of the time, Libertad Lamarque whose album in 1956 titled Libertad Lamarque “Canta Canciones de Maria Grever” or Songs of Maria Grever was a huge success. In 1959, Dinah Washington recorded her most famous cover of “What A Difference A Day Makes” and that earned a Grammy for Best R&B Performance that year. It was Washington’s first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Maria Grever also has a scholarship named after her in Mexico City.

But who was she really? What I learned through my research

As a person, Maria Grever is somewhat of a mystery. In working on her story for PRX’s Latino USA, I was able to locate her family which was in and of itself a journey to find a living relative who would have enough information to speak about her.

She was sort of a mystery … But even then, comparing stories that my father understood with stories that my tio understood, there were either gaps or completely different stories,” Stuart Livingston

Stuart Livingston, her great-grandson, works in the music industry. He told me that the family lore was that a well-known group of entertainers came to Mexico and convinced her to move to New York City. This tiny piece of information regardless of documentation or not changes her trajectory quite a bit. In the early 20th century, it was known that people traveled to other countries to mine talent, so it is possible that it’s true. The Maria Grever narrative then becomes, an aspiring composer leaves for New York City with her kids to make it in the big apple. Regardless of if her husband supported her endeavors, or what kind of support he may have given her in the early years. Once she was in NYC, she did it alone.

“You know, she had left Mexico, she left her husband behind. She was a single mother in a time where that was certainly not who you were supposed to be. And she was pursuing a career which was not the perceived right way for a woman to act,” Stuart Livingston

Maria Grever never reunited with her husband. Stuart says it was clear there was a separation. And in my research of public records, they very clearly never lived together again. So for someone like Maria Grever to achieve everything you read above, imagine the hustle she had to do. There are newspaper clippings from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle which say “Maria Grever is the busiest woman in all New York.”

She had to be in order to survive because if you know New York City, it really hasn’t changed all that much and she had two kids to feed. This was 100 years ago, when wiring money wasn’t a thing. Where it would’ve been very difficult for Leon Grever to send her money. So it was up to her to make ends meet.

“She oftentimes sold her music as opposed to keeping ownership and collecting royalties. It was due to her genius that she was able to make it work” Stuart Livingston

Maria wrote so much music that is not tied to her name because she did buyouts. That is why the number you find across the internet is so vast. According to Stuart, they have only about one-seventh or one-tenth of her music in her catalog that collects royalties.  Nevertheless, it’s still an impressive body of work.

Her family is also quite impressive. Her son, Charles Grever, created Grever Music Publishing which became Grever International and housed a huge Mexican music catalog. It was because of the weight of Maria Grever’s name that they got that catalog. Her grandson, Bob Grever, was known as a Tejano music giant and was one of the biggest players in the Tejano music scene. He signed Selena Quintanilla when she was 12 years old (yes that Selena). His company, Cara Records, eventually joined Zomba records in the aughts, which was part of the powerhouse that brought you all your favorite boy bands – yes I mean Nsync, Backstreet Boys…oh yea and a young Britney Spears. Stuart Livingston was a partner of the label that took over the Fania records catalog, the Motown of salsa records. Her legacy and ear for music lives through them.

Why she is important

Maria Grever is important because she reminds us that women really can do anything. We all know how hard it is to work in the music industry today, and Maria Grever did what she did in a time when she had one sliver of the freedoms and rights we enjoy. She not only dealt with difficulties as a Mexican in New York but as a woman on top of that in an industry notoriously dominated by men. Men like Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Ernesto Lecuona from Cuba, and Carlos Gardel from Argentina. She was the first Latin American woman to receive international acclaim in the early part of the 20th century. We need to see people like her – people who have an accent, who left home, and who became one of the top composers of her time. Maria Grever’s story needs to continue to be told, and the only way that’s done is by keeping it present through the generations. If the stories of men in this business throughout history can be told, then we can certainly find the space to continue to keep Maria Grever’s legacy alive.

Working on this story connected a lot of dots for me. When I first moved here, I was doing a lot of archiving and restoration. So one of the first places I went to piece together her story was my old boss. He specializes in really old restoration projects – analog tape,  lacquer discs, even metal discs. We had conversations about RCA/Victor, how the old recording industry worked, the classical music industry at the time, and what it was like at the beginning of the 20th century in NYC. And that wasn’t the end of my overlap. Towards the end of my production, I was looking for permissions for a song that ended up being owned by Sony/BMG. The song was on this album that my husband found a mint condition LP of (because he’s really good at finding that sort of thing).

A lot of Maria Grever’s catalog is owned by Universal Music Group (all of that is searchable through ASCAP or on allmusic.com), but this particular version of the song, “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” was not. I started checking out the liner notes and details and realized it was RCA/Victor, and I had a vague memory of it becoming part of Sony. So I called up my old boss because we used to do (and he still does) tons of projects with Sony. And the person we used to interface with was in the department that works with licensing! When I emailed he had said he had recently wondered what I was up to, so it was a pretty big full-circle moment. It just goes to show that you really never know where you’ll end up. Sometimes it’s not the job you thought you’d end up doing, but you have to trust that in the end, the dots will connect.

Working on the Maria Grever story was so much more than just telling her story; it was an opportunity to really pull all of the pieces of everything I’ve worked on since I arrived in NYC together. As a mom in New York City, who oftentimes feels overwhelmed in this industry, it made me feel super proud to see another Latina who may have walked the same streets I have. I saw her running around to sell her sheet music, trying to get published, trying to have someone hear her out.

I’m so thrilled to share her with you. You can read more about her life in Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee. And I encourage you to check out the podcast on latinousa.org and hear from her family, more about her life and her legacy.

 

To Freelance or Not to Freelance

I see this question come up so many times that I decided to dedicate my final blog of 2021 to it. I will preface that I still don’t have the answer to this question, but I’ve now done both freelance and full-time jobs. I hope that sharing my experiences with you, will help you make informed decisions and what is best for you and yours.

 

 

I’ve been going back and forth about this question for the better part of a decade. Before I had kids. Before I was officially married.

I wrote this email to a music producer who I looked up to in 2012.

I needed to get a woman’s perspective on careers, and kids, etc because I’m panicking a little bit about the future. The past few months have actually been pretty good for me in terms of freelance, at the end of the month, I always make rent, bills, etc.  My issue is that every once in a while I will have a panic attack about what comes next and the fact that I can’t save, and that I can’t start paying my loans, and saving for kids, retirement, etc.  I know that as a female all that stuff starts to creep up, but at the moment I have some decisions to make and am trying to weigh my options.   I’ve been interviewing for a job that isn’t exactly the one I wanted, but it’s a foot in the door, and hoping to move up.  It moves away from audio work- and more sales and marketing, but at least it’s within an audio company.  It’s full-time and benefits, which with the hours, it would still allow me to work on most of the side-projects I do.  I know this would mean moving away from all the things I’ve worked so hard for, and studied, and spent so much time on.  But it’s stable, and I feel like right now I need that, but I’m still kind of freaking out because I don’t know if it means I’m giving up on everything else I’ve tried doing.  

From your point of view, having worked in the industry and having kids, can you shed some light?

If you’ve ever felt like me in that email, then continue to read on. I’ll backtrack here and tell you how I got to the point of writing that email. I WAS EXHAUSTED. Freelancing is great in that it provides flexibility – being your own boss. Making your own schedule. Deciding what projects you want to work on.

The issues come up in that you find yourself saying YES to everything because you don’t know when the next job is going to come. And if you say NO now or too many times, are these people going to call you for the gig next time? What if you say NO and next month there’s no gigs coming and you could’ve used the overworking last month? Burnout is a real and huge problem when freelancing.

Other problems, keeping track of your finances, your expenses, 1099s, what you can write off at tax time… the list goes on and on. But needless to say, when I wrote that email, I was dead. I was done. I wanted none of that life anymore.

 

Grace Row is a music producer in NYC. She worked at Sony Classical in its heyday before it shut down, and became the audio producer for the Metropolitan Opera. She also has 2 kids and has made her way through this insane city. She was the recipient of the above email. And every once in a while, I find myself coming back to that email because it was some of the best advice I’ve received in life.

So I’m going to share her advice with you and break it down as I give you a look at how things turned out with the decisions I’ve made thus far.

You can take the job and decide that it isn’t for you in a year.  What stability does is make your priorities clear, and once the kids come, they do become your priority.

I did take that job, and honestly, I think I lasted less than 6 months. I was miserable. I did enjoy getting a stable paycheck, but it was the job itself that I couldn’t get behind. (It also didn’t help that the job was poorly compensated). I missed engineering too much, and at the time, we didn’t have kids so no big. I tried. ALSO, big LOL thinking that with a 40-hour workweek, I would have energy or time to do side projects. By taking a stable job, the whole point was to stop the burnout – no more “extra” projects.

I went back to freelancing for another 2 years before I got my foot in the door as a freelancer for NPR which led to a freelance gig at Bloomberg. By 2015, we were now talking about kids. And the question about getting a full-time, stable job came up again. Not to mention my accountant that year asked me something that still sticks with me. “You’re losing money in this field, why are you still doing it?” Welp… Loving your job is important, but that’s a topic for another day. Back to Bloomberg and the full-time job that landed in my lap, another not ideal scenario because it was Hong Kong hours, Sun-Thurs, but a job nonetheless.

And so I found myself coming back to Grace’s email.

If stability is what you crave, then there is nothing wrong with exploring achieving that right now.  You might have peace of mind to discover other passions you didn’t know you possessed.

Peace of mind is such, such, I repeat such a huge deal. If you are constantly stressed about money, rent, and life, it is so hard to be creative. Maybe some people thrive off of that, but I personally can’t. I can’t even read a good book when I’m anxious. When I took the Bloomberg gig, it was the first time I was making decent money and had zero stress about paying bills. It was like a huge weight was lifted. I didn’t have to track finances. It was the first year my taxes were SUPER easy. Wow, just one W2! WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!?!

But, that job came with its serious issues and setbacks, and the stress didn’t help us trying to get pregnant. I stuck through it for a year and some change until I finally called it quits and then landed the engineering job at Latino USA which was with NPR at the time. Finally, this job was a breath of fresh air. Comfortable hours, worthwhile and meaningful work, nice people, stable pay – and yup, I got pregnant fairly quickly. Mat leave, benefits, give me all of it. I now realized how important and meaningful stability was for me. STABILITY > FREELANCE.

I wasn’t looking to leave that job, but the Spotify EQL gig was an opportunity I couldn’t say no to. I had now been working full-time for four years and while going back to freelance was scary, I had to take a chance. I would be stable for 6-months during the residency, but afterward, my husband and I decided I would give freelance a shot for another 6-months to see how it went. It’s been 2 years since EQL ended, and I guess it’s been going ok. I’ve learned to be better about my financial records. I have a lot of excels to track my expenses. At the end of the year, I tally it all up to give to my accountant.

But freelancing with kids can be a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you have the flexibility to do things at the drop of a hat, pick-ups, drop-offs, doctor’s appointments, etc. On the other, you’re back to saying yes to a lot and you may miss stuff. I got called for a gig on my son’s 2nd birthday. At the time, I convinced myself that he would go to bed and wouldn’t remember anyway, but I would remember. Plus long hours mean a lot of missed bedtimes. And that often has a way of sneaking back up on me.

What I always say about women balancing their work and family is that it’s very rare to have it all concurrently, but likely you’ll have it all at various points in your life.  I had a great run at Sony with producing and the life and money it brought us, but once the kids were in school, the traveling and guilt of not being with my family really took their toll.

Guilt. Mom guilt sucks. It has its way of making you feel horrible, yet it’s the guilt you impose on yourself – no one else gives you that guilt trip. It’s hard, and it definitely changes things. No matter how much you tell yourself you’re being too hard on yourself, that pressure is very difficult to manage. Can you find ways to cope and get past the guilt? Yes, of course. It also may not be a huge deal for some parents. But, will I personally miss another birthday? Unless it’s the biggest and most important gig on the planet, then I probably won’t accept. Because like it says above, “you’ll have it all at various points in your life.” No reason to make things harder when there may be another opportunity later.

 

Now that I now have two kids to support (with my spouse), the topic is once again on the table. Do you know how expensive daycare is? It’s insane. And while we have one year before our oldest hits public school, we are in the meantime paying for two kids’ childcare.

I was fortunate during the pandemic to become part-time staff back with Futuro Media (home to Latino USA where I was before). Part-time stability has been a great hybrid for me personally. I know I’m getting X amount a month, but I have dedicated hours a week to take on other projects that I wouldn’t be able to do if I was full-time at one place. Some months I bring in a lot of extra, some months it’s not as much. I’m also lucky that my partner has a full-time job.

In the end, part of the reason freelancing is always so appealing is it lets you explore and work in lots of different areas. But as I’ve mentioned several times in this post – stability is important. I always joke that podcasting pays for my music habit. And I love podcasting. I love sound design. I love producing. But the stability that comes from those checks let me have the brain space to take on other projects. So should you take a full-time job or keep freelancing? It kind of depends on what kind of lifestyle you want to lead. Nothing in life is super permanent (except death) so you can always try things out; see how it goes. Like my guru said when I was still figuring things out.

This is the time to explore other opportunities.  You’ll meet great people – that’s important too.  You can always come back to freelancing – You’ll know if it isn’t right

 

Renee Goust – Re-Sister

A bilingual album by, for, and about women that represents us in Mexican and American folk genres

 

In early 2020, Renee Goust received word that she was selected as a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Women’s Fund. Even before it was announced, Renee and I were already discussing how we were going to record this album – an album of all women. On March 12th, 2020, the news was made public:

If that date looks familiar, it’s because at least in New York City, this was the day where the entire city shut down. The city that never sleeps was in fact going into a deep sleep. What did this mean for us? A complete revamping of what was going to be an album recorded in a completely different way from what she had done in the past. 

The Backstory 

Renee and I met through my husband. They played a gig together, and we became instant friends. Renee being a more techie artist than I’d worked with in the past, we instantly began discussing microphones, techniques, and how we’d work this album once she got the funding. 

We would record this album as live as possible. This meant all musicians together on one day, as isolated as possible, but playing together. If you’ve been reading along with me, you’ll remember that I worked for a long time in live concert recording in classical and jazz. I’ve adapted a lot of that to how I record any genre. I find recording live lends itself to some of the best performances from musicians. The vibe, they feed off each others’ energy and it’s something that is hard to replicate in overdubs. Not to say you can’t get amazing recordings in other ways, as we’ll see, but if I have a choice…

So Renee and I discussed the plan. She and the musicians would rehearse for a couple of weeks, and we would go into the studio and knock out each tune in no time. 

The Best-Laid Plans

When the lockdown started we had no idea how long this would go on, but we knew that she had deliverable deadlines once she got the grant (which were pushed back a couple of times for obvious reasons). So at first, we said, no problem, we’ll do it later. 

Then, two pretty big realizations happened. 

So, we were forced to make new plans. 

We had several pre-production talks. Many of her musicians had fled New York City. This meant not only were we not recording altogether, but we would have to outsource many of the musicians recording in other locations. 2020 was the year of realizing remote recording can and will work. We made a very detailed excel mapping out who needed to record where, dates for those files to get to me, and we chose a week to block out a studio in New York City and record the bulk of everything we needed with a few days sprinkled after to get our main vocals recorded.

Why did we choose to do it all in a week? Because by this time we were in late summer, the city was still heavily shut down, but as each month passed, the closer I was to having a baby. That meant making a schedule to meet protocols for cleaning and sanitizing between musicians coming in to record and not leaving any surprises because anything we missed could mean derailing the deadline. 

We chose October since it left time for Renee to get her charts together, for the musicians to rehearse, but also leave time to do things in post. I would be about 8 months pregnant which felt a little safer in terms of how we would manage risks with the pandemic.

How it All Went Down

The drums for Resister were all recorded at Gamma Studio in Mexico. I personally don’t like to micro-manage other engineers (because I know what it feels like). The only notes I gave was the more mics on the drum kit the better – something I learned from the great Bobby Sanabria, drummer, and educator who mic’d every single bell for a total of 18 tracks on just drums (another story for another time). 

Our marathon week of recording in person was done at The Buddy Project in Astoria, Queens.

 

Aside from it being a super comfortable space, I lived close by, and since the pregnancy was a risk factor, it was very convenient. We tracked bass, all guitars, clarinet, piano, accordion, percussion, and vocals. And guess what, we even had another pregnant musician. (due the exact same day!)

 

 

We left absolutely nothing to chance. We didn’t work overtime. We had lunch.

And we met every deadline. Because we were organized.

 

Every musician was extremely professional

 

Recording Separately

The caveat with recording every instrument separately and receiving files remotely is… THERE. IS. A. TON. OF. EDITING. Like a lot. 

I always prided myself on being a great editor, but after this year I could probably do it with a sandwich in my hand and not even listen to it. (Kidding). Working with a schedule like this meant there wasn’t a whole lot of time to edit between sessions. We did build time in, but as the week wore one, we ran out of time. It was more important to take advantage of beautiful mics and studio space because as much as it would suck on the back end, we could in fact edit later.

 

 

And edit we did. This has nothing to do with musicianship, it’s just when people don’t play together, regardless of a click, they aren’t going to get into the same groove. Even if they’re overdubbing – to some extent – there will be editing involved. Every layer you add on top of something that hasn’t been edited or comped makes even more work.  As in the tune in the photo, we recorded a lot more than we needed and then had to sit down and produce the track, looping, and editing what we needed for certain sections. There is of course beauty in not over-editing, but you really can’t get around it when you record separately.

 

 

Ready to Mix

We got what we needed.  We’re now in December. Countdown to giving birth T – 27 days. Our game plan was to get everything prepped for mixing. All tracks locked, so when I was ready post-birth, I could mix. Renee’s original release date was September 2021, so we had time with the exception of her first single, Diosa, which would release in February. Plenty of time, but there are 8 tracks to prep before the engineer is completely out of commission for at least 6-8 weeks or more. 

So priority number one before Christmas:

Diosa

What Actually Happened

Diosa is the biggest track on the album. 72 tracks. A combination of electronic and acoustic instruments. Real drums with electronic drums, flugabone, trumpets, tuba, congas – 2 features with one recorded in Mexico sliding into home base on December 15th. 

Our original goal was to have this mixed before I had the baby. We were making progress, but it was now Christmas week. We were out of time. I submitted a “working mix” to Renee to give her an idea of where we were. Was that a good idea? Probably not. Sending working mixes tend to backfire because it stresses all parties out. But, at the time, I thought let me give her an idea of where we are. It is much better in some scenarios to explain being late than to submit something incomplete.

So what happened? I got a very nervous voice memo about what we were going to do because she wasn’t happy with the direction we were going. And she was right. It wasn’t even worth giving notes. So at 3:30 am, from the hospital before being admitted for induction, I wrote Renee an email to give me two weeks post-birth to recover a bit, and I promised to take this to the finish line. I will note here that I actually wanted to pass it off because I didn’t think I could do it. I knew the first weeks’ post-birth are a cluster fuck, but my husband encouraged me to finish.

And so, two weeks after giving birth. I did in fact get Diosa to the finish line.

 

 

Perspective

Sometimes a bit of space from the thing you’ve been killing yourself to do is good for you. Renee decided to move up her release date of the album, so we moved our mix dates accordingly. That meant a lot of rushing and rushing doesn’t necessarily yield the results you want. At one point, we hit a wall. And instead of rushing towards that finish line, we had a conversation where we both acknowledged that neither one of us was enjoying this process. We were both trying to meet unrealistic deadlines, and it was time to come to terms with that. We stepped back. I brought in an assistant to help me with 2 tracks (thanks Taylor Pollock).

The two tracks we had left for the end were two of the other big tracks – left for the end due to things beyond our control. Our Anthem, boasting 48 tracks, a featured artist in San Francisco, and a massive amount of guitars, wasn’t gelling. A mix of rock, folk, and surf guitar, this was one of my favorite tracks on the album, and I was so excited to work on it. I desperately wanted it to sound good. But, I was so tired at this point; I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. 

So once we took the time and space to do things right, I took another listen and decided to mix the track in mono. Mono helped me identify the problem spots, the tracks that were conflicting with others. Once I found a place for everything in mono, I popped my A/D into stereo, and everything started to fall into place. We hit our deadline.

The Bigger Picture

Resister was mastered by Margaret Luthar out of 1979 in Nashville and was released on May 29th, 2021. I always say I gave birth twice this year. One to Isabel, and another to Resister

The most important thing to me about this album was what the album actually meant. Sure, it was an album of all women and non-binary folks. And yea, it was an album of feminist content uplifting women’s voices. 

But the bigger picture was what happened behind the scenes. It was an album of women SUPPORTING other women. There were so many opportunities for Renee to walk away and complete this album with someone else, but she didn’t. Her engineer got pregnant, and she saw it through until the end. And the only way this business can continue to uplift women is by supporting them no matter what. 

This album will always be special to me because I did it very pregnant and mixed it with a newborn. Did you know that in the ‘60s, labels were hesitant to sign women artists and groups because of the fear that they would get pregnant and not finish out their contracts? 

Look at how far we’ve come. We can, actually, do it all.

 

Resister Credits: 

 

With support from The NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office & The New York Foundation for the Arts @madein_ny and @nyfacurrent 🙏🏽

 

Parenting in Audio

I remember when I sat down in the director’s office of the work-study I was doing. The director happened to be a woman. I was 26, with no prospects for kids anytime soon, but knew I wanted a family eventually. Yet, I had no idea how I was going to get there since I was always working. So I asked her flat out, how do you have a family, or a relationship, or anything in this business. And her answer was that it was hard. I don’t think I fully understood what that meant, and now, on the eve of 40 with 2 kids, I guess I’ll do you a favor and give you more details so you can make your own decisions. 

First, I’m going to preface this by saying having kids isn’t for everyone, and that is 100% OK. But, if you were thinking about it, and thought you had to leave this crazy business because of it, here are some things to consider. 

One of the most important things to think about is the myth that you have to have kids young. In NYC it’s normal to start having kids between 35-40. That whole thing about your eggs getting old isn’t exactly true like they make you think it is. I had my first at 36 and just had my second at 39. So you have plenty of time to establish yourself in your career, do all the things you want to do and then you can think about kids. There’s zero reason to rush. 

Pregnancy in Audio

I used to do a lot of live sound, and I was loading in a show – carrying a heavy monitor across the stage – and I thought, this won’t be an option at 9 months pregnant (I wasn’t pregnant at the time). And it’s true, there are a lot of things you won’t be able to do, but there are so many things you can. If your body is used to doing things, then you can continue to do them when you’re pregnant. This is why someone like Serena Williams can win the Australian Open at 8 weeks pregnant. You just shouldn’t start a new routine when you get pregnant. 

During my first pregnancy, I had a full-time job in radio but was also sound designing a musical for a performing arts high school in NYC. This fell during my first trimester, where I had terrible nausea and was exhausted. Know when to ask for help. I ended up bringing on a second engineer and passed off half of the tech days to them because I couldn’t manage the number of hours. 

Having the baby

The first couple of months are kind of a blur. And there might be a ton of baby-wearing. If you’re lucky enough to have a job with maternity leave, take all of it. I always feel that because of the nature of our work, you rarely get a break, so do take the time to be with the baby. If you’re in a state that has some kind of state-paid leave, look into the rules and how to apply. 

I had my second in the middle of recording an album for an artist. We plowed through tracking and editing during pregnancy which was already a challenge. Raced to the finish line to get her first track mixed before giving birth, and then ended up finalizing the mix about 2 weeks after my daughter was born. Probably not the ideal scenario since I was still healing, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The most important thing to consider here is that this artist was 100% OK with this because she wanted to work with me. She could have picked up and left to work with someone else while I had my maternity leave, but she didn’t. 

But I also had to be realistic here, and I knew when to ask for help. I hired an assistant to help me get through some of the editing because now with two kids, I had to learn that I wasn’t always able to keep up with the pace and how many hours I could work.

Studio culture is probably one of the hardest things when it comes to finding balance. I was working at a studio that had an artist come in and they were hotboxing in the control room. I was at the tail end of breastfeeding my first, and I didn’t know anything about the effects of marijuana on milk. But I was new. Was that a battle I wanted to fight? At the time, no. My son had just turned one, and I was only going to go ‘til one. So I stopped cold turkey because I didn’t have the energy to read about the effects and because I didn’t have the energy to speak up about it. And that was hard – because I felt like I never had a moment of closure. But, I remember at the time thinking, had my kid been smaller, and I wasn’t ready to stop – what would I have done? Or what if I was pregnant? Is studio culture ready to change to accommodate that? Maybe, maybe not. 

I think it’s important for us to support women no matter what their decision or outlook on motherhood is. I hate going to conferences and this question gets ignored as if it’s not a valid point – you don’t have to have kids, but for the people who do, it’s important for us to speak up and let people see it is possible. I’ve since met and seen many moms working in audio that make me wish I’d met them sooner – maybe I would’ve made different decisions. My kids are small, so I’m still figuring things out. 

The conversation I had during my work-study was spot on. It is hard. But it’s also super rewarding. I love to hear my toddler ask to hear an artist’s song again, or just randomly start singing it. I’m wearing my second right now as I attempt to write this. Happy Mother’s Day to all you Audio moms out there. Keep doing what you’re doing. 


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