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Hybrid Recording: The Art of the Details 

Good art lies in the details. Oscar Wilde said of writing poetry: “I spent all morning taking out a comma and all afternoon putting it back in again,” and while facetious (like everything Wilde said), it rings true for all forms of creation. Once you get through the bulk, the initial drive for content, then it’s time for the details. A single comma can make all the difference. It can change the meaning, change the interpretation, change the flow, change the visual aesthetic of the poem. It is a decision as important as the change is small. It’s when you begin to dig in and to polish that art really takes off.

This is no different for music

You can get down your chords and melody, layer your instruments, get broad strokes mixing, and get it sounding pretty (damn) good with ease, but getting that last little push, that takes talent, and it takes time. How much time you have to make a record depends on your budget, and that graph is a smiley face. You start out home recording, no budget, just your time, and you can spend as long as you want creating and fine-tuning and to make the art that you want to make. Eventually, though, you may get the itch to do something more. Maybe you hate engineering or can’t wrap your head around mixing, maybe you want a producer to help you bring your musical vision to life. Maybe you just want to experience going into a studio. So you save and save and when you’re ready to realize that studios and engineers and producers are expensive. Thousands. At best you can do a couple of days. You’re now losing time. Now, instead of having forever, you have hardly any time, and the details get left behind. Of course, as your budget gets larger you can afford more time until you’re working with so much money that you’re back where you started, able to spend as long as it takes (unless you have a deadline) in order to get your art the way you want it.

Hoping for a million-dollar budget is probably out of the realm of possibility for you, as it is for most artists, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put the level of creation into your art that you want. Enter what I call hybrid recording (Not to be confused with recording with analog gear into a DAW like it used to refer to. These days, that’s just called “recording.”). You do your initial recording in a studio, getting your live tracking and as many parts as possible done (especially drums), and then go back to home recording for the rest of it. That’ll give you that studio sound, and that studio experience (since, you know, you’re recording in the studio), while also giving you the freedom and flexibility to not only create the art you want but also do so without feeling forced by time and by money into inspiration. That can yield amazing results, especially with a talented producer who can mitigate the anxiety of the clock (it is the producer and engineer’s job to keep track of time, btw, not the artists’), but sometimes what you really need is a late-night cup of coffee and a pair of headphones in the place you’re most comfortable.

Because of the pandemic, I’ve been doing a lot of distance/email producing, and I will say that it’s actually working out pretty well. My artist will record their song, with all the time they need to construct arrangements and get the right takes, and then email me a mix. I’ll listen through, make notes that I send back, and we’ll do it again for the next version until we’re both happy with the arrangement and the performances and feel the song is ready for mixing. It takes a lot less time on my part than actually going into the studio to do overdubs, and it gives the artist that flexibility and freedom. Yes, it does mean that I can’t be there to coach performances and to stoke inspiration in the moment, which are all really important roles for a producer (probably the most important), but that doesn’t mean we can’t get amazing results, because we do. It just takes a little while longer, a little more back and forth, and a little more guesswork (depending on the rough mixes).

So how does a recording session like this work?

For a 10-12 song LP, you’re going to be looking at 3 days in the studio. The first day will involve a lot of setup (low end 4-6 hours, possibly more), and at least the first two days will be over ten hours. If your engineer or studio won’t work that long, then you’ll have to add on another day. Be upfront with your budget, and try and have some padding in case things go over. Your producer/engineer should be able to adjust things to work with your needs. Maybe you skip using all that fancy outboard gear that takes a bunch of time to set up, so you can get an extra song or two done on day one. Still, you shouldn’t push or rush your way through everything in less than two days. I’ve done 6-7 song days before and they suck, and the results sound like it. In order to prepare to go in, though, you’ve got to practice. I tell my artists to practice two hours a day for two weeks leading up to their recording session. And why wouldn’t you? You’re spending a lot of money and you want to make the most out of it, ample practice not only gets you the best results but saves you money.

Editing is a vital part of making music, and good editing can often be the difference between sounding indie and sounding pro. Even with the practicing, you’re not going to go in and be a one-and-done kind of thing. You need to do multiple takes, no only because you need material in case you notice things you want to change later on, but because if the first take is great, the second take can always be greater. And there are always parts of each take that are better than the same parts in others. Even that killer magic take. Basic take comping will take up a good chunk of your recording time, and you don’t want to also have to spend that time having the individual parts edited. That sucks. It sucks for the band because it costs money, and it sucks for the engineer because editing is boring. I try to put off editing until after the recording session to save on studio fees. In a perfect world, I’d spend about 1-1.5 hours editing a song. In reality, I’ve spent 4-6 before, because the bands don’t listen to my practicing requirements. If I have to spend four hours per song on editing, for our 12 song LP that’s over a full week of work. Vs less than two days. How much money do you think you’ll save by practicing.

Once we get our studio tracking done, and our editing, it’s time for the actual fun and the whole point of this article. I’ll send you rough mix stems, so you can adjust your drum and bass and guitar and whatever levels, and then you’ll do what you do best: make magic. We do our back and forth, and once everyone is satisfied, we move on to mixing.

Mixing is a vital part of making music. It’s when we make all the different tracks we recorded sound good together, take care of that EQ and compression we skipped to save on studio fees, and handle the final creative touches to really make something special. Mixing can take a lot of time, certainly, the first song does, and might end up costing as much or more than your tracking session. You can get mix engineers for cheap, you can get those who are expensive. You can even get

Finally, we get to mastering. Mastering is the final polish that gets the songs ready for release. This is typically done by a different engineer to get a different pair of ears on the production. And after that, we’re done!

What I’ve outlined here is not making records on the cheap. There are oodles of ways to get your budgets down to next to nothing. Make friends with someone who has a home studio, invest a few hundred bucks into your own equipment, find someone fresh out of engineering school looking to build a discography. But if you want the next step, something more, working with an established pro in a proper professional studio, then this is a way to go about it that can give you that sound and experience, and make something that would otherwise be unaffordable just about within the realm of possibility.

But seriously, practice.

Lillian Blair is a producer, engineer, and audio educator working out of the Seattle area. She is currently a staff engineer at The Vera Project Studios, where she chairs the Audio Committee, teaches studio recording and audio mixing and mastering. She is also co-founder of the new Audio Engineering Certificate Program at North Seattle College.

 

 

 

The Art of Preproduction

Ah recording, that bedrock of this thing we do, the capturing of the evanescent moment of vibrations shimmering in the air in both mellifluent and cacophonous fashion (knock it off with the big words, you damn English major). Whatever we do afterward, with our editing and our mixing and our mastering, and whatever we do before, with our writing and preproduction and planning, it all comes down to the fancy room with the red light. And the principal thing to remember about recording is that it costs money. Sometimes a lot of money. Even the cheaper studios will run you hundreds, and any decent-sized session is going to go into the thousands. With budgets being as stretched as they are, it’s important, then, to make the most out of the small amount of time you have to get things down and get them right. As producers and engineers, it is our job to respect our artist’s wallets. As artists, it’s our job to make sure we get the most for our dollar. Thus, we get to my producer’s perspective of what is probably the most consequential of parts of the whole recording process: the pre-production!

Pre-production is the term we use for everything leading up to a recording session

For me, this starts with that first coffee date where we get to know each other and talk grandiose plans for achieving our musical and artistic dreams. While the final results tend to come out completely different, it still provides a starting point for the direction the rest of the project ultimate heads. Which records inspire you? What’s the vibe you’re after? How many musicians and songs? What do you want out of life? What’s your budget range? The answer to all these questions will help point us in the direction that we need to head, in order to make the most out of the session. The inspirational records will tell us how to set up and mic and get tones for the instruments. The vibe will affect how we conduct the session. Is the record light and fun? Then we need a light and fun recording session. Is it heavy and brooding? Then we need to craft an environment that is conducive to that kind of introspection. And, of course, there’s a budget. The budget will tell us not only where we’re able to record, but how much time we’re able to spend on the recording. Do we need to power through 3-4 songs a day? Or can we take our time and overdub everyone’s part and add in as much nuance and ear candy as we please? I get a sense for all of this during that first meeting, before we even decide whether or not to work together. Getting a rough understanding of how the record will come together, how it will sound, helps me not only prepare for the session from the get-go but gives me a stronger pitch for the artists. After all, if I’m able to immediately give them a technical breakdown and creative approach, doesn’t that prove that I know what I’m doing?

Explaining the process of making a record

Next up, either before you decide to work with each other or after, is probably the most overlooked yet important part of the process, especially when working with newer artists: explaining the process of making a record. It’s not as simple as going into the studio and pressing record. It’s a long process beginning with what we’re talking about right now, then going on to recording, doing multiple takes (more than you expect), editing the takes you do (both comping and performance fixing), overdubbing multiple parts, mixing, and mastering. If the artist hasn’t made a record like this before, they’re not going to necessarily know everything that goes into it when done at a professional level. I had an artist once reach out to me wanting to make an LP. He wanted to do a pop/indie rock record, full-band instrumentation, recording every part himself, and expected to be finished with it all in 1-2 days. This is not possible. When I told him what to expect when it comes to making a record, he ghosted, which is fine. He now knows what goes into making a record and we didn’t spend too much time talking things out only for it all to fall apart when everything slowly was revealed to him. On the flip side, I’ve laid everything out for an artist and not only did I land the gig, but the thoroughness of the process energized them and helped them jump in with the attitude of making something incredible. Educating your artist on how to make the record is beneficial to everyone. You’re all on the same page when it comes to what to expect, weed out those who aren’t ready for this level of commitment and get those that are ready to dive in.

Equally important to explaining the technical steps is to explain the emotional and creative ones

I made the mistake of neglecting this, thinking that since the artist had released an EP before that they’d be familiar with the ins and outs of making a record. While I did make sure to explain things from a functional and cost basis, I neglected to explain things from a personal and creative basis. This led to us dragging out the completion of the record, unable to settle on a sound, with everything sounding worse as the process continued. This is why the recommendation for everything is to work quickly. When you get stuck in the weeds of second-guessing and fine-tuning, you lose perspective, and suddenly everything sounds wrong. When that happens, it’s time to step back and not listen to the record for a while. A day? A week? A year? I don’t know. Long enough that you come back with fresh ears. This is partially why I try and keep my mix numbers to three. The first one I do, the second one after artist notes, the third one after another round of notes. Now, I allow the artists to keep making adjustments, but I make sure to tell them that that process is what’s to be expected. It puts in their minds that we’re supposed to get things done in that span of time, that my skills as a mixer are at the level of completing things that quickly (so they better trust my results), and keeps them from falling into that trap of endless revisions. Look at us talking about mixing before we even get to actual pre-production sessions.

When it comes to recording, newer artists will go into the studio expecting to knock out each song in 1-2 takes and have it all done and ready to release. While we’ve gone over the post-production with them, we do need to talk about what the actual recording session is going to be like. I find it best to just go in order. Artists used to live shows will assume that the setup is as quick as that. A few mics, plus a quick soundcheck, and then ready to go! A lack of understanding of the actual time that goes into setting up can really hurt their confidence in you as an engineer, so conveying exactly why it takes as long as it does is important. Depending on the length of time we have, I’ll take upwards of a day to get things set up, instruments fine-tuned, tones dialed in, headphones made exactly perfect, session template put together, and whatever else I can think of. All that time is worth the effort, of course. Unlike with live audio, we don’t have the sound coming from the stage to help augment what we’re micing, so we really need to go a bit overboard to get the coverage we need. Plus, we have fancier gear, so we’d better use it! When the artist knows that this time commitment is standard, and most importantly why it takes so long, that boosts their confidence in you, rather than hindering it. You go from someone who is struggling to get things going to someone who knows and cares enough to make them sound their very best. All with a little education.

So that’s what I do with new artists, and what you should do with them too. If you are working with more experienced artists, it’s good to do a little refresher anyway, just so they can understand any idiosyncrasies of your process and cover any gaps they may still have in their experience. Maybe they’ve only worked with engineers who put up four drum mics and call it good (this is not enough drum mics). Maybe they’ve always done one instrument at a time and are new to whole band recording. Regardless, make sure everyone is on the same page as to what to expect before moving forward with the project.

Preproduction: getting everything ready for the recording session

Now that we’ve talked about everything that goes into making a record, we can finally get to what we actually think of when we think of preproduction: getting everything ready for the recording session. I start with the songs. In a perfect world, the artist would present me with demos for twice as many songs as they want to record. Why twice as many? Well, you never know which song is going to be your breakout hit. Is it song 2? Is it song 17? Is it song 154? Maybe 154 is going overboard. I like 20ish songs for an LP because it allows us to choose the best half of the songs an artist writes, but also gives us enough material to craft a balanced and cohesive record. Not every song that gets cut is a bad song. Sometimes the songs don’t fit the style of the artist, sometimes they don’t fit the style of the record. Anecdote time! I was working on a record with an artist who, like a lot of artists, came to me with exactly as many songs as he wanted to have on the record, no more or less. While I have my double song rule, it’s a soft rule. I’m not going to push the artist for more songs if they’re set on what they want. The problem with this record is that there was one song that stood out, and not in a good way. It was funky, while the rest of the songs were indie rock. The vocal performance was falsetto when the rest of the songs were head voice. It simply didn’t fit, and its inclusion would have made the record worse. So, after some pushing, I was able to convince him to cut the song and write a new one. The new one he wrote was not only in the style of the rest of the record but also ended up being one of the best songs on the record. Turns out song 15 was great, despite the record only having 13 tracks. Write more songs.

After you have too many songs it’s time to demo them. Demos can range from single-take live recordings in a proper studio to something recorded on your phone. As long as you can hear the chords, melody, and lyrics you’re set. The idea is to get a sense of the songs and to be able to refer back to them as you go through your song preproduction. That’s why you record demos instead of just listening to the artists play live. Plus, with the way audio technology is becoming available to everyone, you can easily make something that sounds quite good with a single microphone and some clever placement (if you want to record live) or doing one part at a time.

Once you have your demos recorded it’s time to send them off to everyone. If you have the budget, you’re going to professionally produce every track you’ve written and then decide which ones go on the record. If you don’t have the budget, now is the time to choose the songs, and your chance to experiment. Put things in order, get a feel for the flow of the record, and figure out your single candidates. Once you have your collection of songs, you can get a sense of which ones sound radio-worthy, which ones are going to be latched onto by the fans. The ones with the catchy choruses and the lyrics that speak to basic human truths. The ones that stay with you and want you to go back for more. For an LP, I try and find four of these, and then build the rest of the record around them. When it comes to album flow, like everything in music it’s about contrast. You want to build up your listeners over the course of the record, but also don’t want to fatigue them with everything being high energy. I like starting with something fun and engaging, kicking it up for song two, bringing it down for song three, pushing it up again for song four, and really feeling it out to avoid lulls and too much energy. Do this and, while the order can and likely should change as you get closer to completion, you’ll have not only a collection of songs but a sense for the record as a whole.

Now that you have your songs, it’s time to workshop

Workshopping is the term we use in the creative arts for going through and revising the work we have, specifically in a group or collaborative setting. What we do for a record is we go through every song that we’re going to record and make notes about what we like and what we don’t like. Always make sure there’s a balance between the two. Focusing on what we don’t like will help us improve the songs. Focusing on what we do like will help inform how we improve the songs and makes the artists feel good. Always make your artists feel good. I was working on a song, and it was a good song, a radio-worthy song, but it also was too long. Too long for radio, and too long for listening. The problem was the chorus. There’s a reason most pop songs have two choruses at the end. It’s to etch that hook in your brain, but also leave you wanting more. Put too many of them in (like this song had) and you leave feeling satisfied, but also not interested in going back and listening to the song again. We ended up cutting the extraneous choruses and the song came out incredible. And balanced feeling. And fit for radio. In addition to structure, you need to look at the lyrics. I have the artists give me typed-out lyrics so I can make notes and read back while listening to the songs. I’m looking for multiple things when workshopping lyrics. I want to see if I can understand what the artist is going for. I want to see if the lyrics are singable and the chorus is catchy. I want to make sure there are no instances where the rhythm feels lopsided and like the words are crammed in. Like smoothing out the structure (and melody, and rhythm, and chord progression) I want to smooth out the lyrics. As a producer, my role is to add an alternative perspective, one coming from experience and one that’s outside the artist’s creative process. Unless I’m writing with them, the artist has the final say. That doesn’t mean I won’t push if I have to, but in the end, it’s up to me to convince them of what I think, and up to them to make the final decision.

Once the songs are workshopped it’s time to decide how you’re going to record. This involves whether or not you’re going to do live takes or layer the individual parts one by one. If you’re going to record with a click or not. Whether or not you’re going to tune the drums to be in the key of the song (snare and kick are fine if they sound good, but for the love of Apollo tune your toms!). How many layers do you think you’ll need. What extra instruments do you want? While this may seem like it takes away spontaneity and creativity from the actual session, it doesn’t. It gives you a starting point, a road map, something to do when you can’t think of what else to do. It gives you a chance to be creative without concern for budget and time. Instead of deciding whether or not you want a shaker on a track while recording, you can already have that shaker track done and can always cut it later. Got a fun technique you want to try? Write it down so you won’t forget later. Or worse, know you wanted something but forget how to do it. And if you are going to record to a click, please please please figure out your tempo now and practice to one. I had a record not even be released because the performances were so shaky because the band wanted to record to a click but didn’t practice to one. Should I have canceled the session as soon as I heard they weren’t ready? Yes. But preparation, ultimately, is on the artist.

You also use this time to really finalize the vibe. Listen to the reference mixes and reverse engineer how to make your record sound like them. Artists can figure out how to play and prepare their instruments, engineers can figure out how to record, and producers can figure out how to layer and arrange. Take notes. Even if they are brief. Even if they get thrown out the window when you get to actually doing the thing. Don’t assume you’ll remember everything you talk about. And taking notes gives the artist more confidence in you like you care and take things seriously. After all, sometimes giving their best comes from an artist trusting you completely.

Now, engineering preparation

I do a lot of this. I want to know sometimes days beforehand what I’m going to do when I get into the studio. I’ll look up a studio’s mic list and create an input list based on the type of approach I want to take for recording, and the equipment I have available. I do this so that I don’t waste time in the session trying to decide how I’m going to record (remember, respect your artist’s money), but also so I have the chance to imagine how something is going to come out. With enough experience, you know what different mics sound like on different sources, and how they interact with each other. I choose my mics based on both and do what I view as mixing with microphones. I’m micing with the final mix in mind, not simply with what sounds the coolest on any one source (though I also take that into account). This also means that I can print out several copies of my input list to make sure that not only do the assistants have their own copy but that I can leave ones lying around in case anyone (usually me) misplaces their copy. I’ll have a copy on the mixing desk, a copy by the microphones, a copy by the drums, and a copy in the guitar room, really anywhere where I might end up wanting to know what goes where. I can’t do this if I’m making things up on the day. Granted, there is the issue of having to change what I’m doing, and adjusting my input lists, but that disadvantage is minor compared to what I gain from making sure I come in prepared. And it shows the artists that I’m taking things seriously.

After all that, we’re ready for our recording session! The artists know exactly what goes into making a record, we’ve picked out the best songs and made them even better, we’ve made sure we have an idea as to what we want the record to sound like and how we’re going to get there, we have a plan in place to tackle our recording session, and we’ve all prepared in our own way (seriously, artists, practice) to make the most out of what we’re about to do! The more preparation we do, the easier the session goes. The less time (and money) we have to spend fixing things and getting unsatisfying results, and the more time we have for creativity and for fun. Because that’s what we’re all after, creative expression and fun. And preproduction is fun too! It’s fun to talk about music and to play around and experiment and get excited as you imagine and dream about what the actual recording process is going to be like. The more you do, the better your record is going to be, as is the experience of making it.

(Oh, and make sure you get a good night’s sleep and eat a healthy breakfast and drink lots of water and take your vitamins (especially B12) and remember to be compassionate with each other and listen to your producer and that we’re all here to have fun.)

 

 

Lilian Blair: Rock and Roll Fairy Godmother

 

Lillian Blair is a producer, engineer, and audio educator working out of the Seattle area. She is currently a staff engineer at The Vera Project Studios, where she chairs the Audio Committee, teaches studio recording and audio mixing and mastering. Lilian interned at the historic London Bridge Studios and received her degree in audio engineering from Shoreline Community College (A.A.A.S.), and in creative writing from the University of Washington (B.A.).

She offers a variety of services focused on the planning and creation of recorded music: songwriting, performance coaching, arrangement, production, and all aspects of audio engineering. She likes to think of herself as a Rock and Roll Fairy Godmother.

We caught up with Lilian to talk about her experience and work.

What was the first band you listened to growing up that became your “favorite”?

That would be Styx. I was definitely into dad rock as a kid, and to be honest I still am. Not really into Styx anymore, since I’ve moved on, but for a while that was all I’d listen to. Some greatest hits CD. I first heard them on a family road trip (never take your young children on a road trip) and, compared to the 90s pop country that my parents were mostly playing, it sounded interesting and complex and “new” and adult. Plus, Dennis DeYoung plays keys, and I’m a pianist, so there was that connection.

What was your first concert? Do you remember your reaction to it?

Again, Styx, at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, WA, which is the perfect name for a town. Kansas was opening and staying at the same hotel as us and helped my dad when a beach umbrella fell on him. Neither of us recognized them until they were on stage playing “Dust in the Wind.” Now that’s cool, but it certainly wasn’t as an eight-year-old. There were lasers and a bunch of people my dad’s age smoking. I thought it was cool and fun to be able to hear music live. The sheer noise of it (no earplugs for us). Seeing famous people, even far off. Singing along to the music that I loved.

How did engineering enter the equation?

I got my first taste of engineering in high school. I took an audio engineering class because my friends were taking it, and found it cool, though I didn’t get to do much engineering. My friends and I was in the house band, so I spent that class playing guitar while the other kids got to do the actual engineering. We did end up doing some home recording, and I even bought a bit of gear, including my first 57, fully intending on continuing with that. Then the band broke up. I ended up using the gear to make an EP that I have successfully scrubbed from the internet but put doing it professionally at the back of my mind for a few more years until I decided it was something that I loved and wanted to go into.

You are the Staff Engineer of the Vera Project in Seattle. Can you tell us a bit about what this center is and what it’s like working in the studio?

The Vera Project is an all-ages, youth-focused art center and music venue located in Seattle Center right across from KEXP, the world’s best radio station. We offer classes in engineering and other DIY crafts, such as screen printing, have volunteer opportunities for people to work shows, and are a way for young kids especially to get their start in live audio. We have members go to work at large venues in Seattle right out of high school because they already have a couple of years of experience running front of house in a 350 cap venue! It’s amazing!

The recording studio is one of the smaller programs. Lots of people don’t even know we have one, but it’s there, upstairs. We have an excellent live room, which is what attracted me to it in the first place, with lots of fun acoustic elements that I can play around with. An elevator shaft, a fun stairwell, an echo chamber in the form of the loading bay downstairs. We’re on the cheaper side as far as gear is concerned, but that’s not really something that bothers me. We have that great room, and almost as importantly we’re able to set up 32 inputs like the other professional studios in town. This means I can record the way I want to record, and give my artists a record that’s competitive, at least creatively, with the stuff they can get at higher-priced studios. This is perfect for young artists just getting their start and getting their first experience in a studio. And we still have good preamps and workhorse mics, just no vintage U47s.

You’re known for capturing drums with as many mics as possible. What led to this approach?

I went to school at Shoreline Community College and was introduced to studio multi-micing there. I think we topped out at your standard 12, though we did experiment with some interesting mic choices (front of kit mic, side of snare, kick drum tunnel), so I was already exposed to the idea of having fun and adding in more mics to be weird. When I interned at London Bridge Studios, also in Shoreline, that concept was kicked up. They introduced me to even more mic options, including the concept of putting up multiple room mics to capture the ambience as it moves through the space, extending the snare tail like you can get with compression, but without changing the dynamics of the performance. Plus, every acoustic space sounds different, just like every drum kit sounds different, so capturing that in interesting and creative ways gives you a sound that nobody else has, and in the days of samples that makes your work stand out.

Every bit of the drum makes sound. I don’t see people micing the underside of toms, but that head adds so many harmonics and resonance to the sound it makes the recording sound like the drum sounds in the room, rather than like you have your ear placed up against it. The front of kit mic (usually a 57 aimed at the snare) is another one that seems second nature to me, but people are always baffled by it. I measure it against the overheads, creating a quasi-Decca tree, and bus it with the spaced pair. It works really well with 414s, so you get the fullness of a large-diaphragm mic with the snap of a small diaphragm. I’ve done over-the-shoulder mics, but you have to worry about drummers knocking into them, and I’d rather avoid getting in the way of the performer.

You also like mic placement in out-of-the-ordinary spaces, like the elevator shaft. How do these sounds work into your mix?

Sometimes they’re mixed low, sometimes they’re mixed high, and sometimes they get cut altogether. Most of them are focused on making the snare drum sound cool, because when you listen to it that close mic sounds kind of boring. Toms are about the note (which is why you should tune them to be in the key of your song). Kick is about the thud and the power. Snare is about the uniqueness of the tone. If I put up weird mics, then I get an interesting tone nobody else has. Like the elevator mic. At Vera we have a wheelchair elevator that’s open-top, leading into our live room. It’s a rectangular shaft, and the metal sides are flimsy, so they vibrate, adding their character to the signal. It sounds kind of like an all-in 1176, without the weird dynamics, just the distortion and smoothed out since it’s sort of far from the drumkit. It adds a unique tail to the drums that really enhances the overall tone. I tend to mix that one pretty high, after some extreme EQing to get rid of that pesky high hat. Weird mics tend to get extreme EQing. Another fun acoustic quirk of Vera’s studio is our stairwell, in particular one corner that’s a very acute angle in an otherwise boxy landing. I like putting a Blumlein pair right in the corner (the mics know what they did), to capture the uniqueness of the sound as it bounces around in that uniquely shaped area. The Blumlein ensures that I get all the different idiosyncrasies while keeping it in stereo. I’ve done an Omni mic there, but it’s just not as cool.

Have you ever experienced any sexism as a woman in the industry?

Of course. Most of the professionals I know are, well, professional, and welcoming, and encouraging. They know the gender disparity in the industry is an issue and needs addressing, and one of the things everyone can do (aside from hiring more women) is to make sure the environment is exactly how they treat me: professional and welcoming, and encouraging. There are wonderful people in this industry and I have so much respect and gratitude for them and the opportunities and support they’ve given me.

Most of the sexism I experience comes from bands, actually. There are so few women who do what I do (I don’t know a single woman rock producer who works with bands in Seattle. Seattle! If you are one, let’s be friends!) so artists just aren’t used to the idea of working with women, and that includes women too. I do get work because I’m a woman, usually from parents who are more comfortable sending their teens to a woman than some dude, and of course the EQL directory, but I do get met with a lot of disbelief in the fact that I even have the pedigree that I do, let alone the ability to do what I do. Dudes in bands are worse, though. Far too many times I’ve had them walk away from me as soon as they realize I’m not going to sleep with them. I get it, some rock and roller chick comes up to you at a show, you’re immediately going to lizard brain yourself into believing it’s the 80s. No matter how I interact with them we’re not going to overcome that disappointment. There’s nothing I can do to control for that reaction.

Then there are the men who mistake professional admiration for sexual interest. Thankfully, none of them have tried anything. They’re professionals and act professionally. But I do feel like this assumption has hurt me, cost me connections and friendships. I don’t date in the industry, to the point of passing on relationships with people with whom I have a genuine (and mutual) attraction. The one piece of advice that was given to me by multiple successful women is to avoid appearing like I’m trying to sleep my way into a career. Not even not sleeping with people, but avoiding even the perception of it. Maybe that’s a relic of the past, just like all the dudes in bands who automatically think I want to sleep with them, but it’s advice that I follow. Kind of. I still dress however I want to dress. I like looking good. I’m naturally introverted, so it helps me get into character for going out and talking to people. But I still make sure to show up to events solo and deny myself the kind of personal connections that men seem to be able to have.

The worst though is that writing all this, I can’t definitively say that I’ve experienced sexism, or at least overt sexism, aside from a couple of instances of sexual harassment. Maybe it’s just Seattle, but everything is under the surface. I feel like I experience sexism, which is probably enough, but is that me being sexist against myself? There’s a lot of self-doubt around this subject. Is any of what I just wrote even real? Am I just expecting to experience something so I read into every interaction through that lens? Am I just making excuses?

You recently presented to the AES Diversity and Inclusion meeting. How did it go? What did you want to express to those attending?

I hated it, to be honest. I talked a lot about my experiences and what I said in the above paragraphs. Mostly I just talked about how to get more women into the industry. The cultural stuff needs to be said, because when it comes to getting more women in the industry everyone wants to talk about everything BUT the culture, which is so disheartening that I think it pushes a lot of women out, starting with the very start, with school and internships (I cried in the garage at London Bridge multiple times because of how people treated me). Most of my talk was positive, about inspiring girls and being proactive in mentoring young professionals and that most important of things, hiring women. But as I was doing it, knowing how important it was, it did feel like complaining, like I was risking my career by speaking up. That self-doubt I talked about earlier. Is this really real? Am I just deluding myself? Is anyone going to take me seriously, or are they going to write me off and decide I’m a liability because I’m willing to talk publicly about what I and other women experience? I still feel like I shouldn’t have done it. I haven’t heard one way or another what my industry friends think, so….

You recorded a band in the woods. How was that experience and what led to experimenting with outdoor sound?

It was really fun and powerful, especially since we infused everything with magic and witchery. I’ve actually done a couple of projects in the woods with that particular artist. The first was a ritual where we had about a dozen people participating, and the second was the album. We went out there because the band asked if we could go there. I could have said no, and convinced them to go into a studio, and we would have made a good record, but I was very much in “Say yes to everything” mode so I said “yes” and then set to figuring it out. It was a challenge, but you never should shy away from a challenge. We ended up using a portable battery pack, a laptop, and an eight-channel interface. I did not get to put up my 16+ drum mics, but that’s just a sacrifice I had to make to do something adventurous. We DIed the guitar, and used mics for the rest, including distance mics set on Omni to capture the ambience of the forest. Now that I think of it, I should have kept the mics on cardioid and faced them away from the artists, but whatever. Maybe the next chance I get to do a record in the woods.

My favorite memory from that was one of the songs we did at night, around the campfire. We’d timed the recording to coincide with the new moon, for witchy reasons, and being away from the city we could see the stars. There was a hill nearby so for one particular song I had the artists face the hill and I placed a lantern behind them (the campfire wasn’t bright enough), projecting their shadows on the hill. They danced as they sang, seeing their shadows move. Very Brocken Specter and super cool to watch. I think it helped them get into it more. Both songs we did around the campfire hit that magic(k) take exactly at midnight. Did I time it that way? Maybe? Knowing we’d go about half an hour from setup to them getting into it enough to give me what I needed. Was it witchcraft? Also maybe.

Through Gear Fanatix, a site for underrepresented voices in audio, you have written articles about the gear you’ve both enjoyed working with or been frustrated with. What has it been like to review various pieces?

It’s been fun. I have thoughts about everything, and just getting to type them out and go on tangents is something I enjoy. Everything has something good and something bad about it, even the stuff that I love, so making sure there’s a balance is important. I always love reading the bad in articles. I figure good is good, but the bad is where you’ll learn whether or not the gear is worth buying. I’m working on a review of iZotope’s Neutron, which is the first piece of gear/software that I was actually given, and that’s a tough position to be in. I kind of want to stick to demos and loans, to be honest. Free stuff is fun, and there are no strings with this, but it definitely does put pressure on the review. The pressure for me is to be as honest as possible and to really make sure that the bad is put front and center because there’s some stuff about that plugin that I really hate. And stuff that I love. Like with everything. As a tease, how is it that there’s a plugin that’s going to be on every mix I do going forward where I absolutely hate its key, defining, innovative features? Does that make it just another plugin bundle? Check out GearFanatix.com to find out!

What is one piece of dream gear? Why?

I don’t really have a piece of dream gear, to be honest. If I were opening a studio, I’d want a Rupert Neve Designs 5088, because why not, though I might also go full 21st century and get an Avid S6, but that’s all monopoly money and not something I’m interested in pursuing. I have a hybrid setup for my mixing, having jumped on the summing box train. I think having your stereo bus processing analog is a nice way to keep your mixes flexible while also being able to concentrate your budget into a few pieces of high-end gear that will affect your sound much more than getting a rack full of cheap compressors and EQs. Since I’m only allowed to pick one, I’m going with the API 2500+, the one with the wet/dry knob. I’ve used the software version, and it’s incredibly versatile and sounds amazing. A bit out of my budget, though. The Tegeler Crème is fun too, and a little more justifiable cost-wise. It’s a stereo VCA compressor with a passive high and low-shelf EQ that’s very transparent and, well, creamy. Perfect (and designed) for stereo bus processing. I’ve fallen in love with diode compressors too, like the 33609, even though they’re too vibey to be my sole bus compressor. I’d get one as my second, alternate bus compressor, though. Ok, that’s five pieces of gear. Do you think I might actually like this stuff?

How has COVID affected your job this past year?

I don’t want to get maudlin, but significantly. I record bands. If I can’t go to shows to talk to bands, I can’t find new bands to record. If bands can’t play shows, they can’t afford to hire me to record them. If studios are closed, bands are going to record themselves. This past year my work has been almost exclusively mixing and mastering. Thankfully, artists may want to do their own music, but still realize there are things for which they need a professional. I’m even doing some distance producing. I wrote an article about this, actually. It mirrors mixed revisions, in that there’s a back and forth with me giving the artist notes on the arrangement, and then making the adjustments until we’re both happy. Then I get to put it all together and they tell me what they want until we’re both happy. It works, though it takes a while, and leaving the recording schedule up to the artist does have its downside. When you’re in a studio, you’ve gotta get it done, and your whole focus is on creativity. A good producer will be able to keep those creative juices flowing throughout and keep things from getting monotonous and draining. I can’t do that if we’re communicating over texts and emails. So the whole process slows down, which in itself can be demoralizing. The projects still get finished, but I can’t wait to get back into the studio: be in a room with people, feel the agitation in the air, smell the sweat, get exhausted but keep pushing because we know that the next take is gonna be the one.

If you could talk to yourself from ten years ago, what one piece of advice would you tell yourself?

Trust your gut. Don’t assume people know best just because they’ve been doing this longer than you. Everybody is making it up as they go along, changing their approach, learning from their mistakes. There are stories behind this but you don’t get to hear them.

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