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The History of Sound Design

 

Although the term “sound design” has been around for nearly four decades–and the practice has been pursued much longer–its use has only recently become nearly ubiquitous.  A day cannot go by that I do not see #sounddesign appended onto the end of a multitude of tweets from around the world.  We now have the invaluable website DesigningSound.org, which distributes information about our community’s adventures, musings, and technical inquiries.  And our Boom Box Post blog often touts titles such as Creature Speech Sound Design Challenge or Smoke and Mirrors: Unexpected Sound Design Sources.

Why this sudden renaissance of the term “sound design”?  This week, I decided to take a closer look at the history of the term, the differences in how it is used across the film and television, interactive and immersive media, and theater industries, and its use and abuse.

Sound Design: A History

The term “sound designer” was used for the first time in film in 1979.  Francis Ford Coppola granted Walter Murch the title of Sound Designer for his work on Apocalypse Now, marking the first use of the term as a credit in film.  Until that point in time, the usual credit, Supervising Sound Editor or Sound Editor, was generally accepted as a purely technical role on a film crew. Coppola felt that this new title encompassed his feeling that Murch had been a key creative team member who added to the artistry and overall creative intention of the film.  It was also to be understood that Murch oversaw the overall sound concept of the film, including dialogue, sound effects, foley, and the final mix, just as a supervising sound editor would normally do.

Walter Murch’s creative storytelling through sound and his integration into the Apocalypse Now team as early as pre-production surely earned him this extra accolade.  I would love to wax poetic about the sound of Apocalypse Now, but that certainly deserves its very own blog post.  Instead, please read this interview with Murch himself regarding the sound of the film.

Surely, the sound design on Apocalypse Now was of the highest quality and extremely innovative for its time.  However, it is important to note that this was not the first time that an inventive sound editor played a critical role in a film’s sound.  Instead, this was the first time that the title Sound Designer was used to describe that work, thereby expressing the beginning of a shift in the industry’s attitude toward sound editorial.  The same job would have previously been listed as Supervising Sound Editor or Re-Recording Mixer.  Case in point: we can all agree that Ben Burtt’s work in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, released in 1977, was sound design. Afterall, he designed the sound of the lightsaber! Yet, he was originally credited with Special Dialogue and Sound Effects.  In the 1997 and 2004 re-released editions, his credit was changed to Sound Designer.

Sound Design Across Industries

One of the aspects that makes the title Sound Designer so interesting is that it is not controlled by any labor unions or industry organizations except in the arena of theater.  So, unlike many other roles which have been established and then held to the same set of standards over the years, the idea of what makes someone a sound designer is free to evolve.  Thus, every industry has taken this idea and slowly crafted a meaning that fits its own needs, resulting in a varied and sometimes confusing use of the term.

Film & Television

In the television and film industry, the Motion Picture Editor’s Guild, MPEG (local IATSE chapter 700) controls the titles which are used within union sound houses.  Each particular role on a sound team is segmented into specific job titles such as supervising sound editor (the person who oversees all other members of the team and advances an overall creative concept for the project’s sound), dialogue editor, sound effects editor, foley editor, foley mixer, foley walker, recordist, etc.  Ordinarily, a person’s film/TV credit will match his or her job title on a project.  However, there are several reasons why the title Sound Designer may be used in credits in lieu of these standard union titles.

One reason may be the traditional use of the term as it was established by Coppola and Murch: the individual has overseen all sound team members and has had an active, creative role in concepts that contributed to the storytelling of the film.  In this way, someone is given special commendation by the use of the title Sound Designer rather than Supervising Sound Editor.  In essence, they mean the same thing in terms of responsibility.  But, Sound Designer has a connotation of creative respect.  Another reason would be that the individual played multiple roles in the project (such as supervising sound editor and mixer), and as the term sound designer is outside the purview of the union, this can a convenient way to credit such a person. Keep in mind that in any large studio or union house, an individual may be credited as Sound Designer, but his or her official job title will be one of the union-specified roles.  Thus, sound designer is a colloquial term of respect and reverence toward the creative aspect of the work, but it is not an actual job.

Video Games

In interactive and immersive media (video games, VR, etc.), the title of Sound Designer is often used as a catch-all title for each member on the sound team.  In general, there will be a bevy of sound designers on each project, who are lead by the Audio Lead.  This person, in turn, is supervised by the Audio Director who works closely with the game design department.  On large projects, sound designers may be specialized in different areas such as technical sound designers who work closely with programmers, or integrators who specialize in fitting sound into the pipeline of the game.  They may also specialize in foley, dialogue, or sound effects.  However, on small projects, a sound designer may be required to cover all sound jobs as well as understand its technical integration into the media.  This use of the term as a broad descriptor of all sound personnel differs greatly from the use in television and film.

Theater

Theater sound design is a very different animal, indeed, and for that reason, I have left its history to this section.  Sound design for theater refers to the choice of music and sounds for a stage production, and the subsequent choice, setup, and use of live audio technology to play those sounds during a performance.  This implies an intimate familiarity with the work, and a close alliance with the director and possibly playwright to create an overall soundscape that enhances the work.

The first use of the term Sound Designer was in the 1968-1969 theatrical season of the American Conservatory Theater and was bestowed upon Dan Dugan who worked three stereo tape decks routed to ten loudspeakers.  As technology has advanced over the years and directors have become more accustomed to lush sound design in film and television, this role has become increasingly complex, and in many ways is linked to the role of Sound Artist within the fine arts community.

 

Getting To Know A New Audio Device

Through the BBC New Creatives scheme, I was kindly sent some audio equipment to create my audio piece. As a recent graduate of student radio, my only technical knowledge was an old Alice Board, Adobe Audition for editing, Myriad software for song selection, and the microphones that have been in the studio for many years. I used to record out of studio interviews on my phone using a random voice record app.

Now I have a PCM-D100 device to record with and some DTx – 910 Stereo-Headphones. Plus, an accessory kit with a handle and a windjammer. I feel quite the part! I have the basics down. Getting to know how to use the equipment was a lot of trial and error. The most challenging thing is not picking up the noise of me holding the audio device, whether that was holding the handle or the device itself. I think I prefer using the handle. The device is also quite tricky to transport; it is bigger than the other on-the-go equipment I have used before.

I have used it around the house a lot; in the garden, kitchen, and garage picking up sound bites including family conversations as well as sounds of nature such as birds in the garden, natural suburban sounds such as lawnmower noises, cars passing, and planes overhead. I have also been recording household sounds, including dripping taps, doors opening, and closing and footsteps.

These experimental sound recordings have helped me best learn how to use the device; what settings to have it on, how far away or close to hold it to certain people and objects. I have then transferred the audio track into Reaper – another new aspect to my sound learning. I was very set in my ways with Adobe Audition and struggled to find my way around Reaper at first. I am getting better each time I edit and quicker, which I guess is natural with this trial and error method of sound recording.

 

I am yet to conduct any formal interviews or go into public with the device, mainly because I know it was quite expensive! But also, because I know, it would draw attention and I’m not quite sure what my long-term aims with the device are. In the short term, I am making a short audio piece for BBC New Creatives, which could lead to being developed further, but at the moment is very much in the experimental pitching, trial, and error, change and development stages.

I would love to know if anyone else has this device? Do you like using it? Are there any tips and tricks I should know about? There are probably so many features on it I haven’t even discovered yet. My preferred recording and editing style at the moment is very natural, authentic, and organic with no music added over, just people’s voices and natural background noises. I like podcasts that are only voices and not lots of editing with music overlaid, and many sound effects are thrown in. I find I listen longer, relate more, and feel more engaged and engrossed in the content when it is voice only.

I am spending the rest of today recording with friends and housemates, so for the first time may have more of an interview set-up, but again I want it to be very relaxed and casual so that the conversation remains natural and unforced. Overall, this device has been a significant step in the right direction for becoming a more proficient audio producer, I think. It is very different from my knowledge of student radio technology and more complicated than an iPhone, but it is easy enough to grasp that I don’t feel overwhelmed or confused by it. I hope to use it for many more years in the future to produce whatever content I choose to explore and experiment with!

WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME:

Tri-lingual radio show (Sobremesa)

Sobremesa Facebook

YouTube and Geography blog

LinkedIn

Money, Money, Money…

 

Money & budgeting are two things people tend to avoid thinking about too much. Sure we all like to get paid, but actually sitting down and working with the numbers, that’s the least fun part of money. It is crucial to stay on top of your finances, whether it’s your personal finances or the company you work for.

So let’s break it down together, let’s get us off on to a good start. Let’s start with our personal/freelance finances.

Income vs. Outgoing 

The two most crucial bits to financing is Income vs. Outgoing, so the money that you earn and the money that you spend.

Outgoing

So let’s look at our expenses which are crucial and that we all will have in common: To give you an example of what life in London can cost, here are some numbers.

So that is over £1k on the basics every month, not including things like going for dinner with your friends, birthday presents, etc.

So we need to earn at the very least £1,350 per month to cover our basic day-to-day living.

Income

So income is the most fun part of working and earning money, right? But it is also important that we spend our income wisely and go through our budget monthly to keep on top of things. So we know our expenses each month, so let’s look at what we can do with our profit if we haven’t been breaking even this month.

Say that we earned ourselves £2,000 this month. After having paid all of our expenses, we’re left with £650.

It would be lovely to think that we can spend that £650 on gear ( My guilty pleasure is synthesizers), but sadly we should probably not do that.

Taxes

If you are a freelancer and have your own company we need to think about taxes and putting money aside for that time of the year where you need to declare your earnings. In the UK at a basic rate, you pay 20% in taxes.

So if we earn £2k a month, that’s £24,000 a year. 20% of 24,000 is 4,800 (24,000 x 0.20). However, in the UK, the first £12,500 are tax-free, so we only need to pay tax on £11,500 (24,000 – 12,500).  So 20% of £11,500 is £2,300 a year or £192 a month.

So out of those £650 in profit (after our expenses), we need to set aside £192 for tax which leaves us with £458.

I’d probably put £100 of that into a savings account, and the rest will likely cover some miscellaneous expenses.

If you feel like you cannot handle your finances on your own, it might be worth getting an accountant.

Forecasting

Budget – SUMMARY

It is important to estimate what you will spend, that is why you forecast. It’s always good to be a bit generous when you forecast to make sure you have some wiggle room. The example above is all a forecast; expenses vary from month to month.

Actual Spend

At the end of the month, you compare your forecasting to your actual spending. Did the numbers add up? Where you spot on or way off? What can you do differently next month? Here we can analyse our forecasting, spendings, and savings.

Yearly Summary

Whether you are a freelancer or working for a company/client, it is always good to do an annual summary. Compare the months, recognize patterns, spot the quiet months, and the busy ones. There is a lot to learn from a year, and planning for the next one gives you a head start.

Miscellaneous

Always account for the miscellaneous bits, there is still something we spend money on that we do not account for. A cab ride here, servicing there, something broke, and you needed to replace it. There are always unforeseen costs that are impossible to avoid, so it is better to give yourself some slack and account for a little bit extra for those times you need it.

Invoices

Stay on top of your invoicing game. Make sure you chase your invoices and keep track of which ones have been paid and which ones are overdue. There is plenty of accounting software on the market that makes invoicing easier, keeps track of which invoices have been paid, and also makes declaring your tax easier.

Editors note: Wave Accounting is similar to Quick Books and free.

The Budget Given by a Client or Company

If you have been given a budget to work with by a company or client, it is crucial that you stick to the budget. No one likes an over-spender, and it can get you into real trouble if you do overspend.

The same way you budget for your personal or freelance finances, you can apply the same method when working with a budget that was given to you.

It is important to meet client expectations, but also to be honest and realistic with what you’ve got. If a client is asking for more than they are willing to pay for you, have to be open and honest about it. Look at different options or see if they are willing to increase their budget. Communication is key.

Money and budgeting can cause a lot of anxiety; it affects us all. But if you set yourself up and tackle it heads on, I can assure you it will be a lot easier to deal with. Set aside a day at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month where you sit down with a cup of coffee or a tea to go over your budget and finances.

If you find yourself in some financial difficulties, please seek advice from accountants and contact your bank. The sooner the better.

 

Ableton Live for Anybody – 4 Session Online Course

Ableton Live for Anyone – Online!

SoundGirls is offering a four session online course on Ableton Live taught by Elana Carroll.  Sessions will be via ZOOM.

September 17 & 18 and 24 & 25  7-9pm (PST)

$80 for the four sessions

email soundgirls@soundgirls.org if you require financial aid

Register Here

After registration SoundGirls will send you an invoice (via paypal) and after payment is complete, SoundGirls will email instructions for logging into ZOOM.  Each session will be recorded and provided to you after each session.

Class Description
Do you want to start making beats? Do you want to learn how to make your own demos? Do you want to sharpen your DAW skills so you can get over that first learning curve and really start running with your creativity? Do you want to start performing live with Ableton, but don’t know where to start?

By the end of this four session course, you will have learned all you need to know in order to really get your engines revved up about Ableton. I want to give you the tools to explore and to run as much of your show as you want to. With your newfound agility and excitement, you might even feel confident to explore parts of Ableton functionality that haven’t yet been discovered! Because that’s what creativity is all about—exploring and playing! But first, what is it exactly that you will be learning?

Sessions 1 & 2 will be all about the essentials of Ableton. What is the basic design behind this software? How do you get the sounds you want IN there, so you can edit them and play with them? How do you program a drum beat? How do you slow it down if you want to? How do you mess around with ideas and decide what parts you want to go at the beginning, the middle, and the end? How do you listen to it on your phone? By the end of the class, you will have a multi-track song that you create entirely by yourself using Ableton.
*Key items covered: time signatures & tempos, MIDI, audio, clips, arrangement view, bouncing

Sessions 3 & 4 will focus on Ableton in live performance. You will learn how to make backing tracks that are suitable for the type of performance you want to put on. Maybe you want to push play at the beginning of the set and never really look at your computer again until your last song. Or maybe you want to engage with every sound that comes out of the house speakers. Or maybe your fantasy set is something in between! We will go over different approaches to designing your live set by using your new song from day one as a template.
*Key items covered: importing tracks, deciding on a playback concept, labeling, setting up loops and automation

Equipment needed (students):
-laptop with Ableton already installed – You can download a 30-day free trial

Instructor: Elana Carroll is a songwriter, producer and performer who has been making original music for 15 years. She holds a BA in music and critical theory from Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

Elana’s interests as a writer/producer span from electronic and dance to pop and country, and she co-writes with other artists as well. Her current focus is on teaching (she will be teaching a Beats by Girlz class this fall), and her own project, Party Nails. She feels it is part of her purpose in this life to “normalize” non-males in the music business through performance, teaching, and mentoring. She is particularly fascinated with popular culture and music in the age of technology.

Switched-On Friendship – Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind-Tourre.

 

Where would electronic music be without Wendy Carlos?  Carlos’ 1968 album Switched-On Bach brought the Moog synthesizer (and electronic music) to the public eye.  It was popular enough to win three Grammys and become the first classical record to go platinum.  With her influence, the 1970s became saturated with synthesizers from disco to advertisement jingles to Progressive Rock.  The influential soundtracks of A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), and Tron (1982) also came from her hand.

Carlos was a pioneer in other ways too.  In 1972 she became one of the first public figures to undergo gender reassignment surgery and speak openly of it.  Gender dysphoria was something that Carlos was aware of at an early age, but it was not until 1968 that she started her transition.  The success of Switched-On Bach was both a blessing and a curse, as it made surgery available, but Carlos performed publicly as a man throughout most of the ’70s.  It was in an interview with Playboy magazine published in 1979 that Wendy Carlos finally disclosed her true self.  There was no public backlash, and Carlos’ main regret was that she had not come out earlier.

Wendy Carlos, a pioneer as she is, still relied on her friends to help her achieve greatness.  In 1966 Carlos met aspiring jazz singer Rachel Elkind-Tourre.  When she heard Carlos’ synthesized experiments of various Bach pieces, she brought forward the idea of a full album.  At the time Elkind-Tourre was working as an assistant to the President of CBS and used her influence to help pitch Switched-On Bach to the company, and later used her connections to provide studio space for Carlos.  With this first collaboration, Elkind-Tourre became a frequent contributor and producer of Carlos’ albums.

Not much of Rachel Elkind-Tourre’s private life is known.  Around the time she met Carlos, she had recently moved from San Francisco to New York City to pursue a career as a jazz vocalist.  It is this jazz background, and vocal training gave Elkind-Tourre the perspective and tools to be Carlos’ trusted co-creator.  Together they created Trans-Electronic Music Productions, Inc. (TEMPI) with Benjamin Folkman, another of Carlos’ collaborators.  In 1980 Elkind-Tourre married and moved to France, and ended the official partnership between the two.

The legacy of this friendship can be heard in the majority of Wendy Carlos’ albums.  Elkind-Tourre’s voice (through a vocoder) adds texture in Sonic Seasonings (1972), and her compositional influence is integral in The Shining.  Carlos does note that Rachel Elkind-Tourre is one to avoid fame and credit, which is a shame.  This is a story of women empowering women.  Their friendship should be celebrated, not just for the works they created together, but the barriers they overcame.

Find More Profiles on The Five Percent

Profiles of Women in Audio

Keeping Up

When You’ve Got Too Much Going On

 

I don’t know about you, but I feel like there isn’t much of a down season anymore. There’s a festival season, corporate meeting season, holiday season, and more — all blending together to create a full year. As a result, it seems like my to-do list for work and life only gets longer. I’ve been striving to find a better balance during the busy times to make sure I get downtime when work gets a little quieter.  Here are a few things I do during my busy times to make sure I give myself time to relax, instead of always playing catch up.

Make a Priority List.

I do this at work and home. In our industry, things pop up all the time, so my list is a bit flexible, but the goal each day is to check off more items then I add. This doesn’t always work, but I make sure to check off at least one thing every day. It also helps to make sure you meet specific deadlines too.  The list also helps me address similar things at one time in hopes to get more things done.

I practice this at home, as well. When I get home after a shift, I try to spend at least one-hour taking care of things on my list for my personal life. This can be cleaning for an hour, paying bills, etc. I try to do this each night, so these things don’t pile up. If I have a short day at work, I will try to spend more time working on these items so the days I’m exhausted its ok to skip. This helps to prevent my to-do items from piling up.

Health and Happiness

Within my priority list, I always keep items that will contribute to my health goals and happiness.  Often I will list a nap on my priority list. Funny I know, but I enjoy naps so keeping it on my list reminds me it’s ok to prioritize it. A priority list doesn’t have to include tasks you don’t like. It is a list of things you want and need to accomplish. Each person looks at these items differently.  I frequently list going for motorcycle rides or going to happy hour with friends to make sure I’m spending time on things that make me happy, just as much as tasks that need to be completed.

Say No

It’s ok to say no. When setting your priorities, be it work or home, sometimes just one more thing will not fit, so say no. At work, it may be more of a discussion with a supervisor of what they would like to see done first.  Talk about what they would like to see higher on your priority list and adjust from there. At home as long as you’ve got clean underwear, it’s ok to push off laundry to the next day. Again, here look at your list and prioritize what is more important to you, so you feel like you’ve accomplished something as not to get overwhelmed later.

Practicing setting a priority list can help you feel and stay balanced. Crossing items off each list every day will help you accomplish a lot, while also balancing work, home, health, and happiness. Remember not everything on your list needs to be a chore. Anything can go on your priority list it’s intended to help you keep up the things you need and want in mind while a lot is going on.

 

Teaching Kids about Sound

For the past ten years, I’ve been the sound faculty for a technical theatre conservatory.  Students spend two years in this conservatory learning as many elements of technical theatre as possible, and generally, can declare one area as their focus.  I can count on my two hands, the number of students that have come in with sound as their focus, and, by the way, less than half were women. I was always told by my students that sound is scary, or too hard, or wasn’t ever taught in high school and middle school when these students first burst into the theatre world.

“Who ran sound for all of these musicals that you did in middle and high school,” I would ask. The number one answer? Someone’s dad. Someone’s dad would watch some YouTube videos, come in while the kids were in class, and throw together some kind of sound system that would be enough to get by. A dad and maybe the school’s technical director would run sound for the shows during the performance, and maybe let a kid stand behind the console, hit “GO” in QLab, or help put mics on other kids.

I suppose this exposure is better than nothing, but what we need to do is get kids hooked on sound from the very beginning of the process so they can understand what they’re doing instead of mimicking the few motions that they’ve been taught. This blog will feature some great resources for teaching sound to kids. If you’re the drama teacher for your school and also live in a world of “sound is scary, don’t make me do it,” this blog is for you. You don’t really need to understand everything about sound to use these resources, but checking them out might also teach you a thing or two….so, BONUS!

Elementary Years

If you’ve read any of my blogs before, you know how I feel about music and sound—they’re in a deeply committed relationship, and will be FOR-E-VER!  If you want to start kids on the track to audio, get them excited about music as early as you can.

One of my favorite activities to spark a budding music mind is the “Pictures at an Exhibition” project.  Modest Mussorgsky wrote this brilliant Suite in honor of his artist friend, Viktor Hartmann. The ten movement Suite was to be an aural representation of Hartmann’s work. So here’s the project: Give the kids some paper and crayons, play each of the ten movements of the Suite for them one at a time, and tell them to draw what they hear.  I first did this project with 30 kindergarteners, and the results were astonishing. Without knowing the titles of the movements, they were mostly able to accurately portray what Mussorgsky was looking at when he wrote his music. This project introduces a very crucial element. It teaches kids to not only hear music but to listen. Music is a super-easy way to introduce active listening skills.

A great next step is to introduce the concept of a sonic field. Turn the lights off and clap. Now move a few steps back, and clap again. Ask your students to tell you if you were closer or further away the second time. Rinse and repeat these steps several times, and before you know it, you’ll have a room of 30 little sound engineers in the making. Check out these other great projects for tiny technicians:

Sound Experiments for Kids

Science Snacks

Middle School Years

Middle school is the perfect time to start introducing kids to the nuts and bolts of sound.  Building XLR cables is a fun and engaging project that also lets kids see the basics up close and personal.  I know soldering with kids seems like a scary prospect, but if I can teach my ten-year-going-on-sixteen-year-old how to solder, so can you.  Sometimes it feels impossible to teach a skill that you’ve seemingly just known forever, so remember to keep it simple, go slow, and over-explain everything.  I stumbled upon this great blog about teaching kids to solder. It features lots of resources for project kits and lists everything you’ll need to get started.

You Should Teach Your Kids to Solder

Once you have successfully built your cables, let your kids experiment with connecting a microphone to a speaker, and then introduce a small analog mixer.  I love to use my adorable little Yamaha MG10 for beginner projects. It’s small enough to keep kids from being overwhelmed but has enough start teaching the ins and outs of the mixing console.

A key ingredient to teaching middle school kids is being able to connect to them on their level. Incorporating their interests into your lesson will help you successfully plant those tiny seeds of knowledge.  What better way to connect with middle school kids than with a cell phone? There’s a great game app called Aux B that lets users patch a sound system bit by bit. It starts simple, and throughout 40 free levels, gets pretty complicated.  The game does not allow you to advance to the next level until you have successfully passed the current level and achieved blaring music through your speakers. This is a super fun way to introduce signal flow. I like to have my students race against each other on this game, and then the winner gets the glory of being the ultimate Patch Master!  Here’s the link:

Aux B

High School Years

High school.  Here’s where we get to start having some fun with audio.  SoundGym is a super fun and useful ear training program. (SoundGirls has free subscriptions, email us at soundgirls@soundgirls to receive yours) It helps users identify frequencies and the differences between them, panning, and gain differences.  It’s very user-friendly, so it’s easy just to plug and play. The free version of this program does have some limitations on how much you can do, but it’s enough to be useful.  I find this program the most beneficial when used on a regular basis. After all, practice makes perfect! Here’s the link:

SoundGym

The folks at Figure53 (the makers of QLab) have some great (and free) resources.  Their instructional videos are fun and user friendly, and you can follow along on a free version of QLab, as long as you have a Mac computer.  Another super great Figure53 resource is the Figure53 Studio. There is a link on their website where they share experimental software for free!  It should be noted that there is no support for these programs, so if you get stuck or have questions, you’re on your own. One of my favorite resources for learning and teaching QLab is the QLab Cook Book.  This is a collection of QLab programming techniques and tricks developed by real-life QLab users! All three links are right here:

Figure53 Qlab

Figure53 Studio

Qlab Cookbook

If you are located in or near Southern California, you will be able to take advantage of a super cool Yamaha resource I discovered about ten years ago.  Yamaha has a program called “Audioversity” that offers all kinds of professional audio education and training activities. There is a healthy mix of self-paced training and instructor-led training.  The folks at Yamaha are invested in education, and will happily give student tours of the Yamaha Corporation in Buena Park. It’s great for students to see new equipment that is being developed, and all of the cool things going on inside Yamaha.  Check out this link for more info:

Yamaha Training

Whatever path you choose to use to introduce kids to audio, the important thing is to keep talking about it.  It’s one of the technical areas of entertainment that often fades into the background, and that’s what makes it so scary to beginners.  Audio is very accessible, and anyone can learn it. All it takes is a little patience and a great sense of adventure!

 

Interview with Veronica Simonetti

Veronica Simonetti is the Lead Studio Engineer at Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) in San Francisco, California, where she has lived and worked for the past 4 years. Veronica has worked with a wide variety artists including Meklit Hadero, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Jessie Farrell, Lia Rose, Mariachi Femenil Orgullo Mexicano, Sonita Alizadeh, and FR333. She also has worked on a number of audiobooks, podcasts, and voiceovers for clients including Hachette Book Group, Simon and Schuster, National Geographic, Remembering Camp Trans, Reasonable Doubt, Webby Awards Podcast, and Pitch Makeover.

How long have you worked for Women’s Audio Mission? Can you talk about your career trajectory and your experience as someone starting as an intern to now being an integral part of the organization? How did that happen for you?

I’ve worked at WAM for four years. I interned there the summer of 2014 and started working there in the summer of 2015. I became an intern at WAM during the summer after my junior year in college and then went back to Indiana to finish school and graduate. After I graduated, I moved to SF and have been here ever since!

I started as a part-time employee and eventually became a full time employee. I have had many different responsibilities at WAM throughout my four years at the organization. I used to manage the interns, and teach some Girls on the Mic classes, in addition to many other responsibilities, but I have since moved on to focus solely on engineering, facilities management, and teaching a couple of adult classes a year.

What is your current title, and what are your main objectives at your job?

My title is Lead Studio Engineer, Facilities Manager, and Instructor. I am the head engineer at WAM’s recording studio and I also book the studio. I manage all of WAM’s facilities including our classroom space in Oakland. This entails keeping up with our gear and project managing facilities maintenance. I also teach our Intro to Pro Tools class as well as the Level 2 series of classes on multitrack recording, mic placement, and mixing.

I know you’ve worked directly with a lot of interns; can you describe what makes a “good” intern? Any traits that immediately stand out as good or bad?

I think a good intern is someone who is always thinking a step ahead. Someone who is always doing something to help out with whatever situation they’re in. For myself, as an intern, I was prepared to do the amount of work of someone who is working full time. I was always asking for additional projects to work on. I also said yes to every opportunity that came my way. Whether that was doing live sound or shadowing a recording session or touring a studio, I tried to absorb as much knowledge as possible, so then when the situation came for me to choose what I wanted to do, I was able to make an informed decision based on my experiences.

I think that even though I was an intern only a few years ago, times are different today. I know that people entering the workplace today are entering at a very competitive time with a load of debt on their shoulders, but I think it is important to remember to work hard towards what you want. If you know that you want to be in the audio industry, it is possible for you to break into it. It might just take a bit more work and a little more time than other industries.

I also think that finding mentors in your industry is super important. Finding people who you admire and learning how they navigated their career is a great way to think about your own and try to shape your path.

I remember when you first moved out to the Bay Area, you were working a few jobs to make ends meet until you were able to get a full-time position at WAM. Are you still picking up gigs or are you mostly settled at WAM? Can you talk about that balance and how you made it work?

The only side gig that I really do anymore is live sound for a rock camp for kids called Rock Band Land. The guys that run the camp are really great, and it’s an easy gig that occurs a few times a year. My schedule gets pretty full with sessions and events for WAM so it is hard to schedule many side gigs outside of WAM.

When I first started at WAM, I was hired part-time. I also got hired part-time as an audio preservationist at Bay Area Video Coalition. In addition to those two jobs, I picked up as many live sound gigs as I could. The first two years of my time in SF I was basically freelance. I liked being able to do something different every day and work in different places all over the city, but it was stressful to look at my schedule and see that my calendar was blank in two weeks. I had to learn that just because it’s blank now, doesn’t mean it won’t fill up in a week. Work was usually steady enough for me to get by, but there is something nice about the stability of a full-time job.

I think that there are great reasons to be freelance and great reasons to have a full-time job. I think finding what works for you is the most important and creating the balance that you find you need.

Where are your favorite spots to work in the Bay Area and why?

I enjoyed working at SOMArts. It’s this vast event space as well as an art gallery in the city. They have some of the best events I’ve ever worked in the city.

Also, the Verdi Club. They are a small events space in the Mission that is sort of a hidden gem. It’s been around for decades and the people working there are some of the nicest I’ve met in SF. I’ve been fortunate to work for almost solely nonprofits in SF. WAM, BAVC, and SOMArts are all nonprofits. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m glad that it worked out that way. I feel like the people who work at nonprofits are there for the passion they have for the issue they are working towards, rather than having the main concern be making money. Money is definitely great, but I prefer to have passion for driving myself and the people around me.

What are your favorite parts about the work you do?

I love that I get to do something different every day. I love that WAM has given me so many opportunities to meet so many amazing people in the audio industry and has allowed me to see how many different paths a career can go.

In regards to engineering at WAM, I love that I have worked on such a huge spectrum of sessions in the studio. I have worked on such a wide range of projects from classical to rap to punk to audiobooks, voiceovers, and different types of podcasts. Some of the bigger sessions I’ve been lucky to lead were recording Neko Case and Jamila Woods interviews for Song Exploder, Kronos Quartet, projects with National Geographic, the Ethio-Jazz artist, Meklit, emerging R&B artist, Ruby Mountain, indie rocker Thao Nguyen, the Unladylike podcast, and Webby Awards podcast.

I love working with different clients every day. The engineering work I’ve been able to do at WAM is something I am so grateful to have been such a massive part of my career.

What are your goals for the next few years within WAM and in your engineering career?

It’s hard for me to think years ahead in the future. I’m more the type to go with the flow rather than plan ahead. I have discovered a love for podcasts that I didn’t realize I had before becoming an engineer. I would love to work in a way that is more focused on podcasts, but honestly, I’m pretty grateful for the place I’m at with my job at WAM right now.

Can you talk about what WAMCon is and its goals? What is the process of organizing that event like on your end?

WAMCon is an interactive recording conference for women and gender non-conforming individuals that WAM holds in various cities around the US. We have had sold-out conferences in Boston, LA, NY and Nashville with over 500 attendees total. We bring together some of the biggest music producers and engineers in the audio industry to deliver world-class workshops and panels on subjects like songwriting, mixing, vocal production, DSP processing, mic placement, music business, mastering, and more. WAMCon panelists have included big name producers and engineers like Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer, Emily Lazar; legendary music producer/songwriter, Linda Perry, who has worked with artists like Dolly Parton and P!nk; engineer Marcella “Ms. Lago” Araica, who has worked with Madonna and Missy Elliott, and Gena Johnson who worked with both Brandi Carlile and Kacey Musgraves.

It is a great way for WAM to connect with our membership that is spread all over the country and world. WAMCon also provides powerful networking opportunities, helping our members make connections with studios, companies and engineers and producers who are working in the cities they live in. Every city that we go to, we are welcomed with open arms and so many people telling us how important and necessary WAM’s work and presence is there. It is great to see engineers who are just getting started to make connections with each other and work together to break into the industry.

To organize the WAMCon conferences, we spend months before the event planning and coordinating. We are a nonprofit, so part of the planning process includes raising money, finding sponsors, and writing grants to support the conference. We have to find locations to host conferences, as well as find local engineers who would like to teach a workshop and secure top presenters for each conference.

What is the music scene and music community like in San Francisco?  How has WAM’s presence contributed to that? What excites you about living there?

WAM has a huge presence in the music community in San Francisco. It is so common for me to be attending a show at a local venue, and to see a WAM member or former WAM intern running live sound. We pretty much have placed a woman engineer in every venue in San Francisco. There are also a lot of members and former interns who are working at various places in the Bay including Pixar, Skywalker Sound, Google, Facebook, Dolby Laboratories, Pandora, among others. WAM has contributed to the music community in the Bay by training and placing women in such a wide range of positions. There is a very strong culture in the Bay of passing your job onto another WAM member to help pass along the position to all of the many qualified women who are already working in the industry but may not have had a chance for their big break yet. WAM creates a community for networking and support through our membership and through our six-month internship program.

WAM also provides low-cost recording services for independent artists in the Bay Area and performance opportunities through our quarterly Local Sirens: Women in Performance Concert Series held at Rickshaw Stop. Our world-class studio has hosted multiple projects from Kronos Quartet, Angélique Kidjo (2014 GRAMMY), tUnE-yArDs, Clarence Jones (MLK’s speechwriter), Toro Y Moi, Oscar-nominated soundtrack “Dirty Wars,” Salman Rushdie/NPR, National Geographic, ESPN, Disney, and more.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while working at WAM?

Honestly, the biggest challenge I’ve faced is when people undermine my knowledge in the studio. Some have assumed that I am a student or intern when I am in fact the one engineering their session. I think part of that has been from my confidence in the studio, which has definitely grown more in the past few years. Also, I think that most people are not used to seeing a woman as an engineer and of authority. It might be misogyny that’s buried deep down inside, but it’s still there. I have learned to overcome this challenge by knowing that I am qualified to be in the position I’m in and to show the person why that is so. The rest, I just let roll off my back.

Also, I am continually learning new subjects and techniques in the audio industry. I think that is a super important part of growing as an engineer and keeping up with the fast-changing technology.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges women working in audio face? What are things we can all do to make things better for everyone in this realm?

One of the biggest challenges that women face in the industry, I think, is finding opportunities. It can be tough to get your first break and start working in the industry. It takes a lot of perseverance, time, and self-confidence that can be very hard for women to find.

I think that it would be helpful for people in the industry to be open to giving all people the same, equal chance. It would be great if women didn’t feel the need to prove themselves more and show their knowledge of the subject to prove that they are equal to their peers. I know that the industry is a lot better than 20, even ten years ago, but I know that we all still have a long way to go.

Also, it’s important not to let things happen that you are not comfortable with. If you feel like you are not being treated the way you would like to be, you are most likely correct, and you deserve to either talk to the person or company who is mistreating you or extract yourself from the situation.

Do you have any advice for young women starting a career in audio?

My advice is to be confident, but also be open to learning. I believe that audio is universal, but each studio and facility works a little differently from each other. It’s really good to have a basis of knowledge of audio before entering an internship or your first job, but it’s super important to remember that you are always going to be learning new things. I am continually learning new things about audio to this day, and I hope I always do.

Also, if you can’t find the right opportunity for yourself, it is always an option to start your own thing! You might find that that is the only way to do what you want to do.

What are your favorite/desert island pieces of gear you’ve used?

I love using the Avedis MA-5 and Great River mic pres in WAM’s studio. Those are my go-to’s for any sort of vocal session, whether it’s singing, rapping, or podcasts. I also love all of the Universal Audio and Eventide plugins that WAM has at the studio. There is such a large selection of them, they are made so well, and give you such a wide range of elements to manipulate.

What are you working on that you’re excited about?

I am currently producing a podcast with a couple of friends. It’s about our dating experiences in the Bay. It’s been really fun to be a part of a project from the start and to have a creative say in the content. We are still in the process of recording and editing, but I’m sure I’ll post about it on my Instagram when it gets released! I would like to keep producing as many podcasts as I can possibly fit into my schedule!

Also, I’m looking forward to WAMCon in Los Angeles on August 16 and 17th! We’ll be at Disney and Youtube, and I can’t wait to see their spaces and meet our WAM members in LA!

Anything else to add? How can we connect with you?

You can find me on Instagram @ron_ronette, or on the web at veronicasimonetti.com. Feel free to DM me there or send me an email at vsimonetti@womensaudiomission.org.

You are always welcome to email WAM at info@womensaudiomission.org with any questions about how to get more involved, our internship program, recording in our studio, and anything else you may have questions about!

 

 

Engineering Ourselves and Rewiring the Brain

I recently came across a news article about people who chose to drastically change large areas of their lives, which included changing their internal narrative and concept of ‘self’ entirely. My interest was piqued and led me to investigate the science behind this concept — the ability to rewire the brain.

What is neuroplasticity?

The discovery of neuroplasticity is a relatively newly accepted one, only becoming appreciated and understood in the last 20 years. Science previously believed the brain to be ‘hardwired’ to function in predetermined ways. However, we now know it is ‘softwired’ by experience.  It turns out that we are changing all the time and that our brains are like flexible plastic and can be rewired.

Neuroplasticity is the ‘muscle building’ part of the brain. Dr. John B. Arden, author of “Rewire Your Brain,” summarises the principles of neuroplasticity with the phrases “Use it or lose it” and “Cells that fire together wire together.”  He explains that our brains reorganise when we have new experiences, and the connections the brain makes when performing a skill are strengthened with use.

Conversely, if the skill lies dormant, the connections are weakened, just as any muscles in the body will weaken without exercise. The more repetition we engage in, the more neurons will fire together, strengthening and increasing in power until it becomes automatic to us. This means that we become what we think and do.

We are the engineers

When we find a bad connection when engineering, we understand that we must re-route our signal and find another way. In life, when we see an inner “connection” in us that we deem to be undesirable, we must engineer ourselves.

In the initial news article that piqued my interest, not all of the subjects were able to undertake such drastic rewiring in themselves. While some successfully overhauled and maintained all areas of their lives and “selves” completely, some were unwilling or unable to believe anything other than their familiar inner narrative about who they were and their capabilities. This duality of neuroplasticity is outlined as “The plastic paradox” in Mike Sheerin’s documentary “The brain that changes itself”:

“The same plasticity that allows us to change our brains and produce more flexible behaviours is also the source of many of our most rigid ones. All people start with plastic potential. Some of us as we grow and develop, enhance that flexibility. For others, the spontaneity, creativity, and unpredictability of childhood give way to a routinized existence that repeats the same behaviour and turns us into rigid caricatures of ourselves. Anything that involves unvaried repetition; our careers, cultural activities, skills repeated, and neuroses can lead to rigidity.”

The connections we engineer 

For those wishing to roll up their metaphorical sleeves and embark on some mental cable coiling and re-routing, the good news is our behaviour is not rigidly determined. The brain forms connections and pathways – major pathways are like highways that are frequently used, but we can also take the dormant backroads and over time and use, build them up to be the new highways.

Through stimulation and exercise, we can change the brain at a physiological level. Arden explains that we can even turn genes on or off with our behaviour and can rewire the parts of the brain that are out of balance with the others.

Musicians have been studied at length to understand neural connections associated with skilled repetition. Arden outlines research that has found not only behaviour (in this case instrumental practice) changes the structure of the brain through neuroplasticity, but just thinking about or imagining particular behaviours can change brain structure as well, meaning that mental practice contributes to the rewiring of the brain.

“Neurons communicate something new. The brain would not be able to record anything new if it were hardwired. Remembering something new is, therefore, rewiring the brain. By making connections between ideas or images, you also make connections between the neurons that encode those ideas and images. “

What this means

When we repeat an action, a thought, or emotion, we reinforce a neural pathway. We, as engineers then must take care with what is going into our input, that is, what ideas and images we are allowing into our brains that will make subsequent connections.

The discovery of “mirror neurons” has been an interesting one, and Professor Ramachandran has been an advocate of their importance. He explains mirror neurons are motor command neurons that fire and orchestrate a sequence of muscle twitches to allow a physical action such as pulling a lever. A subset of these neurons also fire when watching another person do precisely the same action – the neurons are performing a virtual reality simulation of the brain.

Ramachandran goes onto explain that when we feel pain, cells respond in the anterior cingulate area of the brain. Again, when we watch someone in pain, a subset of anterior cingulate neurons will also fire. This has led Ramachandran to believe the mirror neurons are involved in the basis of all empathy. The broader implication of this means that our brains take on and feel that which is around us, and what we “feed” into it.

We are changing all the time with everything we think and experience. Knowing that plasticity is an inherent part of the brain, we need to learn enough so we can guide the changes, keep our input signals clean, and be content with our own ability to wire and rewire ourselves.

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