Join Us

Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

Join Us

Thea Gustafsson Producer, Songwriter, and Recording Artist

Thea Gustafsson currently records emotive alt-pop as Becky and the Birds, a project which released its debut album Only Music Makes Me Cry Now on November 8th, 2024. As recent as this seems, she has a rich background in audio, from her days at Stockholm’s famed Musikmakarna Songwriters Academy to a later internship with Aviici. In 2025, Gustafsson was awarded Producer of the Year at the Swedish Grammis and in April, she released the single “Should’ve known better (choices),” on which her accordionist father contributes some accompaniment.

 

What excites you most as a producer?

What really excites me is when I go into sounds, or twists in the sounds that are unexpected—like changing the key abruptly, or using an effect that comes in just every now and then. I love very petite changes that make a big difference in production. Every time I hear a production where I can hear that someone has put a lot of time into it, and it’s complex, it just makes me so happy.

What are some of your favorite subtle shifts that you can accomplish in a recording?

I like to put in small, hidden messages. It could be a voice sample that only I know where it comes from—like a phone call—then I just take one word from that phone call, for example, and use it as a snare. It’s things that no one else probably would hear or notice. It makes such a difference in the process of creating it. But then I really like to play with my own voice, see how I can pitch my voice, flex time my voice, or use it in various ways. That’s probably why I love samplers so much, because you never know what you’ll get. You know what you put into the sampler, but then, from there, it just gives you so many endless possibilities. Samplers: they’re my best friends.

What is your go to sampler?

I love the Serato sampler. When I got it, it was free, which was incredible. I also use the (Teenage Engineering) OP-1 a lot. I’ve been using (Native Instruments) Maschine quite a lot to chop up stuff, but I don’t find it to be quite as easy. It’s not a standalone. I’ve tried to, like, really love it–and I used to love it–but I don’t love it as much anymore. I like Maschine for drums. It’s easy to quantize, but it’s also kind of complex. You need to really learn the Maschine, and, to be honest, I’m not much of a nerd when it comes to, like, learning the instrument. I just want them to work, or if I don’t know how they work, I want them to be easy to just figure out somehow.

Tell us about your experience producing other artists.

I’ve had sessions with people where we come from different worlds, and I think that could be good. But so far, my best experiences have been with the people who have similar taste and sound. We have similar thoughts. When you find that, it’s just fun. I think it’s good as a producer too, or as an artist, to get out of your own head. You can learn so much [from] someone saying a sound that they want you to use, and it might be a sound that you have never thought of or that you would never use, but you learn so much from just trying to find that. Then I’ve been making a lot of samples for other producers, which has been really fun. It’s easy to sit and be like, “oh, I need to make a whole production of something,” but I’ve also found a way where I’m, creating ambiences–or creating soundscapes, in a way–and then I let someone else come in to make the drums or the bass. The process of adding bass is very boring to me. I’ve been quite forceful too, in my no’s. I’ve not been afraid to say no, which has been good for me as a producer. I used to jump into projects, but it’s easy to find yourself kind of scattered if you’ve done a lot of different things that you’re not really keen on.

How did you get started as a producer?

Actually, I went to a production and songwriting school, but I went in there as a top liner. This was in Sweden, and it’s a quite good school. It’s the school that a lot of good producers and songwriters have gone to, but I didn’t even know the concept of producing, so I picked top liner, But then as I got into that school and I started to write, and I wrote for others,  ended up always finding myself nagging at the producer, like, “Oh, you should try this. You should do this.” It was always male producers. I hadn’t seen a woman produce at that point. I didn’t really have any influencers or anyone that I could look up to, besides maybe Björk back then. It kind of grew out of frustration, because I saw these men just came into the studios and took over, and I didn’t even think they were good at what they were doing. So then, after a while, I kind of locked myself in, because I was so tired of everything. And I was like, I don’t want to be a top liner; this is not for me.

I started to produce by myself, because I had learned so much, because I had seen others produce. I remember that I wanted to do my artist project, but I couldn’t find a producer for it. I was just standing in line for these male producers. I had to wait, then they would start something, but they wouldn’t finish it. So then I was like, I’ll just do it myself. I did it out of anger, but also out of pure excitement. I immediately was just so blown away, like, “oh my god, why haven’t I done this sooner?” It’s one of the few things in life where I really get caught up in it, and I can just lose myself completely. Up to that point, I hadn’t really felt that feeling. It was so much fun to not know a lot about it either, because that gave me so much freedom and space to try things out, which made me ultra creative. Then, from there, I found my own ways of doing it. I remember a guy looking through my project, and he was like, “you can’t have the compressor first and then the EQ, that’s wrong.” And I was like, “Who says that it’s wrong?”

Do you still put the compressor before the EQ?

I actually put the EQ before the compressor most of the time. I know more common rules of what sounds good and what doesn’t sound good, but it’s so easy to get caught up in the rules of producing, and just forget about the creativity and the endless possibilities that are there if you actually put the compressor before the EQ [sometimes]. And it might be a sound that is way cooler than the compressor after the EQ.

Can you say the name of the school that you went to?

Musikmakarna. It’s a really good school. They split you up in groups, you know, so you’re either a “top liner” or a producer, which makes it weird. It’s weird when that’s your first interaction with the industry. You suddenly have to put yourself into a box. I think that limits you, like, “well, if I’m a top liner, I can’t be a producer.” I do think a lot of things have changed, though. This was quite a lot of years ago. I love the word creator; I just want to be a creator. And I think that, especially as a girl and as a woman, too, it’s easy to forget that you can do everything. I think society enforces [men] to be like, “I can do whatever I want,” but as a girl, you have to make everything perfect before you can say that you’re a producer. You have to produce a hit record before you can say that you’re a producer. I’m just trying to work around that all the time, and [as] soon as I try something, I’m like, “I’m that.”

Do you have someone who really helped you, like a mentor?

I didn’t really have anyone who I can say was, like, a mentor, but I did feel a lot of encouragement from people who were in the industry–from other women producers especially. I think there’s a lot of connection there, from female creators overall. I’ve found a lot of calm in talking to other girls who are making something creative, because it takes a lot from you to put yourself out there. It’s kind of vulnerable as a woman. So to see other girls being powerful, and being nerdy, or being deeply interested in something that doesn’t have anything to do with men, is very inspiring to me. Every woman, who’s making something for their own sake, has always been very inspiring to me.

So tell us about your process for making your latest album.

I was going through a breakup, and I’ve never been a big diary writer. My way has been to record myself when I’m playing piano and singing, so I did that a lot, and I just let whatever wanted to come out, come out. It came from this very intuitive place. So I would have long recordings, like 30 minutes that I had recorded, that I then took and sampled. I let those samples kind of lead the way for the whole album. Then I would add production to it, I would add drums or whatever it needed, which was hard, because a lot of them didn’t even have BPMs or a tempo. Some of them still don’t, which I have found, very freeing in a way, because I just had to accept that. Once I let go, I was like, oh, it can be whatever it wants to be.

What are some of your long term goals?

I really want to work with people, with big people, who are interesting and inspiring. I want to get more into hip hop, and use my samples there, and also more into the alternative scene, [producing] for others. I want to produce even more for others, and then release more albums. I’m moving to the US, which will be terrifying, and so much fun. I really also want to pave the way for female producers. I just want to be inspiring, and I want to stay inspired, too.

What made you gravitate toward music to begin with?

My dad is a musician, but he’s an accordion player, and he’s been very much into klezmer music and jazz. So I always started out as a little bit of an underdog, you know, because I was just listening to his records, which were klezmer records, all day long. Then I started playing violin when I was seven. I played in a lot of orchestras, and I was also writing songs for orchestras, which was my first way of expressing creativity and making songs. I think that has had a huge impact on the way that I produce, too, because I come from an orchestra perspective, and I’ve also always been singing in choirs. From that, I’m very used to different harmonies and different sections, which I’ve had a big use for in my production. I’ve always been in music, I’ve always been around music, and I think if I would have known that it was possible to produce earlier, I definitely would have. It was just that I didn’t even know that you could do it until school.

Your choir background definitely comes across in your album.

Yeah, I love choirs. It’s so much fun singing with other people. The beautiful thing about vocals is that it’s an instrument that is closest to us, because it comes right out of us; there’s no instrument in between. It’s just straight from our soul. I find that if I’ve been in an era where I’ve been only producing a lot and I haven’t been singing so much, I can feel how I’m disconnected from myself, almost. I really think singing connects you to you somehow. It’s just beautiful.

More on Thea Gustafsson

https://beckyandthebirds.com/

New single announcement: April 30th, 2025

https://www.instagram.com/beckyandthebirds/

Selected Interviews with Thea Gustaffson:

The Luna Collective

Clash Music Interview

Rosie Lowe: Producer, Songwriter, Recording Artist

Though British singer-songwriter Rosie Lowe has sustained a career as an artist for over a decade and has been recording her own music since her college days, it is with her August 2024 release Lover, Other that she took the lead on production, songwriting, and tracking. The result is a musical tapestry that crosses genres, spanning influences from R&B and electronic music to choral compositions. Her collaborators have included Little Simz, Jay Electronica, and Duval Timothy, with whom she released an album called Son in 2021.

People know you professionally as a recording artist and performer, but you have an audio background as well. Tell us about that.

I’ve always recorded my own music. When I was in Goldsmith’s University in London, we were doing a songwriting course, but you had to choose your limitations. My limitation was that I was only going to record using my voice. I was like, “I don’t want to be relying on anyone else to do this for me,” so I bought a computer and I learned Logic, got all of that equipment and spent some time with it, and it was the best thing that I did. Now I pick people that I want to collaborate [with] because I love their sound, but I think that early on, it was really important for me to do that stuff myself, not rely on someone else to make me sound how they thought I should sound. I’ve been recording and producing myself ever since, but I’ve collaborated quite a lot with producers over the years, and for this latest album, I really made a decision to steer the boat a bit more. I still collaborated, but I hand-picked where and how.

It’s interesting how you mentioned the first project that you gravitated toward being so voice-centered, because I noticed that the songs that you really took the helm on on your most recent album Lover, Other are vocal arrangements that are extremely layered and almost choir-like.

I love choral work. I love vocals as well. It’s where I feel most comfortable in a way, but also what I want to hear a lot of the time. Recording vocals is such a specific skill set, very different from producing. I actually made the decision on this album that I didn’t want to record in any soundproof rooms. I was wanting to record in open rooms and let that outside in. Some of my favorite records were recorded in that way, where you can hear stuff on the vocals, you can hear people talking, you can hear the sound of a car going by or whatever. And it’s all recorded in one take in a room. I love that. I love when recordings have life on them.

Where did you record?

At the beginning of this process, I just wanted to travel as much as possible. My main intention was to have as much fun as possible, because you never know if it’s going to be the last album you get to make. I was on the way to possibly having a child; you just never know. I reduced my studio to, like, a suitcase, and I just picked a few items. I first got on a plane to Catalonia in Spain, to a residential, and began writing there, and returned there about six times. It was just like heaven on earth. When I was there, I was in an annex that was attached to this big Spanish farmhouse. I traveled to from there to Florence, South France, Berlin, Sri Lanka, Devon, London. In Florence, there was this beautiful chapel. I sung some vocals in there that I then sampled. I recorded some of the vocals for “Sundown” in our empty flat, because we had to strip it out to renovate it. I [wanted] to record the vocals there, because there’s so much history and meaning for the song in that flat. It was the last time that I was there with my friend Steven, who the song was about.

It sounds like, from the church to the empty flat, you were going for a lot of natural reverb in your surroundings.

Yeah, absolutely. I really wanted just to create as natural sounding things as possible, and keep things quite raw. So if there was, like, a dog barking on the vocal, I wasn’t going to redo it. And it was the same with actually recording the vocals. I was only letting myself do full takes, and then trying to stay pretty true to the takes. I was trying to get myself away from the computer as much as possible, because I find that I’m a perfectionist. Really, I don’t think my best work is when I’m in that perfectionist head space, because actually, as a listener, I’m not interested in hearing like a perfect vocal. I’m interested in hearing a vocal that is free and means something.

Can you describe your studio in a bag?

It changed a little bit as I went, but it was a (Boss) SP 303. I ran a lot of the sounds from the album through the compressor on that, and I used it as a little affecting unit, as well as a little sampler. My Zoom recorder: I took that with me in my handbag, basically for the whole year and I would just record anywhere I was–little birds or my vocals somewhere, or a conversation or something, and I would layer that under things as well. I bought an (Isla Instruments) SP-2400 through the process. You can get samples on there really quick. You can also record really quickly, so it was really useful throwing stuff out and being like, “oh, dinner’s in 20 minutes. I’m just going to make something.” It was a bit more intuitive. I had my UA interface, a few mics. I had a Marantz tape recorder that I was recording a lot of the vocals onto, and a little MIDI keyboard. There was a Reslo microphone. I had a few ribbon microphones. I wish I could sing on ribbons on stage, but it’s just not possible.

Does anyone stand out as sort of a mentor, someone that you’ve learned a lot of your skills from, who elevated your approach to mixing and producing?

Dave Okumu, who was a long-term producer and collaborator and friend of mine, was definitely like a mentor, not necessarily technically as much as life-wise. They are just a very wise soul, and always encouraged me to kind of block out the noise, not listen to what people think I should be, or what other people’s opinions are of me, and just carry on, stay focused on my own path. So that’s been pretty amazing. He would always say, “is it something that you’re going to be proud of doing 10 years down the line? If it’s not, then you probably shouldn’t do it,” and I think that was really good advice. But on this album, there was one person in particular that was incredibly influential: Harvey Grant. He’s one of the best pianists I’ve ever come across. He’s an organist and just an absolute wizard on piano and harmony. He did all the string arrangements on the album, that I’d then respond to with vocal arrangements, and then we’d do it as, like a call and response. A lot of the time, in the studio, you tend to lean on the person who can do things quickest and with ease. A lot of moments where he could probably do something quicker than me, he was like, “no, no, you do that.” I think that he was really integral at being a bit of a cheerleader and pushing me to actually see things through myself sometimes, where a lot of other people I have worked with in the past would have just sat down at the computer and done it.

What advice do you have for other performers who want to extend their skill set behind the board, so to speak?

Just doing it is the best advice. Leaning into things that aren’t necessarily your skill set can bring about the most exciting sounds. Generally, in life, it’s a really good thing to do things you’re not good at. You can be really surprised by what that brings up in a positive way. A lot of the time with music production, there’s this sense that there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, but I really don’t believe in that. I don’t think it really matters how you get to the end point, as long as it represents what you imagined it to be.

Do you have any advice for women and girls in particular?

My experience is, if there are men around that can do it, they probably will. [Try] to get it done yourself behind closed doors, chiseling away and not being scared to push through what it is that you want. There’s a lot of egos in this industry, and sometimes, if you don’t have much of an ego, then you just have to kind of pretend that you do. I don’t go into studio being like, “No, I’m doing that.” But I can be like, “I don’t think that’s quite what I imagined.” There’s a lot of incredible, amazing, supportive men, and I think it’s just about finding your crew and sticking with them, but also working with other women. I love writing with other women so much. You can just open up and write a song with so much joy and ease in my experience.

More on Rosie Lowe:

https://rosielowe.bandcamp.com/

Selected Interviews with Rosie Lowe:

August 2024: Composer Magazine

August 2024: Clash

August 2024: F Word Magazine

Unfinished Symphony To Swan Song: What The Future May Hold

Keeping up with technological developments can sometimes feel impossible, as the changes arrive bolder and faster than ever before. Living in 2024 has often crossed into the realm of watching childhood sci-fi become a reality for those of us past a certain age, and it brings with it a series of feats as well as quandaries.

When Tupac’s hologram “performed” at Coachella 2012, it was talked about for weeks – we re-watched and spoke about it around the proverbial water cooler time and again, and it’s astonishing looking back at just how many other technological developments have been implemented in the decade since, and the relentless pace at which these creations keep coming.

Get Back To The Future

The 2021 Peter Jackson documentary The Beatles: Get Back utilised de-mix technology, meaning that the musical parts could be isolated, re-built, and edited in high quality with modern-day digital methods, with an overall effect that hit like a person living in 1955 hearing Johnny B. Goode for the first time. By the end of 2023, the documentary team and the wizards at Abbey Road Studios had achieved the unlikely task of creating an all-new Beatles track – taking the starting point of a rough vintage demo recording of John’s vocals, and adding George’s guitar parts from a 1995 session, with Paul, Ringo, and an orchestral string ensemble recording in the present day. Bearing in mind that Lennon‘s demo was a 1978 tape recording of vocal and piano, it’s quite the leap to hear the 21st century final track of Now and Then. With a creation process that spanned five decades, the emergence of this technology meant that the group could turn the “Unfinished Symphony” into a Swan Song.

Paul McCartney spoke about the decision to go ahead with the track in the mini documentary that accompanied the song’s release, saying:

“George and Ringo came down to my studio. Nice day. Fabulous day,” recalls McCartney of the ’95 reunion. “We listened to the track. There’s John in his apartment in New York City, banging away at his piano, doing a little demo. Is it something we shouldn’t do? Every time I thought like that, I thought, ‘Wait a minute. Let’s say I had a chance to ask John, ‘Hey John, would you like us to finish this last song of yours?’ I’m telling you, I know the answer would’ve been: Yeah! he would’ve loved that.

Just a few short months after the release of Now and Then, the long-awaited version of Logic Pro 11 included the new “Stem Splitter” feature, bringing this de-mix technology into portable home studios of the world. The accessibility, low cost, and ease of use with such an advanced feature is astonishing, and it makes me wonder what possibilities lie ahead in the months and years to come.

Creatives And Computers

There have been many famous “Unfinished Symphonies” which have been completed by others. Mozart’s Requiem still remains shrouded in suspicion as to how much his faithful assistant Franz Xaver Süssmayr may have contributed to it, while the Queen album Made in Heaven was completed by the remaining three band members following Freddie Mercury’s passing. In the literary world, Eoin Colfer authored And Another Thing… which was the sixth and final installment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the blessing of Douglas Adams’ widow Jane Belson, while David Lagercrantz did the same with Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series.

While there’s no doubt that these well-loved creations were crafted in honour and admiration, we are currently living in times that pose the question of just exactly where the line is between a homage from a friend or superfan, and something more ethically ambiguous. YouTube announced last year the upcoming launch of their new text-to-music creation Dream Track – an AI voice & music cloning tool that will create music for YouTube Shorts “in the style” of collaborating artists including John Legend, Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, and Charli XCX. This technology comes from Google’s DeepMind and Lyria, a music generation model that will mean users simply choose one of the artists and enter a prompt. The result will be a 30-second track with lyrics in an AI-generated voice, along with music, all in the style of the chosen artist.

Looking at how quickly de-mix technology hit the shelves, I wonder how far away we are from being able to create entire albums in the style of our favourite artists, with just a few clicks from the couch? And just how easy will it be to hijack this technology and apply it to all artists and music, whether they have partnered/opted-in or not? Are we looking at a day pretty soon when it will be possible to prompt the technology to provide us with a new “Beatles” track, singing about our exact situation in the style of our choosing, and then repeat the process ad infinitum?

Individual use of this technology admittedly sounds intriguing, however, if altered and computer-generated images of figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein can freely be used in advertising campaigns in the present day, what are the implications for other uses of creative works in the “style” of an artist, but which are not officially created or owned by anybody?

From the era of Tupac’s resurgence into our current Deepfake confusion, it’s becoming harder to decipher just what is real anymore, therefore is there a possibility that we will soon hear the musical equivalent of this with the advent of programs such as Dream Track? Additionally, the question arises that if I’m so inclined, and decide to make enough tweaks and changes to my generated “Beatles” song to make it my own, record it, and release it – did its creation truly come from The Beatles, the program/company, or from me?

Looking Ahead

Experts in the technology field advise caution across the board when it comes to the use of new developments, as would be expected. One such expert, Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Nearer says: “Exponential growth in technology means we must prepare for changes beyond our current imagination.” I appreciate his choice of words, as the discourse around the definition of imagination is always the most perplexing thing when it comes to the creative process, and is the frequent focus of current issues with generated content. Everyone from the ancient Greeks to the modern day has theorised on what the heck imagination actually is, what defines genius and originality, and even whether supernatural external forces exist and give people a hand.

Perhaps looking simply at the similarities between the way machine learning and the human brain both work with information is a good enough starting point. Our creative processing tools are certainly similar to computers in the way they are an amalgam of our retained knowledge, influences, preferences, and output intentions, the difference being they are merely wrapped in a human bow of neuroses and emotion. Many have argued that there is no such thing as true originality, and perhaps it’s fair to say the ancient philosophical dilemma has simply modernised and gone digital. There’s undoubtedly a cycle of human imagination broadening when technology provides us with more capabilities, and this spiralling dance of expansion is what Kurzweil has predicted for years – leading to the point of singularity he speaks of when the technology eventually surpasses us.

While the future is filled with potential that my mind cannot comprehend, it’s clear we are standing on the shoulders of giants, with easy access to more information and tools than ever before. Documentarian Peter Jackson has hinted that he has more footage tucked away, meaning there could be further unheard real Beatles songs to come, and of course, there are the infinite possibilities of whatever music cloning and generative tools lay ahead. It’s an exciting time to observe and be a part of, and I for one am optimistic about expanding the limits of our current capabilities.

Recording Acoustic Music in an Ambient Space

While many genres of music are customarily recorded in a studio, with overdubbing and flexible acoustics (vocal booths, acoustic panels, etc.) giving options to create a dry or wetter sound and allowing complete creative control sound’s resonance, genres such as classical, jazz and folk usually require the musicians to be playing in the same physical space together, and often rely on the acoustic to enhance the music.

What are some factors that we should keep in mind when recording these kinds of ensembles and bands?

Deciding on a space

Choosing an acoustically flattering space for the size of the ensemble and type of instruments is important when aiming to capture a naturally resonant sound. Classical music recordings (and live concerts) are usually made in spaces such as churches and large halls with acoustics that naturally enhance the sound of the instruments. Some jazz and other acoustic genre recordings also use resonant spaces to create a unique sound (the German label ECM is a great example). Digital or analog reverb can of course be used to further enhance the acoustic, but starting with a great-sounding space will be a huge advantage. You and/or the musicians should get an idea of the space before the recording session: by visiting and seeing the size of the space, hearing the reverb time, reflections, and how sound reacts there, or listening to another recording that was made in the space, or attending a performance there.

Direct sound vs. room sound

When you know what kind of space you will be recording in and how resonant it is, you can decide on how to record it. While simple acoustic recordings can be achieved with a stereo pair of microphones to capture a soloist or ensemble in a room, if you have access to multiple microphones, it will give you the option to blend between the close sound of each instrument and to produce a far more detailed recording.

An important aspect of the acoustic recording is finding a good balance between a main microphone array that captures the whole ensemble (e.g. stereo configurations such as AB, ORTF, and Decca Tree, or a surround setup), and spot microphones that are placed close to each instrument to pick up more detail. An additional pair of ambient microphones could also be placed much further away from the ensemble to capture more of the sound of the space and have the option to blend it in.

The space’s reverb time and how pleasant it naturally sounds could affect your microphone choice and type of stereo setup. For example, a naturally flattering acoustic might be best captured by an AB set up with omni mics, while a space that has a very long reverb time might be better balanced by using an ORTF with cardioids, and no additional ambient mics. Jazz, folk or music in a small dry acoustic will likely benefit from more use of the direct spot mic sounds with a tasteful amount of room acoustic blended in for cohesiveness.

Placement of microphones and musicians

When capturing a soloist or a whole ensemble with a stereo or surround microphone array, along with the acoustic space around it, your placement of the microphones and the players will affect all aspects of how it sounds: the depth, frequencies, panning, and potential issues such as phase. Depending on the shape of a space, placing the main microphone array higher above the ensemble can sometimes sound better than placing them further back. Think about how near or far each instrumentalist is to the main mic array, as well as how far left or right.

Another thing to note: while positioning the microphones and musicians in the space in a way that will allow you to capture the best sound is ideal, sometimes you might need to compromise for the players to move to their preferred spot to see and hear each other better and to obtain the best musical performance and balance that they can.

Another aspect to consider is the delay between the main microphones and each spot microphone. Some audio engineers like to measure and account for this delay by recording a loud click sound close to the microphone capsule, measuring the milliseconds or samples of difference in the waveforms between the main mic and the spot, and inputting this delay on the corresponding channel in the DAW so that the waveforms line up. In some cases, this can make the sound clearer and better, while in other cases it might sound better without inputting the delay. It’s all down to what you hear!

Further learning

This text is only a small introduction to the topic of capturing music within an acoustic space. If you’re starting out with this kind of recording, it’s a good idea to read more in-depth on acoustic music recording, stereo and surround techniques, and room acoustics. If possible, shadow an audio engineer on a location recording session, and most importantly gain experience by doing recordings in different spaces and learn by experimenting!

Photo by India Hooi of recording session with Duo Otero.

The Power Of Finding Your Voice

I recently stumbled across an interesting podcast episode about the power of voice, featuring world-renowned vocal coach Stewart Pearce. A fascinating guest and captivating speaker, Pearce’s celebrity clients have ranged all the way from Princess Diana to Margaret Thatcher, with a healthy dose of Oscar winners and accomplished theatre actors included in the middle.

One of the most intriguing things Pearce talked about, was women reclaiming the power of their voices in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, and now living a very spiritual and esoteric lifestyle, he claimed that the next chapter of history was more likely than not going to be told by women, rather than the patriarchal model. While that next chapter can at times seem elusive and out of reach observing all the pain, injustice, and oppression in the world around us, we can but hope that it’s on the horizon.

Pearce’s conviction and allyship with women had me intrigued, and so I investigated further into his work. As a taster for his online course, The Magnetic Voice, Stewart offers a three-part masterclass, so of course I delved in.

In addition to his apparent classical, Shakespearean training, there were also somewhat spiritual and less formal elements ingrained into his teachings. The second masterclasses covered: how to create a great voice, your breath power and how to relax, discovering the centre of your authentic voice, acquiring gravitas and personal sovereignty, how to create presence, and evolving your magnetic voice.

I was quite taken by Pearce’s holistic approach to emotional elements of self-confidence and breath work, not just in a performative and vocal speaking/singing sense, but in what felt much more akin to spiritual and yogic practices. Of course, the practical side of breathing from the diaphragm, tone, range, speaking, and singing from the belly and the chest as opposed to the nose or the head were covered, which I was expecting going into the masterclasses. The inclusion of elements such as alignment, grounding, energy work, inner stillness and awareness to become present, also found their place, much to my surprise.

In looking at Pearce’s other works, discovering his 2020 book Diana The Voice of Change illuminated where his passion lay in all of this, and it was clear that sharing the exercises that had worked so well in coaching the Princess during her final years, was a large part of his women’s empowerment mission:

“Diana The Voice of Change is a call to action for women everywhere, for it begins and ends with love. The essence of this book urges the heart of each woman or man to awaken, to heal any breakage within, and so commit to a flow of empathy as an opening impulse for the mighty voice of change. It was Diana’s greatest desire that through her example each woman or man of the world could find their own authentic voice, expressing their own unique purpose, liberating love to transcend enmity. Diana believed that wherever tyranny existed it would be freed by grace, that wherever cruelty existed it would be freed by bravery, and that wherever the voice of oppression occurred it would be freed by the voice of kindness. In this, Diana was a trailblazer!”

 

The Farlex dictionary defines the idiom of “finding your voice” as:

  1. To find one’s distinctive style or vision of artistic expression.
  2. To regain the ability to speak, especially after something frightening or startling has happened.

The parallels in Pearce’s work between finding your voice and building a strong voice are quite significant. Both are equally important for the transformation of self-discovery, growth, and empowerment. Both entail developing confidence, authenticity, and resilience in expressing oneself and making a meaningful impact in the world, particularly for women.

Speaking authentically, powerfully, and magnetically can certainly be helped with vocal training, mindfulness, breathing exercises, and practicing performance techniques, but is that enough? It became apparent to me that Pearce’s message of “our voices reflect the core of our being” means that we also therefore have to do some work on the core of our being.

Perhaps this inner training and reflection is what will accelerate the confidence in more of us to find our authentic voices, especially as women in a world that isn’t working as well as it should. And in doing so, maybe Pearce’s prediction that the next chapter will be told by the feminine is looking more likely.

An Essential Reading List for Classical Music Recording

 

Classical music recording is quite a niche area of the audio recording world that can take time and experience to build skills in. Fortunately, there are some excellent books out there by audio engineers who have been perfecting their craft for years, to aid and inspire us in our ongoing learning journeys and the quest for capturing compelling classical recordings. Several of these have become go-to references for many classical audio engineers.

Classical Recording in the Decca Tradition

By Caroline Haigh, John Dunkerley and Mark Rogers

Written by three highly experienced tonmeisters who have worked for Decca and Abbey Road Studios, this comprehensive guide offers detailed explanations of recording techniques (such as the Decca tree) and useful diagrams and photos. It covers all kinds of formats from solo instruments to large ensembles, orchestras and operas.

Recording Orchestra and Other Classical Music Ensembles

By Richard King

Another comprehensive exploration of recording techniques, written by a Grammy award-winning recording engineer and professor. It also has useful sections on the role of the producer, productions with video, and multi-channel recording as well as “Quick Start Guides” labeled by ensemble type.

New Stereo Soundbook

By Ron Streicher and F. Alton Everest

A guide that delves into stereo perception and recording, exploring what it is, how it works, and how to use microphones to achieve stereo effects – knowledge that is central to classical music recording. It includes a glossary of terms, basic principles of stereo microphone techniques, binaural techniques, multiple-mic recording, the early history of stereo techniques, and how to optimise listening environments.

Recording Music on Location: Capturing the Live Performance

By Bruce Bartlett and Jenny Bartlett

Classical recording more often than not involves recording on location in different venues, and this book provides lots of information on recording outside of the studio, including a section on classical music. Other useful chapters include gear and pre-production, and in-depth explanations of stereo and surround recording techniques.

Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture

By Leo Beranek

Called the “definitive work on the architectural acoustic design of classical music spaces”, this book is an illustrated guide to 100 concert halls and opera houses throughout the world. It explores how architectural features affect acoustical aspects such as reverberation time and frequencies, and how this relates to classical music of different periods. It also features comments from conductors and musicians on how acoustics affect their performances.

Luana Moreno – Live Sound and Recording Engineer

Luana works as a freelance engineer working with venues, rental companies, musicians, and event organizers. She currently is in the process of setting up a small commercial studio. She has been working in audio for over 15 years. Luana is originally from Brazil and now resides in Adelaide, Australia.

Luana fell in love with music when MTV came to Brazil. “I still remember watching Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss” and my mind was completely blown away. I bought my first CDs, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Sepultura, and Hole, and became a total aficionado. I bought an electric guitar with the first payment from my first job. I have her to this day.”

Luana was introduced to audio after a recording session with her band and became interested in the recording process. She began to research courses and programs for audio engineering and also met a producer and engineer Paul Anhaia who worked at Midas Studio. She would take a short course on Audio Fundamentals where she learned the basics and then learned on the job from there. All the while Luana attended workshops and training opportunities. In 2013 Luana enrolled at Melbourne Polytechnic and received an Advanced Diploma in Sound Production in 2019.  Luana says this “doesn’t mean that I have stopped learning though, as I am always looking to learn and keep up with the industry innovations”.

Career Start

How did you get your start?

My first job was at a studio/mobile recording facility called Audiomobile. They had two mobile recording units at the time, a bus and a truck. They did a lot of recordings for music DVDs. I would rarely be on-site recording, but in the studio helping them organize the hard drives and doing general maintenance. I would often sit through mixing sessions with the other techs too.

From there I started mixing live sound at nightclubs and other venues and working for rental companies and artists in Brazil. There I also had the opportunity to do location recording and post for film for a considerable time at MeuSucesso.com and to do mixing and mastering for a few bands.  Moving to Australia I was able to get into the Live entertainment quite quickly and have only run out of work during the first six months of Covid.

How did your early internships or jobs help build a foundation for where you are now?

I think Audiomobile had the most impact because that’s where I learned how the industry worked and was able to sit in on sessions with talented and skilled technicians who didn’t mind sharing their process. Mixing in pubs and nightclubs was a great school as well because we would often be quite limited in terms of what the equipment was capable of, and that’s where I learned to work with whatever I had available.

What did you learn interning or on your early gigs?

Shadowing the other techs at Audiomobile was a great opportunity to train my ear and get up to speed with the basics, and at the pubs and rental companies I’ve learned how to set up a system, troubleshoot it, and make things work. It was also where I learned how to mix.

Did you have a mentor or someone that helped you?

Paulo Anhaia, whom I dated at the start of my career, was more of a supporter and role model than a mentor. The techs at Audiomobile who taught me in my early days: Egidio Conde, Fernando Ferrari, Luiz Leme, Eduardo Garcia.

The group of people who helped me for the longest time in my professional life were my colleagues from Mulheres do Audio( Audio Women), a group that started when I created a Facebook group after working at an AES conference as a Product Specialist and being confused for a “booth model” by the male attendees, who’d ask me, surprised: “You’re a Sound Tech? How many more women in sound are out there?”

That question got me thinking and one night I created a Facebook group and invited some of my mates: Adriana Viana, Lilla Stipp, among others. That group started regular gatherings, where I met many other incredible women who have supported me in my journey, such as Florencia Saravia-Akamin, who played that mentorship role being the most experienced of us; Roberta Siviero, who if I recall correctly introduced us to SoundGirls and organized our meeting with Karrie Keyes when she toured Brazil with Pearl Jam; Regiane Alves, Allyne Cassini, among others.  All of these women became a network, exchanging information at the meetings, organizing workshops, and referring each other for jobs.

Moving to Australia I had to start from scratch, so Toni Venditti’s help was instrumental as she offered me insights and contacts. Other people worth mentioning would be my teachers at Melbourne Poly, Shane Simmonds, Tamara Weaver, and David Rodger, and my mates Erica D’Angelo and Candace Parham. All of these people were in one way or another instrumental in opening a door, answering a question, or giving me advice when I needed it. It might sound like an Oscar acceptance speech, but it truly takes a village!

Career Now

What is a typical day like?

I have no such thing. Working for three different companies as an employee and several other clients, some days I’ll start at 5 am and some I’ll finish at 2 am. So I try to organize my calendar in advance.

On days I’m not working out of the home, I will normally take the morning off and get things done in the afternoon or early evening. I also make sure to schedule days off, where I’ll do only leisure things or nothing at all, depending on how I feel.

How do you stay organized and focused?

I do my best! Sometimes I can’t be as organised as I’d like, but I have learned to not beat myself up about it. After all, managing your schedule as a freelancer is a challenge.

Some items that help me be as organized and focused as I can be are:

Besides these, plenty of water, coffee, chewing gum, regularly exercising/ stretching, and taking breaks when I can afford to, are the main strategies that I use. Taking time to plan for the gig whenever possible. But I think the most important thing is to manage your workload the best you can because, without enough rest, all of that is irrelevant.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

The variety. Being a casual/freelancer allows me to work in different places with different people doing varied things. I enjoy wearing several hats, even if it’s challenging at times.

What do you like least?

Heavy lifting, defective gear, and difficult clients.

If you tour what do you like best?

I did tour a bit but it wasn’t for me, so I never really pursued it. I found that it’s quite stressful and you go to great places but don’t get time off to enjoy yourself.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

If I’m tired, reading in bed, playing casual games, and watching sci-fi and horror series. If I’m not too tired playing music, gardening, or going out with my partner, be it a museum, concert, movie, or dinner.

What are your long-term goals?

Grow and diversify my business, by opening my mixing studio to offer music production, mixing, mastering, and sound for film more consistently, and do more event production management. Help musicians and other creatives achieve their vision and release my projects as an artist. Continue to support the next generation of sound engineers and musicians with education and mentoring, through workshops, courses, and being involved in initiatives like Girls Rock Camp and The Tech Sisters.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I have faced sexism for sure, especially when I was starting out. Bands would arrive at the venue and ask “Are YOU mixing?” and I’d be like “ Well if you don’t want me to you can do it yourself!” and that has always been my stance. Of course, in many situations, nobody says those things to your face, so all you can do is do your best and not worry about it. I think it acts as a filter, a place that won’t hire me because I’m a queer migrant woman is not a place where I want to be.

The other big one is toxic work environments, of which I have tasted many flavors: the ‘we are family”, the abusive manager, and the threatened colleague. It can be hard to spot at first, but once you start seeing the red flags, you can’t unsee them.

How have you dealt with them?

I have learned early on to stand up for myself and to find out whether a gig is worth the trouble or not. But the thing that has made the biggest difference for me was seeking community. Having the support of other women/GNC people who understand your struggles and where you’re coming from. Who can relate and offer advice based on their lived experience. Not to downplay the support of some awesome guys I’ve met, but groups like Mulheres do Audio, and SoundGirls have been instrumental in helping me overcome these issues.

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

Do it! There are more of us than ever and we are stronger together! Connecting with other women and gender-diverse people, SoundGirls is a great place to start. Find your local community and chances are they’ll have your back.

Must have skills?

Broad musical taste, decent hearing, curiosity, interest in lifelong learning, and the ability to learn by yourself, because changes in the industry are constant and often you need the knowledge before you can consult with someone else. I believe that basic musical knowledge is a great advantage for audio technicians. No need to study Schoenberg but knowing rhythmic figures, harmony, and scales can help you a lot, both live and in the studio.

Favorite gear?

For live, any modern digital console with enough graphic eqs is fine. I’m partial to dB Technologies systems as they normally sound quite good just out of the box, and Allen & Heath consoles. The most useful items in my toolkit, besides tape and Sharpie, is undoubtedly my iPad and a router. That was the best investment I made because it helps immensely with line checks, tuning, and naming channels.

In the studio, I love Genelecs, Tannoy, Reaper, and plugins from FabFilter, Plugin Alliance, UAD, and iZotope.

Anything else you want to add?

The entertainment industry is a hard one and many toxic narratives in it need to go! Being proud of doing 80-hour weeks, the boys club, abusive behavior, and the glamorization of booze and drugs as things that are tolerable and even desirable in workplaces are unfortunately still quite common and anyone within it will likely have to deal with these issues from time to time. Still, there is a pushback against these things, especially by younger people, and I’m fully in support. Particularly in regards to long hours, yes sometimes they are inevitable due to specific circumstances, but if they are always the rule, that’s a management issue. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to subject yourself to these things if you want to succeed in this business. There are alternatives and many opportunities to do what you love without sacrificing your mental and physical health. Boundaries are good in any relationship, professional or personal, and those who don’t respect them don’t deserve you!

7 tips for Making Your Recording Session Go Smoothly

As a freelance music producer and recording engineer, the recording sessions are a key component of your business. The success of the recording sessions directly impacts the quality of your final productions. With a little bit of forethought, you can ensure that the sessions go smoothly, resulting in an overall much better experience, as well as high-quality music.

Have a pre-production meeting with the artist prior to the recording session(s) so there are no surprises.

There will be no greater obstacle to overcome than having to figure out what the vision for the project is during the recording session. As a producer and engineer, unless YOU are the artist, your job is to bring the artist’s vision to life. They are depending on you and your expertise to make sure their vision is realized. They don’t know what you know, in most cases, so it is up to you to have a thorough pre-production discussion beforehand. This should drive the approach to the production of the entire song and will bleed into each recording session with every musician.

Make sure everything works at least the day before.

A cable can work one day and then start crackling the next. A tube can blow overnight. Even your computer can suddenly go out. Check all of the equipment you are planning on using for the recording session the day before. Fire everything up, do a quick mock take of something, listen back, and make sure all is working as it should.

Have everything on and warm before the session is to begin.

Turn everything on at least an hour before to give the equipment enough time to warm up. This will also allow you to double-check that everything is working (even though you checked the day before, something could still go out overnight, right?)

Keep your space clutter-free, clean, and comfortable.

Do a basic overview of the space to make sure there’s no dust or clutter. Check the bathroom and make sure it is properly stocked and clean. Make sure the room has lighting options, depending on what the musician or artist might need. Many studio owners (including myself) have fancy LED lights with various colors so we can create moods in our studio space. I always let the artist know that I can adjust the colors to be whatever they want. Sometimes I’m asked to remove all color and make the lights white and bright because they are reading sheet music. Be ready to accommodate so that the artist/musician is comfortable. Temperature can be a tricky element of home recording spaces as well. You’ll have to turn off the AC or furnaces to remove background sound, so be prepared for that. You may need to open doors or turn on AC during breaks or have space heaters nearby to bring some heat.

Give yourself a buffer of time between sessions.

People run late, sessions run long. Cramming sessions too close to one another will create a more stressful situation for you, keeping you from being your best. If the artist or musician is rushed at any point during their session, their performance will likely be hindered. By the same token, really long sessions with no pre-production meeting ahead of time can be very tiring and can wear everyone out. Only book sessions as long as you want and are comfortable with and definitely don’t push a vocalist to sing for longer than 4 hours. Most vocalists don’t have that kind of stamina.

Do not overbook yourself.

Make sure you are prioritizing your mental and physical health. Make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well, and getting outside for a little walk (at least) once a day. The session will only be as good as the engineer.

Have rules and boundaries for your studio.

To keep your studio environment healthy and conducive to creativity but also technical quality, you need to create rules for your studio. You also need to be ready to enforce them. What these rules need to be is up to you and may change over time. Remember, it is your space and you are the one in charge.

Paradoxes In Vocal Editing

I tend to procrastinate recording vocals for my original songs because I get so worked up about recording my voice perfectly. I worry about making sure my recordings are high quality: I’ve minimized outside noise, gain staged properly, warmed up my voice, am conveying emotion and proper pitch, and have enough takes to work with. Keeping track of all this can be so overwhelming that most of the time when I feel ready to record, I just want to do one take and be done with it. So many singers before the age of digital recording were performing single takes, so why can’t I? Of course, if I’m not careful with my recording takes, I end up spending more time in iZotope RX and Melodyne cleaning up noise, mouth clicks, and pitch anyways. Since a lot of my music is electro-pop-based, the vocal editing needs to be clean so that it fits the production and the genre.

I can’t help but feel like a minimal amount of vocal editing gets us closer to authentic performance, and yet we have all these new technological tools that we can use to produce a perfect Pop vocal. In diving into the philosophy of vocal editing instead of actually doing it, I rediscovered a short clip of Billie Eilish demonstrating vocal comping to David Letterman, which you can view here if you haven’t seen it yet. She and Finneas O’Connell walk through editing of the lead vocal for her song “Happier Than Ever” and point out how almost each word is a separate take. They don’t use autotune and instead take extra time during the recording process to make sure every syllable in every phrase is perfect in pitch and tone and time. They do this seamlessly so that upon playback you really can’t tell that these takes are separate. Most producers do this, and the O’Connells did not invent this technique, yet I’m mostly impressed by the sheer resilience it takes to record the same word or syllable over and over again without completely losing your mind.

Another video I found, which you can view here, shows Charlie Puth recording, comping, and editing his vocals very meticulously. He splits up the recording of a two-syllable phrase just so he can use pitch shifting to sing the higher note of the phrase at an easier pitch for him. To be clear, instead of recording himself singing an octave up, he uses SoundToys Little Alter Boy to pitch his voice down and sing a lower note, which he then pitches back up to the right key so it sounds like his tone is fuller when he sings higher. He also punches each note in over and over until he gets the result he wants instead of playlisting and comping later, and he manually lines up harmony takes in Pro Tools instead of using Vocalign. He really uses the DAW itself as the editing tool instead of other plug-ins, and his philosophy is that since we are privileged to have this technology, it’s worth taking the time to make a quality edit.

I yearn to master these techniques confidently and efficiently. As someone who gets overwhelmed easily, I usually record until I get a take I like instead of playlisting. I also realize that quickly comping multiple takes in the moment of the recording process is super valuable despite it resulting in the derealization of my own voice. More than anything, I want my voice to sound like my voice, which usually takes a lot less thinking and tinkering and a lot more feeling and emotion. Still, as a low-budget indie artist wearing almost all the hats, how can I decide if perfecting the performance is a better use of my energy than mastering comping and editing techniques? I admire you if you have the energy to do it all.

I’m always reminded of how Stevie Wonder records. For Songs In the Key of Life, nothing was spliced, and takes were rerecorded instead until they were right. This seems frustrating, but Wonder’s elite musicianship made this a viable process. Four years before this record was out, “Superstition” was recorded with a world of mistakes. This is one of my favorite recordings because it’s radically authentic. The squeak of the kick pedal lingers throughout the track, and if you listen closely you can hear the brass players discussing their parts since they didn’t get time to practice.

So, I might be a little biased towards how I define an authentic recording based on how accurately it conveys emotion and how close it feels to a one-shot live performance, which is a little old-school. However, when I record and edit my own vocals, I usually end up using one or two takes. I clear out the mouth clicks with RX, I tune the important notes in Melodyne, and I try to think about it as little as possible. I know that a little extra elbow grease in each step of the process might give me a perfect result, but I completely disconnect from the point of recording when I start on that journey. I tend to view authenticity and perfection as opposites, but learning about how other producers approach this work shows me that authenticity and perfection thrive on reciprocity. I don’t know if there’s a right way to edit vocals, but I know that no one can tell you the right way to do it.

X