Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

Join Us

NAMM Mentoring Session 2019

SoundGirls Presents NAMM Mentoring Session

Join us for a Mentoring Session with Women Leaders in Professional Audio

You must be a member of SoundGirls, and you must register for the event. Space is Extremely Limited. You will receive venue address (venue is in Anaheim) with your confirmation.

Register Here

This event will be a casual mentoring session – where you can get advice and answers to your questions. Groups will rotate between leaders specializing in Live Sound, Recording and Mastering, Broadcast Engineering and Professional Audio Sales.


Industry Leaders Include

Mentors Subject to Change

 

Leslie Ann Jones Director of Music and Scoring, Music and Scoring Recording Engineer and Mixer at Skywalker Sound

Leslie Ann Jones has been a recording and mixing engineer for over 30 years. Starting her career at ABC Recording Studios in Los Angeles in 1975, she moved to San Francisco in 1978 to accept a staff position at the legendary Automatt Recording Studios. From 1987 to 1997 she was a staff engineer at Capitol Studios located in the historic Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood. In February of 1997, she returned to Northern California to accept a position as Director of Music Recording and Scoring with Skywalker Sound, where she continues her engineering career mixing music for records, films, video games, television, and commercials.

She is a past Chair of The Recording Academy’s Board of Trustees and is the recipient of 4 Grammy Awards, including 2 for Best Engineered Album-Classical. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Institute for Musical Arts, Ex’pression College for Digital Arts, and is an Artistic Advisor to the new Technology and Applied Composition degree program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.


Dawn Birr Pro Audio, Channel Development, and Business Analysis for Sennheiser

Dawn began her career in the audio industry in 2000, joining Sennheiser fresh out of college.  She started as a temporary receptionist and began to learn her way around and through the company. Shortly afterward she moved into Customer Service and began learning how the customers and company worked.  Thanks to a nurturing company culture and strong role models who encouraged her to learn as much as possible whenever possible, Dawn was promoted over the years to Neumann Product Manager, Professional RF Product Manager, VP of Sales for U.S. Installed Sound, Global Commercial Manager for Audio Recording, Channel Manager for the Americas for Sennheiser Business Solutions and most recently to a global position for Pro Audio, Channel Development and Business Analysis.  Dawn completed her MBA in 2006 and is a proud Advisory Board Member for the Women’s International Music Network and member of Soundgirls.org.


Jeri Palumbo, a broadcast engineer, audio mixer and RF (radio frequency) tech

Jeri is a broadcast engineer, audio mixer and RF (radio frequency) tech who, for the past 25 years, has specialized in working on high-profile sports shows. Jeri is a technical whiz and a regular on the front lines of events like the Super Bowl, NBA, NHL playoffs and most recently the World Series. Jeri is part of the RF Coordination Team each year for the Rose Bowl.  She has also worked entertainment broadcasts including The Oscars, The Tonight Show, American Idol, and others.


 


20160717_113247-1Karrie Keyes – Monitor Engineer for Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder – Executive Director and Co-Founder of SoundGirls.Org

Karrie has spent the last 25 plus years as the monitor engineer for Pearl Jam. Karrie started out doing sound for punk bands in Los Angeles in 1986 under the tutelage of Dave Rat of Rat Sound, where she spent twenty years helping to establish the company. She was able to gain an immense amount of hands-on experience and technical knowledge at Rat, which eventually led to her becoming the monitor engineer for The Red Hot Chili Peppers from 1990-2000. She first met and started working with Pearl Jam who opened for RHCP on their 1991-1992 Blood Sugar Sex Magic Tour. She has worked with Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and more.


jett-lab Jett Galindo -Primary Affiliation: Bakery Mastering – Los Angeles, CA

Jett Galindo is a Los Angeles-based mastering engineer who works alongside Eric Boulanger at The Bakery. With engineering credits spanning different genres and artists (Nile Rodgers, Green Day, Barbra Streisand, Selena Gomez, and Colbie Caillat, to name a few), Jett Galindo carries on the legacy left behind by her late mentor, mastering legend Doug Sax (The Mastering Lab).

Recipient of Summa Cum Laude honors and the 2012 Robin Coxe-Yeldham Audio Scholar Award from Berklee College of Music, Jett Galindo was mentored by luminaries in the music industry including George Massenburg; producers Javier Limon and Prince Charles Alexander; recording engineer Susan Rogers (Prince’s Purple Rain); and mastering engineer and Dean of Education for iZotope, Jonathan Wyner.

Jett kickstarted her post-Berklee engineering career in the world-renowned Avatar Studios in New York as the recording engineer for producer Jerry Barnes. As Barnes’ engineer, Jett engineered for veteran artists such as legendary singer-songwriter Roberta Flack, Nile Rodgers, Bashiri among others.

In 2013, Jett joined The Mastering Lab family as the sole right-hand man to pioneer mastering engineer and GRAMMY Technical Achievement awardee Doug Sax. Under the steady mentorship of the late Sax, Jett burgeoned to become the last engineer to join The Mastering Lab roster. During her years at The Mastering Lab, she worked on various albums and vinyl releases from artists such as Bette Midler, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Carmen Lundy, and Seth Macfarlane, to name a few.

Outside of mastering, Jett is a contributing writer to SoundGirls, an organization for women working in the audio engineering field led by veteran live sound engineer Karrie Keyes (Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers). Jett is also an accomplished lyric soprano who specializes in contemporary a cappella and choral ensemble music. Currently singing with Los Angeles-based professional choir Tonality, Jett has performed in various countries spanning across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

More Info: http://thebakery.la/jett-galindo


sara-coversdolliesimg_1024 Sara Elliot VP of Operations and CoFounder of VUE Audiotechnik

With more than 20 years of experience in professional audio, Sara has held strategic marketing and operational positions with numerous sound production companies including Burns Audio, A-1 Audio, and PRG.
Sara also served as Director of Marketing and Sales for Live Sound International Magazine and ProSoundweb.com, two of the industry’s most respected news and technical information sources. Sara brings to VUE Audiotechnik a wealth of industry relationships and a deep understanding of business operations.


download-40 Fela Davis Sound Engineer and Owner of 23db Productions

Fela Davis is a co-owner at 23db Productions based out of New York City. She’s a graduate of Full Sail University and has over a decade of experience in audio engineering. Her past experiences include working with industry powerhouses Clair Broadcast and House of Blues. When she’s not mixing or mastering songs for 23db Productions, she’s mixing front of house engineer for the 5-time Grammy award winning jazz artist Christian McBride, and Grammy-nominated Ottmar Liebert.


Samantha Pink Colleagues call me Samantha. Family and friends call me Sam. My personal favorite though is Mom. I’d say that I am a happy combination of all three. If I were able to meet my adolescent self, I would encourage her to pay attention to the wise advice of her grandmother, mother, and aunts. Listen to her inner voice and trust her instincts!

I have worked in the MI/Audio industry for 18 years, gaining experience in Purchasing, Inventory Management and Operations. Currently, I am the Director of Business Operations at JAM Industries USA, and love helping teams find solutions to problems, improving customer satisfaction and finding ways to increase profitability. I have also held positions at Full Compass Systems as Vice President of Purchasing, and The Music People as Director of Operations.


Catharine Wood Recording – Mix Engineer – Owner Planetwood Studios –

Catharine is a Los Angeles-based composer/producer/engineer with a recording studio in Los Angeles. With a background in audio post-production for commercials, Catharine engineered on the first iPhone commercial among hundreds of national and international campaigns. As a mix and mastering engineer, she has engineered on over 300 commercially released songs – including her own custom compositions which have aired on NBC, ABC, BBC, ESPN and more – both nationally and abroad. She is a GRAMMY® Voting Member and Producers & Engineers Wing member. Catharine currently holds a position on the LA Recording School’s Recording Arts Program Advisory Committee and is the former Director of Southern California for the West Coast Songwriters organization. She is a voting member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, Songwriters Hall of Fame, a current Board Member of the California Copyright Conference and longtime professional member of NARIP and AIMP. Her company, Planetwood Studios, LLC (parent company of Planetwood Productions, established 2002) specializes in producing singer-songwriters and providing engineering, production and composition services to the TV, Film and Recording industries.


dan_profilepic Daniella Peters – Head of Sales and Management Team at Rat Sound Systems

Daniella has been with Rat Sound for over 15 years building their sales dept from a concept to a multi-million dollar part of their business. She started her career working for an international cosmetics company doing their live event production. She then transitioned to HHB Audio and Ashdown Music, Emap Performance (Kerrang and Q magazines) in London and now with Rat Sound.

She is passionate about women’s issues and spends a good portion of her spare time using her production skills to produce and host music and fashion fundraising events for various women’s non-profits. In 2018 she founded SoundGirls Productions to provide work and internships to women in working in live sound.


Ali “A MAC” McGuire has worked worldwide on albums, International/ US Tours, and charity projects alongside internationally recognized artists. Ali required recording, mixing, production, and live sound skills through a combination of experience and certification. Ali has worked with such artist as Fetty Wap, Post Malone, Hed PE, Big Daddy Kane, Dick Van Dyke, Whitney Peyton and more. Ali recently moved from Philadelphia to LA to take her business, Amaculent Entertainment LLC, to the next level. Ali is currently working out of a few great studio’s and venues in LA; recording, mixing and producing for the next generation of artists and more.


m-holmes-photoMeegan Holmes – Global Sales Manager Eighth Day Sound Los Angeles

Meegan graduated from California Institute of The Arts from their Technical Theater program in 1993; she entered the live production industry before graduation as a local stagehand with LA Stagecall in Los Angeles. In 1997, she began her 18-year audio career with Delicate Productions where she worked as a touring technician and engineer. Meegan wore many hats simultaneously during her time with Delicate Productions including Labor Coordinator, Project Manager and Account Manager.

Throughout her 24 years in the industry, she has worked hard to elevate others through hiring and mentoring. Her new position as a Global Sales Manager with Eighth Day Sound is no exception, hiring full-time staff and expanding the company’s west coast-based freelancer pool as well as building the company’s touring and west coast based clientele.


Becki Barabas At 20 years old, Becki turned her passion for music into a career in audio, with a job managing the office
at Score One Recording. She has since worked in MI, Tour Sound, and with Integrators and Audio Rep
firms, doing everything from Sales to Marketing.
She has held many positions since coming to HARMAN 10 years ago. She started the HARMAN Professional Ambassador and Influencers Program in 2016, signing such names as Chuck D, Parliament Funkadelic and Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club. She is currently Managing Business Development for
Recording and Tour.


Dana LabrecqueCo-Director and Bay Area Chapter Head

Dana has worked in professional audio for the past 30 years.  Working in the recording studio and live events, in addition to doing post-production work as a sound designer, and re-recording mixer. From 1998 – 2005 Dana co-owned and managed APG Records/Studios handling all business operations and shared duties in recording, editing, and mixing. She has taught at several colleges including City College of San Francisco, Laney College, Art Institute of California – San Francisco and Globe Recording Institute. Dana currently is a full-time educator at City College of San Francisco, teaching courses in audio production including recording arts, live sound, interconnected audio, sound for visual media, digital audio production and more. She is a Certified Technology Specialist.

Dana has served on several non-profit boards including Camp Reel Stories and Bay Area Girls Rock Camp and is a member of Bay Area Women in Film and Media, Audio Engineering Society, and Broadcast Education Association.

In her free time, Dana writes screenplays, composes and records music as well as swims in the Bay.

Listen to Dana on Working Class Audio


Piper Payne – Co-Director SoundGirls

Piper is a mastering engineer in Oakland, CA, where she works on albums for independent artists and major labels. Piper is the Owner and Chief Mastering Engineer of Neato Mastering, and she is a Co-Founder and the Chief Product Officer for Second Line Vinyl, a new Oakland-based vinyl pressing plant opening in 2018.

She recently finished her term as President of the SF Chapter of the Recording Academy and serves on the P&E Wing Advisory Council. She is also on the committee of the AES SF Chapter and heads the AES Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Piper is an audio professor and guest lectures often about mastering and recording.

Piper has mastered a wide variety of music including nationally renowned artists Third Eye Blind, Madame Gandhi, Geographer, Elettrodomestico (Jane Wiedlin/Go-Go’s), Shamir, Between You & Me, David Messier, and Fritz Montana, as well as Bay Area favorites Kat Robichaud, ANML, Sioux City Kid, The She’s, Emily Afton, Abbot Kinney, Travis Hayes, Kendra McKinley, Van Goat, and Diana Gameros.

Read more about Piper


Catherine Vericolli – Co-Director SoundGirls

Catherine Vericolli has been an outspoken analog purist since 2005. As owner, engineer, and tech at Fivethirteen Recording in Phoenix, AZ, she is dedicated to keeping the traditional analog
recording process alive in the desert. Going on 12 years of being in business, Fivethirteen has grown out of its local musicians, homestead roots into a stop off for touring nationals and international bands, guest engineers, and home for the occasional film score. Added on in 2010, Fivethirteen’s mixing suite has become one of Arizona’s premier mixing destinations, and with the installation of a RND 5088 in it’s tracking control room during the summer of 2013,
Catherine has since taken on the studio’s management position full time. She’s also an audio educator, travels nationally as an audio panelist, and co-edits Pinknoise Mag, an online publication dedicated to diversity and technical excellence in the audio industry.
513recording.com
pinknoisemag.com

Read more about Catherine


Barbara Adams SoundGirls Philadelphia Chapter head Barbara is an audio engineer and educator with over twenty years of experience in the music industry. She specializes in live sound, as well as being an accomplished recording engineer. Her strong and varied experience also includes stage management, live bookings, events, touring, and more.

Barbara currently a house engineer for World Café Live, system tech for DBS Audio and has worked in every major venue in Philadelphia, including The Tin Angel, Mann Music Center, Electric Factory Concerts, and more. She has toured with acts including Alice Smith, IAMX, 4 Way Street, Princes of Babylon, Granian, and the BurnDown All-Stars, and has served in a variety of engineering roles for festivals such as Musikfest, Welcome America in Philadelphia, Gathering of the Vibes, Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, and Live 8 just to name a few. She has also done consulting work for area venues and churches.


Carolina Antón is a specialist in sound design and optimization as well as a freelance sound engineer. She has worked with several sound companies such as 2hands production, Eighth Day Sound, Britannia Row, Meridian Pro audio, and Ocesa. She has toured throughout the U.S, Mexico, and Latin America with Zoe, Cafe Tacvba, Natalia Lafourcade, HaAsh. Carolina is also the owner of Hibiki Production providing services for Live Recording and Streaming. Carolina is the Chapter Head for Mexico Chapter of SoundGirls.


Nancy Tarr is an adjunct lecturer in the Music Industry department and the Executive Director of Well Dunn (a music nonprofit that connects college students with internships in the music and entertainment industry). During Nancy’s career, she has lived in Los Angeles, New York, NY and Washington, D.C. Her current home is Cooperstown, NY.  She worked on over 50 films in the music department at Paramount Pictures and was the Music Coordinator on the movie “8 Mile.”  She also worked at  RCA and Artist Records before becoming the Manager of Artist Relations and Government Affairs with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).  Nancy set out on her own and has been working as an Artist Relations consultant, Event Manager, Artist Manager with Tarr Music Co.  Nancy is also a singer/songwriter, has performed in off-Broadway shows and was recently seen in the Glimmerglass Festival’s production of The Music Man.  Nancy’s band Dead Girls and Other Stories were featured performers at both the Lilith Fair and the H.O.R.D.E. Festival.


Erika Duffee has over 20 years experience in international touring and production management working with a wide variety of talent ranging from Canadian platinum-selling artists, Scott Helman and Walk Off The Earth to Italian pianist/composer, Ludovico Einaudi to Brazilian music royalty, Bebel Gilberto. She began her career as a volunteer radio programmer in New Orleans, worked in day to day management and spent 10 years at  Concord Music Group in Los Angeles doing artist development and producing showcases and special events for the label.


Whitney Olpin has been working in Live Sound for the last eight years, working as an Independent monitor engineer and stage manager. She has spent the last year touring with Fitz and the Tantrums. Based in Los Angeles, when she is not on the road she picks up local work through Live Nation.

Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!

It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org

October Feature Profile

First to Record Elvis – Marion Keisker

The Blogs

Making Hard Decisions – Career Choices

Dancing on the Demon of Ignorance

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound


SoundGirls News

 

https://soundgirls.org/event/los-angeles-soundgirls-social-3/?instance_id=1350

Vancouver SoundGirls Social

https://soundgirls.org/event/nashville-soundgirls-chapter-launch/?instance_id=1347

https://soundgirls.org/event/los-angeles-soundgirls-social-2/?instance_id=1327

Hearing Health Seminar

Analog/Tape Recording Workshop w/Lenise Bent

https://soundgirls.org/namm-2019-badges-for-soundgirls-members-2/

SoundGirls and SoundGym

Shadowing/Mentoring/Internship Opportunities

Shadowing Opportunity w/Guit Tech Claire Murphy

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Edgardo “Verta” Vertanessian

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ ME Aaron Foye

https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-mentoring/

 


Round Up From the Internet

https://www.prosoundweb.com/channels/live-sound/keeping-it-real-psychoacoustics-in-iem-mixing/

 


SoundGirls Resources

Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production

This directory provides a listing of women in disciplines industry-wide for networking and hiring. It’s free – add your name, upload your resume, and share with your colleagues across the industry.

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Letter for Trades and Manufacturers


Women-Owned Businesses

SoundGirls Scholarships 2021 Now Open

Events

Sexual Harassment

https://soundgirls.org/about-us/soundgirls-chapters/

Jobs and Internships

Women in the Professional Audio

Member Benefits

Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!

It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org

September Feature Profile

Cristina Allen Live Sound Engineer and Mother!

The Blogs

Five Quick Sound Design Tips from Game Sound Design

Career Paths in Film and TV – Highlights

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound


SoundGirls News

SoundGirls Panel at PLASA 2018 – Bringing the Audience Closer – L’Acoustics, Sennheiser, Klang Technologies, and SoundGirl Becky Pell.  

 

https://soundgirls.org/event/los-angeles-soundgirls-social-2/?instance_id=1327

Hearing Health Seminar

https://soundgirls.org/namm-2019-badges-for-soundgirls-members-2/

SoundGirls and SoundGym

Shadow Beth O’Leary ME Tech on Kylie Minogue

Shadowing Opportunity w/Guit Tech Claire Murphy

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Edgardo “Verta” Vertanessian

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ ME Aaron Foye

https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-mentoring/

 


Round Up From the Internet

Audio Knuckle Buster Podcast – Women in Audio

https://womensmusicnews.com/2018/06/08/elle-exxe-collaborates-with-an-all-female-team-on-the-production-and-music-video-for-queen/


SoundGirls Resources

Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production

This directory provides a listing of women in disciplines industry-wide for networking and hiring. It’s free – add your name, upload your resume, and share with your colleagues across the industry.

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Letter for Trades and Manufacturers


Women-Owned Businesses

SoundGirls Scholarships 2021 Now Open

Events

Sexual Harassment

https://soundgirls.org/about-us/soundgirls-chapters/

Jobs and Internships

Women in the Professional Audio

Member Benefits

Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!

It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org

September Feature Profile

Cristina Allen Live Sound Engineer and Mother!

The Blogs

Grabación y audio binaural

Recording and Binaural Audio

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound


SoundGirls News

Career Paths in Film and Television Sound

https://soundgirls.org/event/bringing-the-audience-closer-soundgirls-at-plasa-2018/?instance_id=1321

https://soundgirls.org/event/soundgirls-after-plasa-social/?instance_id=1325

https://soundgirls.org/event/los-angeles-soundgirls-social-2/?instance_id=1327

Hearing Health Seminar

SoundGirls and SoundGym

Shadow Beth O’Leary ME Tech on Kylie Minogue

Shadowing Opportunity w/Guit Tech Claire Murphy

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Edgardo “Verta” Vertanessian

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ ME Aaron Foye

https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-mentoring/


SoundGirls is excited to announce the first recipient of the SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund. To learn more, donate or apply for the funding visit . All donations are tax deductible.

We have awarded Ana Monte travel funds to AES, where she will be speaking on the panel Immersive and Spatial Audio: The Stanford Virtual Heart. Pediatric cardiologists at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford are using immersive virtual reality technology to explain complex congenital heart defects, which are some of the most difficult medical conditions to teach and understand. The Stanford Virtual Heart experience helps families understand their child’s heart conditions. For medical trainees, it provides an immersive and engaging new way to learn about the most common and complex congenital heart anomalies. The panelists will give an insight about the challenges for the sound design with a scientific approach and how it was integrated in Unity. http://www.aes.org/events/145/spatialaudio/?ID=6307

Ana is a graduate of California State University-Chico where she studied Music Industry and Technology with a focus on Recording Arts and the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, where she studied Film sound and Sound design. For her work as a sound designer, Ana has received diverse sound awards including “Best Sound Design in a Drama series” at the LA Webfest 2015 and a “Best Sound” nomination from the LA Film Review. Her current work focuses on immersive audio production for VR and new realities.


Round Up From the Internet



SoundGirls Resources

Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production

This directory provides a listing of women in disciplines industry-wide for networking and hiring. It’s free – add your name, upload your resume, and share with your colleagues across the industry.

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Letter for Trades and Manufacturers


Women-Owned Businesses

SoundGirls Scholarships 2021 Now Open

Events

Sexual Harassment

https://soundgirls.org/about-us/soundgirls-chapters/

Jobs and Internships

Women in the Professional Audio

Member Benefits

Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!

It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org

September Feature Profile

Cristina Allen Live Sound Engineer and Mother!

The Blogs

How is your equipment doing?

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound


SoundGirls News

https://soundgirls.org/event/bay-area-soundgirls-sept-meeting/?instance_id=1326

https://soundgirls.org/event/orlando-soundgirls-social-3/?instance_id=1328

Career Paths in Film and Television Sound

https://soundgirls.org/event/bringing-the-audience-closer-soundgirls-at-plasa-2018/?instance_id=1321

https://soundgirls.org/event/soundgirls-after-plasa-social/?instance_id=1325

https://soundgirls.org/event/los-angeles-soundgirls-social-2/?instance_id=1327

Hearing Health Seminar

SoundGirls and SoundGym

Shadow Beth O’Leary ME Tech on Kylie Minogue

Shadowing Opportunity w/Guit Tech Claire Murphy

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Edgardo “Verta” Vertanessian

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Kevin Madigan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ ME Aaron Foye

https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-mentoring/


SoundGirls is excited to announce the first recipient of the SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund. To learn more, donate or apply for the funding visit . All donations are tax deductible.

We have awarded Ana Monte travel funds to AES, where she will be speaking on the panel Immersive and Spatial Audio: The Stanford Virtual Heart. Pediatric cardiologists at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford are using immersive virtual reality technology to explain complex congenital heart defects, which are some of the most difficult medical conditions to teach and understand. The Stanford Virtual Heart experience helps families understand their child’s heart conditions. For medical trainees, it provides an immersive and engaging new way to learn about the most common and complex congenital heart anomalies. The panelists will give an insight about the challenges for the sound design with a scientific approach and how it was integrated in Unity. http://www.aes.org/events/145/spatialaudio/?ID=6307

Ana is a graduate of California State University-Chico where she studied Music Industry and Technology with a focus on Recording Arts and the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, where she studied Film sound and Sound design. For her work as a sound designer, Ana has received diverse sound awards including “Best Sound Design in a Drama series” at the LA Webfest 2015 and a “Best Sound” nomination from the LA Film Review. Her current work focuses on immersive audio production for VR and new realities.


 

Round Up From the Internet


Yes, Lighting Design Has a Diversity Problem

Next generation of live sound: Anne-Lise Coulet, monitors engineer

 


SoundGirls Resources

Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production

This directory provides a listing of women in disciplines industry-wide for networking and hiring. It’s free – add your name, upload your resume, and share with your colleagues across the industry.

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Letter for Trades and Manufacturers


Women-Owned Businesses

SoundGirls Scholarships 2021 Now Open

Events

Sexual Harassment

https://soundgirls.org/about-us/soundgirls-chapters/

Jobs and Internships

Women in the Professional Audio

Member Benefits

How is your equipment doing?

Whether you work in a studio, venue, or on the road, it is easy to neglect our equipment and not give it the love it deserves.  Drinks are spilled, dust gathers around fans, and if singers are using the same microphones, well, a lot of bacteria lives on those SM58 grills!

Here is how I look after our equipment regularly and how I am preparing for the busy festive season that is slowly approaching us!

Day-to-Day cleaning:

It is good to keep things up to scratch on a day-to-day basis just to extend the lifespan on our equipment. I start the day by cleaning and dusting our mixing & lighting desk area. I regularly check the fans on our Yamaha Ql1 desk to make sure it does not fill up with dust. I usually give it a quick clean with our mini hoover to get the dust out! That goes for the XLR in- and also outputs, as the dust tends to want to get in there as well!

Moving onto the stage area, we dust and polish our N3X Avant Grand Digital Piano on a daily basis as it is used every day. We also get it serviced regularly, although it is a digital baby grand when it is played every day the keys occasionally break.

On stage, we have a ‘drinks on the floor’ policy. We want to avoid any spillages on our equipment. It is common sense; we do not want any equipment to get damaged or anyone to be electrocuted.  We also do not want our equipment to get sticky.

We keep our cables coiled and labeled to ensure our XLR’s and jack cables lives a long and healthy life. The cables we have off stage are also neatly coiled and tucked away in a cable bag.

Our vocal microphones we clean on a daily basis with a foaming cleaner & deodorizer. Lipstick and bacteria often live on those grills so to make sure the germs do not go from one singer to another we keep them clean, which is only fair for the vocalists coming in using our microphones.

Monthly & Yearly Maintenance:

Our in-house Yamaha Absolute Hybrid Maple drum kit we reskin every 2nd or 3rd month as it is used almost every day. It just sounds a lot better when it is looked after.

We have two club areas with permanent CDJ setups. We have unfortunately had a couple of drink spillages the past year. Luckily, they were saved. Top tip – Turn off your equipment immediately if any spillages occur and do not turn back on again, send it straight away to be repaired. This way the motherboards have a higher chance of being OK and repairable.

We tidy up our DJ booths monthly, give the CDJ’s and mixers a dust and wipe.

Our lighting trusses are tested yearly to ensure maximum safety, and the lights themselves are being manually shut down every night to ensure they do not get overheated. They occasionally need a bit of dusting as well which is done whenever we have the trusses down for our more significant events.

Relationships with repair companies:

It is incredibly important to build good relationships with the people who repair your equipment. You never know when an accident might happen and you need a quick turnover for an event. Often if you have a good relationship and require their services regularly, when needed, they will prioritise your product or perhaps lend you one of their products as a temporary solution.

It is a win-win situation if they provide a good service you will most likely recommend them, which keeps their business up and running. I praise everyone we work with; they are all indeed the best at what they do, and I make sure they know that we think so!

Overall, a tidy workplace is a happy and long-living workplace. It does not cost you anything to take that little bit of extra time to take care of your equipment. Neglecting it, however, will probably cost you a lot in the end!


Missed this Week’s Top Stories? Read our Quick Round-up!

It’s easy to miss the SoundGirls news and blogs, so we have put together a round-up of the blogs, articles, and news from the past week. You can keep up to date and read more at SoundGirls.org

August Feature Profile

Karol Urban – Sound and Storytelling

The Blogs

Teaching the Next Generation of Audio Engineers

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound

Live digital audio in plain English part 2


SoundGirls News

Seeking SoundGirls For Music Expo – Nashville

Career Paths in Film and Television Sound

https://soundgirls.org/event/bringing-the-audience-closer-soundgirls-at-plasa-2018/?instance_id=1321

https://soundgirls.org/event/soundgirls-after-plasa-social/?instance_id=1325

Hearing Health Seminar

SoundGirls and SoundGym

Shadow Beth O’Leary ME Tech on Kylie Minogue

Shadowing Opportunity w/Guit Tech Claire Murphy

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Edgardo “Verta” Vertanessian

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ FOH Engineer Kevin Madigan

Shadowing Opportunity w/ ME Aaron Foye

https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-mentoring/

https://soundgirls.org/event/bay-area-soundgirls-sept-meeting/?instance_id=1317

Round Up From the Internet



SoundGirls Resources

Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production

This directory provides a listing of women in disciplines industry-wide for networking and hiring. It’s free – add your name, upload your resume, and share with your colleagues across the industry.

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Letter for Trades and Manufacturers


Women-Owned Businesses

SoundGirls Scholarships 2021 Now Open

Events

Sexual Harassment

https://soundgirls.org/about-us/soundgirls-chapters/

Jobs and Internships

Women in the Professional Audio

Member Benefits

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound

A resource for men and all people interested in social equity in audio

Women in Sound includes All women, non-binary genders, LGBTQIA people, and people of colour (we also point you to this fantastic website White Accomplices)

We are often asked ‘How can men proactively support gender equality in the audio industries?’ We’ve put together a list of concrete actions you might take.

These recommendations are for people working in education, industry, audio production and other related fields.

They are summarised under three action headlines:

● Collaborate – offering support to the feminist collectives who are already helping girls and women in sound. Adopting new interventions. Also, understanding and addressing unconscious bias.

● Perspective – doing your own research, checking your assumptions, and recognising that women of colour are subject to a double hit of bias due to racial discrimination

● Changing environments – creating environments that are truly fit for purpose.

We invite you to make an #audioequitypledge:

● Read this document and identify three or more interventions that you would like to make to supporting women in sound

● Post this document on your website/blog with a summary of your interventions using #heforshe and #audioequitypledge

● Post an update six months later.

Please do something, because if you’re leaving this work to a few (almost always women), then you are part of the problem.

Collaborate

Identify and offer support to groups/collectives/non-profits

To be supported but not in a way that that seeks to promote your own organisation: Identify groups that are already supporting women and ask what kind of help you can offer.

Examples include:

Volunteer your time and expertise for background administrative support:

Undertaking advocacy work (especially if armed with data about what specific organisations have accomplished, highlighting what they need in order to further their work)

Paying for consultancy on diversity and inclusion

Amplifying work on social media

Checking if your organisational values align with the values of an organisation that you wish to support (before putting them in a position of explaining that it isn’t a good match)

Aurélie Salvaire’s book Balance the World: Tactics to help you launch a gender revolution offers many really great examples and resources.

Perspective

Check Unconscious Bias

Understand your own implicit/unconscious bias; that you may be inclined to hear some voices more clearly than others. Implement unconscious bias training

Understand the various types of unconscious bias: conformity bias, beauty bias, affinity bias, the halo effect, the horns effect, similarity bias, contrast effect, attribution bias, and confirmation bias, and others

If hiring, check that you have a qualified and diverse team looking at resumes. Look at diversity in your organisation and take steps to build a diverse team (non-binary, women, people of colour, people with disabilities)

Seek to anonymise the application process where possible.

Doing this with integrity means centring others – listening mindfully while checking your goals and assumptions.

The Audio Engineering Society is making proactive steps on diversity, and welcomes new members to its Diversity and Inclusion committee.

Listen

Listen to experiences of marginalised groups when they provide examples of what marginalising behaviours look and sound like

Centre women by listening to our values and experiences, but especially women of colour. Listen, and keep listening without debating, diminishing or deflecting. Just listen. Really take the time to digest each lifetime of experience and insight if you want to centre women  in the process of supporting change.

Relieve the burden and contribute to proactive social intervention

Don’t make women responsible for addressing gender. We need to work together to shape change:

Open your studio and employ female sound engineers to deliver workshops for girls in partnership with an organisation like the Yorkshire Sound Women Network and SoundGirls in particular are always looking to partner for workshops, and to provide internships

Offer internships specifically for women (employ consultants to advocate that you are providing an environment that is suitable to all people). The Women’s Audio Mission  offer some good examples but you don’t need to be an all-women organisation to do this

Set equity targets i.e., to be recording an equal ratio of female artists, works by female composers, and working with sound engineers by a specific date. You might subscribe to the PRS KeyChange initiative. Huddersfield Contemporary Records at The University of Huddersfield have done this. See this excellent statement and commitment from Professor Aaron Cassidy.

Wear the T-shirt – literally! The Women’s Audio Mission, SoundGirls, Gender Amplified and Beats By Girlz sell their T-shirts. Help normalise and advocate for diversity in audio

Provide allyship and bystander training for staff.

Changing Environments

Understand how to create supportive environments for women

Make sure your physical environment is welcoming to all people. See this paper on feminist hackspaces or ‘Barriers to women’s involvement in hackspaces and makerspaces’by Dr. J Lewis.

Consider how your environments are biased towards certain groups –  perhaps find diverse images of women in sound for your studio walls and remove images of musicians who are associated with sexism/racism. Imagine a space full of images like these from the female:pressure Tumblr!

Think about who you want to come to your events and support them:

Ensure that the venue is physically accessible by all people

Institutions are employing more men, so provide grants for self-employed people who are not funded by an institution (i.e., University academics are funded and independent practitioners and scholars are not)

Understand the barriers around childcare (offer funding to cover childcare and access to gender neutral baby changing facilities)

Be a responsible host (understand what marginalising behaviors are and be ready to address them – examples include everything from misogynist or sexist behaviours, through to constant overtalk and interruptions)

Make sure you share your events with Women-Led Organisations, inviting their members (and listening carefully to their feedback). You can find a few of them here

Work collaboratively with venues, clubs, studios, festivals, journals that subscribe to an inclusive agenda

Look for and/or insist on an explicit anti-harassment statement that is welcomed by the community that you support. Help draft it and work with others to check it is inclusive for all. This challenging work needs a robust, resilient, and diverse community. See this example from The Seraphine Collective

Women often know they will be a minority and this is exhausting

Conferences – don’t comment on someone’s gender, take interest in their work

Support people online, not only when they are diminished or marginalised for no other reason than gender, but also to bring out their positive contribution.

Education: create intelligent, inclusive environments for learning

Reflect on approaches to teaching and learning. From a young age, girls seem to be more socialised to collaborate, so integrate more problem solving, communication methods, and peer learning tasks into music technology education. Erin Barra’s Beats By Girlz lesson plans are great examples of this, and they encourage collaborative learning

Be demanding as all students can become experts. If you teach a minority of girls (who are also less confident), create environments that build up their confidence but also don’t shy away from being demanding. Evidence suggests that those girls will need to be confident and to prove that they have excellent technical knowledge (see unconscious bias) – and anyway, knowledge is power

Support the least confident. Notice where less confident students aren’t contributing, take the issue seriously and consider why this might be happening. Perhaps some students need other (more private) opportunities and spaces to feel comfortable to take risks and make mistakes, because they may not have had the same opportunities to work with technology in the past, or because they have been pushed away by other more confident learners. Some students may just need more assistance with working their way back into practical collaborative projects where they need to feel confident in order to be more assertive with peers

Provide equal visibility of women and especially women of colour. Just because we know about Björk, Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos and Mandy Parnell we can’t simply assume that some kind of gender balance has been achieved. This is tokenism, and it is a big part of the problem. Help to address this by inspiring young people to understand that the default identity of a music producer is not a white man.

See the websites: ManyManyWomen , shesaid.so, female pressure, Her Noise Archive and SoundGirls Profiles. This also means visibility in literature. When you claim a social study of studio practice which includes a particular demographic, acknowledge it and make it clear

Employ women. Advertise roles in the right places and make proactive inclusion statements in the advert. Provide clear opportunities for prospective applicants to contact you directly for further information about the role. Think carefully about how to bring female experts into education. If you find that women aren’t applying for particular roles, undertake consultancy and ask why this may be.

In Higher Education, seek out people you can invite in to deliver guest lectures/workshops/supervisions. Some may be part-time university academics also working in live electronic music, or in a studio, or in other areas of sound – so look beyond your network, and beyond conventional academia where possible. This helps to bridge the divide between self-employed artists and academia, and provide pathways for women to have the option of engaging in academic practices

Invite conversation. Talk with colleagues to check what your institution is doing to engage students who may have experienced discrimination and, if necessary, seek consultation from staff at other institutions who are clearly addressing this well. Some institutions have called meetings with students, then set up women led or feminist groups supported by staff (i.e., Steinhardt NYU) and some work collaboratively with industry bodies such as The Audio Engineering Society (i.e., University of York #HEFORSHE)

Learn a bit more about how gender informs place and space making across our music industries

Homework: Read Sam De Boise’s Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions and other literature on music/sound/audio/electronic music and gender

Understand the statistics by reading academic articles and education research, and drawing on websites of all-women groups. Try to avoid asking women to explain it – because this is exhausting and the resources are all available. There are some excellent resources on the Gender Research in Darmstadt website

You Can’t Be What You Can’t See. Challenge the media representation of women in sound and music. Women do not see themselves in the trade magazines, in panels at conferences or in advertisements. Digico ran a fantastic ad campaign last year called Excellence Exposed which featured a diverse group of women engineers in both their ethnic backgrounds and musical genres.

SoundGirls has a monthly feature profile of women in audio to offset this, and all their tri-weekly blogs being written by women.

Other initiatives include the PSN Europe Women in Audio podcast.

These are just a few recommendations and the issue is much more nuanced and layered, however, we’re asking you to make a start by stating your pledge. Be proud that you are a part of this important audio industry initiative.

This battle will be won by men championing diversity, standing shoulder to shoulder and making a difference together. #audioequitypledge #heforshe

Further recommendations and guidance can be found here: How Men Can Be Allies, Sexual Harassment and More Inclusive Industry Here.

Co-ordinated by Dr. Liz Dobson and written in collaboration with: The Audio Engineering Society,  Mariana Lopez of University of York Big Bear Audio, SoundGirls, The Yorkshire Sound Women Network, and The University of Huddersfield

Together we offer this, our #audioequitypledge

The Yorkshire Sound Women Network


 

Live digital audio in plain English part 2

Never mind the bit clocks… it’s a word clock primer

My last blog dealt with translating audio into a digital signal. The next step is keeping that signal in time when it’s being captured, processed and sent to different parts of the system. This is where the fabled word clock comes in. If anything weird ever happens with a digital set up, like odd clicks or pops over the PA, you can seem wise beyond your years by nodding sagely, saying “Hmm, it sounds like a clocking issue”, then making your excuses and leaving before any further questions can be asked. However, you can become a rare and very valuable member of your audio team by actually learning what word clocks are, how they work and how to fix the most common problems they can cause. They might seem strange and complicated, but they are of course not black magic. It’s all about crystals.

So… what is a word clock?

Any device receiving audio sees a string of 1s and 0s. How does it know whether 0000011100001011 is two samples, reading 00000111 (= 7) and 00001011 (=11), or the second half of a sample, a full sample (01110000 = 112), and the first half of the next one? As you can see, the resulting values can be very different, so it’s essential to get it right to the exact bit.
A word clock is a signal that is sent at a very accurate frequency of one square wave per sample (the bits in each sample make up a ‘word’). This signal is produced by passing an electrical current through a small crystal inside a word clock generator. The rising edge of the resulting wave means 1; the falling edge means 0. The clock runs alongside the audio signal, with 1 usually meaning “this is the start of the sample” and 0 meaning “this is the end.” Different shapes and sizes of crystal resonate at different frequencies, then more subtle changes are controlled by variations in the voltage running through the circuit and temperature. Some clock generators even keep their crystals in tiny ‘ovens’ to keep the temperature constant.

What the clock?

Clocks are necessary for a few different stages in the signal path. AD convertors might take a fixed number of samples per second, but they still need to make sure those samples are evenly spaced. If they aren’t, the waveform will end up deformed when reproduced by something that is in time. Thinking back to the video analogy from the last post, it’s like film taken on old hand-cranked cameras: uneven capturing of the signal leads to weird inconsistencies when it’s played back. In audio, it’s referred to as jitter. This can also happen when an accurately-captured signal gets reconverted with an unreliable clock, like a film being played on a clunky projector (see figure 1). Clocks used to trigger the capturing of the signal are often called sample clocks. There are also bit clocks, which produce one cycle per bit. These days they are only used for signal transport within devices, for example from one PCB to another. You’re very unlikely to encounter a problem with a bit clock, and if you do there isn’t much you can do except send it back for repair. You might also hear people referring to word clock as sync clock, signal clock or simply clock.

An AD converter with a stable word clock (represented by the square wave at the top) captures an accurate waveform (left), but if it’s converted back to analogue through a DA converter with an unstable clock, the waveform will become deformed (right). Source: Apogee Knowledge Base http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgebase/fundamentals-of-digital-audio/what-is-jitter/”

 

One clock to rule them all

A stable clock compared to a jittery one, compared to one whose frequency has drifted. Jitter is caused by a varying clock frequency, whereas a clock that has drifted has a pretty stable frequency. It’s just the wrong one. Source: Apogee Knowledge Base http://www.apogeedigital.com/knowledgebase/fundamentals-of-digital-audio/word-clock-whats-the-difference-between-jitter-and-frequency-stability/”

What we are really interested in for live audio is using word clock to keep multiple devices, e.g., the front of house desk, monitor desk, and system processors, in sync. Think of it like keeping a band in time: most digital devices on the market have their own internal clock, so it’s like each member of the band having their own click (or metronome if you’re that way inclined). If it’s a solo artist, there’s no problem. Even if the click wanders a bit, it probably won’t be noticeable, because there’s nothing to compare it to. However, when there are several members, they need to stay in tempo. Neither clocks nor clicks are perfect, and even if everyone starts off together, they will eventually fall out of sync (known as frequency drift. See figure 2). It makes sense to choose one person to keep the beat for everyone else, like the drummer. Much in the same way, you need to designate one device in your system to be the master clock, and the other devices are slaves who sync their clocks to the master. Sometimes, it can be even better to get a separate device whose only job is to keep time, i.e., an external word clock generator. This is like hiring a professional conductor for the band. Much like a conductor though, they can be very expensive and for the most part aren’t necessary as long as you have a good enough band/set up.

“Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall during the Aldeburgh Festival, 2017, by Matt Jolly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mirga_Gra-inyt–Tyla_conducts_the_CBSO,_Aldeburgh_Voices_and_Aldeburgh_Music_Club_at_Aldeburgh_Festival-crop.jpg”

Each device still uses its own clock when following the master. They constantly monitor at what phase in the cycle the incoming clock signal is and compare it to their own. If the two fall out of time, the device can adjust its clock (usually by varying the voltage running through the crystal) until it’s locked in sync. The circuit that does this is called a phase-locked-loop. It’s like a band member nudging the speed of their click or metronome until it matches the conductor. However, some common sense is needed. You don’t want to constantly adjust for every tiny discrepancy, nor do you want everyone to follow when the conductor is obviously wrong, like if he sneezes or falls over. A phase-locked loop’s sensitivity can be adjusted, so it ignores fleeting differences and remains locked to the last signal it received if the master clock outputs major errors or drops out of the system. The device will then continue at that speed until the master gets reinstated or replaced, but will slowly drift if this doesn’t happen. The sensitivity can also be adjusted depending on how good the device is compared to the master. If your conductor isn’t the best, it might be better to listen to your own click when in doubt (or invest in a better conductor). In the next post, I’ll discuss how all this relates to our real life setups.

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