Many times I have accepted an event, asked about the equipment, and received a super vague response. Or, even better, requested a specific console and then received something completely different! Cool, I guess we’ll figure it out as we go?
Locate your most important things:
Interface – how do you navigate? Is there a computer/mouse situation, or is it a touch screen? If you’re on a console, some are touch screens, and some aren’t. Do you need to make your faders, is there a blank session you can load for the venue that gives you a starting point? Figure it out.
Console layout – Take a minute or two to see how the console is set up. Where is the EQ/effects section, does it have its own section or is it variable on the scribble strip? How many layers, and can you change the layers with a flip to faders function (those can screw you up if you don’t realize it’s turned on!) Locate the headphone port and how to adjust your own monitors. This sounds silly, but I had a conversation last week with Beckie Campbell where she just couldn’t find it on a Midas console, and she’s a damn legend.
Patching – Usually when I start to get annoyed or confused on a new console, it’s because of the patching. Patching can be super simple (like on the Avid consoles) which is a click-and-drag situation. Calrec Summa is a multi-step process where you click back and forth between Source and Destination points. It’s a good system (in my opinion) but takes extra consideration.
Bus assignments – How do you assign your channels? Are there buttons, can you select them all and do it all in one go? I teach audio students, and this is one of the biggest things that gets overlooked. It’s one of the very first things that I do, but students seem to forget until they don’t get audio as expected.
Now figure out what you will need for the show
Aux Sends & Effects – Are there dedicated effect returns, or do you need to make some from stereo channels? In some interfaces, it might be easier to add the effect first and then route it. Other consoles will demand you have the aux and returns and then add the effect to the channel.
Compression/EQ onboard vs. plugins – All digital consoles will have some onboard effects. Calrec Summa – a broadcast console – has two dynamic effects per channel. It does not have any time-based (other than time delay) effects onboard whatsoever. FOH digital will have a large selection of brand-based or fancier licensed plugins, with the option to load more from your personal key (such as Waves). This can be frustrating and may require phone calls to get your license functioning on a new console. It’s up to you and your client, but for any smaller shows or corporate events, I just keep it simple.
Snapshots – You can select which parameters will save in your snapshots, so I suggest you take a few minutes to set this up. It has screwed me up when I changed snapshots and then my patch changed, for example.
Other Notes
Download the manual (not a link!) and read it if you can on your commute.
Download software if available and start building your show file.
Try to give yourself time for a break so you can walk away. It’s fun to learn new things, but it can be frustrating when it isn’t working the way you expect.
Use your network – Do you have any friends you can call or text to get a tip? We have dozens of digital consoles where I work, so I am lucky enough to be able to access almost anything to build a show file or learn the layout ahead of time. Most people aren’t privileged in this way, try to see if a friend of a friend has the console you need or will be using one locally! SoundGirls on Facebook is also an excellent resource; there are literally hundreds (thousands?) Of people online who are willing to help. We’ve had FaceTime sessions, chats, phone calls, text marathons, etc. to help when needed! Once I phoned a friend just to see if I could plug my phone USB into the console to charge it (I couldn’t), so don’t be afraid to ask the dumb or seemingly obvious questions.
Petra Randewijk – Live Sound & Recording Engineer
Petra Randewijk is an independent sound engineer based in The Netherlands. Petra has been working in audio for 21 years, and she is currently on tour with Imogen Heap as the FOH Engineer. The world tour is heading to the U.S. & Canada in May and June.
Petra originally got interested in studio sound, while recording a demo with a band she played in when she was fifteen. “I wasn’t the best musician and didn’t enjoy a lot of what being a musician is about, like standing on a stage with people staring at me, but being in the studio sparked something. I wanted to study music technology to get a job in a studio, but didn’t get in at first try, so to gain some experience I decided to try and do some live work, or at least try and have people explain to me how all the sound equipment works.”
She would go on to study music technology and graduated as a composer for theatre and dance. She would learn live sound by just doing it, and while she wanted to go into the recording side, she would find the excitement of live sound addictive.
“I got my start at with a local PA company who provided sound for the local venues where I went to see bands and also played as a musician. They had an anarchistic way to organise themselves and a focus on equipment, to build it, repair it and take it apart in general for educational purposes or just the fun of it. What I learned there was that there is not one way of doing things, and whatever you do, it’s never good enough.”
Petra has in the past worked with international touring band Jungle by Night, a nine-piece Dutch instrumental band. She also works with other Dutch groups and occasionally will take on the role of TM/FOH. When she is not on the road, she works at Doornroosje in Nijmegen and with local sound companies, where she will take on the roles of FOH, Monitors, Patch whatever needs to be done.
She also owns a small studio “where I record a mixture of bands in different styles. Doing this also helps me for live shows because, in the studio, there is way more time to talk with and understand musicians and how they feel about their sound. In live sound, it’s tough to do that, as musicians can never hear the end result of what you are doing during a show. So the conversation is always about hearsay or at the best you discuss in vague terms what we are doing. And I do believe this can help to better amplify and put across artist creativity and emotion, which is in the end what I think doing sound is all about.”
On the current Imogen Heap Tour, which is a mix of live shows, talks, workshops, and exhibition for Creative Passport, this is a different way to tour and Petra shares with us what life is like.
Yes, it’s indeed a bit of a weird one, compared to what people might be used to for touring. But for me, it keeps it interesting, and it is never dull. A week (sometimes shorter) differs in every city. It is done this way, because the tour is also set up to showcase the Creative Passport, and on the road talk to music makers all over the world on their point of view and needs on this. Creative Passport is the digital container to hold verified profile information, IDs, acknowledgments, works, business partners and payment mechanisms, to help get music makers and their works, linked and open (data) for business.
We also have Mi.Mu glove presentations, tech talk ones. For this, we use part of the same setup as in the shows. These talks are informative because Imogen explains how the things she does with the gloves actually work. This is a good talk which was recorded, and it also discusses Creative Passport.
My main focus as a sound engineer are the live shows, which are with Imogen, Guy Sigsworth, and four other excellent musicians on stage playing guitar, drums, cello, and keytar. The setlist contains Imogen Heap songs and Frou Frou songs.
The basis of the setup for the live shows is an A&H Dlive mix rack, which has a Madi card to communicate with Imogen’s computer through optical Madi and an RME madiface. It sends audio to Imogen which she can process, such as vocal, but also other instruments. It receives 20 input channels, as well. The full input list is 32 channels, and ambient mics, and all channels are split into FOH and Monitor channels. All musicians are on in-ears, and they take care of their own monitor setup with the help of an iPad app. This took a bit of getting used too, but we used the setup at all the pre-production rehearsals.
Whenever possible, we are sponsored by d&b to use Soundscape. For this, I added a Dante card in the Mixrack to send all channels. Soundscape is d&b’n new immersive sound system and amazing to work with. It can make everything sound very natural like its directly coming from where the musicians are standing. But there is also a whole new world to be discovered, the possibilities to use it for effects and electronic sounds. That makes it so much fun. And because it receives OSC to control the sound objects, Imogen can directly move sounds in the room with her Mi.Mu gloves.
There are intimate evenings with Imogen Heap, which are only for the people who helped start up this tour from day one as an enabler. There she talks about her songs and then plays using just a grand piano and vocal. The audience can ask for their favorite songs to be played, which makes the shows different every time.
Heap’s live shows feature both solo performances by the artist, as well as an electronic duo with Frou Frou collaborator Guy Sigsworth. The tour is also the first to showcase Heap’s innovative Mi.Mu gloves.
Can you explain the Gloves?
The Mi.Mu gloves are controllers. They come with excellent software that registers hand postures, movement, and relative location. With them, and the software, you can control everything you could want. It can output MIDI and OSC, and you can connect it to anything compatible. Imogen controls all the music that comes from her computer, running Ableton. They can do starts and stops, make drum loops, scroll through samples, as well as control effects as loops, harmonizers, delays, and reverb. Anything, is possible, although, it is the same as with other instruments, it does get complicated to keep track of all the movements you need to do. It’s always awe-inspiring to watch Imogen do all that.
You are touring with d-Live and Soundscape. Are you touring with other production?
We are traveling with a Dlive rack, but still, need to get the surface locally supplied. We get great touring support on this from A&H and d&b is sponsoring Soundscape, whenever possible. Other than that, I am carrying a set of mixed microphones and DI’s. Nothing big, just my personal favorites.
Working with an artist like Imogen, who is at the forefront of new technology for music and musicians, both in helping to develop it and/or using it, makes it possible and maybe even needed to keep looking for new ways to make things easier and/or better. So I am now working to check if we can integrate KLANG’s 3D monitoring system in the setup, and using it to follow the glove movements.
This keeps me challenged to keep learning and trying out new things all the time, which for me makes this tour amazing.
How large is the crew for the show?
As for the crew, we are traveling with Imogen’s PA, a Nanny, the Mycelia head of operations, who also helps with the show setup, me, and a backline tech/general tech/driver. We all have a bit of a mixed-function description, as Imogen’s PA and the Mycelia head of operation also shares TM duties. My function besides sound is also PM. And one of the musicians also helps out with production and does the stage design. In general, we all make sure that everything that needs to be done gets done.
What do you like best about touring?
I love seeing new places and meeting wonderful people everywhere. And that every day is different. I feel I am at my best when everything has to be done on the spot, and maybe even is a bit chaotic. I sometimes even find myself thriving in chaos. (And smiling in the middle of it)
What do you like least?
Hanging around at airports.
What is your favorite day off activity?
Doing some touristy stuff, seeing the surroundings. Trying local food, when there is a vegetarian option available.
What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?
The sound world is tough in general, and you do need to have a thick skin. I started at the end of the nineties when everything seemed even a bit rougher. More yelling, more making fun of people mistakes and all was never good enough. Being slightly insecure already, this didn’t help me. I can’t tell for sure if it was especially harder because I was a woman, I did get all the ‘you aren’t rock n’ roll enough’ ‘are you the sound guy’s girlfriend’ ‘this sounds rather good, did your boyfriend mix it’ and more of that stuff. It’s all small stuff, but together, it’s a constant reminder that I am less trusted by sight as my male colleagues. But to be honest, I had the same lack of trust in myself, so I may have been my biggest obstacle.
I didn’t meet a lot of women doing sound in the first ten years, so everything seemed personal instead of about gender, which maybe made it harder to get around it.
But I know I’ve seen a lot of guys leave as well.
How have you dealt with them?
I made it through the first part by being stubborn. Taking all the crap and just kept on going. Also, I didn’t know that there was any other option. After a while, people gave me more responsibility and opportunities to do things on my own, and in my own way, which worked better for me.
One day I decided I wasn’t going to take being yelled at from anyone anymore. So I started talking back, asking why people thought it is okay to do that, or stopped working with people and at places that got me down. I just found the best space for me. It took a lot of years to get to this point. Realising at least some of it wasn’t personal really helped me, and a place like SoundGirls is amazing to discover that. The SoundGirls community also told me to stop complaining about needing to know twice as much as my average male colleagues to be taken equally seriously. But just go for it.
In the end, gaining knowledge is never a waste. So I am still trying to learn as much as possible. Taking courses, asking questions, learning every day.
Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?
Don’t forget things are rarely personal. Things people say are more about themselves as they are about you. Having said that doing sound is also never about you, but about the music being made on stage. And how to bring that to the audience as much as it is intended to be.
And if you lose a gig, don’t dwell on it, there are always more gigs, and sometimes it’s just someone else’s time. The best way to deal with this is to keep going and get other gigs, preferably things that fit especially for you. But to establish that you mustn’t be afraid to take an honest look at yourself too. And never forget to stay your own person in the whirlwind off the rock and roll, it’s the best person you can be.
Never forget to broaden your musical horizon, because if you work in sound, this can never be wide enough. Every kind of music has his own sound ideas and sometimes even rules. And every new thing you discover can give you new information you might be able to use in the next show. So don’t be afraid to listen to music outside of your comfort zone.
Must have skills?
Stubbornness, patience, always staying relaxed, and a lot of curiosity.
Favorite gear?
For live, I am at the moment pleased with my d-live rack and the Allen and Heath d-live series in general. If I could bring one thing, this would be it. It has amazing possibilities with getting audio in lots of directions. Great sounding internal fx and compressors, and very easily flyable. And also very useful to do recording sessions on location. For in the studio, my favourite piece of gear is a Schoeps MK4 microphone, which makes everything it records sounds amazing.
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
Spotify Launches Second Year of EQL Residency – Apply Now! Deadline is June 7th!
Are you a female-identifying audio professional? Apply for this paid, six-month residency in either London, Los Angeles, or Nashville.
Last November we announced The EQL Directory—a database of women and gender non-conforming audio professionals, powered by SoundGirls, made possible by Spotify. The idea behind it is simple: here’s a resource designed to make putting together an inclusive team that much easier.
Hand in hand with this is Spotify’s annual EQL Residency, a program that provides hands-on experience for rising studio engineers. From today until June 7th at 5pm PST, you can submit your application for positions in our Secret Genius studios in London, Los Angeles and Nashville. In partnership with Berklee College of Music, the EQL Residency is a paid, six-month residency for female-identifying producers and engineers.
On a rainy Friday night, I’m drinking tea under the glow of fairy lights in the crowd that’s gathered to catch Helen McCookerybook on the Midlands leg of her solo tour. Dr. Helen Reddington’s pseudonym helps to distinguish the multi-faceted nature of her work, spanning from musician in the British Punk movement to academic and teacher, to solo musician, author, and filmmaker. Helen is an ambassador for telling women’s stories, and she kindly squeezes in time for a coffee with me the morning after the gig to tell me hers.
It’s like chatting with an old friend as we recall our highlights from the previous evening, compare notes on overcoming musician’s injuries, and discuss the similarities between knitting and sequencing, and the nonsensical myth that women’s brains aren’t conducive to working in these patterned methods. As we talk about her colourful life, I wonder how we will cover everything in time for the screening of Helen’s documentary “Stories From The She Punks” that afternoon. The film has been a natural progression following the publication of Dr. Reddington’s book “The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era.” Created by Helen and fellow Punk musician Gina Birch, the film came about after Gina was interviewed for the book and suggested they make a film about it together.
Q: Women are frequently omitted and written out of history, and you address that in so much of your work, particularly in this film.
“It still shocks me how much it gets covered up, because it was so important, that period of time. I think we interviewed 20 women for the film; there was easily another 20 we could have found. The women are people, people first. This is where feminism works, when it makes women into people, rather than the second sex or whatever, and they’re people’s stories. I think you can tell everyone’s quite proud of what they’ve done, but without trumpeting it, it’s just like actually we did this thing! We did it, you know? When you’re a creative person, there isn’t a point where you sit, and you say ‘oh yeah I’ve done it’ because you’re always looking at the next thing, and I think that’s what the film did for the people that we interviewed.”
The film focuses on the stories of women instrumentalists including Palmolive & Viv Albertine from The Slits, Enid Williams from Girlschool and Shanne Bradley from The Nipple Erectors. Helen tells me she’s trying to encourage Shanne in particular to write her biography.
“She auditioned Shane McGowan from The Pogues for his first ever band, The Nipple Erectors with Shanne, and she was there right at the beginning. She knows so many people and did so many things, and she appears in Punk Histories, there’ll be a photograph of her, and it’ll say ’unknown woman.’ You can’t be an unknown woman; you’ve got to write your story!”
Q: You’re currently editing your next book on the topic of women engineers and producers. Can you tell us about that?
“It came about through the experience of working with producers and never getting the vocal sound that I wanted, and also working in Higher Education and always seeing the guys in that environment. In 2002 I did an academic study and found the guys already learn at school and get a head start on music tech. I ran parallel classes; one for guys and one for girls. During one session, a girl came to the guy’s class by mistake, and within 10 minutes a guy had borrowed a pen from her, and someone else had borrowed her bag to lean on, so she was put into this position of being a supplier. It was really interesting psychology, and the girls loved the class. I started finding women to interview while touring – I decided every place I went to. I would find a female engineer or producer because the spread of activity under that umbrella is really wide.”
Helen tells me about some of the 30 women she worked with for the book; they range in age from 22-70 across genres, all took different routes into the industry and all experienced different levels of acceptance. Additionally, they all had different attitudes and ideas about what production actually is.
“I interviewed Yvonne Shelton, a Gospel Choir producer in Manchester, which is quite a niche, as was another producer who programmes cheerleader music and mashups. I worked with Janet Beat, one of the first electronic music composers, as well as reggae, analogue and grime producers.” Dr. Reddington tells me about interviewing Susan Rogers, sound engineer to Prince.
“She came into it through repairing equipment, and that is such an interesting route into it. She was told when she was learning that there was no way that she was ever gonna be able to engineer, so she might as well learn how to fix studio gear. And she was actually fixing the gear for Prince’s studio, and then one day he just said ‘put the tape on’ and she said, you know, ‘I can’t do this, cause this is your engineer’s job,’ and he just said ‘that’s you.’ He’d kind of got to see how much she knew, and because of the way that he worked he actually wanted somebody who knew that side of things, cause he knew everything else, but that’s how come she started doing that.”
“The book has the working title of ‘Gender Ventriloquism’ because it’s that thing where a male producer, contextualised in a kind of history for example Nile Rodgers saying stuff like ‘I could make your secretary a star’ and like feeding Sister Sledge a line at a time, not allowing them to listen to a whole song, so that he’s completely in control of what’s happening, which for singers is completely disempowering. Dance producers just sampling female voices and taking them away from a body or any sort of agency, so it’s this idea, I call it Gender Ventriloquism. I’ve written something academic for the International Association of the Study of Popular Music where a male producer takes a female voice and makes them sound like men want to hear, rather than what the woman wants to sound like. What really freaked me out is being brought up on girl group music which is actually even written by men, and it’s all like the girls want to have sex with the men, sung by teenage girls, and that was my instruction on how I should be as a teenager – by men! And it’s so wrong, and it’s still happening. I got the article through by talking about instances where women produced men because that does happen, so I balanced it up, and I think that made it a bit less kind of controversial. But there’s not any punches pulled in the actual book, because it’s a historic. And all I’m doing is pulling out what’s actually happened in history and putting it all together in one place.”
Q: You’ve said how happy you are with your choice to take a break from music while you raised your daughters, and how pleased you are to be back again on the live scene now.
“There wasn’t any support from anybody, even the male musicians I knew, it was like ‘oh no, you’re a mother’ so if I’d have done it then I wouldn’t have felt confident. I’m really glad that I put the girls first. I take inspiration from blues ladies like Rosetta Thorpe and Etta Baker if they could do it so can I. I’ve seen how life could have gone, and that’s not an option. Whatever piles up, I’ll carry it, and it’ll make me stronger. Playing live is the closest you can get to flying.”
Q: What advice would you give to women and girls in the industry?
“The most important thing to me is that people actually write their own stories. Everybody, it’s really important. Keep a diary of what you’re doing, because by doing that you put yourself into some sort of history, and when you’re feeling ignored, you look at your diary and you push it out there, and you say look what I’ve done.”
You can find more from Dr. Helen Reddington at www.mccookerybook.com
The Ethel Gabriel Scholarship
Applications for 2021 will open on June 1, 2021.
We are proud to recognize Ethel’s contributions to the music industry and for paving the way for future generations of women working in music production.
In honor of Ethel Gabriel, SoundGirls will be awarding two $500 scholarships to members pursuing a career in the recording arts. These scholarships will be awarded in August 2021 and can be used for educational training and university programs. The scholarships are open to all members of SoundGirls.
Any member of SoundGirls that is attending or plans to attend educational programs in Professional Audio. There is no age requirement and includes college programs, trade schools, seminars, and workshops. Applications are open to all genders and non-conforming genders.
HOW TO APPLY
The application includes two short essay questions:
Why you are applying for this scholarship;
How has Ethel Gabriel inspired you? (400-600 words, please.)
The essay submission deadline is 12:00 midnight EDT July 30, 2021. The scholarships will be awarded in August 2021, and paid to scholarship winners. Scholarship winners will be required to send proof of enrollment in the educational program to SoundGirls or scholarship money must be returned.
SELECTION PROCESS & NOTIFICATION
The SoundGirls Board will review essays and will notify the winners via email.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
The scholarship funds awarded can be used for educational programs related to professional audio. Scholarships are non-renewable. You will need to submit proof of enrollment in a program.
QUESTIONS?
Any questions on the scholarship essay can be directed to soundgirls@soundgirls.org.
About Ethel Gabriel
Photo: Democrat & Chronicle Dec. 13, 2013
Ethel Gabriel may be one of the most prolific music producers you’ve never heard of. Ethel had a 4-decade career at RCA starting with an entry-level job and rising up to become the first female record producer for a major record label and an executive role in A&R.
During her career, Ethel produced over 5,000 records and worked with a wide variety of artists on RCA’s roster including Elvis Presley. Ethel was willing to take risks – such as producing the first digitally-remastered album or working with artists who brought new types of music to the mainstream. Her credits include everything from mambo to easy listening to rap.
Ethel’s Background
Ethel was born in 1921 in Pennsylvania. She started her own dance band at age 13 (called “En and Her Royal Men”) where Ethel played trombone. She originally wanted to go to college for forestry (at the encouragement of her father) but women were not allowed into the program. She decided to attend Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and study music education.
A relative helped Ethel get a job at RCA’s record plant (in Camden, New Jersey) to help pay for tuition and expenses. Ethel’s first job included tasks like putting labels on records. She was promoted to record tester where she had to listen to one out of every 500 records pressed for quality. She learned every note of the big hits since Ethel had to listen to them over and over.
Ethel would hang out at the nearby RCA recording studios (and brought her trombone with her to play between sessions). She got to play with some major artists for fun and also learn how the engineers and producers worked. She also spent a lot of time in the studio as secretary to the manager of A&R at the time, Herman Diaz, Jr. Ethel got to produce her first session (with bandleader Elliot Laurence) when Diaz called in sick and asked her to do it.
In 1955, Ethel convinced her boss, Manie Sacks, to sign Perez Prado to RCA’s label. She produced his record, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, which became a worldwide hit and helped bring the mambo craze to the US.
She was with RCA during the creation of their Nashville studios, the signing of Elvis, and their transition from mono to stereo.
Through Ethel’s career, she was willing to take risks and experiment with new technology or music. In 1959, Ethel launched Living Strings, a series on RCA Camden’s label that ran for 22 years.
In 1961, she produced Ray Martin and his Orchestra Dynamica, the first release using RCA’s “Stereo Action.” In 1976,she was executive producer of Caruso,’s A Legendary Performer, the first digitally-remastered album. The technology used by Soundstream Inc (lead by Thomas Stockham) has gone on to be widely used in audio and photography restoration and Stockham’s work on the Caruso album was the basis for a 1975 scientific paper. In 1975, Ethel gave a chance to then-unknown producer Warren Schatz, who produced RCA’s first disco album, Disco-Soul by The Brothers.
Ethel also helmed RCA’s Camden label (designed for budget records). Camden was struggling when she took over in 1961 and had a sales volume increase of 100% over two years. Camden went on to become a multi-million dollar label under Ethel’s watch. Some of RCA’s major artists even asked to be released on the Camden line over the flagship RCA label because of Camden’s success.
During her career, Ethel received two RIAA Platinum records and 15 Gold records (over 10 million record sales) and her albums continue to sell. Many of these were repackages or re-releases where Ethel put her expert eyes (and ears) on song selection and label redesign. One album she re-packaged, Elvis’ Christmas Album, was the first Elvis record to reach Diamond (10 million sales).Ethel said of creating special packages (in Billboard Magazine Sept 5, 1981), “It’s like second nature to me. The secret is that you know the market you’re trying to reach. You can’t contrive a special record. It has to be genuine and full of integrity because people know the difference.” Ethel re-issued albums for nearly every RCA artist (including the Legendary Performer series, RCA Pure Gold economy line, and the Bluebird Complete series).
Towards the end of her time at RCA, Ethel asked the company to fund a women’s group for lectures and seminars. She wanted to help women learn to become executives. Ethel said she felt like a mother to some of the women she mentored (Ethel was married but did not have children). She wanted to teach skills like how to network, how to dress or behave. Ethel also became involved with Women in Music, one of very few groups available to women in the music industry at the time. In 1990, Ethel publicly spoke out against the “boys club” in a Letter to the Editor of Billboard Magazine (Oct 6). She said, “Yes, there are ‘record women’ in the industry – and they have ears, too!”
Ethel also worked with many artists and ensembles in the studio during her career including Chet Atkins, Caterina Valenti, Marty Gold, Los Indios Tabajaras, Teresa Brewer and the entire Living series recordings. She said of working with artists, “There are times to ‘harness’ artists and times to ‘push.’” Ethel said her most helpful qualifications to do the job were “her knowledge and love of music and her ability to make difficult decisions and hold to them.” (Cincinnati Enquirer August 18, 1983)
Ethel was not promoted to Vice President at RCA until 1982, over 40 years into her career. Many colleagues said it was long overdue. The following year, she won a Grammy for Best Historical Album (for co-producing The Dorsey/Sinatra Sessions). After leaving RCA, Ethel remained in the industry where she worked as president and vice president to smaller record labels.
Creative Self-Marketing Ideas for the Audio Professional
As studio owners, Jeff and I get tons of requests for advice regarding how audio professionals can either kick start or amp up their careers. In an industry that doesn’t necessarily post jobs on a website, use recruiters, or have a standard interviewing process, how are talented creative people supposed to get their foot in the door? There are so many different ways to answer these questions, but at least one large chunk of this is personal marketing.
I read a lot in my spare time, and I love to get my brain working with business books of all kinds. Unfortunately, I’ve found personal marketing books tend to be, in my opinion, relatively useless for those of us in the sound field. They seem to be full of tips either so obvious that they’re painful (Make a website! Write an amazing resume!) or filled to the brim with antiquated business advice (Make sure you have professional business cards!).
So, I thought that I would put together a few interesting ideas that I’ve seen people use to creatively market themselves in the field of audio. Here they are!
Offer to write member interviews for your industry guild’s publication.
I know a mixer who did this years ago when she still lived on the east coast and was attempting to jump-start her career. She interviewed tons of top mixers in a thoughtful and engaging way. Then, when she decided to take the plunge and move to Los Angeles, she already had a bevy of contacts who had personally interacted with her. She never would have gotten to know all of those top industry professionals if she hadn’t volunteered her time for her industry magazine. To this day, whenever I’ve heard her name mentioned in passing, everyone is always quick to say, “Oh, you know her, too? Everyone knows so-and-so! She’s so amazing!” She put in the hard work upfront and it paid out tenfold in the long run.
Offer to write articles for an online professional magazine.
In this case, you can really present yourself as an industry influencer and/or technical expert. I mean, how amazing would it be if a potential employer googled your name, and fifteen plugin reviews from a top online audio magazine came up with your headshot and byline? You would definitely appear to be a cut above the rest. This is a great way to absolutely crush your SEO. If you go this route, you may want to prepare a spec piece to give them a sample of the kinds of things you would like to produce. Also (added bonus!), don’t be surprised if writing interesting product reviews also results in offers to try out new plugins for free! This is a great way to build your audio arsenal and your online brand.
Engage with your community on social media.
Follow sound professionals you admire on Twitter and comment on their tweets. Join some audio Facebook pages (I love Game Audio Denizens, Sound Girls Private, and Professional Freelance Sound Mixers) and comment on posts. Like your favorite studios’ Instagram pics. People love to feel connected, and it’s easier than you might imagine to feel like you “know” someone after you’ve interacted a few times on social media. This is the virtual version of hanging out in the right room. If you’re there long enough and you make your presence known (in a non-annoying way), you will inherently be seen as belonging. I would caution you to start small with commenting and liking, then move on to posting when you’re more confident. Definitely, don’t just jump in and post every day. That’s like crashing a wedding and then hopping on stage to give a speech.
Volunteer at a non-profit that involves your prospective clients or co-workers.
I’m a member of the non-profit group Women in Animation whose mission is to advance women in the field of animation. Their current goal is to reach 50/50 (men-to-women ratio) by the year 2020, which is absolutely amazing! You might ask why I’m into Women in Animation rather than SoundGirls, which has a similar goal but for the audio field. I’m actually in both, but the distinction is extremely important: I’m involved in the animation group for my personal/business marketing and the sound group for my own enjoyment.
That’s because when your aim is personal marketing, you want to put yourself in the “right room.” And that means a room with the people who can get you work, which is very different than a room filled with your peers. Boom Box Post does sound for animation, and we’re hired by animation studios. So that means that the main place I need to network is with animation professionals. For freelance sound editors, that might mean going to guild events to connect with new supervising sound editors. For mixers, it might mean attending a charity golf tournament sponsored by the post department of one of the big studios. The most important thing is to write down the top three people/job titles that could help you to find work, and then brainstorm places that those people might be.
Start your own professional networking group.
I know a few people who have done this. This can mean putting together speakers for a quarterly professional panel discussion, or maybe just setting up drinks at a local bar for like-minded audio professionals. Whatever it is, you can put yourself on the map and meet a lot of amazing people along the way. If you’re facilitating networking and/or learning opportunities for others, chances are that one day they will want to reciprocate the investment you made and help you out. Plus, you’ll get to have a fantastic time along the way!
Start a Lunch & Learn club.
Jeff and I came up with the idea of holding monthly “Lunch and Learn” sessions a few years back, and we’ve been blogging about it ever since! Every month, we get our team together for lunch, and then one person gives a demonstration of anything at all at which they consider themselves an expert. This can mean using a certain plugin, cutting a slo-mo sequence properly, using Soundminer to the max, etc. It’s a great way to keep everyone both learning and teaching, and also gives the team a go-to person should they ever have questions on the topic in the future.
Since beginning to blog about this, we’ve had numerous people tell us that they’ve started their own Lunch and Learn at work. We absolutely love this! Keep the good karma going and share your knowledge. Lunch and Learns not only show everyone involved in the best light as creative professionals, but they also give everyone a chance to invest their time and energy in helping those around them. And an investment in others is always something that can pay dividends down the line when those same people are in a place to hire you, recommend you, or even just walk your dog when you’re on vacation!
Start a virtual freelancers club.
If I had to guess, I would say that the number one group of people Googling “self-marketing” are freelancers. It’s hard to know where to start in making connections and positioning yourself correctly for a fab career in the future when you work from home and rarely interact with others. If you don’t get a lot of time with peers, starting a freelancers club is a great jumping-off point in marketing yourself!
For most professions, a freelancers club usually means meeting up once a week with other freelancers at someone’s home or a coffee shop and working in the same space so that you can be a little more accountable regarding how you spend your time and also get to feel like you have co-workers. Obviously, the need for a desk full of audio gear doesn’t exactly make this practical, at least in its usual incarnation.
But, I love the idea of starting a Slack channel or using other e-workplace software to create a virtual freelancers’ club. We all need other people to bounce ideas off of, get tech support from, bullshit with, and (most importantly) share stupid .gifs about things like our bad lunch habits and Golden Girls obsession. So go ahead a get e-out there! Having a set small group that you always interact with will make your workday much more enjoyable, eventful, and help you to bond with others who could help to vouch for you in the future.
A Simple Method for Recording Drums
Recording drums is an important part of any project but the process can often seem quite daunting. Often in-studio pictures feature an abundance of microphones on and around the kit, suggesting that you might need a lot of equipment to get the job done.
However, one simple method of recording drums that is highly effective is the Glyn Johns method.
It uses only four microphones and is relatively easy to set up.
What you need
two overhead microphones (preferably condenser mics)
a snare microphone (dynamic microphone)
and a kick microphone
Overheads
First, begin by placing one overhead mic about a metre (3 or 4 feet) above the snare. The microphone diaphragm should be pointing down at the kit. Then take your second overhead microphone and place it to the right of the drummer (so the microphone diaphragm is facing the Hi-Hat). Then measure the distance so that it’s the exact same measurement from the first overhead mic (so about a metre). Pan the two mics in the mix and you should get a nice balanced sound.
*The image shows the distance of the microphones but not the correct diaphragm placement
Snare + Kick Drum
The snare and kick drum microphone placements can be played around with until you find a sound you like. Often with kick drum mics you can place the microphone inside the drum or have it set up on the outside.
Overall this is a great and relatively easy way to record drums.
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
Leslie Gaston-Bird is raising funds for her 50th birthday. Happy Birthday! She is raising funds for the “SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel fund” which has been established to increase the presence of women and those that identify as women at audio trade conferences. Women who have been invited to speak, or sit on panels at audio related trade conferences are welcome to apply. More info at https://soundgirls.org/soundgirls-gaston-bird-travel-fund/
“The most common thing I hear from new engineers and those just getting started in live sound and mixing is how overwhelmed they are with how much there is to know. They focus on trying to learn all of the gear and keeping up with every new piece of equipment or plugin out there, instead of learning the underlying principles and techniques. This is why I created the eBook. There were so many other things I could have listed, but I tried to keep it to what I felt would help solve some of the biggest problems sound engineers face: Understanding how the system works together, being able to mix on any console, dealing with feedback, getting better quality sounds and mixes, and having more confidence in what they are doing.
The book covers these important concepts- Signal Flow, Proper Gain Structure. The eBook explains the importance of these, as well as proper EQ techniques, how to use a gate and compressor, choosing the right microphone, basic troubleshooting, and getting good sounds from the source.”
Congratulations to all our bloggers. The SoundGirls Blog is number 12 of the Top 30 Audio Engineering Blogs, News Websites & Newsletters To Follow in 2019.
This month’s blog topic is not directly related to audio. Yet it relates to our work and everyday life. It is a topic I have been thinking a lot about lately and one I hope others find educational or can relate to.
One evening, I was talking to a good friend about work and our successes. I’ve had some important accomplishments recently, and I was telling her how I felt undeserving of the recognition. I feared that soon, someone would point out how I didn’t know what I was doing. She said, look up impostor syndrome.
As defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, impostor syndrome “is the feeling that your achievements are not real or that you do not deserve the praise or success.” Great, I thought. There is a word to explain how I feel, but why do I feel this way? As I began looking into this, I’ve learned more about the syndrome and myself.
Impostor syndrome was introduced in a 1978 research paper by Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes titled “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women.” From the abstract: “Certain early family dynamics and later introjection of societal sex-role stereotyping appear to contribute significantly to the development of the impostor phenomenon. Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the impostor phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” Clance and Imes aimed their research at how the syndrome affects women, yet further studies have since shown that many men also suffer from the phenomenon. Why do so many of us feel this way?
I believe that part of it, for me, is confidence and insecurity. I understand deep down that I know what I am doing, but there’s that subconscious nagging jerk tapping me on the shoulder saying “But you don’t really understand this thing. Everyone else understands it and will figure out soon enough that you don’t.”
In creative industries, it’s especially tough as your work is very subjective, yet constantly scrutinized. When you get positive feedback you think, that must have just been luck. And of course, there can be negative comments from people jealous of your successes that help crush you even further.
I try to push myself through these moments of insecurity by doing the things that feel uncomfortable. Writing these blogs, for instance, is not a comfortable thing for me. No matter how well I write a blog, someone is going to point out a mistake and figure out that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. And why would anyone want to read what I have to say, anyways? I persist because positive feedback fuels my confidence in my knowledge, and negative feedback fuels my pursuit of knowledge and growth even further.
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