The end of the year will be here before we know it. December-January is often a bit of a quiet season for the sound industry, so for my last blog for 2017, I’ve put together a list of ten highly recommended activities to make the most of it.
Step away from the faders.
Rest. It’s been a busy year; you need it. Start the next year refreshed, not exhausted.
Get some exercise
…that’s not just running cables. If it’s cold on your side of the planet, wrap up appropriately and remind yourself what weather feels like. If it’s warm, sit in the sun and take the fluorescent edge off your studio tan
Be an audience member
Watch a play, see your favourite band, take in a film without trying to analyse the convolution reverb. Take your sound ears off for a bit and remember what it feels like to just enjoy a great piece of art.
Do a career stocktake
Look back at the work you’ve done this year. Which projects took you closer to your career goals? Which ones took you further away from your goals? Which were a side-step? Use this to figure out what kind of work you want to do more and less. Maybe you’ll find it’s time for a brand new set of goals altogether.
Have a bit of a tidy-up
The quiet season is a perfect time to do the tedious but essential maintenance that you put off when you were busy with tours and projects. Software upgrades, backups and archiving, PAT tests, clean-ups, and clear-outs. Start the new year with something resembling a tidy studio/working space and a clean system.
Get educated
Dust off that online course, podcast series or webinar that you never quite got around to watching. Time spent investing in your skills is never time wasted.
Polish up your portfolio
If it’s been a while since you updated your CV or your showreel isn’t showcasing your very best work, you’ll need a refresh. If you’re planning to target a different area of the industry, or a different country, in the new year, make sure you have a portfolio that’s tailored accordingly. Resources for Resumes and Social Media
Say thank you
If you have a mentor, remarkable colleague or someone who’s given you a great opportunity this year, this is a perfect time to say thank you and tell them how much you value their support. It’s simple, it doesn’t have to cost much (or anything), and it will be appreciated. Indulge in some celebrations
Reflect on your achievements and take a moment to acknowledge what you’ve learned and created. You’ve done good work, and you deserve to celebrate it. Glass of seasonal refreshment is recommended.
On behalf of the UK SoundGirls Chapter, thanks to all our members for being part of our SoundGirls community this year. Cheers to the year to come!
A former reprobate’s guide to getting healthier on the road
Being a professional gypsy can be a lot of fun, but let’s face it, it’s not always conducive to optimum health. I lived an unhealthy life when I first started touring – in fact I had every bad habit available – but over the years I’ve figured out ways to love life on the road and look after myself at the same time. Here are the good-living tricks I’ve picked up along the way – I hope they give you some ideas if you’re trying to take better care of yourself!
Drink and drugs
Let’s start with the obvious. A lot of us drink more than is wise – it’s all too easy to get on the bus and have a few beers after a long day, and Roadie Friday can get messy as we all know. But even if you don’t get wasted on a regular basis, it’s a good idea to give your body a rest and have a few alcohol-free-days a week. It’s easier if there’s something healthy on hand that you like to drink instead – coconut water, kombucha, decaf and herbal teas are good, and I’m also a fan of alcohol-free beers. Sometimes you just want that ‘job well done’ feeling of a nice cold one, and there are more and more coming on the market these days.
As for cigarettes and drugs? There’s no middle ground really – you know what to do if you and your body want to stay friends. I found Allen Carr’s ‘Easy Way’ book a massive help in stopping smoking, and his stopping drinking one also altered my habits without me even trying. A great incentive to change bad habits is stashing the money you would have spent and treat yourself to something cool as an end-of-tour present instead!
Food
It’s usually relatively easy to eat well if you have tour catering, but it can be hit and miss if you don’t. Even with catering there are great and less-great options, so just be mindful and make the best choices you can – it’s never going to be perfect, but go for the most nutritious thing on offer. Juicers make frequent appearances in catering these days, so take advantage – use plenty of vegetables and not too much fruit to keep the sugar down. (I like to compete with myself to make the ultimate disgusto-juice – greens, beetroot, ginger, the hardcore stuff – the worse it tastes, the better it must be for you, right?!) If you’re at the mercy of local catering, which can be good and can be awful, then it’s helpful to have an emergency stash of healthy stuff. I keep things like nuts, protein bars, oatcakes, etc. in my tool drawers for bad-catering days – and in my suitcase as well, to stop me from monstering the overpriced hotel Pringles when I check in, and I’m ravenous!
I’m always hungry after load-out, and it can be hard to resist the temptation of stuffing my face with whatever’s going. I learnt a great healthy touring trick on a bus where some people wanted the usual load-out pizzas, and some wanted a change. We had a chat with production, and they agreed that we could halve the amount of pizza, and use the remainder of the budget for different things that we would put on the runner’s list. That worked brilliantly. We had a selection of items like vegetable crudites, hummus, nuts, crispbreads, dips, avocados, dark chocolate, etc.; whatever we fancied within reason and budget, and everyone was happy – it’s much easier to resist the siren call of cheesy carbs when there’s an alternative! If that’s not an option, you could buy your stash of healthier load-out snacks for the bus. Another favourite trick is eating light before the show and boxing up some of my dinner – sure, eating late at night isn’t ideal, but being realistic I know I’ll always want something, and it’s a better option than piling into the junk food at midnight!
Probiotic /vitamins
I take a multivitamin and supplements as an insurance policy, and I’m a big fan of taking a probiotic tablet each day, particularly when you’re traveling in far-flung places – it can help keep your digestion happy.
Exercise
Loading in and out is a workout in itself, and as we’re on our feet all day the general activity levels on the road are pretty high. Maximise the good work by taking advantage of hotel gyms on days off to get the cardio happening, or if that doesn’t appeal there are lots of online fitness classes, you can stream or download to do in your hotel room. Rubber resistance bands make a great portable alternative to weights, and a skipping rope takes up minimal room in your luggage. Alternatively, take yourself out for a brisk walk around the city, or if you’re near countryside you can join forces with a few others, rent a car and get out into nature!
My yoga practice has been a huge blessing – it’s free, I can do it just about anywhere, and all I need is my mat. I like to do an hour before work, or in the pre or post soundcheck pause. A dressing room is an ideal place, but I get creative – there’s almost always somewhere I can find a quiet spot, even if that’s a stairwell or a corner of the loading bay behind some stacked cases! The key is to remember that anything is better than nothing, and you’ll feel so much better afterwards.
Hide!
Part of the fun of touring is going out for dinner with the gang on a day off, but once in a while, it’s a treat to hibernate. Find a supermarket and get yourself a roadie buffet, or have some room service, watch a movie or box-set, chill out and have a luxurious early night!
And relax….
Guided relaxations are a lovely way to help you fall asleep and are a great entry point for meditation with all the associated benefits of stress reduction and improved sleep. You could try one of the many Youtube guided relaxations or podcasts that are available for free or download an app that you can listen to on headphones in your bunk. (This has the bonus of drowning out the collective farting and snoring.)
Overall, be inventive and experiment! Rome wasn’t built in a day, but just making one or two changes can make a big difference to how you feel every day, and help you to live fast and stay young!
When Music and Science Collide – Darcy Proper
DarcyProper became the first woman engineer to win the GRAMMY for the Best Surround Sound Album category in 2008 for Donald Fagen’s “Morph the Cat” album. Darcy not only achieved these despite being a minority in her field, but she also accomplished these while she lived thousands of miles away from the center of the American music scene. Unlike many engineers based in New York or Hollywood, DarcyProper’s mastering headquarters was located in Belgium and The Netherlands for three of her four Grammy wins. She has just recently returned to the U.S. and is currently based in central New York.
Studies have shown that there are less than 10% of women working in the audio engineering field. With the world of sound encompassing a vastly wide array of disciplines, this could range from working in a commercial studio as a recording engineer, doing post-production for film/TV, to touring with artists as a live sound reinforcement engineer, among others. Not often discussed, however, is this small specialized field called Mastering.
Working within the confines of an acoustically precise studio, fitted with top-of-the-line monitoring speakers ranging from stereo to a 5.1 surround setup (or more), mastering engineers are responsible for the final crucial step in the audio post-production process. Often considered an elusive discipline, mastering is distinctly nuanced in both the technical and creative aspect of sound. With this–coupled with the low women-in-audio statistic–one can say that women in mastering may be deemed as unicorns–a rarity in an already male-dominated career path.
This, however, did not prevent mastering engineer Darcy Proper from winning multiple GRAMMY awards in various engineering categories (3 wins & 9 nominations to be exact). Most notably, Darcy Proper became the first female engineer to win the GRAMMY for the Best Surround Sound Album category in 2008 for Donald Fagen’s “Morph the Cat” album. Darcy not only achieved these despite being a minority in her field, she accomplished these while she lived thousands of miles away from the center of the American music scene. Unlike many engineers who are based in New York or Hollywood, Darcy Proper’s current mastering headquarters is located in the Netherlands at Wisseloord Studios.
One may ask how Darcy Proper ever got into the world of mastering in the first place. Here we take a rare glimpse into the world of mastering engineers as seen through Darcy Proper’s own experiences, from her beginnings to the present day.
When music and science collide
Like many sound engineers, Darcy grew up with a passion for music. Wanting to be surrounded by it as much as she could, Darcy spent her childhood in a small town in upstate New York performing with the church and school choirs in addition to her school’s concert band and jazz ensemble. But unlike many aspiring performers, Darcy didn’t yearn for the spotlight. Instead, she preferred to remain in the background with the ensemble, where her stage fright couldn’t get in the way of her love for performing.
Darcy had the makings of a mastering engineer even in her early childhood years, as she would often go through her parents’ entire record collection just listening to music with her headphones all day. “A quick escape from reality”, Darcy shares.
Furthermore, Darcy has always taken pride in her love for learning. Consistently excelling in academics, she was an avid bookworm with a knack for both math and science. This love for learning and music finally came head-to-head when her school hosted a local fundraising concert featuring student-led rock bands. It was during this fundraising concert at the age of 14 when she encountered her first mixing desk–a 12-channel Soundcraft used to run PA for the show. Darcy found that modest mixing board fascinating and it was the catalyst that prompted her to explore this seemingly uncharted world of “audio engineering”. In short, she was hooked and the rest became history.
The journey begins
Knowing full well that she wanted to pursue audio engineering in college, Darcy narrowed her search down to a choice between two schools: Fredonia State University of New York, or New York University (NYU). Fredonia because it offered one of the oldest Sound Recording Technology programs in the state, and NYU because although it had a younger music technology program compared to Fredonia’s, it was situated right in the heart of Manhattan.
Growing up in a small town outside of New York City, Darcy was attracted to life in the Big Apple, much to the dismay of her parents who forbade her from going there to attend NYU. Though her hometown was only a few hours away, it wasn’t unusual for people living there to have never visited the city. To Darcy’s family, New York City was simply an “other”–a gritty foreign place that’s not suitable for a young college student.
Fortunately for Darcy, she was awarded a generous scholarship to pursue her audio engineering studies at NYU. The scholarship easily outweighed the savings of attending college in Fredonia. Ultimately, this was what allowed her to move to New York City and start studying in NYU’s Music Business & Technology program.
Attending NYU’s Music Technology program
When Darcy began her studies in NYU’s Music Technology program at the age of 17, the program admitted a total of roughly 150 students, with only three of them being women. Despite this large gender gap, Darcy did not feel she was treated any differently.
“It didn’t cross my mind [that I was different]. This was something I wanted to do, it was possible to do it, and so I did it…I had more of an issue with my parents not wanting me to go to NYU just because of where it was located. For me, then, that was a bigger hurdle to overcome.”
Starting out with a blank slate going into the Music Technology program, Darcy absorbed all the information she could get her hands on. At this point, Darcy wasn’t aware of all the possible career paths in sound. Being most familiar with live sound reinforcement, she took on a part-time job as an assistant to a live sound engineer. She would assist in shows held in NYU and around various venues in the New York/New Jersey area. Darcy thought then that live sound would be the career path for her. But it didn’t take long for her to discover other career possibilities in sound that seemed to suit her better.
Entering the real world
Upon leaving the academe, Darcy landed her first job as an Assistant Studio Maintenance Technician for Sound Works on West 54th Street. At this point in her career, it finally dawned on her how there truly were not very many women in the audio engineering workforce. But despite the low numbers, the few women Darcy did meet all seemed to do very well in their field.
Being one of the few female sound engineers at this time, Darcy was fortunate enough to have not faced discrimination on a daily basis. She attributes this to several factors, including:
“The low point of the totem pole doesn’t discriminate.”
To Darcy, we all have to start at the beginning. And while you’re at the low end of this totem pole, you’re simply so busy trying to figure out what you’re doing, there isn’t a lot of time to dwell on grander issues besides doing the job well. Darcy was too determined to do her best and was so focused on making it through the day without doing anything stupid (not always successfully, she adds), that this helped thwart any concern of hers about people’s criticisms.
“I was lucky enough to end up in places where my colleagues and employers didn’t have an issue with [my gender]. I suppose if they had, they wouldn’t have hired me in the first place. In any case, when you’re the “newbie,” it’s important to remember that, for the most part, if someone criticizes your work or asks you to fetch coffee, or clean toilets, or whatever, it’s generally because you’re the newbie – you’re young, inexperienced, have a lot to learn about the job. The fact is, the mundane tasks fall to the low person on the totem pole. Gender discrimination certainly does exist, but when you’re new, it’s important not to confuse constructive criticism and “paying your dues” with gender bias. You’ll waste a lot of energy that could have been better spent learning and enjoying the job.”
Darcy is keen to observe how the music industry seems to be a generally more open-minded community when it comes to gender roles in the workforce. And not just with gender. In fact, Darcy feels that there is tolerance in many respects–from religious affiliation to race to sexual orientation. Truly creative people tend to not be close-minded, and it’s this supportive community that gave Darcy the atmosphere necessary to thrive in a male-dominated workplace.
It wasn’t always a walk in the park, however. Although not too serious, Darcy has encountered her share of unpleasant experiences on the job. In one instance during her early live sound days, a band manager refused to acknowledge her as the “sound man” and demanded to work with “a man” on the day of the show. She took control of the situation by gracefully yet matter-of-factly pointing out that if she left, they wouldn’t have a sound system. And with the band on her side, the gig went smoothly afterward.
There were moments when people were surprised that their assistant or sound engineer was a woman, but it was often an honest surprise reaction with no negative intent. However, on the rare occasions when a client would make a pass at her, she was quick to shut down any advances. Particularly for these delicate situations, Darcy believes in the value of a subtle, graceful exit in the interest of keeping the work atmosphere relaxed and professional.
“I found it important in those situations that you give the guy a way to keep his pride (and ego) intact. I generally used the excuse that I would be fired if I got involved romantically with a client and that I was flattered, but really wanted to keep my job. Receiving this sort of unwanted attention is a fact of life which can be intensified by a studio setting. You kinda have to figure it out how you’re going to handle it [along the way].”
Based on her experience, Darcy feels it was easier to take control of these situations in a studio environment as opposed to being on location. Therefore, she has a tremendous amount of respect for women in live sound who may have to cope with these situations more often in a much more stressful environment. At the end of the day, what’s kept Darcy going is the determination to do a good job every step of the way and to not spend too much time focusing on the difference between herself and her colleagues.
Typical with many mastering engineers in the industry, Darcy didn’t become one overnight. For her, it started with a gradual transition from being a studio maintenance technician in Sound Works to working as a QC (Quality Control) Engineer at Sony Classical in New York. Knowing that Sony Classical was looking for an engineer that could learn Sonic Solutions, she jumped at that opportunity and became adept at operating the DAW. Known mostly for its great crossfading capabilities, Sonic Solutions was the mastering platform of choice for classical music back then.
As part of her QC work in Sony Classical, Darcy relied heavily on her adept listening skills and attention to detail. Her work entailed listening to multiple production copies of a master, many times over, to ensure that no technical errors made it past the final production stage and into the final product.
This might sound like an arduous task to the average person, but Darcy enjoyed it. because it meant the opportunity to listen to the works of many engineers and in a wide variety of genres. The discipline she gained from years of critical listening would continue to benefit her for years to come.
It didn’t take long for her to finally take the mastering seat, beginning with album reissues. Working alongside a producer who, while very technically adept, wasn’t interested in making the leap to digital audio workstations. Darcy stepped in and took on a sort of assistant mastering engineer role. This led to working with other less technical clients on reissues of historic pop standards (Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, to name a few), and several Broadway cast recordings.
Ultimately, Darcy’s engineering credits expanded beyond the classical genre, eventually outgrowing her original mastering toolset that was more equipped for classical music. She decided to make the official jump to joining the ranks of the mastering team at Sony, rather than remaining in the classical department. Darcy continued her ever-growing work on album reissues, while at the same time, learning to expand her workflow to include high resolution surround mastering. Surround sound was slowly becoming part of the music scene. Not minding the extra channels to work with, and loving the surround listening experience, Darcy took on this challenge and mastered it.
In late 2005, Galaxy Studios, a renowned studio in Belgium, was looking for a mastering engineer and was eager to hire Darcy for the coveted position. Being rooted in New York, working anywhere else was something that did not initially occur to Darcy. But due to a personal crisis at the time, the offer to work abroad as a mastering engineer came at an opportune moment. She took the job with the intention of working in Belgium for a few years and then returning back to the US, but so often happens, fate had other plans. Along the way, she met her eventual future husband, renowned Dutch recording & mixing engineer, Ronald Prent, and her stay in Europe was extended.
After five years at Galaxy Studios, Darcy moved to Holland and together with Ronald, they played a crucial role in the rebuilding of Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands. Darcy has continued to achieve success basing her mastering work there and staking her claim as being one of the leading experts in surround sound mastering.
Demystifying mastering
Guided tour through the new Wisseloord Studios, Hilversum, Holland, The Netherlands with Joey DeMaio (Manowar) on March 12, 2012 Photographer: Klaus Bergmann | imBlickFeld.de for Magic Circle Music
One of the more common misconceptions about mastering is the focus on gear more than the ears, the art of critical listening and the artist’s intention. A crucial part of mastering is maintaining fidelity in one’s signal chain. The more gear you put in your chain, the more you potentially increase the distance between the artist and the listener. Therefore, it’s important to have a specific reason to add a piece of new gear to the mastering chain. Ultimately, the objective to use as many cool tools as possible. The goal is to deliver the artist’s message across to the listener the best way possible. And for that, less is often more.
“I’m not so much a gearhead. I’m fascinated with gear because it gets you from one place to another. But being a serious gearhead shifts your focus. Musicians don’t sit behind their instruments and think about how they play them. They think about the music they want to create, the note they want to play, and through years of long practice and intuition, it just happens. Of course, you want the right instrument to get the sound that you want and you spend the necessary time to maintain the instrument. In my opinion, this is what gear is for an audio engineer. It’s your instrument. Gear is not the focus, but the means to an end. Using your gear to achieve the sound you are looking for becomes as intuitive as a musician playing the desired/right notes on his/her instrument.”
Darcy continues to innovate in the world of mastering. Many of her most recent projects involved mastering work with height channels in various immersive audio formats. Asking her about recent innovations on cloud-based automated mastering services, Darcy believes that although their existence is logical with the current technology, there are nuances that the human element can provide that can’t be replaced with automated services. Music is emotion, and it takes a human being to understand and convey that emotion to the listener.
Though mastering remains one of the less common career paths in the audio engineering world, Darcy remains grateful to have been given the opportunity to work and thrive in this field. As an avid listener, she enjoys the variety of music she gets to work with as a mastering engineer. It changes from one day to the next and it forces her to approach each project with fresh ears and a fresh perspective. And with each fresh perspective, the learning never ends.
“At first, I thought it was my ‘job’ to fix things to a certain extent. I thought that was my purpose. Now, I focus more on what seems unique and special about [the music] and how I can bring it forward. I focus on the positive things and enhancing those naturally minimizes the flaws. This approach allows me to be open and ready for new and unusual kinds of sounds and characters. And when you’re always listening to what’s special about the music you’re working on, that’s a nice place to be.”
This workshop covers various Front of House system design and scenarios. Topics include designing the PA, software prediction, coverage over SPL, time alignment, sub-woofer configurations, and coverage gaps. This is an intermediate course and will help professionals to hone their skills.
Ivan Ortiz is a veteran, with over 18 years of experience in professional audio – gaining his education working for a small sound company that specialized in Latin acts while attending Full Sail. After he graduated he headed to the west coast – taking an internship at Rat Sound Systems and his “can do attitude” led to weekend work with several Los Angeles based sound companies. Ivan would go on to tour as a system tech for Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World, Pepe Aguilar and toured for several years as a monitor engineer for My Chemical Romance, Gavin DeGraw, and multiple fill in gigs for other bands as FOH or MON Engineer.
Ivan would go on to work for LD Systems in Houston Texas working the Houston Rodeo as Monitors Engineer for the event for five consecutive years. While working for LD Systems Ivan also had the opportunity to work on national televised events as the A1 for NCAA Final Four, NCAA Sweet Sixteen, Houston’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, before returning to Rat as shop manager and all around Tech Master. Ivan is now the Technical Resources Manager at Rat Sound Systems.
“The Sound Guy is a Girl, but She’s Good I Swear!”
On Being a Woman in Audio in the Middle-East
The first time my parents took me to a concert I was about thirteen years old, and I remember looking at the guy with the huge board full of knobs in the middle of the crowd and thinking: “I want to be that ‘guy’ someday”. I started getting more and more interested in sound and acoustics as the years went on, and most importantly I started attending more and more concerts, and that’s where my fascination grew for the field of live entertainment. At the age of 18 I began my undergrad studies in physics, and at the age of 21, I decided to move to France to pursue my master’s degree in sound engineering.
The first day of class in sound school I looked around only to realize I’m the only woman there. And that was the first time, as silly as it may seem, that I realized that this is a man’s field. Before that day it had never occurred to me that this was a man’s, a woman’s, both or either’s field and even after that it seemed pretty insignificant to me. I wanted to be a sound engineer, and that was all that mattered even if I was going to be the only one in the Middle East.
I moved back to Lebanon in 2014 at the age of 23 and started working in one of the largest sound rental companies in the region, Fida Zalloum sarl. I began with basic tasks mainly stage set-ups and assisting other engineers but soon the opportunities unraveled and the first time I handled a mixer on my own was in the summer of 2015 at the Baalbek International Festival, one of the most prestigious festivals in the region, doing monitors for the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, I’ve done monitors for the likes of Tina Arena, Richard Bona, Ibrahim Maalouf, Bob James, Angelique Kidjo, FOH/monitors for Lisa Simone and various visiting foreign and local acts. With stages ranging from small to large scale, bands and orchestras, and attendance ranging from a couple hundred to 20,000 people.
It has not been easy, far from it. Starting out in a country that up until then had not known of female live sound engineers, has forced me to prove myself ten times more than any of the male engineers. People were looking at me curiously; clients were coming up to my boss asking why he hired a female sound engineer and not a “normal” male one. I had countless musicians ask me if I could handle the mixer on my own if no one were helping me. I even had clients refuse to work with me just because I am a woman and supposedly was unable to do what was so far labeled as a man’s job. To this day, I still get weird looks while rolling a cable at the end of a concert, or while lifting a case, or while running a mixer and doing other technical tasks. All of that is in addition to sexist comments I heard in the workplace on a regular basis.
All of these obstacles could have pushed me to give up and accept that it is a male’s field, but I didn’t. Why? First of all and most importantly this is what I love; this is what “I want to be when I grow up.” The fact that I’m a woman, or more like: the fact that I am not a man had no part to play in me choosing my career and passion. How I did it? Courage and fierceness. I set objectives and sprint towards them disregarding any disturbance around because I understood that in the big picture, all these small difficulties are obsolete. I love my job; I love everything about it from the long hours to the physical exhaustion to the rush I get when I hear the screams of the crowd as the concert is about to begin. This is my passion, and this motivation is what keeps me going.
And to be fair, being the only woman doing this in my country has given me a great deal of exposure. People were talking about “that girl in live sound” and the fact that I was able to prove I was as capable as any male counterpart has made most clients change their prejudice towards females working in this field. More and more people are not only accepting but support it, and I find this to be quite pleasant and rewarding. If I had to sum up my experience in a sentence, it would be one I so often hear at gigs: “the sound guy is a girl, but she’s good I swear!”
If I can give a piece of advice to any woman interested in sound, starting out in sound or working in sound is to be courageous and fierce. Don’t focus on the obstacles and don’t let your fears take hold of you if you are true to what you want to do and what you love you will make it. I am making it with no signs of stopping any time soon, taking it day by day in one of the most hostile regions for women and their advancement, and all I can say is that it is so darn worth it.
Sana Romanos is a project manager and live sound engineer working in Beirut, Lebanon. Sana will be heading up the Middle-East Chapter of SoundGirls.
Dealing with Difficult People
We’ve all had it happen. Someone you’re working with is moody or doesn’t seem to like you. You get yelled at for something that’s not your fault. How do you handle it?
The majority of the time if you’re in a professional environment working with a team of professionals everyone can put their differences aside enough to get the job done. It’s the people who don’t put things aside – who continue down the path of drama or difficulty while you’re trying to work – that cause problems. We don’t know if it’s a personality trait if we triggered someone on a touchy subject, or we just caught him/her on a bad day. The problematic thing is at the end of the day it’s not our job to play psychologist – we’re professionals hired to do audio – but sometimes we have to navigate around people issues or their politics to get our actual job done.
The issues
Sometimes people will project their problems onto you. I worked with a producer on a tv show who came for mix reviews only to have me do the same fixes over and over. Then he would give up saying the mix still didn’t “feel right.” After six weeks of that, I questioned if I was a good enough mixer to do what he was asking. I later found out he was miserable on the job and treated others the same way.
Sometimes you’re setup to fail, and there’s no way around it. I engineered a bizarre ADR session where the producer got upset anytime I adjusted the mic pre. It was like trying to live mix and having to ask for permission to move a fader! We were already in session when it happened. The talent was on the clock, and we had a tight deadline, so I left the mic pre where it was. We lost some takes because he didn’t want to lower the gain for screaming lines (clipping the mic pre) or raise it for whispering (resulting in a high noise floor). I thought about stopping the session to have a discussion but decided it was better to lose a few takes than not get the job done.
Sometimes you’re an easy scapegoat (especially as a runner or assistant). When I was an assistant, I had mixers blame me for stuff so they wouldn’t look bad in front of their clients. Early in my career, I worked on a remote recording truck, and the producer blamed me for a tech error that was entirely his fault. I kept my mouth shut because the truck was my ride home! They never hired me again, and I was terrified my reputation would be shot over something that wasn’t my fault. It didn’t affect my career at all (other than the learning experience).
The solutions
Focus on getting the job done knowing sometimes there’s no good solution. At the end of the day, you may look “bad” to some people or your work may suffer in quality or it’s just not a great project, to begin with. Others will understand you were in a no-win scenario. It happens to everyone.
The first thing we often ask is, “is it my fault?” It’s ok to ask to decide what to do next – like, would apologizing help? But if you get your head stuck in analyzing (i.e., “could I have done something differently?” or “Is it because I’m a woman?”) it’s taking a stressful situation and making it harder to think clearly.
You can win over some difficult people. As a mixer, I try to find a way to make everyone comfortable in the studio whether they’re in a great or bad mood. I feel out someone’s mood by asking questions about the project or their job. I try to find another topic to talk about by being observant – maybe they brought a newspaper or have an interesting cell phone cover or got a friendly call from their kid. I worked with a producer who used to be extremely picky and somewhat rude when she was in a bad mood. I learned to take a ten-minute break and ask about her other film projects or her hobby. That generally could reset the tone for the rest of the mix.
Some people’s moods or attitudes won’t change but you can still accommodate them. Some clients are so busy they feel they are “losing” a day being at the mix (this is often the case for directors or producers). Some people find audio a chore. One producer told me he’d rather go to the dentist than sit through an audio mix! Sometimes the solution is to work as fast as possible so they can get out of there. That’s one of the first things I try to assess. I’ll cut the chit-chat and get down to business if that’s what’s best for them. Sometimes in those situations, you can work to build trust in working alone so they can do other things (one skill you need as a re-recording mixer is the ability to mix while people talk on the phone behind you!)
There are times when you can and should speak up about someone mistreating you. No one should feel threatened or unsafe on the job. I worked with a producer who out of the blue would yell and berate me about “mistakes” I had made. It scared me, actually. After it happened a couple of times I went to management and refused to be in the studio alone with the guy. It was a risk – in other scenarios I could have been fired but I knew the studio would have my back. We work in an industry that does things in an unconventional way but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to put up with anything and everything.
Finding Your Passion: Katy Templeman-Holmes
Katy Templeman-Holmes is the Director of Marketing for Professional, at HARMAN. She started out in recording and broadcast engineering before moving over to the business side where she has worked for Euphonix in Technical Sales, then to SSL for Business Development, and finally to HARMAN. At Harman, she has held several roles including; as a Product Manager based in Switzerland, running US Sales for Recording & Broadcast, training FOH & monitor engineers taking consoles on tour, running product development for a handful of different industries, and Director of Solutions and Marketing for Hospitality and Broadcast.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Katy’s father owned and work in studios as a producer/engineer before moving to work with pro-audio manufacturers including Neve, Trident, and Harman. She grew up visiting her father in studios, console factories and collecting all the ‘stuff’ he brought back from audio trade shows. She would spend her youth building models and taking things apart and developed an interest in electronics.
Katy went on to attend Chelsea School of Fine Art in London where Katy learned that she needed to follow her passion “Learning How Stuff Works.” So she headed to the University of England University of Surrey and obtained a Bachelors of Science in Media Technology & Broadcast Engineering. While attending she worked as on-air talent at some local UK radio stations and the weekends engineering for IMG. She also split the year between school and working in Nashville (her family has relocated to Nashville for her father’s job at Harman) as a record promoter for an independent label.
After graduation, Katy would move to Los Angeles and work in production and recording. She had an apprenticeship for two years at Elephant Symphony studios in Burbank and moonlighted with a day job at Clear Channel/Fox. This is where Katy would learn to understand audio as a discipline. From working with jazz musicians or on animatics she gained enough experience to learn that once again she was not following her passion.
Since technology is always changing and evolving Katy felt that she would be better suited to the manufacturing side of audio. Working at Harman, she has found roles that continually challenge and inspire her. Katy is also a single mom to her daughter Goldie. At Harman, she has been able to find and manage a work-life balance that works for her.
At Harman what are you responsible for?
In a nutshell, with my team, I am responsible for delivering a strategic marketing plan and executing it, for all the markets that fall under headlines of live performance, hospitality, large venues, retail, corporate, education, and government. For these industries, we manufacture audio, video, lighting, and control solutions. My role is to drive revenue by making sure everyone knows this!
Do you lead teams or work as a team?
Teams always need a leader, but leading and dictating are very different. We definitely work as a team, and I am the first and last port-of-call for decisions and accountability. As a team, we collaborate, and as a leader, I digest all the information we have and analyze it for a result. Typically, we are working through taking calculated risks.
If you are a team leader have you found it challenging as a woman? Recently on SoundGirls, we have been having discussions about double standards for women. Those women who are perceived as “nice and friendly” are passive and not taken seriously yet when they are assertive and leaders they are perceived as “Ice Queens”. If you have encountered situations like this how do you manage it or overcome it?
NAB China 2016
I know a huge contributor to my personal and professional success has been confidence; I know exactly who I am, and who I am not. I am strong, but I do not dictate. I am compassionate and considerate, but I am not soft. I am smart, but I am not smarter. I am a woman, but I am so many other things, and so much more. How you see yourself and how you present yourself to others can be the strongest power you have. At work and home, we all need to show diligence to the end, so that our hope is sure; it just takes focus and genuine self-respect.
I feel it is also important to remember standards and expectations are not limited to women or the audio industry. It is important to look at the topic with balance; I cannot count the number of times male co-workers have commented on how much they appreciate and enjoy having a women in the group/team/meeting etc. It’s all about balance!
Do you find Harman to be a diversified company?
HARMAN is very diverse, and it has an enormous global footprint, spanning many cultures, societies, and minorities. I have so far enjoyed a very liberating eight years with the company. I cannot think of one example where I have thought about the fact I am a woman or any other profile at work. I am just Katy.
What are a few recent projects that you have worked on and/or are proud of?
If you can get relationships right as a leader, peer, subordinate, and individual, I think you can pop out the other side of any project with a sense of pride; done right, most other things fall into place. So for me, everything that is brainstormed, developed, and executed, is a result of the team, and for me, I get the most pride from seeing my team succeed.
Tech Conference 2015
You mention passion. How important do you think having a passion for what you do is? I think it is fairly important and if you don’t have it on the engineering side, you are not going to go very far. I think passion is more important than say having golden ears. Without passion, you cannot “create magic”. Thoughts?
I absolutely agree! Passion is imperative for longevity. Discovering my passions has probably been the most liberating episodes of my life, and in turn, dictated the best chapters of it! Professionally I still don’t have a direct goal, a definitive “I want to be…” statement. Recognizing my strengths and balancing them with my interests [and discovering my interests] has been a journey for as long as I can remember. I thought I would be an illustrator – I am great at drawing, but I don’t care for it. I thought I would be a recording engineer or producer, like my Dad, but turns out I hate staying up all night, and I don’t care for dramatic people at 3 am! It’s taken me a solid 15-20 years to figure out what I really like is understanding how things work – that’s my passion. I love understanding the psychology of people, the physics of audio, how on earth you put together Ikea furniture, how a business needs to change to be able to grow by 8%, upon request. I’m grateful for having such a broad passion and interest, and finally understanding that in of itself!
I am also a mom to 21-year-old twin daughters that spent K-8th in Montessori, and the one thing I loved the most is that it encouraged them to find their passion and to be lifelong learners. Thoughts?
I’ll preface my response by stating I try not to preach my intense passion for Montessori because I do respect and believe in an ‘each to their own philosophy. That said ☺, I struggle to understand why it is not the only way we educate our children! Montessori is proven to nurture self-awareness, independence and, confidence – that will pay a person back a thousand times over in life. I hope my choice of Montessori for my daughter will help her find herself and her confidence as early in life as possible, and embrace her passions in any way she chooses. My goal for her is not to be anything or anyone, but to be happy and with total ownership of her life. I truly believe Montessori education and Montessori-inspired parenting, is a good foundation for all of that.
How did your time in the recording studio and broadcast help you with your current position?
Everything I have done has helped me, but the hours in the studio were the best. I learn by experience much more than I do by books or formal education. I more or less did an apprenticeship with a program called Recording Connection. I had a formal curriculum I had to learn, but it was taught to me by the studio owner – in turn, I worked for him for free, and within that, I got another lesson! I was fortunate; my mentor was passionate and considerate. He shared a lot with me, and I learned a huge amount during my time with him. Whilst I do not directly utilize that audio knowledge now, having that knowledge gave me a huge boost in professional and personal confidence, and that keeps paying me back to this day. Everything I learned also supported my success early on where the knowledge and understanding trumped any preconceived notion of a ‘young woman walking into a studio trying to sell an audio console.’ I knew my stuff, and I led with that. The respect followed.
Finally – How do you juggle your job with motherhood?
I can say I definitely don’t juggle. I found that juggling meant I didn’t do anything 100% and I always felt guilty. I am a single mother, and I don’t have a local family to help out. That forced my hand to really think about how I am going to raise a healthy happy child, and keep me healthy and happy beyond motherhood. I have found a groove that works well for my current circumstances. My role at work is global, so I work very early in the morning for a few hours before my daughter wakes. Then I am in mom-mode for a few hours, until I take her to Montessori. I then go to the office, transition from Europe and Asia projects, over to more US-centric and administrative items, before leaving to pick up my daughter mid-afternoon. The rest of the day I am back in mom-mode! I also choose to spend my money on ‘wingmen’ – by this I mean a housekeeper, a gardener, Amazon Pantry, Uber Eats….you get the picture! I need help far more than I need to go to the mall, so I channel a little extra cash in that direction, and it goes a long way in helping me balance a career with motherhood, and truly enjoy it all.
I Am A Puzzle
When I was 17 and an intern at Interscope Records in New York City, my boss, head of radio promotions, said to me, “Don’t get into this business. The music business is a terrible business.”
I can handle it. I thought to myself. I looked at the photos on the shelf next to her desk. “Haha, yeah, it seems pretty crazy. Hey is that you and Eminem?”
“We’ve been together since the beginning. He is a true artist.”
I sort of listened. And I sort of knew what she meant. Mostly I was thinking about how badly I wanted to prove, mostly to myself, that I could handle it.
When I was 11, I learned to play finger style blues guitar from the guitar teacher and music store owner in my town. He is now one of my closest friends, but at the time we barely knew each other (also I was 11, and he was a man who owned a music store so…yeah). One fall day he hosted an open mic at our community center. We never had stuff like that going on in town, so I didn’t even know what an open mic was. He encouraged me to perform, and I ended up playing “Foolish Games” and “Save Your Soul” by Jewel, and an old swing number called “Believe.” I was so nervous I was shaking. My dad filmed the whole thing on our camcorder, which my little brother recorded over a week later when he and his friends wanted to document their backyard dinosaur-bone excavations.
1991 – me and my older brother Ariel in 1991 in East Chatham, New York
For my 12th birthday, my dad took me to see Ani Difranco headlining the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in nearby Hillsdale, New York. He bought me a pentagram—I was really into Wicca at the time—and sat on the grass hill with me, surrounded by RV hippies and babies on boobs, and watched Ani give herself to us. Her body was a channel, and her voice and guitar were the message. She hit the strings so hard that the buzzing and the sliding out of tune became part of her songs. She roared her lyrics like a lion, completely free of all fear. It felt like the first time she’d ever been in this moment, and simultaneously like she’d always been in this moment. She was her, and she was us. And yet she was beyond herself and us. I don’t know how or why, but I wanted to do that, and I felt like maybe I could. So I decided to try.
A few days later I performed a song I’d written for my dad and grandparents. It was called “I Am A Puzzle, ” and the guitar part was inspired by Ani’s playing. The lyrics were:
I am a puzzle
I am hard to complete
it’s hard to find the whole thing
and then put it all together
but I have a missing piece
I have a part of me missing
if you have a puzzle
and you wanna see
the whole damn thing
you’re gonna need
that last piece
I don’t remember exactly how 12 year old me felt at the time. But I do feel like those lyrics, however silly, bore an uncanny resemblance to my life that came later.
There are so many pieces to this puzzle.
I spent my teen years performing songs like “I Am A Puzzle” and “Tears On My Pillow,” and “Crying and Cold” to farmers, bikers and any friends and parents I could get to come out to whatever Columbia County bar and cafe would let me play. I took great pride in my ability to make bikers cry when I sang the sad songs.
2012 – Setting up Ableton for a show in Bushwick, Brooklyn
That summer at Interscope was the only summer since I was 14 that I didn’t have a paying job, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was living off the student loan I’d taken out earlier that year. I mostly stayed at home and worked out acoustic covers of my favorite songs by The Knife.
For my birthday in July, my then-boyfriend gifted me a Focusrite audio interface and a pair of AKG headphones. He’d given me a bootleg version of Logic 9 and was adamant it was going to be my “new favorite thing.” My grandparents gave me an SM58, which I’d asked them for. In my spare time between school and work, I would play in Logic. Over the next year or so my boyfriend and I collaborated quite a bit. But we ran into issues because he didn’t have to work and I did. I would get frustrated that he was making more than me, and he would want me to sing the things that he’d written. But I wanted to write and produce too. Was I territorial and stubborn? Or was I just in a different position than him?
Writing good songs was one piece of the puzzle. Producing was another. And yet another was the balance of work (for money to live) and art. It was becoming painfully obvious that the cards I’d been dealt in that regard were not the most generous.
2017 – Rehearsing with my live band this past summer, Los Angeles, CA
In the years since then, I have experienced all kinds of resentment toward those that have more cushion/support/time/money/etc. But resentment is a heavy thing to carry around, and I decided at some point to stop carrying mine. Perhaps it was when I realized that, even though I’d spent most of my life working on music, I still had many many pieces of the puzzle to find and put together before I was going to have a career.
Ten years later, I wonder where I would be if I’d heeded the advice to stay out of the music business. I have never truly considered another path aside from that of a musician and artist. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of it all. But mostly I still feel like I want to prove, mostly to myself, that I can handle it.
How to be Lucky
“I’ve never had those kinds of well-paid opportunities happen, not everyone is lucky.”
“She’s so lucky she got that job, I’d kill to work there.”
“You’re so lucky to be doing what you love! I wish I could do that.”
Any of these sound familiar? I saw one of them on Facebook today. One of them is something a friend said to me a few days ago.
Up until recently, I got annoyed when someone described me as “lucky.” I would have said, that where I am in my career today has very little to do with the vagaries of fate, and everything do to with hard work. But recently I was reminded of the well-known quote attributed to Seneca the Younger: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” And I realised, I am pretty lucky.
I have spent the past twenty years preparing for my current career and creating opportunities. I invested in training and qualifications. I moved to the other side of the world on a one-way ticket where there were more chances for work. I learned how to run a business as well as configure a console. I joined organisations, I went to events, and talked to everyone I could. I learned from other people’s experiences and my mistakes. I built up my skills and my portfolio, and then when the opportunities arose, I took them. According to Seneca, I am lucky. And I know – at the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker – you can be too.
Be prepared
If your dream sound job came up tomorrow, would you have all the skills and experience you need to take it? What do you have to do to be ready for that job? You need to be prepared not just for when opportunity knocks, but for everything leading up to it – those smaller jobs which will gradually take you to a place where you feel capable of doing the more prestigious jobs.
Back in June 2004 I really wanted to be a radio sound engineer, ideally working in radio drama. I’d got as far as the practical test round of interviews for a trainee sound engineer position at the BBC in London. It was my third application for a trainee position, and the feedback from the previous one was to get more hands-on experience. A colleague in my department suggested trying a local arts radio station, as they were always looking for volunteers. I didn’t follow it up. On the day, the test went fine, but I didn’t get the job. The feedback they gave me was that they were looking for people with practical radio experience. I had the opportunity to get a job that would put me on the path to my chosen career – but when it came to it, I wasn’t prepared.
Create your own opportunities
If you’re relying on opportunities coming from one or only a few sources, you need to broaden your horizons. Think about the people who could recommend you for jobs, not just within sound people who work in adjacent fields. Venue owners, studio owners, production managers, tour managers, producers, directors, lighting designers, other sound engineers. Make connections offline and online and maintain those connections – relationships take time to develop. Make sure you’ve got a consistent, professional profile online, whether that’s a personal website, or an online professional directory like the Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production (sign up if you haven’t already). The adage “you never know where your next job is coming from” is a persistent one for a good reason: it’s true. And the people who might be the ticket to your next step on the career ladder can’t give you anything if they don’t know you’re out there.
Take action and keep taking it
Getting up and doing it is the first real step – no one gets lucky by waiting for the world to come to them. But what if you’ve done all the preparation you feel you need, you’ve busted a gut creating opportunities, and you’ve yet to feel that magic “lucky” moment? Keep at it. Look at learning the kinds of skills that will attract not just the jobs you’re looking at now, but the ones in the future. Reconnect with contacts who’ve dropped off your radar and tell them about the latest brilliant show, album, or project on which you worked. The more prepared you can be, and the more opportunities you can make, the luckier you will become.
Whatever your goals for the future, in every possible way, I wish you good luck in achieving them.
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