 Reporting. Oh, and welcome to master class studio sessions. My name is Shira Gans and I'm with the mayor's office of media and entertainment. Today's event is put on by our office and the New York chapter of the recording Academy and it's part of our New York Music Month initiative, which happens every June. You can check out classes that happened the past Wednesdays and there'll be one more coming up the following Wednesday from now. I'll put in the chat, the website for the program and you can check out all the other live and virtual events we're having this month. So without further ado, I will hand it over so you can learn about making a record. Thanks. I'm our guest today Mario J. McNulty and GTO Fernando Lidero and Kim Rosen. These are V this Grammy master class. I'm hoping that you have a better understanding of the mechanics of making a record. It's important that you know what each person who works on making your music does. As a means of introduction. My name is Joe Di Ambrosio. I'm a 14 year board member of the New York chapter the Grammys. My life's work is managing producers, engineers, mixtures musicians arrangers songwriters composers and executives in the music business. I established my company Joe Di Ambrosio management. 20 years ago this past April. Let's start with the architect of the mechanics of making a record the producer. Our producer guest is Mario J. McNulty. Mario is originally from Phoenix, Arizona, and currently works out of the studio incognito based in New York City. Over the course of his career Mario has worked with David Bowie, Prince, Willow Smith nine inch nails, Laurie Anderson, the B-52s and Anjali Kijo. He has a Grammy for Anjali Kijo's album entitled Jin Jin. One of his career highlights is mixing Willow Smith's big single, Transparent Soul, featuring Travis Barker from her latest album, Lately I Feel Everything. Transparent Soul has been streamed over 200 million times. Mario, welcome. Hi. Please describe your approach to producing an album. My approach really depends specifically on each artist. There isn't anything that is really is really the same for everybody. Everybody is personally attended to, in other words. So in that way, there isn't any kind of particular sound that everybody gets every artist and sometimes the group as well has really a customized vision for that particular album or project. What challenges have you come up against when putting together the team to produce an album? I'd say the most common challenges now are, I think nowadays are really timeline. Everybody wants to take five months to record a drum track or something. But now I think the challenges are getting things done efficiently, making sure you hit deadlines, making sure the artist and their group understands that there's a certain amount of time to complete this album. Because when you're making an album, it's also your mixing sort of art with commerce. So there are things that you have to follow and you have to kind of keep them on track. When you're making records that you're not recording and or mixing, what's your criteria for finding the right engineer, the right mixer? When that happens, usually it's finding somebody that's very friendly to work with and somebody that can take a group and make things seamless in the studio. That's what I try to do myself when I'm recording, but certainly working with engineers. You want to make sure that the band and the artist feels comfortable. You want it to be seamless. You don't really want anything to be in the way. You don't want things to take extra time. You just want things to flow. And that makes it good not only for myself, but for the artist. Everybody feels comfortable and everybody feels like they can create. Is the studio part of that equation that you're looking for comfort for the artist? It certainly can be. There's a lot of times, especially depending on the size of the ensemble and the people involved. There are times when, for example, you have a really large group of people and the studio can be really critical in that case. You need a certain environment for everybody to sort of have their space. In the opposite way, let's say it's one artist and let's say you're doing a vocal, you're doing something very intimate and personal. That can also be really important where you're in an environment that feels comfortable and safe for that one person. It can kind of go both ways, but the studio can be really paramount for that. Are you a big believer in pre-production and can you tell everyone what pre-production is? Sure, and I am a big believer in that. The process of pre-production is essentially, in a nutshell, it's doing your homework before you go to the studio, basically. I think it's essential. Whenever I have the opportunity to do that, I almost always do. It's something I really try to stress. Even a day or two of doing things before you get to the studio and rehearsing songs, going over songs, keys, tempos, all that stuff, that can be so beneficial. It's really almost amazing how much time you can save down the road. I know it's funny because a lot of groups think, ah, we rehearse all the time, we practice all the time, we're fine. We don't need to go to rehearsal room or we don't need to go to the studio to work on these tracks. The amount of time it saves you down the road is pretty incredible. I'm always a big believer in pre-production. Who do you look to or who have you looked toward for inspiration? People in your world, not just producers but musicians. I know you've got a great support group around you. I feel very lucky in that regard because my biggest artistic inspiration was somebody I ended up working for, David Bowie. That still remains to this day. My inspiration also doesn't just come from music personally. It comes from art in any form, visual art as well, literature as well. Bowie is an easy name for me, but my other hero in music is Brian Eno too. That's a big one for me. I've been very lucky to work with some people that, like Prince for example, that's a big one for me. I've been fortunate to work with Laurie Anderson, who is not just a musical but an artistic hero for me. Those are people that are very inspiring. Every single time I'm listening or working with them, I feel very privileged and lucky. We're going to switch over to Angie now and we're going to come back to you, Mario. Our engineer guest is Angie Tao. Angie was born in Singapore and currently works at various studios in New York City. She started her career working at a write track studios in New York and currently records out of the best studios New York City has to offer, including the power station at Berkeley NYC, the Domenna Center, Sears Sound and Reservoir Studios. Over the course of her career, Angie has worked with such prominent talents as Phil Ramon, Frank Phillipetti, Julie Teymour, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacomore, Carter Burwell, Elliott Goldenphall, as well as artists such as Janet Jackson, Madonna, Bono and the Edge, the Neptune's, Pat Methany and Wynton Marsalis, an incredible array of auteurs and artists. Her career highlight, the original cast album for Be More Chill, recorded and mixed by Angie, is one of the top five stream cast albums of the past decade, over 350 million streams to date. Angie, tell us what recording an album entails. Hi, Joe. Well, on a really basic level, I'd say that recording an album is, it's magic because I mean, you take something that didn't previously exist, and then you're putting it into a form that you can now hear over and over again, right? I mean, you can argue that music existed on a page with lines and dots, but you can hand it to your friend and have them hold it up to their ear and have them hear what you hear. So that's what I would say, it's magic. What are some of the first steps you take when you're asked to record a project? Well, hopefully I would be able to have a conversation with the producer, with the artist, and some of the questions that I would ask is, what's the instrumentation? Is it mostly acoustic? Is it mostly synth based? And how different is it going to be from song to song? This is the kind of question that if it is an acoustic-based album, it helps me to figure out the floor plan for the session. You know, which musicians are going to be where? Who needs to be next to each other? Who's going to need to be in an isobooth? And then I asked questions about how do they want this album to sound? Is it more vintage? Is it going to be more modern? And that's going to determine what kind of mics and gear that I would choose. And then lastly, just basic things like, are they going to be any pre-recorded tracks? Is there a scratch vocal? Is there a click track? And those kind of questions help me to determine, how do I set up my proto sessions? Do I need to build in overdub tracks? How do I lay out my console? What do the musicians need to hear in their headphones? How vital do you see your role in all of the above? How vital? You know, as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. If everything's, you know, crazy distorted, or if the guitar might get bumped and it's facing the wrong way, or the piano mics drooped and they're lying on the strings, as much as technology has advanced and we have all these tools to fix it in the mix, those are the kind of things that you can't really fix. So the question, the producer goes out and he's not back and the band says to you, Angie, let's get going. Points when you have to make decisions when he or she is not in the room. What is your tact? What do you do? It depends. Usually, if the band wants to go and the producer is on a phone call or something, then I'm fine with going because it'll take them a while, especially if it's at the beginning of the day and it takes everybody a while to dial in their headphones. And if people haven't played with click before, it usually takes a couple takes for them to get comfortable with that. So I'm me and I'm, you know, the producers are usually fine with with us just going ahead and getting a couple takes under our belt. You know, if they have to be out of the room for that it's fine. And they asked you to make a decision with the producer out of the room. What do you do? I try to be as tactful as possible. And of course that this also depends on which producer we're talking about. You know, generally, if it's like a decision about, should I use this snare or this snare, I try to make the best decision as if it's a decision that's holding up the session. And if it looks like the producer is going to be away for quite a bit then you know I have to make a decision based on previous experience, and also hopefully make a decision where it doesn't boxes in you know if if if we do choose the wrong snare the producer comes comes in comes back in and says you know I hate it let's go with the other one. You can always go back and do another take but at least you didn't hold the session up. And the amazing successes had. When you worked on that record did you know. No, I don't think any of us know, you know, it played at a theater in Jersey. And, you know, I hadn't heard about the book before it's based on a book, and I was called to to work with with Joe iconis who who was the writer who was the songwriter for that and I had knew of Joe. He was very active in the theater scene for a while. And I was excited to work with him and, you know, I did a little bit of homework you know like listen to his previous albums previous releases, and you know, showed up on the day and everybody was super excited and super into it. And I immediately within it was one of those things where, within the first five minutes of hitting record. I was like, Wow, this is something special. You know, and that's only happened that that's happened a few handful of times the other time that it happened was when I was an assistant engineer for the original cast album of in the Heights. You know, it was it was like it was just like, you know, you're doing something and you're, you're looking at levels and you're doing this and that and then like, you get just get caught off guard by the music. And it's just like wow this is something really special. And so when we, it was also, it was also I believe the first album that I remember correctly, that I was able to record and mix all the way through. So it was a really big deal for me and I really wanted wanted to do a great job and, and Joe, I and Charlie Rosen who was the, the orchestrator really gave me, you know, the space to like do my thing. You know, before, before, before, before we reviewed mixes, and I really appreciated that and had a great time working with those guys. I mean, we, we put it out and, you know, didn't think much of it. And every time I would go back to to the record label for for something. They would mention, Oh, by the way, have you looked at the, have you looked at the statistics for be more chill and I said no and they're like, it's actually, you know it's doing it's doing pretty well for something that like had no marketing and, and that was playing at a computer out in New Jersey. And, you know, a year passes by and they're like, did you see have you have you seen like it's continuing to climb. And in two years in it really started to take off and I couldn't believe it. And I think, at a certain point it, it went, it went officially viral you know you had, you had, you had kids in high school and, and, and college, making these hand drawn animation to the songs. And there was a lot of fan art fan art out there there was a lot of people doing covers of these songs, and it just, you know, like the music. The same way that it had had moved me moved all these legions of people to the point where you couldn't ignore the attention that this album was getting that the streams that this album was getting in. Some produce some theater producers came together and they were able to put it on off Broadway for it was supposed to be a limited three month engagement. And within, you know, the first couple weeks, you know, it ticket sales were sold out. And, and unsurprisingly, it actually did make it to Broadway so this was the first time that it was the people who got a show to Broadway the fans who got the show to Broadway, you know, and, and, and not people in the conference room or you know people in it or like the usual gatekeepers who ushered a show to Broadway. So I really love, I really love the show I really love the story of the show and I hopefully there's more like it. In the Heights, can you give me a minute on Lin Manuel. I mean like in the Heights I was an assistant engineer. And again, like I said I was you know making patches and you know trying to get levels and stuff and come come the first take. He opens his mouth, and everyone's jaw just drops. I don't think much has changed since then I think the same thing still happens you know he's just incredibly talented as as a writer, as a performer, and, and, and, you know all this success that that he's had I don't think I don't think anyone's really surprised by it it's just the rest of the world catching up. Your final question who do you look to for inspiration, who have you looked to when you're starting for inspiration. Well as as as when I first started at the studio as an intern. It would be the assist the senior assistant engineers you know because whenever I was in the back of the room watching these guys. They always seem to be like two three steps ahead of the client. You know it's like before people even ask for something they have it ready to go. And so I was always in all of that and and you know back then as I, I learned as I do still now is that it's the assistant engineers who are actually controlling the pace of the session so be nice to your assistant engineers. So the other thing is as an engineer. I have very fond memories of being in sessions with people like Richard King and jolly wataki people who helped me understand that that it's not about, you know, the fancy plugins, or the stacks and stacks of gear that it's just about getting the mic into the right place in front of a great musician. And, and, you know, just a lot of things that I learned also just from watching them in terms of how they interacted with producers with musicians and how they communicated. I still think about those days often, and then now it's, it's my peers, you know we have a great community of engineers here in New York City, and, and a lot of them, people like Ian Kagey, Isaiah Bowland, Lawrence Manchester, Eric Lee, Alex Winger, I've known these guys for decades now and we've all had to navigate the ever changing landscape of the recording scene here in New York. And it's just, you know, I'm enthralled by by how each person has their own solution to the same problem, you know whenever we cross paths, you know I love catching up with these guys. And hearing how, you know, like the latest tips that that they have or the latest tricks that they've they found out. And some of those guys are also parents and I'm a parent myself and it's a whole other challenge to, to be a parent doing what we do you know with such erratic schedules and long days so you know those those are the people who inspire me and I'm lucky to be able to run in the same circles as they do. We're lucky to have you. Fernando, how are you man. How about yourself. I'm well thank you. Fernando was born in Caracas, Venezuela and now works out of the studio the great indoors, what a great name, based in Clinton Hill Brooklyn at a studio he does pre production over dubs and mixing. He also records the studios throughout the city. Over the course of his career, Fernando has worked with Paul McCartney vampire weekend, Lauren Hill, Adam Lambert, James Taylor Christian McBride and Esperanza Spalding to name a few. He has three Grammys all with Esperanza Spalding for best jazz vocal albums, 12 little spells, radio music society and song rights apocatary lab. Tell us what mixing an album entails Fernando. Well just to take. Thank you for the good intro by the way as I sound pretty impressive when you hear from someone else. I like taking after like what Angie and Mario said like once Angie and Mario make those decisions of what they want the album to sound like what studio they're going to where to place the microphones, how they're going to mic on all those things. After all the editing and post production that would contact me or the mixer to send them all the multi track. It will be the last person responsible, maybe on a creative point of view not obviously there's mastering after, but I feel like this is a point where you can really shape the way an album sounds. And it can go from being something that has hundreds of tracks to just be a stereo track that you can actually listen to in your headphones out of a computer or your email or without needing like any specific software to like reproduce audio. Basic things just like as levels or panning you determine the space of where things are placed. The vibe of the song, which depending on the producer and the kind of project is very often if it's like a good production and a good arrangement it's there already when you get it so just kind of like digging to polish things. I mean some other scenarios where people might not have like a very clear idea or they might, it maybe it's a band that is self producing. You can do magic like Angie saying you know and like really turn something from. It can sound like in so many different ways like just by adjusting a few little things than yeah you can really shape the song into its final form. Can artists and producers get an idea of their vision so you can make it come true in the mix. Yeah, absolutely even before I accept that project or before I get hired to do a project there's several conversations involved with producers artists and labels. Because at the end, all of this is subjective right the fact that I think something sounds amazing someone else might think it sounds horrible it's just not, I'm not always going to be the right person for every project. Everyone is going to be the right person for a project so you always have to make sure that you're on the same page, as far as what you're hearing for the songs and for the final product. And yeah you have lots of conversations you know I usually talk to them about what have they been listening to lately you know what inspired them to make this album, and it's sort of like reference like sonically I've been asked for like, if you were to listen to your song in a movie scene what would that movie scene be like if it just helps create all these emotions at the end that's what we're trying to do create an emotion for the people that are listening to the music to connect to right. Does the artist and or the producer ever come to your studio to listen or is everything sent digitally today emailed. It really depends. I have people that like to come. Most of the time though it's just me mixing by myself, at least the first pass of the song and then I will send a mix. So they can take some notes and decide what kind of changes they would like to make. And at that point sometimes they come to my studio or sometimes we listen live through like listen to like a plugin that you can send them so they can listen live to what I'm doing we can make the music together. Sometimes it's just like the artists or producers email and be back saying hey we want to change these things and you just do it back and forth. But at that stage of the process I usually like having someone either listening online or here because I just feel things move faster. And at the end you know like, I feel that way they feel more involved in the process. And that's always a good thing you want the artist to like feel like he's involved in all this like it's not someone else who's making these decisions because that way they get more attached to it and at the end like Mario and I just said this is also like a social job you know you want to be with people that you want to hang out with and they want to hang out with you and also helps on that end of things. Okay. As you get the files in. Is there a great discrepancy between a great recording or do you get things recorded so well and things recorded. You're wondering, they really use an engineer to record this. Does it vary. Oh yeah absolutely. It's great to awful. Yes, absolutely. Sometimes it's just sometimes I'm a mixing engineer and sometimes I'm a magician or a failed magician you know, because there's only so much you can do like there's great like the technology has advanced so much and there's really incredible things that we can do nowadays. But at the end of the day you know, you can only push things so far, and it always comes down to to like their song you know if it's a bad song or a bad production there's only so much that you can do like I can try to make a song. Some interesting by adding all these effects and trying to create all this stuff but I mean at that point you're becoming kind of like an additional producer there's always so much that you can do right. When you're being a magician, the band coming to you and say we're really don't understand what you're doing with the mix, and you know you've got it, you know it sounds good. How do you personally communicate that with them, rather than just say I'm going to walk away, which is really the last thing you want to do as a magician. How do you do that personally, how do you tell me the artist, I don't think I'm hearing it, and you know it sounds good. What's your tact what's your take. I think it's very tough like, I feel like you can't. I just can't tell an artist no you're wrong, because at the end this is their album you know, hopefully there are the people who are going to be playing this song slide for the rest of their lives in front of millions of people. And that people are going to be listening to song non stop you know, you can always make suggestions so you can start from that point like at least I would be like okay so what what is it about this that is not working about it. It's a song for you, you know, like, and then you can try to like explain them in a way without being condescending just be like okay just understand this is kind of like where I'm going this is what I was thinking. And I feel like very often once you're having the conversation you know you can start seeing each other's perspective and you can start understanding a little bit better both sides of the argument you know. And you know, that's part of like being a mixer like you're always going to have someone to tell you know these socks I want to do it this other way and then you might feel like it's not the right thing you know but you have a label and a producer and an artist to make happy. Have you ever walked away. Yeah, the artist is just too thick headed, and they just can't see what you're doing, even though you believe it and you're right. How do you do that have you done it before. I've done it only a couple of times. It's never been an easy decision one of them. I just simply told the artist like you know like, I understand what you're trying to do to be completely honest just not what I'm hearing it, and I think that means that I'm not the right person for this project I think you should try to find someone because you don't want to burn any bridges right maybe the next album they want to do something different at the end of the day this is like a small community, you don't want someone to go to their friend who plays in this other band that you were at a dick, you know. So you have to find ways away and other times I did do a project where they're making me make some like extreme changes that I just really disagree with. And I just had to step as like sorry like at the end my name is going to be on this if we're credited which everyone who's watching here please credit your engineers producers mastering engineers and everyone. At the end of the day, whether it's my album or not my name is on it, you know, someone else my here and they say oh this sounds horrible who makes this and then I lost a few gigs because of that. So if the train is going off the side of the mountain at some point you have to jump you will jump. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What's your favorite type of music to mix. I love pop and rock stuff. I grew up listening to that and I don't get tired of it. Luckily, though my career has been very, it switches from genre to genre and that thing keep things interesting. And it also allows me to inform myself from like you know because you can always bring things from one genre into the next and make something special with it. But I love working on the pop and rock side of things. Who inspired you and coming up and you want to be a mixer. Who did you listen to engineer wise who are some of your favorite mixes but who did it inspired you to do this and excel at what you do. Well I think people that I look up to that when I heard some of their mixes I, it made me actually think it's a call wow who makes this like it took me to that level you know, because sometimes you just don't even think about it because it just sounds good and that's it, it's great you know, but sometimes I hear something like I have no idea how they got this sound. And people like Chad Blake. It's a huge inspiration to me I feel like also like more younger guy Sean Everett he also falls in that side of things. I always love Elliot Shiner above clear mountain. When I started working in the city, I worked at avatar studios and rich costy was locked in a room and I just love going up there and listen to what they were doing when I was helping recall stuff. Because he's one of my favorites as well, or Serban Manny, Kevin kill and there's so many people but at the same time I feel like, like Mario saying like when I get to my studio and I'm getting ready to mix. I always like some sort of like poetry book or something that I can read super quick that was just like, it's a different sort of inspiration that is not necessarily like a sonic thing. And you know, I don't feel like you get inspiration from everywhere life, you know. Thank you man, Kim. How are you. I'm very good Joe, how are you. Good. This is Kim Rosen Kim was born in North Hampton, Massachusetts. Now works out of her studio knack mastering in New Jersey. Over the course of her career, Kim has mastered music for tons of people including Bonnie Ray, Franz Ferdinand dashboard confessional. That Nina Freelon, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco to receive Allison Russell the milk carton kids and Joe Henry. She's won two Grammys in the best folk album category for any man's mental illness and Rhiannon Giddens they're calling me home. She also has two Grammy Noms for best engineered non classical albums by the milk carton kids, all the things that I did know the things that I didn't do, and Ryan Freeland's the greatest title ever, and Ryan freelance dig in deep. Tell us Kim what that's Bonnie Ray, Bonnie Ray dig in deep. So sorry. I was the engineer. Ah, okay. Research is not always perfect. Tell us what mastering an album entails. We heard a lot about how to make a record. Mastering a record is the final step in the creative and engineering process before it gets sent off into the world, whether that be as a vinyl record streamed on a streaming platform, even a CD. They still make those these days. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take the final stereo mix, and I'm going to take all of the songs put them in order. I'm going to make sure that the relative volume of every song flows nicely from, you know, song to song track to track through the album. I might make some adjustments, perhaps to the tone of things so I might be able to adjust the bass in every song, a few of the songs to make it sound like an album, and now it really differs how much of that adjusting I might do from project to project. And then other times there's a lot of work that needs to be done to kind of bring things to a common ground and get it sounding cohesive, like an album. Beyond that creative part of things. A mastering engineer is going to prepare all the final files in the correct way so there's a certain way and format to make files that are going to a vinyl record there's a certain way to make files that are going for streaming, and a certain way to make a file that's going to be made into a CD. And they all take a different specific set of parameters to really make it sound best on each format. We get questions from managers a lot. Well, the specific question is Joe, why do we have to master this. It's mixed it sounds great. And I get a little angry, and then I say well, you answer Kim. Well, for precisely that final thing I was talking about you know to make those files properly correctly to spec. But really, you really need to know how to do that you know to take just a mix and send it off. It's not going to be optimized for streaming do you know what sample rate it needs to be sent at. Do you know how to prepare the files for vinyl, should you make any adjustments because the vinyl format playback is a little different than streaming for CD. And all of that knowledge and information you know that's what a mastering engineer is for. And then also, I mean if you've ever heard an album, not mastered and mastered. The difference can be subtle, but it's quite impactful, most of the time. And that's really what we're going for we're looking for something that is going to elevate the sound of a project. That's what we want, which doesn't sound like a lot. But when you listen to a before and after, you know it just, it just completes the project. When I used to work for Phil Ramon when I started in this business when none of you were born. We would go to Sterling. And before you were mastering and Ted at the time would be mastering ability Joel record, and Phil would sit outside the whole day they buy him lunch and we talk about baseball. And I'd say Phil, how come we're not inside listening. And he said we'll go inside at the end. Do people come to here anymore, you just send them the files. What's going on today. So, I'm actually starting to find that people are coming in more. So I'm getting a lot more attendance attended sessions lately, which is great for me. I love having company. However, I'm of the mind. I really like clients to listen in an environment that they are most familiar. So if they come into my room. It sounds great. But they're going to make decisions and comments about how things are sounding to direct the session and the final result of the mastering. And that's not always what they would have decided if they were listening in their most familiar spot. So I find that, you know, as far as being effective. That's not always the case, but it sure is fun to come in and see the gear and listen, you know, on the big fancy speakers, or it sounds, you know, really fabulous in this room. So the experience is great. And it's nice, nice to socialize, but in terms of being efficient, not not always necessarily. I do a lot of sending stuff through FTP, sending it for people to review, sending final files, you know, prior to the internet days, everything was sent snail mail. I mean, we were FedExing 1520 packages a day on the regular. And then waiting, lots of waiting. Not anymore comments from people who do come or not. Do they range from saying to insane. Um, well, I would say the most sane and the most regular would be, you know, adjustments to volume people. A lot of times want things louder, which is very typical thing to hear. It gets really tricky because people will compare a mastered way file to something they're listening to streaming, which has been normalized and adjusted and in different ways that we know we haven't that we can't control. So, you know, it's, it's people just one of the other comments that they might make is if I can, you know, adjust the level of a vocal or a panning of a guitar. So a lot of times a little bit of inexperience leads people to believe that I can do more than I can. And there's lots of secrets and things that I can do to make slide adjustments. But for the most part, if a client is looking for something that's significant, we'll have to go back to the mix engineer and check in with them and see if they can make a change. You know, but yeah, you have comments will range pretty pretty broadly. I have to explain to the artist, not probably to the producer that as it leaves your place neck, and the best possible sounding format it can, when it goes to DSPs they're going to press it. It sounds a bit different than when it leaves your room. Yes, so, you know, it, it should not sound that different. You know, everyone is in the same boat. Every single artist engineer. Everyone is preparing their files and their songs and their album in the best way they can. And then sending it off and everybody's listening to it and for the most part enjoying it. You know, it's, that's just, I don't think that there's anything that's so terrible that's happening once it gets out there. Okay. I'm not sure, but I trust you more than I trust who told me that. Any favorite type of music to master. I have a pretty eclectic taste. So I love listening to a lot of different things. However, because I have really great working relationships with engineers that have a tendency to stay in a certain wheelhouse. I love myself kind of in that same wheelhouse so a lot of Americana, a lot of folk, a lot of blues, singer songwriter stuff. But really, I cut my teeth, and I came up mastering a lot of hardcore, a lot of metal. So, you know, my, my range is, is quite, is quite broad. And so, because of my taste in music, I really find it easy to connect to whatever genre that that I'm presented with, and and really doing it justice to the best of my ability. Okay. Who did you look for for inspiration when you were coming up. When I started my mastering career, you know, one of those easy things turning over an album at the time it was CDs. This was pre streaming. So it was pretty easy to figure out who worked on something that you liked. A lot of the albums that I would turn over would be Greg Calbee, George Marino. Bob Ludwig, you know, and I don't know that that made me seek out more of their work. I would always just kind of keep it tally of things that I really liked, and I would find the same names over and over again. You know, as you, as I have worked and come up in my career, I've met a lot of just fantastic engineers that have become good friends, both near and far. And I think that it's a really something that a lot of people are, I think Angie mentioned in this you know it's really about having a good community. It makes all the difference. So whether it's people that you're working with people that you can talk about what's going on in your work life. Your challenges, things that are going on that are kind of stressing you out. You know it's really important. So whereas in the beginning of my career I was looking and inspired by these other engineers, you know, I'm at a point where I'm looking around me and my peers and my good friends, you know, they're who inspire me now. And so really truly getting back to see live music that was really, really an important and impactful part of this past year. You know that the two years since COVID started was hard for artists touring musicians, but getting back to see live shows was just fantastic You see that show you sit in that room with all the other fans you feel that energy. You know that's what I'm working and I'm working on mastering something I'm looking to bring that experience that impacts that energy that you feel from a live show to what someone feels when they listen to a final master fanboy question. I don't see many live albums anymore. Have you done any and if so any unique challenges from a studio album. I did master a live album last year for Deathcap for Cutie. It is yet to be fully released it was released for one day for 24 hours and all the proceeds went to some benefit, which is pretty cool. But they said they're going to release it full release soon. One of the challenges of that is if there's not desirable crowd noise between live songs, you kind of end up doing a lot of funny editing to get it to sound natural and right and fading out. You get all the hoots and hollers that are going between songs. You know, but if it's great band. You know, it's going to sound good you great mix and mix engineer will mix it it'll sound good but it's really kind of the transitions of a live album that can sometimes be tricky. But overall no, and in fact, for the most part, you have a, you know, an experienced engineer recording a live albums pretty consistent, you know from song to song there's not much that's going to change like it could in a studio recording. Your last question any particular challenges as a woman. I believe that my experience. And I know this is definitely not most female engineers experienced in the industry has been pretty mellow. Some comments here and there. I was lucky enough to have a really good mentor when I started Alan douches he was fantastic and encouraging. And, you know, maybe a couple clients coming in when I had started mastering that would assume that my boss was mastering projects and I was just putting my name on them. So that wasn't really me and we're just put my name on it so I can get, you know, experience. But then when I went out on my own and started my own studio, you know, I'm just really lucky find find really great supportive people. You know, be honest, be myself. I'm just, I haven't had too many uncomfortable situations, but also I'm not. I'm not around people a lot. I'm kind of in my room by myself a lot. So the most that I'm going out and meeting people is for events and everybody there is always, you know, pretty great. But, you know, I know that this is definitely not the case for most people that are in working studios and people are coming and going. There's a lot more opportunity to have less than favorable interactions with not very kind and woke people. Angie, I have to throw it to you as the other woman on the panel. We have about a minute left. Oh, that's not fair. I'm sorry. For you. I'm sure there are challenges, you know, I remember being in the studio in the control room, turning the knobs pushing the faders and the client will walk in and say so who's engineering today. And I have been in situations working in certain genres where you're sitting there while people are have lyrics that are quite demeaning to women. There have been situations where as as a, I forgot what were the exact words you used Kim less than favorable interactions. More than I can count on on on two hands unfortunately, but I think as I've gone up through the years, those interactions have have gone way down. And, and I think that's, that has to do. Hopefully, you know when people get into the room and they know that I'm not just there. Because nobody else was available that you know that I you know they can like that I can actually do what I said I was going to do and produce results that that they're they're stereotypes and prejudices will fade away. Thank you all for participating. I think that's all the time we have. I really appreciate you guys jumping on. And thank you all so very much. It's great to see everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. All right, now we're going to move on to the questions. So, to start, Gary Houghton asks, for engineers, I'm new to recording and wondering how to keep track of each take do hit save after each take the song. How do you label each one so you can find a specific take later. I'm thinking what's what what would make you pick like the best take of a song. So file management is really one of the foundations and very important foundations of recording recording mastering mixing anything for this precise reason so you can get back to a take that you wanted it how you label things sometimes depends on the digital workstation you're using so if you're in logic or pro tools. So basically, you, you end up with sometimes long titles. And so if it's a vocal take, you know, vocal, maybe you want to include an abbreviation for the mic that you're using. And then you don't have to write take but then yes you have to number them, you know 1234 and then have perhaps some notation either you're writing down keeping track of ideal takes so you write down the number. Or you can include that in the title of the file as you name it for every file that you record in, which seems tedious but you know when you don't do these things you can end up kind of with your head spinning, trying to figure out where that take went what happened which one did we want which one is this. So yeah file management is one of those things and once you find something that works, and once you establish it you want to stick with it so changing things too much can also lead to kind of more confusion. So, Antonio asks, how much spontaneity is there in the arrangement in arrangement. Oh my God, in arrangement decision making sorry. So those that depends on what you're recording so an arrangement, you know, is what various instruments are playing. You know, if it's an orchestra changes on the fly, I would imagine, although I'm not a recording engineer, typically happen less. However, changes in arrangement when you're just recording a band. If a guitarist wants to do another take a change to the arrangement might be a change to his guitar solo, or, you know, a change to the baseline as the basis. I would imagine that more changes would happen on the fly for smaller groups that are recording, rather than larger ones. But sure, definitely possible. Sorry. Hi, where would you, someone's asking where would the best places to get certified on sound engineering are. All right, so there's a number of colleges that you can go to. There is Berkeley College of Music in Boston. There's NYU in New York City, of course, there's full sale in Arizona. There's Blackboard Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. There's a lot of really great places that can really help educate you and cut your teeth in recording. They all have different things to offer. There's also smaller colleges, but they exist. There's full on, you know, audio engineering programs at a lot of colleges, if that's something that you're engineer that you're interested in. It might be a two year program. It might be a one year program. It might be a full four year program where you can, you know, double major and get another degree while you're studying for audio engineering. But that's a great place to start, but not necessary. You know, the whole idea of a, of learning about audio engineering at a school is kind of a newer thing, because previously it was, it was done, you would do some recording at home with a home tape recorder. And then you would hang around a recording studio long enough, sweep the floors, take out the garbage, and then just start assisting in learning, learning while you work. That was a very traditional, typical way of learning. And that's how I learned. I did not go to an audio school. I got a job as an intern or assistant at a mastering studio and I worked there in production, which is just kind of the file side, changing music, using gear side and work there for seven years total before going out on my own. But my training, it all happened while I was working and all of my education. So, you know, there's a couple ways you can do it. It's less typical to find a studio that's willing to take on an inexperienced engineer these days. So you really just have to decide if you want that school education or if you want to figure stuff out on your own, and you're kind of a go getter, and maybe you can teach yourself enough that you could find an opportunity at a studio. What is the most important thing to get right when mastering knowing when to do nothing, which, you know, I have a lot of great gear. It can do lots of wonderful wonderful things, but doesn't need it doesn't mean that I need to use all of my gear on every session doesn't mean that I need to turn all the knobs and use all the things. So yeah, one of the things to get right is knowing when a recording sounds fantastic and it really needs minimal minimal work. The other more technical part of that I would say is low end. So all the base frequencies. Really, in my mind, make or break how something sounds too much low end and it just swallows up the rest of the track. And you can't really focus on anything else because the low end is just so loud, which I find typical of a lot of modern releases. But yeah, and also if if there's too little low end, you know you kind of lose the groove and the impact of the sound of a recording. But that's my two cents. So tracking vocals in real time. How do you know it takes are good. You don't you let the vocal keep going on until the song is over or the singer stops in the middle of singing. And you just record every take and then sometimes if you've done a vocal take multiple times you'll go in and you'll comp the vocal which means that you're going to take all of the takes. So let's say there's 10 takes, you go through and you listen to each one and you find the best part of each take, and you edit them together for the perfect take. You know, of course, some vocalists can absolutely nail it in one take and then you find that take and you keep it. Other vocalists that are really striving for, you know, perfection or very meticulous, they might end up comping their vocal to get that take from multiple takes. What made you decide to pursue a mastering career. So I was always very very interested in music, huge product by life, a lot of dance lessons growing up. I was very much into musicals performing of any kind. And I was really unsure of what I wanted to do in my college years. I did one year of community college and just kept feeling the strongest about music. And behold, I had someone say their friend was looking for an assistant at their mastering studio had no experience. I went and I met this mastering engineer interviewed with him, and he said yeah I'd love to hire you. So it was kind of just an opportunity that came my way. I knew nothing about engineering at all, never mind mastering. And all of the education that happened while working in that studio was fantastic. The mastering engineer also work had space in his mastering studio that was for recording tracking and mixing and he had an engineer that would come in at night and and track. And so I took some time assisting him as well to see if maybe I was interested in recording. I decided I wasn't mastering just suited me. I mean, as a lover of music. My job is essentially to listen to musical day now I change and I do things but it's really just listening to musical day. And I can't imagine a better job than that so I feel very lucky that the opportunity came my way, but it was not a decision and that's one of the reasons why it feels kind of magical and special. Aaron asks what speakers slash plugins do you use for mastering or what are your summer. What are some of your favorites you always find yourself using. So my speakers are actually relatively new to me they are Strauss, electro acoustic mf fours. They're very large floor standing speakers, they sound amazing but prior to that, I had pro act 140 mark twos, which were much smaller speakers but also floor standing speakers. As a mastering engineer you want a full range speaker which means that the speaker can reproduce sounds all the way down frequencies as low as 30 or 40 Hertz, and all the way up to 20 Hertz and higher. So the subwoofer I do not I'd like to have speakers that can reproduce that base and that low end themselves. And for plugins, you know it's really kind of amazing it's been one of the coolest things to see when I started my mastering career plugins were okay. You know there was still a very big difference between what a piece of analog gear could do and what plugins could do, but they have come so far. Right now I really love fab filter plugins they're they're great. Their EQ plugin is excellent with the new dynamic feature on it. Also fab filters pro L to which is their limiter plugin. Those are two plugins that I use a lot. And I'm still holding on to some older plugins TC electronic has a really great brick wall limiter. I'm using that as well. But I use kind of a hybrid model a lot of what I do is in the analog domain and then the final limiting and some additional EQ processing is done with plugins. So I'm using plugins but not too too many. This will be the finer final question. No share asks what does an optimal experience look like for a master mastering engineer when everything else is done right what are you looking for in a project that makes you optimistic right off the bat. One of the greatest things when I get mixes and I listen to them and everything sounds balanced so the low end sounds perfectly balanced not too loud, not too quiet. The stereo imaging is open and detailed. There is not a lot of compression in the mix. So the song itself is dynamic. That is really just the most optimized mix to me now, you know, that's great for American music and folk music and singer songwriter music but that's not something that you would expect from, say rock. When things come in they do tend to be more compressed so you know I guess what a great experience would be it could differ from genre to genre. So getting in a great rock, rock and roll mix would be a little bit more compression but still dynamics working within the song. And when I say dynamics I mean like you can feel the song like move you can feel a little bit of space in between the instruments. You can feel like it's all shoved up to the ceiling and pushed up there, and it's just loud and abrasive. So no matter the genre I'm always looking for some kind of dynamics within the mix. And I guess that that's would be that would be the, the optimal thing to look for and be happy for. Wonderful. Well, thanks everyone for coming. I hope to see you next week at the next master class. Thank you so much.