Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!Rose was one of the first people to start following Tangela on IG when the podcast launched in early 2020. Tangela always wanted to visit Brisbane. Rose brings up an animated kids show that is entirely produced in Brisbane, called Bluey.Tangela shares her love for childrens' shows' theme songs as well as jingles in general. Tangela asks Rose about a favorite theme song. Rose's first thoughts are of the THX film intro and the Playstation 1 boot up sounds.Tangela's favorite theme song (at the time of recording) was for the TV show Psych, partly because there were alternate recordings of it depending on episode context, including Boyz II Men and Bollywood versions.After discussing music in a similar light, they talk about front-of-house work and Tangela asks Rose about her work streaming live shows to the internet. That discussion includes running front-of-house with limited setups, such as fewer microphones than the band would have ideally.Rose - "live is the thing that made me realize that even if I screw up, it's gonna be alright ... and you can be annoyed about it, but the gig's done now"She points out that she is constantly reinforcing to her students that they should share their work, in process. It doesn't have to be perfect before they show anyone (and shouldn't, at least if you want constructive criticism and feedback).Speaking of students, Rose is a lecturer at a university. As a teacher-person, she's been teaching for 8 years this year. She originally went to school herself for a Bachelor's in Audio. Rose tries to keep up with changes in technology with regards to audio. She cites TikTok as a particularly powerful case study regarding impact on the music industry. FMOD is an audio middle-ware (between your game engine and your DAW) tool she's been particularly excited about. It is used to manage the audio library in the context of interactive media like games.Rose - "It allows you to just create all of this diversity from a quite small package of original sounds ... you get to choose how it will actually play back in a much more detailed kind of way"Next they discuss how and why Rose has segued into gaming audio. As part of the topic, she uses Red Dead Redemption 2 as an example for dynamic and flexible sound scoring/design. From there they discuss the nuances around creating audio for use in consumer grade speakers/headphones, as well as the compression challenges associated with streaming platforms.After, they discuss demographics in fine detail, in terms of inequalities and the differences between America and Australia. They also discuss whether or not there is a labor shortage in audio. Tangela refers here to the Tim Weaver episode. Rose relates to Tangela how the festival economy has been seriously affected by Australia's state level border closings during Covid.For closing thoughts, Rose strongly recommends that creatives push themselves to make stuff, and release it, put it out! "Not being precious about anything"Rose can be found at roseparkeraudio on everything."Rose had an early interest in music and audio production spurred...

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!The interview starts off discussing the stereotype of the grumpy sound engineer, and where it might have come from. After some thoughts on stereotypes, they attempted a proper introduction for Gilly Moon. She is an audio engineer and sound designer based in Los Angeles, CA. She holds her MFA in Sound Design from California Institute of the Arts, where she did sound design for theater, themed entertainment, film, animation and spatial audio. After graduating in 2016, her wide range of interests led her to doing a lot of work for themed entertainment attractions, such as Halloween Horror Nights and San Diego Comic Con. In 2018, Gilly and her co-sound designer won an Ovation Award for Excellence in Sound Design for Rogue Artist Ensemble's "Kaidan: Walls Grow Thin," an immersive Japanese horror production that spanned three floors of a warehouse. Gilly currently works as a Broadcast recording Technician for NPR.Tangela asks Gilly about the general advice in the industry about niching down."I find that there are a good number of people that do not do that, and you are one of them! ... Was that on purpose? ... How'd that come to be?"After some discussion about each of their academic and career histories, they concluded that while a person's career can seem to lack a defined niche, oftentimes there's a common thread that ties things together.Tangela asks Gilly how she developed an interest in audio. That sparked an involved discussion about both their backgrounds in theater. From there they move on to a discussion about resources for training your ear to be a better audio engineer.Gilly says she really enjoyed listening to these past episodes.After discussing podcast format, Tangela makes the case that the podcast industry still has a lot of growing room in comparison to other industries like cinema and gaming.From there they spend some time discussing the accessibility of recording and the different pros and cons of Apple products.Gilly wrote a blog post for Sound Girls a while ago about language and biases in audio that Tangela wanted to dig into. They cover a variety of specific examples of biased language before getting around to the question of, is there "an end point to trying to transform the audio world ... without it just turning into ... a clutter bucket of tomfoolery ... ?"Gilly explains the point of Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives, concluding with "I don't think there's an end goal, I think we're always gonna be looking at our group and being like, 'what does it look like right now, ok how can I make it better?' And I think that's kinda fun."Tangela wonders what diversity means outside of metropolitan areas. After riffing on that, they tackle the idea of "minorities are expected to take on the work of diversifying a predominantly white place often," in Gilly's words.Tangela points out to Gilly that a lot of her...

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord! Evan Smith wears many hats. He's a DJ, an audio repair tech, a producer, and an evangelist. He went to school at MediaTech Institute in Dallas, TX, to learn audio.Tangela points out in the opening statements of the show that, while Let's Talk...Audio is about minorities in the industry, she views that umbrella as including things outside of the usual talk about identity. For instance, outside of the church, it is abnormal to find audio engineers who profess a Christian perspective.Evan says "I've seen God work more outside the church, than inside."Tangela: "I don't typically see audio engineers who are as forward with their faith ... I think that's something ... that would be nice for people to hear about ... to know that if that's something that matters to you, you can do it and be successful in it."Evan also works under the name DJ Evon. He uses the request for an introduction to talk about how he presents his Christian perspective in the context of his work.Evan does front-of-house sound for his church. He is also in training for audio repair with Audio Electronics in Dallas.They spend some time talking about the joy of watching musical artists become successful, and being able to remember the tiny local gigs they used to play.Tangela: "How do you maintain that balance of being in the secular world ... with your beliefs ... that are at the forefront of your business model?"Evan: "We're not called to judge people outside the church; we are called to judge people inside the church ... what we need to do is stop, take a breathe ..."Tangela asks if he gets push-back against his desire to play clean music when he DJ's shows. Evan says most of his clients respect his preferences and roll with it.Tangela finds a need to clarify for her guest that, while Audio is in the title, it's meant as a starting place, rather than an end goal for interviews. This show is more about how do people function in the world of audio. Tangela points out that there may be members of the audience who follow Jesus, or there might be members of the audience who struggle with sobriety. So she sees this talk as an opportunity for discussing how to handle situations of excess when what you need is restraint.Tangela expresses a takeaway from Evan's thoughts. "You're talking about setting healthy boundaries with people ... being up front with [expectations]." So how do you set up healthy boundaries? It's one thing to say, you should have healthy boundaries. It's another thing to grow and develop healthy boundaries.Evan points out that having deliberate and consistent communication with trusted friends is a key strategy for keeping yourself accountable. He shifts to talking about maintaining rules in a studio situation. "Also, 9 out of 10 audio repairs are because of food ... so don't bring stuff into your studio ..."From there they talk about sound treating your work space with sound panels and bass traps. And then the gear talk starts, and "O my gosh, Evan just went to his closet ..."Evan shares an array of microphones he likes to use, and we find out he is a fan of Slate Digital. Evan takes another opportunity to praise the MediaTech Institute. This podcast interview is being recorded (on his end) with an Universal Audio Apollo X4 interface. His headphones are the Slate VSX.Tangela: "Would you say that you make the gear, or does the gear make you?" She wants to know what Evan's overarching philosophy about the relationship with gear.He says that he started out believing that he needed

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord! This is part two of the Tim Weaver interview! Picking back up, Tim says he has been seeing fewer new-to-audio people over recent years showing interest in getting into live sound work. He gives some advice about work ethic for starting out. He also tells us about the equipment available in the cowboy church where he works (and where he signed into the interview from). At this point he drops a thesis that will be a theme throughout this episode. In live sound, ultimate audio quality is a myth, Good Enough is good enough!He used a two channel Focusrite interface with an Audio-Technica 4040 on his end of the interview.Tim gets back to the topic of work ethic.Tim - "the number one thing that will keep them calling you is reliability ... being there, being reliable, being someone they can count on for all things, means they will count on you for all things. When it happens, they're gonna have an event show up and the sound guy's gonna be booked somewhere else, and they're gonna give it to you.""Be careful cause you can get abused in that situation ... you have to audition the company you want to work for."Tim claims there's a labor vacuum in the production economy for live events. Also, does anyone remember Kinko's?Tangela pointed out to me (Jeff, the editor and shownotes writer, Hi!) that she had a title for the episode in mind.Tim says he gets weekly calls from venues looking for sound engineers to run live sound."There are gigs out there and not enough sound guys to go do them ... Part of that is because this industry ... on this level ... the hours are terrible and the pay is low."Tim ended up starting his own sound company in 2008-2009. He ran it for a few years. "I wasn't very good at it. If I had another piece of advice for anybody ... take business classes ... because that will ... teach you about taxes, teach you about pricing yourself, teach you about total costs involved in doing what you do, and those were all the things I was missing in my business."Tangela says she's been thinking about "entrepreneurship versus nine-to-five mentality. And right now ... the world in general is just like 'start a business!' and nobody really talks about, one, how hard that world is ... and then secondly ... that being nine-to-five is OK for certain types of people!"Tim says his FoH guy in the church, Matt is a corporate AV guy in a tower in downtown Houston for his day job through the week, plus he does a couple additional night gigs on the weekend.Next, Tangela gets Tim to explain the story about how he hired Chance Sampson (which is how she got acquainted with him later). It involved a truck with a trailer full of gear and cash waiting for Chance to show up, sight unseen, having only spoken to Tim over the phone previously!Tim points out he's old, and grew up rural, so that's his background mindset. Further, "I've been pleasantly surprised, way more than I've been screwed over. And I think part of that, is because I'm placing my trust in a person, and that person is responsible for their own stature in life at that point."Tim relates another story about a mediocre lighting tech he took on tour once.Afterwards he talks about the presence of adversity in live production, and how that issue has decreased over the years. The digital technology advances have decreased the workload significantly. The consoles are lighter. Connectivity options like Dante, wifi, and bluetooth have decreased the need for mic snakes, etc.Tim relates a couple of different stories of getting yelled at in tense situations by members of bands he was working for.They move on to a discussion about networking. How does the popular media's emphasis on networking...

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord! This interview kicks off with a story from Tim about some western swing shows he worked in Vegas. Tim Weaver has been working in live audio production since 1993. Tim says he started using digital consoles regularly about 2000. He also says that audio quality for a live event doesn't have to be perfect. "Good enough" is the goal to aim for. This topic will be visited multiple times through this two part interview.Tim - "You're not talking about an educated audiophile audience ... As long as they can hear the vocals and understand what's going on and maybe a little thumpy kickdrum ... 9 and a half times out of 10 the audience is fine. They think it was a good show ... that Astroworld mess that just happened? Bad Show!""All you can do is hope for the best, average it out, make yourself happy ... I'm trying to make myself happy, I'm trying to search for that elusive mix ... It's only happened a handful of times over my whole career."He lays out all the things that have to go right (that are outside the engineer's control) to get that perfect mix.Then there are some noises in Tangela's house that prompt a story about drunk raccoons and a margarita machine.When people want to talk about production while Tim or Tangela are on the job, they welcome it, within reason.Tim - "The meme of the grumpy old sound guy, that was for real when I got started."He describes one of his mentors, Vince at Backstage Sound and Lighting in Bryan, TX, and some of the gear they used to use, such as the JBL Horn Loaded Array.Tim is active on prosoundweb.com; they discuss social media and podcasting. "It's kinda got that flavor of pirate radio."Tangela has noticed in her analytics that some people find the pod from prosoundweb; turns out that's Tim's doing!Next they talk about trust, and letting someone do the thing they've signed up for.Tangela - "You're one of the few people that I've met that is very come one come all ... when I first met you, you didn't really question me in my skills or anything. You just assumed that because I said that I could that I could and then you just let me be at it. And that is not something that usually happens.""It's important that although we talk to minorities about their stories, but also talk to the people who are encouraging of all people in general.""I think that conversation needs to be had just as much so we don't all end up 'white man hating' because we can all fall into that really easy if we're not conscious of ourselves"Tim grew up in rural middle Tennessee, and graduated with a class of sixty-something. "People fear the other, and there was no other to have experience with."When he got out into the real world, he found that people of other backgrounds, are still just people, just like him.Tim has hired Tangela to a few gigs. She was referred to him by Chance Sampson, who has also worked for Tim in the past.Tim - "If Chance told me Tangela can get through the job, I'm gonna let Tangela get through the job however she sees fit to do it ... If I just go in and put my foot down and say 'you can only do it this way' ... you're not learning anything ... that's what McDonald's does to people flipping burgers.""I want to hire people, put them on gigs, let them discover who they were and how they wanna do things, turn them loose ... as long as I'm not getting complaints by the client, what do I care? If I could go in and make the mix...

Hello World! The interview recording begins during a discussion about choir, as Bonnie stays active in various ensembles.Bonnie: "What's nice about keeping up with...side gigs of singing is it keeps your voice in check and it gives you an excuse to practice everyday..."From there they discuss college music programs and how they can vary. Bonnie went to Duquesne University for an experimental multimedia and music program (which they would eventually pull the plug on). As a result, she got to focus on the kind of multimedia technical skills she wanted to, within that umbrella. After graduating she toured with a few different theatre companies."But eventually like, whenever I started doing games ... if you think about interactive cool theatre where stuff happens, and audio happens and visual cues happen, games are pretty much a theatre that you play...when you play a game you are entering in to this world and the experience is like you're sitting in a 4D theatre..."After talking more about education and the changing times, Bonnie steers the conversation towards the gender advocacy perspective of gaming. She's enjoyed seeing the growth of women's participation in the gaming audio industry.She reflects on her raising (in Pittsburgh we should add), as a sole younger sister among several brothers. She remembers playing with all the same toys as her brothers, including the power tools (for instance). Bonnie wonders, if she had been treated differently from her brothers, would she have had the resilience to join and thrive in a male dominated industry like gaming?Bonnie: "This is the interesting part of the interview where I'm left alone..." wherein she drops a fabulous plug for her web presence.After Tangela comes back, Bonnie describes a zombies-themed multimedia production she got to organize in Pittsburgh. A couple of the extras from the production worked for Schell Games. They later recruited her to the company.Bonnie says that getting a bachelor's degree in something, "even if it's math," is important for getting a staffed position at a gaming company. She points out that she likes to see a balance in resumes she looks at, where, yes they have a degree in something pertinent, and they've got some kind of portfolio in related work.After talking about representation and free educational sources, they spent some time discussing social media. Bonnie points shares a little about her time managing social media for multiple theatre related projects and companies.From there, Bonnie shares her perspective on Gamergate. One of her colleagues at the time was the target of some severe harassment. During the Game Developers Conference in July, Bonnie participated in the Loud Secrets of Game Audio Roundtable (presented by International Game Developers Association). This roundtable was organized for discussing sexism and related issues in the workplace.That discussion includes the subject of hiring practices and office politics, and how to combat those issues. These issues are becoming more and more topical across all sectors of the audio industry.Bonnie is on the board for the National Audio Theatre Festival, and reports they just had their first diversity and inclusion roundtable discussion. Bonnie likes the roundtable format over the panel, because it's less structured and more open. She says the best ones she's seen have been the ones that weren't recorded (to save from liability).This episode was recorded over squadcast.fm on October 27, 2021.Bonnie Bogovich always has her fingers in a plethora audio pies! As a sound designer, she has spent over a decade designing audio on a variety of award-winning educational products, virtual and augmented reality simulations, interactive experiences, audio plays and theme park attractions including "I Expect You To Die", Sea World's "Race For The Beach", Legendary's "Annihilator", Earplay's...

Hello World! Juno Black is an audiovisual technology production expert. With a background in music composition, engineering, and events production, Juno’s curiosity has led her to venture into new and advanced audiovisual technologies.This episode opens with a proper introduction from our guest!Tangela asked Juno about her expertise in multimedia production.Juno started her audio career in Colombia, before immigrating to the United States, going initially to Boston. There she attended Berklee College of Music. Eventually Juno finished her Bachelor's degree with Southern Utah University and now she is pursuing a Master's degree, as she wants to teach audio at a college level.Before moving to New York City, Juno opened a recording studio with a couple of friends, in an apartment's garage."If I hadn't been so naïve...it wouldn't have happened."The studio led Juno from producing music to commercials and film. Then she started getting work with independent film projects in NYC. Since most of her work was coming from NY, she decided to move there.While in NY, Juno got into working live sound, and closed her studio in order to work on tours. She worked for Jazz Reach for some time. While touring with them she discovered Austin. Juno thought the change of pace suited her.After moving to Austin, Juno began teaching and working for One World Theatre as production manager. They did close during the pandemic lockdowns. She's working with them again now, in a smaller capacity. Tangela's been trying to focus on the learning opportunities the pandemic has shed light on.Juno thinks that life was too comfortable in America before coronavirus. While the situation is polarizing, she thinks the future is more positive, that good people will prevail.Tangela asks Juno about her business, and does she have a team? Juno has some sub contractors she uses, but otherwise is a one-woman show."I really encourage people ... create that moment in which you put yourself into a position in which you can bring people along and create something."Juno tries to leverage the unique strengths of the people she knows. She references the Queer Riot Festival as an example.Tangela asks about quality standards. Juno talks about education, feedback, and quality communication.Juno dislikes the term "minority" and describes why. From there they speak more generally about language, and briefly touch on the Census as an example. The cultural reclamation of words gets discussed too.Juno brings up a saying from Colombia, "frases de cajon" which means "phrases in a drawer." This refers to short sayings that people use, which don't have room for depth of meaning or nuance, and often serve to shut down conversation. The increasing polarization today leads to conspiracy theory and victim mentality.Tangela brings up her recent talk with Lisa about an oft repeated statistic about women in the audio industry. These kinds of bite sized data points get used without context, without understanding of the context they came from.After some further discussion about "where are you from?" as both an important and a misused thought, Tangela brings up the topic of "echo chambers." Juno thinks this time period has caused people to seek refuge in more extreme positions.Tangela brings that topic back to the craft of audio. Juno illustrates the difference between the analog days versus today with regards to choice limitations. Limiting yourself to a few choices is helpful in comparison to choice-paralysis.Juno: "My...

Hello World! In case you missed the previous episode with Lisa from the Omni Sound Project (LINK), this interview starts with an introduction about Lisa and Omni. Lisa is a musician in Austin, TX, and had first started exploring audio to learn how to record. In an effort to get more educational resources in this area, she started Omni Sound Project in about January of 2020, becoming an online community in March of 2020.What is the primary goal of Omni?"Right now the driving force is achieving gender parity, but we do also focus on all types of inclusion. We wanna make sure that everyone feels welcome in the recording studio ..."Omni's classes aren't necessarily about music or the studio. They have also done classes on podcasting and even on-set recording for film.Lisa is discovering, going into year three with Omni, is that they need to balance including basics-oriented classes that have been covered before with new classes on new topics.Tangela and Lisa remember how naïve their last interview was with regards to Covid's trajectory.The upcoming Signal Gain event will be totally online again this year, excepting a potentially live viewing party that may or may not take place. While Texas law prevents business from requiring proof of vaccination of their customers, they absolutely can still require masks of them.Signal Gain is a celebratory event, kind of like an online conference, with classes from accomplished teachers. This year Omni is adding "speed sessions" to run in between events. These are prerecorded, short form videos.Omni Sound Project has adopted a "core faculty" model with lots of guest teachers, chosen with a strong emphasis on communication skills, generosity and enthusiasm. Lisa has also adopted a practice of holding sponsors to account for gender representation.Omni was originally modeled after organizations like Sound Girls and WAM. While those organizations are geared towards education for professional audio engineers, Omni is a little more community minded. They talk further about differentiation and competition in the online space.Talking about things learned. Lisa has learned to trust her gut more regarding who to do business with. The lockdowns have taught Lisa to prioritize taking care of herself and to be sure to find joy in her music making.Also, Lisa is in Montana during this interview, surrounded by smoke from the west coast fires.Tangela and Lisa like the human element in their respective spaces of interviews and music. Tangela shares a short takeaway from an upcoming episode of The Music Executive podcast which Tangela edits. The host, Cinnamon Denise is also a core faculty member for Omni Sound Project.Finally, you can get in touch at omnisoundproject.com and @omnisoundproject on IGReminder: LTA has a Discord server!As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!This interview was recorded online with Squadcast.fm back in April, and begins with Daniy introducing herself as a sound designer at Bioware. She worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic, Anthem, Mass Effect Andromeda, and currently on the new Dragon Age title. She also has some background in live sound and she enjoys field recording.Daniy and Tangela had previously met at an Austin Engineering Society meeting.She went to Madison Media Institute before moving to Chicago for an internship. Afterward, she moved to Dallas for an internship. Before eventually coming to Bioware in Austin, TX, she had also worked at Gearbox and a couple other places including some live sound work.They talk a little bit about persistence, work ethic, luck, and the strange journeys we take into audio. This includes the job of honoring mentorship advice. But also, you can't know everything about a domain, so embrace being a lifelong learner, and make friends with specialists. Teamwork!The cooking/baking metaphor in this part of the conversation is gold!On the topic of learning, talk to people! Don't take learning from other people's failures for granted. Tangela suggests a book called The Proximity Principle about Steve Jobs' story of getting pushed out of Apple.School seems to teach us "if I can't do it to 100%, then don't do it" - this is a bad habit! And prevents you from growing. Daniy points out "The space to fail is really important."Tangela asks Daniy for an example of a failure in her audio career. Her answer is about the process of having to scrap a project because someone else built something better.The next topic is about areas where we can grow as audio engineers. From there Daniy shares her interest in field recording. Also she loves to travel, and has been to most states in the US.As part of the field recording discussion, Daniy shares some knowledge about noise pollution in the ultrasonic range. Tangela shares a story about getting custom ear plugs and learning about the loudness levels (a damaging amount) of some everyday experiences like riding the bus. They continue to talk about hearing and health.From there the conversation turns to diversity, advocacy, and the problem of being treated as a spokesperson for the demographics you belong to.Foley art! Tangela and Daniy reference Alena Lecorchick from Rooster Teeth who was interviewed in episode 11, Let's Talk Foley Art in Audio with Alena Lecorchick.The next topic of discussion centers around: How do you balance what's good for your career with what's good for your happy and healthy? Also Tangela and Daniy talk about rural - urban divides and perceptions.Tangela asks Daniy to lay out some advice for people new to audio. Her freewheeling answer revolves around being open to learning broadly.Finally they spend some time talking about post-processing workflows a bit before the end of the episode.Reminder: LTA has a Discord server!As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!This interview starts with an intro from Chance Sampson. He first got into AV as a guitarist who wanted to record his music. He recorded on standalone recorders like the Tascam.Later he joined the high school show choir as a guitarist. Show choir would use two old Yamaha 16 channel digital consoles, daisy-chained in some strange manner. He ended up trouble shooting and learning how to set up their system better.He went to the Art Institute in Austin for a degree in Audio Production. The school would let him take their gear off campus and throw pop punk shows at skate parks. After graduation he worked at Guitar Center, before getting on with the Renaissance Austin Hotel's AV team, doing conferences and things of that nature. From there he went into corporate audio installation work, building a team and becoming an operations manager.Chance and Tangela both have been substitute FoH engineers for their friend Tim Weaver (who will be in an upcoming episode). He later worked for WeWork's division in Dallas.Most recently he's been working in retail AV installation, so doing installs in department stores and such.As a result of seeing all these things, he's developed an appreciation for the diversity of vertical AV product lines, depending on application.He will be working for Peloton's AV in their Dallas office as of the week following this interview.The past year and a half has been so long and crazy, Tangela and Chance had to look up just when exactly it was Colby Bryant died.Chance's work ethic has been partly centered around finding problems to fix, without waiting for customers/clients/personnel to find them. This has been a source of career elevation as well as some small amount of coworker conflict."I really had every intention of not getting into stuff at WeWork ... because I wanna just be some schmuck that goes to work. It's really hard."Tangela says "... leaning into your natural skills and natural personality ... A lot of times people don't lean into who they are naturally..."Chance recognizes he's seen more than a few rare opportunities including the monetary compensation for his time at WeWork.What he likes about AV more than anything is the problem solving and system design aspects. Getting to be in the field installing things and using that to inform design has been a pleasure for Chance as well.Chance and Tangela talk about transferable skills, and using them in different contexts. Recognizing how skills transfer is key to recognizing opportunities.They follow up by talking about bringing up/mentoring/handing opportunities to people new to a domain. Chance recalls that one of his previous jobs hired him because he was new to that particular area of audio but had the "go get 'em attitude" towards the work.The choice to leave Austin for Dallas came about after the church Chance and Tangela attended/worked audio for, organized a focus group to help members think about their priorities and aspirations. A lot of good things lined up for Chance's family after that focus group, towards their goal of moving to Dallas.Chance: "I just had a mustache at the time. I looked like a fucking idiot. And, they still hired me ..."Tangela: "I wanna know what it was like for you ... transitioning into these more corporate jobs, how did you manage what all you were will to do with family and what all you were willing to put your family through for your dreams and your careers?"Chance: "That's a good ass question dude ... I more or less chose my wife over that stuff"Chance: "We lived in the coolest city ever and never did anything, cuz we were always broke!"Chance and his wife have been together for 13 years and married

Hello World! Welcome back to Let's Talk...Audio. Remember to join us on Discord!This interview was recorded online with Riverside.fm, and it starts after Akash asks Tangela how she got into podcasting. Akash Thakkar is a sound designer based in Seattle, WA. He talks about how he segued into gaming audio from initially going to college at the Berklee College of Music to be a touring drummer. While in college he also put a lot of effort into learning "charisma" as he had been extremely socially awkward.He graduated in 2012 and moved to Seattle. He found audio work very quickly after moving there. He's worked on a number of games including Destiny, Heat Signature, Hyper Light Drifter and most recently the new DLC for Outer Wilds.He's also just recently launched his own podcast. Akash talks a bit about false starts as practice.Tangela realized Akash is her first guest who has a podcast (however her previous guest Cinnamon Denise subsequently launched her podcast The Music Executive).They talk about how releasing content like podcasts and YouTube and blogs and such are a source of networking. Tangela recommends The Go-Giver by Bob Burg.Akash realized during college how important a great teacher is (shoutout to Michael Sweet and Jeff Faust at Berklee) for learning new things. Coupled with the Buddhist concept Mudita, the joy of seeing someone else succeed, this is the impetus behind his content he has produced over the years. "I want other people to make me irrelevant because they're doing so well."They also talk about sources of bad advice and how/why that happens. But as for good advice, most of the time a person simply needs to do the thing and do it as simply, as babiest, smallest thing imaginable."It's the equivalent of doing one pushup, not a hundred"Also, most of the time, you don't need to buy anything beyond the simple stuff. Doing the simple stuff, starting, is better than most of the people who say they "want" to do the thing.Moving on to Impostor Syndrome! Akash thinks it can't be gotten rid of, because doing new things makes us impostors."If we aren't feeling impostor syndrome, we aren't being creative, period" Next up, talking about how to interrupt those internal negative self-talk thoughts. Akash is an avid reader. Books were one of the avenues he used to learn to get over his shyness during college. Self education is underrated! "The best professionals know when to drop the ball" Perfection happens with iteration, not with the first take. This section is about getting things done so that perfection can happen later. Can a CRM save Tangela from retyping the same email ten times? "What's the correct speed to drive?" This analogy is...

Hello World! Destiny was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and teaches Tangela how to pronounce the name of the city like an insider.They talk about age and technology, and how the generation gap is increasingly fine grained in comparison to the tech innovation curve over the last couple decades.Destiny and Tangela discuss finance, budgeting, the starving artist mentality and the learning curves they have each experienced in this area.Book Recommendations by Michele Cagan: Investing 101 Stock Market 101 Personal Finance 101 They discuss financial literacy in minority communities and how that relates to the creative community.How did Destiny get into the world of audio? She played trombone in school, studied Arts Administration in undergrad, and studied abroad in Spain for grad school. There she chose to focus on audio technology. The final months of her program were accomplished online during the 2020 lockdowns.How is Destiny continuing to grow in her craft?Webinars and books on audio have been great resources for Destiny. Two books she recommends are:Introduction to Live Sound Reinforcement by Teddy BoyceAll You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald S PassmanTangela also recommends:Live Sound Reinforcement by Scott Hunter StarkThe Ultimate Live Sound Operator's Handbook by Bill GibsonDestiny describes her initial misgivings about trying to read a manual. Tangela's advice: "Gurl, it's like readin' the Bible ... you think people sittin' around readin' Deuteronomy like that?! NO!! ..."Next they discuss festivals and other live shows. One of Destiny's favorite shows she's been to was George Clinton.Destiny shares her experience being nearly the only woman of color studying audio in her college program. She says it's been empowering to see and talk to other women in audio.They both are very interested in exploring the idea of summer camps or other kinds of education programs for middle and high school aged kids, to illustrate the breadth of kinds of career around music and audio technology.Destiny contributed to a music project with an artist named Widdo. Destiny contributed some backing vocals and writing to this song.Tangela mentions the band The Postal ServiceDestiny's audio setup:PreSonus Eris E3.5 monitorsTascam TM-80Focusrite interfaceTangela used to use the PreSonus Audiobox; now she's got a Motu M2, Rode PodMic, and the KRK monitors."Working with the resources you have access to is the biggest thing."Destiny's advice to the

Hello World! Anita Yung is a Canadian Sound Designer based in Toronto and Vancouver. With a passion for animation, Anita is originally a voice actor by trade. After working on the anime series, Black Jack (2017 reboot), and NHK’s WakuWaku Be Ponkickies, Anita would officially transition to audio post-production. Anita now works on post-audio and sound design for film/TV productions, animation and video games. Drawing from her time as talent and production crew, Anita uses her past experiences as the grounding base of all her audio storytelling works.She can be found at www.anitayung.caIG @ anitayung.productionslinkedin.com/in/anitayung/twitter @anitayungThe episode starts with a shameless plug for Tangela's merch store. She chose a wonderful company in the UK named Teemill.com ; You can find links to it at beatsinabottle.com!Next up is mouth noises, Izotope plugins, and "on sale" as a marketing tactic. Also, the pros and cons of ProTools v other DAWs. We mention www.reaper.fmWhat happens when you google your interview guest, a la the other "Anita Yungs" on the interwebz. Also, Tangela vs the pokemon. What's in a name?Anita's source of good equipment (a rental store that closed their Toronto location in 2020). Followed by Anita's gear set up she works with at home. a pencil mic by Sennheiser (en-us.sennheiser.com/microphones), Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (focusrite.com/en/usb-audio-interface/scarlett/scarlett-2i2), Dynaudio monitors (www.dynaudio.com)Tangela's gear KRK 5's in White (www.krkmusic.com/Studio-Monitors/White-Noise). The importance of a good looking desk and monitors that look good with it. IKEA product in America v Canada, colors available. Green Desk!Aspiring vs professional, and impostor syndrome. Confidence vs arrogance in job interviews. How does that translate to the live sound scene?We talk about concerts, mosh pits, an outdoor wintertime EDM festival in Montreal, and polar bear swims.Anita's history of living in Winnipeg and Vancouver before moving to Toronto.Anita used to be a voice actress before getting into audio. Tangela asks "How dat work?"Anita got a degree in Communications. She became fascinated with audio engineering while working in voice acting for animated series. She went back to school for post-production.Tangela and Anita talk a bit about the experience of being in college as an older than the 18-21 year old crowd.Anita's favorite project was concurrent with her thesis. During the thesis, she put together a pilot episode for a new animated series and pitched it to some people. She is waiting to hear back on that and has an NDA for it. So no more details.Anita really enjoys doing foley as much as possible for her projects, avoiding libraries.Tangela references the previous episode with Alena Lecorchick. The subject of foley art reminds Tangela of the artists Amon Tobin (www.amontobin.com)Anita credits her synth teacher in college with helping her fully understand a lot of fundamentals, such as eq and compression.Tangela talks about how

Jam is a studio owner, tracking and mixing engineer and music producer in Durham NC. She opened Denk Studios in 2019 to create an inclusive space for all musicians regardless of race, gender, gender identity, age and sexual orientation. Jam has a passion for music and strives to be a driving force for creating change in the music industry"I am working on two exciting albums currently for artists angelfuni and the blue horse project." - Jam, around the time this episode was recorded, via squadcast.fm, on April 8, 2021.Jam and Tangela start talking about moving, stuff, filling space, and Jam's studio space in Durham, North Carolina. The studio is a former, concrete garage. It was built out on budget, with found and used materials. The vocal booth is pink with Christmas lights!Did Taylor Swift's Folklore really deserve an award? Also, these award shows and their transparency ... or lack thereof. Is Billy Eilish truly DIY/indy? Is the time of the major labels almost up?Artists sometimes spend more money than they need to, and end up behind, not owning their career. On the other hand, they could save the money, work with independent studios and engineers who can do a good job doing the things the artist doesn't want to do themselves (like mixing). Also there are lots of cool, cheap, sometimes free ways to learn audio work: ProduceLikeaPro.com, OmniSoundProject.com, etc. You definitely don't have to go to Full Sail and blow that kind of cash. But hands-on, mentorship learning is the best. "Invest in a human!" But don't go into debt guys. And get listening buddies to trade critiques with!Jam was accepted into Berkeley College of Music back in 2001, right after high school. She didn't do it because of the financial question. After seeing a promotional video from them about their drummers, she's glad she developed her own sound.Jam later went to school for marketing. But let's do more of an intro now, lol. Or not. Jam and Tangela run in similar circles on the interwebz. Between Cinnamon's Music Executive podcast (http://www.cinnamondenise.com/podcast), Omni, and SoundGirls.org, they've both been aware of each other for a while.Being an extrovert pre-'Rona with introvert home life. Tangela shares some of her experience with COVID. Jam shares her experience with H1N1 during the swine flu outbreaks.Returning to Jam's story about pursuing marketing. She was a hotel manager for 10 years, and a high-end grocery store manager for 6 years. While in hotels she decided to go to school to learn something different. The new qualification precipitated a shift over to management in grocery stores. Tangela learns that up north there's a grocer's union. Jam got laid off in October 2020 and has shifted to full-time studio work as a result.Tangela muses a bit about the mindset of "do I need college for that?" whenever considering a career change. Jam shares the customer service perspective she learned from being in hotels, and how that's benefited her work as an audio engineer. They riff on customer service for a bit. Tangela reminds the audience that there's a balance to be found between giving good customer service and standing up for yourself to not be a doormat.Tangela is a giant fan of the Six Figure Home Studio podcast (https://www.thesixfigurehomestudio.com/podcast/) and its hosts Brian Hood and Chris Graham. Jam is using Brian's new website builder EasyFunnels.io ; Tangela enjoy's Brian's Filepass app as well.Tangela talks about podcast formats, length, audience experience. Jam enjoys this podcast and breaks up the episode to fit her day.Jam has a Facebook group and between it and her studio she's very interested in supporting women and the...

Hello World! Piper Payne is a world class mastering engineer currently based in Nashville, TN, with Infrasonic Sound (https://www.infrasonicsound.com/piper). This interview was recorded over https://squadcast.fm/ on December 1st, 2020.How did Piper become a mastering engineer? She first got into audio some 15 years ago with an interest in mixing classical music. Piper likes to say "Mastering is genre-agnostic." Piper is currently in the process of opening a vinyl pressing plant. This opening five minute introduction was awesome and next we try to unpack it.When Piper first started thinking about college she thought she would be a veterinarian, but then switched to electrical engineering by the time she entered. She ended up switching to a performing arts and technology program. Piper went to Norway for graduate studies.Since college is not required for most audio industry careers, was college a worthwhile investment? Piper muses on the discipline of long-term accomplishment and the networking aspects of college. Math, physics of sound, and acoustics are pertinent areas of study worth investing in, with or without a degree at the end.Next we discuss the benefits of getting some schooling abroad. Piper recommends Bob Katz' *Mastering Audio the Art and Science*, (here's a review of it https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/bob-katz-mastering-audio) which she studied both in undergrad and in Norway. Her stay in Norway was the knife's edge of a leg up that got her an assistant's position with *the Bob Katz*, in Florida.After talking some more about pros and cons of studying abroad, Tangela inadvertently suggests a memoir title to Piper: "What's up with you and vinyl?".In the process of answering that question, a previous interview with Piper (here: https://www.workingclassaudio.com/wca-045-with-piper-payne/) is referenced.Mastering is about making audio ready for a variety of formats of consumption (streaming, CD's, vinyl, motion-picture soundtrack, etc.) and Piper feels that learning to cut lacquer on a lathe is an ideal manifestation of the mastering profession.As a result of pursuing this knowledge, she developed a reputation as a mastering engineer that could best ready an artist's audio for the vinyl product.Through her work with a variety of artists who sought to publish on vinyl, she found that the industry has woefully inadequate quality assurance and customer service. Piper debriefs a couple of different screw ups on the part of different vinyl plants. "... pressing a record out of mp3s ... that's ... bullshit! ..."She also discusses how her first attempt to open a plant (in Oakland) failed for different reasons. Piper has since developed some quality control technology for record pressing, and is working to get a plant opened with some new partnership.Piper's motivations behind getting into the manufacturing of vinyl come in two categories: 1) she believes there's a lot of room for quality improvement in the industry, and 2) royalties on hard, manufactured products are structured more in the artists' favor, and vinyl is one of the only ways an artist can recoup the costs of creating an album.And by the way, record collections make moving expensive XD, especially when it's an entire wall of 3000 records.What vinyl record has Tangela been listening to? Mean Girls the Musical which you can see detail for here: https://open.spotify.com/album/6m7n9JuAOMcy8X3ntO0KtfWhat's her favorite musical? Hamilton of course! https://open.spotify.com/artist/3UUJfRbrA2nTbcg4i0MOwuWhat's Piper's favorite musical? My Fair Lady the Julie Andrews version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_LadyTangela also loves tap-dancing in musicals.One of Piper's favorite albums is Reptilians by STRFKR https://open.spotify.com/album/5pfqk4oFycMVynOD8S2CqsRX8 and the history of audio repair...

Hello World! Christa Giammattei is a post-production engineer in North Carolina. Christa also has an apparel store (https://command-s-apparel.com/) and runs a blog (https://command-s-apparel.com/blogs/command-s-stories-through-sound). Her post-production work includes (but is not limited to) dialogue editing, sound design, and mixing for broadcast, web, and film. She has worked on pieces for HBO, National Geographic and PBS. A list of highlights from her work can be fund on her website www.cgiammatteisound.com/. Christa also has an album on Spotify found here open.spotify.com/album/1rDTVWPTbQMl1ihsFMRO4U.For Christa, music was her gateway into the world of audio. She was a classical percussionist for 13 years. We talked about the convoluted paths so many of us take to audio engineering. We also talked about perseverance, the impossible art of the segue, and the self-conscious act of researching your guests with Instagram and whatever else.Also, Christa, like many people, thinks Izotope's RX (https://www.izotope.com/en/products/rx.html) is the best tool ever! "I feel like it's magic." She says she's successfully used it to filter out sirens and helicopters from the audio she's worked on.She also likes using plugins from Wavs and Plugin Alliance such as the Maag Audio EQ4 (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/maag_eq4.html).Tangela shares with Christa her journey from live sound to podcasting, and how that has been her introduction to the wide world of plugins and DAWs.Next we talk about spending money on investments, the buyers' remorse that comes with that, and specifically the experience of buying a Mac.From there we resume talking about Christa's journey into audio, and how she found freelance post-production.We also talk about impostor syndrome, and experience with things like being featured on panel discussions for college students.Unfortunately we experienced some noise interruption. There was some landscaping maintenance occurring at Christa's apartment complex. It provided some laughs to us as well as the opportunity to discuss the joys of home recording! Part of that discussion featured sound treatment, and peoples' varied ideas about DIY sound treatment. Christa particularly recommends Auralex (https://auralex.com/).We returned to talking about Christa's blog, Command + S: Stories Through Sound. You can read her interview with Tangela here (https://command-s-apparel.com/blogs/command-s-stories-through-sound/stories-through-sound-tangela).Christa shares with us that her motivation behind starting the blog was very similar to Tangela's motivation behind starting this podcast: the desire to highlight women and minorities in the audio industry.We spent some time discussing Christa's interview with Madeline Brumback found here (

Hello World! In this episode we visit with Willa Snow (https://www.willasnow.com/; IG @w.snow.audio), an Austin based sound engineer who does consulting, front-of-house, production management, . She is also the head of the Austin chapter of SoundGirls.org (https://soundgirls.org/willasnow/).We start off the interview discussing the finance, accounting, and bookkeeping know-how necessaries for gig life. We mention Rock n Roll Rentals in Austin, TX (https://rocknrollrentals.com), and the Rode PodMic (https://www.rode.com/microphones/podmic). Willa does production management for three ATX area bands: Corbella (https://www.corbellabandofficial.com/), Dossey (http://dosseymusic.com/), and Ley Line (https://www.leylinesound.com/). In addition she wears a number of other hats, "diversify your portfolio!" She uses Google calendar for gig life, and emphasizes that Google calendar really needs to offer more colors!Next up we discuss how studio time while at university was very much Willa's gateway drug to the world of audio. We discuss how Willa came to Austin, and how in the beginning of her audio career, she actually kinda hated live sound. But she learned it anyway, and largely through networking, and on-the-job training.Conspirare (https://conspirare.org/) brought Willa on one of her very first tours to work. Willa had a couple of tour jobs lined up for 2020, but alas, that pesky pandemic...Next we talked about hard work, and the fear of failing or looking bad. The humility to fail for the sake of learning and growth, is highlighted as a key mindset for the audio industry. We touch on the principle of "read the whole menu!" before getting back to the point of "it's ok to be terrible in the beginning!" Willa used to give herself "anti-pep pep talks" as a way to give herself permission to fail.We talk about the wonderful Dani Parks (https://rhythmgalaxy.com/dani-1) from The Belmont (https://www.thebelmontaustin.com/) who was on Let's Talk ... Audio previously (https://www.beatsinabottle.com/letstalkaudio). The Belmont is a wonderful venue to work with and they understand how important great organization is! Tangela shares how it is she met Dani Parks. There had been an event lined up with The Belmont of SXSW 2020 that Dani, Tangela, and Willa were all supposed to work together. In recalling how Willa had initially found out she would be working with them, "yay more estrogen! But I love my brothers in audio too!" However, being the only woman in the room gets a little old after a while. We discuss the disappointment we had at the SXSW cancellation.Willa strongly recommends listening to Primo the Alien (https://primothealien.com/). During the time of the SXSW cancellation and the start of Austin's lockdown, Willa, Primo, and some others started to organize a live stream gig. They had an anchor lady from KVUE (

Hello World! This episode of the Let's Talk ... Audio podcast was recorded just before Austin, TX's first Corona Shutdown in Spring 2020. Alena Lecorchick is a foley artist, sound designer, and sound editor for the Sound Team of Rooster Teeth's Animation Department since 2016. Previously, she graduated from University of North Texas in Denton, north of the DFW metroplex. Alena interned and then freelanced for the Dallas Audio Post. She later freelanced for the educational game company Istation, before coming to Austin.We met because she was on a panel at an Audio Engineering Society event in Austin. Beginning this conversation, we visit a bit about Texas weather and Austin driving culture. To get into the meat of the interview, I ask her what the nuances are among the jobs of foley, sound design, editing, and mixing, in the context of film. Next she takes us through what workflow is like for a Rooster Teeth show such as Camp Camp or RWBY. We also discussed the SXSW cancellation before moving on to the subject of job hunting. She shares some of her experience looking at sound engineer applicant resumes at Rooster Teeth. We also discuss reels, cover letters, and redesigns.Alena shares with us how she has studied genre with regards to sound design. For instance she used My Little Pony and Ed, Edd, and Eddy for reference when she was working on RWBY Chibis for Rooster Teeth. Alena adds that Invader Zim is a great study to think about building uncomfortable moods. She also shares with us some of the genius of Better Call Saul.Before leaving us, Alena gives an example of one of her favorite foley accomplishments for the final episodes of RWBY.Alena's IMDB is here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4552923/ and she can be found on Twitter @AlenaLecorchickReminder: LTA has a Discord server!As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!

Hello World! Welcome back to the Let's Talk ... Audio podcast! This episode is Part 2 of my conversation with Dani Parks. It starts off more conversational, jumping around topics such as: microaggressions and effective communication, statistics and nuance, Candace Owens, the J Cole and Noname controversy, etc. We come back around to the topic of live sound addressing advice for newbies, with an aside on line-mixing for theatre.Again, Dani is a hip hop producer and Front-of-House sound lady at the Belmont in Austin, TX. She also made the opening beat for this show! You can find her on Instagram @yellowdani24, and also https://soundcloud.com/dprhythmgalaxyReminder: LTA has a Discord server!As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!

Hello World! This episode of Let's Talk ... Audio features part one of an interview recorded in July. Our guest is Dani Parks, a hip hop producer and Front-of-House sound lady at the Belmont in Austin, TX. In this part of the interview we touched on a range of subjects, including some live sound equipment, the antiquities of flip-phone texting, and the woes of modern American shopping.We also addressed the question, What happens when you have no backup plan and the audio industry's had its feet pulled out from under it!?!You can find Dani on Instagram @yellowdani24, and also https://soundcloud.com/dprhythmgalaxyReminder: LTA has a Discord server!As usual you can find Tangela on her website where you can sign up for the Newsletter!