PreSonus Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2013


Women in Pro Audio Vol. 3: KK Proffitt: Chief Engineer and Creative Talent of JamSync

KK[KK Proffitt is the chief engineer, musical editor and creative talent of JamSync. She has earned several degrees and honors in undergraduate and graduate school including a BA from Vanderbilt, completed coursework for the Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at the University of Tennessee (where she was inducted into the honors society Phi Kappa Phi), Guitar Performance Studies and Arranging at Berklee, and a graduate degree in Software Engineering from Northeastern’s State of the Art Engineering School. KK is an active member of the Audio Engineering Society.]

  • According to this article, women account for 5% of producers and engineers—why do you feel this is?

There aren’t a lot of women in the studio because a lot of men don’t want them to be there. There are exceptions, but the invisible burqa persists, and I’m disappointed that there hasn’t been much progress. My daughter designs games and women in games are much sharper and more up front than women in audio. I’m not sure they are making progress, either, but at least they’re honest about it. Women in the audio area try so hard to fit in when fitting into a mold that doesn’t work for them is really futile. I just built my studio, raised my children and ignored the other stuff. I wish I had more time to spend at my studio, but my elderly mother totaled her car last March and I’ve had to take over running the family farm (150 years old), selling her property, seeing to her medical care, etc. It’s one more reason why women like me have to take time off from career. After being mothers, we become caregivers. Everyone only gets 24 hours a day and a lot of us are supposed to fit 48 hours worth of work into that slot. Solve the child care/ caregiver issue, and you’d see a lot more women in audio. As it is, many of the successful women audio engineers either don’t have children or go on sabbatical to have them.

  • Do you feel that, for whatever reason, that there are some elements of the pro audio field that women have a more natural predisposition toward than men? If so, which and why?

The only job where gender has been a factor is the one where I carried twins and then raised them to become a molecular biophysicist (my son) and a game designer (my daughter.) My mother was a biochemist, my grandmother was a magistrate, and my great-grandmother was superintendent of county schools, so the concept of being a woman with a career was not novel in my family. It was just confusing that the news, the school systems and nearly everyone I encountered on any job that involved technology seemed to reinforce a lifestyle ethic that was out of some dreary “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” belief. I ignored it, of course, but it certainly didn’t help me to obtain clients or money to feed, clothe, educate and house my children. Fortunately, my children are smarter than I am and would rather be nibbled to death by ducklings than work in the music biz.

  • What’s your take on the idea that even addressing this situation—through a blog series such as this—is a step in the wrong direction? It can be argued that discussing women in audio as if it’s some sort of big deal further cements the troubling idea that men are normal, and women are different.

I tend to stay away from the “female audio engineer” ghetto. It does nothing to bring me business and frankly I don’t mix or master with my gender-specific parts. I’ve had no mentors, male or female, but lots of men who have tried to discourage me or separate me from the simple business of audio by trying to make me feel special. I’m not special because I was born female. I’m simply good at what I do, when I’m actually allowed to do what I do. There is no doubt I would have made a lot more money in the biz if I had been a male, but I have never wanted to be a male because I don’t think of myself as male or female when I work. I just listen and respond to the job at hand.

 

John Mlynczak on PreSonus in Education

 

John Mlynczak, M.M., M.Ed.
Education Market Manager for PreSonus

PreSonus is committed to providing real solutions to music educators at all levels. Whether it’s recording a kindergarten class and uploading songs to Nimbit for parents to download, running live sound and recording a high school jazz band in performance, or outfitting music technology and audio labs for universities, PreSonus has the products and knowledge to support all educators. We are working with the National Association for Music Education, the Technology Institute of Music Education, and the NAMM Foundation’s Support Music Coalition to ensure our strategies meet the needs of the teachers in the field.

 

The mission of PreSonus for Music Education is to provide high-quality audio products and continued support to all music educators and students in order to promote learning reflective of current and evolving practices in the fields of music education and the music industry. We offer sessions at the major state music conferences, webinars through NAfME and the SoundTree Institute, and educator-specific product bundles with school pricing.

For more information on how PreSonus can support your school, please visit our website: musiced.presonus.com.

Follow John on Twitter!

 

Joey Stuckey Relies on PreSonus for his Critically-Acclaimed CD, “Mixture.”

Joey at board 3

[This just in from Joey Stuckey, Macon, GA’s highly-decorated jazz (and more) guitar virtuoso. He recently sent us a kind e-mail about his experience with PreSonus and updated us on some of his latest projects.]

Hey PreSonus!

My new CD, Mixture, was recorded with Studio One 2.5, has spent five weeks on the CMJ top 40 charts, peaking at number 9 alongside other jazz greats like Lee Rittenour, Chick Corea, Marcus Miller and Diana Krall. We’re getting many great reviews!

One of the powerful tools we used in producing this record is the PreSonus  Studio One. My co-writer and co-producer Tom Rule used Studio One for his demo keyboard tracks at his home studio. When we brought the tracks in to my pro studio, Shadow Sound Studio, to finish adding real instruments and mix and master, I fell in love with many of the sounds included with of Studio One. In particular, we loved the stand-up bass sound that shipped with Studio One so much, that we actually left it on the record and never had a live bass player come and replace the MIDI. I have now made Studio One part of my studio tools and of course use PreSonus for my jazz band’s live performances.

I just can’t say enough about Studio One—it is so affordable, the workflow is great, and again, the stand-up bass is really something. I hate to say this to stand-up bass players, but they are probably out of a job—at least at my studio! All the PreSonus gear is so affordable and provides many features that gear triple its cost doesn’t provide, I can honestly recommend PreSonus to all my friends and colleagues.
Joey Stuckey Stuckey Review

Andrew Oye’s Carhartt Commercial

PreSonus Artist Andrew Oye just wrapped up a suitably stompy score for this rough’n’tumble TV advert for Carhartt T-shirts. Per the norm, Andrew relied on PreSonus Studio One for the task at hand. The result is a gritty homage to the workin’ class alpha male, complete with ropin’ cattle, roofin’, layin’ concrete and wreckin’ stuff with sledgehammers.

This music makes me feel tougher than Mickey Rourke in Sin City. Please enjoy the following video while I go smoke a pack of unfiltered Marlboros and hit on your wife.

 

 

PreSonus LIVE: Mixing Briana now up on YouTube

Nikola Jeremić on The Awesomeness of the AudioBox USB

[This just in from all-around badass and PreSonus Artist Nikola Jeremić!]

Just wanted to tell you that you guys really are making AWESOME products, and most of my musician friends have started using them and a lot of them praise Studio One.

Last night I had a recording session at Belgrade Music Academy with a not-so-traditional string quintet called Infinity Quintet. These guys have cello, viola and three violins, instead of traditional quintet which has a double bass instead of the third violin.

I wanted to record them in an old-school way with just one stereo mic setup. I chose two AKG 414s in M-S setup, but get this: I recorded with nothing but a friend’s AudioBox USB and Studio One Free on my laptop, and for monitoring I used the PreSonus HD 7 headphones. I just told the band to sit down and play their asses off, and they did just that. We recorded cover versions of “Sweet Child Of Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses and “Black Magic Woman” by Santana, and we are all happy with the result.

I used this recording for my competition entry in “Traditional Acoustic Recording” for 134th AES convention in Rome. And, by the way, I’m using Studio One also for editing sound to picture for my competition entry  in “Sound For Visual Media” also for AES in Rome.

Anyway, just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to you and all of the guys at PreSonus, your support means the world to me! 🙂

 

PreSonus LIVE Airs Thursday! 2p.m. CST / 3 p.m. EST / Noon PST / GMT -6

http://www.presonus.com/videos/presonuslive


http://www.presonus.com/videos/presonuslive

 

Women in Pro Audio Vol. 2: Lisa Simmons, Songwriter/Producer at HeatRox Entertainment.

image

[Lisa Simmons is a Los Angeles native who began her musical career while attending the Los Angeles County High School For The Arts. Production Team SoulShock & Karlin, best known for Whitney Houston’s “HeartBreak Hotel” and Fantasia’s “Truth Is,” together with Elektra Records, signed Lisa to a joint record deal under Sylvia Rhone’s direction. It was during this time that Lisa discovered that she could write, and ended up writing nine out of twelve songs, including her first single to be released on Elektra Records. Her most recent placements include JoJo’s  “Coming for You” and “Good Ol'” Fantasia’s “Said I Wouldn’t No More,” Kelly Rowland’s “Tell me,” and Ross Lynch’s “Living in the Moment” from The Disney’s Channel’s Austin & Alley.]

 

Kudos to the PreSonus team for wanting to shed some light on women in audio production! Ironically, I was just speaking to our publisher’s engineer (who just happens to be female) about this very subject during NAMM, so you could not have checked in with me at a more perfect time.

 

First, I would like to say that I am a former recording artist who became a songwriter around the same time, so my experience with audio production did not necessarily begin in a traditional sense—I grew up playing the violin and a little Casio keyboard. 🙂 So, naturally I envisioned myself playing both these instruments on a recording, with my vocals accompanying them, I just didn’t envision that I would be the engineer—I had never heard of a female engineer back then.

 

Fortunately for me, at a certain time in my career;  I could not obtain any backing tracks, so by the grace of God, I was forced out of necessity to make my own and record them myself. I had a lot of ideas, and I needed to at least record them and see if it was something useable. Even then, when I was trying to create a home studio, I had no other female peers to assist me. All of the questions I had were answered by male peers in the industry—of course, I was thankful to get the assistance.

 

Since then it’s been a recurring theme to see more male engineers than female. I have only personally met two female engineers, and of course heard the work of one, Marcella Araica, who has made a huge impact over the last few years, as a mix engineer for Timbaland and DanJahandz. Why is this? I have asked so many of my female peers in the music industry: songwriters, vocal arrangers and producers. We all feel that there is a need to learn as much as we can, and we have individually made steps personally towards that goal, and towards empowering other women and men to do the same… but what about the other 95%?

 

Maybe engineering schools should seek more women through outreach programs in schools and performing arts centers. Perhaps if they were to engage more women in a career towards audio production it might help. It’s like what I remember  in elementary school: each student had the option of playing a musical instrument, and every instrument you could think of was presented, and all a student had to do was test each instrument and see what works best for them. This type of introduction and education could serve as a great starting point for any studio seeking more female engineers. Furthermore, this approach shows students how fun the production process can be! I started off wanting to be in the forefront, but there was always that part of me that wanted to be involved in the creative process.

 

I’m sure if more woman knew about music production early on, were instilled with a desire to learn the craft, and had the opportunity to work in some of the major recording studios after completing their required certificate for audio engineering, there would be a higher percentage of women in production. When I meet new songwriters and artist, I try to instill the value of learning how to produce their own vocals, and learning a DAW. (Studio One, by the way is amazing, so I have been telling everyone about that!) This way, if the aspiring songwriter just wants to put a idea down, or record a entire song, they will have that option. Of course, it takes away from me being the writer in that sense, but it does something far greater—it empowers others to learn to bring their music to life on their own.

 

Music has no gender or color, its a beautiful gift that everyone should experience and learn more about.

 

PreSonus and Nimbit at SXSW!

In Austin for SXSW? Check out this event!

PreSonus and Nimbit are proud to sponsor this showcase on Wednesday, March 13 at CTC Garden in Austin, which includes live performances from The Moth & The Flame, SIX60, The Royalty and The Rocketboys as well as a special screening of Butch Walker’s award-winning documentary “Out of Focus.”

We will be showcasing FanCheck.In, offering free downloads of the live performances!

ADL 700 demo from Pro Audio SuperStore