Let's Talk...Audio Tangela

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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...

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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...

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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

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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...

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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...