Pro Sound Panel 1
It’s All About the Studio
Moderated by Strother Bullins
Featuring Karen Kane, Anna Frick, Benjy Johnson, Bill Stevens
Featuring Producer/Recording Engineer Karen Kane, Mastering Engineer Anna Frick, and Studio Owners and Producers/Engineers Benjy Johnson and Bill Stevens, this panel is bursting with a wide array of talent and diverse knowledge.
Join the conversation and learn about their studio projects, credits, workflow, and discuss current and morphing trends in their industry. This interactive panel will take questions and comments from participants and will be answered in real time. Focusing on the music business and the recording studio, we will also be featuring topics such as how they are creatively and safely navigating the pandemic, what their top equipment and tools are, and what recommendations they have for aspiring or developing engineers.
Karen Kane Producer / Engineer has been in the music business for more than 35 years, inspired by attending Woodstock ’69 and music by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, and others. Early in her career, she managed a number of recording studios including the well-known 6 West Recording, a major jingle facility in New York City. Since the 1970’s, Karen has produced and/or engineered over 200 full-length album projects and has engineered hundreds of live sound shows. Karen’s recording career was originally focused in the Boston area from 1974-1990 and in Canada from 1990 to 2002. While in Boston, Karen worked at Intermedia Sound, where the legendary album, “Dream On” by Aerosmith was recorded. Kane helped pioneer the way for women in audio by being one of the first successful female recording engineers, as well as one of the first successful freelance recording engineers (male or female) in the area. Currently, she runs her own audio production studio, Karen Kane Music Productions in Wilmington, NC. Besides music recording, mixing and mastering, her Wilmington recording studio is also where she teaches Audio Engineering and Music Production.
Anna Frick is a mastering engineer and the restoration center manager at Airshow Mastering in Boulder, Colorado. Her work encompasses studio albums, live recordings, reissues, and compilations across an array of formats, old and new, and a wide variety of genres and styles, from bluegrass and folk-influenced acts to rock and New Age projects. Legends like Doc Watson, exciting contemporaries such as Billy Strings and GRAMMY-nominated Wood & Wire, have all benefited from her uncanny ear and deft touch. She balances her strong instincts and intuition with her technical experience and each client’s goals to finesse every project she tackles. “[A band has] been working on their album for quite a while by the time I hear it, and it’s their vision – their baby – that they are putting out into the world. I don’t want to impede that vision. Ultimately, I want my clients (and their fans) to be happy with the record.”
Benjy Johnson is the owner/operator, engineer and producer at Earthtones Recording Studio in Greensboro NC. Benjy has loved music ever since he picked up a guitar at age 14. His love for the guitar has evolved over the years into writing, composing, arranging and producing professional releases for numerous artists in various genres. Benjy has also written and produced several of his own solo releases over the years, and recently custom scored and had his own music licensed and used by the likes of Red Bull Marketing, Sony Gaming, CMT Network, ESPN Radio, and many more. He opened up Earthtones Recording 20 years ago in the hopes that each artist who wishes can take their dreams, drive and ambition and attach a sound or a song to it and launch themselves to that next level.
Bill Stevens comes from an incredibly musically talented family -- father, James William Stevens, is a composer; mother, Carolyn Dorff, a singer of opera and musical theater; and sister, Becca Stevens, is a well known performer and composer. His background and education in guitar, composition, recording arts, and music business has given him a strong foundation of skills as a producer, arranger, performer and engineer. In 2007, he joined forces with Evan Richey and Ovation Sound and since has been involved in numerous projects in varying roles. He has produced records in a plethora of genres: classical, jazz, gospel, R&B, bluegrass, heavy metal, folk, Americana, rock, and musical theater. His favorite project is the project he is working on right now. No session is too big or too small.
Strother Bullins is an educator and pro audio technologist, musician and B2B publishing industry editor, writer, and product reviewer with over 20 years of experience in the disciplines of professional studio recording, live sound, and multimedia broadcast. As the longstanding Technology Editor for Future Publishing’s (formerly NewBay Media) AV/Pro Audio Group (Mix magazine, Pro Sound News, Pro Audio Review, and Sound & Video Contractor), Strother specialized in explaining and verbalizing the complex technologies, systems, and challenges of creating multimedia content for those fields most dedicated professionals. Strother returned to school in 2016 in order to fulfill a calling to serve the K-12 public school system as a classroom teacher. As a fledgling middle school teacher, it wasn’t long before Strother realized exactly how useful his transferable skills — those gained in the pro audio/video and print/digital publishing industries — were to his new role as a classroom teacher of tech-savvy, digital native young teenagers. In an era of historic cultural change, pushed forward by disruptive technologies and new media consumption habits, effective classroom teachers must reach students where they are in order to most effectively educate and inspire them. By being a content creator, rather than simply an end-user of preexisting content and technologies, Strother discovered he could give his students a unique classroom experience, keeping them engaged and encouraging enthusiasm.