Gil Eva Craig will be touring NZ and Australia running monitors for the Pink Floyd Experience and has invited SoundGirls Members to shadow her. Please plan to work the entire show with her.
Gil Eva Craig is an independent Audio Engineer and Music Producer working in professional audio for over 20 years. Gil got her start as a recording engineer in 1996 and still owns and operates her own mixing and production studio. She is a partner and runs Western Audio Engineering, a professional live sound production company.
Join us for a Mentoring Session with Women Leaders in Professional Audio
Oct. 20,2017
6:00 – 10 pm
SIR Studios Studio 4
520 W 25th St, New York, NY 10001, USA
Please join us at the AES Diversity and Inclusion Social 6:00 pm, followed at 7 pm for SoundGirls Mentoring Session in studio 4.
AES Diversity and Inclusion Social: 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Mentoring Session: 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Networking and wrap up 9:00 to 10:00
You must be a member of SoundGirls.Org. (membership is free and open to all genders and non-binary people. You can sign up on our website). You must register for this event as space is limited.
This event is a casual mentoring session (not a panel) and you will be able to get advice and answers to your questions from industry leaders.
Industry Leaders Include (more tba)
Fela Davis is a graduate of Full Sail University and has over 15 years of experience in audio engineering. Her experience includes working for industry powerhouses Clair Broadcast and House of Blues. She’s front of house for Christian McBride and co-owner of 23dB Productions.
Gil Eva Craig is an Audio Engineer and Sound Designer from New Zealand, primarily working in live sound. She is part of Western Audio Engineering, a live sound company based in Wellington New Zealand. Gil started as a studio engineer and sound designer for theatre. She has recorded and mixed numerous albums, three of these winning Tui (NZ Music) awards. Gil has also received several Chapman Tripp theatre award nominations, winning best sound design in 2010.
Caroline Sanchez is a freelance musician, audio technician, and technology specialist who regularly works for ABC, NBC, MTV, and Music Mix Mobile on production, music, and remote audio crews. Her experience includes working a number of positions in the broadcast field, ranging between stage A2, recording op, monitor mix, and RF tech on productions such as Good Morning America, iHeartRadio Music Festival, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. Caroline is a local to the New York area and holds a Bachelor of Music in Sound Engineering Arts from William Paterson University.
Karen Anderson Chief Operating Officer and Den Mother at Rational Acoustics. Karen Anderson is one of the founding partners of Rational Acoustics, the developers of the Smaart Acoustic Test & Measurement software platform. Prior to founding Rational Acoustics in 2008, Karen held a variety of sales & marketing positions within the professional audio industry including Marketing Manager at Meyer Sound and Director of Marketing for Eastern Acoustics Works (EAW) and Loud Technologies.
During her tenure in the professional audio industry, Karen has done pretty much everything from answering phones and coiling cable to managing multi-million dollar advertising budgets and running worldwide training programs. She’s also managed to learn a fair bit about sound systems in the process. Karen holds a BFA in Theatrical Costume & Makeup design from U.C. Berkeley, which was hopeless for getting a job, but makes her a lot of fun to have around at Halloween.
Michelle Desachy is a music producer, recording and mixing engineer and musician based in Mexico City. She works as an independent contractor at different record studios in Mexico and USA. Her Academic Training includes” Music composition, audio engineering and production” at Fermatta Music Academy (Mexico City). Management and business affairs” by Harvard University. Music Cognition” and “Music Business” by Berklee College of Music.
Karrie Keyes – Monitor Engineer for Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder Executive Director of SoundGirls.Org. Karrie has spent the last 25 plus years as the monitor engineer for Pearl Jam. Karrie started out doing sound for punk bands in Los Angeles in 1986 under the tutelage of Dave Rat of Rat Sound, where she spent twenty years helping to establish the company. She was able to gain an immense amount of hands-on experience and technical knowledge at Rat, which eventually led to her becoming the monitor engineer for The Red Hot Chili Peppers from 1990-2000. She first met and started working with Pearl Jam who opened for RHCP on their 1991-1992 Blood Sugar Sex Magic Tour. She has worked with Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and Neil Young.
Mike Bangs is a veteran in the touring world with an all-encompassing sound engineering and production management experience from many national and international tours, such as Katy Perry, Eric Clapton, and Aerosmith. Mike is now in charge of growing the Allen & Heath business in the touring market and supporting high-profile events, artists, engineers and sound companies as the new Live Sound/Touring expert.
A Special thanks to DiGiCo for sponsoring our AES Mentoring Session
Australia Mentoring Opportunity
Sound Engineer Gil Eva Craig will be touring Australia with The Pink Floyd Experience in June and is welcoming SoundGirls members the chance to shadow her for the following shows. One member per show. If you are interested please email soundgirls@soundgirls.org with the following info.
Name
Number
Email
SoundGirls Username
1st show you are interested in
2nd show you are interested in
Adelaide: Thebarton Fri 23rd June
Melbourne: Hamer Hall Sun 25th June
Sydney: Riverside, 29th June
Sydney: Enmore, 30th June
Queensland: Gold Coast Arts Centre 6th July
Brisbane: Q Pac 8th July
SoundGirls Build Community
By: Alesia Hendley and Evelyn Salas
Houston is the largest city in the state of Texas, which has become a local hub for all of our Texas members. Our goal, just as all the local chapters, is to build a community keeping the core values and mission of SoundGirls front of mind. This month Evelyn Salas had the opportunity to shadow Front of House (FOH) engineer Gil Eva Craig. Evelyn is currently enrolled in the Audio Engineer program at San Jacinto College and was more than happy to share her experience with her class and all of us. (more…)
Opportunity to Shadow FOH Engineer Gil Eva Craig
Shadow Gil Eva Craig on the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra U.S. Tour
SoundGirl Gil Eva Craig is coming to the states. She will be touring with the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. She has graciously offered SG Members the chance to come shadow her during the tour. Please keep in mind, she is on tour , working and the gig is top priority. If you are interested in coming to one of the gigs – please email – soundgirls@soundgirls.org
Please include the following
Full Name
Email
Phone Number
Show you wish to attend
Gil can only accommodate one or two people per show – first come – first served.
In light of the recent news that the Tony’s are planning on doing away with the sound design section of the awards, I thought I’d write a series of articles on sound design for theatre. This first installment is a general overview of what’s involved in designing sound for theatre, and a look at the differences between sound design for theatre and sound design for film and television.(more…)
A Life in Sound
GIL EVA CRAIG
Gil Eva Craig is an independent Audio Engineer and Music Producer working in professional audio for the last 18 years. Gil got her start as a recording engineer in 1996 and still owns and operates her own mixing and production studio, The Secret Beehive. This past May, she co-produced an album with Charlotte Yates and has done sound design and written original music for several theatre productions. Her passion though is live sound, and she currently is the FoH Engineer for The Wellington Ukulele Orchestra and works for the family business, Western Audio Engineering.
Gil’s interest in audio started in her teen years, as she would make ‘multi-track ‘ recordings using her brothers Walkman and the family boom box. Recording a guitar track first on the Walkman and then playing it back off the boom box, while recording a second track with the boom box, recording on the Walkman, and so on and so on. Reflecting back on this tracking technique Gil says “It didn’t take too many generations before my recordings turned to unintelligible satanic hiss”. Eventually, she was able to purchase a four-track cassette recorder, followed by a host of recording setups including; ½ inch 8 track, 1 inch 8 track, adats, 2 inch 16 track, and finally a 24 track hard disc recorder and Protools.
Gil spent the early years of her career recording and mixing demos for bands while trying to fund her studio. Initially, she was lured to live sound with the promise of fast cash to fund her studio. She started mixing bands at the local bar and quickly found that she not only enjoyed it but preferred it overworking in the studio. She has continued to work in both the studio and live environments. Gil has worked on several theatre productions, in which she has won awards for sound design.
Gil stumbled into sound design for theatre productions, as well as writing original music, when a mutual friend recommended her to a sound designer. She was hired to write music for a production of Penumbra that he was working on. At this point in time, the only theatre experience she had was as a musician in two amateur productions of Shakespeare. Tim Spite, a theatre director, attended the production, liked the music he heard, and hunted her down. He offered Gil the chance to compose and sound design on his next production. Gil continued to work on several of his productions, including a production of December Brother that she won a Chapman Tripp Theatre award for best sound design. The Chapmann Tripp Theatre Awards are New Zealand’s equivalent to the Tony Awards.
Sound Design for theatre productions encompasses two main disciplines; the technical design and the creative design. The technical design includes the speaker and playback system, programming the playback software and the digital consoles. The creative design is the sound effects, atmos, and music.
Gil was recently involved with the production for ‘360, A Theatre of Recollections. The production includes a surround sound and music design, and the audience is seated inside a circular stage, on swivel chairs. Gil programmed the show into a Q lab, and was able to run eight discrete outputs to six surround speakers, overheads, and subs. The sound designer, John Gibson, wrote the score utilizing surround sound to create the illusion of being surrounded by singers and players at key points in the score.
The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Gil’s extensive music background has surely helped throughout her career. She was trained in classical guitar starting at the age of ten and took up the trumpet when she was fifteen. She briefly played the Soprano Cornet and Flugelhorn, before settling on the Tenor Horn. She played as a musician in several bands, including a “file-under-difficult-listening” art band that was mixed by her future husband. She also played in a Brass Band called The Evening Post Onslow Brass Band.
Playing in the Brass Band provided a brilliant musical education, Gil explains that “playing in an A grade brass band was demanding, as a big part of being in the band was playing in contests. The test music for the A grade is challenging, much of it sonically pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a large brass ensemble. The time spent in rehearsals pulling these amazing and complicated pieces of music apart and making sense of them, coupled with what I learned at university and a modern music course I took, was the best musical education I could have wished for”.
While Gil did not have formal training in sound engineering, as at the time there were not programs offered in New Zealand, she did embark on a degree in music. Eventually, her engineering work took priority and she did not complete her degree. She feels that the time spent on her music degree gave her a solid foundation for sound engineering. She was taught the basics of harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, acoustics, and ethnomusicology. As for the technical side of things, she learned by reading, observing, and hands-on experience.
Hands On – The Family Business
Gil’s husband, is a partner in Western Audio Engineering, a professional live sound production company. For over a decade, the couple lived in the PA workshop (warehouse), which also housed her studio. This allowed her free access to outboard gear and mics for her studio and live gigs, and she found herself surrounded by sound gear 24/7. Instead of flowers on the kitchen table, there was a soldering iron. Gil reflects on her time spent living in the workshop “It was awesome living in the workshop for nine of those years, then I started to hanker for vases of flowers on the kitchen table, and nice vintage glassware that wouldn’t get smashed in a week”.
Currently, Gil works mainly in live sound, and her job duties at Western Audio include whatever needs to be done; stage patching, show prep, loading trucks, equipment maintenance, FOH, and Monitors. Recent gigs at Western Audio have included; mixing the entertainment and anthems for an international netball match, mixing live elements for a wearable art show, a stage patch for a festival, and monitors for a small outdoor festival.
As an independent engineer, Gil mostly mixes FoH, and does a small amount of sound system and playback design for theatre. She tours as the FoH engineer for the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, who regularly tour New Zealand and occasionally Australia. She recently shared her experiences mixing them with SoundGirls.Org, you can check it out here: Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Gil does monitors for the Pink Floyd Experience, which regularly tours New Zealand and Australia and has done sessions in South Africa.
Gil explains what she enjoys the most about touring “I like that every day is different, but the same, as you are setting up the same rig (give or take a few variables) each day, but are in different places. It’s a perfect blend of routine and novelty. Also, being part of a team, but with a certain amount of independence. Both of these factors completely suits my nature”. She also loves to travel, which fuels her fascination with airplanes and her love of photography. Her days off usually include visiting galleries and museums and taking photographs. The thing she likes the least is finding food, being gluten intolerant is a challenge. Aftershow pizza is out.
Women in sound in New Zealand
New Zealand is a very small country, with only about 4 million people, so women in live sound are fairly scarce! I think I am the only woman who is currently touring. In all the years I have been doing live sound, I have met three New Zealand women working in a technical capacity. One is a good friend of mine and is head of audio for the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. A female engineer is definitely still a novelty to some house guys when I meet them for the first time. When last touring with the Pink Floyd Experience, I got the classic ‘so you sing backing vocals’ a couple of times.
Advice for Women starting out
It is important to learn at least one instrument and be able to read music. Learning to speak the language of musicians is invaluable. Invest in a professional set of earplugs and take steps to protect your hearing. Take time to learn and try out different areas of audio to see where your passion lies and what fits your personality.
Gil feels she would not last in today’s modern recording environment with its emphasis on computer-based recording and pro tools editing. She once worked on a film production and immediately knew that was not a good fit. At some point, you just gotta jump in. I have met two women who have gone through audio school, who have yet to mix a show because they are afraid. I’m still afraid! Just today I agreed to mix a monitor gig and now I’m thinking why the f*** did I say yes? Learn by osmosis and observing, but you have to observe and surround yourself with people who are really good at what they do!
Must Have Skills
Aside from the obvious technical ability, having diverse musical experiences both as a listener and player gives you a huge head start. I’m grateful for every second I spent playing in the brass band, orchestra, guitar and brass ensembles, various pop/rock bands and the howling I did in the file-under-difficult-listening performance art group. Human communication skills: basically really listening to what people say and knowing what questions to ask. Which means you can translate ‘my monitor sounds mongy’ into ‘its right on the edge of feeding back at 250.
Favorite Gear: I am mad about and completely obsessed with reverbs. My favorites are the Bricasti M7, AMS, lexicons 460 and 300. I am also very fond of the Sony R7, and have a soft spot for the Yamaha Rev 7. I just love them. I haul my Bricasti to all my shows. The one show last year I couldn’t take it to, as we were traveling on a plane so small it was basically a van with wings, I really missed it. The Sony M7 is an underrated treasure, possibly because it’s not easy to program. It’s got its own thing going on sonically.
While I don’t really get overly gooey over microphones, I do really like DPA 4061’s and 4099s. I think they sound great. I used 4099’s on a couple of trombones recently, fantastic. My favorite consoles are Midas digital consoles. I like how they sound and love the VCA and Pop group concept as you can program it so it’s under the fingers, very nice. I have done a few things on the pro 1 lately, which I call the kitten console because it’s impossibly little and cute. When coupled with a DL251 stage box to expand up to 40 channels, it’s amazing what you can do on it.
Album mixes:
Charlotte Yates’s Beggars Choice and ‘Archipelago’
Rosy Tin Tea Caddys All Mountains are MenChris Prowse’s Waterfront Collective’s Trouble on the Waterfront’ and The Shiner
Flea Bite’s – In Your Ear and Circus of Fleas
Fatcat and Fishface’s BirdBrain Theatre Sound Design:
-Sound design and music for several of Tim Spites Seeyd Theatre plays, 2006 – 2012, including the award -winning December Brother
-Sound design and music for Ginette MacDonald’s My Brilliant Divorce 2008
-Sound design for Centrepoint Theatres The Raft 2009
-Sound System Design for 2010 New Zealand International Arts Festival show 360
-Sound system design for Chris Wards award winning sound design for The Lead Weight 2011Awards: Gil has been nominated for several Chapman Trip theatre awards, and won best sound design for The December Brother in 2010. She also mixed Tui award winning albums Trouble on the Waterfront by The Waterfront Collective, and Circus of Fleas by Fleabite and tracked another Tui winning album Dog Breath by FatCat and FishFace.Live Sound:
-Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – FOH engineer
-Pink Floyd Experience – Monitor engineer
-World of Wearable Arts – FOH engineer
-The Woolshed Sessions – FOH engineer
-Rosy Tin Tea Caddy – FOH engineer
-Claude Rains – FOH engineer
History of The English Brass Bands
The English Brass Bands got their start during England’s Industrial Revolution. They were originally organized and financed by mining and milling companies to keep the working classes from politically organizing. In 1860, there were around 750 brass bands in England. Today the English Brass Band tradition is found throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States. The Salvation Army has kept the tradition alive in the United States.
English Brass Bands are made up cornets, flugelhorn, tenor horns, baritones, trombones, euphoniums,B-flat and E-flat basses and percussion. The bands are made up of 28 to 30 members and their programs can include original music, traditional marching songs, hymns, and medleysBands in New Zealand are graded into four levels A grade to D grade. A grade being the top grade, and D being the equivalent of a beginner band. In Britain, the equivalent is 1st – 4th grade, with the addition of the Championship Section. The Championship Section is the best of the best and includes famous bands such as Black Dyke and Grimethorpe.
The contests in New Zealand consist of each band preparing a March, a Hymn, and an original piece. They are also given a set test piece. The A Grade is very competitive, and as the contest becomes closer; the bands practice several times a week, with extensive rehearsals on weekends. Each player is expected to continue practicing at home. Several bands have tempted top players from England by helping them relocate to New Zealand.
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