MIXING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC
PS : How have the necessary safety precautions that are mandated for studios ( reduced capacity , social distancing , etc .) affected your work ? Is it more or less of a hassle than you expected ?
ÀJASON DUFOUR : I ’ m a mix engineer so I am work-À À ing remotely now with no direct client interactions À À over the next while until the pandemic calms down . À À I did attend a mastering session with one of my artists À À recently and we were all masked up the whole time .
ÀKAJ FALCH-NIELSEN : It has definitely changed À À our routines and what we can allow our clients to do À À during sessions . For routines , it is more cleanup time À À and disinfecting all the equipment after being used . À À We have to be more aware of how many people areÀ
À in a room at one time , and how far apart everyone À
À is . Also , of course , setting musicians up in a room andÀ À that kind of thing .
À The other thing is clients who want to bring their À
À crew with them to hang out in the studio while they À
À record . We now ask clients to only bring people to the À
À session that are part of the recording in order to keep À À numbers lower .
ÀKR MOORE : To be honest , I personally haven ’ t been À Àback to the studio because I have family members À Àwho are very high-risk . My wife and my first-born and À Ànow my newborn children all have sickle cell disease . À ÀSo , we ’ re taking the extra time to make sure things À
À look more sensible before we jump right back in , so a À
À lot of my work I ’ ve been doing remotely . But honestly , À
À the only thing that I ’ ve found has been really affect-À
À ed is being in the studio with the artist while they ’ re À
À recording to provide certain guidance or creative direc-À À tion and things like that .
À GUS VAN GO : It ’ s moderately a hassle . It ’ s not pre-À À venting us from working . In the early days of COVID , À À I simply had everyone postpone their sessions . So À À yeah , it hurt back then . But now people understand À À that if we all keep our masks on , keep the number of À
À people in the room to two or three , max , and don ’ t À
À hover too close to each other , we can still get work À À done and be safe .
ÀRYAN WORSLEY : Honestly , in B . C . at least , I feel like À Àstudios have sort of flown under the radar , which in À Àsome ways has been nice . Like , the movie industry got À Àshut down and nightclubs and live concerts got shut À Àdown , but there was never anything in B . C . that specifi-À À cally said that studios had to shut down . À So , what we did in the initial phase of the pan-À À demic was we set up both studios to have
À two rooms completely quarantined . We had , À
À basically , two mix rooms set up – one where the À
À engineer was mixing and the other one where À
À the artist could be – and then we would have talkÀ
À backs set up back-and-forth and we ’ d be able to À
À work through mixes together with lines of sight and À
À be able to hear each other . That worked out really À Àwell .
ÀJILL ZIMMERMANN : Since touring and live shows À Àare not available in the near future , a lot of musi-À Àcians Àstill have the urge to be productive and , in many cases , that includes recording more material . The reduced capacity only impacted a few
À sessions that we at Jukasa , unfortunately , were not À
À able to facilitate . They involved a full choir or a big À
À band and those kinds of sessions usually happen live À
À without social distancing being possible . Aside from À
À that , I was able to still work normally , as the musicians À
À are separated through isolation booths or socially À
À distanced on the live floor . We are fairly used to these À
À new protocols now , but they did take some getting À À used to .
PS : From your recent experience , what ’ s the key to getting clients comfortable and recording / mixing work done efficiently during the current situation ?
ÀFALCH-NIELSEN : For the most part , when we tell À Àour clients our safety plan , they are good with it . À ÀSometimes they will bring their own microphone , À Àand some are not comfortable coming in yet , but for À Àthe most part , if they book time , they are com-À
À fortable with our level of safety precautions .
ÀVAN GO : You just have to show that you ’ re respect-À Àing people ’ s different comfort levels , which so far , À Àluckily , everyone I ’ ve been working with has . I keep À Àextra masks around and lots of sanitizer !
40 PROFESSIONAL SOUND