Mix Messiah Productions presents: 31 Women in Audio, a series celebrating Women's History Month.
Day 12: Caryl Owen
Today, we speak with Caryl Owen, a Peabody-award winning Broadcast / Recording Technician formerly of National Public Radio.
Leslie Gaston Bird: What childhood
experiences do you think led you to a love for the field of audio?
Caryl Owen: My Mom played piano, and I spent
hours on the floor underneath it, listening to her playing. I still like the sounds
underneath a grand piano! I had a little pink and grey Columbia record player and
what seems to have been a complete set of Golden Books Records, but my real favorites
were our recordings of Scheherazade and
Richard Rodger's Victory at Sea.
LGB: What was your earliest experience with
recording?
CO: Well, it all started with recording favorite
songs off the radio onto cassettes using a cheap mic pointed at my clock radio's
speaker. I still have some of those atrocious sounding things! I learned how to
run a cheap PA mixer for the guys who had a garage band down the street in high
school, Mixed for my bands when I wasn't singing (and sometimes when I was,) played
around at college radio stations, shadowed a friend who was a monitor mixer for
Kiss, and eventually took a class at a little local recording studio where I ended
up running the office while teaching classes - sometimes I was only a week or so
ahead of my students; that's a good way to learn fast!
LGB: Please compare your leadership role
now with past roles you had in other, perhaps larger companies / crews.
CO: I've always worked for studios or stations,
but I've been teaching audio recording since I began working in the field. Mentoring
someone who has a deep desire to learn is one of the most satisfying things I've
done, I'm so proud to have helped some very talented people get started.
LGB: What questions do you DISLIKE being asked
related to women in audio?
CO: Ask anything you like, I'll answer if
I feel it's germane to the conversation. Is being a woman in audio hard? Sure! Not
as bad as it was in the 70's, but there are still problems, I have a friend who
was sexually harassed by her boss in November of 2016.
LGB: What questions would you PREFER to be
asked related to women in audio?
CO: The same questions an interviewer would
ask any man.
LGB: What female role models do you have, fictional or real?
CO: Xena, Warrior Princess and Martha Stewart.
Kick ass, and be perfect.
Kick ass, and be perfect.
LGB: What upcoming projects are you excited
about?
CO: I've just retired but have a couple of
prospects to consider.
Of the things I've done in the past, I'm
probably most proud of the many projects (and three Peabody awards) I worked on
with David Isay. Even after all this time, Ghetto Life 101 sounds amazing, especially
when you consider that the original recordings were made to cassette by a couple
of kids, and the mix was all analog, multi-machine choreography. We figured it took
an hour to mix each minute of the final piece.
LGB:: Finally, be sure to tell me about anything you want to promote.
CO: Nothing right now. My last show, To the Best
of Our Knowledge (ttbook.org) is in the
able hands of my last mentee, Joe Hardtke.
-Leslie Gaston-Bird
Owner, Mix Messiah Productions, LLC
www.mixmessiahproductions.com
.
