Guest Editor Catherine Marks is Executive Director of the Music Producers Guild and a Grammy Award-winning producer and mix engineer, with credits including Wolf Alice, Foals, St Vincent and boygenius.Photo: Phoebe Fox
Music production is a pretty insane business. Long hours, tight budgets, tough deadlines, ridiculous amounts of coffee... but for all the ups and downs navigating this wonderful and curiously creative career choice, nothing makes me more frustrated than being asked “why are there so few women?”
When I began working in this industry nearly 20 years ago, there were just a handful of us, but we have made enormous strides to readdress that imbalance since then. There is still a long way to go and there are so many of us who will never stop striving to increase diversity in all areas of the business. All too often, though, our existence has been measured through statistics. But it doesn’t represent the bigger picture. I know so many engineers, producers and mixers kicking ass, making great records and winning awards. I wanted, in one place, to showcase that. No statistics, no politics, just here we are. This is what we do. Look at us all!
We have been lamenting about the “who isn’t” for so long I felt it was time we celebrated the “who is” for a change... As one of the newly appointed directors of the Music Producers Guild we were able to reach out to Sound On Sound magazine with the idea. They loved it! And with an enthusiastic thumbs up from Editor In Chief Sam Inglis, I grabbed my Rolodex (aka Instagram) and got to work.
Reaching out to about 20 people I knew in music production, I was gleefully inundated with more and more suggestions: and suddenly there were at least 50 names floating around. How do we include everyone? We wanted to maintain a majority of the format but SOS wanted to make changes too. Researching more diverse contributors, authors and subjects. And with more talented names being added to the list: something for the next issue!
It’s been a long time coming but change is happening; perception just needs to catch up.
My hope is this issue, with its broad readership, will begin to create real visibility for those killing it in the industry. To inspire those starting out, or contemplating getting into music production, and to help the decision makers see what a wonderfully diverse pool of talented producers and engineers there are. You can’t be what you can’t see! I particularly wanted to pay tribute to those who I looked up to when I first started: Linda Perry, Sylvia Massey, Emily Lazar, Ann Mincieli. Those with experience who have been doing this a while and have paved the way for a new generation of superstars.
It’s been a long time coming but change is happening; perception just needs to catch up.