Ashley Ann Lambert is an actor, vocalist, and partner with R.A.W. Voice Casting out of Los Angeles, CA. She describes herself as “passionate about sound and all of its forms.” In her role at R.A.W., she uses her well-trained ear for acoustic direction and sound mimicry to cast accurate sound-alikes, direct voiceover actors individually or in groups, and lead ADR sessions to hone many of the performances we hear in our favorite big and small budget films. A professional voiceover actress herself, at times you can even hear her own voice among them. With remote work having risen

I was no stranger to being trapped at home prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: I’m a parent. Getting out has often been a struggle. As vaccines have become widely available, infections less deadly, and the landscape more open, the social relevance of livestreaming appears to be fading. But mine meant the world to me. Now after two years, 100 episodes, many meaningful friendships and countless valuable lessons about accessibility, community, and the structure of our world online, I’m ending it.

Lexi Jackson is one of the most inspiring, generous, and vibrant musicians/audio people I’ve befriended online. She not only writes and produces music as eye.elle and creates playlists to feature other artists, but she is also forging a career in music licensing. After obtaining a certificate in Music Production at the Community College of Baltimore County in 2021, and interning at both Maryland Public Television’s Content Department and Women’s Audio Mission, she began work at The Sync Center. She has since landed a job as a Music Licensing Assistant at ESPN.

Lisa Machac is a musician and entrepreneur based in Austin, Texas who, in February of 2020, founded the audio education platform Omni Sound Project. Through Omni’s virtual member mixers and other educational opportunities, she has brought together women+ artists, engineers, and producers from all over the globe while maintaining an essential intimate quality.

As queer parents and educators, we always expected to encounter and work to affirm LGBTQ+ youth in our lives. But the current social climate has presented challenges beyond what we anticipated. Legislation targeting transgender children and families keeps coming, and right-wing politicians and pundits remain laser focused on eroding LGBTQ+ protections for power. We are angry. We want our children safe.

Caridad Espinosa is a Quito, Ecuador-based mix engineer and producer as well as founder and lead instructor of Mix Like a Girland co-founder and coordinator of the Beats by Girlz chapter for the city in which she resides. She earned her degree from Berklee College partner Universidad San Francisco de Quito College of Music in 2021. While there, she was awarded the Audio and Engineering Society AES (2020), API Saul Walker Memorial Scholarship (2020 & 2021), and was honored by Berklee College of Music for her work as a producer, composer, mixing, and recording engineer — while there, she also began the organization Mix Like a Girl.

In the audio landscape of Northern California and beyond, Dana Jae has done it all these past 30 years: live sound, film sound (production and post), purchasing, studio recording, mixing, mastering, and education. She began as a purchasing agent for Leo’s Audio in the late 80s, acquiring extensive knowledge of audio equipment through brochures and spec sheets as she researched manufacturers and their offerings. From that time onward, she became proficient in live sound, serving as a house sound engineer at the San Francisco nightclub Bottom of the Hill beginning in 1991, touring the US and Europe with the band Medicine as their sound mixer from 1994 to 1995. From 1999 to 2004, she also partnered in and presided over the record label and commercial recording studio called APG Records/APG Studios, which has evolved into Portero Post. She then explored film audio through the creative visual media production company Films on 45 in 2007. She also runs her own sound company called dcj Productions, though that has since taken something of a backseat to her work as an audio educator — she is currently Broadcast Electronic Media Arts Department Chair at City College of San Francisco.

Through a virtual workshop she led in 2020, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lisa Kacos helped me to understand music theory in the most practical terms I had ever heard. This is a specialty of hers, honed through decades of musicianship as well as academic study. She holds both a Bachelor of Composition in Music Theory as well as a Masters in Music Theory with a pedagogy emphasis from Michigan State University. She currently leads interactive online workshops such as the forthcoming Music Theory for Producers Workshop held April 30th through Omni Sound Project, where she is a core faculty member for 2022, as well as a popular Rhythm for Songwriters course. Previously, she has taught at her Alma Mater MSU, Grand Rapids Community College, and at SAE Institute – Nashville. As a musician, she writes and records her own music and has played with Outer Vibe, Samuel Herb, Violet LaVelle, and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. For the 2021 Omni Sound Project “Four Track Challenge,” she contributed tracks and stems from her original song “Losers Club” to be manipulated and remixed by fellow audio engineers, both established and aspiring.

I’d love to go back to school for audio, but I owe a lot of money to the federal government. Okay fine, it’s student loan debt. For a long time, I felt like that huge and haunting sum meant that I could never pursue an education beyond the degrees I already hold. Debt, lack of funds, an overabundance of responsibilities: they all present very real barriers for many of us wishing to acquire new skills.

Banished. That’s where my kids would be when I recorded at home pre-pandemic. Not banished to their knowledge, just hanging with their grandparents for at least an entire day, at most overnight. The point is they would be gone, and I’d have sent our dog with them, too, if I’d had my way.

There are two songs that I remember having written at age six: a rock n’ roll wonder called “Thunder and Lightning” (thunder and lightning/ yeah yeah/ thunder and lightning/ oh yeah) and a narrative style ballad about a little cat that emerged from a mysterious magical flowerbed to become my pet.

housands of The Tweedy Show’s fans (jokingly termed “clients”) peer virtually into Sue Tweedy’s family room four nights a week, met with wall-to-wall vintage furniture and bookshelves stacked with stuff: DVDs, tin lunch boxes, collectable cereal boxes with names like “Obama O’s” and “Quisp.” They see Jeff Tweedy in his “Hi, How Are You” hat and pajama pants, yet they seldom see Sue’s face. “Except for those couple of camera-flipping accidents,” she adds, “Ugh.”