AES Student Blog

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where and what do you study?

Hallo! I’m Jasper Ras from the Hague, The Netherlands! I study at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague on the Art of Sound department (I’m probably done with the study when this interview is online).

It’s a cool study where the focus is a lot on the music and the technological side of engineering. One can choose to specialize in doing live sound, recording (jazz or classical) or producing (my fave). When doing the study you get main instrument lessons on conservatory level, solfeggi, music theory, etc. While also doing engineering, signal processing, music technology, ect, because I think it’s important to know and play music when working with audio. 

Other than producing for other bands, I play drums in a 60’s/70’s blues rock band called Thin Pillow, I do keys in a ska-punk band called De Skaggerz and I do drums and sampling in an electronic based duo band called TAKYON.

What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?

I guess it started when I got a crappy 20 euro keyboard for christmas when I was 7 or 8. After playing on that thing I got piano lessons, and drum lessons years later. I got a Boss BR-1600 digital multitrack recorder when I was around 13/14 years old where I did my very first productions. I got it to record my drumming and rehearsals for my bands, but I also used it to make productions for myself.

I guess listening to bands like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and The Who in my early days also helped me in developing an interest in producing.

Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What was it inspired by? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?

Ashes (the production) is part of an album I made with the Rotterdam based alternative pop band MAYÍN. The album is themed around the death of Misha's (the lead singer) mother, who died tragically a few years ago. She, and her band wrote a album-full of songs which I got to produce. Ashes is a song about the fear of also losing It's in the making since August 2015, and now (July) I've finished the mixes. It was actually the first time I ever was at a AES convention. I believe I am the first Dutch price winner ever at the competition, so I'm very honored to get this award.

What was your most significant/funny/inspiring experience as an audio engineer? 

At the first day at my internship-studio where I worked, I had to take over an job of my boss, to record demo's for a 15 year old girl. So I prepared like a good intern would do on his first day. But she was totally unprepared, had no singing experience at all and thought that studio's are places where teens can be transformed into instant superstars within a second. So after choosing an song (I just took an karaoke version of a Katy Perry track of the internet), I tried to record her singing but as soon as her first note hit, I knew it was gonna be a tough day for auto tune. After she came to the control room (and asked me if I already made a track with Justin Bieber) she also told me that she thought that renting studio's is for free. So that was the first time I had to kick someone out of the studio. I

What was your biggest mistake in a production and what did you do to redeem the situation?

One mistake I keep making, to overwork myself. Whenever I do a session I keep forgetting to drink water and to eat, which causes headache and lost of concentration. Taking breaks is important and will be more efficient in the long run than to keep on working. 

What’s your advice for engineers who are just starting out?

Simple: RTFM. You need to know how stuff works, before can benefit the most from it. 

What are your favorite pieces of equipment (microphones, outboard, plugins), and why?

Plug ins: Just to give a shout out to some dutch companies, I love the FabFilter and Audio Ease plug-ins a lot. I love to work with the weird IR's of Altiverb, like 30 feet oil tanks, or an tin can for doing creative production. I'm also a frequent user of the soundtoys plug ins.

Mics: Some of my fave mics are: SM(5)7 and SM58, Neumann TLM170, RE20, Sennheiser MD441, Schoeps MK21 and the Royer R121.

Outboard: LA-2A, Lexicon PCM70, Ensoniq DP/4, 1176LN

What/who made you join the AES? 

At our school, our head of department is very much into letting students join the AES, so I became a member to check it out.

Tell us about your favourite experiences at the 140th AES Convention in Paris!

The student recording competition was, of course, a big highlight. Talking with other people in the field on the convention floor and meeting new friends from all around the world was also very nice. I also loved walking through Paris, seeing the city and going into adventures. 

What is your favourite frequency?

808Hz

What do you do when you’re not in the studio or doing anything music related?

Enjoying life

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Making an living out of music, in some way or another. From September I'll start a studio in The Hague where I can work on stuff. Hopefully working more abroad would be amazing to do in 10 years.

Could you provide us with some closing comments?

Eet elke dag een appel, anders wordt je kaal.