Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
My name is Kseniya Degtyareva and I am from Belarus. I’ve just finished my bachelor degree at audio engineering at Belarusian State Academy of Art. Also I work as a sound engineer at Belarusian State Academic Musical Theatre. I had an idea to enter the master program at my university, but unfortunately I’ve missed exams due to business trip to China. But maybe it’s better, because current master program is focused more on arts than on my speciality. So I plan to wait a year and try to continue my education at master degree somewhere abroad.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
I went to music school to learn piano when I was five. More than other lessons I liked solfeggio. All my childhood I tried to make something creative, like making concerts for the parents with singing, dancing and playing instruments or writing songs on piano. All of this was naive, but I spent a lot of time for such things. When I finished school I had to make a decision about my further education. First I wanted to go to music college to study music theory. But then I decided that it is not perspective and chose linguistic college. Maybe it was my fault. During study at college I thought about what I want from my life and made some electronic music for indie games in my free time. After graduation I had an ability to enter the linguistics university directly to the 3rd year. It was my parent's’ dream, but not mine. After long searching I found an audio engineering specialty at academy of arts and passed exams. Every day during study I understood that it was absolutely right choice. I started searching for some additional education materials, tried to do extra projects with musicians. In a year audio became my passion.
Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? What it was inspired by? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
I learned about student recording competition last summer. I was so disappointed, because I’ve missed not only student competition, but the whole convention that took place nearby (138th AES convention was in Warsaw). It was impossible for me to visit the next convention in New York, so I had to wait a year to participate. That year during each recording session I thought about how it could fit the competition. I initiated some projects myself to gain more material to choose from. On February we’ve rented a studio with young jazz band to record their songs. It was a session in a hurry, guys had to go to jobs after recording. I’ve made a rough demo, but musicians were not satisfied with their playing, they asked me to record them later again. I had to leave Minsk for a month and came back in April. I tried to initiate a new recording session, but musicians didn’t have enough time for that. At the same time I had an access to digital mixing console and thought that it would be a good idea to work with some previously recorded material. There was one composition that I liked the most from that February jazz recording session and I started to mix it. To say true, almost till deadline I was not sure which track to submit for competition, as I had some not bad records suitable for the first category. But all of April I didn’t stop working with that jazz composition. Unfortunately, I have no mixing room which I can fully trust. That’s why I checked my mix wherever it was possible. While listening at new systems I found some errors and came for new mixing ideas.
What was your most significant/funny/inspiring experience as an audio engineer?
A few years ago I had a live recording session in a church and I’ve forgot to take an extension cord with me, so I couldn’t connect laptop and an audio interface in the same place. I was lucky as there was a shop not so far from the church so I could buy a new one. If not, the concert would have gone without being recorded. That was a good lesson on how important in our profession to be focused and keep lots of things in mind.
What was your biggest mistake in a production and what did you do to redeem the situation?
I think my biggest mistake as an audio engineer was when I made film production as a course work with the student-director. We finished production, but during exam he had some notes from professors, that the sense of the movie could be not fully understandable by viewers. So director decided to add some off-screen speech. The actress and academy studio time were absolutely busy and we had only ten minutes to make project, set the mic and record phrases. By default project settings sample rate was 44 kHz. So we started to record, and then I understood that the whole film was recorded at 48 kHz. Tried to be fast I forgot to check so important setting. Absolutely fault was to change sample rate at the middle of the session. So I lose quality of some important phrases and couldn't find tools to fix the problem to achieve a good result.
What’s your advice for engineers who are just starting out?
I would tell them to attend more professional events, to read literature to be up-to-date, to share experience with friends - sound engineers, not to be afraid of critics and practice a lot.
What are your favorite pieces of equipment (microphones, outboard, plugins) and why?
Our academy doesn’t have plenty of equipment, there is no matched stereo pair, except AKG C414, which we are not allowed to take out. So I absolutely happy to have my own pairs of Rode NT5 and M5. I usually use NT5 as main stereo pair. M5 are good for many instruments, for example, to catch piano in stereo. I wish to have more channels, but now audio interface Tascam US-2000 allows me to be independent and make some records whenever I want. I like its separate knobs control for input signal, for sound from computer and for levels for headphones and monitors.
What/who made you join to AES?
As I know, I am the first member of AES from Belarus. I just surfed the internet looking for competitions and events for student audio engineers. Finding AES website was like opening the new world. I regret that it happened last summer, not some years earlier.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 140th AES convention in Paris!
It was not only my first recording competition, but my first convention. I really liked exhibition, before I never had an ability to try such great amount of top equipment. I was absolutely impressed by main speech, for me it was bright example of how presentation should be look like. During convention I knew a lot from speakers, it is pity that many interesting presentations were in the same time. I really thankful for ability to visit Conservatoire de Paris. It was very interesting to became familiar how the other students do they study and highly motivated me to try my best to do my master in a place like this. And I was absolutely happy to meet so many interesting people during convention. Now in my plans to realize trip to 141st convention in Los Angeles.
What is your favourite frequency?
I think it is 2 kHz, because I raise it and cut more often than others frequencies.
What do you do when you’re not in the studio or doing anything music related?
I read books, watch films, go to theaters or concerts. During trips to Europe I try to find interesting organ music concerts in churches, so the concert at convention was like extra gift for me. Also I like ballet and do some lessons for amateurs when I have a free time.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I hope I will have my own studio and ability to work with top musicians, enough knowledge and experience to share them with students at universities and with auditorium during presentations at special events.
Could you provide us with some closing comments?
I am grateful to the AES community and to SDA, especially, for such a strong support for students. For me the recording competition was a good way to check myself and to become familiar with other works from universities all over the world. I’m happy to have such a high estimation from great professionals out of my industry. Now I feel like I have a lot of energy and ideas for new projects.
Posted: Monday, August 22, 2016
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