Ianina has been working for Meyer Sound for the last four years and has been working in audio for over 20 years. Early Life Did music and audio interest you while you were growing up?  I started studying music when I was 10 and I finished with a Teaching degree in music when I was 18 years old. Musical Background? I used to play guitar and saxophone and sang when I was a teenager. I loved playing classical music in small groups, and I also participated in playing in orchestra and choirs for several years. When did you discover audio as a career path?  When I was a teenager. How did y ..read more

Amidst my post-graduate pursuit of a career in audio, I was recently allowed to act as a short-term educator at St. Michael’s Academy, where the film and music programs are both about as refined as can be for a pre-collegiate setting. It was an exciting chance to share my love for audio with a new generation of high school students who were just beginning to explore the field. I had the honor of both watching and participating in this program, known as Winter Term, as it was first introduced back when I was a student from 2016 to 2019. Winter Term is a three-week period held in January where s ..read more

I recently stumbled across an interesting podcast episode about the power of voice, featuring world-renowned vocal coach Stewart Pearce. A fascinating guest and captivating speaker, Pearce’s celebrity clients have ranged all the way from Princess Diana to Margaret Thatcher, with a healthy dose of Oscar winners and accomplished theatre actors included in the middle. One of the most intriguing things Pearce talked about, was women reclaiming the power of their voices in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, and now living a very spiritual and esoteric lifestyle, he claimed that the next chapter ..read more

My previous two blogs were about how to get started mixing first with the vocals, then working with the band. Once you start to feel like you’ve got mental energy to spend on other things, it’s time to zero in on the subtleties. These are the details that take the sound from a functional mix to part of the story. You as the mixer start to have room to make the show your own and add some artistic flourishes! So what does that mean? At this point you have the vocals at good levels, you’re blending the band and pushing solos, so what else is there to do? In my very first blog, I talked about what ..read more

“by the time you hear this / I’ll be somewhere far away. / I’d rather not say it at all / but these moments have to burn / they are the fuel that will get me home” Ada Rook “someone will remember us, I say / even in another time”. Sappho   Do you ever imagine yourself in ancient times? Not yourself exactly like a reversed 80s movie where a medieval knight time warps into New York, but whatever nature you are, nurtured by the gears of whatever was going on 2000 years ago. Do you imagine yourself rich? Poor? In pain? Happy? Anxious? Self-aware? Lately, I’ve been kind of obsessed with Sappho ..read more

Last month I took a brief look into some routines I’ve developed that help me feel centered to better reach my full potential as a mix engineer. In it, I mentioned the importance of solidifying your understanding of the music to achieve the most impactful, distraction-free mix. Here we highlight how I approach learning music before a show or tour to achieve this goal. When I ask my mentors what I should do to improve my mixes, this is usually their number one comment: proactive, intentional listening. But how do you listen, and how do you commit that to memory? When it comes to tour prep, it h ..read more

It’s “tax return” season in the U.S. Every furniture store and car dealership is begging us to come spend our big cash “bonus” we get from the government on something new and shiny. My favorite ad I see is the tax businesses who say “Let us help you get the biggest refund possible!” Many years ago, when I was a brand-spanking new adult, my dad (who is a money guy) taught me something that I think about every year during this “tax return” season. He said, “Why would you want to give the government an interest-free loan?” What we are essentially doing is giving the government our hard-earned mon ..read more

    A Nonbinary Individual’s Foray into Corporate A.V. Part 3: Religious Intersectionality   Since writing my last blog post, a lot has changed. Namely, I no longer work at the A.V. company that I mentioned before. To be frank, the misgendering and discriminatory practices became too much to handle, and I needed a way out. Before I left, there were unfortunately a few more instances of transphobia, and worryingly, antisemitism that I faced. Our A.V. team would always work with other teams to make the corporate world function. A.V. would set up and coordinate projectors, laptops ..read more

Christina Masha Milinusic is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in Live Sound, Recording, Location Sound Recording, and Audio Education. As the owner of Unity Sound, Christina has contributed her expertise to various institutions, including the City of Calgary, the Calgary Stampede, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, Mount Royal University, The Grand Theatre, and Stage West. Currently a member of IATSE #212, Christina is also a Sessional Instructor in Digital Audio Arts at the University of Lethbridge, specializing in technical ear training. As a teenager ..read more

The sound check and gig – and what is in my bag Welcome to part 2 of my small venue survival guide, or all the little things I wish someone had told me when I set out on this journey. The tips in this guide should hopefully help you own the small venue gig, rather than the small venue gig owning you. YOU CAN READ PART ONE HERE If you have followed the steps described in part 1, then you should by now have a desk and sound system that kind of works, or at least you have figured out what works and what doesn’t and have prepared a few workarounds. You have set up several mics and have sorted out ..read more