Photo of CRAS Grad Reya Harris
The meeting began with some small talk about everyone's weekend, favorite concert venues, and recent gear purchases. One student just purchased a Warm Audio WA-76 compressor, modeled after Bill Putnam's famous 1176 FET compressor. We are all very excited to see it when he gets it next week! After a few minutes of catching up, we introduced AES to the 2 first-time students, telling them what it was all about and the myriad benefits that come along with it. After doing some of the weekly announcements, including the Hey Audio Student Facebook page, aesstudents.org's recording competitions, and Thursday's meeting with Warm Audio VP of Global Sales Ben Thompkins. Following the announcements, we had student DJ Mellen share a tip of the week, which consisted of a great video sharing some creative foley ideas. Many of us had never seen most of these techniques being used before, and it introduced the concept of foley to some of the newer students! Before our guest Reya arrived, we went around to do introductions and answer the question of the week: "Who is your dream artist to engineer for / which movie would you most wanted to have worked as an engineer on?" Answers consisted of JPEGMAFIA to Grand Theft Auto to Kings of Leon. That led right into Reya Harris arriving, so we moved onto our interview with her. We discussed her experiences in live sound before CRAS, moving out to New York City to do freelance audio after CRAS, some of the difficulties Covid has created in the industry, and some of her networking tips for a successful career in the audio industry. We then moved onto a student Q&A, where we learned more about her tips for live sound engineers, some of her favorite gear, and more about freelancing and her choice to start an LLC. Overall, it was a great night and we all enjoyed getting to hear about her perspective and experiences in the audio industry! Thank you so much for joining us Reya!
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