Kip The Soundie

Summary

I specialise in vocal editing, mixing, and mastering, for musicians and bands. My preference is to let artists track (or record) on their own and get involved only for the post-production. This allows bands and artists to be cost-effective with their recording!

I also create dance/performance tracks for burlesque dancers or drag artists.

In addition to freelancing, I also work casually for a local council’s youth services where I help young people to express themselves using music and music technology.

My Backstory

I’m a trans non-binary butch lesbian from a rural area of Canada who lives permanently in Melbourne, Australia.

In Australia, the amount of women sound engineers is somewhere around 2-11% (depending on the study) and less than 2% of all sound engineers are non-binary. I’m proudly a part of that 2%.

When I was a teenager, I was an avid amateur soundie who recorded music on a $12 computer microphone on my family’s shared desktop computer in our kitchen. I sold CDs of music I’d written and recorded to my friends for $3 out of my locker at high school. I wanted to be a sound engineer, but I was discouraged from pursing it because I was a girl.

I was told that girls didn’t become sound engineers, that it was a sexist industry, that harrassment was normal, that it was too much of a blue collar job for a “smart promising young woman”.

So I shelved my dream to become a sound engineer and got a Bachelors of Arts, Major in Music from the University of Western Ontario and then a certificate in Arts and Entertainment Management from Capilano University. I then worked in ticketing for live events and festivals for many years. I played in bands, performed music/cabaret piano shows, and did choral composition and arrangement on the side.

When COVID happened I reevaluated my life and I decided to finally chase my dream of being a sound engineer. I studied sound engineering at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia and have been working as a freelance sound engineer ever since.

If you’ve ever been told that you’re too feminine, too queer, too strange to be a musician, I’m keen to work with you. Send me a message via my contact form and let’s work on some projects.