Katie Lau:
Live sound
Painted Zeros
“To my younger self, and to anyone out there who is queer or confused or rethinking their gender, who is afraid or doesn’t feel like they have anyone to talk honestly to: There is nothing wrong with you. You are worthy of love exactly the way you are. Please hang in there — we need you.”
May 15, 2020
interview by Maxime Brunet for Women in Sound #7
portrait by Maggie Negrete
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I first met you as an engineer, but I’ve discovered through our friendship that you’re also a talented musician. Which came first, an interest in sound or playing music?
Music definitely came first. I started my first instrument, violin, when I was eight years old. Although I was always happy with the violin, I also really wanted to learn guitar. My grandmother bought me a guitar when I was six years old, and I picked it up and started teaching myself when I was 10. Having access to the internet to teach myself and look up tabs and sheet music of my favorite songs was an incredible resource. We had a little upright piano at home in my living room that I would often play. Then my younger brother took up drums, so I taught myself on his kit around the time I was 16 years old. Now I’m decently proficient at most string instruments, including the bass, banjo, mandolin, cello, etc. I continued playing violin all throughout college in string quartets and in the symphony orchestra. I absolutely love classical music, but the guitar was always my thing — there was no formal instruction, no one telling me what to do or how to play it, which made it wholly my own.
At the same time, I was always super fascinated in how the music I listened to was made, so I’d say it was a confluent interest. My dad had a terrible plastic USB microphone that he used for early Skype calls. This little mic was probably from Best Buy, made in the early ‘90s, and it was the first thing I ever used to record! Just myself playing guitar and various looped drum samples that I found online. So my engineering interest grew from a deep love of music, listening to recorded music and then playing and wanting to make it myself.
When did you start playing in bands?
I was really involved in the punk scene growing up. I’d play music sometimes with friends, but the only band I was in while in high school was a screamo band. We only practiced a few times. My first experience truly being in a band was when I joined a friend’s band my first year of college. I played lead guitar and sang occasionally. In my senior year, I formed my own project.
Is this the same band you’re playing with now, Painted Zeros?
Yes, that’s the same project. That’s been my recording project name since I was 21.
What did you study in college?
I studied philosophy.
[laughs] What did you want to be?
You know, that would have been a really good question to ask 18-year-old Katie. I don’t think I really had any super-clear ideas of what I envisioned my life or career looking like when I was
attending undergrad. I really liked philosophy and it was a natural interest. I used to joke that I was planning to lock myself in an ivory tower to write the next great dissertation on metaphysics.
Besides studying philosophy, I also took music theory classes and spent a lot of time making music and learning how to engineer. I helped form a student band union with some friends. Through this organization we got funding from the college in order to book shows, as well as the means to secure rehearsal time in the student basement center, known as The Mug, for band practices. We would have a lot of smaller, touring indie bands come play on campus. That was one of my first opportunities to start learning live sound.
When was your first real live sound gig?
Well, I guess it would have been in college, mixing some small shows. When I graduated from Vassar, I left Poughkeepsie, NY, and moved to Brooklyn. I had friends who had small DIY show
spaces where I sometimes ran sound. I did some A/V and production/engineering work for the Hudson River Parks during the summers, which would have free outdoor jazz and singer-songwriter concerts in the West Village. I also started shadowing an engineer at Brooklyn Bazaar, a 550-cap venue. Eventually I was hired as lead engineer there. That was definitely getting thrown into the deep end right away. It was a pretty nightmarish room, extremely reflective, there were mirrors everywhere. I just had to learn how to make it work.
Where did your live sound career go from there?
I started being asked to mix at other places like Rockwood Music Hall, a venue in Manhattan. I was brought over to Elsewhere in Bushwick right when it opened up. I mixed the second show that ever happened there! I work [front of house] a lot at Avant Gardner these days, which is a huge venue with bookings focused mainly on electronic music. At this point I feel like I’ve mixed at a lot of the venues in Brooklyn. Artists and bands that I mixed at these venues started hiring me to mix them for their other local shows and then I started getting offered touring opportunities. I have also found that word-of-mouth recommendations — having positive experiences working alongside other engineers and then passing their names forward for gigs, and vice versa — has been really huge when it comes to finding work in live production.
What is your true love — mixing, recording or playing music?
That’s a tough question. I really love music and I really love making music. The process of writing for me is so intertwined with engineering. Song writing is an extremely magical act of creation — you’re making something out of nothing! For me, most of my songs really gel together and become “completed” once I begin actually recording and producing the track. It is quite rare for me to complete a song with just my guitar or MIDI keyboard and a pen and paper.
I also feel really lucky to be working as a live sound engineer. I am truly grateful at how often I get to take part in the performance of music in general, On the one hand as an artist who is trying to connect and share my art/hold space with an audience and on the other as a front of house engineer, trying my best to present and translate the artist’s work as faithfully and musically as possible. To pull off the production of a show and have a great mix, whether it be for the audience at FOH or at the monitor console mixing an artist’s monitors in order to help them feel completely confident on stage, is truly a special experience.
“Yes. I perform, record and mix every instrument myself.”
Do you record all your own songs?
Yes. I perform, record and mix every instrument myself. I normally start by playing and tracking the drums, then adding bass and guitar, then any auxiliary instruments like violin, soft synths on my MIDI controller, shakers and tambourines, and finally vocals. Then I mix and produce the tracks in my bedroom.
Do you have any tips for people who are getting into recording?
It can feel pretty overwhelming at first when you are encountering all the different kinds of gear and software out there, but the fundamental principles of engineering are the same across all mediums. Start out simple! I recommend starting out at home on your personal computer. If you have an Apple product, you can start recording on Garageband (that was my first DAW — Digital Audio Workstation), or if you run a computer with Windows, there is a program called Cakewalk, which is free. Most laptops have built-in microphones, which is totally fine for first demos. Experiment. Have fun! There is no need to spend a ton of money on microphones or gear right away.
The internet is your best friend. It is incredible how much information is available out there to learn exactly whatever it is you want to do. Want to learn how to record a podcast? Want to learn how to arrange a hip hop beat? There are thousands of YouTube tutorials and written explanations online that will teach you just that!
We originally did this interview before South by Southwest was cancelled, which you were scheduled to play to promote your new record. How has Covid-19 affected your Painted Zeros touring plans?
This has been an incredibly difficult and destabilizing time for everyone, and it has definitely been rough as a touring musician and live sound engineer. After SXSW was cancelled, all live music shows were shut down almost immediately afterwards, and I was among the millions of people who became abruptly unemployed. I’ve been social distancing with my roommates for weeks at this point, and since there will be no live shows for the foreseeable future, I’ve been experimenting with livestream performances, which has been fun, if a bit odd! It’s still not clear whether it will be safe to begin touring in the summer. I am cautiously hopeful that the virus will be under control enough for me and my band to be able to safely tour the new Painted Zeros album sometime in September or October.
My second album, When You Found Forever, is coming out on Don Giovanni Records on May 29. Don Gio is a really rad punk, queer-focused label, who also released my first record, “Floriography.” They release some really vital music made by some of the coolest QPOCs/NB/trans/women artists around!
Engineering-wise, what’s coming up for you?
I will be going out with Stereolab to mix their monitors in 2021. Their tour was originally going to happen this April and May; however, it has been rescheduled due to COVID-19. When I’m home, in addition to venue mixing, I work at some cool production companies in NYC, which are helping to further my system tech and mixing skills. On the side I have also been editing podcasts and interviews for various websites such as Talkhouse.
Do you have any advice for people looking to get into audio?
The best thing to do is to just ask tons of questions. There are so many incredible resources online. If you don’t understand something, ask someone or Google it. There is a wealth of information available out there. I think that being curious is one of the greatest strengths you can have in any job, but especially as an engineer. Technology is constantly changing and evolving, and there’s always something new to learn. Some of my favourite online resources are Soundgirls.org, Pro Audio Labs, Women in Sound. There are people you can reach out to on these forums who would be happy to teach and mentor you.
What are some of your favourite pieces of gear?
I just upgraded my home interface and got the new Apollo Twin X QUAD and I am loving the new converters in them. The way I work, I definitely use more plug-ins than actual outboard gear. I love outboard gear; it’s just not something I have spent a lot of time or money investing in. I am a big fan of UAD plug-ins. I like their LA-2A emulator — that’s such a great, solid compressor. I like a lot of Waves plug-ins, too, like the F6-RTA dynamic EQ plug-in — it’s a real solid plug-in for live sound. For example, in live sound you may have a very dynamic singer who alternates between whispering and belting. With a dynamic EQ plug-in, you can set the threshold of different segments of EQ to only become activated when they exceed a certain volume. This means that the EQ you have applied to the vocal channel will only turn on during the louder sung parts. This is beneficial because you will still retain the volume and body of the singer’s voice when she is singing quietly, without the reductive EQ.
What recent changes in the audio and music industry are you most excited about?
I feel really fortunate that in the past few years especially, I’ve been meeting so many incredible women and non-binary people working in music production. We need more women. The more the better! Working in New York, I feel super lucky that I get to work regularly with incredibly talented female engineers who have also become great friends. In fact, my Painted Zeros live band guitarist Taiya Cheng is also an amazing live sound engineer, and my bassist Kat Borderud is a super talented lighting designer and production coordinator.
You’re outspokenly queer — is there any advice you’d like to pass on to your younger self?
I’d give my younger self a hug and let her know that things are going to get so much better than they are now. Even though we live in a frightening, politically dismal time and we have a lot of work to do collectively, things are undoubtedly getting better with each passing year in terms of queer acceptance, visibility and empowerment. It’s amazing to see the kind of discourse around gender and sexuality that has become part of the mainstream conversation. To my younger self, and to anyone out there who is queer or confused or rethinking their gender, who is afraid or doesn’t feel like they have anyone to talk honestly to: There is nothing wrong with you. You are worthy of love exactly the way you are. Please hang in there — we need you.
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paintedzeros.bandcamp.com