Students Working in Music: Audio Production Assistants

The Arts in Isolation Team curated audio production assistant opportunities for University of Hull music students to gain work experience as part of the Working in Music module.

At the start of trimester two in 2021, University of Hull music students in the Working in Music module have been busy working hard in various work areas of the music industry throughout the UK. The Arts in Isolation Team helped to provide remote work experiences for music students by arranging audio production assistant opportunities for the Second Virtual Concert Series.

An Arts in Isolation Team Member produced an open brief detailing the remote audio production assistant job, which was then discussed and accepted by University of Hull music students Radu, Alex and Ben in an online meeting. The music students, who all had a background in audio engineering, were tasked to improve, clean, mix and master the audio of assigned performance videos of the Second Virtual Concert Series to help enrich the online concert and the overall viewer experience. The students were supervised and coordinated by the Arts in Isolation Team Member for support and audio feedback as the job had a tight deadline with various technical requirements, as commonly experienced within the music industry.

Music students Radu, Alex and Ben all succeeded in enhancing and refining audio to a professional standard, which was implemented and credited in the finished Second Virtual Concert Series programme. Their work was greatly commended by the Arts in Isolation Team and the Artistic Director of the Second Virtual Concert Series. Radu, Alex and Ben had the time to reflect and voice their experiences of working as audio production assistants:

“It was exciting being able to take part as an audio engineer in a live music event even during the current pandemic. Participating in this project stimulated my creative thinking as an audio engineer and helped me gain new audio production skills very quickly, which also helped me feel more confident in my own skills and capabilities. It was great knowing that I could be of help in the music community while also learning new things!”

Radu, University of Hull Music Student and Audio Production Assistant

“As an enthusiast of production and mix engineering, I found this to be a fun and engaging learning experience on overcoming the many pitfalls of blemished recordings, and to transform these into articles suitable for a ticketed event. I feel as though this exercise has improved my confidence to repair audio recordings in a professional setting, and afforded me with some understanding of how to efficiently fashion a sizeable output of work within a more stringent time period, through strategically utilising the tools at hand and recognising patterns effectively.”

Alex, University of Hull Music Student and Audio production Assistant

“Mastering is something I have only ever attempted for my personal projects so to take it on in a professional sense was an exciting and nerve-wracking thing to do. However it has helped me to no end as it taught me valuable lessons on how to approach projects both personally and professionally. It was an honour to be credited for the work I had done and this was definitely a highlight knowing that I had contributed to something so amazing. This experience has definitely influenced my thoughts on my future career plans, so much so I am looking into other mastering opportunities.”

Ben, University of Hull Music Student and Audio Production Assistant