With over four decades of experience, Lenise Bent has worked in almost every field of audio engineering, from studio recordings, to post-production, to film sound and foley. Lenise chats with Lisa Machac, of Omni Sound Project, to talk about her career, plans for the future, and favorite albums.
You studied audio engineering in school, and you also came at it as a musician in the â70s. How did you hear of that degree plan?
I grew up in Compton. My family was musical. My oldest brother worked in an electronics store and heâd bring home gear to repair. At the age of three, I was already enjoying the comforting smells of vacuum tubes firing up. Somehow those are the things I resonated with. Itâs a lot to do with nature and nurture. My environment was supportive of that, even though I had no idea growing up if audio engineering was a thing one could do. Also, I was kind of wired for this; I think all of us are born to do something uniquely our own. As we discover what that thing is, and as you look back on your past and see what led up to it, then suddenly it comes into focus. I started in the television and film business as a kid extra at the age of eight. My brother and I were already working in the industry when we were eight years old, as the background kids. I was more fascinated with the process and the production â filming and the whole bit â as opposed to the acting. The acting was fun, but it wasnât fascinating.
You enjoyed being behind the scenes and seeing how it works?
Yes. The cameramen and boom operators would let me hang out with them. As it was being set up, they would explain to me what was going on. Theyâd say, âOkay, cue the kids,â and Iâd have to say, âOh shoot, I gotta leave. Can I come back?â That directed me towards studying film in high school, which we could do back then. Also, my boyfriend was in a band, and his guitar player had become a recording engineer for one of the famous performers and members of the Wrecking Crew, a session player and producer named Leon Russell. Heâd written many famous songs, and he was quite popular at that time. I was very excited when Roger [Linn] invited me to come to Leonâs home studio, which nobody had back then because the technology was such that it took up a lot of real estate. It was very expensive, and it was a huge commitment. He was making great records there, working with all sorts of wonderful people. I hot-tailed it over there after school that day. Iâd never been in a recording studio before. I rang the doorbell, and Leon answered, which was enormous. I assumed his staff would answer. He said, âOh, you must be Rogerâs friend. Come on in!â I walked in and I heard all this great music going. After I almost fainted from seeing Leon, I heard 21 voices of background singing, and I looked to my right â where a dining room was supposed to be â that was this control room. I went in, and Roger was sitting at a console with monitors, outboard gear, and a Stephens [Electronics] 40-track tape machine. These voices were singing, and it was like the angels! I had my epiphany. I said, âI know now what it is that Iâm supposed to be doing. Roger, show me how to work this.â The next day I dropped out of university film school and scoured the yellow pages to find a recording school, because they did not exist. It was very rare back then. I found this one at Sherwood Oaks Experimental College. It was mostly a lecture situation, but I signed up that same day and then went home and told my parents what Iâd done. Fortunately, I had their support.
Lenise's First Session
After you went to the audio engineering school, how did you make inroads with Village Recorders?
There were a lot of recording studios back in the â70s. I knew that I wanted to work in the best place, with the best producers, the best engineers, and the best gear with the best musicians and the best music. I wanted that experience. Because you could have all those âotherâ experiences after that. Brian Ingoldsby had been an engineer on a lot of records. He started this school called Sound Master [Recording Engineer School], and I was in the first class. A lot of good engineers came out of that school back then. They mostly had lectures; there was no actual facility that had studios and gear, so when we would have our labs we would go to a proper studio, like Capitol [Studios, Tape Op #114] or Conway [Recording Studios]. Real studios with real equipment. I panicked; I didnât know what they were talking about. I called Roger over at Leonâs and said, âI donât know what to do! I donât know what theyâre talking about.â The next day he started showing me. The first night [of school] it was me and 50 guys. Of course, Iâm sitting in the front row. I have three brothers and grew up around lots of guys, so I always felt comfortable with that. I did not know this was something women didnât do.
We both have been lucky to have been around encouraging men. Every guy in audio who I hang out with or know has done nothing but encourage me in my learning, loaning me gear, loaning me books, and telling me about resources. I do recognize that itâs not everybodyâs experience. But thank goodness that there are all those awesome guys out there helping.
Exactly. That was the thing. Our interest was genuine. We were authentic. Iâve taught quite a bit, and those students who are genuinely interested for the right reasons, I canât help but be drawn to them and want to show them more. I know that they really want to learn. You always want to give them that information. You have to be compelling and give them proper information. My methodology was that I was teaching these kids and giving them information so that they could work for me. I knew if I walked into a studio and saw one of my former students I could relax, because I knew that they had my back. Thatâs what I told them when I walked in. The main class I taught was Studio Protocols and Procedures, which was about who the people are in the studio and who the people are on the production team; all their responsibilities and how important they all are to create this audio success.
We have talked a little bit about what we both believe is the secret to success: Your character, your integrity, your personality, and your work ethic.
Yeah. Your social skills, as well as understanding the fact that this is a business, and that itâs also a service-oriented business. Youâre providing a service to your client. They can go to any studio they want, based on their budget. You need to make them happy to be working with you. Also, to make them feel appreciated and that their needs are met.
I recently had this conversation with one of the Omni teachers. Sheâs been a mix engineer for a long time, but the 15 years she spent in hospitality as a hotel manager gives her an edge.
Exactly! I also taught production sound, post-production and mixing, and how to record a band. Three different courses. But the most important one that all my students came back to later, when I would see them, they said the class on Studio Protocols and Procedures was so much more important than any of the other classes, as far as working with clients. How do you work with artists? How do you move up? What is your position if you start as an intern, or if youâre an assistant, or the studio manager, if youâre an engineer, or if youâre the producer? All of these.
A lot of young people talk about imposter syndrome.
I was an assistant engineer, so I didnât feel like an imposter because the whole point was learning and assisting others so I could learn from them.
You assisted with bands like Steely Dan, Supertramp, and Fleetwood Mac, and you were in the lead role with Blondie, The Knack, and Suzi Quatro. You got to see the overlap of two pretty epic music periods.
What happened with me was I fulfilled that goal requirement that I had set for myself by working at The Village. I was not only going to Leon Russellâs house on my days off, practicing what I had learned the night before, but I was also creating relationships with other musicians and other engineers. I was deliberately looking for opportunities to go and hang out in other studios, because I knew musicians and when they were recording. Their engineers would say, âWell, you can come and sit in with me.â One of the first sit-ins was at a studio where my good friend Ed Thacker was engineering with Ken Scott [Tape Op #52] at Le Chateau [Recorders] for Stanley Clarke. This was an iconic record [School Days] with an iconic producer. I was so young that I didnât appreciate what a phenomenal opportunity that was, but I sat there and listened. I had no idea what a lot of things were. I made sure that I took advantage of any opportunities that came up. I would show up, sit there, be a fly on the wall, keep my trap shut, and soak it in, whether I understood what was going on or not. I knew that someday it would all make sense, and it did. I already had picked up a lot of techniques and had created relationships that served me, and still do, all throughout my career. Itâs not only the people you know, but the people who remember you.
Iâm going to ask you my favorite question, which is: What is the project no one asks you about that you wish people asked you about?
I worked on The Last Waltz with The Band. They were incredible; I was a huge fan of The Band. This was their last performance. I was a newbie. I started [working] on August 22, 1976. I was real green; I was assisting assistants. They didnât really have interns then. By the time The Last Waltz happened, which took place on Thanksgiving, I had already worked with the producer, Rob Fraboni, on other projects. He used to be with The Beach Boys and had [mixed] their famous song, âSail on Sailor.â I was assisting his assistant, Terry Becker; another woman. There were four female assistants at The Village and two guys; I had no other point of reference. Certainly, women did this. âLook at all these women!â I never felt I had to walk into a room and feel uncomfortable or intimidated by these men. âAnybody does this. Iâm an assistant engineer. It doesnât matter.â
L.A. was certainly ahead of that curve Iâm sure, so itâs good to see that happening in other studios finally.
Well, it is a lot better. It certainly is a lot better than it was. But back then, that was extraordinary; and youâre right, it still is extraordinary.
Going back to The Last Waltz...
I was just getting my assistant legs down. As an assistant, they assign you to whatever projects they need an assistant on, and they feel you are appropriate for. The studio manager who does that has to have her or his finger on whatâs going on with these different people, like who are the assistants, and who would be a good fit with whatever project. Itâs about the personalities, the social skills, and what would work out well â if it was jazz, if it was Americana, or hard rock â whatever it was. I did a lot of R&B sessions. I got to work on the original âCar Washâ [Rose Royce] at The Village, which was really great. What was special about [The Last Waltz] was that it was a live recording, but if you watch the film, they also had some studio songs. One with Emmylou Harris, one with The Staple Singers, and the last song, âTheme From The Last Waltz,â were all done on a soundstage. Those needed to be mixed separately. Also, it was a part of the soundtrack for the film The Last Waltz. So, it was multifaceted. It wasnât just a band recording a song; you record it, mix it, master it, and it goes out and sells as a record. Martin Scorsese produced [and directed] the film. There were deadlines, so there was a lot of pressure. That was quite a learning experience. I had hands-on on a song called âEvangelineâ with Emmylou Harris. They had been working so long, and the deadlines were coming up. It was three in the morning, and this song [needed] to be mixed. Robbie Robertson and Rob Fraboni were so tired. Theyâd been up for so long that they were shaking. They couldnât do it. I was the assistant engineer, and that mix had to be on the dub stage at 8 a.m. with Scorsese, and it was 3:30 in the morning.
And itâs not like youâd email it back in those days.
No. It had to be hand-delivered. They couldnât do it, but I had enough experience. I was comfortable mixing because I got to do it at Leonâs house while I was in school, and I got to do it in school at Conway and at Capitol. Fortunately, I hadnât been up for three weeks, so I mixed it. Mind you, a lot of it was already set up because theyâd been mixing other songs. This was before automation and all of that.
Thatâs so cool. Itâs coming back to what weâre talking about, being in the room and knowing what youâre doing.
Well, I didnât know if I knew what I was doing, but I was not intimidated, and I could see somebody had to do this. They were fine with it. I donât know how tuned in they were to what they were hearing at that point. Theyâre great professionals, so apparently they must have liked it! [laughter] Iâm assuming itâs the one that went on the record.
Lenise w/ ATR 2-Track.
Oh, Iâm going to think of you now when I hear that song!
Of course, I got no credit for it, but at least Iâd like to think itâs the one I did. Again, being an asset and not a liability is the key here as an assistant. Anybody in that room needs to bring something to it. Going back to a question you asked before⌠I know you were curious that I had gone from working with a certain level of integrity and style of music at The Village to doing all this âpopâ music. That had to do with the fact that I accepted a position as the engineer with producer Mike Chapman. Mike Chapman is the one who masterminded all of these pop records. He wanted a woman engineer, which is interesting. And he wanted to make me the first woman producer. I was still working at The Village. If I wanted to stay an assistant, I could stay, but if I wanted to engineer and charge rates, then that would be the end of that. This opportunity showed up. [The Knackâs] âMy Sharonaâ was huge, and Blondie with âHeart of Glass.â Their producer, Mike Chapman, wanted to hire me. I said, âWell, I need to go with this!â Everybodyâs like, âNo, no. Heâs crazy, and heâll ruin your reputation. Here youâve had all this wonderful recording, and now youâre going to be working with him and your credibility will be lost.â They were wrong. What happened was a benefit both for Mike and myself. Weâve talked about this since then. What he saw in me wasnât just a woman engineer. He also saw my playlist. He wanted that too. He wanted to up his game, as far as recording. He had great engineers, donât get me wrong. But I had also worked on all of these very successful records that were highly respected with all these great musicians. Iâd developed all these relationships. He wanted that too, even though we locked heads a few times when weâd be recording. This was to tape, totally destructive recording. You have to go back and fix it. You donât cut and paste. Iâd say, âWe need to do that again.â Heâd say, âAh, nobodyâs going to hear that.â I said, âIâm gonna hear it. And itâs gonna go by every single time. You need to know that youâre going to hear it too.â What it helped him do was raise his bar. By the time we got to this Blondie record [Autoamerican], we were on a similar track.
I know you had health issues during this time.
We were working crazy, crazy hours with Mike. I did something like nine records in one year or something ridiculous. There was a lot of imbalance. Not enough sleep, not enough good food. You canât eat Roscoeâs [House of] Chicken âN Waffles every day while you keep working. A little too much alcohol, and a little bit too much âfinger on the fun buttonâ while at work. Not enough sleep and care. A totally out-of-balance lifestyle. I got stomach cancer. But I wanted this Blondie record, so I stuck it out for a couple more records before that. One of the artists I was working with had cancer and turned me on to her holistic doctor. After the Blondie record, I was really sick. The day after I mastered it, I drove down to the clinic in Mexico, and the doctor said, âQuit your job or die.â They were right. So, here I had this great trajectory. First woman to make a platinum album, with Autoamerican by Blondie. It wasnât out yet, but it was clear that it was going to be enormous. There were two big hits off of that; âThe Tide Is Highâ which is a Caribbean pop song, and âRapture.â
Where Debbie Harry raps.
I didnât even know what a rap song was at first, but I learned.
What did you do when you came back from Mexico?
Well, I quit and didnât work. My situation shifted, so I did come back. I traveled around quite a bit during that time. I was in a situation that was very supportive of me getting well, so Iâm grateful for that. However, that situation came to an end, so I came back and went back to work. The music business had changed dramatically. The budgets had tanked. This was between 1982 and â87, when I started going back to work, looking for work, so it wasnât quite eight years. I knew that I didnât want to put myself in that same stressful situation that had caused me to get sick in the first place. But I needed to apply my skills, because a girlâs gotta eat. So, a lot of my colleagues during that time had shifted from the music business to post-production. There was more money and stability there. As you get older, that wild and crazy âIâll sleep when Iâm deadâ attitude was not as compelling anymore.
Right. The universe starts calling your bluff.
Yeah, youâre not immortal and bulletproof like you thought you were. And this is the key too. I want a long career. I donât want just a âhitâ career. If thatâs all you want, then thatâs fine. You can go and do something else later. But I wanted a long career. This is what I enjoyed doing. Engineering and creating. Carla Frederick, who had been the main assistant with Fleetwood Mac, brought me into her new gig working for Disney on their foreign music and effects tracks for the entire cartoon catalog.
Explain why the foreign catalog needed new tracks.
All creation, domestically done in English, will have continued revenue streams internationally. What has to happen is that any English language needs to be removed, and quite often, if itâs all on one track, say a production track for television or film, the English has to be edited out, and all those spaces have to be filled in with ambient noise, Foley effects, and music to make it sound exactly like that film, television show, or cartoon. Cartoons are easier, especially newer ones, because the dialogue is always added in anyway. But in the old days it was all on one optical track. You have to make it sound exactly like the original, except with no dialogue, so that it can be dubbed in all these different languages for all these territories around the world. The M&E â the Music and Effects track with no dialogue.
At this point in your life you have been a recordist, a mix engineer, youâve done post-production, and youâve done Foley. What area of audio are you not familiar with yet that you want to be?
Oh, interesting! What Iâm getting into, and what I just did a big seminar for, is spatial audio and immersive audio. Iâm totally down with that. I think this time itâs really going to fly. Gaming has been enormous in perpetuating audio onto this other level, because typically a gamer sits in one spot. All of the audio and everything going on goes around them. Thatâs about 80 percent of the listening audience for immersive audio. A lot of companies are taking previously recorded music in stereo and theyâre rendering it immersive. Theyâre having the 30-degree speakers up above and all of that, but the music was already mixed in stereo and theyâre reconfiguring it, and not necessarily well. Also, theyâre not consulting with the original artists or the producers to capture and keep in place the intent of the artist.
Yeah, that always bothered me when they were remastering a lot of the classic albums for CD.
Yes! Itâs terrible. This is huge. Theyâre cranking out these mixes purely for revenue streams. The integrity of the mixes are (potentially) terrible, and theyâre going to lose that audience. If you put out crappy mixes in this format, nobodyâs going to log onto this immersive format. Itâs important that the integrity of the original mix is in place. That initial mix was the artist and producerâs intent. You want to have an emotional response. Those mixes that they are taking and putting through an algorithm; itâs not even human!
Then there are so many details that get captured that we may not even perceive. We may not hear it, but we need it there.
We feel it, yes. We donât just hear with our ears; we hear with our entire bodies. Weâre receivers. Weâre receptors. We have an emotional response to what weâre receiving. Those high frequencies, way beyond what our ears can hear, are absolutely essential, because they exist, and they are part of what weâre hearing no matter what it is. I think the pendulum is going to swing. This is like the history of music and recording back in the â50s. They went to 45s played on little transistor radios. People were digging that. Itâs all about the song. Those sounds were what were resonating then, but it doesnât mean itâs particularly good audio. Then the pendulum swung into high end, everybody was tuned into the best audio that you can record, using the best equipment. Then MP3s came out and screwed all of that up. I feel itâs going to swing back. Itâs not going to be so much about convenience and everything fitting in your phone. The phone, or whatever the format, will need to be adapted to accommodate quality audio.
You and I are lovers of vinyl. What is on repeat right now?
I mix it up. I try to vary it, because itâs easy to get into a musical rut, and I go through phases. Last night, I have to say, I was listening to The Band. It was a live concert performance which I hadnât listened to before. Little Feat is fantastic. Itâs so joyous. Iâm often listening to Waiting for Columbus or Sailinâ Shoes. Anything Lowell George is on is tremendous; I know thatâs dating me and aging me. Weâve been listening to Weather Report lately. My partner, Brian Risner, was with them for many years as their sound person; their âChief Meteorologist.â They just had a book come out called Elegant People: [A History of the Band Weather Report]; the definitive history of Weather Report. So, Weather Report has been playing more than usual here in our home. I knew Heavy Weather back in the day; it was the crossover that transcended the improvisational jazz community. Some of the other records that they put out, I marvel at the energy, the excitement, and the dynamics. It really is a âsit down and listen toâ recording. It moved me like crazy.
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