After studying Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music, Vanessa Parr headed to L.A. and promptly jumped into studio work. After almost 13 years at The Village as an assistant and engineer, she's now freelancing and teaching. Her experience is wide, having worked with producers like T Bone Burnett [Tape Op #67], Ross Hogarth [#50], and Leslie Ann Jones [#74], as well as with many well-known artists. We met up one morning at The Village and chatted in a studio lounge until the session came in and I had to catch a flight home.
I know that you went to Berklee and fell in love with the recording aspect. Had you gone there for something else?
I went because it was a music school and I was a musician, and I wanted to go anywhere that wasn't a small liberal arts college in Virginia, which is where I'm from. I was desperate to go to New York or someplace like that. A friend had told me about Berklee. It was a lot smaller then. I went, and they had a lot of different intro classes. I learned quickly that I didn't want to be a performer, but I still wanted to work in the music industry in some fashion.
Were you studying voice at that point?
Yeah. Like any conservatory, you had to do all of your harmony requirements and traditional work, and then all your instrument requirements. Then you had to pick a major. So, Introduction to Music Production and Engineering was a class that I took, and it seemed interesting. I kept taking more classes and eventually applied to the major. That's how it started. I had been singing on somebody else's project, and they took me into the studios. I was like, "What is this?" I'd never seen that before – I went in blind for sure! [laughter]
What do you think it was that fascinated you?
I think because it was still creative; it was just a different kind of creative. When I was younger, I used to like to do a lot of arranging, which feels very production-y in a sense – it's all a part of that process. I had no idea how involved any of it was. I didn't know where to plug a microphone into. I didn't know anything, but it seemed like something that would combine some of the more analytical aspects of music with the creative aspects. That’s probably what appealed to me.
The studio is always such a unique place.
Yeah, and there's nothing natural about it, which is interesting. It's all artifice, and it's a very different environment to walk into. The energy is really different. But it's fascinating. There are people that are good at recording that aren't the best live performers and vice versa, and there's a reason for that.
Was it a lot to learn?
Yes. The program was good. They started off with a lot of basics, and I like procedure. I want to go through the whole process to make sure I'm learning it exactly the way I'm supposed to. They did a lot of acoustics, audio tech, and signal flow, so that was very helpful for me. I know there were kids that had grown up with 4-tracks in their bedrooms that knew a lot more than I did. But, in theory, I was supposed to be able to walk in and learn everything I needed to learn, so that's what I did. The learning curve was steep, but it still was a good program. They did a good job at preparing us. We had Pro Tools, but all of our beginning projects were tape-based, so I didn't have to try to learn the software at the same time. I learned how to hit record and do all that, but I wasn't trying to learn all the key commands at the same time.
There are some great female instructors in that department now. Were there then?
Terry Becker was there. Robin Coxe-Skolfield had passed away a couple years prior to me getting there. I had her for a couple of classes, which was great, and then she left and came back to L.A. We reconnected when I moved to L.A. Now, they've got a number of women.
Right? Which is great!
It's nice to watch the department change. I'm actually teaching some remote learning classes for Berklee Online right now. There were ten women in my class when I was there, and now it's an even split. That's encouraging to see. It takes time whenever there's disparity. You can't snap your fingers and say, "There! Hire 50 female engineers," just because you want to hire females. I was talking to a friend of mine about this last night. It's like, even after all these years, it's still very much a boy’s club in so many ways. That probably exists in a lot of industries where executives are all men, or where there's a lot of male energy. I've had a lot of conversations with people asking, "Why do you think that is?" I have no idea. People have to get trained, get experience, and be good at it. There are a lot of factors.
And people need to see role models.
Representation is important.
But also, the access. To be able to play with [Apple] GarageBand when you're younger helps people get interested.
Accessibility. You don't ever want to hinder yourself. I have a number of students that are maybe not going to be production engineering majors, but they do want to be songwriters or musicians. It's a much more accessible skill set to have now. But to be able to record yourself and have confidence in not just how to do it, but also what's possible; I think that that's important for people to understand about recording. For the little amount of vocals that I still do, I can record myself, comp myself, and I can tune myself. It's less that somebody else has to do.
What do you teach in the Berklee classes?
I'm teaching Pro Tools. It's a little weird. I'm not a super technical person, but it's a necessary tool. It's been an interesting experience to try to figure out how to teach something as broad as Pro Tools. It's incredibly powerful, but where do I begin?
Did you get a certification for Pro Tools?
They didn't have any of that. I have no interest in doing it now. [laughter] I asked them, "Should I be certified?" I'm grateful to Berklee for bringing me on.
I learned Pro Tools by making a Sleater-Kinney record. The producer showed up with a Pro Tools rig and said, "Here's how you make a session. Here's how you make a track. Get to work."
Tracking is a good place to start, because it's a lot less involved. You just have to be able to hit record and save.
In the old days, we were treating it like a multitrack and bringing up channels on the console.
You could be a perfectly proficient operator without having to be an editor.
After school, did you make a beeline for L.A.?
I didn't want to stay in Boston. It was really cold, and I didn't want to go to New York for the same reason. It's hard to be poor in New York. I thought I needed some sunny days. Plus, they were doing music that I liked here. I didn't want to go to Nashville because I grew up in the South and I was done with all of that. I wanted to go to California because that's where they were making rock music. Terry had worked here, and she was like, "They're still working." I started calling Jeff [Greenberg, The Village Studios CEO] before I moved here.
Were you calling other studios and checking around?
I did. It was a little difficult to get a call back from anybody. The overt sexism was a lot worse then.
I think I saw a quote from you where, "We don't hire girls," was something you actually heard.
Yeah. Even then it was shocking! It's not just hard for women, but there are a bunch of kids that all want to get hired at studios. I can't imagine trying to enter this world now. I feel lucky that I got hired here. If you look around, not a whole lot of places are left, but The Village is still here. There are so many studios that have closed over the years.
Jeff had a good vision early on for how studio models should change.
Yeah. He saw the writing on the wall and was like, "Let's get some production rooms." And video shoots, live events, and parties. Before The Village, I interned briefly at a studio in Burbank called Mad Dog that's no longer there.
Dusty Wakeman's [Tape Op #120] place. I went with him to visit the studio in there now.
My first memories of working in the city are right in that area. It was great. When I was there, I met Ross Hogarth [Tape Op #50]. He was doing a Stephen Bruton record and they let me hang out on the session. It was cool because I got to see really good musicians…
…and a great engineer.
Yeah. Absolutely. And it's funny because my dad, of all people, is the one that got me that job. He knew a musician that had recorded there. He was like, "You should check this place out." It was because I started working there that I eventually got hired here, because I had some experience at that point with Neve [mixing consoles].
You had kept pestering Jeff here?
Yeah, and then I had to wait for somebody to get fired. [laughter] Jeff's always been good. He'll tell you too, but he was always, even then, trying to hire more women and get people up through the system. So, that was nice.
How did that start out?
We were runners. We would get here, stock the fridges, put bagels in the rooms, and make coffee. You would help set up sessions, if you were smart. Try to learn as much as you could. I think it's a dying art form, and I don't think people see the value in it. Every studio is different – you have to learn your studio. You may have gone to Berklee or Full Sail, but that doesn't mean you know anything about how real sessions are run.
If you're the engineer and you've got someone to assist that works there, it can be a life-changing thing. "Do you know how to bias that tape deck? Great. I'll go talk to the band."
Exactly. I ran for about a year, which is a relatively short amount of time. But, at that point, they had a group of staffers that had been here for a long time, so there was no upward mobility. One of the engineers went to go work for a producer, and then there was this opening. They'd throw me on sessions to see how it went. I shadowed my first session with Leslie Ann Jones, which was really cool.
She's a badass engineer.
Yeah, and a winemaker too! That was so cool. That was the first one. The person that's now my husband, [Jason Wormer], was the senior engineer at that time – this was long before we were dating or anything – and he was getting pulled to do KCRW live broadcasts – they were doing construction on their studios – so every time something was live it was done here. Those were always fun.
Was that Morning Becomes Eclectic?
Yeah. He was getting pulled away for that, and they were trying to get me ready to do a Dixie Chicks [now The Chicks] record, but I needed some training. I spent a long time shadowing him with T Bone [Burnett], right before I did the Dixie Chicks. By the time that came around I'd had some experience, but there's always a lot of luck involved. "Are you there at the right time?"
You have to keep your schedule free.
Oh, yeah. You don't have any other life. I didn't do anything in my twenties besides work.
That must have been fun working with T Bone.
Oh, yeah, he's great.
And the quality of the artists coming through that you'd be working with.
Absolutely. For me, it was perfect as far as the type of music that I thought was interesting. Some people think of T Bone, and they think of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and old timey music, but those are extremely hi-fi records. People don't really know the craft that goes into cultivating that sound: The musicians that are involved in it, and what [engineer] Mike Piersante brings to that whole thing.
If I see his name on it, it sounds good.
I got to watch someone like him, such an incredible engineer, and see what he does. They work so differently than everybody else. To actually get to work with people that are still using tape was amazing.
Were sessions going to tape and then into Pro Tools?
We went through a bunch of different ways that we used to do this. We used to do a live [SMPTE] striping of the reels while tracking to tape, and then we would lock and dump after we picked takes. Or we would dump all the takes in. Then we switched to doing a pre-striping thing. We've gone through a bunch of different iterations of how to make it more efficient. But it's usually cut to tape and then dumped. But they don't stop. You have to be fast. Those reel changes happen quickly. You have to find those instincts, "Okay, I can stop here. I can rewind." It was definitely an interesting masterclass that I don't think a lot of people were getting in that day and age, because so few people – with the exception of the Smashing Pumpkins record I worked on – were cutting to tape at that point, unless it was as a fun effect or whatever.
Right. More of a novelty?
They could tell their friends, "I cut this to tape." To be fair, a lot of people were still printing their mixes to tape, they just weren't tracking to it. I'm not judgmental. I'm not one of these people that thinks that there's only one way to do anything. If somebody wants to use tape as an effect, it's like, "Have fun." But I don't see the point.
I'm with you. I'll say, "Sure, let's do it," if I see a reason. But I'll also ask, "What are you exactly trying to achieve?"
That's the question you have to ask yourself. What was interesting about the way that T Bone worked was that he got the best of both worlds with that. He's going to track the things that matter to tape, but he's smart enough to understand that we need the functionality of Pro Tools for all the other work that's going to happen. You get that really hi-fi, cool thing on your basics. It's not a hindrance to the process; it makes the process better.
I'm sure The Village was such a learning experience.
I'd spend time working with T Bone, then I'd get put on a Thomas Newman session and work with Tommy Vicari and see the cool shit that he does. Then I'd go work with Jim Scott [Tape Op #75] in a sonically completely different world.
I'm sure you've built up your own style of working from these experiences.
I'd like to think so. Taking the time to learn that I have opinions about what I like, and don't like.
Were you learning from Jason, too?
Yeah, absolutely. Everyone loved Jason. I'm biased because we're married – but I still think he's an incredible engineer. He was a very good assistant. I got such good people to learn from, which is important. That was a cool, fun period of time. You don't have all the responsibility on you when you're shadowing or when you're learning. People expect you to make mistakes.
That's how we all learn.
There's this cool little network of protection that forms with your team. If I notice something is off, I learned I can't just make an announcement. I'm going to go over and tell somebody quietly. Everyone's protecting everybody. Those relationships are so unique. These are things that you don't learn unless you're in this environment. When I work at a new studio or I meet a new assistant, if they're contradicting or bringing stuff up in front of the client, I'm like, "Oh, this is not going to work out." The things that people think are important usually aren't the most important. Like being the most experienced person in the building or being the best editor. Around here, it was like, “Can you hang out with everybody and not drive everyone crazy? And do your job?” You're going to spend 14 hours a day with somebody, and that personality component is so important. Know when to talk. Know when not to talk.
You did 13 years on staff here?
Almost, yeah. I started in 2004. There was a period where I was floating around, but I left for good around 2015. Officially.
What brought on this choice?
At a certain point, you do have to move on. I got tired of the lack of control over my schedule, and the grind of it all got a little exhausting.
Were there clients that you knew that you'd be freelancing with?
Yeah, I had some people. That might have been when I was working with Larry Klein [Tape Op #137]. There were enough jobs coming in through that, and then sometimes with T Bone or other people. I could patch together enough work. I used to assist Larry a lot. As the years went by, there were very few people that were still doing big scale sessions, and Larry was one of them. They would put me on the big, noisy tracking sessions, giant 5.1 mixes with a gazillion tracks, and anything that was really complicated. [laughter] I had worked with Larry on a number of projects, and we got along very well. When he finds somebody that is working out, he'll say, "Why don't you come do this?" I lived close to him, so I was able to go over to his studio and help out. We had some fun. For me, it was great to get to go to other studios, because I spent so much time here – although I'm always most comfortable here. But it was nice to be able to go to Henson [Recording Studios] or Cello [now EastWest Studios].
If you are asked, "Where should we take this record?" do you try to come to The Village?
I will always want to come here! I know this room and this board so well. Our booths, our sight lines, and the way everything is set up is unique. Plus, the quality of the isolation. After I've worked in a project studio somewhere and there are tons of drums in the vocal mic, it's nice to come here. I did a record recently where we had everyone live in a room together. I was really nervous about it, but because the musicians were so good it wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it was going to be. The drummer was great, and he understood the dynamics of the group.
How's work looking these days?
It's a little piecemeal. We were on the East Coast for a few years, stuck there during the pandemic. It was good in a way, as it set us up to be able to work remotely. Since we were there staying with my family, my husband had to think of ways to keep working. He had a lot more clients than I did, and so we were already set up to work remote before the pandemic. We now have a decent mixing space, which is rare in someone's home studio. We put some thought into it, and we looked specifically for a room where we wouldn't have to shove our speakers against the wall. I have a little editing room. It's nice, as a couple, to engage in those projects together because they matter for both of us.
Mixing and editing?
Yeah, all that. Through that process, he morphed into doing more music editing and mixing for film and television. We work together, and we help support each other. We've got a couple television shows that we're working on, and then I pick up whatever I can if something pops up. The three main shows we've been working on are The Summer I Turned Pretty for Amazon, The Old Man on FX, and The Big Door Prize for Apple TV. The composers are Zach Dawes and his partner Nick Sena. We know Zach from years back – we met him when he was also working for T Bone. He plays with Mini Mansions, and he got more into film composing. Being a smart man, he brought Jason in to work with him. I help out where it's needed. Jason does most of the score mixing. I usually help out with music editing. But I like to record any chance I can get. I sometimes moonlight over at UCLA where I used to work. They have a recording space there. I'll pick up sessions here. We have a number of musicians that live close to us. We can go do sessions quickly. And then I do the Berklee thing as well. I piece it all together.
Does it work?
Kind of. Ask me in ten years! [laughter] We're figuring out how close we need to stay to Los Angeles. "Do we really need to be here? Can we move a little further away?" It is nice to be able to go to a stage or to be called in to do a session. But there's a lot of out-of-sight, out-of-mind in this town. When you're here, you're putting yourself in people's vision.
I've always wondered about that in L.A.
Even if I was two hours away, I could still come down and do something. But if they don't see you, it's harder to get that call. I don't miss being in the studio 'til four in the morning, but I miss the community of being here all the time and being on sessions. But the industry is changing. People are making records differently. Now when I make a record it's in someone's rehearsal space. It's rarely in a space like The Village. I went to Boston recently and stopped by Berklee. I was saying, "Once you leave, you all are never going to see studios this nice again." Berklee's studios are beautiful, but it's not the way many people make records these days. I feel fortunate to get to do the work I get to do. I had to take a hiatus, and I'm crawling my way back in. It's going to take some time, and that's okay. Right now, I'm lucky to be working at all. There are so many people that want to work in this business. A lot of that has to do with this place, The Village, the people that I've met here, and all those connections. 
