The Sound - A Post Genre Breakdown

Ashley Reiser is an audio engineer who tracks, mixes, and masters music for artists in New York.  The music that Ashley produces has a positive impact on those who listen to it and those who perform it.  “ I love seeing the joy and happiness it brings to the artist when their dreams they’ve had for years become their reality,” Ashley stated as her view on the effects of the music she produces.  She loves helping to create music that evokes an emotional response in the people who hear it alongside the people who put it out into the world.  The feedback from the affected is always nice and informational and she said “I feel like a fairy godmother, as funny as that may sound, Because I get to make other people’s dreams come true,”.  Ashley is strongly influenced by females in the music industry like Trina Shoemaker, who still put their best foot forward despite not being as known about or popular as other male engineers.  While still influenced by the male engineers out in the world, it is the females who Ashley looks up to as role models and strives to emulate.  

She draws inspiration to do her job not only from these role models but also from her family and friends, and the feeling that comes from being a part of someone else's dream.  “It’s a beautiful thing watching the process of taking someone’s idea and making it into a real final product that everyone can enjoy on both ends of the spectrum,” Ashley noted about her job.  She mentioned that she did not actually have a favourite genre of music to listen to “When you are in the music industry you begin to love all types of music”.  When she is listening to music Ashley tends to try and find new styles and then put the songs on repeat to try and understand all of the different aspects of the music and how she can incorporate those techniques into her production skills.  Most of her mixing and mastering happens in Protools on her Mac Pro and almost every track that she works on has to go through her Trident Ares mixing console which is the main aspect of her studio.  In essence, Ashley Reiser is a strong willed music producer who wants to help others achieve their dreams and reach the stars.

Rachel Robrecht, a senior at Shorewood High School, spends much of her free time playing music and experimenting with it’s production. She has released an EP named ‘The Astronaut’ which features four songs written and performed by Rachel and produced by her father, Mike Robrecht, alongside her. Rachel states that she draws her influences from a wide variety of sources including Taylor Swift because she writes all of her own content by herself, Hosier because much of his style is about storytelling through song, and Sara Bareilles because while other singer-songwriters tend to implement acoustic guitar in their music, Sara Bareilles utilizes a piano as her main instrument.  

When Rachel started off writing music she used her piano, Blueberry, as her foundation and now she has evolved to use her acoustic guitar, ukulele, and synths in many of her songs.  Although Rachel’s fanbase is not enormous, consisting mostly of her friends and classmates, she works extremely hard to evoke emotion in those who do listen to her music. “I’ve made people cry before and that’s kind of gratifying,” she states.  As for her inspiration, it seems to come from many places for Rachel.  In response to the question ‘What inspires you?’ she responds, “Sometimes my own life inspires me but I find it difficult to write about myself so I usually have to make up a story and then write about it, or if something incredibly emotionally traumatic happens you kind of write about it as a form of therapy.” Although some days Rachel doesn’t play music, she always listens to it throughout the day, with her tastes spanning many genres except rap and country music but tending to return to indie or alternative music. Rachel states that she doesn’t work well during the day so most of her musical productivity happens at night.  

Wade Starck, founder and owner of Wade’s Guitar Shop, strives to keep providing top quality service to as many people as possible.  Wade’s Guitar Shop has been located at 3490 N. Oakland Avenue in Milwaukee’s east side since 1989.  The brick-and-mortar style guitar store holds an average of about 200 different types of new, used, and vintage guitars and is Wade’s pride and joy.  Wade himself has a strong passion for music and loves to listen to and play indie rock in his free time.  Running a guitar store however, is not as easy as he makes it look so his day to day life is fairly hectic.  “Because I’m the owner I have to wear many hats so routine for me is repairs, ordering products, answering email… and then at the end of the day as much time as I can possibly muster after that is to talk to customers and it’s to do what I’ve always done and that is to help people get their guitars fixed and find their dream guitar.” Wade stated.

Wade’s Guitar Shop employs a crew that work together in tandem to try and meet the musical needs of any customer who passes through the front door.  Wade is knowledgeable in many different areas of music and so, among the guitars, there are also banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, basses, amps, and distortion pedals lining the interior of the little shop.  “Musicians of all skill levels come to have their guitars repaired, come to get their supplies, and come to buy new instruments, trade in their old ones” He noted in relation to the music industry.  Wade’s goal is to provide a space for musicians to spend time in without the pressure to buy anything while getting the information that they need to continue on their musical journey.  When asked about what inspires him Wade made the point that guitars are like works of art and he feels that it is an honor and privilege to work with them every day.  As a final comment Wade says “Seek out the Mom and Pop shop, there are plenty of shops… comic book stores, craft stores… record stores.  There are really really cool shops out there and I think less people are making the effort to go out and find the really cool brick and mortars that are out there, you know.  Please keep supporting little shops”.

     Andy Doyle is an employee at Gibson but in his free time he creates music with his many guitars.  He has attended many concerts and loves to drive european model cars.  Andy has a masters degree in music business and audio engineering which he puts to good use in his work.  His job in music is “pretty loud, definitely fun but mostly loud” he says about both working in the Gibson factory in Nashville and his musical hobbies.  Musically, his influences include Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Ace Frehley, and many more.  In Andy’s free time he enjoys listening to a lot of classic rock and blues and mixing the two together into new genres.  He stated that he plays music for “probably a couple hours a day” every day on his guitars and that he writes many songs too.  For his guitars he is incredibly partial to Gibson Les Pauls with little to no distortion pedals and plugged straight into a vintage Marshall amp.  When he does use distortion pedals they tend to be tube screamers or talk boxes because that is his favourite type of distortion.  Overall, Andy’s life consists mainly of guitars, amps, and producing music tracks at his friend’s house for fun when he is not in Nashville working for Gibson.

Dylan Doyle is a live guitar performer who tours with bands as a career.  He and his band connect to people through the songs that they play, the lyrics, the styles of music, and how they present themselves to the world.  Dylan states that he is heavily influenced by Bob Dylan and his travels around the world to get new viewpoints on life.  Both to play and to listen to, Bob Dylan is a favourite of Doyle’s along with other Root Rock artists.  Musically, Dylan is a fan of lyrical content and strong rhythm more than shredding guitar riffs.  “I try to get about six to eight hours of practice in a day.  Two with a metronome, two just working on new songs, and leave the other… two to four up for just kind of playing, just to be in tune with what’s going on, what I’m feeling” Dylan noted about his practice schedule.  The show that he puts on is also an incredibly important aspect of music for Doyle and his band.  Dylan is very partial to his 1956 maple neck Stratocaster guitar along with a few others.  For distortion he stated that he uses about nine pedals in his setup including a univibe pedal that was handmade in Greece.  Dylan Doyle spends most of his life surrounded by musicians, instruments, and gear from all over the world.

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