An ad studio in Mumbai from the outside

I was lucky to have had the opportunity to join an ad studio as an Assistant Sound Engineer without knowing anything about the job. Turns out being related to the owner gets you the gig but getting your foot in the door here usually results in a broken foot.

The first session I sat in, I was assisting the current Assistant Engineer which was just hauling around cables that I didn’t know the names of.

I saw a singer go into the dub room and record for this track, I saw how the Sound Engineer (the job I was there to learn) was recording vocals. He was clicking around in Pro Tools (the predominant software used by Sound Engineers), moving faders up and down to adjust things and turning knobs to get just the right sound from the mic. It was the fluidity with which he carried the process always knowing what’s coming next or how to achieve something sonically that piqued my interest.

The Music Director had this elaborate system of all kinds of music making devices around him, working on this traditional yet edm infused track which was the first time I saw a timeline or any music making software… like I said, I had no idea what was going on but I asked him if I could sit next to him and watch him work and he was okay with it and that’s where it all started.

I’ve always been more interested in music production than sound engineering and even on the first day I was more drawn to the Music Director than the Sound Engineer. But was adviced to learn sound first before I got into music which I did for the next 2 years.

I just enjoyed how effortlessly the Music Director was laying down parts of music while having the time of his life and for once I was genuinely intruiged by a profession. I could see myself in his shoes some day and that’s what made me stick around.