The Audio Ascent Blog

Having the tools to be successful is vital when starting out. But these tools, the important ones, may not be exactly what you expect. In the audio industry it’s a given that you are expected to know DAW’s, signal flow, etc… but there are soft skills that are imperative to know as well. Those non-technical skills that relate to how you do your work. They include how you interact with colleagues, solve problems, and manage tasks. In the audio world this can translate into things like how you organize a Pro Tools session, or how you communicate with clients. Doing these things with a high level of competency is important to success, especially early on when you are just starting out. If you lack some of these important skills, your career can be stunted until you master them. As a young person entering the industry, I would advise seeking mentorship to gain a better understanding of these important skills, right alongside learning the technical aspects of being a sound professional. Netw

When I was just starting out I was so lucky to be surrounded by people that gave me a chance and then added to that gift by holding my hand through the learning process. What process do you ask? The process of learning how to work side by side with people. That was the big challenge for me, much more than the tech. After all, I got my first job at a post production editing company at 22 years old. What the heck did I know about working in the high pressure world of film and sound editing? I mean, I did have experience working for other companies before this amazing opportunity, so why would the film business be so intimidating? I worked in an auto parts store in my teens, and I even had a great job working for the wildlife department in and around the waterways of Long Island. But nothing could prepare me for working in an environment where artistic creativity and commerce crashed into each other. I just did not have the skills needed… not yet anyway. So when I started working at this

Hello hello, I am Klaire, a Singaporean girl who’s trying to “make it” in the film industry with audio post-production in LA. I was recently reminded that it hasn’t even been a year since I started working in audio post-production, but it already feels like quite a journey – probably because of how suddenly, quickly, and deeply I fell in love with sound, and now it’s all I want to do. Growing up in a culture that simultaneously values and disregards the arts (Chinese/Asian culture), I started violin, piano, and singing lessons from a young age, and was encouraged to practice as much as possible; but I also had music and art classes taken away in school, only to be replaced by math, Chinese, and English classes that we already had every day. I was expected to spend hours practicing my instruments, but I never really got exposed to Art. Believe it or not, I rarely listened to music other than when I was the one playing it before the age of 12. In my confused little head, math, Chinese, a

Audio Pro Network has been a labor of love of mine for over 10 years. Although the mentorship platform is only a few years old, it's really just a continuation of the way I've always conducted my professional life. Training and educating interns and assistants I've worked with through the years has always been something I naturally did and enjoyed. So I guess you could say I've always been a mentor and I think that's because I entered the business into a very generous stable of mentors at the first company I worked for. I was lucky. Creating the mentorship platform was simply a natural progression to solve the problem I saw young people having entering the industry. With so much competition, and audio curriculums in so many more colleges and universities, I imagined that finding a job would be really tough when starting out, not to mention finding an internship. Professional Studios seem to have less time to invest in training from the ground up these days. I’ve exp