Susan Rogers, PhD – Professor

Name :  Susan Rogers, PhD

Title :  Associate Professor, Departments of Music Production & Engineering, and Liberal Arts

Company or  Organization : Berklee College of Music, Boston

Artists or projects worked with:

Discography attached. Highlights include:

Artist                                 Title                                                           Role               Highest US chart pos.

Prince                                Purple Rain*††                                 engineer/mixer                                #1

Prince                                Around the World in a Day           engineer/mixer                                      #1

Prince                                Parade  *                                             engineer/mixer                                #1

Prince                                Sign ‘o the Times                              engineer/mixer                                #1

Barenaked Ladies               Stunt††                                               producer/engineer         #1

Barenaked Ladies                “One Week” **                                   producer/engineer         #1

Barenaked Ladies                “It’s All Been Done”                        producer/engineer         #44

Michael Penn                      “No Myth”                                          engineer                              #13

Sheila E                              “The Glamorous Life”                     engineer                              #28

Sheila E                               Romance 1600                                   engineer/mixer                                #50

Geggy Tah                           Whoever You Are”                        producer/engineer         #67

David Byrne                         David Byrne                                        producer/engineer         #139

FEMMUSIC: How did you get started in studio production?

SR: I began in 1978 with the goal of wanting to be where records were made. I was (and am not) a musician; I am a record lover. I heard that maintenance techs always have jobs, so I became self-taught in audio electronics, studio design, and studio signal flow. In late 1978 I started as a trainee with Audio Industries Corp. in Hollywood. They sold and serviced MCI consoles and tape machines, and did full service studio installation. Thanks to their tutelage and my late night study habits, I worked as an MCI service technician in the greater LA area. That position led to my next role as studio maintenance technician for Rudy Records (studio) in LA, owned by Crosby, Stills, & Nash.  Opportunity knocked in 1983 when my dream job opened – working full time for my favorite artist, Prince. I joined him in 1983 as his audio technician, but was quickly moved into the engineer’s chair. This was just when the Purple Rain album and movie was taking shape. I worked on both and a huge amount of recording that followed for over four years. Upon leaving in 1988, I worked in LA, NY, and across the US as an independent engineer, mixer, and record producer.

FEMMUSIC: How did you come to the program at Berklee?

SR: I had a hit record with Barenaked Ladies in 1998 (Stunt). The royalty money allowed me to leave the music business and pursue my second interest – auditory neuroscience. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota in 2004 and a PhD at McGill immediately after. Berklee hired me in 2008 to teach my actual PhD in music cognition and psychoacoustics, and my virtual PhD in music production and engineering. I am very happy to be at Berklee among 4,500+ musicians and outstanding colleagues.

FEMMUSIC:  What challenges do you see for women in studio production?

SR: There are the gender-neutral challenges of competing and being a great artist behind the board, and there are the gender-specific challenges of having children and dating men. The former challenges are hard enough, but the latter are more difficult for us than for men. Our eggs have an expiration date coinciding with the years when we crest Difficulty Hill. Just as we are finally completing our 10,000 hours of practice (see Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of expertise), we feel the pressure to have kids or lose our chance for good. Men’s bodies don’t work that way. Another challenge is clearly evident in movies and TV programs: men are culturally rewarded for focused, myopic, self-involved work and study. We call those men “ambitious” and “a good catch!” Women who engage in the exact same behavior are viewed positively in the broad sense but in practice, these women are less likely to be chosen as future mothers. The evolutionary pressure is on men to choose women who will pay good attention to husband and children, so working women don’t reap the same cultural rewards as men do for doing the same job. The subconscious impression is that we are self-absorbed and therefore a risky “mom” choice. I am a scientist, so I am not inclined to argue with Mother Nature. The biological differences between men and women will not change, so we should work with them, not against them by expecting no differences between us.

FEMMUSIC:   What mentors did you have when learning?

SR: I learned audio electronics from John Sacchetti, former chief tech at Westlake Audio, LA. I learned engineering from Prince. I learned music from Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, and music production from Tommy Jordan and Greg Kurstin of the band Geggy Tah. I learned how to be a professional in this world from producer Tony Berg in LA.

FEMMUSIC:  Are women in studio production treated differently than men? How do you see this?

SR: We are treated differently in ways we can describe and in ways that may be beyond our conscious awareness. Women may be hired for our gender; that can be a good or bad thing. I’ve been told that a room full of men can take a conversation to a low place pretty quickly, so many men want to have women around to keep things a little more respectable. Male artists report that having women on a project helps them to behave better or to focus on being attractive.  Male producers or engineers like having a woman assistant because they may perceive her as presenting less of a challenge to their authority. Some men report wanting to give the underdog a chance, so they hire women to help balance our numbers out there. Those are excellent reasons to hire women because it gets us in the door. But there are men who hire women in order to dominate, flirt, intimidate, exploit, or otherwise use her gender for personal advantage. In those situations, women should run for the exit and not look back. There are too many good men out there; the bad ones don’t deserve our attention or skills. I have worked on a couple of women-only projects with Wendy & Lisa. For me these albums were fundamentally the same as working with men, but perhaps warmer and more fun.

FEMMUSIC: What advice do you give to women wanting to go into studio work?

SR: I hesitate to give gender-specific advice to young women because I don’t want to bias them or alert them to something that, for all I know, might not be a problem. Generations are changing so perhaps young women today will solve problems that my generation couldn’t. Maybe they will encounter little or no gender bias or sexism.

As I noted earlier, biology will not change so I advise women to consider where a spouse and children fit into their priorities. Do you want to be home when your kids eat dinner or go to bed? Studio work traditionally happens at night. Today’s record maker can work from home so the problem isn’t as tough as it used to be. Do you have the fire-in-the-belly to compete with men for technical, creative work? Can you do it without any compromise to your unique femininity? Are you attractive and, if so, will you use that to your advantage? (Bad idea, by the way.)

I had to answer these questions for myself when I was starting out. It would have helped if someone had posed them to me so that I could have had a head start on figuring out my position. (I was ok with competing with men; I ultimately dressed to please myself; I dated only a few of the hundreds of professional colleagues I encountered; I guarded my reputation because it was worth WAY more than any casual fling.)

FEMMUSIC: Tell me about The Record Company. What made you start it? What needs does it fill?

SR: My former student Matthew McArthur and I started The Record Company (TRC) in 2009 with the aim of offering Berklee and Boston-area musicians low cost studio time. The business model trades tax-exempt status (TRC is a 501c non-profit) for teaching music technology to at-risk area teens.  After building the studio and launching the business, Matt and I parted ways so I am no longer involved with TRC.  It has served its purpose well; area musicians can record at prices they can afford. Recording studios are great places and I am proud to have built a successful one.

FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you change about the music industry?

SR: If I had magic powers, I would change the monetary stream so that record makers get paid for each record they sell (no illegal copying) and I would insert the artist and repertoire role back into the process. I miss record companies and A & R. Yesterday’s artist typically had fans, promoters, songs, stage presence, performance skills, and mailing lists before ever signing a record deal. Record companies groomed artists to get them record-ready before they ever saw a budget or met a producer. Today’s artists can hit the record button before they even have a valid idea, much less a fan, a song, or stage presence. Because performance gestures can be artificially corrected, listeners had a hard time knowing who is truly worthy of our attention. Today’s producer has to do the work of grooming an artist to be record-ready, and I envy that. But it is hard work and requires knowledge, skill, tact, patience, and a well-honed instinct for music.