1.     Let’s begin by introducing yourself and how did you get into Audio Engineering?

I’m Rakat Zami; I’m a record producer, a music composer, and sound engineer, and I have worked with two of the most renowned bands of the country, Indalo and Nemesis, as their live audio engineer as well as their producer.

But even though, a lot of people know me as a producer or an audio engineer, I would like to call myself primarily a musician. I do have my own band called ‘Embers in Snow’ – it was basically a solo project which sort of turned into a band. And we released our debut album ‘Solstice’ last month. But the reason why I call myself a musician primarily is because my audio engineering journey started from being a musician back in early 2009, I believe, when I was writing my own songs and wanted to record them.

At that time, I didn’t know a lot of people and didn’t know whom to consult to get my music recorded, and so the only solution I had was to record them myself. And that’s where my journey began.

2.     What does an Audio Engineer do? What type of knowledge and skills helps you to get qualified for this role?

So, if you think of Audio Engineering as a genre, it is like a mother genre under which there are so many subdivisions and categories. Audio engineering in itself is the whole concept, and an audio engineer plays so many roles that I’m not sure how many there are anymore!

But to give a few examples, there is Live Audio Engineer under which there are two separate branches which are Front Of the House Engineering (FOH Engineering) and Systems Engineering/System Design Engineering, which is basically whoever sets up the speakers and makes sure everything is in phase, basically ensuring that all the technical aspects are in order run a festival or a concert.

Then on the other side, we have the studio production side where we have different layers of engineering. There’s a Record Engineer who basically supervises how a recording is carried out. There’s a Mixing Engineer who comes in after the whole recording is done and mixes the whole audio file and makes it presentable. There’s a Master Engineer who ensures that your music is “industry acceptable”.

So, you see, it’s not about what an audio engineer does but its more about which part of audio engineering you are associated with, because as I explained, rather briefly, that the whole subject is massive, diverse, and co-dependent. And it is completely up to them to pursue whichever sector they want to.

There are people involved in the live scenario and there are people involved in the studio scenario. I, however, am stuck in between actually. I do a lot of live scenarios and spend a lot of time inside the studio working with artists and helping them achieve the sound they want.

And as for knowledge and skills, there are institutes abroad that offer a wide range of associate degrees and bachelor’s deference under the section of music production and audio engineering per se. So, you could go down that route to acquire the technical knowledge and, to some extent, acquire some practical expertise in some scenarios too. But then again, this is 2020 and knowledge is pretty much available to everyone for free and you could just google up anything that you want to know about and you can get detailed courses from Coursera and other accredited online platforms.

You just need to know how sound works, such as how it reacts and interacts with the surrounding once it comes out of the speakers or how can you obtain a sound or how can you capture sound and transform it into something else. These are the basic skills that you require in order to step into the world of audio engineering. And no, you don’t need to be a musician in order to become an audio engineer. If you do understand music, it’s obviously a bonus but it’s not necessarily true that you need to be a musician or come from a musical background in order to become an Audio Engineer.

 

 

3.     Did you always have a passion for sounds or is it another responsibility that came to you?

It’s a bit of both really because my whole journey stemmed from my need to record myself right. And for a while, it felt like a chore, but over time I just started to love the whole process.

There’s so much you can do with the knowledge of audio engineering and every single node and sound that is produced around you just starts to have a meaning by itself. And, if you are smart enough or creative enough then you can acquire any sound around you and turn it into something special. So that basically motivated me to keep working with sound. But that is only in my case, as when I am catering to another person’s needs, it is a definitely a responsibility to do my job perfectly, even though I voluntarily accept the role.

When I’m working with others, I have two responsibilities: one is to satisfy the artists, delivering what they ask me to. And the second responsibility I have is towards the audience because, at the end of the day, they are ones who are listening to the artist. So, I have to make sure both the artist and the audience enjoy the experience when they create or listen to the music.

 

 

4.     What are the things that you enjoy most about being an Audio Engineer?

I think the part where you can transform an ordinary sound to something very unexpected. That whole idea in itself is I think one of the most enjoyable aspects of audio engineering.

Making someone sound good is sort of like a very rewarding experience, to be honest. When someone comes to me and gives me a sample of recording and says, “I would want this to sound like this”, they are entrusting you with a piece of themselves. And because I am a musician myself, I can understand what it means to someone when they create music. It’s a euphoria that you cannot explain.

And when they come to you with all of that excitement and that trust, I really enjoy being able to deliver what they’re hoping me to and help them achieve a certain sound. And while I do say that it is not required to be a musician to be an audio engineer, I guess if you are a musician turned audio engineer, you connect better with the artists you’re working with.

 

 

5.     Can you describe some of the most exciting audio projects you have worked on?

I don’t want to talk about my own music – everything about it is exciting, haha. But aside from that, there are three projects that I would love to single out.

First is my first full-length production with Indalo when I was working on their song ‘Hobeki’. That project was challenging as Indalo had really high expectations from me. We were there since day 1, and I was involved throughout the entire process and I was going to their jamming sessions to watch the song come to life. And when we were recording it in the studio, I had suggested inputs that the band was happy to incorporate. They trusted a lot of my decisions which was scary and at the same time very exciting.

The second one was the song ‘Konodin’ by Nemesis. That one was particularly exciting because Nemesis is a staple name in the Rock scene of our country. They have a particular style, and by ‘Kono Din’ we were trying to experiment and break out of their usual niche and explore a different realm of sound. That was a big challenge for me because I was partly reshaping a band that has been at the top for 20 years now and help them change their sound after two decades.

The last but definitely not the least would be ‘Moho’ by Jon bhaia. That was something phenomenal to be a part of because that is a production style that I was not really familiar with. It was more of tweaking the whole song – the sound had to be clear, refined, and grand. The process wasn’t something I was used to, and so for me, it was like sailing across uncharted waters. And for Jon bhaia to trust me with the production of that particular song was a very big thing for me. I also helped him co-produce the song, giving him creative inputs. Primarily the idea was Jon bhaia’s but I would like to believe that we collaboratively put the whole song together and delivered it to the audience. And considering the response, I think we did a pretty good job.

 

 

6.     According to you, what is the most challenging part of sound engineering?

I think it’s meeting an artist’s expectations. Audio engineering can be considered a form of art with a little bit on the technical side, but I think it’s very important to understand your capacity. Because it not only helps to keep you grounded but it also reminds you about your strengths and weaknesses and work accordingly and evolve. If you don’t have the mentality that you are going to have to better yourself every day, when you’ll face challenges, you won’t be able to process those situations and deliver to your clients.

And obviously there are challenges that you’d face on the field as a Live Audio Engineer. There will always be faulty equipment or not even the equipment that you requested for!

 

7.    Knowing your capacity, how do you deal with something that is new to you?

Research, really. When Jon Kabir bhaia came with the idea for ‘Moho’, it was completely new to me. I had never done productions before that are fully crisp, western-influenced pop sounds or crystal clear. But Jon bhaia had faith in me for which I asked him to give me some time to be 100% sure about it before I gave him my word that I could pull it off. And I just went on YouTube and typed in “how to approach a pop music production” and a thousand hits came up, haha. I went over the process of beat making, how to process pop vocals, what makes pop vocals notable, etc. to learn it all!

The second part is a little cliché but be honest with yourself. After you go through the research phase, you have to ask yourself if you can do it. It’s a simple question, and you have to answer it to yourself honestly. If you don’t, you’ll tell a client that you can deliver it but when you eventually can’t, you’re not only wasting your time but the client’s as well. And neither of you will benefit from it because the client won’t pay you and you won’t make a name for yourself.

 

 

8.     Can you describe a typical working week as an Audio Engineer?

Well, there’s not any currently because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a typical work week would have a bunch of live gigs. And Nemesis will have about 4-5 shows a month, so one every week. Also, at the studio, I’d take a lot of clients who come to me for mixing and mastering and different sort of stuff for music production.

I also work for certain agencies like TVC Music Productions and OVC Music Productions so from time to time, I get a lot of requests for original soundtracks for online video content or TV video content and advertisements. Basically, a lot of music work comes from the advertisement agencies as well.

So yeah, minus the Covid-19 situation, a typical workweek is actually pretty busy. I never get weekends, not that I am complaining. And sometimes there are nights that I have to stay up late to deliver a music piece to a client because, for some reason, the client decided to give me feedback at the dead of the night and the delivery deadline is the next day. That is just how the industry rolls, it is a fast-paced industry, and sometimes certain things just change on the fly.

 

 

9.     Do you ever prefer a 9 to 5 week as opposed to your deconstructed week?

No, I don’t think I can ever deal with that. As a matter of fact, I remember when I finished my A-levels back in 2011, I joined a company called Livesquare as an intern – it was a music management firm. While we did work with music and I did get to do a lot of fieldwork with audio engineers while working with Livesquare, our office timings were from 9am to 5pm. And I just didn’t like it at all, because a lot of it was planning a concert or pitching to sponsors for an event, which was just not my thing. That’s exactly when I knew I would never be able to settle for a 9 to 5 job.

I studied chemistry and wanted to pursue a degree in pharmaceuticals. And I knew that if I did go down that path, I wanted to be in some sort of fieldwork. I wanted to be in a research area where I was involved in unorthodox working methods. That’s just the person I am. It sounds like that I am not fond of routines; I love routines and I love being organized but I’m just not very fond of the whole 9 to 5 job concept because that just doesn’t suit the type of person I am.

 

 

10.    You have worked as a Music Producer earlier, what do you see as the biggest differences between mixing and producing?

There isn’t much, to be honest. If you are a Music Producer then you can get away with surface-level audio engineering because you can just create the music and send it over to the Mix Engineer and be like “hey, can you fix this for me?”. But as a Record Producer, which is my job, I am required to have knowledge about mixing and recording engineering because at the end of the day, even if I am not mixing the track while recording, if I am not thinking from a technical/mixing point of view, I won’t be able to capture the right sounds in the right way.

I don’t really distinguish between the two processes, it’s one single process for me. When the clients come to me, they come to me for the whole thing – recording, mixing, mastering, etc.

 

 

11.     Who do you look up to in the music industry?

I will always look up to Brendan O’Brien, and I am even desperate enough to tweet him, asking him if I can intern under him, haha. He is a Record Producer based in L.A and he has produced some of the biggest names in Rock music, such as Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Incubus, etc.

The second person is another Rock Album Producer named Eric Valentine. He has produced for the band Queens of the Stone Age, which has some of the craziest production stories I have ever heard of.

And the third person I look up to is an Indie Music Producer named Justin Vernon. He has a member of the bands Bon Iver and Volcano Choir. And I look up to him because he approaches sound from a very unorthodox angle. He captures the most random sounds, like someone clapping, walking, or hammering at a construction site, and turn it into something phenomenal

And another person I would like to mention is Steven Wilson. I love him both as a musician and as a producer because of his philosophies, his sound scaping, and the way he thinks about sound in general.

 

 

12.     What is it like to be an Audio Engineer in Bangladesh? Please tell us about the future of Audio Engineering.

Audio engineering in Bangladesh is difficult, I won’t sugarcoat it. We are understaffed and under-equipped in a lot of ways and it’s unfortunately the sad truth. It’s difficult because people don’t understand our work. They’d say things like “You fix wires and pull cables?”. Yes, that’s one part of our job but it’s an elaborate and complicated line of work. There are lots of misconceptions and stigma surrounding musicians in general, and audio engineers fall under that category as well.

But a lot of people are doing it now like Sagor bhai, Shuvo bhai and Zakir. We also have Shamim bhai who is one of the oldest and most reputed Audio Engineers in the country and Nahid bhaia  who’s a system engineer for Blues Communications. They know their work; they know their craft very well. They’re stepping up and establishing a name for themselves and also shedding light on the whole concept of audio engineering n Bangladesh in a different manner. But we are still decades away from convincing the mass public what audio engineering does and is capable of.

However, we have companies like Blues Communications ,who are very well equipped. If we have 3-4 companies who share a similar vision and come forward to establish technical infrastructure for the music industry, I believe that the future, maybe 5-6 years down the line, has the potential to be fantastic.

 

 

13.     What would be your suggestions for the aspiring Audio Engineers?

Research, research, and research.

I know we are in a country where it’s almost impossible to get formal sound engineering knowledge, but I teach sound engineering under YAMAHA Music Bangladesh at EMK Center. Even then I’d like to point out that my course doesn’t cover everything, because I am just teaching you what I am learning off the internet.

The internet is your best friend. When I started learning about sound engineering, it used to take YouTube double the time to buffer a video. I used to go to websites to read about certain concepts that I didn’t understand from the videos, and then experiment. That is how I learned my craft, and if you want to learn too, it’s a lot easier nowadays. You can just go on YouTube and pick a topic you want to learn about.

Also, be honest with yourself. Just don’t watch a video for 15 minutes and think you’re a god when it comes to understanding something. It’s good to have confidence but try to apply your knowledge into your work and into your craft. Use software to integrate what you learned and listen to the results. See if it makes any difference to you and notice if you understand what’s happening, if you analyze and rationalize and reason every single adjustment you are making.

Once you combine research and honesty, you’ll thrive! Trust me, these two things are the foundations of what I am today. Start with these and then, obviously, you can always try to reach out and connect with people. I personally think networking really helps, it doesn’t hurt to ask or communicate with people. And, who knows, you may just encounter somebody who really likes your work and is willing to pay a crazy ton of money for it.

Put yourself out there once you are confident in your work; that’s what I did and then one evening Zubair bhaia from Indalo called me to try audio engineering with them. He had called me just 3 hours before their show at BUET, haha. Something similar happened with Nemesis as well. So, you see, opportunities come when you put yourself out there and network. And obviously, if I didn’t network with Zubair bhaia or Jon bhaia earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to experience any of this.

 

 

14.     Which 3 songs are currently your favorite music tracks?

It’s tough, really. But one of the top 3 that comes to my mind is Internal Landscapes by Anathema. It’s an emotional song, and I just love this song because I have so many memories attached to it and also because it’s just a great song, obviously.

The next two are going to be production-based. Promises, Promises by Incubus. It was produced by my most favorite producer Brendan O’Brien, and I have performed it a bunch of times. And the third song from the top of mind is Golden by Harry Styles. It’s a fantastic song with a top tier production.

 

 

15.     Tell us about the projects that you are currently working on.

Currently I am working on multiple projects but primarily on two. One is with Circus Police – their new single, Unholy Tales of Adam and Lilith, is a work in progress, and we’re not sure when it’s coming out.

I am also working on an album for a band called Attic. They have recorded their album and have turned it in some time ago, but unfortunately, I didn’t get the time to sit down with an album production. But I’m currently working on it full-fledged. On the side, there are a few projects, but I can’t mention them because they are confidential, haha.

 

 

16.     What is your ultimate vision? And where you want to see Bangladeshi music in the coming days?

I just want us to go global; I want Bangladesh to be recognized as a hub where there’s good music because there’s genuinely fantastic music here. I’m not saying that just because I am a musician myself and I have recently released my own album, but  because it is true that we have phenomenal talent here. We have so much potential and I just want them to go global. I wanna have a bridge by which our music travels abroad and foreign musicians come to Bangladesh because they have a fanbase here too.

My ultimate vision is to establishes a two-way relationship. We might even create a platform for the Bengali lyric-based musicians to pitch their music abroad. And also, at the same time, there are so many English writing-based bands here that can push their music abroad too.

I also want to be the best in my craft and be recognized as one of the best in the country. I know it’s gonna be a long and difficult journey, but that’s okay for me. I don’t have to be recognized by big magazines or big brands, I just wanna be best on my own terms and I just wanna reach a point in life where I can say that I think I know just about enough – that’s my own vision and my own goal.