What does it take to be a sound engineer?

In the quiet moments before any musicians arrive, sound engineer Julie Gardeski opens the door to a dark theater, casting a single beam of light leading the way to the breakers to flip on the lights. As Gardeski sets up her wiring to record the Minnesota Pops Orchestra in the South High School Auditorium in Minneapolis, she ponders how the sound will work in the space she is provided. She needs to consider many factors: How will the sound carry? What instruments need more amping than others? What will best capture the energy of the performance?

Gardeski has spent many years working in sound engineering. When you meet her, you see it in her demeanor; she has a calmness about her that makes you realize she is taking everything in before making a decision on where to move next.

When recording in an auditorium, engineers have the luxury of space: classical music's best friend. Gardeski pulls the mics back to a point where she feels there is good symmetry between artist and ambience. Often, raising a mic can bring out a soft accompaniment, while moving the soloist forward can balance out the sound. When recording classical music, the engineer is typically not allowed to change the basic sound beyond the addition of reverb or occasional cuts, so artistically speaking, what goes into the recording is what comes out.

Self-employed as a sound engineer since the 1980s, Gardeski has worked for artists from Prince to Magnum Chorum to the Minnesota Pops Orchestra. She began her career as an engineer and eventually transitioned into wiring and installing studios when demand for studio wiring came to a head. In one of her first jobs, Gardeski wired Master Mix Studios, which ended up being the quietest studio in town. Word got around about Gardeski's talent, and soon, her reputation was well-established.

"When I first started doing wiring," Julie shares, "it was all custom and everything had to be hand-wired. In the '90s, the industry's idea was to make everything plug-and-play. Because they standardized everything, if they wanted to, somebody can buy all of the stuff and plug it themselves. Still, most people don't know how or they don't want to. Bigger companies don't want their employees to waste their time on it, so they call me in. Wiring is very zen. When you engineer, it's stressful, whereas when you wire, you're in your zone. There's not too much going on around you; you're not dealing with egos and musicians. You plug things in; they either work or they don't."

While her work speaks for itself, Gardeski does sometimes feel the stereotype of a woman in a male-dominated field rear its head. "It still happens," she confides, "but I've been doing this for long enough that a lot of people know me and my work. I can still walk into a situation where nobody knows who I am. When you're younger you get frustrated by it, but now it amuses me. It doesn't matter anymore. The older I get, the more secure I am. When I first started, I was naive—thinking the cream will rise to the top and people would notice. It's not always that simple. I remember these thoughts running through my head and being frustrated seeing people not as talented pass me up. To rise above that negative thinking, you have to be able to sell yourself and believe in yourself."

As she's seen the music industry change many times over, Julie has been able to pinpoint her favorite aspects of her job. If given a choice of what she could do for the rest of her life, she would take on mix engineering—a job she says that is difficult for many people to understand, and it's part of an era that's gone and will never come back. So she finds joy in other parts of the job, even when it's tough.

"It's really stressful," she says. "Most people don't realize how hard of a job engineering is. It's also very subjective. You can do something you think is the best thing you've ever done, and somebody is going to come along and say, 'I don't like that.' You still have to do what your client wants."

Over the years, Gardeski has honed her skills, and one of her strengths lies in acoustics, which has led her into recording classical music. She finishes setting up mics for the Minnesota Pops Orchestra as musicians begin to show up and find their positions. While they warm up, Gardeski focuses on the instrument harmony and room ambience. She tests the locations of any soloists, having them move forward or back to achieve a better balance, adjusting mics for evenness.

As Julie makes last-minute adjustments, she shares the secret to her success in recording classical music: playing clarinet in a band in her younger days. It automatically gave her an edge, since most other engineers had only had experience in engineering rock music. Her musical experience and approach in assessing everything before moving forward has created a special niche for her, allowing her to excel in a field where many would have folded long ago.

Gardeski concludes, "It's a tough field, but there are so many rewards that come with it. Everything has its price and tradeoffs; you just have to find those pockets of comfort."

Writer Youa Vang is appreciative of all genres of music — even country. When not writing about music, she can be found working on her standup comedy and cross-stitching mischievous sayings while watching The Simpsons. Photographer Bridget Bennett is a student at the University of Minnesota.

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