Today we’d like to introduce you to Ava Frank.
Hi Ava, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started in music when I was just 14 years old learning how to play guitar and was taking vocal lesson. Eventually my vocal teacher at the time told me I should try to record myself.
That’s when my journey in audio production started. I started obsessively tinkering with the DAW logic and building a home studio.
That continued until eventually I decided that audio engineering is what I wanted to do for a living along with being a musician and went to trade school and college for it.
After lots of schooling and fumbling around very large consoles and patch bays I began my journey into internships.
I would encourage everyone to do as many internships as possible no matter what you want to do it’s where i learned the most about audio production and the ins and out of interpersonal studio relations.
Now today at 22 years old I’ve been at my most recent internship, assistant engineering job, and place of freelance audio engineering for 2 years.
I’ve worked with and recorded as many bands and solo artists as I possibly can including my own band JILL PILL.
Crafting people’s sounds and my own is what I will forever be passionate about. Making someone’s vision they have in their head come to life in such a literal way is such a beautiful chilling feeling that will never get old for me. Just like magic.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say no one has quite a smooth road especially in audio and no mine hasn’t always been smooth, it’s been full of self doubt and having no close family members that do music, I was a first generation to get into audio engineering in my family.
You can put can put the family puzzle together. I had to work hard to find my place in the industry and am still finding it I still haven’t stopped working hard.
I think that something that every audio engineer and musician has this thing called imposter syndrome. I have always struggled with not believing I’m not good enough to be working with who I’m working with or for myself on my own music. What I’ve learned so far from much older more experienced audio engineers is that imposter syndrome never quite goes away. When they say fake it till you make it they really mean it. Confidence and trusting your gut is what makes a great record not being unsure and stressed out. If Ive learned anything being stressed out in a session is the worst thing you can be. What ever you are feeling in that moment put it to the side because it will reflect on the artist.
Don’t doubt yourself, because you are a direct reflection of the world around you. Learning how to control your own emotions and trust your gut in any professional environment can be such a powerful creative tool to use even in a musicians sense.
Emotions have always been my biggest boulder.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in audio engineering/producing and of course being a musician.
On the audio engineering side my job is to make someone sound exactly the way they heard it in their head. My goal is to make someone go woah that’s me? They play the instrument and i do the nerdy side of it. Making them sound how ever they want it to sound. My job is decipher what a musician means by “I want it to sound more blue” and making that a thing, with use of different mics, mic techniques, eq, saturation, distortion, compression, etc. I want someone to be in “awe” by the time they leave. Communication is key and trusting your gut, but mostly the artists gut.
On the artist/musician side of things, i have a band called JILL PILL in which I sing and write songs on the guitar along with my band. Without this side of things I don’t think I’d be able to do my audio job the same way. Having an understanding of both sides is helpful. This also bleeds into the audio engineering side of things as well, because I produce and co engineer our songs. It gives me a different perspective of the artist brain and really making a comfortable space to be creative, chaotic, and emotional in.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite memory from childhood, is probably when I broke my pinky finger with a rock when I was around 6 and my immediate Reaction after it was in a cast was to immediately pick up a toy guitar and start singing a song I made called “my poor little broken finger”.
It’s been a joke in my family ever since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Jillpillband.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jillpillband and https://www.instagram.com/avafrankmusic
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ava-hollingsworth-02a582255/
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/16zwTN4SmOStZwgj0iXCtY
