BIO
I am a Miami based audio engineer and music producer. I was born in 1987 in Moscow, Russia, and started to take piano lessons at the age of 5. In 2006, I graduated from Gnesin State Musical College with a Music Theory degree. In 2012, I got an Audio Engineering degree with concentration in music engineering/production from Gnesins Academy of Music (Moscow, Russia). While a student here, I engineered and mixed music of different genres: acoustic, jazz, rock and pop, various kinds of orchestras and choirs and big bands. For three years, I recorded all jazz concerts from the Gnesin Concert Hall and I shared this experience in my degree paper about big bands' recording techniques which was a supplement to my final project.
I was carried away by big bands, their powerful sound and history, listening to the records, learning their history and the recording techniques. In 2011, I participated in an all-Russian student contest for audio engineers and was ranked fourth for the Recording in Jazz nomination (a cover on Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”, jazz ensemble with a vocal).
Also, I worked as an FOH engineer (live sound engineer) at the Concert hall in Gnesin Academy of Music and audio engineer at the “Ostankino” TV center. In the concert hall, I worked with Russian, Polish and American musicians. In May, 2012 Herbie Hancock, American jazz pianist, came to Moscow with his band, and I was honored to be an FOH engineer at his master class for students in my Alma Mater. At the TV center, I performed post production mixing for several TV shows.
When I was a senior student, I became a mixing engineer of “Panorama” which was a Russian national broadcast of the World Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. We spent two years on technical and creative preparation to the Olympic broadcast and shot a lot of national and international events. One of them was the World Summer University Games in Kazan in 2013 where we produced 5.1 feed for the first time on live sports TV in Russia (the very first 5.1 broadcast was in 2009 for Eurovision musical contest in Moscow). I worked as A1 at Aquatics shoot in Kazan, and we had several crews from different regions that covered all other sporting events at the University Games. “Panorama” was an international broadcast for University games, and more than 100 TV broadcasters from all over the world bought our feed.
At the World Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, I was an assistant mixer for the Ice Hockey competitions. “Panorama” was a national broadcast in this case, i.e. we produced the feed only for the Russian audience. We received an international feed from the Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) and added our own cameras and microphones to focus more on Russian athletes. I was also an assistant mixer for Curling at the World Winter Paralympic games in Sochi. My English speaking capabilities enabled me to be the main communicator between our Russian crew and OBS and other international crews at both Olympic events.
After the Olympics, I decided to further expand my capabilities by studying in graduate school abroad. After being admitted to NYU and Johns Hopkins, I chose MTSU to continue my studies. In August 2014, I joined the Master of Recording Arts and Technologies program there. I received a full assistantship there and am currently working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. My duties include tutoring audio engineering classes in four studios, producing and engineering Sounds Alikes projects, assisting at some faculty sessions and live shows, etc.
The three year program at MTSU has given me extensive knowledge and great experiences in music recording and mixing, using large format consoles (API vision, SSL Duality), and producing audio for visual media. I enjoyed working with the incredibly talented people there. I also gained some teaching experience tutoring students for the Studio Recording Technique classes and assisting in Analogue Recording class. Besides my own projects, I liked to engineer faculty’s projects. One of the best projects I have engineered so far has been with Alexis Gomez (a young talent and semi-finalist of the American Idol show). I was an audio engineer for the “40 Days Around The World” project which included studio sessions for musicians with disabilities. One of my favorite student projects was to reverse-engineer and recreate the drum sounds of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Dave Weckl. In Summer, my assistantship duties include creating “Sound Alikes” projects. I aim to record a released song as close as possible to the original, and these multitracks with the original reference are used for mixing assignments for students in class. Last Summer I did “Last Goodbye” by Jeff Buckley; this Summer I produced “White Rooms” by Cream and “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton.
This Summer I took Bonnaroo Production class. For this class, we shot performances on “The Who?” stage at Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester. The festival lasted four days, and all crew was MTSU video and audio students. After the shoot, we spent two weeks doing post-production mixing. One of my projects was Maren Morris’ performance, both 5.1 and stereo.
Videos about the "Panorama" company and its trucks:
One of my most exciting new experiences at MTSU was a Nashville Symphony shoot in the Remote Production class (Spring, 2016), where I was the director. It was a concert for kids themed about outer space, including three actors and an actual astronaut alongside the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra played music from Star Wars, Mozart, and Holst. It was a great pleasure for me to work with such a great multiple-Grammy winning orchestra at Schermerhorn, one of the best concert halls. I was responsible for the camera choices and positions, working with the crew, doing a lot of preproduction activities, and education my crew about the symphony orchestra. The most important aspect of tv crew work is communication. Being in the director’s shoes, I realized that every member should know the concept of the shoot; in case of music broadcast they should also know music. It helps to build a logical sequence of frames, not just random pictures, and to tell a story.
On my final year of graduate school, I completed my Final Project (“Production and Postproduction Audio Practices for Concert Specials”) and Advanced Studio Production class (session with professional musicians in various studios in Nashville). I married Ryan Karkkainen, who is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of Miami, and moved to Miami after graduation in May 2017. I am currently working as A1/A2 freelancer for various venues: South Miami Dade Cultural Center, Miramar Cultural Center, First United Methodist Church in Boca Raton, Fillmore, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. I am also a member of IATSE Local 500 union. I am interested in a variety of audio jobs, especially TV post production, studio recording/mixing, and teaching. I look forward to discussing any potential employment opportunities, so please contact me at any time.
Katia Karkkainen
MTSU Bonnaroo 2016 festival production:
