Iris Calloway
I record rooms, and sometimes I write about them
Sound engineer for classical and folk recordings, mostly in churches and village halls, mostly with too few microphones.
A little more
I started as an assistant in a studio that no longer exists, learned the job by carrying things quietly, and now work alone in buildings that were never meant for recording. Most of what I know is about where to stand, not about what to buy.
Iris
Lately
What I have been doing
2023 — present
Freelance
Wherever the building sounds good
Around thirty recordings a year, half of them in places with no power.
2018 — 2023
Staff engineer
A small classical label
Four hundred sessions, and the education of a lifetime in microphone placement.
2016 — 2018
Assistant
A studio that has since closed
Carried things, coiled cables, listened.
Writing
Recent
Why a church is difficult and worth it
Six seconds of reverb is a gift and a problem in the same breath.
Two microphones are usually enough
And the third one is where most recordings start to go wrong.
On being quiet in the room
The engineer is part of the acoustic, which took me years to accept.
Elsewhere