art-parlor
The Art Parlor for June, 2026 Presents: Jessica Tomlinson!
Episode Notes This month, it was our pleasure to speak with Jessica Tomlinson! Jessica is an eclectic composer, synthesist, keyboard player, and recording engineer based in the Tampa Bay area who happens to be legally blind. When she isn't playing pop rock with the band Rainbow Portal, she's crafting boundary-pushing experimental compositions in her home studio. She serves on the Audio Engineering Society’s Accessibility committee and the MIDI Association Special Interest Group focusing on accessibility. Jessica is also an active member of SoundGirls and the Earth Modular Society. She gives back to the community through Girls Rock Camp St. Pete and teaches blind senior citizens to use assistive technology. She also creates visual art with a powerful magnifier. I hope you enjoy the show as much as we did creating it! For more information about Friends in Art, please visit their website: " rel="nofollow">https://www.friendsinart.org/> . AI-Generated Transcript Opinions expressed on ACB media are those of the respective program contributors and cannot be assumed to serve as endorsements of products or views by friends in art, the American Council of the Blind, their elected officials, or staff. Friends in Art welcomes you to the Art Parlor, where visually impaired artists of all types will discuss their work. Pull up a chair, bring along your beverage of choice, and listen to thoughtful, stimulating conversations with visually impaired artists in all media and from all parts of the world. And now... Hi everyone, this is Annie Chiappetta, President of Friends in Art, and this is the Art Parlor. And tonight we have a very special guest, Jessica Tomlinson. And we're going to talk about pretty much all different kinds of stuff relating to creativity and music and being an artist, that kind of stuff. Jessica, welcome. How are you today? I am very good, excited to talk creativity with you as I enjoy learning about lots of different media. as you will hear, I do enjoy dabbling in many different things and I enjoy hearing about other people's creative practice as well. Excellent. Excellent. So how did you first decide you wanted to be a part of the performing arts? Was it something that you like to do as a kid? Was it, you know, when you were in high school? How did that develop for you? So I have always been very fascinated by and very attuned to sound because with people's five senses the brain tends to pick one or two to prioritize. Technical geeks will think of this as being like a computer's IRQs, meaning is the keyboard or the mouse, the primary input device. So most people, their primary input sense is sight, but I was born with underdeveloped optic nerves or optic nerve hypoplasia. So sound has always been my primary sense that I focus on. And then the sense of touch is kind of secondary and then maybe seeing is a kind of third because I do have some low vision. So I would make up words for sounds like if someone were to scrape a chair across the floor, I would say that's like calling it huge or radio static sounded a lot like frizz, frizz, frizz. So I saw musicians kind of from afar, but I didn't have any role models when I was very young, so I didn't really think of it as something I could do. However, when I became a teenager and started going to local concerts, I saw the front of House mixing console, which is the large board at the position where the engineer is able to balance the levels from all the different instruments. And when I saw and heard and was told that that was an actual job that some people do, I was completely hooked. I was single-minded throughout my teenage years that I was going to have a career in that field. And I went to a trade school. I went to full sale university back then it was called full sale real world education in Orlando. And I did I graduated from the recording arts program. And I found it very fascinating. I learned a lot of incredible things. I picked up a lot of general standard knowledge about recording equipment and how it's connected in something we call signal flow for how signal goes from the microphone to the preamp through the mixing console to the outboard gear. And finally, at that time, we were mostly using tape machines. Now we have programs on the computers called digital audio workstations that double as the tape recorder, the multi-track, the mixing console, and even the outboard effects gear too. So all that is in the computer. How many of those digital audio workstations are you trained in or that you know of? that you have knowledge of. I've used different ones over the years. I cannot say that I am expert in a lot of the ones that I used earlier. My very first one was called Cool Edit Pro from Adobe, now Adobe Audition. I used digital performer for a little while there. At Full Sail I was taught about Pro Tools and Logic. Then I used a Cubase for a while there. And now my DAW of choice is Reaper. And I feel much more comfortable with Reaper today. I can do, I consider more with it than I have been able to with any DAW in the past. And why is that? Because number one, it has such a flexible workflow, which I do understand can contribute to a steep learning curve if someone is just getting started. you are able to set it up and customize it the way you want it to work. And the OSARA, OS-A-R-A extension, I don't exactly know what the acronym stands for, but it provides for very deep functionality using a screen reader. So I am able to close my eyes and use my QWERTY keyboard, and I also now use a a control surface, which is a little mini mixing board with faders on it, except no audio goes through it. It's just a giant mouse. It's a tactile surface to control the reaper environment with and do a lot of things, not only editing spoken content, but also mixing music and recording music, which is my passion. And I can record MIDI into it as well and use a lot of virtual instruments, playing a piano like keyboard. Right. Are you on the MIDI? Are you on the MIDI list? I am not. I am on the Reapers Without Peepers list when I get time to pop over there. I know that there is a MIDI list. I'm not sure if it's still, you know, it's, but I don't know how to subscribe to it, but I will find out for you and send it to you. I'll do some searching. There is a mega stash of accessible resources that the Reaper community publishes. So I will check in there to see if I can find it as well. Also just a note, I don't know too much what it's gonna be like yet, but I have been able to attend a few meetings of the MIDI Association Special Interest Group on accessibility and they are currently developing MIDI 2.0. Interesting. They are trying to incorporate text-based screen reader prompts through that and some other cool nifty stuff yet to be seen down the road. So we have something to look forward to. That is really cool because I know a couple of people that love MIDI and are very dedicated to it. I'm not sure if it's still on the Friends and Art website, but we may have a link to the MIDI list on the website, but I haven't... I'm not sure. I still have to check because I don't use MIDI. So what would you say to somebody who maybe wants to start out as an audio engineer, do something for their personal enjoyment? How would they start? What kind of, where would they go? I mean, not, yeah. Yeah. That really depends on what they would like to do because there are many subfields. There are many little niches within the field of audio or maybe it's niches. I don't know. There is live sound. Yeah, there's live sound. So there is ways to support musicians that are on stage. There is home studio recording and mixing, which is what a lot of people do because we can set up our environments and not have people moving our stuff all the time and really get familiar with one set of gear and push it to its potential. There's also post-production where you support film and TV shows. There's sound design for sound effects for those shows. There's dialogue editing. There's actually audio description editing as well. If you look into the audio description projects. So there are lots and lots of ways to get involved with sound. I would say the first thing would be if you know anybody who also has an interest in the field to ask them to find out, first of all, what part of the industry are they involved in, what has worked for them, what tools they use, and then just because the tools work for somebody else doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna work for you. So one of the reasons why we have so many different types of gear and DAWs and things is because everybody works and processes differently. So the path that many people are probably gonna wanna take is like a home studio situation so that they can record and mix either their own music or have some collaborations with friends. So you need a couple of things and you don't need to acquire these all at once. You need either a computer or a tablet. There are some that work on iOS, but I'm not as familiar with them. I know GarageBand is a really good one that some people start with on iOS and Mac, but either a computer or a tablet, a good set of headphones or speakers so that you can hear clearly what you're doing, preferably in a good listening environment that doesn't have a bunch of echo. But that's a whole other discussion. So my room here, you can hear that echo. So that echo is going to affect and color what you're hearing. So you're hearing way too much of one frequency. You'll cut it in the mix and then somebody else will be listening in another environment and they will be like, hey, wait a minute, that sounds like there's a hole in that. So I think the key is good monitoring, which means listening on either headphones or speakers. But even if you, whatever you have, whatever you start with, when you make a mix, when you make a musical track or a spoken content, take that track and go listen to it on as many different sound systems as you can. So play it in your friend's car. Notice I didn't say it in your car. Unless you have one and you have some on the drives. Play it on your phone. Play it on if you still have a Walkman. Play it on that. Play it on your home stereo system. play it on your tinny clock radio to just get a really good sense for how it's going to sound in all those different environments. So that's important for what reason? That is important so that you can maybe not necessarily optimize it extremely for one environment over the others, but you can get a good overall balance to make your mix sound good on a lot of those different systems. Gotcha. Okay. And another cool thing is you have to, a lot of people, most people mix in stereo. It's important to check your mix in mono. Yeah, I already know. Yes, I know that. I found that by accident. No one told me that. I'm like, why is this happening? Because I have a very simple, I have a two-channel device and, you know, I've got a nice headset with a mic and I'm like, oh, I have to go do that now? Right. So in Reaper, the key command for switching your master track to mono is shift plus F9. Just so that you can hear if there's any wonkiness. But back to the list of things that one could start out with. And again, not all at the same time. Don't feel like you have to do this all overnight. Computer, which is the brain, DAW, which is the software, monitoring, which is headphones or speakers, you're probably going to need some kind of audio interface, which is a box that manages the input and output of sound to and from your computer. I have a Mo2M2, which has two XLRs on the front and then a couple different outputs on the back. And that also does my MIDI in and out as well, although a lot of MIDI controllers have USB these days so you can plug the MIDI through USB directly into your computer. But for audio, for microphones, an audio interface is definitely the way to go. And there's a lot of different ones on the market. And then just explore different microphones. Because microphone- What do you use? I use a couple of different Chippodipo dynamic microphones. OK. And I also have a blue, a baby blue, um, road NT one condenser mic that I use when I really want to record something quiet and soft and subtle. Oh, okay. When you first start out, like, like you said, you know, don't get these things all at one time. I assume that, you know, the price ranges and the availability of things. My Ruby cost me a pretty penny, but, um, yes, I have one of those two. All right. So what's your advice about starting slow and inexpensively? So check out trial versions of software to determine what you like and what works best with the way you process information and the way you work. So I have heard that the accessibility in Ableton has come a really long way in recent years. Also Reaper is amazing, but I'm very biased. Logic, I've heard people that use Logic and that's pretty good. GarageBand is also a great way to get started and just learn some concepts because all of these DAW programs do similar things, but they have slightly different ways of getting it to do the same thing. Like they all have multiple tracks. They all have ways to either put audio or MIDI on a track. They all have various ways to mix your various tracks and put effects on them. So it's just about trying different environments to see maybe what's gonna work best for the way you work. And also think about what kind of content or what kind of music do you wanna create? If you wanna be somebody who makes beats, who makes hip hop, then definitely maybe virtual instruments like a lot of drum samples are gonna be what you're gonna wanna focus on more than say various different microphones. I mean, I still recommend everybody have one good microphone at some point, but you might not need to start with that. If you have a software program, a DAW, that you find that works for you, maybe a good set of headphones, and look for some free virtual instrument plugins that you can play either with a MIDI keyboard, a MIDI drum pad, if that's more your style. Even your QWERTY keyboard can serve as a MIDI keyboard in a pinch. It's not velocity sensitive, meaning you don't get loud and soft based on your touch, but you can get notes to sound so that you can hear kind of what you're doing. Right, the basic rhythms and those kinds of things. Right. Yeah. - Okay. So, SurgeXT, if you like synthesizers, which I absolutely do, I have absolutely fallen down the rabbit hole of being in love with synthesis and learning about all those things. SurgeXT is fantastic as a synth, but there are lots of other free plugins that you can explore, not only free, but we also have to keep in mind what's gonna be accessible too, which is kind of a bummer because I think that more of the industry needs to focus on making their products usable by all their consumers. And we're just trying to spread awareness about accessibility a lot. Yes, it's getting better. It's slow though. It's slow. But I think as the general software, I guess programming and I guess the basics become easier, then I think the accessibility is becoming easier as well. I remember when I would ask for something, some kind of coding or something to make something accessible in the workplace and I'd get moans and groans and oh, it's too much and takes so long and blah, blah, blah. And now it's like, okay, well, we'll work on it. We'll get it to you in a little while. So I think the attitudes are changing, but it's slow. Yes, that's very good. It needs to be quicker. And I also wanna put a plug in, there isn't an open registration yet, but the Audio Engineering Society is going to be holding a small virtual conference on accessibility, July 9th and 10th, and they're going to have lots of different presenters in many of those different areas of the sound industry that I was talking about. They're going to have some people from live. They're going to have some artists. They're going to have some people that create software and just lots of people presenting, telling the general industry why accessibility is important and to listen and how to implement it. That's excellent. See, that's what's changing. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, excellent. I think we'll, I could talk about this all night, but we need to change the subject a little. So how did you get involved with ACB? So I was involved with ACB because I received a scholarship five or six years ago at the state level when I was going back to school to be a VRT, which is a Vision Rehab Therapist. So audio and music and accessibility has always been a passion of mine, but 20 years ago when I graduated from full sale, we were still in a industry model that revolved around large record labels, large studios, large consoles and large egos. And I kind of had to pivot because I couldn't find a doorway into the industry at that time. So my day job is now teaching blind senior citizens how to use their computers and smartphones. And I still use a lot of my geeky techy problem solving skills with them to help them develop the best solutions for them. But in recent years, the past five or six years, I've definitely started diving back into the audio side of things with organizations like Sound Girls and the AES Accessibility Committee. And like I said before, I'm big into synthesis, so I've done some online streams for Earth Modular Society. And I do have to say, I'm very, very happy and excited to say that I was recently accepted as a pro member to ramped recording artists and music professionals with disabilities. And if any of you out there are making and releasing music or are a professional that works with the music industry in some way, that avenue is also very much open to you as well. If you're familiar with the artist Lachi, I'm so proud of her. I have a single out called Fidget and it's all about celebrating neurodiversity and I'm so happy. That's excellent. And what about Sound Girls? So Sound Girls was a organization that I found while surfing the internet and they were very open and welcoming. They, again, combine women and gender expansive folks and there's some men involved too. You don't have to be a woman to be involved. And they're from every sector of the sound industry, live, post-production, recorded music, corporate audio, which means doing sound to support corporate conventions or political figures or public speakers or that sort of thing. So that's another avenue as well in the sound industry. So they had a virtual conference last December and I went and the networking happened so organically and everybody was just thrilled to be there and speak to the other participants and share what they're up to. There were a number of structured panels and presentations that we could go in and then there were just some drop in casual like unstructured mentoring sessions where people could ask questions. So I found it very rewarding, very delightful. That's wonderful. Did that happen in Tampa? Or did you travel for that? It was virtual. It was on Zoom. It was all virtual. Oh my goodness. So that way people from all over the country and even some people from other countries could attend. That sounds awesome. That's wonderful. It was great. And I made some friends that way. Yeah. Yeah. Networking will never die. That's what I can tell people. matter, even if it becomes a whole virtual experience, we need each other. We must connect because we can't do everything just on our own. The expansiveness of the world and wanting to network and reach out is ever-present, and I will push for that. That is so true. All the time. We are an... You know? Yes, we are an interdependent species. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. So you mentioned your visual status. So do you see color? I do. Thanks, Doc. I see some colors. So color contrast is big in our community. That means the more that two colors are very distinct and different from each other. So for instance, blue and o
