S03 | E02 - Idania Valencia - The Power of Persistence

Speaks Volumes continues Season 3 with a mastering engineer who wanted the job before she'd ever really seen it done. She just knew it was mysterious, and that was enough.

Idania Valencia grew up in Mexico City, picked mastering as her goal before finishing school, and got turned away by Sterling Sound's internship program only to land the job anyway by showing up in person and leaving a resume. Eleven years later, she's still there, now out of the New Jersey facility and into Sterling's LA room.

Dan Coutant and Mat Leffler-Schulman talk with Idania about the years of QC work under Tom Coyne that actually taught her to master, the tiny EQ moves that get masters approved or rejected that "nobody" else can hear, her LUFS targets and honest take on the loud-reference epidemic, and how burning out on an insane schedule led to fibromyalgia, therapy, and a real sense of balance, plus what it's actually like trading Sterling's tight-knit East Coast culture for LA's more open one.

Music in this episode: "Strawberry Moon" by Nashville artist Maddie Ettrich.

About Our Guest
Idania Valencia is a mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, where she has worked for 11 years, starting as a production engineer for Tom Coyne. Originally from Mexico City, she studied music composition at Academia de Música Fermatta before Full Sail University's recording arts program, and now works out of Sterling's Los Angeles location. Her mastering credits include Sam Smith, Shawn Mendes, Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, Coldplay, and Of Monsters and Men.

Topics We Covered

• The backup plan that wasn't. Growing up around music through her non-musician, bohemian father, choosing composition for college, and her parents' insistence on a backup plan that happened to sound like "an engineering" degree
• Finding mastering on purpose. Trying recording and a physically demanding, male-dominated live-sound gig first, and being drawn to mastering specifically because it was the mysterious, unexplained part of the process
• The resume that got the callback. Applying to every studio in New York, getting turned down by Sterling for an internship, and going in person anyway with a resume in a nice folder
• Trained by QC, not theory. Years assisting Tom Coyne, mentored by Aya Merrill and Will Quinnell, learning to tell the difference between a mix problem and a mastering problem one distortion at a time
• The moves nobody else can hear. EQ changes so small other engineers insist they're inaudible, but they're the difference between a master getting approved or rejected. Feel and instinct over pure technical process
• Stacking limiters. Why she sometimes runs two or three limiters instead of one, same type or different, for more control than any single limiter gives her
• LUFS, true peak, and the loud-ref epidemic. Her real-world targets (around -8 to -6 LUFS depending on genre), rarely applying true peak limiting herself, and her nuanced take on loud references: it depends entirely on who the mixer is
• Burnout, fibromyalgia, and finding balance. The insanely paced years assisting Coyne and then Randy Merrill, the chronic pain that followed, and the therapy and boundary-setting that got her to a healthier place
• NYC vs. LA. Sterling's self-contained East Coast culture versus the more open, curious engineering community she's found since moving, and why Mexico City always felt more like LA than New York ever did

Links

• Sterling Sound: https://www.sterling-sound.com
• Idania Valencia at Sterling Sound: https://www.sterling-sound.com/engineer/idania-valencia
• Idania's Mix with the Masters mastering workshop: https://mixwiththemasters.com/masters/idania-valencia
• Rose Gray, "Club to Your Arms": https://rosegray.lnk.to/clubtoyourarms
• Academia de Música Fermatta: https://www.fermatta.edu.mx
• Full Sail University: https://www.fullsail.edu
• Maddie Ettrich: https://www.maddieettrich.com