GRAMMY-winning recording engineer Ann Mincieli first met a young, inquisitive Alicia Keys in the elevator of Quad Studios’ New York building. Keys had signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records when she was 15 years old, and was interested in learning more about the two-inch tapes Mincieli was carrying.
"The tapes were heavy and she was asking me all these questions. I didn’t even realize who she was. I was a little standoffish because I was like, 'Who’s asking me all these questions?’” Mincieli says. Twenty-plus years later, the two have formed an acclaimed creative partnership that has resulted in multiple GRAMMYs for both Keys and Mincieli. “Our relationship is more about collaborating and less about Oh, you're a producer and you're an engineer and you're a writer. We’re all artists,” Mincieli says over Zoom.
After being Keys’ studio coordinator for a number of years, the two creatives partnered to open Jungle City Studios, a state-of-the-art recording facility that houses both vintage and modern technology. “After working with Alicia in studios around the world, I took the best of what I saw from my experiences," Mincieli says, adding that her retro-futuristic engineering style pairs well with Keys'. "It's exciting because we became the hub for a lot of artists. We teach the technology of being retro and futuristic."
At the 64th GRAMMY Awards, Mincieli won her third GRAMMY for Best Immersive Audio Album for Alicia. The album was recorded using Sony’s 360 Reality Audio technology, an audio format that mimics surround sound and brings a 3D experience to music.
Following her most recent win, Mincieli is now one of a small collective that have won a GRAMMY for both engineering and producing. GRAMMY.com spoke with Mincieli over Zoom to discuss her musical partnership with Alicia Keys, what it takes to navigate the music industry as a woman, and the importance of emerging audio technology.
Can you explain the difference between a mixing engineer and a recording engineer?
As a recording engineer, you're starting with a song, in a lot of instances, from scratch. You're getting rough mixes every night and your job is to keep evolving the song through the entire recording process. This includes the overdub process, the arrangement process, any lyric changes, or additional parts the producer, writer, or artist may want to add in.
Then there's a phase where we mix the album. The recording engineer’s rough mix is basically the reference point where the mix engineer starts. It's your job as a recording engineer to make sure the mixing engineer has all of the proper files and arrangement versions that they need. The mixing engineer takes the track and mixes it by combining all of the various audio elements. Some mixers may work on one or two songs. Some mixers work on whole albums.
There are no rules at the end of the day: If I'm a recording engineer and I'm making the cake from scratch, the mixing engineer is putting a lot of the flavor and icing on. They are also responsible for that top finish.
What was the inspiration behind opening Jungle City Studios? Did you foresee it being the premiere studio that it is today?
Definitely! When I choose to do something, I put blinders on and I really focus on the end goal. f you start to look at all the negatives, then you really derail yourself from the initial end goal. I’ve learned this through my journey as an engineer. There are all these long hours and many negative aspects that come with the job, but I try to block that stuff out and focus on the goal.
My sister was the person who really pushed me to open up my own studio, but I started building studios with Alicia at the end of 2003. She always was a person that had a studio in her house — she started working out of her bedroom studio in the early '90s. Once we started collaborating, she had a great setup in her Harlem apartment and in her house in Queens. The thing that I love is most artists had their version of a studio in their house. It's just evolved now, technology allows you to do more.
Eventually, Alicia officially opened a studio just four miles from her house — she named it Oven Studios. That's where I really cut my teeth, and learned about designers and studio designs and acoustics. It was then that the concept was born for me. At the end of 2008, we found what's now one of the first buildings that were built for the Hudson Yards in Manhattan and it's in a really cool location. We’re right in the heart of the city but away from the hustle and bustle. Artists can walk around and not be in the middle of Times Square — it’s the perfect combination.
When we moved in we took over two penthouse condos and two additional condos on the 10th floor. Fast forward to today, I moved Alicia's studio from Long Island. She has two floors in my building, so it's one great big community. We do photo and video shoots, and our studio is often featured on TV. It's such a multi-purpose facility, which is way beyond our goals, which is incredible.
Your most recent GRAMMY win is for Best Immersive Audio Album. Can you talk about Sony’s 360 Reality Audio technology?
It's a technology that I’ve watched evolved [sic] over the years and it was really exciting to be able to re-mix all of Alicia’s catalog with 360 audio. Alicia is very much a tech-head. We went about mixing each album from scratch. In the end, it became a hybrid, which I think is the beauty of using 360 audio. It’s unique. You have all of these objects and space to create the mix and the mix has to be created differently.
One of the reasons why we won this prestigious award with the Academy is myself as the producer, George Massenburg, and Eric Schilling as the mixers, and Michael Romanowski as the mastering engineer, we really dove into the depth of using 360 audio mixings. We were able to evolve by not having to stay close to the stereo mix.
How did your creative partnership with Alicia grow over the years?
So it started very small and we incremented up. I got to record and work on the Diary of Alicia Keys album. After the album was released, we traveled the world. The end of 2003 is when she bought her own musical playground, Oven Studios. And the rest is history for us. We started in her basement studio; each year we evolved as the industry twisted and turned.
What I love most is I was a gearhead and she was a gearhead. Alicia loved technology. I loved technology and fast-forward to today I'm heavily involved with our digital strategies. Like how do we convert social media followers to customers? How can we partner with companies like Native Instruments, iZotope, and SoundCloud?
We have a piano plugin with Native Instruments. It's 12 years old, which demonstrates that we are very much ahead of the technology. There's nothing that we don't do together, whether it's a big ad by Amazon, or me suggesting to the GRAMMYs that Alicia hosts. We really work on music together in the studio and out. This allows us to consider how we make the music reach far and wide, and we always find ways to push each other and help each other grow.
What does this most recent GRAMMY win for Alicia mean to you?
To be recognized by your peers in this way is pretty amazing. Especially because of this important technology… and the fact that I produced each song. It's much harder to keep the integrity of the mixes because there are 10 different mixers, mixing the stereo versions, and there are 10 different producers. So I was tasked with keeping the artist's vision of each song, and making sure we can evolve the mixes into the immersive format while maintaining the integrity of the mix, so it's a hybrid.
I don’t think there are many people who won a GRAMMY for producing engineering, and I will go on to say that there are not many women who won a GRAMMY for producing and engineering.
What would you say has been your biggest obstacle navigating the music industry as a woman?
I think the biggest obstacle overall in the music industry is women are placed under a microscope. In my experience, I haven’t been prohibited because I am a woman, but I had to really work hard. And not that I didn't want to. It’s just guys can be mediocre and get further in the business, but as a woman, you know you're really being judged.
What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be an engineer?
I would say just focus on being good and you’ll gain the respect in the room. Studying and working hard is what's going to allow you to stand out. That's how I pushed through the industry.
You have to know that you really want to do this. You have to know that it's not glamorous. A lot of times on social media, It's like, “look at me. I'm in a studio.” But when it comes down to it, do you know your stuff beyond Instagram? You have to be competitive and you have to study. I believe if the focus is on being great, the women will outshine the men.
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