Sara Carter is a BBC trained, mixing and mastering engineer based in Basingstoke in the UK. She started recording and mixing music in the mid-’90s from a small home studio until eventually landing her dream job working from the BBC's Maida Vale Studios and Broadcasting House in London. She’s worked with a wide variety of recording artists and has been credited on records by Corrine Bailey Rae and KT Tunstall amongst others.
Sara decided to shake things up and left the BBC to explore a career in brewing, however, she’s since returned to mixing music with her online mixing and mastering business Music Mix Pro UK working with unsigned rock and indie bands from all over the world.
The Long Version
In The Beginning, There Was Disco
The 1970’s
I grew up in a pub in West Yorkshire in the north of England. My Mum was a popular cabaret singer in the ’60s and music featured big in my life because of her. Dad was an electrical engineer and set up and maintained her PA and drove her to gigs.
A jukebox is a popular thing to have in a pub, and I loved ours. We had 7″singles spilling out of every cupboard at home all with the centres missing.
Because of the jukebox and it being the 1970’s, I had no choice but to end up loving funk bass and disco, my guilty pleasure!
The 1980’s
My teenage years were during the early to mid 80’s listening to the post-punk, new romantic and electronic music of the day. That along with the pub jukebox shaped my eclectic musical tastes and fuelled my desire to play the guitar. I taught myself to play the guitar by borrowing the Burt Weedon’s Play In A Day songbook from the local library and buying an Adam & The Ants songbook!
Hi-Fidelity
I’ve always loved to hear the small musical details in a recording and I love to be able to imagine the artists actually performing, to picture the room they recorded their music in – I love hearing the room!
If I listen to music on a great hi-fi, I can get deeper into the emotion and really feel the music.
I discovered this in the ’80s so, I saved up the wages from my first ever job (£25 a week!) so I could buy my first separates hi-fi system. I thought it was awesome!!
After that, there was no going back and I have to have the best in headphones and hi-fi (well, the best I can afford anyway because it’s a never-ending money pit of a hobby!).
Season highlights:
70's disco
Midget gems
Yorkshire
Pub jukebox
Bionic woman
Hi-fi
80's music
In The Middle, There Was Grunge
The 1990’s
Progressing through my 20’s meant a couple of promotions in my motor trade job and… better hi-fi (Yay!) and a move from Yorkshire to Leicestershire in the Midlands UK.
Music was still my foundation for fun and a renewed interest in the guitar saw me join a couple of bands and play some gigs.
Home Studio
I was ok on guitar but I was keen and wanted to get better. This prompted me to buy a 4 track cassette (look it up kids) portastudio to allow me to play along to tutorial CD’s whilst recording myself playing at the same time. Well, my friend, that was just the start.
Bitten by the bug of recording, my transition from an average musician to budding audio engineer began and I couldn’t learn fast enough!
My studio equipment slowly grew and I even bought a detached house so I could record at home without upsetting the neighbours! I learned to solder and built my own patchbay and wiring looms (thanks Dad!)
I learned all I could from books and Sound on Sound magazine (there was no internet then) but I needed to know more.
Not even home brewing or riding sporty motorcycles could stop my brain thinking about my little home studio!
Music
Indie rock and alternative rock ruled my hi-fi through this period (and still does TBH). Skunk Anansie, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine and a bit of Brit-pop with a smidge of Oasis and Blur for a change of pace.
Season highlights:
90's music
Real ale
Leicestershire
Motorbikes
Home studio
Bands
The X Files
The noughties and now
Without getting too woo woo, I think if something is meant to be, it’ll happen.
Education
Through a set of circumstances and meeting new people, it became possible for me to move near to London, and go to the SAE Institute and gain an audio engineering diploma. I was 34 years old.
After working in the motor trade from the age of 16, I’d become bored with it and totally distracted by my audio hobby. So I started to dream, could I change my career? Had I left it too late?
Shortly after leaving SAE, I tried to get a job in a few recording studios but found that I was too old. They wanted fresh, young people that could be trained to their way of working and pay them very little money. I was willing but I needed to earn a living wage because I had responsibilities.
The BBC
Then, I saw the BBC advertising for Trainee Studio Managers in their radio operations headquarters at Broadcasting House in London. This was my chance and I went all out to make it happen. I never researched so hard for a job interview because I knew this was, probably, my only chance to get stable work as an audio engineer and get the best training and experience.
Out of nearly 700 applicants, and a three-part interview process, I was offered a place with the BBC in June 2003.
I was pretty chuffed, to say the least. I’d trained and worked hard and met some amazing people, it was truly one of the best experiences of my life.
All good things must come to an end, so, after some serious soul searching, I decided to leave the BBC in 2009. In fact, to be honest, I needed a complete break from music and audio. I guess, looking back now, you’d call it “burn out” but I didn’t realise that at the time.
Breweries
I took a little career detour and brewed award-winning beer for a local microbrewery for a few years but audio engineering was still on my mind and I tried to find a way to get it back into my life without the painful reminders of what I’d given up.
Music Mix Pro
Again, through some unlikely circumstances (was it meant to be?..) I was able to find my way back to music.
This is where you find me today, with renewed vigour and passion for mixing music and feeling grateful to be working with some amazingly talented people and mentors, and soon, maybe you!