Leslie Gaston-Bird

Leslie Gaston-Bird is a freelance re-recording mixer, sound editor, and owner of Mix Messiah Productions. She is currently based in Brighton, England, and is the author of the book "Women in Audio". She is a voting member of The Recording Academy. She sits on these AES committees: Board of Governors, Awards, Conference Policy, Convention Policy, Education, Membership, and Co-Chairs the Diversity & Inclusion Committee with Piper Payne. She was a tenured Associate Professor of Recording Arts at the University of Colorado Denver. Leslie also is Co-Director for SoundGirls U.K. Chapter and SoundGirls Scholarships and Travel Grants. She has worked in the industry for over 30 years.

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Leslie has done research into audio for planetariums, multichannel audio on Blu-Ray, and a comparison of multichannel codecs that was published in the AES Journal (Gaston, L. and Sanders, R. (2008), “Evaluation of HE-AAC, AC-3, and E-AC-3 Codecs”, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society of America, 56(3)). She frequently presents at AES conferences and conventions.

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She has worked in the industry for over 30 years: 12 years in public radio, 17 in sound for picture, and 13 years as an educator (some of these years overlap). Her interest in sound for film was sparked by seeing Leslie Ann Jones on the cover of Mix Magazine in the 1980s. She attended Indiana University Bloomington and graduated with an A.S. in Audio Technology and a B.A. in Telecommunications. While at Indiana University Bloomington, she signed up for a work-study job as a board operator at the campus radio station, WFIU-Bloomington. This gave her the skills she needed for her first job at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C.

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Leslie worked at NPR from 1991-1995 as their audio systems manager. She recorded and edited radio pieces and did a ton of remote recordings and interviews on DAT tape.  (Who remembers DAT tape?) From NPR, she went on to work for Colorado Public Radio as their Audio Systems Manager.

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Although Leslie loved working for NPR and Colorado Public Radio, her passion was sound for film, and it was not easy for her to get her foot in the door.  It took her over four years to find someone to take a chance on her. Her gratitude for this opportunity goes to Patsy Butterfield, David Emrich, and Chuck Biddlecom at Post Modern Company in Denver.

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Leslie still works as a freelancer in Film Sound and worked on Enough White Teacups (directed by Michelle Carpenter), which explores the winners of the Index design awards, recognizing innovations designed to improve the human condition. Michelle also did Klocked, a story of a mother-daughter-daughter motorcycle racing team. I’m proud to have worked on these woman-powered projects.”