Read the full article by Casey Rafter at Sacramento News & Review
Stacked keyboards, a collection of acoustic and electric guitars, a hodgepodge of drum pieces, sound boards and a cart made heavy by three layers of effects pedals at Rosa Mortem recording studio are keeping owner Ashley Rae company as she sits inside an unassuming building in the Erikson Industrial Park neighborhood of Sacramento.
“Nobody knows this place is here, which is kind of cool,” Rae says of the space, which also holds a film studio, a workshop, a 1950s diner-styled lobby and auxiliary recording studios for both audio and video. “I am an engineer and producer. I also work in film occasionally … help people put their tours together, but it’s all industry related.”
Rae is a statistical rarity as a woman producer. In the recording industry, women audio engineers or producers only make up about 2.1% of the workforce, according to a report by USC Annenberg, which analyzed data across 700 popular songs from 2012-2018.
Within the slight margin of producers who are also female, Sacramento offers a wealth of hard working individuals who wear many hats in order to maintain momentum in their careers and help to prop up the careers of others.