Dr Amandine Pras
Senior Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Amandine Pras is a recording producer, audio engineer, researcher, and educator. Before joining the University of York in September 2021, she was a Lecturer of Digital Audio Arts in the Music Department at the University of Lethbridge in Western Canada (2017-2021). There, she designed the West African Audio Network now led by Dr Adam Patrick Bell at the University of Calgary and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (2020-2024), in partnership with Digital Cultures in West Africa: Music, Youth, and Mediation coordinated by Dr Emmanuelle Olivier at Centre Georg Simmel, CNRS, EHESS Paris, and funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) (2019-2024). As part of this international project, Amandine is carrying out research fieldworks and audio workshops in recording studios, cultural and higher education institutions of Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Senegal. She also initiated a program exchange that enhances Western African audio engineers’ access to the Audio Recording Engineer Practicum coordinated by James Clemens-Seely at the Banff Centre, and to the international network of the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

Committed to find solutions to de-gender and decolonize the field of Audio, Amandine is a co-founder of AUDIO+ events and journal currently funded by SSHRC (2021-2022) with Kirk McNally at the University of Victoria, Dr Eliot Bates at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Grace Brooks at McGill University and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). Amandine is also dedicated to improving women and gender-non-conforming producers’ access to advanced audio education. In this view, she is a consultant for the Women in the Studio program directed by Margaret McGuffin at Music Publisher Canada.

Since graduating from the Advanced music production program at the Paris Conservatoire in 2006, Amandine has worked as a freelance audio engineer and music producer on projects ranging from free and alternative jazz, classical and popular music, through to electroacoustic and experimental music, with artists as diverse as the ARC Ensemble, Jim Black, Luciane Cardassi, Nels Cline, Quatuor Bozzini, Subhajyoti Guha, Andy Milne, William Parker, and Satoshi Takeishi. Her PhD thesis that she conducted at McGill University and CIRMMT focused on the varied practices of creating musical recordings in the digital era. Also, the last of her two postdoctoral residencies in New York City was an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural case study in West Bengal (India) with renown improvisers from the New York alternative jazz scene and from the Kolkata North-Indian classical music scene. In disseminating the research findings, she directed a 50-min video documentary A Home Away From Home that she presented at the World Film Festival of Montreal in 2018, and in art and education venues in Banff, Buenos Aires, Kolkata, Lethbridge, New York, and Paris.

Career

• Researcher Associate of Centre Georg Simmel at EHESS Paris, France
• Research collaborator at CIRMMT in Montreal, Quebec
• Member of the AES Diversity and Inclusion Committee since its foundation in 2017

Departmental roles

• Programme leader of the MA in Music Production

Research

Overview

Amandine's main research interests concern:

• Analysis of recording studio practices
• Gender in audio and in music production
• Western African popular music industries
• Improvisation processes
• Binaural technology

Publications

Full publications list

Journal Articles

Pras, A., Rodrigues, M, Wanderley, M., & Grupp, V. (2021). Connecting Free Improvisation Performance and Drumming Gestures through Digital Wearables. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1001. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.576810.

Brooks, G., Pras, A., Elafros, A., Lockett, M. (2021). Do we really want to keep the gate threshold that high? Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 69(4), 238-260. doi: 10.17743/jaes.2020.0074.

Pras, A., Schober, M., Spiro, N. (2017). What about their performance do free jazz improvisers agree upon? A case study. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(966), N/A. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00966

Pras, A. (2015). Irréductibles défenseurs de la composition improvisée. Critical Studies in Improvisation, 10(2), 1-11. doi:10.21083/csieci.v10i2.3341

Pras, A., & Lavergne, G. (2015). L’échantillonnage dans l’improvisation : Rencontre de deux instigateurs du free jazz avec un jeune artiste de la scène noise à New York. Musicae Scientiae, 19(4), 433–451. doi:10.1177/1029864915617821

Pras, A., Cance. C., & Guastavino, C. (2013). Record producers’ best practices for artistic direction - from light coaching to deeper collaboration with musicians. Journal of New Music Research, 42(2), 381-395. doi:10.1080/09298215.2013.848903

Pras, A., & Guastavino, C. (2013). The impact of producers’ comments and musicians’ self-evaluation on perceived recording quality. Journal of Music Technology and Education, 6(1), 81-101. doi:10.1386/jmte.6.1.81_1

Pras, A., Lavoie, L., & Guastavino, C. (2013). The impact of technological advances on recording studio practices. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(3), 612-626. doi:10.1002/asi.22840

Pras, A., & Guastavino, C. (2011). The role of music producers and sound engineers in the current recording context, as perceived by young professionals. Musicae Scientiae, 15(1), 73-95. doi:10.1177/1029864910393407

Book Chapters

Pras, A. (2020). Standard 3-point Micing Technique (Advanced). In Bell, A. P (Ed.), The Music Technology Cookbook: Ready-Made Recipes for the Classroom (pp. 291-296). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197523889.001.0001

Pras, A. (2016). What has been left unsaid about studio practices: How producers and engineers prepare, manage and direct recording sessions. In Andrew King and Evangelo Himonides (Eds.), Music, Technology & Education: Critical Perspectives (pp. 27-44). Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate. doi: 10.1386/jpme_00038_5.

Pras, A. (2015). Research & creative adventures with distinguished improvisers from New York City. In D. Rotherberg (Ed.), vs. Interpretation (pp. 119-129). Prague, Czech Republic: Agosto.

Journal Editorial

Pras, A. (2015). A Home Away From Home – Improviser au 21ème siècle. Critical Studies in Improvisation, 10(2).

Papers in Conference Proceedings (last 5 years)

McNally, K., & Pras, A. (2021). Audio+: A Research Forum to Transform our Traditions. In AES Conference: 2021 AES International Audio Education Conference.

McDermott, C., & Pras, A. (2021). Lethbridge Lament-Exploring musical genres through experiential learning in the studio. In Audio Engineering Society (AES) Conference: 2021 AES International Audio Education Conference.

Pras, A., Turner, K., Bol, T., & Olivier, E. (2019). Production processes of pop music arrangers in Bamako, Mali. In AES Convention 147. doi:10.17743/aesconv.2019.978-1-942220-31-2

Turner, K., & Pras, A. (2019). Is Binaural Spatialization the Future of Hip-Hop?. In AES Convention 147. doi:10.17743/aesconv.2019.978-1-942220-31-2

Chambers-Moranz, R., Pras, A., & Thomas, N. (2019). The Generation Gap - Perception and Workflow of Analog vs. Digital Mixing. In AES Convention 147. doi:10.17743/aesconv.2019.978-1-942220-31-2

Bauer, V., Déjardin, H., & Pras, A. (2018). Musicians' binaural headphone monitoring for studio recording. In AES Convention 144.

Pras, A., De Man, B., & Reiss, J. (2018). A case study of cultural influences on mixing practices. In AES Convention 144. 

Soudoplatoff, D., & Pras, A. (2017). Augmented reality to improve orchestra director’s headphone monitoring. In AES Convention 142. 

Pras, A. (2016). Live vs. edited studio recordings: What do we prefer? In AES Convention 141.

Juge, G., Pras, A., & Frissen, I. (2016). Perceptual evaluation of Transpan for 5.1 mixing of acoustic recordings. In AES Convention 140.

Teaching

Postgraduate

• Audio Signals
• Production Techniques
• Technologies and Aesthetics
• Production Portfolio
• Engaging with Research