Karen Kane: Music Producer/Recording Engineer/Bio

Inspired by attending Woodstock '69 and music by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, and others, Karen Kane has been in the music business for more than 35 years. She attended Berklee College of Music, Boston and graduated from the Recording Institute of America, where she obtained 2 diplomas in audio engineering. Early in her career, she managed a number of recording studios including the well-known 6 West Recording, a major jingle facility in New York City.
Today, she has produced and/or engineered over 200 full-length album projects, countless demos and has engineered numerous live sound shows.

Kane's recording career was originally focused in the Boston area from 1974-1990, in Canada from 1990 to 2002 and currently, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

While in Boston, Karen worked at Intermedia Sound, where the legendary album, "Dream On" by Aerosmith was recorded. Kane helped pioneer the way for women in audio by being one of the first women recording engineers to be successful, as well as one of the first successful free-lance recording engineers (male or female) in the area.

Karen engineered 3 albums nominated for Juno Awards (Canadian Grammy) in '97, '02 and '03 by Harry Manx, Big Daddy G and Jack Grunsky. Two of the nominations were in the "Best Blues Album of the Year" category.

Kane's recording work has been nominated for Boston Music Awards, and singles have appeared on U.S. music charts. Her extensive experience with on-location mobile recording includes the BareNaked Ladies (for a live TV special) and a music festival which included Janis Ian. In 1986, Karen engineered Tracy Chapman's first-ever demo recording. Her extensive live sound work at music festivals and concerts has been going on since 1976 and is still very active today. For 19 years, Kane was privileged to be the Head Live Sound Engineer at the Acoustic Stage at the Michigan Women's Music Festival.

Karen is the author of numerous articles on recording methods and techniques published in Canadian Musician, Professional Sound, Sing Out and Hot Wire.
In 1996, Karen was hired to develop and teach new audio engineering courses for Centennial College and The Learning Annex,Toronto. In 1998, she joined the faculty at Harris Institute for the Arts,Toronto.

In 2002, Kane re-located to Wilmington, North Carolina and continued her work as a Producer/Engineer and Audio Educator. In 2003, she launched a 5-level audio engineering program, which over 80 students have enrolled in. Now in its' ninth year, Karen Kane's Audio Engineering Classes have become popular in the Southeast North Carolina area. The classes include 5 courses plus one-on-one intensives or private classes catered to the individual. The classes are offered in January, April and September (Summer term is sometimes available). Registration forms are now being accepted for the Summer classes. For more information, go to the Classes link on this website.

In 2012, Kane joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington as the instructor for the Recording Technology program. She continues to produce and engineer music projects both locally and internationally.

To hear mp3 excerpts (15 different artists) of
Karen Kane's work, GO HERE

Contact Karen Kane