Susan Rogers entered her chosen profession of sound engineering for an entirely innocuous reason: “I was attracted to the technical side for practical reasons – it seemed like something I could do.” Her career since has been anything but. As one of only a handful of female sound engineers, back then as today, she is responsible for fine-tuning the music of celebrated artists such as David Byrne, KD Lang, Barenaked Ladies, and most importantly of all, Prince, with whom she collaborated on iconic albums including Purple Rain. Listen to her journey as she recounts how growing up near the rollercoasters of Disneyland inspired her to explore the dichotomy of sound, her thoughts on the role of sound engineers as a “liaison between artist and listener”, and finally, her tenure as a lecturer on psychoacoustics at the renowned Berklee College of Music today.

“How does that happen, when something is so great you recognise it as being deeper than music? It taps something in you...'the universal truth' it becomes the music of you.”