Nina Anto Podcast Transcript
Nina Anto joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Nina Anto. Nina Anto is a composer, music producer, singer, and pianist. With a stellar education from CalArts and BIM London as the co-founder of myAUDIOSIGN. She has created sonic signatures for renowned podcasts, awarded short films, and notable campaigns such as Kazmarsky Group, Curtain Call, Rafael Brzozka Foundation, Your Yes Has Power campaign.
Well, good afternoon, Nina. Welcome to the show!
Nina Anto: Hello, Brian!
Brian Thomas: Hello and thank you for joining me for a podcast today. I appreciate you making the time. I know you travel a lot between Los Angeles and Warsaw, Poland, and I know that’s halfway around the world, but I love you doing this from Poland today. So, thank you again.
And Nina jumping into your first question here. Could you share more about your journey in music and what drew you to study at prestigious institutions like CalArts and BIM London?
Nina Anto: So yes, I do come from Poland, from Warsaw, and our music culture here is different. We don’t have so much modern music when it comes to university.
And I would say this has been my biggest passion, modern music and also music technology. So, I kind of felt like I need to leave Poland and study abroad to be able to actually fulfill my passion. And I first studied at BIM London, and I lived in London for five years. And this is where I started. Like I was focusing on voice as well as music technology.
I had electives such as performance with creative tech. And producing music became my passion there as well. And at CalArts, yeah, this was kind of. This is a very interesting university because it’s like one of the most liberal universities in the world, but also I I’m a performer composer and this is like a perfect place if you want to combine certain fields.
So, I could sing, but I could also focus on the technology part. And I would say most of my courses were very mixed between those two, these two fields. And I would say that thanks to that knowledge, I learned how to work with the music material from like, a very first notes to the final mix, or even master, because there are many elements of song creation and that also later on allowed me to start my audio sign where we specialize in selling branding.
But at the same time, I can do my music career, but produce not only sing my songs and play piano. I can do a song from scratch to finish.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Thank you. And I appreciate you breaking some of that down for us. You know, a lot of times we. Are interviewing chief technology officers, technologists, CEOs of Silicon Valley.
But we get to listen to you from your, I’d say musician part of the world. And that helps our audience really digest some of the things that you do. So, thank you again. And Nina, as the co-founder of my audio sign, what inspired you to start creating sonic signatures? And how do you approach the process of crafting these unique sounds for different brands and projects?
Nina Anto: So, actually, this whole knowledge about producing music and for me, working with a sound and with a technology, it’s just like creating your own universe. Architecting your own sounds and I thought, like, if I’m able to do it for musicians, or even for myself, why I cannot do it for companies because nowadays, the visual landscape is just so busy.
So, it’s hard to compete. Here, so why can’t we create something that’s very distinguished for a certain brand or like a podcast intro or a sonic logo, or even like a more coherent sonic branding, which will include like notification sounds and sonic logo. And for me, it’s like. I don’t know when you think of Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know, there’s sound, you don’t need to listen to like the full song to know who is playing.
So, I want to create the same thing for companies. They all like. Coherent sonic universe, but this also involves a lot of research. It’s not something that you can just imagine. You need to work with the data. If you work with a bigger company. It’s great to have proper marketing research behind and we also do it.
We work with partners. It’s a marketing, research company based in Warsaw, Poland, but they do, everything also for the whole world. And thanks to that, we can actually prepare sounds that would best reflect the values of each company. So, we really analyze all the data, but we also try to understand the cultural aspect because it will be different doing things for Los Angeles based company.
And it will be different for Greece or different from, for Poland. It’s. And here, like I could give an example, we did a Polish podcast, and it was very important that to actually understand how, for example, divided is politics in Poland and why podcasts we are doing music to, it’s so important because it’s about.
Being together, it’s not about division. It’s about unity and about facts. So, we need to gather all this information because this will be reflected in, in the sound.
Brian Thomas: Great. I really like how you are trying to come up with something that’s original again, these sonic signatures, something that’s unique to brands.
And I think that’s awesome. Really, really haven’t heard that before. And I think that’s, like I said, it’s going to be pretty exciting to follow. So, thank you, Nina and Nina utilizing. You’re welcome. You know, utilizing your skills as a music producer and as a professionally trained pianist and vocalist, you handle the sound production and mixing of your new single.
Show me your scars. Can you tell us more about the music engineering process and how you brought the song to life?
Nina Anto: Yes. So, show me your scars. We it’s my new single that’s available on all streaming platforms. I’m also very excited because it got into the Spotify editorial playlist. So that really means a lot to me.
But it was also the song that I didn’t want anyone to, to engineer because as an artist, for me, when I work for my own projects, I have my own vision that I want to show. And I would say it actually started with creating different musical textures. It kind of felt like painting with a sound using technology.
So, I use different synthesizers. I use different plugins. So, we work I work in a certain program, I use 3 different programs when I work with audio. I record in Pro Tools when I’m in the studio, and here I also, yeah, record in Grand Piano myself. So, I had to play Grand Piano, but I also had to place microphones around the Grand Piano.
So, I had to know how to place them. So, the sound is good later on. Like it all goes through them post processing. And sometimes I change to a different program that I like. I like working also in Logic Pro and Ableton. So, people who like music will know what I’m talking about, but for me it all starts with the first lyrics and some piano parts that later on develop like for this whole unique soundscape.
And I sometimes feel like when you think of Beethoven, how, how, how you can like compress the whole. Beethoven pieces into piano instead of full orchestra. This is what I sometimes feel like doing. I compose for piano and then add this whole sonic experience to it. So, so this was more of the, of the process there for me.
Yeah. Would you like to know something more?
Brian Thomas: That’s great. No, I appreciate it. And I can tell you’re very passionate about your music. And again, bringing that unique mixing together is just wonderful, very beautiful and can’t wait to get this podcast out. So, Nina, last question of the day, are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that you’re particularly excited about?
Can you give us a sneak peek into what’s next for Nina Anto?
Nina Anto: So, there’s one project I’m excited about. I’m not sure 100 percent yet how it will work out, but I’m, when I came to study at Cullards, I was sponsored by Rafał Przewska Foundation, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to still be a part of this and we still like have, we are in touch and sometimes work together on projects and now we are thinking of going to Ghana and actually recording a few songs.
With children from a school in Ghana because it’s like. Kind of connected to a Rafał Brzozka Foundation the, the, the founders of Rafał Brzozka Foundation, Omena Foundation, build a school in Ghana. So hopefully this will work out because that would be such a unique project. And probably that’s the most exciting one for me at the moment.
Another one is probably in September, we’re going to have a panel about mental health and music. In Los Angeles, where also my short EP will be presented together with some visuals made by Polish artists. So, this is another project and yes, soon our Sonic logo will premiere. In Athens on the Atlantic coupe.
So, this is also another thing that’s making us very happy as my audio side.
Brian Thomas: That’s so awesome. I appreciate that. And there are so many things that you do as a musician, obviously, but the projects sometimes are what really fulfill people. And I can tell you on the podcast about your excitement and your voice.
Of some of these upcoming projects and collaborations. So, I appreciate the share and Nina, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Nina Anto: Thank you so much, Brian. That was great.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Nina Anto Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
