An engineering residency at Spotify’s Noteable Studio, under the mentorship of Berklee College of Music, helped Filipino‑Canadian producer and engineer Ramera Abraham realise her passion and talent for vocal production. “What it really gave me was the opportunity to be alone, with an artist in the room with me. Just myself and another creator in a room, which was brilliant,” she reflects. Abraham has since worked with artists including Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Elton John, Little Mix and many more.

At the moment I can’t stop listening to

I’ve recently discovered that Beyoncé has released a cappella versions of her tracks from Renaissance, and I’ve basically been using those as study materials. I’m trying to listen to what effects she’s using, what kind of stylistic arrangements she’s going for, which lyrics she’s emphasising in those tracks... You can also hear where they have maybe gained up some of the plosives, which I think is interesting.

I’m listening to a lot of Elyanna: she mostly sings in Arabic. She’s like, the Arab Beyoncé. I’m really trying to listen to the inflections in her voice. The way she sings is so different to how we would stylise an English pop vocal, I think. So, I’m just trying to expand my horizons a bit. Also artists like Victoria Monét and Tyler Lewis; with them it’s all about the vocal arrangements. With Tyler, for example. I like picking out what her influences are, because I think that she uses a lot of what I would reach for as well. Obviously, she’s South African. So musically she’s going for a lot of amapiano, but I can hear lots of R&B in the way that she sings, in her intonation and everything. I think vocal production is 100 percent about the performance. It’s the performance from these artists that is going to pull you in to the song itself. The production could be crazy. But if the vocal performance falls flat, then I don’t think you have a hit, personally!

The first thing I look for in a studio

Their vocal chain and their valve mic selection. That tells me a lot about the kind of work that studio does, as soon as I see the mic list. Analogue warmth on a vocal is a must for me, especially with the volume of pop and R&B records that I’m working on. So, if you give me a [Telefunken ELA M] 251, a [Neve] 1081 and a [Tube‑Tech] CL‑1B, I’m a happy girl. I just love that expensive, gooey, full‑bodied sound. That being said, you know, some of the greatest performances have been captured on, like, a [Shure SM] 57. And that’s cool. If I don’t have access to those things, it’s up to me as the engineer to warm up the vocal plug‑ins, do my best with what I have: with EQ, and in some cases now I’ll just bring the vocal home and run it through my own CL‑1B!

Ramera Abraham: The best mic is the mic that you have. You just have to be able to be flexible.

Usually with live stuff, especially where there’s a lot of instruments involved, I’ll reach for a [Shure] SM7B. Because I think that will do the best job, period. But in some cases maybe the artist has said ‘I don’t like it! It’s too heavy, can...