Kevin Shaw

Build. Lead. Inspire.

Sight Loss

If Screen Readers Were Airlines

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Based on an old Internet post from 1995 comparing operating systems to airlines, I revived the analogy to screen readers.

 

JAWS Air

 When you get to the airport, you’re given extra bags to bring with you whether you want them or not. The planes are old, clunky and way bigger than last year’s planes, but at least there’s leg room. You can fly to all of the popular spots, but by bringing your own avionics engineer, you can   get your plane to fly almost anywhere. 
You’re constantly told that turbulence and crashing into the ground in a giant fireball can be avoided if you fly a plane with a faster engine.

Instead of windows, passengers look at screens that show the outside world

 

Window-Eyes Air

Just like JAWS Air, however you must board the plane from the rear. All of the seats face backward. Everyone who flew with them fondly reminisces about how much better Window-eyes Air is when compared to JAWS Air.

 

NVDA Airlines:

A few passengers who were fed up with JAWS Air decide to start their own airline. The planes look like JaWS planes, only smaller. Passengers are generally treated well and the planes fly to lots of great places. The only catch is that it’s recommended you bring your own flight attendant as the one provided has their jaw wired shut after a brawl in the JAWS Air lounge.

After a quick tutorial, yOu install your own flight attendant and the flight is very efficient and comfortable. When you tell your friends about your  great NVDA airlines experience, they ask “You have to do what with the flight attendant?”

 

Narrator Airlines

You see the planes all the time, but don’t know anyone who has flown on one for longer than an hour.
When a JAWS Air plane stalls, you parachute out of your plane, run to the nearest airport, hop on  Narrator Airlines, circle the airport and wait until you see a JAWS Air plane appear on the runway.

 

VoiceOver Airways

The futuristic, spaceship-like  planes are everywhere. Unlike JAWS or NVDA Airlines, VoiceOver Airways flies out of a totally separate, sleek, state-of-the-art airport. The all white planes fly to tons of destinations, but each one must build special all white runways and terminals for VoiceOver Airways planes.
Check-in, boarding, flying, disembarking and baggage claim all go effortlessly and the flight is smooth and comfortable. the in-flight meal is tasty, the flight attendants are all very friendly and the entertainment system is out of this world. You find yourself relaxing and enjoying your flight. For no reason whatsoever, your plane explodes mid-flight. As you fall towards the ground, another airplane suddenly materializes around you and you continue flying as if nothing happened.

 

Talkback Airlines

Passengers run onto the runway, form a giant square around the plane and then hop on. For some reason, the plane flies straight, then right, straight then right until you reach your destination.

 

System access Airlines

Passengers push the airplane, hop on and fly until the airplane stops. They all get out, push the plane again and repeat the process until they get to their destination.

 

ChromeVox Airlines

Like narrator Airlines, you don’t know anyone who has flown with them, but their TV advertising looks cool. The flight attendants all seem very nice, but they ask lots of prying questions about your personal life. While your flight is okay, you can’t help but feel as if you’re being stared at.

Career Trek: Digital Accessibility

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Digital accessibility touched my life soon after I lost the low vision I’d been using since birth.

I learned JAWS for Windows rather quickly after switching from a Mac to using a Windows-based PC full time. I could use the productivity apps that mattered for university—Word, Excel, e-mail, web-browsing and a calendar.

The real accessibility struggle started when I tried using JAWS with Software Audio Workshop Plus (SAW)—a PC-based multitrack audio editor we used at university. SAW was far from accessible as its controls were not seen by JAWS in its off-screen model (a database of all of the on-screen elements such as buttons and text fields).

JAWS had a powerful scripting language built into it. I attempted teaching myself how to script JAWS to work with SAW, but my high school level programming knowledge made this much more difficult. I did however learn about window classes, control types and functions—all useful building blocks to understanding digital accessibilitY. 

 

Accessibility for  Protools

After using JAWS to successfully start my radio career at CHRY, I went back to Ryerson to focus on digital accessibility in a Master of Arts program for media production. At the time, the coveted holy grail of accessibility in the sight loss community was ProTools—a Mac-based digital audio workstation (DAW)—the gold medal industry standard for working in audio production.

In late 2009, ProTools was totally unusable by a screen reader user with the only accessible buttons being Close, Minimize and Zoom. Blind audio engineer Slau Halatyn started “the ProTools Petition” which received over 1200 signatures. Slau  presented this to Avid on behalf of blind engineers, educators and enthusiasts around the world who saw ProTools as an  equalizer that could give blind people employment opportunities in the audio and music industries.

I was one of the first to test the new accessible ProTools in an academic setting. My thesis—VoiceOver in the Control Room: Usability of ProTools recording software by the blind using a screen reader—focused on examining whether a blind engineer could completely use the program in its entirety without sighted assistance to not only produce audio, but produce something of major label quality that would stand up against a modern pop or rock recording.

My thesis involved recording, editing and mixing a five-piece Toronto rock band, all while keeping notes on the accessibility of each of the main activities within ProTools. During my thesis, I learned even more about accessibility and usability as a whole as well as user experience and software design. 

 

Accessibility for  VOD

After leaving school, I had a sneaking suspicion my future was going to involve digital accessibility a fair bit. I took another basic programming course through iTunes U and picked up even more fundamentals of how computer programs were constructed from the ground up. This gave me enough knowledge to venture into the startup world where I could speak to the accessibility of video-on-demand (VOD) platforms like the one I was building. Building TellMe TV required me to communicate the ideas about accessibility to engineers. Through this process, I developed more familiarity  with concepts like HTML 5, ARIA, mobile accessibility and the world of accessible media players.

 

My work for TellMe TV got the attention of the Ryerson DMZ. Startups there wanted to know how to make their digital offerings and products accessible to the widest variety of users. This led me to develop a TEDx Talk called Design the Inclusive experience which I delivered for Ryerson in 2014 at the Royal Ontario Museum.

 

 

Accessibility for Ontario

My unique knowledge and experience caught the attention of the  Government of Ontario. In 2016, I was invited to sit on a committee to review the information and communications standards for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). This is legislation enacted in 2005 that mandated a fully accessible Ontario by 2025 in key sectors such as customer service, information, communications and education. Standards written in the early 2000s hadn’t caught up with the explosion of mobile technology as well as new types of information systems that were now on the market such as touch-screen kiosks, SMART devices such as thermostats and innovations in web technology. After much consultation and debate, we agreed to an updated standard in 2018. 

Amidst all of this, I was being tapped to review the accessibility of websites, mobile apps and other digital products by various companies, usually after I complained about not being able to use their service. Some of the changes I requested made their way into business planning software, a popular dating site and a local cable provider’s set-top box.

By the time TellMe TV and my work with the Government of Ontario was winding down, I joined CNIB and found myself wearing my accessibility advocacy hat once again as we built Venture Zone Game and CNIB Market. I was also taking an accessibility-first approach to building MenuVox—my latest startup.

 

Accessible Education

My latest accessibility work has been with Edsby—a K-12 learning platform. Edsby needed help in ensuring its web-based app was accessible to students, parents and teachers. Much of this work involved testing and reporting on the operability and perception of web components such as radio buttons, text fields and links. Often, the fixes involved simple changes to making web code more robust. I took a task-based approach to Edsby, mapping out the user journey through various activities and ensuring users could interact with the necessary components along the way. This culminated in a demo video Edsby has running on their site—showing off the accessibility of the platform.

 

Developing My Skill

Today, I work as the digital accessibility lead at Tangerine—one of Canada’s leading digital banks. I work with designers, developers, business analysts and other accessibility professionals to ensure the Tangerine app and website are fully accessible. A part of this work involves improving my knowledge about digital accessibility. Since starting at Tangerine, I’ve enrolled in the excellent digital accessibility courses from Deque (pronounced ‘Dq’) University. I am steadily working towards a certified professional accessibility core competency (CPACC) designation, having completed 3 exams and nearly 3 dozen courses in everything from document accessibility to customer service for people with disabilities. After this, the goal is to receive a designation as an international accessibility professional.

 

How I Adapted

Not every screen reader user can be an accessibility expert. Most screen reader users use their assistive tech to accomplish some other goal such as writing documents or tracking expenses in a spreadsheet. Others, like myself, want to know how the machine works and how we can make better software usable by more people. 

I learned the basics of programming in languages like Python, Java and Swift and understand how the building blocks of programs such as variables, arrays, strings, objects, functions, libraries and so on, fit together to make an application. In addition, I learned the fundamentals of how HTML works as well as how to speak to engineers about the type of behaviour I want specific websites to exhibit.

I also became familiar with the role accessibility plays in agile methodology. This is how most programming shops are set up today. Accessibility is best when it is thought of in the concept and design stage of a program or feature, not bolted on at the end to appease a tiny customer segment and avoid a law suit.

One of the most important things I did was become familiar with my assistive technology. Today’s off-the-shelf software builders often include accessibility as part of their packages, but it’s up to the screen reader user to know how to use this powerful tool at their fingertips. In addition to navigating efficiently and quickly with VoiceOver, I learned how to use its additional features such as hotspots, web spots, activities and custom gestures. In the case of desktop software, I made a point to teach myself the keyboard shortcuts in each program so I spent less time hunting around the screen and more time getting work done.

Career Trek: The CNIB Years

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Something from Nothing… All Over Again

After sitting down with the CEO of CNIB in the fall of 2017, I explained my decision to wind down TellMe TV. Instead of being disappointed, he got excited as he laid out the opportunity for me to join Canada’s largest blindness charity as the program manager for entrepreneurship and innovation.

There was just one problem. There was no entrepreneurship program to speak of. I’d have to create it from scratch—a task I was all too familiar with after building the production department at CHRY  and starting TellMe TV.

CNIB is hyper focused on getting Canadians with sight loss into the work force. The employment rate among those with sight loss hovers around 28% in Canada. Blind people are extremely capable of holding jobs of all kinds and many have chosen to work for themselves as entrepreneurs. 

The Venture Zone

I went to work right away on developing what was dubbed “the Venture Zone”. It was an online portal featuring tips, tricks, hacks and other useful information for 

  entrepreneurs with sight loss. Articles on the portal included everything from how to network with sight loss, to useful and accessible apps for the iPhone that could help you run your business more efficiently. We even began highlighting local entrepreneurs with sight loss who were paving the way for a new generation of trailblazers. 

In my first year, I logged nearly 40,000 kilometres in flights traveling across Canada, meeting entrepreneurs from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. All of the entrepreneurs were bright, enthusiastic and loved to talk about their journeys. We began featuring many of these stories on our portal as well. 

Shane Cashin

Shane is a DJ in St. John’s, Newfoundland. My team put together a video feature on Shane that highlighted his skill as a DJ and his motivational storytelling.

The Entrepreneurs

In my travels across Canada, I met entrepreneurs doing the most impressive and amazing things from building sophisticated software for the military, to running massage clinics, to making greeting cards. Here are just some of the amazing people I met. 

  • Denise Justin is a Toronto-based entrepreneur who runs a fashion line called Say Hello 2 Blindness. Her clothing features the words “Say Hello” in both print and braille. Denise was featured in season 1 of Mind Your Own Business. Click here to watch Denise’s episode.
  • Hillary Scanlon found herself unable to differentiate which waste receptacle was garbage, recycling and organics. She invented WasteFinders—a tactile floor mat that lets anyone know which container is which. 
  • Jenna White is the founder of Jenna’s Nut-Free Dessertery—one of the only 2  certified nut-free bakeries in all of Atlantic Canada.
  • Kim Holdbrook is the founder of Hands That See—a massage clinic run entirely by massage therapists with sight loss in Montreal.

In addition to coaching, motivating and developing a shared set of resources for our entrepreneurs, we also began sponsoring students who wanted to learn what it took to run a business. 

Venture Zone Game

With articles, videos, podcasts and virtual courses, along with in-person meet-ups at CNIB hubs and offices across Canada, we thought we could do a better job of engaging potential entrepreneurs. While some people like the setting of a virtual class with lectures and quizzes, some people learn best by trial and error. What better way to do that than with a game? Games could be fun and be vehicles for learning.

We connected with a company that specialized in learning games out of the UK called Totem Learning. Working with Totem over the course of nine months, we conceptualized and built a fully accessible iPhone game that taught players how to run a production-based company.

Players chose a product, a price point and received some startup cash to get going. In the life of the game, players had to produce their product, market it, brand their company, hire staff and make sales all while keeping an eye on their brand strength, their profit and their spending.

A screen shot from Venture Zone Game

During testing, we noticed players were getting stuck in the early stages of the game. Some players didn’t know where to begin and swiping around the screen was causing players to close the game out of frustration. What we needed were a set of training wheels so the player could get comfortable with the layout of the screen. Then, they could be left on their own to play and replay the game.

I developed the concept of two characters, Jack and Liz, who would be coaches in the game. Jack would be part of a trial mode that got players up and running, while Liz hung around in the game and explained all of the screens and business terms. I found myself wearing my producer’s hat again as I directed our two stellar voice talents to get the right delivery for the game. 

Screen shot of the production screen from Venture Zone Game

After months of hard work, we launched the game on Global accessibility awareness Day, 2019 in Canada and around the world. We not only reached our download goals for the game, we exceeded them with high praise from the sight loss community and a nomination for a Golden Apple from AppleVis—a website for blind users of Apple products.

CNIB Market

At all of my meet-ups across Canada, one or two entrepreneurs would stand up and tell the group  that they were an artist, a painter, a sculptor, a crafter or someone who made hand-made goods. They all wanted to sell their products online, but feared getting lost on sites like Etsy. 

I saw an opportunity to create a philanthropic shopping destination where CNIB donors could support our entrepreneurs with sight loss by purchasing high-quality hand-made goods with the proceeds being divided up between CNIB and the entrepreneur. CNIB would handle the marketing side while the entrepreneur would focus on crafting.

With a  modest budget, we built an accessible and  fully featured e-commerce platform on Shopify in less than 3 months. CNIB Market had a soft launch in 2020, but the COVID19 pandemic forced the site to be placed on pause. There is still incredible potential for CNIB to fully flesh out this idea and see it through to completion.

My Exit

2020 was also the year I was laid off from one of the most enjoyable  and fulfilling jobs I ever had. I met amazing people from across the country and I got to bring accessible digital products to life. Given more time and with the winds blowing in my favour, I would have transitioned to being a full time developer of digital products. In addition to working with a great team, my favourite memories from CNIB will be working with one of the greatest assistants I’ll ever have. The program, the game and the market wouldn’t have been as great without her help and support.

Over the next year, I’d develop and refine the software for my current startup, begin consulting on accessible design for an education tech company and start a new position with one of Canada’s most forward-thinking banks.

Career Trek: TellMe TV

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Entrepreneurs Solve Problems

I was once asked, “How do you become an entrepreneur?” My quick response was, “Find something that irritates you so much, you are left with no choice but to solve the problem yourself.”

 

Several months  after completing my Master of Arts in Media Production in 2011, I found myself waiting for the next big career move to find me. I was still working at CHRY Radio and unsure on what to do with the rest of my life. 

One of the many amusing conversations among the staff at CHRY had me feeling a bit left out. We were all discussing movies and TV shows we were watching and I was clueless when it came to new  shows and classics I’d missed out on after losing my sight. I was determined to catch up by finding as many movies and TV with audio description as I could. 

 

Audio description (or described video (DV) as it is known in Canada) is narration of on-screen activity in between lines of dialog in a movie or TV show. It enables someone with sight loss to get the jokes in a comedy or emote with the story in  a drama. I demonstrated how audio description worked in a TEDx Talk for Ryerson in November of 2014.

 

I had a shelf full of DVDs at home—many of which were still in shrink wrap. Some of them had audio description tracks on them, but I didn’t feel like navigating a series of silent menus to locate and play the audio description soundtrack. I went online thinking, “Surely one of the big online VOD platforms had movies or TV shows with audio description!” I found none.

 

And that’s when the idea struck me like lightning—build a Netflix for the blind.

 

I immediately began typing furious notes as to how I’d accomplish this goal. I couldn’t code well, didn’t know anyone in software or the film & TV industries and I had no clue where to begin. Just like learning to DJ or jumping into audio production, I made the decision to just dive in and start. I asked questions and worked through the contacts I had.

Within six months, I had a working prototype and a name, Zagga Entertainment. I wasn’t sold on the name, but I wanted something with a Z in it and zagga.tv was the first domain I could get. Zagga was slated to be the first fully accessible subscription VOD service of its kind with audio description on all of its movie and TV titles.

 

The Pitches

With a functional prototype and some of my own cash, I took the idea to CNIB—Canada’s national blindness charity whose CEO loved the idea and pledged his support right away. I was also accepted to what was then known as the Ryerson Digital media Zone—a university-based startup incubator. In September of 2013, I decided to jump in with both feet. I left CHRY and pursued Zagga full time.

 

Kevin sits on a sofa at the DMZ with his laptop

 

The Easy Part

Since I Used a screen reader full time, I knew how I wanted the website, and eventually a mobile app, to behave. I quickly learned our accessible prototype wouldn’t cut it when it came to handling the security requirements of the content providers. More on them later. After a crowdfunding campaign, we built the first  full version of Zagga running on the web and an iPad app before financial setbacks forced us to abandon those platforms for a mobile-ready website. We ran this for several months before receiving some help out of the Blu. (Pun intended.)

Blu Focus handled the quality assurance for Hollywood DVDs and digital assets. Its founder, Paulette, got in touch with me and offered me a fully turnkey VOD solution that solved all of our problems for handling security, scalability and accessibility. We changed the company name to TellMe TV and built the next version of the app on the robust VHX platform which was the best thing that ever happened to us. Thanks to Paulette, we launched in 2016 with a few dozen titles including rare content from the National Film Board of Canada, The Film Detective and Entertainment One. 

 

TellMe TV Video

We worked with Kent Parker, a great commercial producer out of Toronto, to create a video explaining TellMe TV Credits to Jeevan, her guide dog Kizzy and our excellent voice talent Susan for bringing this piece together.

 

 

 

The Hard Part

In the world of film and TV, content is king. Much like location, location, location for brick and mortar retail, content, content, content should be the motto for anyone looking to start a subscription VOD service. This one issue hamstrung us, especially as the market began to mature around us with audio description soon being offered on Netflix, iTunes and other VOD services when we launched.

 

Our customers in the sight loss community wanted top tier Hollywood content with audio description. They, like me, wanted to be included in the water cooler talk about hit movies and TV shows from the past and present. The content providers which included major studios in Hollywood, wanted their pound of flesh on behalf of the directors, writers, actors and other people who had a financial interest in the success of their films and TV shows. For a large universe of titles, the costs began adding up quickly. I was soon stuck with a dilemma: subscribers weren’t coming because we had no content and we couldn’t get the content we wanted because we didn’t have the subscribers.

 

The Hardest Part

With the  market rapidly maturing around us and with our cash running out, I had to make the tough call to pull the plug on TellMe TV in 2018. Calling it quits on a dream is sometimes the hardest thing an entrepreneur will ever have to do, but I have learned quite a bit by taking on the challenge of starting up my own company and blazing a trail into unknown territory. 

 

Lessons for the Entrepreneur

 

Share Your Idea; No One’s Going to Steal It.

You’re the one who was irritated enough to find the solution to the problem. You spent late nights jotting down notes, trying out solutions and pounding away at your code until you found something that worked. Chances are no one else is going to put in the time and effort you have to get to where you are. Attract others to your ideas and they will want to help you succeed.

 

Launch Early

Yes, your product is held together with a shoelace, some duct tape and a safety pin, but someone out there sees the same problem you do and will pay you for that solution. You can refine and iterate, but you shouldn’t wait until everything is perfect for launch, because it never will be.

 

You Don’t Have to Get It Right. You Need to Get It Done.

In my head, I pictured the launch of TellMe TV being a lot like the launch of the iPhone. The service would gleam as I showed off its features to an audience that would ooh and aah over all of the details. Much like my first point, you can’t get it perfect on the first try, but you have to show something for your efforts, especially when investors are waiting to see what you’ve been doing with their cash.

 

Find Your Customers, Then Listen To Them.

As much as you know about your product, your customer may have an insight that simplifies or improves your product in ways you can’t see because of your perspective. 

 

Build A Stellar Team

The vision of TellMe TV attracted several key people to my team including the former CEO of Lion’s Gate Entertainment, a two-time Emmy Award winner and the lady who launched the xbox in Canada.

 

Develop Tough Skin

Conflict, confrontation and hearing the word ‘no’ come with the territory. Learn to lick your emotional wounds quickly and move forward with the mission.

 

Fail Fast

You will fail. Your code will break. You will introduce a feature and realize it was a bonehead decision. You will hire the wrong person. Cut your losses and move forward.

 

Never Give Up

While I had to make the hard decision to wind down TellMe TV, it came after seven years of hard work. There were some days I felt like giving up and many where I wondered if I would have been safer, happier and more satisfied working in audio. Even when the going gets rough, remember all you need to do is take one step forward.

 

Something from Nothing

If I had to choose one regret from my journey with TellMe TV, it would be not launching faster with the content I could easily get. In some ways it would have been easier to build a loyal audience with customers who believed in the vision, but after a couple of years of promising vapourware, it’s hard to build trust and loyalty when the market movers are offering your service as a feature. Aside from that, I regret nothing. I learned a lot, especially about the world of business, accessibility and the often colourful world of tech startups.

By the time I wound down TellMe TV, I had been invited to join CNIB in building a national entrepreneurship program for other Canadians with sight loss. It was an opportunity to build something from nothing all over again and I couldn’t say no to the prospect.

Career Trek: The Radio years

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My Early love Affair with Radio

When I started high school, I thought I wanted to be an accountant. In Grade 10, I joined the A/V Crew and fell in love with the technical arts. In grade 11, I won a local radio contest and got to sit in on the production of a major market morning radio show—limo ride and all.
While the antics of the hosts, Jesse & Gene, had me in stitches, I was paying wrapped attention to Perry, the show’s producer as he flew around the studio, cutting audio tape, jamming commercials into cart decks, running the board, cuing the hosts, playing CDs and being the proverbial glue that held the show together. I was sold; THIS is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Just over a year later, I started a closed-circuit radio station at my high school before leaving to pursue a degree in Radio & Television Arts at Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan) University. After graduating and working freelance for several years, I had enough material to assemble a small demo which I sent to a tiny radio station in North York, Ontario in the fall of 2005.
I had applied to be the station’s creative producer, writer, audio engineer and technical coordinator—in other words, the entire production department. The salary was less than a living wage today, but it was a start.

The Demo Spot

I was asked to produce a radio spot for CHRY’s People Powered fundraising campaign. Using my crude set-up at home, this is what I submitted.

After two interviews and my demo, I got the call. I wasn’t selected as the candidate. I was crestfallen and figured I’d remain in the freelance world a bit longer. Two weeks later, the phone rang again. The first candidate didn’t work out and I was offered the job. I took it and started my new full time gig as the Technical/Production Coordinator at what was then called CHRY (now Vibe 105 TO).

Amplifying the Alternative

This is a production demo I submitted for a national award in 2007. It didn’t win.

In 2005, the production facilities at CHRY were barebones to say the least when I walked in on my first day. Besides a slow computer and a Rode Broadcaster microphone, I had nothing—no headphones, no script stand, no licensed production music, no sound effects and no volunteer staff. My manager got the JAWS for Windows screen reader installed on my office and production computers for which I am eternally grateful. This one piece of software allowed me to independently work with advanced audio production software and keep a job for nearly 8 years.

Kevin at CHRY Master Control

At the time, CHRY’S sonic signature ranged from a noisy mix of over-compressed, reverberant and poorly equalized material to a few slickly produced jingle IDs that ran during station breaks. The overall aesthetic definitely sounded gritty, unfocused and very grass roots. I thought we could do better as a station and as a sector.

CANADA HELPS PSA

An example of the pro sound I brought to the station using tight compression, subtle effects and EQ, not to mention Talia, a stellar voice talent from Toronto.

The day-to-day was about managing the chaotic and often hectic worlds of radio spot production. I wrote, recorded, edited and mixed radio ads, promos, public service announcements, station IDs and other on-air material. My production philosophy was to produce high-fidelity material using the tools I had at my disposal—a computer with audio production software and a high-quality condenser microphone. I discuss my production philosophy in this post, but sufficed to say the station’s sonic signature evolved to being indistinguishable from major market stations with bigger budgets and more resources. We became equal players, sonically speaking with no difference in audio aesthetics when sweeping the dial.

Canadian Women’s Health Network PSA

The original version of this national spot was poorly recorded with a terrible VoiceOver and bad levels when it was sent to us from the NCRA. I re-recorded with an amazing voice talent, Jayde, who brought the spot to life.

Over the next eight years, the staff and I built CHRY’s production department to be recognized and envied nationally in the campus/community radio sector. Besides producing award-winning radio creative and refining the station’s sonic signature, I left a legacy of documented best-practices, policies, procedures and sage advice for the person who stepped into my shoes so we would never backslide into producing audio that made the listener cringe.

Award Winning Fundraising Spot

This spot campaign for our 20th anniversary fund drive won the award for creative Production from the National Campus/Community Radio Association in 2008. A fantastic voice talent, Greg, anchored the spot and gave us the “institute” vibe we were looking for.

How I Adapted

Thanks to a supportive staff and volunteers, great assistive technology and the chance to prove myself, I excelled as a radio producer who happened to have sight loss. Among my colleagues, I was known as the sound engineer or the producer and never “the blind engineer” or “the blind producer”. Many of our ad clients never knew their spots were being written, recorded and mixed by someone who couldn’t see.

As mentioned prior, I used JAWS to do everything on the computer. I ran  Sony SoundForge with custom JAWS scripts, Adobe Audition and a handful of VST plug-ins. My Audio Arts console was labeled with braille and other tactile marks which help me orient myself to the board. The station itself was small and easy to navigate, however the York University campus where CHRY  was located was immense and less accessible than my alma-mater. Having a great crew of staff and volunteers helped in incalculable ways when it came to miking up remotes or getting to station events.

Working as a freelance audio producer had its perks. I got to work on projects that were of interest to me, but my first full-time gig in radio helped me refine and hone my craft. I’m convinced that working at a radio station is the coolest job in the world. For me, every day was different with new challenges, amazing people and something new to learn every time I walked into work. I left the station in 2013 to pursue my first tech startup, TellMe TV, but I was grateful to be a part of something bigger than myself.

Feature on Jazz Singer Emilie-Claire Barlow

This was a full-length radio feature on Emilie-Claire Barlow, a wonderful jazz singer formerly from Toronto. This feature came about early in my tenure and was the first really long format piece I’d edited and mixed.

Career Trek – Freelance Audio & Music Production

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My career as an audio and music engineer stretches back to the late 90s when I was in my third year of Radio & Television Arts (RTA) at Ryerson. I learned the layout of our 32 channel Tascam audio console and how to operate the remote control for our DA-88 recorders. My third year group recorded a local Toronto funk band and I immediately fell in love with the entire multitrack recording process.

While at school, I read Stanley R. Alten’s Audio In Media from cover to cover and absorbed everything I could about audio production for radio, television, music and sound design—EQ, compression, gating, effects, acoustics as well as all of the intricacies of working in a multitrack recording environment.

Love Method — Reaching the Sun

A career in audio production was nearly impossible to start by working for someone else right out of school. I had applied to several audio jobs in Toronto with no luck, but found myself in demand as a freelance audio producer for friends and friends of friends who wanted to record EPs and albums. This often meant recording in noisy spaces such as bedrooms, churches and other noisy environments on a wide variety of gear.

Karen Pace – Worship Medley

Karen Pace – Worship medley

As I built up my skills as a problem solver in the audio engineering space, I eventually found myself playing the role of producer more and more. This culminated in the largest project I managed from start to finish—a full Christian pop album for a friend who is a very talented singer. We  recorded, mixed and mastered at several top tier recording studios in Toronto and launched the album in 2006.

Deanna — Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)

My last recording gig was in 2010 when I recorded a full Toronto rock band for my graduate thesis on the accessibility of ProTools. There, I had the luxury of working in an acoustically treated studio on an SSL AWS-900 mixing console.

Heartcore – Blue

Heartcore – Blue

Amidst all of this, I took on recording projects that were a little out of the ordinary including an audio book, VoiceOver demos and lots of PA audio gigs where I was mixing bands live in a room.

I came alive as an audio producer. There’s something fun and exciting about patching in a reverb and riding the faders to add the extra energy a song needs to be ear-catching and hooky. Despite my passion for the craft, a ton of connections and having some of the gear, I began realizing a career in audio was not as easy as it sounded (no pun intended).

Studios were difficult to start and run by the time multitrack recording became ubiquitous. Large studios with big rooms were slowly closing and pop music production was moving away from recording live instruments to using samples.

I will, one day, get back into recording and mixing (the latter being my passion), but I will do it as an expensive hobby rather than a career. As life would have it, all of the late nights as a DJ and the long days as an audio producer were about to pay off with my first full time gig when I sent a demo to a small radio station in north Toronto.

Career Trek – The Mobile DJ Years

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This is the first post in a series that will take you on a journey through the highlights of my working life. I have essentially worked my entire career without sight. A lot of that work was work I chose to do when no other companies would hire me after I graduated what was then called Ryerson University with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio & Television Arts. Throughout my journey as an entrepreneur and as an employee with sight loss, I’ve had to solve problems in order to get the job done. I’ll explain how I did it as best I can.

Jump In and Figure it Out

I’ve always loved listening to the artful skill of a mix DJ at work. Listening to radio in Toronto while growing up, I was transfixed by DJs who could beat match, cut and scratch music from a wide variety of musical genres. I had a desire to learn, but figured the startup costs were too prohibitive for me to own turntables, a mixer, speakers and then amass a collection of vinyl LPs.

 

While attending university, my friend Rebecca introduced me to a popular night club DJ—DJ Thomas—who spun music for a Saturday night retro broadcast on a popular Toronto radio station. He used the denon unit week after week and pulled off flawless mixes from a giant case of CDs he traveled with for his DJ gigs. While in conversation with DJ Thomas and Rebecca, I mentioned that DJing was something I wanted to learn.

At the time, there were no courses or schools where you could go to learn to be a DJ. Everyone just “figured it out” on their own.

Rebecca told me to just jump right in and teach myself. I did just that. Thanks Rebecca!

DJ Thomas showed me his rig which held one of the first Denon twin CD decks built for DJs. The unit let DJS play CDs at variable speeds and precisely cue songs using CD frames. This made tempo synchronization and cuing as easy as it was on vinyl.

 

After finishing my first year of university, I rented one of the  Denon decks without a mixer. I learned to mix by connecting each CD player in the Denon to separate stereo systems and working the volume controls independently. My crude bedroom set-up was clunky and awkward, but I had enough to teach myself how to work the unit and get familiar with the controls as well as the tiny collection of CDs I owned. In under a month, I was spinning at my best friend’s 21st birthday party—my very first gig.

 

Kevin stands in front of a mixer and rack of DJ equipment at a party.

 

How I Adapted

Learning the controls on the Denon decks was not that difficult. There were few buttons and each one was sized and positioned in a way where I could memorize what each key did and where it was, so no need for braille labels.

One of the most challenging parts of being a DJ with no sight was selecting CDs. I had a standing rack of 200 CDs, plus 3 or 4 road cases holding many more. Labeling each one with braille was impractical, so I began memorizing the layout of each rack and case using cues from the spines of each case to guide me on which CDs were where. For example, an album in a cardboard digipack would break up the column of CDs and give me an anchor to chunk the order of CDs above and below.

Every so often, I’d grab the wrong CD during a gig, but have enough time to put it back and grab the correct one before the playing track ended.

After several gigs and some saving, I purchased an upgraded Denon deck with jog and shuttle controls along with a very simple DJ mixer. Friends would accompany me to gigs with a cash incentive. I saved money in the long term by renting the PA and lighting gear I needed for each gig. This allowed me to customize each event with the right gear so I wasn’t keeping massive speakers in my inventory if I was playing a small wedding for 50 people.

I spun weddings, first communions, fundraisers and a couple of night club gigs. Over the 7 years I worked as a DJ, the biggest gig I did was for 300 people for my best friend’s parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. I had also amassed a large collection of music and learned a few lessons along the way. 

Lessons Learned

  • Be prepared for everything. Have a backup for your main DJ rig and be prepared to switch immediately to keep the party going.
  • Know your music. Be familiar with your bar counts, in and out points and be prepared to mix disparate genres such as cultural music, rock and reggae. This is what sets you apart and develops your versatility.
  • Know your tools. You should be an expert on how to set up and operate your gear and know every button and function. On the flip side, keep your tech load simple. Sometimes beat matching from song to song is more than adequate without adding a sampler, stutter effects and scratching.
  • Practice and make your mistakes at home. When you’re driving a party at a wedding or night club, there are no redos for a poor mix, so be sure you know what you’re doing when the dance floor is open.
  • Know your audience. Scratching and cutting means nothing if you can’t choose the right song to play. A fundraiser for executives in their 50s is going to be a very different mix than a high school dance, so play to your audience. Your personal tastes come second. 
  • Carry yourself professionally. Use business and rate cards. Be clear with your contracts. Arrive on time for set-up. leave on time after strike. Clean up after yourself. Return calls and e-mails promptly.
  • Perceptions matter. As a DJ with sight loss, walking into a venue with a cane can elicit non-confidence in people who don’t know you can do the work. Your job is to prove them wrong by exceeding their expectations. Use correct spelling and grammar in your correspondence. Make eye contact, shake hands firmly, be agreeable, apologize when necessary and take the high road if you’re dealing with a jerk. Address people by name and say please and thank you. These little things go a long way in building your reputation when you’re starting out.
  • Build a great team. I succeeded as a DJ because I had great friends around me who were willing to drive me to gigs, set up speakers and tell me when people were leaving the dance floor. No one succeeds alone, so surround yourself with great people who are invested in your success.

I left the DJ world in 2005 after selling my DJ rig. If I do get back into it, it will be an expensive hobby.

Today, a DJ with sight loss can easily get set up with a Mac running VoiceOver, accessible DJ software from Algoriddim and accessible DJ controllers such as the Pioneer DDJ SX3. These tools can put you on par with your sighted counterparts.

If you’re going to venture into the world of being a mobile DJ, have a plan and set goals for performing a certain number of gigs in the first 30, 60 and 90 days. Build good habits for practice and be prepared to make sacrifices with your time. The DJ world can be fun, but it is hard work.

 

My Old School Mix

Here is a set of 80s and 90s old school hip hop and R&B that was fun to mix. The Denon DM2500 had a crude sampler which I used for parts of this mix. Enjoy!