“This traineeship felt like an opportunity to finally get a foot in the door” – Holly’s blog

Thanks to support from Youth Music’s Incubator fund, YSWN has been able to offer a series of paid traineeship roles to help women and people of minority gender aged 18–25 take a first step into the audio industry.

Hosted by AiAi Studios, BeSound Studios, Rare Tone Mastering, PitStop Productions and Club Haus Studios, the placements have given the trainees valuable skills in everything from film sound design and podcast editing to vinyl mastering and games audio.

Here, our first trainee, Holly McArthur, looks back on their successful six months working and learning at the BAFTA award-winning AiAi Studios.

For six months between autumn 2023 and spring 2024 I did a traineeship in podcast production, with AiAi Studios and Yorkshire Sound Women Network. I had studied music and audio at university and fell in love with sound, but living and working in a small town had cut me off from breaking into the audio industry. Discovering this traineeship felt like an opportunity to finally get a foot in the door.

With AiAi Studios I was able to learn the ins and outs of running a TV and audio production studio. I was supported with new software, learned an audio editing workflow in Logic Pro, helped as a runner on a podcast recording session, put together a sizzle reel, learned about sound design, and I created content for AiAi’s social media. I also got to sit in on client meetings, which gave me an understanding of how to turn clients’ ideas into an engaging piece of media.

My experience with AiAi Studios and YSWN was so much fun and was a formative time for my audio career. Since finishing the traineeship in April, I was supported by YSWN to attend the Podcast Show 2024, where I was able to network with other engineers and creatives. I’ve picked up some freelance work since then and I’m working on my branding with the hopes of launching my audio business officially in 2025. I’m super excited for my audio career and I’m incredibly grateful to AiAi Studios, YSWN, and Youth Music for giving me this opportunity!

Listen to an episode of the Stacked podcast that Holly edited for AiAi Studios here.
Holly’s traineeship with AiAi Studios was supported by Youth Music’s Incubator Fund.