Mumbai’s Reena Gilbert Walks a Balance Between Singer-Composer and Sound Engineer

As a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and sound engineer, Reena Gilbert sees things in a straightforward way when working on a music project in any capacity. “I just want the song to do well,” she says over a call.

Starting just over a decade ago, Gilbert recalls how she always wanted to do something related to music, building upon a childhood fascination with musical instruments. “I started learning guitars, and then I had my own small setup on my Windows machine. And I bought a sound card for myself. I had no idea what sound engineering is. So I just used to Google stuff,” Gilbert says. Recording covers and gradually building her home recording setup, she realized sound engineering could be a career path as well. Given that no one else in her family had a background in professional music, they were understandably skeptical.

At that point, Gilbert – fresh out of 12th standard as an 18-year-old – found that most sound engineering courses required an undergraduate degree. She says with a laugh, “So then my parents pushed me into computer engineering. I had to finish that and then after that, I was like, ‘Nothing doing, mereko sound engineering hi karna hai.’” Her initial motive all along was to make music, but her career trajectory took her into the technical side of things, leading her to work in studios across Mumbai and being a live sound engineer of A.R. Rahman.

Knowing how to make a song — from songwriting to producing and mixing and mastering stage — is a big plus, according to Gilbert. “The kind of sound you have in mind, you have the whole picture and it just becomes easier to execute it rather than explaining it to anyone else. You know what you’re looking for,” she says. The artist says it’s nevertheless fun working with producers as well and bouncing her ideas off musician friends and fellow engineers. “It’s always good to have other peoples’ perspectives also,” Gilbert adds.

In recent times, Gilbert has released music as singer-songwriter as well as a composer and producer, donning different roles. The most recent release is “Jaane Kyun,” a heartwarming, catchy electronic-pop song featuring Aditi Singh Sharma on vocals. With lyrics and composing duties helmed by Gilbert, “Jaane Kyun” follows songs like “Bol De” (featuring singer Soham Naik) and “Tu Aur Main” (featuring singer Keshuv Huria) which were released via music platform Wynk.

The artist says she has plenty more coming up, becoming a fixture in the Hindi pop space. “I’ve been planning to release a lot of new singles and I’m planning to collaborate with many more singers. I won’t be naming them as yet, but I’m looking forward to putting those out,” Gilbert says.

Listen to “Jaane Kyun” below.