posted by cs004 on Nov 30
Hmm…let’s see. I am very happy with my choice of major so far. I’m really into the subject, and I like our school’s program very much. I like the fact that the college stresses a lot about having a well-rounded education, which I guess is the goal of a liberal arts college. I don’t necessarily mean just a well-rounded education in general, but rather and more precisely a well-rounded music education. We just don’t learn the tech side and that only of our major, but we also expand our knowledge of music & aural theory and voice proficiency, and also need to keep our musicianship up as well. So far I like the school’s staff a lot and think it’s great how they work as a close-knit team to really help their students succeed. I think it’s very helpful and beneficial, and I think we have great teachers lecturing our classes. However, as Dr. Day taught us all, an intelligent man once said, “With every action comes an equal and opposite reaction.” Although my analogy differs slighty in the equal part, Isaac Newton’s law also reflects my thoughts on my choice of major at this school. So far I like the program a lot, but I just think it’s unfortunate and quite a bummer that freshmen do not have personal access to our school’s studios. Although I do understand why such a rule would be enforced for several reasons, I just get slightly irritated by this. Also, I hope you don’t get offended by this Dr. Hill because I mean no personal offence at all, but I feel like our Survey to Music Industry class was not completely necessary all the time. Your book is a great aid and way of learning about recording technology, and I believe it is very easy to understand and is very well structured; I’m sure I’m going to be using it still in the future to come too. But I just felt that we didn’t always get a lot accomplished in class. It’s not your fault, it’s just that lots of the time there wasn’t much material to cover. I’d say my favorite class this semester was last class I believe, when we went to Studio A and learned about and reviewed facts about mics. I think this course would have been much funner if we had more classes learning about gear. All in all, I’m still excited about my major and I’m looking forward to finishing these following years with my rad MRT classmates. Good luck in any and all of your class voice, aural theory, music theory, and piano class tests and quizzes. And lastly, goodluck to our classmates who have already decided this program isn’t for them. I hope your future major makes you very content.
Proteck yo’ neck,
C-Note
posted by cs004 on Nov 10
On Sunday, November 9, 2008, I attended Scott Hoon and Bryant Wong’s overdubbing and mixing session in Studio A at LVC. They already tracked the drums, bass, and guitar of the songs they needed, and simply needed to overdub keys and each song and vocals on one. When we first set up and started the overdubbing, Scott needed more signal from Trent’s keyboard so he asked for more and Trent relunctantly gave. Scott reaffirmed Trent that he’d turn it down afterwards if needed. Anyways, we started the redubbing and Trent busted his part out with ease. We had to punch part of the beginning, but Trent cleaned it up right away. While Trent was playing the second song, Scott started playing around with the Bombfactory compressor which is a “bomb”ass compressor (pardon my language). He didn’t like the sound of the kick drum so he was trying to improve it with the compressor. So Trent once again amazed us all with a crazy spotless first take, with exception of maybe a few notes. Once again, we quickly went back and punched that part. Once the organ part was laid out, we went back and Trent added a piano part. It was now time for the third song, which was a sweet 12 bar blues. Trent busted his organ part out nearly perfectly, and we had to go back to punch literally one note out. Furthermore, that one note was at the end of an insane run. Again, that was quickly fixed and we moved on. Now Scott set up a mic (I forget the name) that was incredibly awesome. It sounded spotless and even had its own power supply. We plugged the mic through the patchbay from the studio to the control room and plugged it into the sweet sweet 147 Universal Audio 2-610 Tube Pre-amp. Mark laid down some smooth vocals on the third song. We had to redo the 1st and 2nd verse because it was too hot, and we were practically done. Once that was done, we went back to Trent, who laid down piano fills between the vocals. Everything sounded great, and Mark and Trent packed up and left. We cleaned the little mess that was in the studio and headed back to the control room where we started mixdown. Scott had all three guitar tracks (note: the guitar part was recorded to three separate mics) grouped together so that we could experiment with the part with ease. He ended up bring out the melody in certain parts and automated a pan for the melody in another part. He showed me an easy way to do all this with simply grabbing the track line and raising up, making a rectangular bubble on the track line. Anyways, 2 and a half hours went by and it was time to study for good ol’ Dr. Day’s physics exam.
posted by cs004 on Nov 10
Today I had the pleasure of attending Bryant Wong’s mastering session of the Honor’s Orchestra concert and LVC Orchestra & College Choir’s concert (Mozart’s Requiem) for two hours. For the majority of the session, we’d switch between projects. For both projects, Bryant mostly used the OZONE plug-in which had multiple effects that you could use. If I remember correctly, it had a compressor/limiter, reverb, harmonic exciter, and I think 2 or 3 other effects. Not knowing what a harmonic exciter is, I asked Bryant and he explained how it added harmonic content to your track. Anyways, for the most part, Bryant did a lot of EQ experimentation. He told me that generally when you EQ something, its best to have the EQ line a smooth as possible. Also, if there is a problem, it is better to cut it by a few dB than to boost it usually. Bryant briefly ran through the audiosuite and explained that it is more to process and change the signal than for simple effects. He also briefly touched on automation, and showed me the waveform option and volume trim. I asked Bryant about the mic set-up and he explained both concert’s set-ups. I believe for the Honor’s Orchestra concert he used two 44’s, one 32, and two PZM’s; for the Requiem concert he used a deccatree that mounted one 44, two 14’s, and two 32’s; he also used four 14’s which he placed infront of the soloists, and two PZM’s which he mounted to the back wall. Bryant pointed out that the PZM’s sounded like they picked up certain singers in the back more than the overall choir, but those mics were needed because the College Choir didn’t do too great of a job enunciating. Also, Bryant told me his philosophy: “You can never have too much material.” It’s better to have too much and not use some of it than not have enough and work your best with as little as you got. At some point in the session, there was an unexpected celebrity appearance by good ol’ Michael Kudrack, as well as Jeff (Bryant’s partner) coming in a little while before. Mike wanted to back up one of his files from Studio C to his external harddrive. Unfortunately, the computer wasn’t very reliable, and he had to try backing it up nearly 10 times. This took a while, so we sat around and chatted. Bryant explained to me how if your working on something you’ve never worked with before (say a bassoon), or simply are mastering something previously recorded (for instance the Requiem), it’s best to have an audio copy of it so that you could check it out and take a screenshot of the waveforms. This allows you to pretty much copy it exactly. Anyways, after multiple CPU overloads and beneficial teachings, we did one of the last things before I left about 20 minutes early. Bryant cut part of the beginning of a song in the Honor’s Orchestra concert because there was a baby crying. Professor Dietrich stopped the song about 15 seconds into it and restarted. The mic’s picked up a great quote from him in which I believe he was talking to the orchestra, “I don’t think that was your playing.”