Sound Engineering Studio (B) - Project

This assignment afforded me with a diverse range of experiences. The first recording was of a piece of music composed for a dance routine. The instrumentation was all acoustic. Recording the musicians commissioned to perform the piece was an absolute pleasure. They possessed a level of skill and professionalism I have yet to see amongst commercial acts and needed only one take to nail the piece. With the post production, at first I was reluctant to use things like compression or reverb on the signal. However, it became apparent that some things needed refining (like the double bass) and in the end, the whole thing was compressed comparatively heavily. Recording the Classic Metal act was in my opinion, a good practice at efficiency. It is the first time I have allowed myself time to arrive at the studio before the musicians to set up the microphones and ProTools sessions. Unlike the Classical piece, I intended to attempt a degree of refinement akin to the likes of Rick Rubin on the recorded audio going heavy on the compression. When it came to mastering, I tried a couple of different degrees of compression. The track on which the signal was pretty much square waved seemed to be the preferred track. If I am to continue on this path of heavy compression, I would like to find the loudest sound before the signal becomes squarewaved (out of consideration for people’s ears and speakers). Presenting: the MP3s and documentation for both recordings J.A.C. Documentation J.A.C. MP3 Hero Documentation Hero MP3

Portfolio Presentation: Pick me, Pick ME!

Presenting, Lisa’s sales pitch.

I started my presentation by saying who I am, describing my backing in music (practical and theoretical) and more recently, my experiences in sound engineering. I mentioned how I like to use ideas and techniques learnt from investigating the more obscure varieties of music in my own work. An interest that translates easily into
the realms of sound engineering (after all, there is no point in re inventing the wheel).

I touched in this a bit in my presentation but think that it should be one of the main things I emphasise in the pursuit of work. Yes, I have only been studying/practicing sound engineering since the beginning of this year but, in that time, I have developed a passion for it and an eagerness to learn more and better myself. This passion translates into an enthusiasm to work in this field (enough enthusiasm to put furthering my career in sound at the top of my list of priorities.

The rest of my presentation covered my skill set at this point in time, my experiences in recording and creation of music/sound using MIDI or audio samples or both. I think this straight forward list of skills (using the term lightly) will prove an asset. In all honesty, I have not yet perfected any of these skills but I have a basis competence and in a niche market such as engineering, I think it is important to leave no room for potential employers to fear you are inexperienced.

At this point, I am glad I have a repertoire of work (no matter how small it may be). I am able to list recordings and compositions and hopefuilly, give an impression that I am an established engineer. I also have (and forgot to mention in much detail during my presentation that) spent considerable energy in my own time, trying to make connections in the local, live music scene. These efforts are a good example of initiative taking and demonstrate my enthusiasm for working in this field.

My plans for the immediate future are to practice recording by finding small, local bands and offering to do them demos for cheap or for nothing. While I have access to the facilities at uni, I shall certainly use them, when I have not, I have a couple of friends with the rudimentary elements of a recording studio (ie, they have a computer, recording program, mics and a mixing desk). Getting a good recording out of basic materials would surely be a credit to my developing skills. I am also going to continue attempting to break into live mixing on a local level. I have a few work experience opportunities I can take up, a couple of mates bands who I can offer to mix for free (and practice on) and I intend to ring around the live music venues asking if they will accept my resume (I am inclined to think that there is a sufficient surplus of sound engineers for venues to not ever really place adds for jobs online or in the paper), the first venue I contact is Fowlers as I hear their resident engineer is quite unreliable.

As suggested, I have supported this overview of my skills, experiences and ambitions with a demo CD.

Cover art:

the front cover




















inside left




















the disc itself





















behind the disc




















and the back cover





















And here are links (it looks like you are going to have to paste them in the address bar, the insert link option in blogger appears to dissappear link from the face of the earth) to all tracks on the disc bar one (which, despite my most painstaking efforts, came home as an aiff file and therefore, could not be converted to mp3 for online hosting.)

My fantasmigorical mega mix
La La Megamix

Of Traffic Lights and Drum Beats
(DAT and protools based sequencing exercise)
Of Traffic Lights and Drum Beats

AfroCelt Sound System - My Secret Bliss: Loop it La La remix
missing courtesy of the existance of aiff files

Mini Moose (yes, from Invader Zim, "I am ZIMMM")
An attempt at techno using MIDI in Logic (much fun automating synth parameters was had :-D ) Disclaimer: The levels of the different elements still need a little fine tuning,I know this.
Mini Moose

5 10 - C.I.A.
The local anti establishment punk group, these lyrics are wicked. They had two bassists you know, one of the bassists played with so much distortion though he may as well have been a second guitar, I certainly ended up treating him as such)
5 10 - C.I.A.

J.A.C.
The minute long intro of saxophone noise aside, this is an excerpt from an 8 minute long, rambling Classical/minimalist piece of work by an Adelaide Jazz student (I used to work with him at McDonalds in Victor Harbour, "I am Ned SeaGoon" generally known as Traeger. Apparently, people at the arts tafe danced to it at some point.
J.A.C.

Mini Resume

Lisa Lane-Collins


PERSONAL DETAILS:

Name: Lisa Lane-Collins

Address: 41 Marden Road
Marden SA 5070

Telephone: (08) 8362 6024
0438 847 438

Health: Excellent

EDUCATION:

Secondary: Victor Harbour High School
2004: Completed Year 12

Tertiary:

2007: Diploma of Sound Engineering (Almost Completed.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

31/8/07
Employer: The Greens

Position: Sound engineer (for the Green the Night
fund raising gig)

Duties: Set up, monitor/manage sound, pack up

REFEREES:

Peter Fiebig
Greens member
Telephone: 0438 883 104


For the full resume, click this link...

My Resume

Week 11 - almost there

This week featured the first round of presentations (something I avoided). I know that people who presented this week had less time to organise their thing but never the less, I expected…something different. Lauren went first disguised as The Electro Kitten. She is already well on the way to being identifiable on the local scene, she has her alias well figured out and a simple logo of a cat printed on everything she works with (including business cards). To the end of being a techno artist, her portfolio is excellent. The thought that struck me (being perhaps not so directed in my endeavours) was that she repeatedly was able to demonstrate her skills in her chosen field but didn’t demonstrate any other skills (something that I think this year’s study is perfect for). I would prefer to go for a portfolio that shows a diversity of productions. No one had really managed much with their demo track (ideally, I would like to do a mega mix not unlike the tracks that Nick Skitz creates for the beginning of each Skitzmix CD though the short time frame probably didn’t help this. A couple of people had thought about creating web pages for their business. I’m thinking a Myspace will be sufficient. I could reinvent myself…Sound Engineer Sam (nothing like a bit of alliteration). There is a lowly recording business (in Adelaide) who sends messages to bands over Myspace offering to record demos for cheapish. From what I have heard though, he is not very good.

WEEK TEN can i have a yiros please

Well, Shawn Timm of Timm’s tunes definitely has a different outlook to anyone else we have met this semester. Summing it up nicely I think would be his stating that he regards himself as a part of the advertising industry, not the recording industry. To begin our tour, we were shown into Shawn’s studio, sat down, given a very brief overview of what equipment he has and given a long pep talk on starting from the bottom. His equipment is minimal, he uses Protools and MIDI synths and not a lot else. As he is not really a sound engineer, he has no objections to using digital plug ins (makes life a whole lot easier for him), there isn’t even a mixing desk attached to this system. He does have the power to record (mostly voice overs) and a really shmick vocal mic but that is all. He also has supplied himself with a fine collection of instruments. This way, he can guarantee that whichever session musician he brings into record will have a good instrument to play. I was most intrigued by the presence of a Koto on his desk. Shawn owns and runs his business and gets paid twice because usually, he hasn’t just engineered the song he is recording/creating but composed it as well. Financially speaking this affirms in my mind just how much of a cash cow the marketing industry is though I’m not sure if I want to be a part of that process. In addition to Shawn’s workspace we were shown a second studio, which seemed to be used for communicating with clients interstate or overseas. We were treated to a nightmare story of the 3rd studio breaking down and the impatience of clients awaiting the transfer of information from the malfunctioning studio to a functioning one. This of course is a very bad thing to have happen in a professional context. The third studio seemed to be the best one, the employee who inhabited it worked for Shawn but also, rented the space and did his own thing there too. In terms of making money from having knowledge of sound engineering, Timm’s tunes definitely seems to be the ticket. However, it does not seem like a place where a career/art could be forged.

Weeks 8 and nine Movies movies movies

Week Nine Today we were shown around Oasis Post (one of Adelaide’s High End Post Production and Special Effects Facilities). A theme that seems to reoccur is that of versatility. Disc Edits have the capacity to master CDs and record voice overs, Mix Masters have the facilities to record to disc or cassette and at Oasis, the work ranges from adds to blockbuster films and their skills include the editing of visual and audio aspects of film. First of all, an overview, our guide gave us a bit of a run down on what they do and what equipment they have to do it. It seems that, like the film corporation, quite a number of medium sized films have past through the doors. Oasis have done well to acquire the best equipment and most efficient systems of communication and transfer We were sat down and shown a preview for the follow up to Wolf Creek, Rogue. As far as I was concerned the movie seemed indistinguishable in visual and audio quality from any other blockbuster. It is pleasing to see that film makers from America bring their work to Australia for the finishing touches and I guess the quality of Rogue is a fine indication of why (or maybe once again, like the film corp. it is more to do with subsidies and cheaper costs.) The next room we were shown was a neutral space for previewing work with. I cannot for the life of me recollect its specific purpose. There is a projector in this room that can ‘learn’ what the conditions of the room are and adjust its projections accordingly. For example, at Oasis, it ‘knew’ that 3 of the walls were black curtain and one was stone. Lastly, we were shown Tracks Adelaide, the incorporated facility for editing sound to video (courtesy of ProTools). The way Oasis is set up, information from a computer working on visuals can accessed by the Tracks Adelaide Computer (save time on transfer of info). Tracks Adelaide use a smaller version of the Icon desk and, while we were there, the engineer was working on a DVD for the Hilltop Hoods performance with a symphony orchestra (mostly for love). Week 8: FILM CORP and the crazy white room with no walls floor or ceiling Back out to the industrial wasteland west of the city this time to look around the Film Corporation. Oddly enough, this entity is government owned and funded. The Film Corp. is versatile, essentially, the building is a Space that people can rent out and use. There is a studio for foley work (the idea that foley is crucial is reinforced yet again.) The foley recording space is a comfortably messy area, there are several varieties of ground, a bicycle, misc. A couple of good room mics, a remote control system to hit play on Protools for those days when the techie has to work alone. While we were there, the sound guys was working on the Foley for some b grade Aussie kids show (I’ve never ceased to wonder where these shows get churned out from). There were some instances where the foley guy had to ‘invent’ a sound (i.e. a scene with a baby crawling around in it). If a filmmaker has hoped to just use the sound caught on location, they are dreaming. Should you ever want to take the show overseas, the actors’ voices will be dubbed over and all the other Foley will need doing then too, best to do it at the beginning. We didn’t get to look in one of the filming spaces but we did get to go into the room with the crazy non-walls. While we were there, they were white, often they are a particular shade of green which is immensely hard to come by. You may have heard the term ‘blue screen’, in Australia, you can’t get blue screen, the paint for it was on sale once at the very beginning and never again (hence the green screen). The highlight for me was most definitely attempting to walk to the corner of the room with no walls or corners, very trippy. Our next thing to look at was the studio for synching sound and film. The Film Corp uses a monster desk called a Harrison (the techie treated us to its equivalent to Vegas mode, an act that was met with a collective, appreciative ‘ooh’). The Harrison has 92 inputs but even that cannot save it from being made obsolete, already, the film corp. is looking to acquire an Icon desk. In short, the have to if they want to stay competitive. A lot of movies get made in Australia or New Zealand because it is cheap.

Film music guest person stuff (this is a blog)

This week’s forum saw us all learning about music in film. It’s a pretty involved process, lots of teamwork involved. Essentially, no sound in film is source sound. For one thing, reality is not exaggerated enough. Hollywood has us used to hearing the whoosh of air and the smack of skin when someone pulls a punch and the rustling of clothes when someone moves, the crunching of gravel when someone walks and the jangling of car keys in their pocket. It’s the attention to these minute details that suspend the viewer’s disbelief (well, I think so anyway). The person in charge of this magic is the Foley artist. (All but rustling, someone else is in charge of rustling). In Hollywood, the workload is split up into very specific parts, everyone specialises (like Japanese mechanics). You have the - Foley artist, - Rustle track guy, - The person in charge of overdubbing the dialogue, - Someone who composes scores, - Someone who arranges them, - Someone who makes them readable - Librarian (a surprisingly important member of the film making army) As far as composing film music is concerned, it is hard not to be influenced by the temp track (according to our guest speaker). Before composing a note, go and talk the director/producer and get as much of an idea as to what they want and what would be appropriate for respective scenes. Also, get an idea of what instruments you have to play with. When composing, it is important to remember that at the end of the day, dialogue comes FIRST. Compose sound that will compete with the dialogue and it will be squashed down and hidden in the background. Likewise, if a character is singing on screen, accompanying music will need to be small. Point of View camera shots are a good opportunity to put in some additional music. Ask yourself ‘why is the camera moving, what is it trying to portray?’ Lastly, the guest speaker played us the promotional video for a Sony game to which he composed the music and created the sound effects. He suggests attempting to source sounds from the Hollywood vaults of recordings as Hollywood has the money to create the best quality recordings around. He told us a tale of a fellow who spent a day recording sports cars racing down a tunnel. My conclusions in respect to the actual music were that, game music is a good opportunity to play with MIDI and create what is essentially techno/electronica.

Week 4?? 5? what ever week following the post before this one ha ha.: DISC EDITS

This week’s forum excursion found me falling asleep in disc edits. In my half-asleep haze I learnt that these guys got in on mastering CDs nice and early. Their soundproofing and design was impeccable, their equipment good quality and their couches allegedly pretty comfy. Disc edits have been operating since around 1992. Originally I think they intended to do other things like recording voice-overs. The equipment for this is still present and used. However, as CDs came to the fore of the audio landscape, it became apparent that something needed to replace the editing process present in tape recordings, something was needed to restore a little warmth to digital recording, disc edits set out to become a mastering studio. Like other mastering studios we have heard about, disc edits possess an array of analogue devices through which signal can be processed. They also make good use of equalisation and have an oscilloscope device that can tell you what the stereo image is doing. I was somewhat perplexed to learn that they usually listen to music at 80 db (at this level, you can work for an hour I think before needing to take a break). Personally, I would try and work at as low a level as possible (so at night, you could probably get away with considerably less than 80 db). However, it is imperative that every different recording requiring analysis for effective mastering is listened to through the same speakers and at the same volume. An hour and 45 minutes into this excursion, I woke right up when our disc edits man gave us the history of recorded music in 15 minutes (impressive). All of the manufacturing processes up until the point of CDs I was at least a little bit familiar with and yet this guy managed to make it sound interesting. Finally, he arrived at the era of the CD and not only told us about ‘Glass Masters’ but showed us one as well. In fact, he had 3 Glass masters (I think) and was able to show us the Glass, the Glass with a nickel coating and the Glass after it has been etched. He seemed mystified as to why bands might ask to keep their Glass Masters. That is no mystery to me, they look COOL.