I discovered today that in this industry you could have multiple tasks to complete at one time. Jim spent time in the office and in the control room while he worked on two different projects. The first was a digital audio tape and the second task was a DVD transfer. The digital audio tape goes in a machine called DA-45. Jim transferred it and made a CD and mp3s for the client. When we listened to what was on the tape, it was a women’s voice. I heard noises that she was making with her mouth while she talked. Jim explained to me that he can’t fix that sound, or get rid of it without an extensive amount of manual editing time. That is something that should have been fixed while it was being recorded, during the tracking process. For the CD and mp3s, Jim can choose a quality that is higher or better than the original while transferring. Also, he could have adjusted the volume if it needed to be louder or softer. He compressed the data via mp3 into 32 megabytes for 42 minutes of material. The video to DVD transfer has to go through an A/D process, in which it goes from the VCR to the computer into a video program. Jim took two songs from a DVD, then edited them by adjusting the volume, and put it back on a DVD. This is done by transferring to a video editing program, making the changes, then sending it to a DVD authoring program to make the final DVD. Jim told me that the way to tell if our media is a CD or DVD is that CD’s are usually green or blue on the bottom and DVD’s are usually purple. CD’s are only supposed to be burned once and if they were more than once, it could have glitches. I would be able to see gaps on the CD if I looked at it.
When Jim finished what he was asked to do for the clients, he called them to let them know. He didn’t waste any time, which showed me how professional you must be. While in the office, I see Jim discussing conflicts with gigs/sessions and making business decisions about Pure Wave Audio (the online pro audio retail store that Jim also runs out of the studio). This profession can be very demanding and some weeks could be more stressful and intense than others. But when you’re so busy, you still want to have a personal life. Balancing your personal life and career can be challenging. I may want to consider this as a minus when making a career choice. However, I believe that having a limited personal life mostly comes with any job! Especially in this industry, working a lot is appropriate and required if you want to succeed in it. It does not affect my decision to want to be in this industry at all.
For the remainder of the day, I talked to Joe. He filled me in on some of the things that I was confused about. For instance, one day when Jim was working with Alisha in the control room, he told her that he would make up some mixes. Joe explained that this meant Jim would create the sounds Alisha would hear through her headphones while she is singing in the vocal booth. If she wanted to hear the piano louder and less guitar, then Jim would do just that. These mixes are referred to as a headphone mix, and are to help Alisha sing on point. They are not necessarily going to be the final mix for the song.
