Jim was playing the drums in the live room with a guitar player and a bass guitar player. I wondered if it was ever distracting recording with multiple people rather than just playing by yourself. Chase informed me that sometimes it is actually easier because you have that “live feel” and the musicians can play off the other musicians. In some cases, the clients may want to play in the live room to get the sound and the dynamics of a “jam band”, which is a band that plays together for fun and because they love it. I made the assumption that they all had different mixes that they were listening to through the headphones. I questioned how Jim could control the actions he usually does in the control room if he was in the live room playing the drums. Chase explained that he was using something called a wireless transport controller which allowed him to have some control over what he did from the other room. Editing-wise, Jim doesn’t have as much control. The transport controller has a playback button, rewind, fast-forward, and record buttons. I understood that this was a convenient device for engineers who participate in the session as a musician like Jim did. Jim edited the tracks to make them sound the way he wanted them to. Fernando, the guitar player, did a solo at one point in the song. His amp was in the guitar room so that it was isolated from the other instruments. Jim mentioned he could “de-noise” the buzz of the guitar and I didn’t comprehend what he meant by that. Chase told me Jim could take the frequency of the buzz, and then figure out what it looked like then subtract it from the wave. That would be removing the noise from the signal. Also, when the bass player came in late on the intro, Jim could essentially fix that so that it was the correct timing. The bass player was Jim’s client and he wanted the one song burned audio CD.
Jim explained to me that all clients are different as are his relationships with them. Some book the studio for two weeks, some for only three to four hours, and some every two weeks. Inconsistency is something you have to be familiar with if you work in this business.
Later I decided to ask about everyone’s education levels. Chase said that he went to college and the types of courses he had to take included music theory, ear training, and music history. In addition, he took guitar lessons, music business, economics, accounting, and piano. It was very interesting to hear about the classes. It is something for me to consider when I think about pursuing audio engineering as my career. I know that I would be extremely fascinated in classes like music theory and music history! Joe explained that also went to college and took a lot of the same courses as Chase. His degree was in music composition but I notice that at the studio he also does a lot of web development and communications. Jim achieved his degree in electrical engineering. I suppose that I could choose from several areas in the music field as long as it is something I am passionate about.
