Day #13

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.

Day #12

The project that Jim was working on when I got to the studio was for his client, Wes. The client was in the process of making a rock oriented album. Jim was starting the mix for the first song so when Wes came in to sing he would be able to do it. The song has a lot of guitar tracks and too much of it could be distracting or not what Wes wants to hear while he sings. While Jim edited the song and listened to the instruments on the program, he sometimes muted one instrument in order to hear another better. He did that to hear what it sounded like as a single instrument as opposed to hearing all of the instruments together. Perhaps he also did it to get it to sound exactly the way he wanted. There were timing issues with the guitar that was played and recorded on the song. There is a lot that Jim could do, but since the chords were “hanging over” he couldn’t do much to fix it. Jim prefers to re-record the musician in order to capture best performance, rather than having to do a lot of editing. That is a great thing, in my opinion. What he decided to do was create an effect by putting in a delay. There was a part in the song that was “dead” and “dry” so Jim decided to add reverb/delay to it. He explained to me that messing with multiple effects to mask issues was not his favorite part, but sometimes has to be done.

Jim explained to me that this was a nine song project that had not been worked on in a couple of months. In addition, it had taken a while to even do the guitar parts, which makes the editing process a bit more challenging. He says usually it is easy for him to remember exactly the style and sound the client is hoping to achieve, but it gets difficult when hasn’t worked on a project in a long time and works with other clients in between. I can definitely understand why that would be complicated. In the second song, Jim edited out the “noise”, when the guitar is not playing, by deleting it. After adding effects to the guitar parts and making sure they sounded the way he wanted them too, he rendered it. Next was the third song, and it sounded different than the others. Jim said that he used mixes from a different song as a template for this song. I didn’t know you could do that, but it seems like it would save time during the process. For two of Wes’ songs, he has raw vocals. That means he recorded a vocal track before the final and perfect one, so he could remember the melody and specific way he wanted to sing it. Wes now has to come in and record the vocals to complete the songs.

Another client, John, came in for an appointment. He talked about his background and let Jim, and the bass guitar player, Chris, know why he wanted to start a project possibly at Allusion Studios. He had made a few songs for his family in his home studio. What he wants to do now is take the original songs but make them more professional maybe even more modern sounding. It was interesting for me to see Jim and Chris interact with this new client. I had never seen a new client start at the studio before. I really enjoyed hearing how much this meant to John and why he wants to make his music better. When we listened to some of his songs, I noticed that they only had lead vocals and a limited number of instruments. What Jim discussed with him was prices, dates for the project to begin, and the number of musicians needed to help with the songs.

The last client to come in today was Alisha. This day really showed me how packed and crazy one day at the studio can be! Jim and Alisha went through all three of her songs and listened to them. I could see the positive changes from the beginning of the process to what it has become now! Both Jim and Alisha made final edits on the song while listening. For example, in the first song, Alisha noticed when she sang the word “face” you could not hear the “c” sound. Instead of having Alisha sing it back in, he went to the trash can, on his computer, and took out one of the old tracks that she sang from the same line. He edited in only the word “face”. Then Jim rendered all of the virtual stuff and the first song was complete!

For the second song, they listened all the way through and then make final touches to see if there was anything they wanted to change, just like they did for the first one. I saw how Jim is a fair and professional person. He allowed Alisha to have so much say in the decisions made for her songs. I was not surprised because he had done that during the entire process but it was just exciting for me to see someone close to my age accomplish this. Once they finished, Jim rendered the different parts of the song, and then the whole song.

Lastly, they edited the third song. For example, at one point Jim asked Alisha if she liked the vocal volumes and she did. Jim mentioned that he thought he heard a wrong chord in the song. It turned out that he didn’t, but I wonder what would happen if there really were any wrong chords. Would she have to re-record them? How often does that occur? There was a certain part in the song where Alisha kind of sing/screams, and after that she wanted to add an interesting wind sound. Jim went to a website online and typed in what sound he was looking for. Many options were available and some sounded a lot better than others. Jim saved the one they agreed on liking and added it into the song. It was added like any other track would be and Jim faded it in and out. I believe this is called cross fading. In order to hear the new sound better, Jim put on the headphones, which he does from time to time. Then he had to make sure he and Alisha liked the volume of it. Finally, Jim rendered the song and mastered the CD. When doing this, the artist has to consider the order of the songs, meaning how they will appear as a final product. Also, Alisha had a picture that was going to go on the CD. The songs were finished and they sounded great!

Day #11

Joe and I were in the office and he told me about a newsletter that is sent out every month. The recent newsletter contained information about the Grammy nominations of a few songs that Jim had been involved with. He wanted to sort of push them out for Grammy voters. While Joe worked on that project, I edited Jim’s Pure Wave Audio website. There were a few products that needed to be deleted from the website, so that is what I did. For the rest of the time, Joe gave me a second tour of the studio. We went through each room and he explained to me in detail of what each item did for the entire recording process. It was an extremely helpful thing because now that I know more about the industry, I could comprehend and better connect the words he was saying with what I had observed. It was a drastic difference of knowledge for me compared to the very first day when Jim did the same tour.

Day #10

Chris, a bass guitar player, was in the control room today to perform bass on some of Alisha’s songs. He plays a bass guitar with four strings. Chris and Jim explained to me that the bass plays more of the single notes while guitars play chords. Jim said the bass player makes the song. Also, it helps the recording process greatly when they are open to suggestions and can respectfully work with others involved. This was helpful because I was only familiar with guitars and could now understand better what the session was revolved around. I noticed that Chris’ bass guitar was plugged into a machine in the control room. I was not used to seeing this because typically, I saw someone playing their instrument in the vocal booth or the other room. Jim explained to me that Chris’ bass guitar was plugged into a preamplifier and he could be in the control room because his instrument didn’t bleed into anything. By doing this, the electronics does it for you and the sound goes through the wire, therefore you could play with other musicians too.

For the first song, Chris tuned his bass guitar and played different things until he and Jim heard something that they liked or felt would work with Alisha’s song. They recorded a few different parts and then went back through it and decided to keep some parts and change others. I wondered how frequent musicians come into the studio not fully sure of the music they want to record. When Alisha arrived to the studio, they asked her for her opinion on the part. She quickly approved and Chris played it so Jim could record it as the final piece, not as a trial anymore. They all agreed that this song had a lot of piano so they didn’t think the bass should be moving around as much.

For the second song, they added bass as well. After figuring out how Chris could play in this song, they were all satisfied. The bass didn’t draw attention to itself in this song, yet it was still important to have it. However, at the bridge, Chris was allowed to drive and draw more attention to the bass guitar to balance it with the tension of the song at this specific point.

Lastly, the third song required bass too. Chris said it was best to keep it simple and not add too much bass. Even though it can be tempting to fill it will a lot of bass, or any other instrument for that matter, it is best to know the sound that you want to achieve, and I observed that all of the people involved in this process definitely knew that. The whole time I am in this session, I can’t stop thinking about how badly I want the songs to be finished just so I can listen to them all the time! I wonder if Alisha’s songs are in the last stage of the process because all of the instruments have been recorded on the tracks and most of her vocals.

Day #9

The client in the studio today was Zia Aslamy, he is an engineer and said that making music was just his hobby. He spent time in the vocal booth singing in a language I was not familiar with; Afghanistan. I noticed Jim was correct when he said that the beats for the music change every measure so you can’t try to keep on the beat, it won’t work. This was obvious to me as I continued to listen. The effect that Jim had on his vocals sounded like an echo. It was an interesting sound and I hadn’t heard it before in the studio. I enjoyed the way it sounded. To me, it was truly exciting to see a song being recorded in a different language. It made me realize that no two sessions in the studio will ever be the same. There are so many different people in the world and they all have a unique way of expressing themselves through their music. Also, it takes each client a certain amount of time to correctly do what they want to a song depending on the song and the client’s ability.

A question I did have was if a client comes in the studio, like today, and records in a language you don’t speak, does it pose any problems during the process? It doesn’t seem to me that it does, in the session at least, especially considering the fact that both the client and Jim speak English. Zia decided he wanted to add harmony and Jim offered his opinion on it. I wonder how it would feel to know you influenced even a tiny part of a song and you loved it, or maybe it became really popular!

There was a part in the song where the client described as “empty.” Jim said this meant one instrument was dropped at this point and the client wanted to add a different one. So Jim copied the instrument the client preferred from a separate place in the song, into the “empty” part. Then, Zia was pleased with the way it sounded. The last step of the process was mastering the song. Jim explained that he used a program for making CD’s to do this. I believe that Jim controlled the volume and matched it for both of Zia’s songs. He made it consistent and balanced. Jim made the time between the tracks what he wanted. The other program that Jim used while recording and editing dealt with vocals and instruments. While the one for mastering dealt with each track that be would on the CD. Think of it this way, if one song was done in a home studio and one was done at a different studio, mastering would make them basically match in sound. If one song had too much bass, you could add bass to the other songs, or put less bass on that one.

In the office, I asked Joe about a few terms that were not easy for me to understand. He informed me that a fade-in fade-out was exactly what it sounded like. Also, that cross fades were used to smooth transitions so they were not audible to us. Compression, he clarified, was an audio process that takes a wave file, squishes it down and averages it out to the same level, then compensates the volume. For example, Joe stated that most pop music is over-compressed. And classical music actually has dynamic contrast, a difference in loudness and softness. He was truly insightful and opened my eyes to something he called volume wars, which is occurring today. A lot of people in the music business are competing for the loudest song on everyone’s iPod and radio. They are not focusing on the beauty of music, such as dynamics in the songs. It is kind of sad to me that music has gone down so much that they just want their songs to be the loudest, instead of simply trying to reach out and help others while sharing their love for music.

Day #8

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.

Day #7

The same client as yesterday, Alisha was in the studio again today. I discovered that Alisha is extremely intelligent and didn’t seem as young as she really is. It was interesting for me to compare her to the older clients I have observed in the studio. I saw that Jim and Alisha were in sync. It was clear that Alisha knew exactly what she wanted to hear when she was creating her music. Jim explained to me that this client normally does piano, guitar, and strings on her songs and most, not all, of her songs have only those three parts. Fernando and Jim are trying to get Alisha to think out of the box and try different sounds. Alisha played on the piano for a bit while she tried to do what they asked of her. They changed the effect they put on the piano many times because the previous ones didn’t sound enough like strings. You could still hear the piano popping through. Jim, Alisha, and Fernando all wanted more of an ensemble sound. Jim stated that he needed to “flat line the velocity” so that every note was clear.

Alisha then went into the vocal room to record vocals for the song they had been working on. Jim had to make mixes for the songs before she could do any tracks. I was not fully able to understand what he meant by that. Jim was very polite and respectful of her before she started recording. He asked her many questions, for example, how loud she wanted her vocals, and if everything else, such as the guitar, was as loud or soft as she wanted. As the tracks were being recorded, Jim put something that looked like brackets underneath a certain sections. My guess was that they were to mark a precise part for some reason.

Alisha’s voice was breathtaking! I was amazed to hear how mature and powerful her voice sounded. After she finished the lead vocals, she added a lower harmony to some phrases in the song. Then they worked on the vocals for the second song. Jim had her sing all the way through but then he went back to phrases he wanted her to sing over. They agree that they want to add background vocals but just to “compliment”. This song has lead vocals and they both want to keep it that way.

Day #6

Jim and his client Alisha were in the control room when I arrived. Fernando, the guitar player, was recording in the vocal room with an acoustic guitar. When he played, the jagged lines appeared on the computer screens, just like when previous clients sang into a microphone and the lines appeared on the screens. The first song that they were working on sounded slow and like a folk song. I noticed that if the guitar player messed up by accident that Jim could fix that one little section without interfering with the other parts. He could do this by simply highlighting and deleting the segment on the computer. If you fix a part in the middle of a section recorded, Jim said you must match the volume and resonance. If it’s not the same volume, you will hear a clicking noise. The client and Jim decided to have Fernando record a second track, which would ultimately be played at the same time as the first one. Jim offered his opinion on how to play the guitar parts at different points in the song. For example, he determined whether Fernando should “finger pick” or use the guitar pick. Also, Jim clarified to me that the guitar player could do a variety of things on the guitar. He is not just really good at one thing, which is beneficial in case that one thing isn’t what the client wants. He is sort of a blank slate because he hasn’t heard much of the song. I believe that he is very talented because he is doing a great job while working with Jim and Alisha to achieve the sound they want. I recognize that if I were to make this my career, I would have to listen to both the client and the other musicians helping on the song.

Next, I began to focus a little more on the software on the computer that Jim was using because I was not very familiar with it. By software, I mean the program he uses to record the tracks and edit them on the computer. It has a multiple number of rows. Each row is used for a separate part of the entire song. For example, there is a row for bass, drums, vocals, guitar, and piano. In addition, there is even a place for multiple tracks in one category, which is called duplicating. To the left of each row, there is a box with multiple editing tools on it. Jim can press record, control the volume, and do many more things. But I am not positive what the others are. There is a vertical line on the screen that moves horizontally over the “jagged lines” of the song. It shows the person where the exact place is in the song that they are listening to.

After listening to the second song before the editing process, I realized her voice is very distinctive and strong. At this point, Jim and Alisha picked what instruments they wanted on the song. Alisha stated that she didn’t want too much guitar on this song. So she played on the piano and tried out different parts to see what she wanted to add. Jim used different effects on the piano so that it didn’t sound like a piano was being played, but perhaps a violin. Jim said he wanted to add strings and vibes on the song. Later he explained that when he said “vibes” he meant vibraphone, which would add a dream-like sound. They decided to add a guitar verse to make the song have a blues sound. Jim commented on how the volume difference completely changes the character of the song. It now sounds very U2, or at least the guitar part does and he wanted it to sound “dreamier”. Overall, I completely enjoyed my experience at the studio and realized that I could see myself very happy in the future if I did choose to work in this industry.

Day #5

Today I did much of the same work that I did on Friday. I see how significant it is to let people know of all of the features the studio has to offer. Marketing for any company in general can only be an advantage for them.

Day #4

I spent all of my time in the office today to view a completely separate part of the business. Mainly, I was focused on the marketing aspect of the job. Simply stated, I searched for local bands through a social networking site and sent them a message. Basically, it informed the band of Allusion Studios and its existence and for them to check out all of the specifics the studio offers. It was an excellent experience and a necessary one, I believe. Though I would rather watch the recording process, I still benefited from learning how to be successful in this industry.