Monday, October 24, 2011
"Lost in the Sound of Separation" Underoath Podcast
Here's the link to my podcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gapk2Fl456E
Peer Comment
Curtis,
I really liked your review of Kraftwerk’s history. I especially liked the section where you were talking about their specific albums and the story or concept behind them. They were definitely an innovative band that was very experimental in their music. It was good that you pointed out that each album had it’s own concept behind them. I felt that that was very important to their style. The last section where you talked about how you felt about the band was a great response. I, as well, feel that they were well ahead of their time. It would be very interesting to see what they could do if they were alive today with our technology. Great job overall.
Kyle Ballard
I really liked your review of Kraftwerk’s history. I especially liked the section where you were talking about their specific albums and the story or concept behind them. They were definitely an innovative band that was very experimental in their music. It was good that you pointed out that each album had it’s own concept behind them. I felt that that was very important to their style. The last section where you talked about how you felt about the band was a great response. I, as well, feel that they were well ahead of their time. It would be very interesting to see what they could do if they were alive today with our technology. Great job overall.
Kyle Ballard
"Lost in the Sound of Separation" Underoath
"Lost in the Sound of Separation"- Underoath
Underoath, the metalcore band, was originally a high school band that started in Ocala, Florida. As of April, 5, 2010, Underoath is now a completely different band then when it started. It’s last original member, Aaron Gillespie, left the band in April to focus on a different project. The last album Aaron was a part of was Lost in the Sound of Separation and that is why I am focusing on it.
One of my favorite things about Underoath is the drumming. Aaron Gillespie is a drummer that doesn’t play just straight 4/4 beats all the time. He constantly is changing up the fills and off beats throughout the song but it is done so perfectly. The engineer that was mostly in charge of tracking the drums for this album is Matt Goldman. One of the cool things they talked about in the documentary “The Making of Lost in the Sound of Separation” was how most drummers that come into Matt’s studio don’t usually end up using much if any of the drums that they are endorsed by to record. For this album though, Matt was extremely excited to use Aaron’s new set that Truth drums made for him. The set was more of a vintage looking set with a small kick drum. This was very big because it allowed him to play it a bit faster as well as it just plain sounded better.
Underoath is high dynamic, in your face type of band with a very unique style of vocals. There are two main vocalist for the band. The frontman for the band, Spencer Chamberlain, is the screamer vocalist. He does do a little singer here and there, but the clean singing voice is primarily sung by Aaron Gillespie who is also the drummer for the band. They do a intertwined vocal arrangement where they complement each other very well. One of the other great things about this band is their ability to connect their songs together within an album. There will be times where you don’t even realize that it has changed songs on you. There are way too many bands that put albums out of just singles that have nothing to do with each other, but Underoath puts them all together very well.
Underoath is probably my favorite band to listen to and that’s why I decided to write this blog on them. Anytime I’m in a bad mood, I know I can put one of their albums on really loud and just jam it out until I don’t care about what I was upset about before. “They’re Only Chasing Safety” was the first album I owned by them. I would fall asleep to it at least once a week for a lot of my middle school and high school years along with their other albums as they came out. I listen to them in my bad moods, but I also just love listening to them on my good days. Needless to say, they became my go to band to listen to at any time. The first two albums they put out were not that great at all, but when they put out “They’re Only Chasing Safety”, they found their sound and just perfected it after that.
Underoath, the metalcore band, was originally a high school band that started in Ocala, Florida. As of April, 5, 2010, Underoath is now a completely different band then when it started. It’s last original member, Aaron Gillespie, left the band in April to focus on a different project. The last album Aaron was a part of was Lost in the Sound of Separation and that is why I am focusing on it.
One of my favorite things about Underoath is the drumming. Aaron Gillespie is a drummer that doesn’t play just straight 4/4 beats all the time. He constantly is changing up the fills and off beats throughout the song but it is done so perfectly. The engineer that was mostly in charge of tracking the drums for this album is Matt Goldman. One of the cool things they talked about in the documentary “The Making of Lost in the Sound of Separation” was how most drummers that come into Matt’s studio don’t usually end up using much if any of the drums that they are endorsed by to record. For this album though, Matt was extremely excited to use Aaron’s new set that Truth drums made for him. The set was more of a vintage looking set with a small kick drum. This was very big because it allowed him to play it a bit faster as well as it just plain sounded better.
Underoath is high dynamic, in your face type of band with a very unique style of vocals. There are two main vocalist for the band. The frontman for the band, Spencer Chamberlain, is the screamer vocalist. He does do a little singer here and there, but the clean singing voice is primarily sung by Aaron Gillespie who is also the drummer for the band. They do a intertwined vocal arrangement where they complement each other very well. One of the other great things about this band is their ability to connect their songs together within an album. There will be times where you don’t even realize that it has changed songs on you. There are way too many bands that put albums out of just singles that have nothing to do with each other, but Underoath puts them all together very well.
Underoath is probably my favorite band to listen to and that’s why I decided to write this blog on them. Anytime I’m in a bad mood, I know I can put one of their albums on really loud and just jam it out until I don’t care about what I was upset about before. “They’re Only Chasing Safety” was the first album I owned by them. I would fall asleep to it at least once a week for a lot of my middle school and high school years along with their other albums as they came out. I listen to them in my bad moods, but I also just love listening to them on my good days. Needless to say, they became my go to band to listen to at any time. The first two albums they put out were not that great at all, but when they put out “They’re Only Chasing Safety”, they found their sound and just perfected it after that.
References for Lost in the Sound of Separation- Underoath
For this research I used two sources. The first one was a short documentary called "The Making of Lost in the Sound of Separation" that came with the album. The other was the Wikipedia page for some dates and spellings of names. That can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoath
Everything else is just personal experience or opinions.
Everything else is just personal experience or opinions.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Kraftwerk
There as so many words that come to mind when you first hear some of Kraftwerk’s music. I think the best word would have to be experimental. Some of the earlier albums were extremely experimental even to the point were I could not sit there listening to it and consider it music necessarily. The later albums started to create and mold their true sound. The self titled album, Kraftwerk was an album that is considered experimental to this day in my opinion. The first time I heard one of the songs off of this album, I sat there in aw. I couldn’t believe that anyone considered it music. To me it just sounded like a lot of random noises coming from those early synthesizers.
Once the band kind of developed their sound a little better, they created the album called Autobahn. This album was made to sound like a car traveling down a road. One of the very cool things Kraftwerk did with their albums was the idea of having a concept behind each album. They said that this was necessary in order to create good albums. For instance, Autobahn was about the car driving down the road. Another good example of this would be Trans-Europe Express which had the feeling of a train as the concept for the album. Whenever they performed live, they would dress up all the same and do everything in a very robotic style. Their emotionless attitude on stage was a brand of its own.
Like I said earlier, at first Kraftwerk was a band I thought I would never listen to again after the first song I heard by them. They had this album that was basically an album of random sounds they could create with synths,tape delays and other new stuff. As the progression of their sound was perfected more and more, they started to sound a bit like music we have today. I probably won’t sit down and listen to Kraftwerks albums over and over, but I respect the fact that they were the innovators of the music I enjoy now and days. Without them, we wouldn’t have great music like dubstep or really any techno music that we have today.
Once the band kind of developed their sound a little better, they created the album called Autobahn. This album was made to sound like a car traveling down a road. One of the very cool things Kraftwerk did with their albums was the idea of having a concept behind each album. They said that this was necessary in order to create good albums. For instance, Autobahn was about the car driving down the road. Another good example of this would be Trans-Europe Express which had the feeling of a train as the concept for the album. Whenever they performed live, they would dress up all the same and do everything in a very robotic style. Their emotionless attitude on stage was a brand of its own.
Like I said earlier, at first Kraftwerk was a band I thought I would never listen to again after the first song I heard by them. They had this album that was basically an album of random sounds they could create with synths,tape delays and other new stuff. As the progression of their sound was perfected more and more, they started to sound a bit like music we have today. I probably won’t sit down and listen to Kraftwerks albums over and over, but I respect the fact that they were the innovators of the music I enjoy now and days. Without them, we wouldn’t have great music like dubstep or really any techno music that we have today.
References for Kraftwerk
Zappa, Frank. Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution. Retrieved from
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v17166226D39Jw7dc
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v17166226D39Jw7dc
Peer Comment
Devon,
I really enjoyed your take on The Velvet Underground & Nico. I agree with you that they had a sound that no one could really take in and appreciate at the time. There have been so many bands that have been influenced by their music. I also really liked how you talked about John Cale a lot. He definitely had a huge part in how the band sounded with his super unique viola. I really liked how you pointed out Andy Warhol as being a big reason The Velvet Underground & Nico were pretty successful. He definitely had a large role in the whole process. Over all, good summary of the band and what we learned.
Kyle Ballard
I really enjoyed your take on The Velvet Underground & Nico. I agree with you that they had a sound that no one could really take in and appreciate at the time. There have been so many bands that have been influenced by their music. I also really liked how you talked about John Cale a lot. He definitely had a huge part in how the band sounded with his super unique viola. I really liked how you pointed out Andy Warhol as being a big reason The Velvet Underground & Nico were pretty successful. He definitely had a large role in the whole process. Over all, good summary of the band and what we learned.
Kyle Ballard
Monday, October 10, 2011
Podcast Project One
Here's my take on some of the new techniques that The Beatles used on their album Revolver.
Here's the link to my youtube page to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8vlSuXlhcc
Here's the link to my youtube page to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8vlSuXlhcc
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground & Nico is a very interesting band to sit down and listen to. At first, like myself, you might say, “Wow, these guys are all on drugs and have no idea that they are so out of tune,” but then you realize why they do that.
The Velvet Underground didn’t really care what their sound was that they were playing. It was more about the message of the words. Like the podcast was talking about, the songs were an extremely easy chord progression. They would have three chords for the whole song sometimes. While they were on drugs a lot of the time, they concentrated on having fun and not carrying wither or not people liked them.
John Cale was one of the main songwriters for the band. He was originally from Wales but then came over to America to pursue a scholarship he received. He started in orchestras and that’s where his influence of the viola came from, which later became modified into more of drone instrument.
Lou Reed was the other primary songwriter of the group. He spent a lot of his time talking about sexuality and drug use. One of his most popular songs, heroine is a great example of this. He was very open about his drug use. This was very different than other mainstream bands of that era. Andy Warhol saw this in the band and decided to take this band under his wing and help them create the music they wanted.
Andy was the artist that used the banana as the cover art for one of The Velvet Underground’s albums. They tied art and music together very tightly. The production quality in the recordings of the albums wasn’t the greatest. There would be songs they would just do a take of and call it good. There was also a lot of feedback in the recordings and they didn’t really seem to car. They didn’t really use the traditional way of recording for their albums and this gave them another big difference in their music.
The Velvet Underground & Nico is a very unique band to listen to. When I first heard them, I couldn’t believe that this was really going to be a band that I would study. Honestly, I still don’t really enjoy their music but I definitely have more respect for what they did. They were innovators of the rock era. They wanted to be different, even if people didn’t like what they were playing. They just wanted to write songs that they enjoyed. I respect them as a band but probably won’t listen to them again in my life unless I need some “different inspiration.”
The Velvet Underground didn’t really care what their sound was that they were playing. It was more about the message of the words. Like the podcast was talking about, the songs were an extremely easy chord progression. They would have three chords for the whole song sometimes. While they were on drugs a lot of the time, they concentrated on having fun and not carrying wither or not people liked them.
John Cale was one of the main songwriters for the band. He was originally from Wales but then came over to America to pursue a scholarship he received. He started in orchestras and that’s where his influence of the viola came from, which later became modified into more of drone instrument.
Lou Reed was the other primary songwriter of the group. He spent a lot of his time talking about sexuality and drug use. One of his most popular songs, heroine is a great example of this. He was very open about his drug use. This was very different than other mainstream bands of that era. Andy Warhol saw this in the band and decided to take this band under his wing and help them create the music they wanted.
Andy was the artist that used the banana as the cover art for one of The Velvet Underground’s albums. They tied art and music together very tightly. The production quality in the recordings of the albums wasn’t the greatest. There would be songs they would just do a take of and call it good. There was also a lot of feedback in the recordings and they didn’t really seem to car. They didn’t really use the traditional way of recording for their albums and this gave them another big difference in their music.
The Velvet Underground & Nico is a very unique band to listen to. When I first heard them, I couldn’t believe that this was really going to be a band that I would study. Honestly, I still don’t really enjoy their music but I definitely have more respect for what they did. They were innovators of the rock era. They wanted to be different, even if people didn’t like what they were playing. They just wanted to write songs that they enjoyed. I respect them as a band but probably won’t listen to them again in my life unless I need some “different inspiration.”
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
Marvin Gaye was probably the best listening homework we have had so far. I really enjoyed his album “What’s Going On.” While the Beatles and the Beach Boys have their place, I would much rather listen to someone like Marvin Gaye.
Before Marvin Gaye was a solo artist, he started as a studio musician in the Snake Pit studio of Motown. He spent hours of his life recording and arranging songs for big name artists of that era. He finally found his place in music once he got his record “What’s Going On” distributed.
This album was greatly influenced by people around him that were going through hards times and even people he didn’t know. His brother shared many stories with him about people in Vietnam while he was there for the war. He decided to sort of “call out” people on all the hate going on in the world.
Once the album was recorded and finished, the hardest part was getting it cleared by the higher ups. His biggest obstacle was actually his wife’s brother, Gordy. He refused to send this album up to the next person in line for approval.
Marvin did not want to be like the normal Motown style artist. He went as far as getting a whole new set of studio musicians to come in and help him record the album. All the other albums had the same producers, engineers, arrangers, and writers. He decided to not use any of them and have his own sound. His engineer accidentally played two different tracks of Marvin’s vocals at once created a double of his voice. When Marvin heard this he feel in love with it and this become sort of his signature sound of that time.
As an engineer, I really liked this album. Marvin, as rebellious as he was, realized the importance of sound quality and made a really good sounding album. I liked how he talked about needed to love each more. I love the idea of loving each other and helping your neighbor. It’s a very powerful message he presents to us.
Before Marvin Gaye was a solo artist, he started as a studio musician in the Snake Pit studio of Motown. He spent hours of his life recording and arranging songs for big name artists of that era. He finally found his place in music once he got his record “What’s Going On” distributed.
This album was greatly influenced by people around him that were going through hards times and even people he didn’t know. His brother shared many stories with him about people in Vietnam while he was there for the war. He decided to sort of “call out” people on all the hate going on in the world.
Once the album was recorded and finished, the hardest part was getting it cleared by the higher ups. His biggest obstacle was actually his wife’s brother, Gordy. He refused to send this album up to the next person in line for approval.
Marvin did not want to be like the normal Motown style artist. He went as far as getting a whole new set of studio musicians to come in and help him record the album. All the other albums had the same producers, engineers, arrangers, and writers. He decided to not use any of them and have his own sound. His engineer accidentally played two different tracks of Marvin’s vocals at once created a double of his voice. When Marvin heard this he feel in love with it and this become sort of his signature sound of that time.
As an engineer, I really liked this album. Marvin, as rebellious as he was, realized the importance of sound quality and made a really good sounding album. I liked how he talked about needed to love each more. I love the idea of loving each other and helping your neighbor. It’s a very powerful message he presents to us.
Peer Comment
Devon,
You put a really good summary together for the Beatles’ Revolver Album. You took all the things we learned and put them in a concise couple of paragraphs telling us some of the more important facts.
The only thing I would have liked to have seen differently, primarily in the last paragraph, is some more personal opinions. I feel like you took your opinions and said it as the majority’s opinion. Not that that is bad necessarily, but I think since it was a question directed towards you. I think your opinions could have been stated with “I think,” or “I feel,” and it would have been a little more personal.
I feel like you covered the main topics very well though. Overall, very good job.
Kyle Ballard
You put a really good summary together for the Beatles’ Revolver Album. You took all the things we learned and put them in a concise couple of paragraphs telling us some of the more important facts.
The only thing I would have liked to have seen differently, primarily in the last paragraph, is some more personal opinions. I feel like you took your opinions and said it as the majority’s opinion. Not that that is bad necessarily, but I think since it was a question directed towards you. I think your opinions could have been stated with “I think,” or “I feel,” and it would have been a little more personal.
I feel like you covered the main topics very well though. Overall, very good job.
Kyle Ballard
References for The Velvet Underground & Nico and Marvin Gaye
The Velvet Underground & Nico
Musicdox.net. The Southband Show - The Velvet Underground. Retrieved from:
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18444087ZF6xZy9c
Marvin Gaye
Ben Edmonds (December 7, 2010). What Went On. Retrieved from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract, and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract1
Musicdox.net. The Southband Show - The Velvet Underground. Retrieved from:
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18444087ZF6xZy9c
Marvin Gaye
Ben Edmonds (December 7, 2010). What Went On. Retrieved from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract, and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract1
Monday, October 3, 2011
References for Pet Sounds and Revolver
Pet Sounds
Bob Edwards. Brian Wilson Podcast. Retrieved from http://soundcloud.com
/chrispyspears/brian-wilson-podcast
Revolver
Paul Ingles (May 15, 2006). Everything Was Right: The Beatles' Revolver. Retrieved
from http://www.prx.org/pieces/15368-everything-was-right-the-beatles-
revolver
Bob Edwards. Brian Wilson Podcast. Retrieved from http://soundcloud.com
/chrispyspears/brian-wilson-podcast
Revolver
Paul Ingles (May 15, 2006). Everything Was Right: The Beatles' Revolver. Retrieved
from http://www.prx.org/pieces/15368-everything-was-right-the-beatles-
revolver
The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys had a very humble beginning. The sound they started off with was a lot of fun. The first albums were all very happy surfing music with lots of vocal harmonies. They were inspired by Dennis’s passion for surfing. Brian saw this huge fad that was about to start and decided to use surfing as the primary focus of their songs.
Brian Wilson was the writer of all the Beach Boys music. He was also the bassist for the band. A lot of the responsibilities of the band came onto his shoulders with having to write full length albums for him and his brother and having a full tour to play for. Right before a tour date, he flipped out on the plane and announced his stepping down from performing live. He wanted to just spend all of his time in the studio to write and record. He also experimented with drugs.
Pet Sounds was greatly influenced by Phil Spector’s work. While Phil would be producing, Brian would sit in the back and listen and see how Phil worked in order to learn the tricks of the trade. He would watch to see where he put microphones, levels on the boards and so on. While recording Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys used a lot different techniques. While the other brothers were on tour in Japan, Brian and his good friend Tony Asher recorded all the instruments for Pet Sounds. They used studio musicians to record this album. When the other brothers came back, they then recorded all the vocal tracks and doubling for the album. They also used sounds from animals to create very unique music. The album was also written as a complete album instead of just a bunch of singles compiled into the same album.
The album Pet Sounds is a very different album. I really like the fact that the album is a true album just flowing from one song to another. The harmonies that the Beach Boys created for this album and really all of their albums are really cool. I wish more artists today would create harmonies like the Beach Boys.
Brian Wilson was the writer of all the Beach Boys music. He was also the bassist for the band. A lot of the responsibilities of the band came onto his shoulders with having to write full length albums for him and his brother and having a full tour to play for. Right before a tour date, he flipped out on the plane and announced his stepping down from performing live. He wanted to just spend all of his time in the studio to write and record. He also experimented with drugs.
Pet Sounds was greatly influenced by Phil Spector’s work. While Phil would be producing, Brian would sit in the back and listen and see how Phil worked in order to learn the tricks of the trade. He would watch to see where he put microphones, levels on the boards and so on. While recording Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys used a lot different techniques. While the other brothers were on tour in Japan, Brian and his good friend Tony Asher recorded all the instruments for Pet Sounds. They used studio musicians to record this album. When the other brothers came back, they then recorded all the vocal tracks and doubling for the album. They also used sounds from animals to create very unique music. The album was also written as a complete album instead of just a bunch of singles compiled into the same album.
The album Pet Sounds is a very different album. I really like the fact that the album is a true album just flowing from one song to another. The harmonies that the Beach Boys created for this album and really all of their albums are really cool. I wish more artists today would create harmonies like the Beach Boys.
The Beatles' Revolver
There was not much sonically that you could distinctively tell the difference between the Beatles and the Beach Boys in the 1960’s other than the different voices. They were both writing happy music for everyone to enjoy. The Beach Boys primarily focusing on surfing while the Beatles focusing on love songs.
Eventually, with some time off between albums, the Beatles took a trip they would never forget. LSD was introduced to them before the “Revolver” album. There was also a lot of marijuana use after Bob Dylan introduced them to it. There were definitely songs that were written about these drugs. For instance, “Got to Get You into My Life” was later disclosed by Paul McCartney as being about marijuana. There were many others as well.
At the beginning of “Revolver”, they have a countdown into the first song. The goal of this album was to not be able to be played live just like it sounds on the cd. Obviously, they played a simplified version of it when they did play live. They wanted to be crazy and inventive with their album. This album was hinting at a new genre of music with things like reverse guitars. They were the innovators of the psychedelic music. They used a lot of new techniques to produce the sounds they got.
For instance, they were one of the first people to record Paul McCartney’s bass with another bass amplifier instead of an ordinary microphone. They got a very unique sound that had not been heard before this time. Another example of the innovations that came about during this album was the vocal doubling. When the Beatles would record doubles, it was very difficult to match the same timing for words for some of them. They brought up the idea of having a machine automatically do the double for them. One of the engineers on the album came up with a way to take a duplicate of the voice and delay it just slightly to the other and create the effect of almost two vocal tracks instead of one. They were also one of the first people to use compression on their tracks.
Before this class, I had never really listened to the Beatles. My parents were never fans and I myself never really got into them. As far as their music goes, I have an appreciation for what they did as far as inventions and creating these different sounds for us to enjoy, but I would much rather listen to music of our day. I will forever be in debt to their creation, but I feel we have taken these techniques and have mastered them. It is always very cool to go back to the roots of where it came from and see how good of a job they did right of at the start though. If the Beatles in their prime today, with all the things we have learned from them, I feel like my opinion would be greatly different.
Eventually, with some time off between albums, the Beatles took a trip they would never forget. LSD was introduced to them before the “Revolver” album. There was also a lot of marijuana use after Bob Dylan introduced them to it. There were definitely songs that were written about these drugs. For instance, “Got to Get You into My Life” was later disclosed by Paul McCartney as being about marijuana. There were many others as well.
At the beginning of “Revolver”, they have a countdown into the first song. The goal of this album was to not be able to be played live just like it sounds on the cd. Obviously, they played a simplified version of it when they did play live. They wanted to be crazy and inventive with their album. This album was hinting at a new genre of music with things like reverse guitars. They were the innovators of the psychedelic music. They used a lot of new techniques to produce the sounds they got.
For instance, they were one of the first people to record Paul McCartney’s bass with another bass amplifier instead of an ordinary microphone. They got a very unique sound that had not been heard before this time. Another example of the innovations that came about during this album was the vocal doubling. When the Beatles would record doubles, it was very difficult to match the same timing for words for some of them. They brought up the idea of having a machine automatically do the double for them. One of the engineers on the album came up with a way to take a duplicate of the voice and delay it just slightly to the other and create the effect of almost two vocal tracks instead of one. They were also one of the first people to use compression on their tracks.
Before this class, I had never really listened to the Beatles. My parents were never fans and I myself never really got into them. As far as their music goes, I have an appreciation for what they did as far as inventions and creating these different sounds for us to enjoy, but I would much rather listen to music of our day. I will forever be in debt to their creation, but I feel we have taken these techniques and have mastered them. It is always very cool to go back to the roots of where it came from and see how good of a job they did right of at the start though. If the Beatles in their prime today, with all the things we have learned from them, I feel like my opinion would be greatly different.
Introduction Blog
Hello everyone, my name is Kyle Ballard. I am a recording engineer from Longmont, Colorado going to school at Full Sail University for my degree in Recording Arts. My humble beginnings started at a church back home. I learned how to run live sound for my youth group in my sophomore year of high school. I spent hours and hours teaching myself how everything worked through trial and error with help from some other audio people. Running live sound came very natural to me. Eventually I was asked to run sound for one of the camps that summer. This is where I learned the most. I had to pack up, set up, troubleshoot a whole live band and P.A. system all by myself. I eventually dropped out of all my high school sports in order to pursue my passion in mixing sound for a living. I spent fifteen or more hours a week mixing different venues at my church every week all on a volunteer basis. The next step was to find a way to make this passion pay the bills down the road.
After I had told my parents about dropping out of sports, they had to know the reasoning behind it. I was on track to play varsity football, basketball and lacrosse all by my junior year of high school. I told them I wanted to work as an audio engineer. I had to explain to them what it really was I wanted to do. After some convincing and a tour of Full Sail, my parents and I both knew this was the place for me to get this career started. At first, I really wanted to pursue my passion in live sound but found an even greater passion in recording. I also thought it would be a lot better to learn as much as I possibly could about audio as apposed to a general education in audio, video, and lighting.
I personally do not play any instruments. As odd as that seems, I feel it brings a different aspect to recording with a band. For example, just the other day, I was recording guitar for one of my good friends. He was extremely focused on playing the correct chords for the song and making it feel right that he did not even notice he was banging his pick on the guitar every time he strummed up. He also was tapping his toe on his flip flop and it was obviously being picked up by the microphones. He could not even believe I heard those things. I feel, if I had been a guitarist, I probably would not even thought twice about his performance but since I am not, I notice small things like that all the time.
I would primarily like to work in a studio after Full Sail. As much as I'm learning here, there is still so much that I need to learn. I feel the only way I will learn a lot of this is to actually practice it over and over. After a few years in a top studio, I would like to open a small studio back home to record a lot of local artists. The music scene in Colorado is usually ignored, but there is so much good music there and I want to help promote it. Anyways, that is a small caption from my past and hopefully my promising future.
After I had told my parents about dropping out of sports, they had to know the reasoning behind it. I was on track to play varsity football, basketball and lacrosse all by my junior year of high school. I told them I wanted to work as an audio engineer. I had to explain to them what it really was I wanted to do. After some convincing and a tour of Full Sail, my parents and I both knew this was the place for me to get this career started. At first, I really wanted to pursue my passion in live sound but found an even greater passion in recording. I also thought it would be a lot better to learn as much as I possibly could about audio as apposed to a general education in audio, video, and lighting.
I personally do not play any instruments. As odd as that seems, I feel it brings a different aspect to recording with a band. For example, just the other day, I was recording guitar for one of my good friends. He was extremely focused on playing the correct chords for the song and making it feel right that he did not even notice he was banging his pick on the guitar every time he strummed up. He also was tapping his toe on his flip flop and it was obviously being picked up by the microphones. He could not even believe I heard those things. I feel, if I had been a guitarist, I probably would not even thought twice about his performance but since I am not, I notice small things like that all the time.
I would primarily like to work in a studio after Full Sail. As much as I'm learning here, there is still so much that I need to learn. I feel the only way I will learn a lot of this is to actually practice it over and over. After a few years in a top studio, I would like to open a small studio back home to record a lot of local artists. The music scene in Colorado is usually ignored, but there is so much good music there and I want to help promote it. Anyways, that is a small caption from my past and hopefully my promising future.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)