Sunday 27 January 2013

Personal Development Plan 1


This is something I'll be doing a few times throughout my first year in university to try and keep track of how my life's progressing. Here goes nothing...


1: The Present...

My strengths:

  • Experience with various studio environments and control surfaces/mixing desks (Avid D-Command, Avid C24, KORG nanoKONTROL 2, Behringer Eurorack MX3242X, Behringer DDX3216, Allen & Heath ZED-R16))
  • Recorded artists across a wide range of genres (acoustic, jazz, indie rock, alternative rock, grunge, surf rock)
  • Usage of different recording techniques (Glyn Johns, X-Y, Spaced Pair, Blumlein Pair, Mid-Side, Tchad Blake, etc.)
  • Fairly high proficiency in playing the drums.
  • Competent proficiency in playing the keyboards and bass guitar.
  • My weaknesses:
  • Low proficiency in playing the electric guitar.
  • Inexperience with analog studio recording environments.
  • Lack of connections with local musicians.
  • Lack of a competent home recording studio.
  • Unemployed.


2: My Desired Future...

My desired future would be to receive a BA (Hons) degree in Music Production, and have my own professional-grade recording studio at home (in the garage), along with a high-end drum kit (ideally, a Neil Peart-sized kit, so at least 20 pieces!), and maybe an electric guitar of my own (probably a PRS Santana Signature); I've already got my own bass guitar, a 5-string Fender Jazz Bass, so I wouldn't be in a hurry to get a new one. And of course, the talent to play it all at a high level. Optionally, I'd also love to be working at a high-end professional recording studio, but as I'm in Plymouth, I would have to move somewhere else (probably London) to accommodate that.


3: How to Get It...

The degree is the quickest one; I simply have to proceed through my current Foundation Degree course. I'm in the first year at the moment, there's a second year, and then there is an optional third year to top it up to a BA (Hons) degree, which is what I am planning to do. For getting my instruments, a lot of money is required, so that also means needing a very good-paying job, which in my career, would be at a high-end professional recording studio, meaning I'd have to move away from Plymouth, probably up to London, or maybe even to America or Canada.

Friday 25 January 2013

Exit... Stage Left

...and it did go well. Admittedly, it did overrun a bit (we had three hours for each session), but only by half an hour, and that was mostly due to the band's setting up and soundcheck, which took longer than expected. But it doesn't matter for us, we've got the session in the can, and some good experience in the bag. Wonder if I'll be able to put it to use in the future...

Friday 18 January 2013

Check, check, 1, 2!

Something a bit different today. Leo, one of my tutors, has organised an optional live sound recording session for my uni group. Obviously, it's optional because we're not studying live sound (that's a completely different group), we're studying audio and music production. Still, I could do with branching out my expertise just in case, so I went down to dBs Live today to take part.

Today's sessions was a practice session; the real thing's happening next Friday. We'll be recording a local band called Matthew & Me, who are an up-and-coming indie band from Totnes. They're a quintet, and thankfully there's no tricky instruments, and their setup is fairly intrinsic, so it shouldn't be too difficult next week. Most of our difficulty comes from where to set up the frontman's vocals. He sings and plays guitar, so obviously there'll be an amp close to him, meaning it'll bleed into the vocal microphone, so we're not going to get an entirely clean recording. However, we have a cunning plan! We'll set the frontman up in one of the corners of the live room, with one of the boxes from the PA speakers propped up to try and block some of the other sounds, and we'll also drape a curtain over the box to help damp the sound a bit more. Everything else is pretty elementary; drum kit at the opposite end of the room to the frontman and his guitar amp, bass amp near the kit with another box to block out the drums, keyboard amp and the other guitar amp in between. Should be good...