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Zachary Schaffner
This past week has been incredible! I got to go to Sanctum Sound in Boston, MA for my first session with Mike Woods! From the minute I walked in the room I felt like an equal. I felt like Mike was there to teach me and to consider my ideas. It felt very natural and very good! I got to meet my fellow Recording Connection students Cameron and Tyler as well. They were really cool so it just made the experience even better! I love exclamation points by the way! :) Anyway we talked about what we wanted to learn on the first day and we settled on learning about MIDI or in layman's terms, we learned about electronic music and how to edit it. Mike was really good at explaining all the theory and going step by step on how to make the beat we made from scratch. We all played different parts of the beat so it was a great collaborative process! Which is something I enjoy very much! I played the high synth part. Cameron played the drum beat. And Tyler played the main melodic beat. We already work very well together so that is a plus! At the end of the session Mike said goodbye and I shook his hand and thanked him for his time. Cameron and I grabbed some dunkin donuts and then went to the bus station and parted ways.
Friday was the next day that I went down to the studio. I drove because I wanted to be able to stay later if need be instead of taking the bus. When I got there someone I hadn't met yet answered the door phone. He seemed kind of puzzled as to why I was there. But I figured he just didn't know me yet and I should just shake hands and say hello. On the other side of the door was Steve Castillo. We shook hands and I told him I was ready to work and he then told me he had no idea I was coming. He then invited me to stay and observe the session he was doing with a hip-hop artist and I of course jumped at the opportunity. It was really cool because it was the first real session I got to observe at Sanctum Sound. Steve was great as well! He told me everything he was doing step by step and got into detail with what he was doing. He showed me more about sends and monitor mixes versus headphone mixes for the recording artist. Another thing he showed me was how to bounce a track to an auxillary track and how to bounce a track to an mp3 right from pro tools. We even bounced ideas off of each other to make sure the recording artist got the best experience and mix he could get. It was again a really great collaborative process! At the end Steve gave me his number and told me I could work with him anytime. He also showed me how to close!
As week one comes to a close all I can say is I'm very excited! And all those exclamation points are well deserved! I can't wait to continue this journey and absorb all I can at Sanctum Sound! :)
Check out Mike Woods and all the great things he's done here:
http://www.mwoodsmusic.com/index.php
Check out the beat we made as well:
https://soundcloud.com/zachary-schaffner-1/rc-bananahands-day1
