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Oscar Galvan
I have worked out a schedule with Ricky Rich and his engineer, John, to meet every Tuesday from 10AM to 2PM.
Biggest con: the commute. 4 hours, round trip. But at least the time I will spend in the studio equals my commute time.
Biggest pro: A real, fully outfitted music studio with an actually competent staff. John definitely knows his stuff. I've dealt with quite a few "pros" in my time and usually I'm the one teaching them, so I was thrilled to personally find out that John outranks me in terms of mixing skills by a large margin. I am glad to be learning from him and from Ricky. Details of this conclusion are below.
My first session was interesting because I got to meet Ricky himself. Before then, I had only spoken with him over the phone, so it was nice to finally meet the person behind the voice. We started a bit behind schedule so I stayed less than the 4 hours, but we made good use of the time left.
Ricky opened the gates to the studio and let me in. For a while it was just him and me. He wanted to get to know me, asked me some personal stuff. I could tell he wanted to get a feel for how we'd fare in the future, personality-wise. He's a pretty cool, up-front kind of guy. Tells it like it is without sounding condescending or harsh. Our personalities are pretty different though. Very different. But I could tell that's kind of what he liked about me. For one, he didn't know I am a Nuclear Engineer. I never said because no one asked, but he did. His reaction left me with nothing less than an ego boost. He would later repeat it to everyone with pride (with a few colorful words, I might add) once everyone else showed up to the studio.
While it was just him and me early on, right after entering the studio, Ricky showed me some of the duties that would be required of me every day I come to the studio and how they are assigned and divided between the other students. Simple enough. Nothing out of the ordinary.
We both then briefly went over the Chapter 1 Quiz on the studio console. I told him it was all review to me and that I already knew everything in it (except how the 3 bones in our ear physically function, which was neat to learn about). He verbally quizzed me a bit to be sure and then we moved on. The mouse they use is a Thumb-ball style mouse. Definitely took some getting used to. I was slow with it. I'm used to trackpads and/or a regular mouse.
Ricky then asked to hear some of my music. I showed him two of my unreleased tracks and one that is a released remix, all off of my Soundcloud account. I think his favorite was my punchier, electro-dubsteppy track. His words were, "this is really good", which is high praise coming from him. Another ego boost. The other two tracks, I think, were not his usual music preference since they were slower, Trance-like tracks, but he still noted that the quality was good. On a personal note, my songs sounded pretty different in a professional studio, so it was great to hear songs I know intimately in this new environment so i could attenuate the differences back home.
Ricky then asked me what I was expecting to get out of this program. That was a lengthy conversation so I'll condense it (he was also juggling a few calls here and there for clients). I told him that I'm not looking for fame, that I don't do well in big crowds (which he notes as contrary since I make the very kind of music that attracts the masses at raves and such), but that I don't mind the money that comes from making music. My goal is to perfect my skills as a producer/mixer so that I can reach the quality of the exemplars, the professionals, my favorite artists (Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Daft Punk, etc). I used Daft Punk as an example for the privacy thing. They maintain their privacy but still make a living out of what they do. I even mentioned that I'd consider ghost-writing, as long as I get paid. Lady Gaga or Michael Jackson status is not an aspiration of mine. Sure, it feels nice for everyone to tell you how great your music is and get recognition, but too much comes attached to it that I don't care for. He asked why I didn't move to Houston. I replied with the same rationale: too many people. You couldn't pay me to live in Houston. Traffic is awful there. But it is cool to visit once in a while. I even had a job lined up there, but rejected it because I'd have to live in Houston. That pretty much made my point.
Ricky made a good point to me that is gong to stick with me for a while after I pointed out in an offhand comment that I don't always like the popular stuff. He said that there is one difference between a successful artist and a starving artist. I thought the answer was monetary. But no. Ricky said that a starving artist makes music for himself... and a successful artist makes music for the masses, for the people. Sounds obvious, but it is more insightful when it is said to your face. It's very true. I immediately thought of my favorite artist: Armin van Buuren. I've been following him since I was 14 years old (I'm 26 now), before he was even famous and ranked as the #1 DJ for the first time in his career. I thought for a little while that Armin was "selling out" when he started some mainstream tracks. But after what Ricky told me, it all clicked immediately. What Armin did was win the hearts of the much larger masses, instead of being confined to a niche market, by producing popular tracks that still approximated the vein of music he usually did. Then, sometimes, he'd introduce songs that harken back to his roots in Trance... and all the fans go crazy for it because he has managed to open their hearts to this new music that was previously unaccepted by most by using popular music as the vessel. Armin gives the people what they want, and occasionally "feeds the demon" as Ricky put it. This way both sides of a musician's goals are satisfied. Genius.
Everybody else started to arrive shortly after the above discussion. I left the console when John arrived and Ricky assigned him a song to remix for a client. I sat and started observing in silence on the mirrored screen to John's left. It was a hip-hop track (or rap, can't tell sometimes). He tried some things on it to improve it's initial quality but it wasn't working out so he changed his approach. Pro Tools is new to me so the interface took me a while to adapt to and follow, but I was familiar with most of the plugins John pulled up (which he was just flying through, no way to write any of them down fast enough). His workflow with that console can be described as nothing less than elegantly proficient. It incites a healthy kind of envy in me (the kind of envy that is fueled by aspiration, not jealousy) as I watch him transform a moderately decent, somewhat rough track into a clearly polished, finished product, all in around 100 minutes. It's amazing how much the engineer can transform the quality of the song itself and the vocals of the artist. The vocals were dry and stood out at first, but he gave them the telltale Auto-Tune sound that hip-hop seems to rely on these days and then blended the vocals seemlessly into the rest of the track so that it all sounded like it was in the same space. The client's manager came in about 10 minutes into the session and occasionally gave input based on what the artist said via FaceTime.
In the meantime, I met 3 fellow students. Mike, Santiago, and I didn't get the 3rd guy's name. I didn't understand the artist's manager's name either. Had a bit of a hard time understanding him, but John seemed to understand him fine. Guess it just takes some getting used to.
Back to the mix. John was then asked by the client's manager to add some "chops" to the track in certain parts. John understood this as stutter effects. I'm glad he caught that because I wouldn't have understood. Stutters, of course. Those I know how to do. And John did them really quick too. They usually take me longer to get going but he was flying through it. He spent a TON of time on the vocals too. It actually got a little tiring hearing the same sound byte maybe 200 times until he got what he wanted. I'm sure it probably tires John too, but by now he's probably jaded, or numb, to the repetition that music obviously has intrinsic to it before delivery of a finished product. I don't have too much experience with vocals, mostly synths I program, so this was a new process for me.
By the time I had to leave, I had a better grasp of how Pro Tools worked just by watching, but there's still a lot I'd need to know before becoming proficient at it.
Let it be known that hip hop and rap are NOT my cup of tea. They never have been and I don't much care for it. However, it certainly was an enlightening experience seeing the transformation of an "ok" track reaching "radio-ready" status over the course of lots and lots of tiny, subtle adjustments that, when combined, gave a professional result. I cast aside my distaste for these genres and evaluated purely on a sonic, qualitative basis for the final result to appreciate all the changes. A useful skill to develop, I think, since engineers deal with all kinds of music that may or may not suit their preferences.
All in all, it was a good first session. The exposure to the processing that songs undergo when they aren't all "in the box" sounds was great to experience.
I don't expect my future blog posts will be this long since I'll be busier, but I'll try to maintain the detail.
I'm looking forward to more next week.
