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Collin McCombs
Lesson 20 was the final. One day one I did my mix and James took the final. The song I mixed was a hip-hop track entitled "Warning" and featured the Funk Volume recording artist SwizZz. The song was upbeat and very lyrical so I focused more on the vocals. To start I set the level of the beat to a suitable level and adjusted the level of the vocals. After that I then began to EQ and compress the vocal tracks. I also used some de-essers because some tracks had more sibilace than others. By the time that was done I had some ideas for pan and effects automation. I paned some of the words and laughs on the intro as well as some key phrases in the ad libs. After that I added some delay at the very end of the song to put some emphasis on the word "Warning". I was going to go back and re-adjust the levels on all the beat tracks and do some volume automation, but my time was up and it was time to bounce the mix to a CD. The next day I took the test. It was a thirty-five question final and covered some major topics in audio engineering. Once I was done Aaron graded it while I observed James mix. He was mixing a pretty catchy punk song and it was cool to see how the session was arranged and how many mics were used. When I got my test back I seen I only missed two questions and Aaron told be that was the best he has seen from one of his students. The past six months have been truly eye opening and put me on the right track to having a career as an audio engineer. I can't thank Aaron and the Recording Connection enough for making this possible. My next goal is to persue the Master Level Program and sharpen my skills with tracking, overdubbing, mixing, and mastering. I also want to learn the business side of the music industry and am sure Aaron will be a big help.
- Collin McCombs
