Moving On Up - Posted on 2014-02-24 by Brenden Mendez

Time continues to fly on by, as the 3rd and 4th weeks of the program have come and gone. I have been learning a lot of new things as I continue on, but constantly absorbing everything like a sponge. I have come quite comprehendable to the different functionalities of the different types microphones, although the textbooks do not have us reading about them yet. Helping John and Triv set up for different bands in the rehearsal rooms have helped me understand the different placements for microphones, especially the direction in which they should face. We also used some of the Shure 7M57, without the windscreen, for the recording of the snares, toms, and guitars. John was explaining to me the different functionalities of the microphones, and why we were able to place some mics much closer to instruments than others. The fact that they constantly have people in the recording booth, for the recording of vocals, gave me a much easier understanding of how useful the compressor microphones are opposed to the dynamic ones. Having visual representations to understand and compare the different kinds of microphones will make reading much easier to understand, having had a phyical session to relate to.

I had been at the recording studio so many days throughout the weeks, that I finally got to meet their last engineer: Pat. He typically worked late nights, around midnight, so it was rare for me to bump into him at the studio. The reason he is there the least is because he is a freelancer, being able to work around at different studios very frequently. Told me lots of stories about the past people he had worked with, which kept me very intrigued from the start of our conversations. As I continued to sit with Pat and Triv on the first day of meeting him, I watched Pat fast "at work" as he went through a long list of emails being able to decipher the good from the bad. All within a matter of seconds. This gave me a huge realization that when it comes to sound, you need to have a good impression starting within the first 10 seconds. I asked him if it was the beats that he didn't like to the songs, simply because some of them were good but apparently not to his standards. He simply replied that the quality of sound just isn't there, and that listening on is of no use if the quality just is not there. He made absolute sense to me, so I continued to watch in silence as he kept at work.