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Daniel Bubert
So, hi there! I know' I know I'm supposed to do one of these once a week. Well, it can be pretty challenging to sit down and write when working a full time Job and spending a couple days of the week in the studio. Not to mention numerous band rehearsals in preparation for tour. Oh yeah, and counless hours spent emailing and facebooking ( apparently that is a verb now) booking said tour. But anyway, enough of the excuse hour with your host, that would be me, on to the blogging.
Ok, chapter 5 and 6 really could probably be one chapter combined and was somewhat of another refresher course. Although I did learn a lot about ribbon mics that I did not previously know. My lesson with Derek for chapter 5 and 6 was a combined and short lesson due to the fact that he was getting ready to leave for a short tour with Punk Rock Karaoke. We covered the lesson material and went over the chapter quizes, which I basically aced again. I think I missed one. It was one of the "trivia" type questions. You know the type. The Who did What, When type question. After that we proceded to go through Dereks mic collection and discuss some of the different situations he's used them for. He told me that once he used his large diaphragm condensers on toms. I was suprised by this because when you go trolling through internet forums and google searches for "how to record toms" you don't generally find someone recommending that type of mic for those types of sources. It all made a little more sense however, when he explained that he had read about how the guy who had recorded the Cars records had done that. Derek said the drum sounds he ended up with from that experiment sounded alot like the Cars drums. Again, mind slightly blown. I guess that proves the addage that there are no rules in this game yet again.
Moving on, lets talk about chapter 7. Actually lets talk about Pro Tools a little bit first. I recieved my copy of Pro Tools shortly after completing lesson 6. I think it only took about five days. I found out about its arrival when my wife, who works from home because her job allows for that, called me to let me know that it was here. I could not wait to get home from work that day! No, seriously, I could not wait. I even considered leaving early so I could go home and play with my new toy. You know that feeling when you're about seven years old and it's Xmas eve? And you can't sleep because you know that santa is going to bring you exactly what you asked for. And you cant wait to get it out of the box, well that was me.
I got home from work, had a quick smoke on the patio after giving my wife a hello kiss, and grabbed the box. I tore into that box as quickly as I could, grinning like a school boy whos just been caught red handed. And then, I realized something. There was only one small box. Where was the Mbox I thought I was getting? Turns out my impression that I would be recieving an interface along with my software was only that, an impression (on a completely related note: My cousin took the beginner course and recieved an Mbox. Why that has changed I do not know). After emailing my student advisor regarding the Mbox issue, realizing there wasn't a mistake, and I wouldn't be getting an interface, I thought to myself, "at least I already have one".
Chapter 7: I think a more appropriate title for chaper 7 would be "Be prepared for anything and be organized" or "Know your shit and DON'T BE A DICK". That is really the biggest 2 things I took away from the reading.
When I arrived at the studio to begin my chapter 7 lesson with Derek I was about an hour late because of my stupid, unpredictable job. Luckily Derek wasn't mad but he did call me out on it when we were scheduling this weeks lesson. We jumped right into things, as we usually do, and went over the chapter quiz. Aced another one by the way. After the lesson Derek asked me if I had a thumb drive with some raw tracks that I had recorded on it. I did and we moved on to familiarizing myself with not only Pro Tools, but usin a Mac as well. On Derek's recommendation I purchased Pro Tools 101. A very good read if you're not at all used to using Pro Tools. It comes with a disk and some excercise material that was very helpful in navigating through the program on a very basic level. We loaded the tracks into a pro tools session and he explained some of the more technical computer geek stuff and that was about it.
Now it's time for me to take a small break and then get started on chapter 8. I'll try and write again tomorrow and maybe I'll even share one of the tracks from My bands upcoming record. 'Til next time.
