First Week! - Posted on 2017-03-12 by Daniel Gillen Gannon

I'm closing in on the end of my first week at Engine Room and it has been incredible. On Tuesday I met with my instructor Jeet to go over the first chapter of the text book, as well as get to know each other. He's a great guy with an extremely interseting background who seems to know a heck of a lot about the mixing and mastering process as well as the business side of the industry. We went over all the interesting material that was covered in the text like sonic boom, phase cancellation and sound design. Although the topic that appealed to me most was how our ears actually work and the steps we can take to protect our hearing. Up until reading the chapter I had always wondered why I would hear a random ringing in my ear every now and again, so being able to identify it as a hair follicle in my ear dying was wild because I never even thought that ear hair had an actual purpose. Then on thursday I was able to sit in on a little mastering session that was being held. Being able to go in the mastering room with an experienced professional who could explain why things were done a certain was almost overwhelming. Finally on Friday there was an optional observation where we could see how drums were set up, mic'd and then tracked. This was especially awesome because I've always wondered how drums were recorded and how to decide which microphones to use. Then I got to see how the different recordings were blended together to make the whole drum riff pop. Unfortunately I coulodn't stay for the whole session because it was from 10pm to 6am and I had to work in the morning. Hopefully I will be able to attend more optional observations in the future so I can actually see what the entire process looks like start to finish.