Lesson week 8 - Posted on 2013-11-08 by Nathan Baker

Somewhere in there I lost week 7! It was last week but I did not write about it. It was very uneventful. I was under the weather and the rehab kids didn't stay long, so Abel and I didn't do much. Today was a different story though! I went in at 10 and Abel left me alone for 3 1/2 hrs editing! Philosophically I am not a fan of the extreme amount of drum and bass guitar editing that he prefers to do to clean up the muddiness, but on a nerdy level I can get into it. He is all about the beat detective feature, but this band didn't play to a click, so we are doing it all manually. Learning this way should really fine tune my ears and my head to minute details. Being alone is a great way for me to learn because there is no pressure. I can figure out how I want to do stuff. It was my first big chunk of time operating protools by myself. I'm pretty comfortable with it, but I was made fully aware that I am a slow clumsy beginner! Definitely had to search around and figure things out by exploring! The best way to learn!

Then when the Thursday rehab jam session kids came in, Abel just sat back and let me do it all! I was fully confident but I was also nervous as shit, and it made my brain go to fast. I barely knew what mics or preamps I wanted to use going in, but it all came to me as I was doing it. It's nice to have this informal session every week. After the first take I didn't like the bass or the drums so I moved mics and it made a huge difference. I actually think that Abel moved two mics into horrible spots to mess with me, see if I was a critical thinker. It was kind of a rushed situation so I couldn't dial anything in perfectly, but it came out good. Better than any recording I have of myself at that age!  Abel had to leave and go back to his theatre job so he left me to wrap it up and do more editing if I wanted and then shut it all down and lock up. Huge responsibilities! But I like it! It feels good to be getting deeper into it all!