Lesson 2 & 3 - Posted on 2013-06-22 by Robert Ballejos

Lesson 2

Today David had a client tracking vocals over some yoga, relaxing, chanting type of music. It was good to see how he interacts with clients and is pure professionalism. I was able to catch David use some of the same techniques I use in my own production and djing. David moves through protools with a quickness and only gets me more excited about jumping into it too! After several takes, the client is ready to start making changes and is clear the client has worked in a studio before, knowing where he wants his compression and his limiters set at as well as when and where David needs to add or take away some dbs.

Once the client was finished for the day (about 2hrs later) David and I were able to start on our lesson. Its Still rather basic. We talked about soundproofing a room in a greater length this time. David showed me some places online that have good soundproofing a room instead of being raped by GC. We also dabbled a bit in the clearing vocals and samples and he showed me a place to out right buy rights to vocals and what not for my own productions. David went through some of his current projects and showed me some music he is currently working on for other artists. Was a great day and ive learned that no matter what, the paying client always gets what they want...to a degree. 

Lesson 3

Was a great day to be outside, but even better day to be sitting behind an equinox master control console. David and I chatted for a few minutes and got right into it as he had a client coming in to lay some vocals over her instrumental. We talked about Bit Depth and Sample rates. This lesson got me by surprise because I didnt get into the homework until the day before the meeting with David. I had a nice cram session on a refresher lesson. Basically, the lesson we talked about was how the "snapshot" per second was the sample rate and bit depth is in each sample how many numbers are representing each sample. 

We talked about the standard CD quality is at 44.1khz @ 16 bit. Depending on the engineer’s computer and interface will determine at which rates he can work at. 

David showed me some awesome plugins, T Racks! Im going to buy that right now! He has great tools for all sorts of situations. From compressors to limiters to sound dithering plug ins. I had heard about Waves, and David had some of them loaded up as well on one of his projects. Awesome! Again, I cant wait to jump into Protools. David really pops in and out of screens and tools quite quickly. Sort of how I do with Ableton 9. I suppose its just a matter of knowing exactly what you want to do to a track as well as some trial and error mixed together. 

David’s client arrived and was a young woman there to lay some vocals down. I stuck around for about 2 hrs as they worked and heard and seen again, how professional David treats his clients. Above that, able to see and hear this woman nail it every time. Her voice never cracked and never out of tune. Just a sense of the type of clients David works with. Great session!