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Bruce Fugett
Last Wednesday, I had my first lesson with my mentor Mark Naron at Fastback Studios. Overall, it went really well and I learned a lot. Although he had given me a brief walkthrough of the studio during my initial interview with him, we started the lesson off with a more in depth walkthrough. Chapter 1 is all about the physics of sound and hearing, and so as we walked through the live room, the isolation rooms, and the mixing room, Mark pointed out specific details about each room and how they affected the quality of the sound being recorded in each one.
Sound is an amazing thing. If you think about it, sound is essential vibrating energy. And Fastback Studio (and any other serious music studio) is specifically designed with this in mind. Everything down to the dimensions of the room, the angles of the corners, the material that the walls and floors are made of, and the various components hung upon the walls for the absorption and reflection of sound. Everything is specifically placed and measured to avoid having certain frequencies double back upon themselves when recording. This causes certain phase issues and bass build up which can have a detrimental effect when recording.
Mark even gave me a little history of music recording which was centered around the mid 1960's Beatles albums and how they really revolutionized how music has been recorded ever since. We even went over a lot of the differences and similarities between analog and digital sound recording.
But, my favorite part of my first lesson was getting to sit in The Engineer's Chair! Mark explained that the speakers in the engineering room were specifically arranged to project the sound to this one specific point in the room, and that's where the sound engineer sits. We could say that the engineer gets to listen to the music in it's most truest form, because if someone is listening from anywhere else in the room (even 5 feet away), the sounds heard are going to sound slightly different.
I can't wait for my next lesson with Mark. I can already feel that enrolling in The Recording Connection is one of the most beneficial learning experiences that I'll have in my lifetime. Being a self-taught musician and music producer, I've felt like I was lacking a certain structure and technical knowledge base that The Recording Connection is providing. I'm ready to take my skills and my knowledge to the next level.
