Second Week - Posted on 2017-08-14 by David Deines

I'm enjoying learning the fundamentals of electricity and sound in the eBook, as well as getting exposure to the equipment in the studio with my mentor.  I just finished Chapter 2, which was centered on electronics.  I've always been curious about this subject, and have acquired a basic knowledge about it, but I really like how the eBook filters down these incredibly complex subjects into the things that I really need to know in this field.  I'm really absorbing the reading content and am constantly thinking about the concepts in my everyday life.  

I went to the Metallica concert in the Seahawks stadium this week, and I was fascinated trying to understand all the audio engineering aspects happening.  It was an enormous venue with millions of dollars worth of equipment, so I had a lot to process.  Also, the concert was awesome!  However, I've pretty much always had the opinion that rock concerts in general are just simply too loud, and this one was certainly no exception.  Especially after learning last week about the ear and all the warnings about protecting your ears, I was actually very concerned about damaging mine, and I probably did suffer some damage as my ears were ringing for hours afterwards, and I couldn't hear very well for most of the following day.  I was also very curious about the speaker setup at the show.  There were three massive towers of speakers in roughly the middle of the arena, as well as smaller speakers surrounding the edges.  I was thinking about the delay of the sound travelling from speakers near to the stage interacting with the sound coming from the speakers behind me, which were closer.  The overall sound was very muffled and dense, and I was wondering if it would have been effective to put a delay on the speakers behind my head to emulate the delay coming from the larger speakers on the ground.  I assume the audio engineers working with Metallica know what they are doing, but I honestly feel that the sound quality overall, at least from my lower-priced seat, could have been much better.  Nonetheless, the show was great and perhaps it's impossible to make the sound great for such a huge arena with so many different listening positions.

Unfortunately, my mentor is out of town this week, so I won't be able to go into the studio until next Wednesday, but I was able to go to Guitar Center and purchase my iLok so that I could get ProTools running on my computer.  I'm planning to work on some of the audio files included in the course later this week and get started learning with ProTools.  I do feel overwhelmed with the software, but given that I believe my main focus might be mastering, I am highly motivated to learn everything I can.  I plan to reach out to my advisor for some starting tips, as well as looking to YouTube for some beginner's guides.  I'm definitely excited to get my hands on this aspect of the audio engineering world.

I wonder if anyone will read this blog post... if so, thank you!

Dave