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Matthew Cloutier
Hello again! Matthew from the Recording Connection again. The last few weeks have been very basic chapters preparing me for my midterm, and things have gone quite smoothly! As an intermediate pro tools user, most these chapters were review for me even BEFORE the midterm, but it was nice to go over and refresh myself with the basic elements of Pro Tools. My knowledge/memory of shortcuts has definitely improved, and I'm continuing to practice using them more often than clicking during my personal mixing projects. I learned about basci plugins and what they are, how the edit window and edit window are arranged and their various functions, and all the major functions of the grabber, trimmer, and scrubber tools. I was surprised there was ZERO mention of the smart tool bar that links all three tools; I was taught that almost immediately at my previous college.
The last few weeks in terms of shadowing have been fairly dry in terms of music; we've had two weeks straight of voice actors! Our first client had come in with a large binder of basic scripts advertising various companies in radio length segments, and I got to watch the process of comping multiple takes and edits in a solo track audio session. While he was recording, his agent was attending the session live via Skype coaching him and reviewing his takes along the way. My other mentor, Matt, showed me how he was using Samplitude this project, and demonstrated to me how the controls were very similar to Pro Tools. He even had me take over and splice together a couple of the client's advertisements.
Our second client was a very impressive individual who was an acclaimed chiropractor, and now was so far into his career that he now teaches failing/struggling practices how to build better business ethics. He had written a collection of works that he compiled into a full length book, and was now recording the audio to the finished book. The content was very much in the vein of chiropractics, but I was actually enthralled by his examples and lessons because many of them could have applied to any facet in life - even Audio Engineering! Very nice individual, and my experience observing purely audio recording sessions and the programs used grew right alongside.
I'll be attending Ken's supplemental audio recording lessons for the first time this week to continue my progress becoming more familiar with the world of live-tracking and audio engineering.
Making solid strides!
-Matthew C
