Working Towards the Finale - Posted on 2018-09-14 by Matthew Cloutier

Hey again, Recording Connection! The last two weeks have seen a lot of different talent come through, with much more understnading of the studio wrokflow at Mirror Sound.

I have been much more active in our recent sessions as they've been almost all vocal or using the same microphone and iso booth. I've worked the API board's 550A EQ controls, balanced faders for vocal sessions, had a say in reverb selection - both analog and digital - and got to observe a full mixing session. The mixing session in particular was really fun because the couple that came in had already recorded a full 12-song album in a previous session, so we spent the whole day making sure the mix was to their tastes and sounding profesional. Usual sessions involved 2-3 songs max being given a very basic yet professional mix in a short amount of time. We spent hours on the first 4 of 12 songs just monioring for consistent quality and creative effects, and it was very informative watching Ken's mixing process and the attention to detail that comes at his level. 

We had a local Hip-Hop artist by the name of D-Supreme come in for a few hours and I got to contribute a lot to the session. He recorded three songs and me and Matt L. added some phaser effects and auto-tune that created a really nice sound to his best song. Overall things are feeling very natural in the workflow for one or two track recording sessions and I'm learning my way to confidently navigate the studio. I'm asking Matt L. to give me some in-class testing on the patch bay before we wrap up for the final because I've realized its the one component I have least practice setting up; it's almost always set up prior or done for me. With so many hardware and signal paths, that mess or wires still looks more intimidating than it should be at this point.

I'm excited for my final but a little sad my time at Mirror Sound will be coming to a close! i've had so much fun working with Ken and Matt these past months and learned a ton of information that will help me to continually improve my audio knowledge. 

Bye for now, will be back for a final entry!