Class Review: Recording Principles

I'm not going to lie, Recording Principles was a bit of a nightmare. The instructor was painful to listen to (by far one of the worst teachers I've ever had--elementary and high school included), the homework was too easy, stressful, and not very challenging, and the course was very unorganized. If the instructor would have actually taken the time to make a mid-term and final I probably would've been up shit creek without a paddle because of how painful he was to, so a majority of the time I just tuned him out. Not even kidding. For the mid-term and final, each of us had to come up with ten questions: five from lecture/notes and five from the textbook that nobody read. Then, in class, we basically have a support group-like lecture; we all gather 'round and take turns asking the questions we came up with and then just randomly answer them. Not too difficult, right? Right. Easy A+ and an easy 20% tacked on for my final grade.

At the beginning of the class, when the instructor was going over the syllabus and whatnot, I thought to myself, "This shouldn't be too hard because I know a lot of this." And I did. I knew what microphones, monitors, reverbs, delays, sends, busses, and microphone cables were. I've been producing music "in the box" (on the computer/digitally) for about four years now, so none of this wasn't as new to me as I was hoping for. I did, however, have a little bit of a learning curve for when we starting using Logic, Apple's DAW (digital audio workstation). The concepts that applied in my DAW of choice, Image-Line's FL Studio, applied to Logic, but they were just a little different. And I must admit that they were a bit simpler and sounded a wee bit better. (This could, and probably is, due to operator error!) I knew everything up until we got to analog. I knew everything until I showed up to lab that first day. "Maybe I should've payed attention in class. Maybe I should've listened even though the instructor sounded like Ben Stein," I thought. "Oh well. I'm about to learn a helluva lot more in this lab!" That was until I saw this:

When I walked into that lab room for the first time I heard the sounds of the pearly white gates opening up. I had come to the conclusion that I had made it home. I was both excited and nervous all at the same time. This board only costs $32,000 (not counting the $20,000+ compressors, delays, and reverbs sitting along side of it)! I was hoping that we weren't just going to have a free-for-all because look at it. Look at it! Nobody knew what the hell they were doing! 

Our lab instructor went over this board, cleared the fog on signal flow (what our instructor talked about in lecture that day), and finally reviewed the various types of microphones and their polar patterns. He was even teaching us how to wrap cables at the end of the lab that day. Yes, he was teaching us how to wrap cables. Once everyone thought they had their cable wrapped properly we went out to the hallway and threw them. If it unraveled without any knots, you did it correctly. If it did have knots you failed lab for the day. If you can't wrap a cable, for cryin' out loud, you should head over to McDonalds across the street and pickup an application. Just kidding. You didn't fail. Overall, I think it's safe to say that this $2,000 class was money well spent. To tell you the truth, wrapping those cables was more exciting than anything we talked about in lecture. 

The Friday of that week was our last lecture and lab before Spring break. We were all so excited because we had made it through those horrendous lectures and we knew things could only go up from here. That day we had a free-for-all lab after spending four hours on Monday and Wednesday learning the board and its features. We got settled in and our lab instructor went over the rules and what we could do for the day. We then went to the recording booth and got the drums all miked, and just before we started our session our lab instructor ran back to the recording booth to check on something (I believe it was a bad cable), so I took advantage of this and took a selfie with the board.

What? I couldn't resist this amazing opportunity!

I look like I'm on bath salts, but I was overly excited to be getting some studio time right before Spring break, and my family was coming down to see me in a few days. A limiter and/or compressor was not necessary for my excitement this time. (My audio-literate friends will understand.) We recorded the drums, some bass, keyboard, and vocals. (A friend of mine has the session files on his flash drive; I'll get them from him and share it with you.) 

The boring lectures continued, but so did the fun in lab. It was a little sad to have to leave the studio environment from the week before, but it was great to get my hands on some more technology that the industry professionals are using today. The Raven MTIs were more frustrating than they were intuitive, in my opinion. In simplest form: they're a 27-inch touchscreen that acts as a second monitor to your audio workflow; thus making it easier to use the mixer in Logic or the mixer that comes pre-installed on the Raven MTI for Logic. I've used a laptop for years, and I'm so used to the trackpad and/or a mouse that it was difficult to get used to the Raven MTI. I like the bigscreen, but I'm not much of a fan for touchscreens because the calibration never tends to be on-point, which makes it difficult to get really nit picky and accurate when you're fine-tuning the volume faders on the mixer. I took advantage of the big screen, but I stayed old school and got out my computer mouse and did it the old fashioned way. The Raven MTI is one of those items that would go unused if it were in my studio.

This was my workstation. Everyone's station looks exactly the same.

I made it to week four with (so far) flying colors, passing each and every assignment with 100%. We finished the last bit of notes in lecture (thank the lord!), and each of us have our own Audient workstation in lab with pre-recorded projects in Logic that we get to use and mix with while we each get hands-on experience with the board. We're learning how an analog board works instead of just clicking our mouse to bus and send things in Logic. We're actually having to learn how to patch hardware compressors and other various effects to various tracks using patch cables and patch bays. We're learning how to send our percussion tracks to a bus to save time and make things easier when mixing. And we're learning how to effectively and efficiently use time-based effects by using auxiliary sends. And, most importantly, we get to hear how amazing hardware gear can sound in a mix. This all sounds confusing, but when you're doing it with smart, talented, and like-minded friends, you tend to catch on real quick!

Recording Principles was both a boring and extremely valuable learning experience all at the same time. Lectures were boring, but the labs definitely made up for it! What made it even more fun was that I was able to share my lab time with good friends, so it really aided in learning all of these confusing, yet extremely valuable concepts and techniques in the mixing world. Like many other people, I don't like to be told how to do something. Don't tell me how to do it. Get me the real deal and show me how to do it, dammit!

Thanks for stickin' 'round,

Lennon
Student
Bachelor of Science, Music Production