Projects!

      So it has been quite a while since I've posted anything but I've finally got a little bit of time and some cool stuff to post...well I think it's cool anyways.  This semester has been pretty hectic and stressful so far, the school has sort of thrust us into big projects right away after coming back from Christmas break.  Along with my 9 courses I had 4 projects.  One was an acoustic evaluation of a room, the second was doing all the sound for a Red Bull commercial (minus the music which was provided), the third was a radio play, and the last was a production of a song.  So I'm not going to post my acoustics project because it's a whole lot of theory and data and stuff and no one is likely to be interested in that.  And the Red Bull commercial is copyrighted so I'm not going to post that either since I'd prefer not to be sued.  But I can post the other two projects!

      This is a radio play which we were given the script for and told to try and get the audience to understand what is happening, where the story takes places, and have the audience not lose the illusion of the story.  This project was done by myself and one of my crew mates and we altered the story a little bit.  The main characters were done by my crew mate Audie, and one of my teachers, Christopher...I'm sure you'll be able to tell which is which.  All other sounds were either foley recorded or taken from a sound FX library.

      One rule when listening to...well...anything, but especially my stuff, don't listen on shitty laptop speakers or stupid ear buds.  Use actual speakers or a decent set of headphones at least.

      This is a song that I wrote the majority of.  I wrote all the music and most of the lyrics as well, one of my crew mates also contributed some lyrics and came up with the melody.  It was a project where we could only use 8 tracks for the whole song, and could only use hardware processing for effects and such, no digital processing.  The song is about friendships I've had in the past where the only person who put any effort into the relationship was me.  However, I now have the best friends in the world who I know have my back at all times.  The bridge and final chorus is for all of you.

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

Well I can see it in your eyes,

and I can read between the lines.

That you're not with me anymore,

it's not like it was before.

I don't want to let you go,

But it's time to move on.

Verse 2:

Well I waited by the phone,

and I hoped to hear your tone.

Well I waited for months on end,

and still you call yourself my friend.

Of all the lives that you've known,

you only think about your own.

Chorus:

The lies that were spoken, and the promises broken.

A fallen friend.

Has now turned to wonder, in the world that we wander.

I'm never alone again.

Verse 3:

Well now you wonder where I've been,

as if you care just how I'm doin'.

But I've been down this road before,

I won't be fooled by you no more.

Cause life is just too short,

to relive a broken heart.

Chorus:

The lies that were spoken, and the promises broken.

A fallen friend.

Has now turned to wonder, in the world that we wander.

I'm never alone again.

Bridge:

And now after all is said and done,

See the weight I held to is gone.

And I can hold on to a friend,

from this day on until the end.

Chorus 2:

The promises spoken, and endless devotion,

From a faithful friend.

Makes me stare in wonder at the world that we wander,

Never alone again.

We're Here For You

        Some of you may remember during August I spent some time in Langley doing some recording.  We recorded two songs written by one of the guys who attends Jam Night, Mark MacMillan.  Looking back after all I have learned so far in school I see the multitude of things I did wrong during the recording process. This was just because I had no idea about all the theory and stuff behind miking instruments.  There is this thing when using multiple microphones to record a single instrument, which we did on every instrument, called phase cancellation.  Phase cancellation happens when the sound pressure cause by the instrument reaches the microphones at different times.  This results in the signals interfering with each other when combined and affecting the sound in a negative way.  It can sound like the instrument has lost all it's bass frequencies or even almost cancel the sound out entirely depending on how far 'out of phase' the microphones are.  In other words...microphone placement can make or destroy your sound, it is of utmost importance.  Amazingly after learning of this important theory and checking our recordings I found that they were mostly 'in phase'.  There was hardly any phase cancellation at all and the sound we managed to capture is surprisingly good.  I'd say we were incredibly lucky...but I don't believe in luck.

       Anyways here is a very rough mix of one of the songs we recorded entitled 'We're Here For You'.  I've had precious little time to work on the songs over the past few months but they are coming along slowly.  This one has been fully edited and had a basic level and panning mix done to it, with almost no effects or equalization or compression...it is far from finished.  It is accompanied by some pictures of some gear we're using at school for your viewing pleasure.  Lead vocals and main acoustic guitar is Mark, background vocals and piano are Andrea (my cousin), second acoustic guitar is done by me, bass is done by Chris, drums are done by Jason, electric guitar is done by Luke, and violin is done by Jonathan.

Mid-Term...Two Months Till My Return

        So this past week I got all of my mid-term exams back and although I did not get the grades I aimed for I still did quite well.  My later exams I did not do as well on due to my brain getting burnt out halfway through 'hell week', I'll have to change up my study techniques for finals so it doesn't happen again.  My worst grade was 75% in Audio for Pictures which was disappointing.  After that I got 82% in Pro Tools, 88% in MIDI, 88% in Live Sound, 89% in Sound Design, 92% in Music Theory, 94% in Computers, 96% in Recording Technology, 98% in Digital Theory, 100% in Math (I know, crazy right?), and 102% in Acoustics.  That's all for an average of 91%, my goal was 95%, close.  However, all those marks don't mean squat unless I can apply them in projects and practical exams the rest of the semester, which I feel confident I can do well.  I'm not currently the top grade in my class...that'll change.

       Speaking of projects, we've started some big ones this past week that are pretty exciting for me.  One is recreating the sound for a scene from the movie Wishmaster 3 (it's a terrible B movie, if you're into those kinds of movies...Corey...you can check it out if you want, I warn you though, it is really terrible).  We edited the dialogue this past week, fixing mistakes and unwanted sounds recorded on set.  We also added in background noise/dialogue (referred to as Walla) for a classroom setting.  Over the next few weeks we'll be creating all the sound effects, footsteps, prop handling, etc... using foley recording (which is us physically creating and recording the sounds and adding them in).  Another project we've started is doing all the sound for a trailer for the game Limbo.  This one is pretty cool, we have to use the sound effects from the Disney sound effects library in order to create all the sound effects we need.  We also have to pick a song that will fit with the feel of the trailer and put it in at the appropriate time in the trailer.  Unfortunately due to copy write stuff I cannot post either of these on the internet so you'll all have to wait till I come home for Christmas to see them.  We'll be starting projects for Production and other courses as well in the coming weeks, that stuff I'll be able to post on here.

        So Production is a new course that's just started, taking the place of MIDI and Digital Theory.  It's being taught by a guy name Dean Nelson, and it's kind of ridiculous that this is the kind of guy I'm learning from.  Dean has worked at Ocean Studios in LA, Chalice Studios in Hollywood, and Ocean Way Studios on Sunset Boulevard.  He's worked on albums for the likes of Fallout Boy, Jimmy Eat World, Evanescence, Mary J. Blige, Panic at the Disco, Eric Clapton, Dashboard Confessional, and U2.  Most recently he was the personal engineer for Beck for several years.  He moved up here and started teaching once he had a kid with his wife and decided it was time to settle down a bit.  He still does recording for artists and often tells us in class what he did on the weekend, recently he's been recording for Buck 65.

        So that's pretty much all that's going on with me currently, I could go on and on about all the awesome stuff I'm learning...but I won't.  Miss you all and I'm looking forward to seeing you at Christmas!

Lost in London

         I decided to take a walk on Monday, I had intended to go grocery shopping but the grocery store was closed...Thanksgiving, duh.  So instead I went for a walk through a forest with a bunch of trails in it near my place to clear my head after a couple hours of studying.  And I got lost.  This wasn't entirely unintentional though as getting lost can be fun, I took a few random turns and got myself turned around.  I ended up coming out on the complete opposite side of the forest from where I started.  It took me about an hour walking along the street to make it back to my place, but I found a couple churches on my way that I'll be checking out the next two Sundays.  Along the way I took a few pictures of parts I thought looked cool.

And here is where I eventually exited the forest

        While I was lost I was just listening to all the sounds created by the forest around me.  It struck me how amazing our ears and brains are.  There are literally millions of sounds happening all at once in a forest, every single leaf makes a sound as the wind moves it.  It made a blanket of sound above me but I could still make out all the different low and high sounds, I could also hear a bird chirping and be able tell exactly where it came from without looking.  It's pretty amazing to me how our ears are able to process millions of different vibrations in the air and translate into something we can unconsciously understand perfectly.

        School is still going really well for me, I'm taking in a ton of information every day but I feel pretty confident I am keeping up and learning it all.  It is a pretty ridiculous amount of stuff I'm learning though...for example I have to learn what absolutely everything is on this diagram.

       That diagram is the signal flow diagram for one single strip (one vertical line of knobs on the left side) on this mixing console.  Signal flow is just where the information starts, where it ends up, and what it hits along the way.

         I also have to learn about 50 microphones (their names and all their specs) just by looking at them.  One of which is this one, which is a fairly special microphone.  This is a Neumann U87 and was made in West Berlin, which should tell you about how old it is.  It is regarded as one of the best microphones every made to record voice with.  This microphone is worth about $3,000.

Pure Insanity

        So this is a short little audio file that I learned about out here and it absolutely blows my mind.  Grab yourself a pair of headphones, better quality ones are preferred, and be blown away.  Put on those headphones, press play, and close your eyes.  Try your best not to move your head even though you'll be tempted to.  You must use headphones for this, speakers will not work...so get your asses up lazy people and get some headphones.  Click here to go to audio file!

        There's another thing that I learned recently that also blew my mind that also has to do with how our brains work.  So sound frequency is measured in this thing called Hertz (Hz), the lower the number the lower the sound is.  Humans can hear 20Hz to 20,000Hz (although most adults hear approx. 30Hz to 16,000Hz).  Music pretty much covers that entire spectrum and bass is very prevalent around the 100Hz mark.  However, those little speakers we are always listening through, you know the one's you stick in your ears?  They are completely incapable of reproducing low frequencies...bass and low sounds in music do not play through small speakers.  And yet we hear them...how?  God made our brains pretty amazing you see, allllll the way back when he first created us he was like "these little buggers way down the line are going to come up with this crazy concept to record sound and play it back with little things in their ears, but they won't have the ability to play back bass in them.  So I'll just go ahead and give em all a little helping hand."  So here's what He did.  Each sound is made of a bunch of frequencies put together (called overtones) and the lowest one is the one we 'hear'.  Our brains are capable of recreating these low frequencies by calculating from all the other higher frequencies present what the bottom or 'root' note is.  This is what you're "hearing".
        There is literally no low frequency sounds being played out of your ear phones or laptop speakers, our brains just fill in the blanks.  This is why you can "hear" bass out of these devices but cannot feel them like you can from a sub.  Pretty insane eh?

There and Back Again (I hope)

        Well...here I am.  Across the country embarked on a brand new chapter of my life, one that feels somehow different from all the others.  I have spent years in different places away from my home, away from family, and they all had their specific purposes.  Colorado helped to create a foundation for my faith to become my own and make that faith real, Saskatchewan grew that faith and built on it in an intellectual capacity...It also introduced me to the world of audio recording for the first time.  Those places and experiences have been a part of what has led me here, a preparation I suppose.  This chapter started off much the same as the other times I've left home, packing my stuff and getting on a plane to a place where I know no one.  But even before I left this chapter felt different, and now that I have arrived and had a few weeks of schooling that difference is very apparent...it's warmer here then the other places I've been!  Other then that I feel like my life has a solid sense of direction, a clearly defined purpose.  After years of coasting, not really too sure what direction to take or where God was calling me to, now I know.  This is what I belong doing.  I belong deep in the world of audio.  I don't know where this all will take me and I may very well be out here in Ontario for more than just this year.  I really hope I come home sooner than later but I'm on this ride for good, wherever it may take me.

        One of the things I miss most about home right now is the ability to talk with all of you on a regular basis about all the stuff I'm doing and learning because it is crazy exciting to me.  So this is my attempt at bringing all the people I care about along with me on this crazy journey I appear to be on, even though I probably won't have the time or the space to write about everything.  But I will try my best to do this whole bloggy thingy and update once every one or two weeks and let all you beautiful people know what's going on with me.  Time...yea that's something I have practically nothing of anymore, social life = null.  Weekly I have 30 to 35 hours of lectures plus anywhere between 9 and 18 hours of labs, I also study about 2 or 3 hours a day.  But what's different from all the other times I've gone to school, I take a look at my schedule and say "I have this class next?  Awesome.  I have six hours of labs on a Saturday?  Awesome.  Why don't we have class on Sundays?"  The classes and my teachers are fantastic, I have learned more in three weeks than I ever thought possible.  From the theory behind how sounds are placed in a movie scene to microphones and how exactly they work to soldering my own cable connectors onto a cable.  The world of audio is truly that, an entire world.  I have gotten myself into something more incredibly vast then I ever thought and I am intimidated but so excited to conquer it.  So this semester I have 11 courses, some are done halfway through and replaced by new ones but most last until Christmas.  They are Acoustics, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), Math (yea I know...shudder), Pro Tools (it's the computer program we use to record and mix stuff), Recording Technology, Computers, Live Sound, Audio for Pictures (movies etc...), Sound Design (yes, building custom sounds), Musical Theory, and Digital Theory.  Exciting!

        I could go on and on for ages but I'll spare you the boring theory and information that I'm sure you're not interested in...unless you are interested, then I could post a bunch more stuff!  So I'll just give you a couple pictures for now.

This is my little recording rig I used to record at The Bridge Church in Langley for several days in August that I told most of you about.  Disregard the mixing board on the right and the lighting control above my keyboard, they weren't a part of my rig.

And this.  This is one of four studios I have used and will use almost daily the whole year...drool.