Review

One of the most difficult aspects of this project has been adapting to the unique work flow. The tasks at hand are so meticulous and seemingly mindless, yet overtime, its these tiny changes that define your piece. You must learn to trust yourself and your ears.

One thing this project taught me to do was to step back and change your perspective in order to change your work. With something as intricate as audio engineering there are a million different lenses to look at your art through. You could listen to it with a concentration on percussion, or on volume levels, maybe play it and listen to it on different speakers, or upside-down or whatever. Really it's all about putting yourself in a position to get that spark of an idea. Ive discovered that learning your own work style and creating parameters to facilitate that process is step one of any project. Maybe you need a cup of tea before you go in everyday or something. Its almost like re-entering this deep state of meditation. Return to your happy place and write something cool-that was one of the biggest lessons for me.


The technology pro tools has for Eqing is really an amazing feature and is so affective in changing both midi files (synthetic instruments) and live instrument recordings.
 
 The colors on the image below represent ranges of frequencies. Ex: Blue is High, Green is High Middle, Yellow Is Middle, etc.

Example of EQ capabilities
The Colors are ranges of frequencies.

This technology is fantastic yet it present a very difficult questions which is, When to stop? You can sit there for days trying to get your Snare to sound like whats on the radio, but at this point, I am not an audio engineer, I am just making educated assumptions on what sounds good. This trouble-shooting will help me in terms of understanding how this whole studio works, but it can really burn your music out listening to it over and over again, Fixing things that are not heard to someone who isn't looking for it.

If I were to redo this project the things I would differently range from basic organization too the entire way I approach the first stages of songs. The first thing i would do differently would be to go in and match sounds, write material on those sounds, record decent versions of those, get all music in place, pledge not to change to much and then go in and mix/master the audio. It can be so difficult listening to something 100+ times a day trying to get just the right sound. I got really burnt out on my music during the second week and it definitely affected the momentum I had.

The final tip I would give is to save different drafts. One day you could go in after a late night and feel real upset about how loud that one hi hat is or what not. Its best to save constantly but save new versions. If you do this you end up saving yourself a lot of time. And in the end if you create two complete different songs, call one the remix of another and save it for a B-Side kinda album. This is an idea I came up with upon my immense amount of time spent listening to other dj’s, producers and composers and playing close attention to the unique culture modern day electronic music has. People create a song, send it to their friends, their friends remix it and now two audiences are getting something they can say “hey my favorite Dj just put out a tune." If the listener really likes the remixed track then they can see who created the original track and show them some love. Both artists benefit and now the listener gets two sweet songs.
This project was really important for me and I’m pretty positive I want to study audio engineering in college. I found its the perfect mix of something I love and something that I can rely on to provide for myself. Its so hard become and artist financial dependent on solely your art or music. The Amount of pressure that can put on the relationship you have with something as holy as art can really strain it and as I fear, ruin it. Audio engineering has serious occupational opportunity and as of right now is something I’m very passionate about, So thats where I’m headed.