Sunday, December 9, 2012

get lost.: its a travel blerg.

get lost.: its a travel blerg.: Tommorow night I leave to the Buffalo Airport to catch a nights sleep and an 8 am plane to Charlotte, NC. A quick layover then on to Central America. I will spend a month between Nicaragua and Costa Rica free-walking volcanoes and fighting sharks..
In the event that the world doesn't end, on January third I'll be flying to Seattle to meet a certain illustrious creature, then together we go on to one of the most seemingly beautiful places on earth, Vietnam.
This blog exists to keep a track on things, I tend to lose journals.
stay posted. if you want.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Processing Pass / Fail

REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: FINAL STATEMENT
DATE: N/A

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BEGIN: REPORT


The processing pass fail gave me a more in depth knowledge about using the busses and sends to create more manipulable wet to dry ratio's when it comes to using aux's for processing. It also helped me solidify my understanding of side chaining within pro tools. There are a couple tricks to get it working which I didn't understand because it is laid out a little bit differently in the ableton compressor stock plugin, which is pretty straight forward. If it is a stereo compressor, you send to the triggering key must still be coming from a mono bus or track - I'm not sure why that it. It seems that you should be able to send a stereo track to the key as long as it is either summed as mono or sending an indipendent left key trigger to the targeted left channel, and the right key trigger to the targeted right channel. But maybe they just figured that would be useless and use too much processing power. Go figure!


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END REPORT

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Pro Tools Routing



REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: FINAL STATEMENT
DATE: N/A

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BEGIN: REPORT

I'm retty sure that the class where we did this in class pass/fail was my first ever class of BDC301. Kevin was teaching and showing us what to do, and I was thrown right into it. It was a great learning experience for me because although I have tended to mix using aux's to apply processors to a group of say vocals, or drums, I had never considered the use of busses and sends in tandem with aux's to create the ability to have a dry and wet mix of the group in order to lower the ratio of processing to the desired effect. I have been using these tools for routing ever since this class, whenever I deem necessary. Sometimes for tracks it is unnecessary to go that in depth with routing if I know exactly how I want it to sound, but if I'm not sure for example how much compression I want on a drum group, I can create a parallel compression aux track in order to bring the compression mix up or down to achieve the right balance. It was a great and very useful thing to learn!

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END REPORT

Pro Tools Refresher

REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: FINAL STATEMENT
DATE: N/A

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BEGIN: REPORT

Although I wasn't in the course for when we were assigned the Pro Tools refresher pass fail assignment, I had a great time working with the file after the fact. I decided to use the smooth jazz to start it off at a slow pace, then as the commercial progress, it jumped to a contrasting hair metal section. There were lots of good lines to work with and I went for the comedic effect at the end where Finlay kind of trails off. I've never mixed a commercial in Pro Tools before, however I have mixed a couple joke commercials in Ableton. It was a fun task!


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END REPORT

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

What I learned!


REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: FINAL STATEMENT
DATE: 04/12/12

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BEGIN: REPORT

My favourite part about this learning experience this semester was being able to work with new people who have different mixing techniques, and also have access to great mics and equipment that I don't normally have access to. Sometimes it was difficult to make things happen, as I was taking 7 courses this semester as well as working on several projects outside of school and working. Also an additional roadblock was getting into the course 3 weeks late, and not having my card approved for building access although I tried, and not having access to online RTA resources for the first little while. I would have liked to have more time to spend on certain assignments. That being said, I took what I wanted away from this course. For my in class test I thought I was running out of time and rushed it, missing the compression and VU metering, but what can you do!
 I have gained an expanded base of tools from which I can pull for micing techniques, mixing techniques, creating and editing scores for film. All of these have come in extremely handy both in my work and personal projects. I'm dissapointed that I missed Brian's mastering lecture due to being sick, however the way someone summed up what he showed us to me seemed very much like the way I work anyhow. It was great to meet other engineers who have similar taste in people they like to work with, and I hope to stay in touch with them in the future. 

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END REPORT

Another case of the Shakin' Natives


REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: GINGER GREY
DATE: 25/12/12

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BEGIN: REPORT

Brought the Shakin' Natives session files back home and started to work on them in Pro Tools. Agents Dan and Nicole had already started some basic compression and gating of the tracks, which was a nice and simple point to start working from. I tweaked some of the compression ratios, used some other compressors such as waves Vcomp and some VEQ's for different tracks. I decided to put some blanket overdrive on all the vocals, to give it that rugged lo-fi sound it needed. Dan later listened to the mix and thought they were a little too crunchy, but it was a good aesthetic. I used STOMP II plugin for this. I put a vintage filter on the drums - besides the kick - in order to get some fat and gritty sound. Also, I put a sub bass booster on the kick [Waves Rbass] to have a concentrated boost in the 80 Hz frequency. I parallel compressed the drums and kept the compression relatively low in the mix, because this sound shouldn't be too compressed, although a pop tune it is still pretty lo-fi. I think the result was a nice and punchy grunge sound, rather than a shimmery bright over produced sound which is not what I think the band is going for. I'd like to bring them down to my studio to redo some of the vocals in the future. I see some great potential in these young lads and would like to set them up with some other fitting acts to play some shows.


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END REPORT

A Case of the Shakin' Natives


Ginger Grey

REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: MULTITRACK
PROJECT: GINGER GREY
DATE: 23/12/12

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BEGIN: REPORT

Came up on a Saturday to record Agent Nicoles brother's band "Shakin' Natives". They're young and sound like a mix between Tame Impala and the Pixies. Their vocals are not fully matured but for the most part they sound great. They recorded the song "String Me Along" which is sure to be a hit, as it is catchy and has a simple chorus. The coles weren't used as overheads for this session. They used 57's on the amps and d112 on the kick, NT5's for the over heads. This gave them an overall brighter sound which I found unnecessary.

Agent Dan gave me a universal serial bus with the information, which I would take and mix the following monday.

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END REPORT

Ginger Grey

REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: MULTITRACK
PROJECT: GINGER GREY
DATE: 01/12/12

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BEGIN: REPORT

Came up from my swampy Floridian abode to accompany Dan Duquette and Max in their recording session with the family band Ginger Grey. The old 90's chorus guitar sound was swelling out of the control room. She was singing and he was drumming.

The used two coles ribbons facing inwards to stereo mic the drums - closer together than I thought they should be, but when I asked why they said they were trying it out. Seems to me like they may have to deal with phase issues. They recorded vocals live off the floor with the SM7 then went back and redubbed them with the TLM103 - for added frequency response. Guitar amp was isolated by paneling and mic'd up with two 57's, one on center for brightness and one off axis for a more deadened sound.

The tracks we're sounding hot, as far as I could tell. I got the session files and went home to my backwoods Florida studio to mix.

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END REPORT

Thursday, November 22, 2012

REPORTING FROM THE FOLEY ROOM

Agent #EDWINPHENIX Reporting

Location: Foley Studio

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Agents Dan and Nicole went into the studio this past Saturday to record Nicoles brothers band. They will be passing me the files to do a mix at my studio in the United States. I have trouble making amends with the fact that I am mixing a Canadian export, but they will bring in revenue to the States when they move here after becoming all-stars in America.

I will take their PTF Pro Tools 9 files and mix them in PTX. This will give me some extra tools to make it sound as true to their American rock and soul core as possible. They are looking to acheive a Pixies / Tame Impala sound. I'll throw some reverb on and try to get it to be as lo-fi as possible with some tape distortion and exciter processors, and as little compression as possible.

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Report back from the lab tests Tuesday. As much as I hate coming over the border to Canada to do these things, I came over to Ryerson and did some overdubs for "The Twilight Zone" with talent Kevin Kevin Konarzewski. I was rushed after being held up at customs and so forgot to check that the VU level was appropriate on his vocal, AND forgot to put EQ on his initial VO record channel and forgot to compress it AT ALL. Although his voice was recorded pretty evenly and didn't necessarily need compression, it could have been a bad thing if it had needed it. I did edit out some unrelated speech beforehand, and used his second playlist.

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#EDWINPHENIX Signing out.

22/11/2012

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Saving Private Wilson


Admiral Hanks Forwarded me the following report :

BEGIN FWD :

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Issued by : Admiral Hanks

Location : The Foley Studio

Date : 04 | 11 | 2012

Equipment : Rode Shotgun, Large Diaphragm Condenser TBD, H1 Handy Recorder Misc SFX materials

Some people thought I was crazy to run this mission - to try and get Wilson, this volleyball - back from the Krauts. Not crazy at all I would say. When we first simulated it before running the mission, we used pasta dropping into a cookie tin to recreate the sound of our machine guns. We used a handy recorder to get the sound of enemy shots, tuned them down in protools and reversed them to get an underwater effect.

> Internal Dialogue of other soldiers was introduced for 'Dramatic Effect'

Privates Madison, Sara and Leosh added rain sounds and splashes using various rustling materials.

> Information was taken from existing banks of audio to enhance the simualation of the battlefield - explosions, heavy breathing for the soldiers.

All in all we are prepared for the real deal - and we will find Private WILSON.

"I'll see you on the beach" - Admiral Hanks

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END FWD:

#EDWINPHENIX

Monday, November 5, 2012

REPORTING FROM THE JUNGLES OF SAN FRANCISCO

REPORTING

- On the path to dub this audio for Agent Finlay

> Made a stop at the crime scene of Lieutenant Douglas Hayes

There seem to have been several murders committed by some 'Cannibal Vixens' who are apparently from Pluto. What an insignificant ball of ice.

> But will this be our final case? I don't think so - it seems we may have to go " Into the Wild " of the Foley studio tonight to get the real meat we want for this audio dub.

"But tell me four-eyes, are they capable of love" - D.H.

Mulligan got us hot on the case of this man who decided to go live in the woods - seems he may have died out there... Mysterious, and slightly less unbeleivable than the ' Vixens '. 

> He gave us authorization to rent the following tools as well, to assist with our Foley mission:

an AKG 414

Rode NT5's

2 SM57's

one SM7

and finally an APEX 210 and Neumann TLM 103


I just hope these tools will suffice - otherwise we could fall prey to the wild - I'm already getting a fever.

OVER AND OUT

#EDWINPHENIX