Week 10 Photo Challenge: Professional Networking Event

I would consider myself a people-person. When in a new group of people, I usually try to break the ice with my sense of humor and make an effort to talk to everyone that is around. I attended First Friday in September downtown. My first stop was Blackbird Studios. A friend of mines boyfriend’s brother was debuting his work there. Sadly, by the time I got there, they were gone, but there was still plenty of art to be seen and plenty of people to talk to. As I entered the gallery, there was a colorful array of charcoal art on multi-colored paper. I was fond of the Mountain Dew pieces but I did not stop there.

As I wondered from room to room, I talked to the artists, introducing myself as production professional. We chatted about their inspirations and what their plans for new pieces were. Surprisingly, it seemed they were more interested in knowing what it is that I did. As soon as I told them what it was that I do, digital media production with a specialty in audio and video, it seems they were intrigued. It was an authentic meeting of new minds and comparing the paths that lead us to our passions. I concluded the conversions by cementing in their hand, a business card.

Next stop, the CAC, Contemporary Arts Center. I only visited the bottom floor of the center since the upper floor is mostly resident artists. I was really excited when I saw that one room was converted into a toy shop! I went to the counter to chat with the creative minds behind these stellar pieces. I was able to chat with them for a moment. Unfortunately, they were out of business cards but they did point me to their websites. I was pleased to learn that they had been wanting to do a promotional piece for their work and my golden opportunity was called. I gave them a business card and gave them the light spiel on my talents and told them to give me a call when they were ready to create their video.

After I made my rounds in the CAC, my last stop for the night was a favorite place of mine, The Beat Coffeehouse. I absolutely love this place. They had a local band. I was able to steal a seat on the bench. Next to me was a young couple, visibly pregnant. I conveniently bumped into them and apologized and there was my “in” to a conversation. We started talking about baby showers and I told them I was about to be an Aunt myself. We chatted about planning and I informed them that I would be doing a video for the shower, since I am in production. They said they had the same idea but weren’t sure if they could afford it. I gave them a business card and told them, I can work within any budget and make it memorable. I made some great progress that night and made some great connections.

Week 9 Photo Challenge: Producer's Choice

This was one of my favorite projects. Something that I have been trying to do lately is work on my live audio skills. This recording was done with a friend’s band. It was suppose to have vocals but the vocalist couldn’t make it, so it became an instrumental. We recorded two songs. The plan was to do a scratch track as a reference then track them individually to the scratch track. In theory, this seems simple.

First was the set-up. Since there were no vocals, we had a drum kit and an acoustic guitar. I miked the guitar with a stereo pair of microphones.  One was aimed at the hole for the direct sound and the other at the frets to pick up some of the fret noises. For the drums, we had another stereo pair for the overheads, a SM 57 on the snare, another stereo pair on the Toms and a Beta 52 on the kick. There were eight tracks total. I had to patch the 1-2 DAW outs to 23-24 monitor inputs to be able to monitor in protools. I assigned a master fader, and after some fiddling with the Aviom system, we were in business and ready to begin.

The scratch track went well. I ran into problems when we tried to record the guitar. The guitarist had trouble keeping rhythm. I decided to create a click-track and had to tap out the bpm. I thought that would have been the solution to that problem but he was still having trouble. I decided to let him fly solo and have the drums track to his solo. That proved to be troublesome as well at first. Then he eventually was able to get into the groove.

After a few tribulations, the session was over and it was time to edit. I listened to it raw a couple of times for the best takes. I decided to go with the second one. It kept the rhythm the best and the two of them seemed more in tune. From my initial analysis, it was drum-heavy. I needed to create a space for the guitar to shine and breathe. I did some fine-tune EQ-ing and listened again.  It sounded better and just needed to be brought up in the mix. I added a delay to the guitar to make it sound more spacious and full. That was the presence it was lacking and that instantly made a difference. One last listen and it was complete.