Day 3: This morning I got the abridged experience of life as a
secretary at a recording studio, an important step in any internship. As I
turned on the computer at my new workstation, I was greeted by a somewhat
disturbing desktop background of what appeared to be an image of a shark-bear
creature jumping out of the ocean, left by the previous intern. Needless to say
that was quickly changed. I was set up with my own email, Stephanie@tapeworksinc.com,
and was shown how to access the online studio calendar so I would be up to date
on all the sessions taking place here at Tapeworks.
After
a couple hours getting acquainted with the computer set up, I went into Studio
A and sat in while Chris was recording a radio spot, with client Doug Bennett
for Westchester Medical Center. Once the recording was completed, lunch
commenced which consisted of chicken salad for the guys, while again I brought
my own.
Following
lunch, I went back into Studio A with Chris and Doug while they finished
producing the radio spot. The big discussion was what sound effect, if any to
add to the spots involving a trip to the mall and golfing. After some deliberation,
no sound effect was added to those commercials.
A
little while later, Bill came in and said he had a little project for me. We
went into Studio B and he opened up a session he had done with a
singer-songwriter from Pennsylvania a short time ago. He gave me the task of
mixing the fully recorded and edited song as an exercise in mixing. I love
mixing so I was really excited! It was a simple tune, clocking in at just
over two minutes, with the instrumentation consisting of piano, acoustic
guitar, and voice. I experimented with different reverb, delay, EQ, and
compression plug-ins, since they have some different plug-ins here than I never
tried before. One helpful tip Bill gave me was to try to use different reverbs
and delays on each different instrumentation group, to give each its own color
and sound. Bill also showed me the PAZ Analyzer plug-in, which when inserted on
the Master track, analyzes the frequency range of the entire song, showing
precisely where it would be best to boost and cut certain frequencies.
I have
learning quite a bit about radio commercials in the past couple weeks. While I
was driving to Tapeworks this morning, I listened close to each radio
commercial and tried to imagine what the recording session for that spot went
like. Also, learning those mixing techniques I know will greatly help and
improve my mixes in the future!
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