Hi again,

On Monday this week a few of us loaded into the Green Screen studio for a bit of a band rehearsal. This was for the demo song production project based on Rick and Shereen’s pitch for a semi-acoustic post-grunge interpretation of the song. We spent a bit of time nailing the structure and getting a feel for the tempo and different parts for drums, bass, acoustic guitar, banjo and vocals. This was well worth doing as there was a bit of uncertainty at the start, and by the end we had a good scratch take on my iphone.

Wednesday was a big one for me, starting with the tracking session in the Neve studio. We miked up my kit in the large room, acoustic guitar in the vocal booth, bass DI in the control room, and we all played to the guide vocals and keyboards in the Pro Tools session. The song came up nicely after about five takes, and from what I heard briefly in the control room all the sounds were pretty good.

In the evening we set up for our live sound event in the sound stage. Shereen had lined up a really good five-piece alt-rock band with drums, keys, bass, guitar, sax, vocals and two BVs. Looking at the space in the previous weeks I was thinking that a major obstacle for this gig was going to be stage volume, considering it is a very open and reflective area. I called in a favour with a good friend at a lighting company in Preston and hired a large 3mx6m stage curtain backdrop with a basic truss, as well as some LED par cans and a small DMX desk. I think this made a huge difference to the sound and the overall feel of the night, and the band seemed to have a good time. The only small downside was that we hadn’t really promoted the night to friends, so there wasn’t much of an audience for the guys. Other than that, I think it was a great night.

This week was also the KPI reflection where we write up some critical self-reflection. I think that I’m contributing well and learning a lot, and now need to focus on keeping up the momentum and staying on top of time management.

I have met up with some very cool people from some of the other audio groups to work on post-production sound for a Latvian TV spot, and this has become the foundation for my major project group. I’m really happy that this has worked out as it is very much what I had hoped to achieve from this course. We have started by using the cue sheet template from the baseline project and listing all the elements, and I have been recording foley sounds while the others will capture atmos and work on a preliminary mix.

Looking forward to more projects!

Cheers!