A Blog Taking Shape

When I started this blog, I had a general idea of what I wanted to use it for - To keep record of my experience in audio production for myself, my friends, and anyone else interested in reading about one guy's particular career track in the audio industry. I really believe that radio, television, and film is a very exciting field to work in. Additionally, recording musicians in a professional studio can be a real thrill and leave the sound engineer with several interesting stories and anecdotes to tell. This also goes for live sound reinforcement - from small crappy bars, large stadiums, and full-scale music festivals - nearly every music event offers something worthwhile that a "sound guy" could blog about from a behind-the-scenes/production side of things.

My purpose for this blog is to educate and entertain readers about the world of audio. I'll write in such a fashion that it can be understood by individuals in this technical field, but also the layman. From my experience talking audio, people who aren't versed in audio terminology and "the way everything works" will typically not understand what I am trying to explain. Therefore, if I make each blog entry "universal" to the readers, it's more likely that anyone who reads it can understand it regardless of their level of experience. I can do this in the same fashion of most literature and textbooks. By leaving a symbol by a term or phrase that may be considered unfamiliar to the layman, I can reference this term or phrase at the end of that particular blog entry.

I suppose you could call this entry the preface to my blog. With more than 100 million blogs available out there, it's nice to provide a sort of explanation for my blog's purpose. I hope you enjoy my future entries. Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have about anything I blog about.

Have a nice day.

:)

Ben

Score! Summer Internship at a post production studio. (originally posted 5/10/09)

I'm officially the summer intern at Creative Sound Studios in Orefield, PA. Although the Lehigh Valley has a limited amount of recording and post-production studios, I was fortunate enough to land this rare opportunity.

I'll be working between 20-30 hours a week without compensation, but what I learn over the course of the Summer will be invaluable.

My main concentration while interning will be a student project, where I take a few minutes from any film I like, and completely recreate the audio soundtrack from sound fx to dialog to music. I think the best experience in this project will be mixing in 5.1 surround sound. I can't wait!

Aside of my project, I'll also be able to help the staff with their sound editing for the truTV show, Forensic Files. Since truTV recently went HD, the episode soundtracks are now being mixed in 5.1. Ooo, boy.

In the mean time, I'll have to keep myself busy with other audio work to feed the creative monster living inside me. I know I'll spend a good deal of time learning about the equipment that Creative Sound Studios uses.

My first day as a field recorder (originally posted 3/5/09)

I just recently rented out some sound equipment from school. I'm a student at Lehigh Carbon Community College, where I major in Music/Sound Production. My first field recording project, which I'm doing for extra credit, involves going to a ski resort, which I work at, and recording many sounds including ski lift mechanical noise, ski/snowboard ambience, and footsteps in the snow. I'm really looking forward to this and can't wait to see what sort of ideas I can generate from the assortment of samples I'll have collected.

Take a look at the equipment I'll be using:

The Zoom H4 is a portable recorder capable of up to 24bit/96kHz recordings to an SD card. It has two built-in microphones for X/Y pattern stereo recordings, but also accepts two additional mics via two XLR-1/4 in. combo jacks. The H4 has the option of stereo recording or 4-track mode for mult-track recordings. This handy little gizmo is battery powered, but can also be plugged into an outlet or USB port. The H4 can also record in MP3 format up to 320 kbps.

The AKG C 568 B is a short shotgun microphone with a hyper cardioid pickup pattern. It includes a 12 db/octave 120 Hz bass roll-off switch. I'm looking forward to trying this out at the ski resort!

That's all for now - thanks for reading!