Forum Rollcall... Who's here?

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:55 am

my name

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:26 am

Well Duncan...

This is a start, but lets hear more about you. There must be more than just a name. This thread was composed to introduce ourselves to the other members and provide background information to the rest of the community.

--Ben

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:35 pm

Paul De Mond - been lurking the Mastering forums for a while. I just got to this one.

I can't hold a candle to the impressive list of musician credentials here. Amazing! I'm looking forward to hanging out with all of you.

I'm an Electrical Engineer by training, and a Program Manager by trade. Part time, I'm the Studio Engineer at the local NPR affiliate. So, I know and understand a lot of the technical side of things (or, at least I think I do...). I suck at the classical guitar, even after 12 years of lessons.

My background has been from the audiophile side of things over the past 25-30 years and when I grow up I want to be a recording engineer. My heroes are 'Professor' Keith O. Johnson and Bob Katz.

Fortunately, my station has a small recording studio, and I designed and installed the control room for it. Most of our work is acoustic: folk, some jazz, occaisionally classical. Small groups of 2 - 5 (room isn't too large). ProTools TDM system. Small, but nice selection of mics.

I'm hoping to pick up some advice on mic techniques to augment all the articles I've been reading over the years. I hope to make just one great recording some day.

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:44 pm

Good to see you, dpd; sounds like you're in a good spot there in Indiana, and working for NPR too!

Welcome aboard, along with all the other recent posters.

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:20 am

[WARNING: The following may contain copious amounts of waffling]

Paraphrasing a character on the BBC series “The Fast Show”…”Hi, I’m Thomas Grubb”.

I’m an organist and producer from Melbourne Australia, 34 years old and usually get to browse this forum only late at night and after too many glasses of red.

I undertook undergraduate organ and composition studies in Melbourne and postgraduate organ studies in Stuttgart with Ludger Lohmann. While in Stuttgart I met my wife Sonja and had her transported to the colonies where we have two boys aged 5 and 2.

My interest in audio comes from my dad who, when I was young, used to lug along reel-to-reel recorders to various venues to record my playing.

While at Uni. I was part of a group who recorded the “not so serious” style of music. We were frowned upon by our compositional peers, but at least one of the group has gone on to write the chorus of a worldwide No.1 hit. I also had access to vrs 1.1 of ProTools, plus learnt the joys of splicing tape.

This all seemed like a lot of fun, so I did a one-year course in audio engineering. The school is not around anymore as they had a policy of refunding the fees if the student dropped out – needless to say, only 25% of students got to the end on the year and the school didn’t survive long. I had a good teacher, access to a good studio, and armed with a vague knowledge of how mathematics worked managed to pass the year.

In 1993, having finished my courses and thinking it was really time to seek greener pastures, I applied for and got a place in Stuttgart studying organ. I supported myself teaching remedial aural training to (mostly) singers and playing organ and later piano at the American army barracks (“Praise be the Lord, for Jesus is touching my soul…Alleluia”…that sort of thing).

I also became a member of the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister and visited many meetings and conferences. At one conference I heard a producer Ted Diehl from Channel Classics talk and liked what he said. I wrote him a letter and he invited me to visit him in Holland. This was really the turning point that inspired me to try and follow the path of classical producer. We had conversations about what made a good recording, and he introduced me to Rens Heijnis, maker of the Sonodore range of products.

After 5 years in Germany, I decided to return to Melbourne. The position of Assistant Organist at St Patrick’s Cathedral (a wonderful neo-gothic building with around 7-seconds of reverb – great for Reger and Vierne) was offered to me, and through a friend I found out that a local classical label was looking for a recording engineer.

The recording job turned out to be poorly paid with a terrible attitude towards producing (ie. “Was that take ok?”…”Well, you’ve already done it 4 times, that’s enough”), but it did provide me with plenty of contacts. After 2 years of working with ProTools (a most unsuitable program for classical editing) and having received a number of scoldings from the owner about recording too many takes (he had to do the backups after all!) I left and set up my own company, Mano Musica.

Luckily I picked up some editing work for ABC Classics, and since then have regular editing and producing work for them and other private clients.

My wisest choice was to get some Sonodore mics and preamps – people just seem to love the sound. I’ve been using Wavelab 5 for editing, but am waiting to receive Sequoia 8.2.

My aim is to be recording and mastering SACD (I don’t care what anyone says, if the front end it right, then you DO hear the difference) – the closest I’ve come is 24/96 in surround.

I’m still at the Cathedral (we just performed the Faure Requiem for the Pope to 4000 people). Perhaps we’ll go back to Europe some day. The classical scene seems to be rather fickle over there at the moment, but I do so miss not being able to wander into a church and play an organ from 1700…

It’s great to have found a forum with such a interesting mix of people. I’m always interested in hearing other points of view, and I hope I can be of some help to someone, sometime.

Cheers,
Tom

ps. personally I wouldn‘t mind being buried in Melbourne, just not in the western suburbs please.

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:09 am

Hi
I'm Rhydian. It's a Welsh name. I'm Welsh. It's also a male name for those who haven't heard it before.

I started playing guitar and keys when aged about 9 years old. Ditched the keys at about 12. Did my first gig in a local "pub" aged 17 yrs and gigged lots until aged 30yrs, also recording as an artist in a London-based band called the Lazy Days (ie someone else did the engineering and mixing).

About 4yrs ago, got into the concept of audio engineering. Currently I'm engineering and producing an album for a London-based company, Innocent Music. Predominantly working with overtly christian artists at the present (I investigated the gospel about 4 yrs ago and decided it was all true and very important, as opposed to untrue and therefore insignificant).

Range of music I enjoy is wide. Recording rock/pop at present, but aim to diversify.

The two things I love most are my PRS custom guitar and my Pod XT pro. I'm growing to love protools almost as much (controvertial or what!).

Rhydian Surprised

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:56 am

Welcome Rhydian and Tom.

Rhydian - My favorite sounding guitars are the Paul Reed Smiths - their custom work is some of the finest work on guitars since Amati made violins.

Tom - I think you and I will get along great. I like your comments on SACD/DSD and your choice of equipment!

Thumbs Up

Jeremy

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 5:37 pm

Greg -

I actually went to recording engineer school back in the early 90's (2 year program). Had a job in a studio, decided it made a better hobby than career....just didn't like the LA entertainment industry. Of course, there's other types of audio work, but....Ended up getting a degree in Biology instead....now I work with computers...go figure....

Anyway...I've been playing instruments for most of my life. Took some piano lessons for a year or two when I was 7 or 8, then started playing bass when I was 11 in the school jazz band...continued that all the way through high school. Picked up guitar along the way...

Now I play a lot of tenor banjo, octave mandolin and some tin whistle as well. I'm big into traditional Irish music...though I can't get enough of more "punk" bands like The Pogues either. My musical tastes are all over the spectrum...Zappa-XTC-Bartok-The Bothy Band-Ornette Coleman-Hank Williams III-The Residents-Tom Waits ... and on and on... I'm just not much into radio pop music.... (couldn't have guessed, right?)

I used to do a lot of home recording as well as with my various old bands (boy do I have a lot of old 4-track tapes)...but lots of moving around in the past few years (California>Germany>back to California and then some...), etc, has been keeping music (& recording) to a minimum. I'm finally getting back into things...building a home studio...playing with other musicians again. And now I've even lined up a session to record in a few months (once I get my portable laptop based digital studio going)...a bluegrass band up in San Francisco.

Amazing though...haven't looked into things like mixers, mics and signal processors in quite some time (8 years?)...now I feel lost. Rode? Studio Projects? Never heard of them! ....until a few weeks ago.

So I work at this really large computer company...and they have a small A/V production studio in the very building I'm in...I keep thinking of asking them if they're dept is hiring... Wink

So, I've got my Mac laptop with 1.2GB RAM, and external 200Gig firewire drive, a few mics, various outboard signal processors, buying an FW audio interface this weekend.... I'm just working on getting a couple more mics. I need a good all-purpose vocal mic & a pair of mics to stereo record live sessions...which I've posted questions about on the corresponding forums.

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:43 am

My name is Brian Altenhofel. I started getting into music when I was 7 with Carcassi-Block Classical Guitar Method. When I was 11, I picked up the F Horn (I know what you mean Cucco about getting bent out of shape when people say "FRENCH HORN"!!!) for our school band. It seemed I was the only student brave enough to do it without being forced to later in high school.

Anyway, I got into mixing live sound when I was 9 at our church on Sunday nights. They told me to "make sure the fader doesn't move and don't touch anything" (basically, it was something to keep my hyper self occupied). Being a negatively reinforced person, I did the exact opposite. I tweaked with things during the services and figured out what they did. By the time I was 12, I was working both Sunday morning and Sunday evening. I volunteered there every Sunday until I moved for college a few months ago. I still work in a rotation every third month (they want to save my gas since they can't really pay it), but I get calls many weekends for rehearsals with those doing music performances because I "know how to make them sound like part of the CD". (I just leave a diagram of the settings for the guy who does the sound that Sunday. Oh yeah, the performer usually pays me to come and do that.)

About the same time I started working every Sunday at the church, I started thinking about recording. I knew the basics of how things worked, but still wanted more. I bought a reel-to-reel recorder and a small mixer (I can't remember the brands) and a couple of SM57s. I remember when I noticed that I had gotten off just a tad on a take of a song I had written and I thought about just punching in. However, I also noticed that I stayed on after I got off if you get what I mean. That was my first experience with the razorblade.

When I was 16, my grandparents died and left me a few thousand dollars inheritance. I bought a small PA system consisting of budget items. I also bought many different types of lights and a controller. I started DJ'ing dances for our high school for a very low $50 per dance. I viewed it mostly as a service. However, it really opened me up to the musical styles I hated. I had always been an 80's metal, punk, grunge, rap, emo, and classical type of person, but in small towns all anyone can dance to seems to be rap and country. The former rap is RunDMC; the latter is Ying-Yang Twins.

After I graduated high school (A year early, I might add.) I sold all of my PA system in favor of acquiring equipment to later start my own studio. I've always been a business minded person. From actually buying KoolAid in bulk quantities during my childhood summers so I could sell cups of KoolAid at $.50 with a $.49 profit margin to running my own webservers throughout junior high and high school to DJ'ing dances in high school (I didn't count spending the inheritance as losing money. That was free money to me.) I always tried to find the best way to increase my profit margin. I want to settle as a recording engineer, preferably also owning my own studio. By the way, I kept the lights as part of my vibe gear. For some reason, I work best with lights, candles, and fog.

I enjoy working with tape. I bought an Otari 24-track off of eBay as one of my first purchase. To me, editing is fun. Its that risk of no undo key. I've been around computers since I was 5. I built my first computer out of components when I was 8. I broke through a security system on a computer for the first time when I was 10 (Without a program, I might add. Also, that got boring at 15.). I am totally in the digital age, but to me, audio still fits better in the analog format. I'm not saying I'm opposed to digital gear, its just I don't like the DAWs. Its not that I don't know how to use them either. I've troubleshooted problems with ProTools over the phone. I just don't like the way DAWs sound. Until computer power catches up with the theory behind DAWs, I probably won't use them unless I absolutely have to. (Just in case I run into a situation where I HAVE to use ProTools, I take courses every 6 months to keep things fresh so I am at least prepared.)

Yes, I do most of my work out of an apartment. But you should really see the look on people's faces around here when they see a 24-track 2" tape machine and NO COMPUTER in sight when you say "this is what we're recording on". I hate the "so where's ProTools?" question that ALWAYS comes up.

Anyway, I'll be 19 on May 10, so I think I'm a little ahead of where I need to be and this place is only helping me. I've seen more progress in my skill advancement since I joined than I did before. I have a really quick learning curve so these discussions combined with my experimental mindset switches my thought process into high gear.

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 1:22 am

Welcome, Brian; (Welcome to alllllll the newcomers, indeed!)

It's literally breath-taking and truly gratifying to see so many new folks on here, and to read/hear about what you've been through to get where you are now.

I hope it'll mean a lot of new posts and ideas from one and all.

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2005 12:53 am

Hey everybody! Let me into your warm company, please. Smile

It was really interesting to read all the stories. I was reading this forum a lot but so far it's my first post.
My name is Sergey and I'm from Russia, just happened to come to LA 2 years ago. So there might be a lot of poor english from my side. Embarassed

To say that I was in music all my life would be a lie. I started to LISTEN to pop music when I was about 16... Next few years I spent trying to get decent hi-fi system. All those years I was pretty active HAM radio guy at the club station. Worked at advertisement agency until my classmate at Telecommunications University took me to his father's company for a part-time job as a tech for conferences, simultaneous translation etc. That was in 1997. Year before I met a girl, and she just pushed me one night to the theatre. That was it, I was hooked. By that time my audiophilia ended since I couldn't afford even cables, but it transformed to the interest for professional audio. My job as a tech also helped a lot. So one perfect day I got a calls from that girl and from my friend separately talking about the same thing: one theatre needed in-house sound engineer asap. I called them and got an invitation for this very evening. I got there 1 hour before the curtain, talked to the sound dept chief, director of the theatre and stayed for the show. I didn't expect to run the second half of it... But I did. That was March 01 1999... In 2 weeks I learned that guy who was my boss has quit. So I became this way a chief of sound dept. Very Happy

I quit just 6 months later, with the beginning of a new year at University.
But already in a month I was working in the Opera House as a Stage Light dept guy... I hooked again. And still hooked to opera, ballet and classical music as crazy. There I spent about 1.5 years. Some time later I noticed some strange activity going on in the theatre and found out that there is construction of recording studio taking place. Somehow I found a guy who will be my teacher in a future and managed to talk to him. Our conversation was interrupted by another guy was a head of whole dept there. 20 mins and I was named as a head of recording studio... Very Happy

just nominal term though. And we've started... First year we recorded nearly every performance (and there it's alsmost every day), mixing last night show next morning and recording at night again. We did live open air opera shows with PA, broadcasting and recording at the same time... I mean, just two of us were responsible for the sound. Then we did some cooperative work with couple foreign crews, that enriched our experience immensely. And so on...
And one more day I won a Green Card Lottery and decided to try to move to States. So here I work at small studio so far. Desperately want to do classical recordings again. As to a gear - I don't have much. Just a couple of Schoeps mics and Samplitude DAW. Cool

Sorry if that was too long!
Cheers!

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2005 4:30 pm

Hey Sergey!

Welcome to the boards and welcome to the states. (It's a shame you had to wind up in LA though - my thoughts are with you... Confused

--Just kidding Ben and Zilla! kinda...)

If you've got Schoeps and Samplitude - you're most of the way there.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Jeremy

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:18 pm

First off, I've only been coming to RO for a few weeks and am quite impressed with the knowledge and experience here.

My name is Kary Wall and spent most of my life in the Charlotte, NC area. I spent much of my childhood tearing things apart and blowing things up. (literally). My parents used to freak when they woud find my latest toy in pieces within a week or two after giving it to me. I just had to know what made it tick. As a kid I was also very much into music and "mixing" it on my little home stereo system. I discovered how reverb worked by playing two identical records on two different turn tables at the same time slighly out of sync. What a revelation that was to me.

I didn't become a musician until I was 17 so I played "catch up" on guitar for many years. I was always a fast learner so I was able to play with musicians much better than me most of the time. The main difference was I had to practice 3 times as long as everyone else just to keep up. I played in many local/regional cover and original bands all through the 80's and 90's, up and down the east coast from Keywest to Delaware.

In the late 80's I decided to try my hand at mixing to supplement my "starving musician" income. I heard someone saying "we have a gig friday and no sound man". I spoke up and said I could do it. (had never touch a real board). I showed up early, shaking like a leaf. The guy who owned the PA handed me a bunch of insert cables and said "here, you're the soundman right, patch these into the drums and vocals". There I am staring at the insert cables with funny symbols telling me which is the send and return but I didn't know which symbol meant what. After about 5 minutes of racking my brain, I carefully worded my sentence to keep me from being exposed. "The company I usually work with doesn't use this type of insert cable. Which is the send and which is the return?" The PA owner replied. "Beats the $hit out of me, try it one way and if it don't pass signal, reverse it". What a relief! I soon purchased all of the standard fare books at the time and read them all cover to cover.... SRH by Yamaha, the MHA by Everest, Recording Techniques and many others, learned all the math and taught myself all I could. It paid my bills for many years. I was very lucky in that respect since I had no formal college education.

Anyway, I was nervous for a long time but kept picking up gig after gig and had a few regular house gigs where I worked 7 nights a week I cut my teeth on mixing all types of instrumentation. I mixed thousands of shows over the years to come as well as continuing to play around town.

During all this time I gained experience in a few different areas. I was lucky enough to work with an old Russian fellow who taught me how to wind voice coils by hand and build transducers etc., I also ran music stores and about a hundred other things. Too many to bore you with here, but it gave me lots of experience that I still use & value deeply today... I really wish I had access to a place like RO back then, such an invaluable resource that used to be non-existent.

I have since moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and am now a computer programmer by trade but still do a little mixing, mastering, engineering and playing when I can. Most of what I do now is DAW based. I've been knocking off the dust lately and doing somethings again. It has been an interesting ride so far and I hope to keep going as long as I can.

Best Regards-

Kary (aka karbomusic)

Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 7:02 pm

Having visited this forum for several months now and made an exponential increase in my knowledge of recording as a result, I thought I would join the fray.

I am a former double bass player who realized in college that I would never make a go of it as a professional musician. Fortunately, while studying music I was simultaneously taking courses in business, computers and writing. For the past 20 years, I have combined my passion for music and the other performing arts with my business skills, serving as a manager in non-profit arts organizations. Currently, I am an executive in a professional orchestra based at Carnegie Hall. Recording classical music on weekends and in the evenings is my busman's holiday.

While in high school and college, I developed an interest in the technology of recording and sound reinforcement. This led to some occasional work recording recitals and jazz band concerts. Fast forward 15 years, and the orchestra where I worked needed some archival recordings of chamber music concerts for grant applications. I volunteered and have steadily been acquiring the equipment and (hopefully) the expertise to do a proper job of it. It's been an amazing learning process since on the business end of the microphones have been some of the finest classical musicians in the world. What a luxury! To date, I have had no commercial releases but some of my work has made it on to Performance Today and other radio programs.

Now, I have no ambitions to do this for a living since I've got a heck of a day job that takes all my time anyway. Also, as an orchestra executive, I have been fortunate to work with absolutely the best producers and engineers in the business -- for labels such as Sony, Decca, EMI, Nonesuch, Harmonia Mundi, BMG, Arabesque, etc. -- and have nothing but admiration and awe for their talent. (Mostly... there are some surprisingly big name classical music producers whose reputations exceed their skills.) What the good ones do is take all that million-dollar equipment and make it disappear in service to music.

One other thing: living in an apartment in Manhattan, all my gear has to be portable enough to go with me on the subway. I never get a new piece of equipment without considering its size and weight and what will have to be jettisoned from my rig to make way.

Looking forward to learning!

-- James

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 8:59 am

Hi!

Rich here...

Originally from Bristol, England, now living permanently in Newfoundland, Canada.

I've been a trumpet player since 1979 and got into electronic music with an Atari ST, a bootleg copy of Cubase 2 and a cheap Roland sound module in 1993. In 1996 I attended one year of a two year BTEC course in Music Technology. It was useless, so I never finished it. But I did buy a PC and Cubase VST in 1996 and spent countless hours (usually around 6 per night) writing and recording. My job as an insurance clerk funded it, with the occasional trumpet playing gig with my rock/soul band.

Moved to Newfoundland in 1999 and started work as facilities manager at the School of Music at Memorial University (it's a classical school, with a tiny bit of jazz added). It included some very basic and old recording equipment.

This year saw the completion of a $1.8million building extension, and a new job for me as music technology specialist.