Author: kaitlynw864

For the last day of the WEP I went to a different location to complete work. Another interest of mine is game design, however, I wasn’t able to do a full work experience on this topic. Though today I was able to glimpse into the world of game design at a VR company called Lucid Dream.  For the first half of the day we were introduced to all of the team members of the company and got to see how the different aspects of game design (Coding, art, music, etc.) connect with each other.

After lunch we were able to test a virtual reality game that was created to promote a company. The game was in in final stages, and the goal of playing it over and over was essentially trying to break it to see what bugs existed. By doing this, the creators are able to see what they have to fix for the game to be more successful.

Not too much to report today. A hip hop artist came in at 11:30 and Right away Mr. Hodgen started to mix his music. He is a very relaxed client and is very willing to listen to any suggestions that Mr. Hodgen has about what to add into his music or take away. While taking his music seriously, he still keeps an open mind and is aware that he should respect the opinion of someone who has been editing this stuff for many years. Also, because I was previously taught how to wind the tape and record on it, I was able to assist when it came time to record his tracks. I would make sure that there was enough tape on the track and then record it for them.

Today was a bit of a slow day because the client that was supposed to come in at noon forgot about the appointment.

While Mr. Hodgen was making a few phone calls I was tasked with cleaning the recording booth.

I dusted off the ledges and then sprayed and cleaned the windows. This seems like a unimportant and simple task however, the two glass panes that I was cleaning were veRY expensive. I don’t remember the exact numbers that he told me, but the two panes price put together is more then CA tuition so, yeah a lot of money. In addition to that, inside the booth there is a 15,000 dollar microphone, and I was spraying glass cleaner near it. Just knowing that if I broke anything, I wasn’t going to college was a little bit stressful. However, I was able to get the cleaning done with no accidents.

I also cleaned the wooden ledges and bases with a nice smelling lemon polish.

After that the day consisted of a lot of things that I have already explained in previous posts like mixing hip hop music and setting up the tape recorder.

 

Today we started out day a little bit later at 1:00 pm because Mr. Hodgen had to take his son to the hospital for a pre-op checkup. Even with the late start, I still did a lot of interesting and cool things today. I learned how to wind tape, meaning how to set it up in the machine properly and how to rewind as well as record over it.

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Tape machines are a very cool resource that not a lot of studios have today because digital recording has taken over a lot. However, they are good to have because they give songs a nice warm sound to them. I also learned that before digital editing, someone would have to literally cut off pieces of the tape in order to make edits to the song, which is an irreversible action. (Lots of pressure to do things right!)

It also fully learned what mastering a song is. Mixing a song is adding in effects and editing out parts that are not wanted. Mastering music means that the song volume is raised to a commercial level, so that the volume of your song wouldn’t be drastically different from another song that played on the same speakers. Mastering music also involves looking at an entire album or group of songs and ensuring that al the songs are just about the same volume level.

The difference in mastering a song makes the difference in how people will hear the song.

Later in the day, three guys came in who are members of a band called five nine. They play what I would define is alternative rock kind of music. Anyways it was cool stuff! And Mr. Hodgen worked with them as he mixed their music.

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Mr. Hodgen worked with two clients today. The first was a duo of rock artist. They came in around noon and after settling in a bit, Mr. Hodgen started to mix their music.

Mixing music means that he is doing all of the editing and revising. So he is going through their songs and taking out and replacing moments the artist don’t like as well as adding in effects such as echo, deep voice, fading etc.

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When the rock artists were satisfied with how their music sounded they wrapped things up and Mr. Hodgen had another client come in. She was a women who was recording herself reading a script for a virtual teachers guide. She had amazing diction and pronunciation. It was amazing to hear a voice that sounded exactly like the voices you hear during commercials on television.

Today started off like all days should- with coffee. Mr. Hodgen observed as I made him a proper pot of coffee, remembering the skills that I learned from him yesterday.

After we both had some coffee, I was sent on a driving quest- to pick up some coffee beans (he really likes coffee) and to go to the bank. I was a little stressed at first because I am completely unfamiliar with the area of downtown Raleigh, but the drive went smoothly and I was able to get to the locations without any trouble. I retrieved his large bags of coffee beans and then made my way over to Wells Fargo.

Before I left I was given specific instructions “when you arrive at Wells Fargo, they are going to try and give you an updated bag. You tell them that if they take my Wachovia bag, you will lose your job.”

So I made sure to keep his outdated bag.

Yesterday I was able to listen to Mr. Hodgen mix a rapper song, today when I returned from my driving adventure I was greeted with a completely different sight. He was recording a women reading a book from the 50s about aliens. Her goal is to upload her reading to an audio book program. In only two days at Osceola studios I have been shown the incredible variety of things that Mr. Hodgen works on.

 

Fun fact: Mr. Hodgen has 41 lava lamps.

On the outside, Osceola studios is just a simple, small brick building however, on the inside, the building couldn’t have any more character. There are tons of trinkets and small toys that lay across the music editing software and there are at least 11 lava lamps in the studio.

The day started off with me doing basic housekeeping things such as making a pot of coffee, washing dishes and spraying the perimeter of the studio with bug spray. That sounds dull however while tidying up I learned how to properly wrap chords, where the microphones are safely kept and how to turn on certain power sources.

Soon a client came in, and for the next few hours I got to sit and observe as Mr. Hodgen reviewed a hip hop artist’s music and went through the process of mixing it. It was fascinating to see how the artist’s song started and how it ended up after the mixing was complete. I learned that the most important part of the entire process was making sure that the song is in correct time and that the BPM (beats per minute) stay consistent throughout the song.

I am very interested to see how the work will vary with different kinds of music.

 

 

Yesterday was my first, and last day of working with Mr. Yaffe. He is a music producer and a cellist in the North Carolina Symphony. On Memorial Day I was given the opportunity to sit in with him while he was recording a live group of three people.

I showed up about an hour before the recording. There, Mr. Yaffe showed me how he set up the microphones and all the technology necessary in order to properly record the artists in a wide open space. Even though there were only 2 instruments and one vocalist being recorded, ten mics were used. I learned a little bit about different kinds microphones and how each one captures sound differently. A ribbon mic, for example only catches sound in front, and behind it, while a cardioid microphone captures sound in a heart-like shape.

After I was walked through all the materials set up on stage, I was brought back to where the music producer and director sit, which was much less glamorous then the large, fancy auditorium. None the less, it was cool.

In there I was shown around the small area a bit, and Mr. Yaffe explained to me how the programs on his computer assist with the recording process. After that, for the next six hours (not including a two hour dinner break) I got to listen to the music being played on stage. I learned a lot about how the recording process works and the difficulties of being both the person being recorded as well as the producer. It was fascinating to see how the individuals around me have been trained to listen and catch certain errors within the music and work with the artist to fix them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hodgen (the man I am doing the rest of my work experience program with) had to go to the doctors this morning, and decided that our first day together should be tomorrow the 30^th.

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