My Inspiration to Work with Digital Audio
When I first entered my high school, the Downingtown STEM Academy, there were a couple of aspects about the school that made me excited to attend. The small couches lining the basement hallways, the excitement behind the eyes of the teachers I met that day, and most importantly the recording studio.
The recording studio made me the most jittery ninth grader the word had ever seen: The guitars hung on the wall, the cabinets full of a variety of not-tangled-and-actually-neatly-wrapped cables, and the one of the nicest people I have ever met, my music teacher Mr. Lloyd. He welcomes anyone into his classroom/studio with open arms, and supported any student’s musical endeavors. When myself and a couple of other students wanted to start a radio show, he jumped at the chance to not only run the show but also bring us donuts at 6:30 AM every Thursday at the ungodly hour we all dragged ourselves out of bed just for the four people that would listen to the show. The show was more about the time we spent with our friends and the talkshow bits we had on air, as well as listening to Good Morning Baltimore almost every morning in Downingtown, PA.
When my band wanted to perform at our school’s mini-thon, Cam-A-Thon, Mr. Lloyd dedicated his time to haul the school’s mixer, speakers, and equipment to the events location, do our sound, and pack it all up again and take it home late in the night. Without the support of this man, my dreams of being a musician may not have become fulfilled to the extent that they did. I highly recommend just sitting back and remembering the amazing people you have encountered in your life. Life sometimes moves so fast that as soon as we are finished with one task or life event we immediately jump to the next one, instead of taking the time to soak in what is currently happening around us. Appreciate those who do so much for you, even if you’re busily caught up in the hecticness of life.
Anyway, I took Mr. Lloyd’s recording studio class in my freshmen and sophomore year. While it did not make me a recording master, I was able to learn the basics. I left those two years knowing how to wrap a cable as well as a cowboy would his lasso, I knew how to work the soundboard in the most basic sense (volume sliders, mute), and I got extensive experience with GarageBand. While most of the time I felt like any kid who “wants to make music for the first time” in that I really did not know what I was doing, while completing a couple assignments I discovered how to add in crazy effects such as a pitch shifter that made my voice sound as rich and deep as James Earl Jones’, and I learned the basics of how to manipulate sound with the EQ settings.
This initial work got me passionate about learning how to work with sound. I had been playing music for a couple years at this point, but going through a very trial-by-fire-see-if-this-works type of recording process showed me that I was really interested with how sound was captured and changed. This interest grew intensely once my band started recording our first album at School of Rock. Brian, my guitar teacher, also worked at a recording studio and professionally knew how to set up a recording session and produce a quality track.
This is the most unflattering picture of Brian. What a guy.
Seeing him fly through the program Pro Tools, or “Pro Fools” when it inevitably crashes on the older computer housed in Rock School, excited something within the “creative wishes and dreams” portions of my brain. Watching him activate different reverb and delay plugins, set up the microphone in just the right place, and having him contribute creatively to the sound of our music inspired/inspires me to learn how these different functions work and become trained in the practice of music production.
This is why I am now taking INART 258A here at Penn State and hoping to get a Music Technology minor. Being able to work in the studio and learning how all the different pre-amps, microphones, effects, software, and musicians come together to create the masterpieces that we as a society have almost unlimited access to would be a literal dream come true.
Moral of this maybe-not-so-interesting story: do not be afraid to follow your dreams. I was very grateful to have some amazing musical and life mentors, and while they drove me to be what I am today musically, it is mostly chalked up to self-interest. I sought after my passions and while they are not my major (Computer Engineering), they are still involved in my life. Never lose time for what excites you, because that’s when life gets boring.
– JF