Looking Back…

As most of you know, I will be finishing up my M.F.A. in Recording Arts in May. It’s been a tough journey but I have learned a ton and wouldn’t trade the experience. I didn’t start this program to simply(that’s funny) get a job in the recording industry but to learn how to make songs sound the way they sound in my head. This sounds simplistic but is the best way to describe my goal. Almost a full 3 years have gone by and I ask myself …Have I fulfilled this goal? The answer is yes/no. I’m so much closer to it than ever but still a long way off. The more accurate answer that any “real” passion is a pursuit and will take a lifetime of learning, sacrificing and yes a little frustration to perfect. Ladies and gentleman…I have just begun my pursuit!

Knee Deep in Editing

It seems like all I do these days is edit. I’ve got about 50% of Jamie’s tracks edited and I’m about to start cleaning up the live recording I did back in December. I’m not complaining because, as described to Jamie, I love the result of good clean tracks. It also gives me time with the songs to help me mentally prepare how I will mix them. I have decided to finally drink more of the Digidesign Kool Aid and purchase the Digital Production Toolkit. Too many of the songs I work on go above the 32 tracks that you get with the standard ProTools LE bundle and plus you get a cool convolution reverb called TL Space. A buddy of mine Shannon let me check it out and I must say it has some good reverbs.

Over the last few weeks I have done a tracking session for Kingdom Living where we recorded 3 new songs for their project and a B3 and keys overdub  for Jamie’s tunes. Doug, the player for that session, lit up that Hammond and we got some killer tracks. I can’t wait to post some of these songs. I apologize that I don’t have any pics from that session.

January is Gone!!!

Where did it go? The month seemed to fly by. I have been working on editing all of the Harvill tracks for his cd that we are completing in the next three months. We have a B-3 and percussion overdub session in a couple of weeks and I’m trying to get the tracks ready.

As far as the live Christmas cd I’ve been working, I met with the producer, Randy, and we have a tracking date for the studio cuts at the end of next week. We will be cutting 3 songs on that date and 2-3 more in a session next month. This project will be finished around August.

I also got the opportunity to mix a children’s worship song for my church, World Outreach Church, that should be printed anytime now. It was fun because I wasn’t involved in much of the production aspects but I got to mix. Just mixing is a good change in my routine.

Speaking of mixing, I got a chance to watch a DVD that a friend of mine, produced about audio mixing techniques. In this cd John Merchant, a phenomenal engineer, walks you through professional mix techniques. This thing is worth every penny! Go to the website and check it out and here is a pic:

Live Recording is Finished

Man! Where do I start? We worked our tails off this weekend. Live recordings are definitely not something I like to do every day but are fun every now and then. They are a ton of work to setup and have a tendency to be riddled with problems no matter how good you plan them. On this occasion, we were blessed to not have any problems and I contribute that to the grace of God. Josh Quarles, a good friend of mine, assisted me on this project and he made me look good by patching like a pro. I will be getting some rough mixes out to the producer soon so we can start making plans for overdubs and such to be started in late January. We tracked from the drama classroom and therefore had props to play with when we weren’t busy. Just wanted to let you know that Josh is not a Samurai Gangster and I did not threaten him with a Muzzle Loader at any point no matter how much I wanted to.

This weekend…

I have been gearing up for a live recording for Kingdom Living Ministries this weekend. We will be recording 8 songs in their Christmas program and then going into the studio to record the last 4 songs. Since I don’t own a huge studio for doing such a show, I am appreciative to John Gholston at Gear for Days for working with me to get the best possible system. I’ve also recently acquired 4 new Crown PZM mics that I will try out as house microphones.  Here is what they look like:

As far as Jamie Harvill’s project goes, we have tracked the first 6 songs of the album but I still need to edit the tracks and then we will start some overdubing. He also hired me to mix a song for the World Outreach Church’s children’s worship cd. That song is close to being finished and I will post it on jonbufkin.com whenever it is done.