Recording Orchestras

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:13 pm

Well, my one teacher said he will talk to his friends at CBC. to add to that, the head of the CBC studios is a close friend of our technician, who i am also on good terms with.
They know I can act professional, and they know that I am driven by my passions, so I am really hoping that works out for me.
I wont know until after Canadian Music Week (my teachers want us to network and all that jazz before they start handing us jobs) if i can get my foot in the door there. But I have high hopes.

It would be the ideal situation. If it does not pan out, I am basically going to make my rounds around Toronto till I find something that does work out.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:55 am

Cucco wrote:

Since you're across a pond and hail from Oz, we here on the western hemisphere wouldn't expect you to know this SNIP!!

Oh dear, so much to learn... How can I possibly fit it all in, eh?

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:05 am

You're getting it.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:23 am

Speaking of McGill, my wife and daughter went up there for a tour and to meet the sax professor this summer. They raved about the new music facilities - especially the recording studios. Good school too - I think Canadians refer to Harvard as "the McGill of Boston." I just finished recording Alice's audition CD.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:05 pm

Yea it is a GREAT school. I think its number one in the nation.
I am just rather pleased on where I am as far as schools. I mean right now we have employers coming to our class and giving us presentation about why we should work for them. Its kinda nice to go from listening to people tell us there is no work in the industry, to turning down people on job offers.
Today we had a guy from the Royal Caribbean. sounds like a great job, but the whole "Cant have more then .08 the entire time i am on the boat" is kinda a deal killer.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:36 pm

When they run out of bandwidth/server space they are going to put up a "Can't have more than .08 when posting on Recording.org"

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:43 pm

TheFraz wrote:

I mean right now we have employers coming to our class and giving us presentation about why we should work for them. Its kinda nice to go from listening to people tell us there is no work in the industry, to turning down people on job offers.

That is fantastic! As someone who has been working in audio schools since 1985, such information is heartening...

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:57 am

How are the school over there? Are there any?
I have no problem saying that I am 100% clueless about the Indians music industry.

With over 1 billion people, there has got to be a rather large one.

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:14 am

TheFraz wrote:

How are the school over there? Are there any?
I have no problem saying that I am 100% clueless about the Indians music industry.

I have no idea about the audio schools here in India - I'm just passing through! In five more days I'll be back in Kathmandu, my Himalayan home base.

What I can tell you, as a person who has spent many months travelling around the Himalayas - particularly Nepal, Tibet and India - is that audio education here is almost non-existent. I always seek out studios and engineers while I'm travelling, because I find they are the people who can hook me up with the best musicians (as regular recording.org poster Rfreez did a few weeks ago when I visited him in Chennai - thanks dude!). Invariably, when they find out that I teach sound engineering, the questions begin...

You may be disturbed to learn that the most common question I am asked is "how can we get that Western rock drum sound?" Sigh... I am there to capture and preserve their wonderful traditional acoustic music, and all they want to do is record Western music. Hegemony, bah!

I'm having a good time in McLeod Ganj/Dharamsala at the moment, however, having befriended the folks at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA). The Tibetans have an amazing form of singing known as 'lhamo', and TIPA has a wonderful performance hall. So their local engineer Ngawang and myself have been getting busy with the Nagra!

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:12 am

Simmosonic wrote:

...You may be disturbed to learn that the most common question I am asked is "how can we get that Western rock drum sound?" Sigh... I am there to capture and preserve their wonderful traditional acoustic music, and all they want to do is record Western music. Hegemony, bah!...

Just shoot me! I get depressed over the "all drums sounds alike" trend within western pop music. As if drum recording was frozen in time somewhere in the early eighties. It started with country where the drum tracks of Garth and Shania were produced to sound exactly like Fleetwood Mac. Now you can hear closed miced tom rolls on jazz albums. Looks like there will be no refuge.

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:52 pm

BobRogers wrote:

Just shoot me!

Pardon my bad manners, but do you mind if I shoot me first, then you?

BobRogers wrote:

As if drum recording was frozen in time somewhere in the early eighties.

Isn't it?

Mind you, there were some excellent drum recordings made back then, and these days, with increasingly more people making increasingly more recordings with increasingly less skills and increasingly more samples/sample libraries, I guess it's not surprising. Especially with drums, which are so easy to sample and yet so difficult to record well if you don't know what you're doing and/or don't have the right equipment and facilities.

Tragic, to be sure... But that's the nature of a fashion industry, which popular music definitely is. Only the top designers (Giorgio Armani et al) can afford to innovate, the rest just follow suit (sic).

BobRogers wrote:

Looks like there will be no refuge.

One solution would be to impose a separation of powers (as in the Westminster system of government) to the music industry, whereby musicians determine only the music and the songs, sound engineers determine only the sounds and the recordings, and the record company determines only the sales and marketing. The producers act like Governor Generals or Omubdsmen, stepping in when necessary to cross the divide...

It would probably be a disaster, and I'd be the first person against the wall when the revolution came and everyone was marching to the beat of the same drum (again).

And now back to our regular program?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:56 am

Wow Simmo -
If you're as good at mixing audio as you are metaphors, you're a masterful engineer.

Fraz - as for the cruise ship thing - that would be an AWESOME job! Who cares about the alcohol thing. If it's the right cruise line and the right place, you'll want to be 100% sober anyway.

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:17 am

Cucco wrote:

If you're as good at mixing audio as you are metaphors SNIP!

Yeah, sorry about that... Apart from satisfying my daily recording need while travelling, I'm spending a lot of time resting a bad knee that's recovering from a large staph infection that rampaged out-of-control up and down my right leg for a few days longer than it should have. So, I've got a little too much time on my hands.

Can't you tell? Wink

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:37 pm

I wish it was only that, that was holding me back.
Once they hier me on I can be called to work that week or in a few months. They only give you about three days to get your ass on a flight. Then its 6 months at sea for me.
Also this would interfear with other jobs I hope to get out of school.
Not to mention the whol 6 months with out seeing my girlfriend might be a little hard.
Its a great job for sure, and one that I can take up at any time. Its just not the right time in my life for me to hope on a boat for half a year.

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:26 am

TheFraz wrote:

Its just not the right time in my life for me to hope on a boat for half a year.

Aw c'mon! Any time is a good time to hop on a boat for half a year. Wink

By the way, here's some helpful advice for anyone travelling on boats:

Always keep a cake of soap in your pocket; if the ship sinks, you'll be able to wash yourself ashore.

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