Forum Rollcall... Who's here?

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:24 pm

My Name is Teddy Ray Bullard, and I am currently living in Heidelberg, Germany. Stationed with the US Army here.

I began my love of music at age 12 when my grandfather , who was the frontman for a Southern Gospel group in NC (where I am from)decided he would capitalize on my unusually low voice and recruit me as the "Token Bass" in his group, The Glory Bound quartet.. After a concert one evening at a church in Gaffney, SC, a music minister that was sitting in the congregation came up to me and said that "he would love to have me in his Choir"(his church was a "Big" Baptist church in Tabor City, NC and the choir there sang Handel, Poulenc, and Verdi, instead of Gaither , Carter Family, and Stanley Brothers. Smile

)so..thus began my love affair with classical music. I graduated from Choir peon to Choir soloist, to eventually climbing up the ranks of All County, ALl region, and All State Choir in high school, To eventually singing with professional madrigal groups, oratorio groups, Opera Choirs......By this point I knew that God really blessed me with a rare voice and that I should pursue it as means to support myself and Glorify him. So I began looking for other singing opportunities, and also did Voice Overs on the side. I had a remarkable voice teacher who really brought the best out of me and really believed in my gift...During this time I also did professional Summer Stock theatre, and kept doing the Southern Gospel gig too(my roots!)...well...

Eventually my travels with singing and hanging out with theatre folks, and other musicians helped bring me to some pretty dark habits. I got wrapped up in drinking and drugs and promiscuity with women,,...I turned my back on the Church, and really spun out of control for 5 years or so...went to several rehab centers, detoxes.....One Christmas morning I realized as I was in withdrawals from a pill addiction that I picked up along the way,,,that I needed to get back on the right track and find some focus. The very next week I was on a plane to Fort Benning, GA for bootcamp and the US Army Infantry school(my chosen career in the Army! Smile

)

One day during basic training , a drill seargent announced that those of us that had chosen Hawaii as our first assignment would have to choose somewhere else because Hawaii was too crowded with recruits(wonder why??) ... I was given the option of either 1.)Texas 2.) Germany...Of course I chose Germany (logical choice)...Well, upon arriving to my duty station there and within the first week of inprocessing...I was told that upon completion of inprocessing, that I would be deploying to Norway for a Training Exercise..then going straight to Afghanistan....Ok...Well, spent 13 months in Afghan...came back, had 2 months down time,,...then off to Iraq for the War!!!Afghan wasnt so bad but Iraq was the Most godforsaken horrible place I have ever seen..I saw my friends die around me and had to take lives...Something that is really hard to rationalize, no matter why or how you do it...One day in particular as my Platoon Seargent(a really good friend of mine) and I were in a convoy to pick up chow and some other supplies for the brigade...The Convoy came under Mortar fire, we all dismounted and took up positions behind the vehicles. Well, I was about 50 feet away from my friend and watched in horror as he took a direct hit from an RPG shot and literally disentigrated like a ripe watermelon....that image shook me to the core of my foundation..and as I was at the makeshift funeral service for him back at the camp...I decided I would never EVER do that again...

Spent 14 months there and came back to Germany. One day as I was sitting in the Dentists office, I saw an ad on AFN(Armed Forces Network) that said that the US Army, Europe Soldiers Chorus was looking for a bass vocalist....DING!! I went there right after work that day, sang for them, and have been stationed with them ever since...In the time here I have rediscovered my love for music, my voice, and also have picked up a real passion for location classical recording and a real interest in mastering as well. I get out of the Army in about 7 months, and hope that some location recording outfit will hire me. Smile

(so if you are reading and want to hire a dedicated VET with a music degree and who works hard and loves music...pm me Razz

) Ive been adding gear gradually to my setup and managed to pick up a job recording in the main cathedral here in Heidelberg, as well as doing Kantor Duties at another Church in town.
I also managed to marry a gal from that same clinic where I saw the add, and she has been an enormous blessing on my life. We are expecting our first child in June!! Smile

So if you are out there and love the USA, own a location recording business and want to hire a vet...

I have Schoeps CMC6, MK2S,MK4
AKG C426B,
Neumann U87s
Microtech Gefell M930s
Mytek Converters
DAV BG1, and just ordered a millennia HV-3C
wendt x4 mixer
and a sound devices HD recorder.

Im glad to have found this place.Real wealth of info, as is 3d audio.com

God Bless, glad to be on board. Hire me! Very Happy

Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:28 am

greetings!

my name is jai shankar iyer, i am in chennai, india, and i turn 30 in a few days. I go by the name of 'audiothings' on some other forums.

my first instrument was the harmonium (age 4). I played drums, guitars, keyboards and bass with my school and college bands. Am completely self taught... still wrestling with "every good boy does fine" and "good boys do fine always". Graduated in statistics in' 97, the same year that i saw the first three studios of my life... and with every one of the studios i stepped into, i knew i was going to spend my life making music...

i had decieded (in my final year of college) to go to OIART to study sound, but i met my (current) musical partner and we decided we'd be musicians and have our own studio, and learn on the job.

So, for almost ten years now, we've been running this little place, doing jingles and corporate work, and the occasional song for a film... Its a small, tight operation, and we are glad to make ends meet in a very hostile musical environment.

About 3 years ago came a point in my career when i completely lost interest in making music to satisfy clients...sick and tired of samples and beatboxes, cheesy ads and repetitive concepts and pretentious advertising clients (now my partner handles most of that and i focus on the AE aspect...) At the same time i became fascinated with the prospect of recording indian acoustic music in a way that it could compete with the finest recordings out there (kavi alexander of waterlily acoustics is a major inspiration).

I managed to get myself a deal recording carnatic music concerts to multitrack (hd24), then bringing them back to my studio for editing and mixing... have recorded 40+ concerts... all close mic'd rather unnatural sounding albums, but still among the finest recordings of live carnatic music (i just try to make sure everything is heard...lots of filters and some noise reduction... and i DON'T do +10dB eq@12K). This is not because i'm damn good at what i do (i'm not and i know it), but because of the pathetic nature of the classical music business in South India... almost all the record companies have pulled their shutters down, and the few recordings that are being made are of the lowest possible quality.

so i've saved up a little money (to buy gear) and found a few nice rooms (not recording studios) where i can record acoustic music... I'm trying to learn as much as i can before making investments towards a small record label setup to record the traditional acoustic music of india...

SO... once again...warm greetings to all my prospective gurus and friends...

Jai Shankar Iyer.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:30 am

I'm Jeff Jordan.

I, like many of you, am a classically trained instrumentalist (trumpet). I started my college career with an interest in electrical engineering, but decided that I just was having absolutely no fun solving physics and calculus problems all day. I changed my major to music education, with no desire to teach band.

I found a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder in the closet of the local community college and immediately wanted to explore. After moving to a "real" university, one that didn't and still doesn't have a music industry program, I discovered a basic audio techniques class in the catalogue. I basically fell in love with recording audio. I felt it to be the perfect marriage between my love for music and my fasicination with science.

After exhausting all coursework in audio (all 2 courses) I interned in the university studio. Upon graduation, I went to work for a local company that did location recording of wind ensembles, choirs, orchestras and also marching band video shoots.

During that time, I was saving pennies to buy my own gear. After 10 years, I quit working for that company, moved back to my home town and started my own location recording business. My full time job, however, is as a technology coordinator for an elementary school. Eventually, I'd like to have enough clients to make location classical recording my full time occupation.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:21 pm

What a great thread. I'd never seen this one before. It was a treat getting to know more about you all who I see post here regularly.

I'm 24 years old. I started playing drums when I was 12, guitar when I was 13, and other instruments less signficantly after that. At age 14, I bought a Yamaha MT4X 4-track cassette recorder to demo songs for bands I played in--I usually insisted on writing and arranging all our parts, which provoked a cursory understanding and proficiency with piano, bass, tenor sax, trumpet, and trombone--AND/or to spend all my free time recording Silverchair covers. Because I grew up in a small (pop: 2,500) town, and without the Internet, I was mostly self-taught at live sound and recording engineering until after high school. This has been both bane and boon to me as I reach professional maturity.

I graduated from Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio when I was 20, and I'll have my BA from Missouri State University at the end of '08. I haven't done anything topically significant at this point in my life, but I am harboring knowledge, amassing gear, and honing skills that will hopefully bring me to that point some day.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:45 pm

I know some of you folks (by name) from Gearslutz. I'm relatively new here, and it's nice to see familiar names!

About me? Well, at this point in my (recording) life I have small, local area and local artist only mobile recording "shop". I'm a small, small fish and plan to stay that way. That doesn't mean I'm not going to advance my skills or do mediocre work. I love music and this craft way to much to do that. My outfit can be viewed at www.prettygoodrecordings.com

My day job is as a commercial helicopter pilot for an air ambulance company here on the Central Coast of California.

History? Frustrated no-talent musician! I played drums in high school (not well), and try to play cello now (really not well). I attended college at Oswego State in New York, where I majored in technical theatre. I always had a thirst for recorded and reproduced sound, and in college I nurtured that, while realizing at the same time that I'd never be a musician. My path to knowledge and experience included a foray into live sound in the mid Seventies. I toured with several name rock bands and Broadway shows back then. After that, I took a right turn into aviation, becoming a pilot and spending the next 31 years in that field. However, my love for the "tech side of music" never faded and I stayed firmly in touch with it. In 2000, I was given an opportunity, small though it was, to become the "archival recordist" for a community choir, and well, that seed grew! Of course, I had no real experience in location recording, and the steep learning curve challenged me to investigate technique, gear, music, and my own abilites. All have improved, drastically, over the past eight years, although there is room still for (much) more improvement. Getting on forums like this one and Gearslutz has been invaluable to me in my quest for that improvement. I can't tell you all enough how much I've learned from the two groups.

Okay, I promise I won't be as wordy in following posts, nor will I post nonsensically as I have done at GS!

Thanks! ~~~~ Mark S.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:44 pm

Hello all,

My name is Loren, and I'm a small location recording guy in Philadelphia. I went to Peabody Conservatory for Bassoon Performance and Recording Engineering, then did a Masters in Bassoon perf. and pedagogy at the U of Iowa. While at Iowa I started recording student recitals, and ended up post graduation playing in the waterloo-cedar falls Symphony and recording recitals to make a living.

after a bit I decided to move east in search of bigger ponds for bassoon and recording, and ended up in philly! I've worked for an archival/location engineer doing live concerts at the curtis institute, and archival transfers of obsolete media. In feburary I moved on from that job, and am now working freelance in the philly/jersey/deleware areas, and practicing my bassoon again!

Equipment:
2 AKG 414B XLS
2 SE 2As
Mackie Onyx 1220
Samplitude v.9.1

its been fun reading your posts, and perhaps soon I'll stop lurking and start writing!

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:19 pm

Hey Loren -

Welcome!

Just out of curiosity, when were you at Peabody? I studied with Peter Landgren back in 02-04. Also, I've got lots of friends (and some clients) who went there. What a great school!

Cheers-

Jeremy

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:15 pm

Hi Jeremy!

I was at Peabody from 98-03. I was mostly doing engineering classes at Hopkins, so I wasn't around school much in 02-03 except for my recital.

Indeed a fantastic place!

Loren

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:01 pm

Hi, I am Sandy Noyes, and have no real background in this at all. I was first interested in recording as a sophomore in HS when I borrowed a friends mono tape recorder. Fast forward fifty years and I would up with a SONY MD Atrac recorder and a SONY stereo mic, then, last year a SONY Hi-MD which was soon replaced by an SD 722 and some more serious microphones. I currently record any and all acoustic music in the Astoria, Oregon, area. And I do it gleefully. I have been experimenting with mic arrays and have gone through ORTF, NOS, DIN, DINa, the Williams arrays for cards and omnis. I currently am experimenting/learning with MS techique and am going to soon be trying double MS with a Schoeps Mk4 pair and an Mk8 and the applicable Schoeps software decoder.

My background is varied but I worked as a systems-analyst for Pac@Bell and retired from there. My education is a couple of degrees of US History which is one degree short of insanity.

Music has been a passion as long as I can remember. I grew up with the Met on the radio on Saturday and Fats Waller records. I attended Met performances at the old Met, jazz all over NYC and am currently catching all the live music I can.

I am glad to have found a board of serious recordists and some old, familiar friends, too.

Cheers

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:35 pm

Hi everybody.
I'm new here and this is my first post.
Glad to find this place.
So, my name is David Khositashvili
I'm from Georgia, Tbilisi (Eastern Europe)
I am a musican (guitarist)
And trying to learn recording.
Mostly recording choirs, acoustic (nylon) guitar.
I hope I'll fing a lot of usefull stuff here.

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:07 pm

Hi everybody,
Name: Pablo Rubio
Country: Chile
Age: 27
Profession: Currently studying Music & Sound at UNIACC
(Excuse my english)

I play some acoustic guitar & piano. Now that I have finally had the chance to study in the university am forming as a professional bass player and composer.
I used to work as a CISCO network technician for a company that's called Sonda & Telmex. After some really depressing years working and studying data transmission & computer science I began to make music to some 3D shorts a friend of mine was doing. The results were unexpected for my friend & me. Somehow the short without the music was like 50% of the emotion (as UncleBob would say). So, we founded Alto Contraste Studio (2006), not knowing too much about how to run a company. We settled on this old warehouse with our Pc's, 3DSMax & Reason 2.5.
Now 2 years later, we have finally started earning real money, and couldn't possibly be happier!

I have recorded my brother's jazz sextet very rudimentarily, but now I got some sweet equipment and am studying to get the most of MS stereo recording.

Cheers!

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