Adam Speaks. Or Types. Whichever.

So, we’ve been here officially a month and a half.  Which is insane.  Things have been absolutely crazy on every single possible front (from classes, to living, to relationships with people here and back home, etc. etc. etc.).  But… life still moves on.

My major lack of posting is probably due to laziness more than anything else.  But I personally prefer to just say that i’ve been really busy, and whenever i’ve had the free time to comment on here, I haven’t really felt like it.  Realistically, both are true.  So now you’ll get one considerably long post, and then who knows what.

As far as school goes — we’re of course halfway into the 2nd month now.  Each month begins a new “term” (we don’t run on semesters), and thus far each term brings 2 (technically 4, but you have 2 subjects — with one lab and one lecture in each) new classes.  Month one began us with “Console Theory/Lab” and “Outboard Theory/Lab”.  Console Lab is pretty much exactly what i’ve been doing the last 3 years, but with more of a focus on the basics of audio mixing, and of course — a theory class behind that.  Outboard gave me the ability to play with all of the rack-mount effects gear I never got the chance to use while in Roanoke (from digital effects to EQ, compressors, and gates).  Again, the point was to just overview the very very basic fundamentals of all recording gear.  If our education were a LEGO tower, we began to build the base in month one.  Thankfully, since i’ve worked out most of my basic theory the last 3 years through some teaching and some trial-and-error, the first month was fairly smooth.  Most of what I ended up learning were things that I had already learned, but this time I was introduced to the ideas and application in the correct manner, and not just what I assumed to be true.  To my knowledge, I ended up with 2 100% grades in both lab classes, and A’s (not 100′s) in both of the theory lectures, which are SAT-like scantron tests (which were mindblowingly easy — to the point that some of us are beginning to question if the tests are EVER going to be hard, or if the school just needs a passing quota to stay accredited.  EITHER WAY — the most important part, the teachers are still trying to give us the best education possible, that says I picked the right school).

This month we moved onto “MIDI Theory/Lab” and “Beginning DAW Theory/Pro Tools M-Powered Lab”.  MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is essentially what people use when they say they’re “programming beats”.  Literally, MIDI is a computer language that tells the computer to take instruction from XYZ Keyboard, Synthesizer, Sampler, or whatever that gives it what note to play, how hard, fast, and loud to play it.  So the computer isn’t actually creating the sound, it’s just facilitating playback of a pre-existing or generated sound, based off of the information given about that sound — in a nutshell.  So in lab, we get to play with a basic simple DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) called Cubase (which, is actually a pro market tool, but I wouldn’t put it on the level of Pro Tools), which specializes in MIDI sequencing, and we get to make our own basic beats and songs.  It’s fun, but I do get kind of tired of it — as i’m not really a “beatmaker”, but the other kids in the class who are looking to do that sort of thing LOVE it.  DAW Theory is essentially an intro into the world of Pro Tools — the defacto standard audio editing program.  I liken it to Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word — there are other image editing and word processing software out there that essentially do the same thing, but those programs are the industry standard powerhouses, just as Pro Tools is.  “M-Powered Lab” is the introductory Pro Tools interface, designed to be used with equipment made by the company M-Audio (which is owned by Pro Tools’ manufacturer, Digidesign, who is then owned by parent multimedia software company Avid).  You essentially can’t run Pro Tools without a hardware interface (a physical piece of equipment that controls the program, which is a supplement to your mouse and keyboard), and you either get to pick an M-Audio one (cheaper price), or a Digidesign one (more expensive, but generally worth it).  Digidesign interfaces run on Pro Tools LE (which we get to later in the course), and M-Audio ones work with M-Powered.  So essentially, I get to learn about Pro Tools in theory, and then play with it in Lab.  The lab class is the one that i’m loving this semester.  We get to chop up, tweak, and play around with all sorts of different audio and random things, and it comes completely natural to me (whereas other people seem to be slower or struggling at it).  We also got our first Pro Tools certification course books, the 101 and 110 in Theory this month.  We don’t take the exams until months from now, but they’re going ahead and getting us started on the program already.  I’m hoping to become certified at the 210 M and 210 P levels (for Music and Post-Production), which means I have to pass 101, 110, 201, 210M, and 210P, in the next 8 months.  Yikes.  To even get there, I have to maintain a 90% GPA in all of my Pro Tools courses too.

Besides school, i’m generally around the apartment working this month.  My classes don’t start until noon, so I generally take the mornings to work on projects I want to get done for me personally, or I study, and i’ve been starting to practice sign some as well.  My afternoons to this point have been relaxation time, or homework reading time, and then I go back to class from 8 to midnight, and then crash and start all over.  Though we did go out last night for the first time to go see a band — Automatique — who we caught about 10-15 minutes of their set, which was great, until the next band came on and was beyond awful.  I can take BAD bands, but when bands get CREEPY, there’s a problem (30 year old dudes talking about being teenage rockstars and “where did high school go?” kind of bothers me).  Otherwise the most I really get out is for church on Sundays — i’m going to Pacific Crossroads Church in West LA, about a 30 minute drive from where Trey and I live.  I recently met the band leader, worship leader, and head sound tech, and starting next week i’m going to be going in early to help set up and (maybe, i’m not sure) run sound.  Mark, the band leader, has also asked me if i’d like to help the band record an album of worship songs, which I eagerly agreed to do — not only to get time in a studio and get some experience, but to get out and make some connections too.  The band constantly surprises me every week with the style of music they play (ranging from more traditional worship songs to straight up like funk rock renditions), and as Mark told me they strive to be eclectic and artistic.  So I think it’s really awesome that it isn’t just to play the songs for the sake of having them on a CD, but there’s a serious interest in making the whole thing very sonically interesting and unique.  On top of all that too, i’m starting to connect with some people in classes, and recently hit it off with a guy named Nick who shares a lot of the same musical interests as me, is a Christian, and actually has a sister who is deaf — so we’ve discussed the idea of him teaching me sign, which is really really exciting.  We have yet to see where all that will go, but he’s 23 and has already owned/run a music shop (ie: “I sell musical instruments”), a rock club, and was a prison security guard.  Plus he’s smaller than me.  It makes me feel like i’ve been really unproductive.

Anyway… so that’s kind of what’s going on in the life of me.  I’ve been working on new music stuff as well in my off-time, just for the heck of it, to kind of break the monotony that occurs with any routine schedule, and i’m about to head into a bunch more web design work as I told Trey i’d re-design his myspace.  I got an idea for it tonight based off the Fight Club special edition packaging.  I’m hoping it’ll end up resembling the layout of mine, but moreso look like the back of the fight club case — but advertising Trey instead of a movie.  We’ll see how it turns out.

But yeah, it’s about crashing time.  I don’t have to wake up early for anything, but i’ve been trying to keep the habit of sticking to a schedule and going to bed early/waking up semi-early so I can get work done before classes (even though I have nothing until 8 tomorrow).

-Adam