Blog Assignment

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship experience, I have learnt a lot of industry information that I would not have gained in class room. I received a lot of training at my internship, most of it being taught how to use Pro Tools, the industry standard audio editing software. Also I received training around working around an office and specifically an audio production business. I wasn’t expected to teach myself much as all of the technical stuff is complicated to a newcomer as most employees started as an intern and worked their way up, they new what position I was in. I believe I made good networking connections on my internship, even know BMP Audio is a small company, the manager of the company is well known in the field of audio production and had given me a list of production companies back in London that I should have a look at. I am putting less time in to my internship compared to the amount of time you spend on school as I have three other courses as well as the Media Internship class. I also spent less time on my internship than I would on paid employment as I had to fit my internship around my university timetable. I was not eventually offered payment in my internship but I do not mind as I have learnt a significant amount of training which I wouldn't normally of received at school or at university. I felt valued at my internship as I felt respected like any other employee working at BMP Audio, I was doing the same kind of work at the other employees with the same roles, duties and responsibilities 

References

• The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not by Steve Greenhouse
• Do Unpaid Internships Exploit College Students? (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/04/do-unpaid-internships-exploit-college-students)

Bruce Iglauer Tribute to Michael "Iron Man" Burks

Bruce Iglauer Tribute to Michael "Iron Man" Burks

This is a small piece I solely produced

Ninth Week @ BMP Audio (12.11 - 18.11)

Since starting my internship, I have learned a heap loads about Pro Tools, an industry level software program. Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, which means where ever I may go in the future, most companies would use this platform to edit and produce radio programs. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film and television post production, musical notation and MIDI sequencing. Pro Tools can run as standalone software, or operate using a range of external A/D converters and internal PCI or PCIe audio cards with onboard DSP. Pro Tools, like all Digital Audio Workstation software, is similar to a multi-track tape recorder and mixer, with additional features that can only be performed in the digital domain.

I fun fact that I have learnt is that Ricky Martin’s "Livin La Vida Loca" was the first No. 1 single to be recorded, edited, and mixed completely within the Pro Tools environment

Pro Tools can be a wonderful tool but some artists are now making a point of recording without Pro Tools. Jack White of The White Stripes argues that "I think Pro Tools is highly inappropriate to record music... It's too easy to correct mistakes, it's too easy to fix things. We hear this sort of clean, plastic perfection that's been applied to all the tracks. That is not the kind of music we grew up loving and listening to and wanting to be a part of."

I worked my usual hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday which added up to 13 hours.

Total: 106 hours

Eight Week @ BMP Audio (5.11 - 11.11)

(A rack of compressors in a recording studio)

This week I have been learning about compression and compression techniques. Dynamic range compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range. Compression is commonly used in sound recording and reproduction and broadcasting. A compressor reduces the level of an audio signal if its amplitude exceeds a certain threshold. 

When producing a program at BMP Audio, they use a Pro Tools template for 2 hour programs which normally have four tracks in the Pro Tool sessions. One track is for the presenter’s (Elwood Blues) audio, another track for the artist/interviewees and the other two are tracks for music. The two music tracks do not need to compressed in any way as they have been ripped from CDs or downloaded from iTunes and therefor have already been mastered. 
The two tracks that need the most compression are the two vocal tracks, Compression is often used in music production to make performances more consistent in dynamic range so that they "sit" in the mix of other instruments better and maintain consistent attention from the listener. Vocal performances in rock music or pop music are usually compressed in order to make them stand out from the surrounding instruments and to add to the clarity of the vocal performance.

Serial compression is what I use the most on live audio, it is a technique used in sound recording and mixing. Serial compression is achieved by using two fairly different compressors in a signal chain. One compressor will generally stabilize the dynamic range while the other will more aggressively compress stronger peaks. Done properly, even heavy serial compression can sound very natural in a way not possible with a single compressor. It is most often used to even out erratic vocals and guitars.

I worked on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, adding up to 13 hours

Total: 93 hours

Seventh Week @ BMP Audio (29.10 - 4.11)

My supervisor gave me the week off as my parents were in town from London.

Total: 80 hours

Sixth Week @ BMP Audio (22.10 - 28.10)

I have categorized the jobs I have been given at my internship in to three different types; manual jobs, audio manual jobs and production jobs. Manual jobs are opening mail, sending emails and organizing the music library. Audio manual jobs ripping audio tracks into sessions, entering new compilations CDs in to the BMP Music database and entering acts in to the BMP Acts database. I would consider production jobs as editing raw material into acts and editing acts into a finalized program.

One audio manual jobs I had was to created acts from the raw interview and the from that create the cue sheets for the acts. I create acts by listening through the audio interview and split it in to parts which I think would be good for the radio program. There are technical skills needed to finalize the audio acts so they can be used in Pro Tools which I have been taught to do.

Later on in the week I carried on with the Burns bonus material which after my first draft, my supervisor and his boss viewed my work. They were both impressed in my skills but there was many ways that I can improve, the tips they gave me will help me create better production pieces. 

I worked my usual hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday which added up to 13 hours.

Total: 80 hour

Fifth week @ BMP Audio (15.10 - 21.10)

I had my usual Tuesday manual duties of opening the mail and filing the CDs that were used in the previous week, I also had to find contact information for Sun Records as the company would to get some promotional CDs from them. One audio manual jobs I had this week was that I had to check the songs that were being used in this weeks program for FCC regulations. It is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time. It is also a violation of federal law to air indecent programming or profane language during certain hours so this is an important job and if I miss something the company could be fined. All songs followed the FCC regulations so they could be played in the program. I did not know about these regulations and this will be good to know in the future with any career around radio productions.

This week I was given my first major production work, I was told to make a small piece on Michael Burks, who passed away this year, for the companies online website. I was shown previous pieces around the same topic and I was told I would need produce something similar to them. I was first given a ten minutes raw interview with Bruce Iglauer, who was a producer and label head who worked with Michael Burks. I had to cut down the interview to three minutes with leaving the interviewers questions and only leaving the important information to be rearranged in a suitable order. The piece also needed backing tracks behind Iglauer’s interview, I needed to find music from Michael Burks that matched what Iglauer was saying. There was three topics that he spoke about, one was growing up and living around his musical family and I found a song called ‘Little Juke Joint’ which Burks sung about growing up with his dad. The second theme was about his unique style and the song I used included a big guitar solo, which he is known for, called ‘Count On You’. The last topic was about Burns performing and touring and ‘24 Hour Blues’ fit perfectly. Next I plan to finish this piece by arranging all the audio tracks in the right places and should be finalized when I complete some basic engineering edits to the audio so that all the sounds sound richer and more polished.

This week I worked Tuesday and Thursday as normal but I was not avliable to work Wednesday. Erik and I came to an agreement and I came in on Friday and worked the hours I was meant to on Wednesday, which totaled 13 hours.

Total: 67 hours