Logbook

Graded Unit Logbook 

 Action Plan

My plan of action is to apply for two hypothetical jobs: as a Live Sound Engineer and a Freelance Mixing Engineer, and to create a portfolio and presentation to show my skills and knowledge that i have learned over the period of the HND course. I will included evidence for each of my classes from the course by adding and analyzing my mixes, recordings, live sound work, and projects from throughout the year. I will also included identification of my goals and objectives for the project, a SWOT analysis, sources of research that i hope to use and a Gantt chart and time management stages.

Thursday 27th February

I have officially started working on and planning out my graded unit, and throughout the process i will keep a logbook, which will be used to document the work i do for the project, with regards to my portfolio, mixing and mastering songs, research i have done and how this influenced me or my ideas, and at the later stage of the project the development and thoughts that i have for my presentation. I will keep this logbook written in a notepad in the beginning so that i can take it to college with me or to any gigs or recording sessions i am involved with, but at the end of the project i will type it up and add it to a blog.

Sunday 2nd March

Today i engineered a small gig in the Blytheswood Hotel. The setup was a pair of HK Audio Elias PX Active Tops as the FoH system, and one single logic system wedge for monitoring. The band consisted of a keyboard which i used a DI box on, a cajon which i used an SM57 on, a bass guitar which also went through a DI box, and an electric guitar and trumpet, both picked up using Sm57's. There were also two SM58 vocal microphones for the keyboard player and guitarist.

 It was a fairly simple gig, and the only thing that went wrong was that one of the HK Audio speakers would not work properly as the gain pot that was on the back of the unit had been knocked inside the speaker and was blocking the fan from spinning. This was replaced by a D&B C6 Top, a passive speaker, using a speakon cable into one of the aux outputs. This meant that i had the right side of the FoH using an active speaker on the main output fader, and the left side using a passive speaker on the first auxiliary output fader, which meant that i had to do a fair bit of work in balancing the two signals and getting them to sound the same through each speaker.

Thursday 6th March

I have started working on my action plan this week, setting out my interpretation of the project brief and creating two hypothetical jobs that i will apply to. I have also added a table of my goals and objectives for the project as well as a SWOT outlining my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and any threats to me. I plan to look at examples of previous student's project and see how they have structured their plans and projects as  a whole.

Sunday 16th March

I was involved in setting up a live sound system in the Gorbals Sound Studio, for a few bands to film a documentary and a performance set for BBC Alba. This was a very interesting opportunity, as it allowed me to gain some knowledge and experience in broadcast audio, as well as see the layout and equipment of a high end studio. I have also continued to work on my action plan, as i have now identified my stages and created a Gantt chart for time management.

Friday 21st March

On Friday night i helped with the setup and sound check of a system in Glasgow University for an STV debate on the Scottish referendum. This included setting up two systems, both of which were recorded using external hard disk recorders, and had a feed sent to the cameras for live broadcast. Due to the event being a live talk and debate, many of the microphones involved were smaller clip on type mics, which were interesting to use as i had not really seen these before. It was also interesting to see how other technicians work, such as the lighting crew and the video technicians.

Wednesday 26th March

I have completed my action plan, including SWOT analysis and a Gantt chart. I showed my finished plan to my project lecturer during a mentoring session, who said that it was a very strong plan, however i could improve it some by including a section on how i plan to integrate knowledge from the core subjects of the course into my project. I have taken this advice on board and plan to update my plan before the end of the week.

Thursday 3rd April

Today we had a band in to record a cover song in the college studio. This recording session went well, and allowed us to try some new techniques, such as putting microphones on the top and bottom of the snare and inside and outside of the kick drum to experiment with different sounds. We also tried out using more than one type of microphone at a time on the guitar amplifiers, to get two guitar channels with slightly different sounds that we could blend together. I have taken pictures of the microphones used, and a copy of the wave files recorded so that i can mix and master the recording for my portfolio. 

Thursday 10th April

I completed a spectrum analysis today in my sound reinforcement class, along with pictures, which i think i will include in my portfolio in order to show integration of knowledge from both my sound production class and my theory. I have also began mixing songs for my portfolio today, and i have been researching mixing skills and tips. The most useful source of information i have found personally are videos on you tube, especially from channels such as TheRecordingRevolution and Pensado'sPalace. The former channel, TheRecordingRevolution, has been especially helpful to me, with over 90 short five minute videos each with a simple tip or skill to improve an overall mix. This channel also introduced me to the Sonnox Inflator plug-in from Oxford, which i have found especially effective on guitars and drum overheads and cymbals, and i have used it quite a bit in my mixing.

Tuesday 15th April

I have created a profile and blog on blogspot.com, and i have now uploaded my completed plan to the blog, as well as added some of my screenshots and pictures from my mixing and recording sessions. I plan to begin analyzing these sessions soon as well as add pictures and explanations for the live sound events i am taking part in. 

Saturday 19th April

Over the weekend i have picked up and thoroughly read two research books that i planned to use to gain more knowledge and skills in mixing and mastering. These books are "Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science" by the well known mastering engineer Bob Katz, and "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio" by Mike Senior, both of which were full of interesting tips on the two subjects, and thoughts on how to approach mastering and mixing by both engineers. 

I have also been watching lots of talks and presentations by Bob Katz on you tube, which gave me lots of useful tips for mixing, especially with regards to perceived loudness. One especially interesting piece of theory that i have found from Katz is that the same dB increase in level will have a much more noticeable and dramatic effect to the listener than the same dB decrease in level. This is something that i am going to consciously try to bear in mind, especially when balancing levels in my mixes.

Monday 28th April

I am hoping to have all of my audio for my portfolio mixed and mastered for the end of this week, so that i can keep on track with my time management. I have found that the many tips i have picked up from my research, through you tube videos and the books i have purchased, have increased my speed and workflow quite a fair bit, especially in Pro Tools. My portfolio will be mixed in either Pro Tools 10 or Logic Pro 9 and mastered in Waveburner, and i will also upload my final mixes to soundcloud so that i can have them embedded on my blog. I have begun thinking about my presentation and have written out a quick list of the things i want to include in it, taking inspiration from some of the example presentations from previous students.

Sunday 4th May

Over the course of the weekend i was involved in setting up and running an event in The Barrowlands Ballroom, which was part of the Glasgow East End Social festival. This was quite a large gig, and was the first time i had really used the Midas Pro2c digital system, which i was using to run the monitoring setup, with the front of house being mixed by iPad as we were setup behind the PA. The setup was quite large, and i had to be aware of stage and lighting crews around me while rigging the system. I was able to take lots of pictures of the setup and of the microphones that were used for the swing band, so i will be analyzing these and uploading them to my blog.

Thursday 8th May

I found out today that the graded unit presentations have been pushed back to the first week in June, so i have a months worth of extra time, which i will hopefully use to complete an extra mix and partake in some more live sound gigs that i can use to bolster my portfolio and experience.

Sunday 11th May

This weekend i helped in the setup and rehearsals for a theatre production in the Eastwood Theatre. I learned quite a bit from helping during setup, as most of the microphones that we used were either hand held radio frequency mics or radio mic headsets connected to a transmitter pack, and i had never really used RF microphones practically before. It was also interesting to see how the Theatre had all of their audio equipment installed and patched, all though this did create quite a bit of confusion at times when people who had used the system before us had routed or patched signals elsewhere and hadn't reset it or taken any notes.

Saturday 17th May

On Saturday i helped with the setup and running of a gig for The Hoosiers in the Record Factory, which was interesting as they had their own engineer, crew, stage manager, microphones etc. so it showed me the ways in which a more "professional" band setup and prepare for a live gig. I have also been working on an additional song that i plan to add to my portfolio, and i am trying to incorporate some of the mixing tips that i have picked up, especially with regards to panning and processing drum kits, and area i feel i could improve on.

Wednesday 21st May

I have finished my mix of the extra song i want to include in my portfolio, and before i started mastering i acted on some advice from my lecturer and added some reverb to the overall mix to tie the instruments together. I also added some light compression at the mastering stage, one of the tips i picked up from Bob Kat's book, however i was careful not to completely squash the dynamic range. I have also started work on my presentation, and i am also writing out my notes to act as queue cards go along with my presentation. I hope to have the entire power point finished by the end of the week and suitably rehearsed by the end of May.

Friday 30th May

On Friday i was involved in setting up and de-rigging a string of systems in venues across Duke Street as part of the East End Social festival, which was quite  interesting to help with as it allowed me to put together and take down multiple different systems, both analogue and digital. I have also finished mixing my extra song for my portfolio. I am happy with the mix i have now, and i think i will ask one of my lecturers to listen to it before i begin to master it, to hear their feedback. Although it is getting close to my graded unit presentation, i am confident that i will have it mastered and uploaded to my blog early next week.

Thursday 5th June

My final presentation for my graded unit was today, and overall, i think it went okay. I feel that it was a perfect time length at around 25 minutes, and that i had lots of screenshots and information on microphone and live sound systems. However i don't think that i spoke enough about my screenshots of my DAWS work, and overall that i could have given out more information in general. The major change that i would make if i had to do it again would be to include audio examples to highlight the points that i was making throughout the presentation. This was the main focus of the feedback i received from my lecturers after my presentation.

 I will now complete an evaluation, and type up my logbook, both of which will be added to my blog to complete my portfolio and overall graded unit.