Interning The Right Way

Working in career services brings up one phrase quite a lot, “When can I start an internship.”  I know that many of our students are eager to start working as soon as possible, the lure and excitement  of working and living the industry you chose to be a part of is all too real, even if your barely into your 2^nd quarter. As someone who has worked in music studios, post houses, television studios, live sound, and even rentals and installations, I know all to well the urge to hit the ground running and to show them what you’ve got. I do suggest that you wait at least until your fourth quarter to decide where you want to start. There is a lot to learn here at IAR and most of the time, where you end up is a little different from where you thought you were going.  For those of you who can’t wait, or are in the beginning stages of your search here are a few things you can expect.

Money: This is the most frequently asked question here in career services. If this is to be your first internship you should expect not to be paid. Studios spend a great deal of time and effort training interns for the job. Audio is a very selective field and most people have no idea what they are getting into when they first start. If you want to get paid, you have to earn it, Period.

Time: In any studio, post house or live sound company there is a hierarchy. Generally this consists of two or three levels of intern positions before you reach assistant status. Typically, you’ll be providing intern services for roughly 3-6 months. Depending on how large the studio is this time will vary. Larger studios generally have more interns for longer periods of time.

Duties: Expect to be cleaning the studio, a lot. Keeping the rooms clean, organized and fresh is part of your first months in any studio. Client services are also very important. Clients are the life blood of a studio and keeping them happy is priority number one. Try to always look busy, and never forget the bathroom. If you’ve been working for a bit, keep a catalog or a journal of your weekly duties. When it comes time to speak with head engineers or studio managers it might be helpful to remind them of your diligence. Respectfully, of course.

Learn: Most importantly, above all,  your internship is a learning experience. Listen to other interns that have been there longer, pick the brains of the assistants and engineers. Learn the name of every piece of gear in the rooms and learn to understand their function. Be humble and respectful of the artists, engineers and assistants around you, and ask questions. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t know something. Someday, if you stick it out long enough an intern may come to you for answers.

Hopefully, for those of you who read this, you will gain a better understanding what you can expect in your first internship. It can, for most of you be a very rewarding experience when you treat it the right way and take advantage of what there is to offer. Remember to have fun, learn and always keep your goals in sight.

ProTools 8, For Pete’s Sake!

IAR is beginning to make the switch. To Pro-Tools 8 that is. We recently had a  great presentation performed by our resident nighttime tech support overlord, “Angry” Pete, who laid out a few examples of the more important changes in PT 8, from our current version 7.4. I’d like to take some time and walk though some of these differences and break them down for you.

Voices: In PT 7 you have can have up to 32 tracks and 32 available voices to record or play simultaneously. This means that in any given session you can run 32 mono or 16 stereo tracks, (remember that any stereo tracks you use require two voices) minus any auxiliary sends you use, or any combination of the three. Now, In PT8, You have a total of 48 tracks and 96 voices at your disposal. Essentially this means you have an additional 48 voices to utilize for stereo tracks and aux sends.

QuickTime: PT 8 will now support QuickTime HD as opposed to standard definition video currently supported by PT 7.

Track Inserts: PT8 now provides an additional 5 inserts for every track. You now have up to 10 plug-ins for each track in your session, providing you have the DSP to run them. But please be aware that it is always a good idea to run any time based effects such as reverb or delays through an aux send. This will save you much needed DSP for those additional tracks you have now! But, hey! Why not add that extra compressor to your signal chain, right?

File Size: PT 7 limits all your file sizes to 2GB. PT8 now give you a whopping 3.4GB for your session. This is great for any of you who run larger sessions with high track counts, or any of you in to post production and save your video files directly to your sessions.

So, there you have it. As 2010 slowly comes to a close IAR is ready for the new coming year steadily rolling through the trenches of the audio world. Be sure to check out Avid.com and the specs for PT 8 for further information, and as always, trust your ears.

I would like to thank our night tech support Pete for all his help on this week’s article. Without him this would have not been possible. He is a wealth of information and support for all of our students, staff and faculty here at IAR, and will continue to be so.

Session Transfers

A recent question was posed to me recently referring to the transfer of sessions between DAWs. I understand this can be a touchy subject for a lot of producers and engineers and I’ve seen quite a few sessions get dumped only to have to recall all the session data again later for simple mistakes made in the transfers. Weather your transferring to Pro-Tools, Logic, Sonar, or Nuendo there a few steps you can take to make sure your sessions translate.

OMF-Open Media Framework. Is a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications [1]

Most DAWs can export your sessions as OMF. When you create an OMF file it saves all your audio edits as well as your audio files. Automation, pans and fader positions will be saved as well. This is great if you have a basic session with little or no effects or plug-ins. OMF also saves time line and sample information, this is great time saver when transferring between DAWs. As long as the tempo and sample rates in your session match those in the transfer your audio files and fades will be in sync.

However, there are some limitations to using OMF. The biggest one by far is the use of third party or native plug-ins and effects. We’ve all had those moments after receiving or transferring a session where key elements of our mix are missing. Even with native plug-ins, OMF does not save plug-in or effect information. Another drawback to OMF is it does not save your MIDI or synth information and all disabled track will need to be re-enabled in order to create the OMF. Stereo tracks will need to be split into multiple mono as well to preserve your pans. Considering all of this prep work many of you will wonder why even bother using OMF. Much like printing a mix through a stereo aux many of your tracks will need to be committed with your plug-in, MIDI and synth information.

Consider taking this prep work a step further by not only creating the OMF file but printing all of your tracks through a mono aux to commit and save all of your hard work in case your session goes awry. With larger sessions where track count is a factor, group specific tracks to print first as you would with bouncing stems. Then export these individual audio tracks to a pre created folder you can rip to a drive or disc for transport. As with any session, be sure to check your disk allocation as well as cleaning up any unnecessary play-lists to make sure you have the right files in the right places before you begin any transfer process. And an old school recall cant hurt either when delivering mixes. These DAWs do a great job in storing and recalling our session information, but nothing can beat a great set of notes with pad and pen at any session.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Media_Framework

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Bounce Methods

Several arguments have been floating in and out of internet forums I’ve read recently, discussing the pros and cons of bouncing to disk vs.”printing” your mix through a stereo bus. Both arguments hold water and some of the best ears in the business today will tell you they have a hard time discerning the difference between the two.

Lets talk about bouncing to disk. BTD plays your entire mix in real time and saves the output, sample-by-sample for whatever you designate, Mono (summed), Multiple Mono, or Stereo Interleaved. Using this method is an advantage when time based effects such as reverb or delay are present. BTD plays your automation data in real time, essentially giving you “what you hear is what you get” from your final mix. However, if your session is heavily automated or you have loads of time-based effects some engineers have mentioned a “ghosting” in the compression or psychoacoustic artifacts that can affect the final mix. To combat these artifacts, it has been suggested to create a stereo bus, and send all the elements of your mix to that bus and re-record your mix to a “two track” master.

1. Route all channel outputs through a bus

2. Create a new stereo audio track (this is where master will sum to) with the same bus as the input, and main (A1&2) outs as the output.

3. Set the master fader output to the same bus

4. Once you have the stereo audio file with the master audio, highlight it and hit shift +apple+k (don’t know what is for PC sorry) this will open up a window that allows you to export the audio file direct to desktop without bouncing. [1]

Re-Routing the mix to Bus Outputs 23-24 and recording to a stereo-track. 
While the mix is still assigned to Bus Outputs 23-24, we created a new stereo Track, and assigned bus 23-24 as its inputs. We then armed the stereo track and recorded the mix. As before, we recorded three passes. [2]

This allows you to use the recording engine in Pro-Tools, and record all of your session data to a stereo track, which can be exported later. Generally this method is used if you’re compressing your mix through outboard equipment or monitoring your mixes through separate sources.

In either case, in my own experience I found that all my mixes are different and require unique approaches. I urge you to experiment with these techniques and listen through various sources of playback, but in the end it all comes down to trusting your ears and understanding what you’re ultimately trying to convey to the audience.

[1] http://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear-shoot-outs-sound-file-comparisons-audio-tests/192207-two-ways-sum-pro-tools-bounce-vs-record-better.html

[2]http://www.protoolstraining.com/ProMedia-Blog/Faculty-Articles/bounce-to-disk.html