Yesterday I went to London to see a friend of mine. This friend happens to be a skilled producer and musician, so naturally once we'd spent a couple of hours chilling the prospect of going to the studio was firmly on the table. We booked a room in Pirate Studios in Notting Hill, and, equipped with my laptop and my headphones, made our way there and hooked up to the Yamaha sound system.
The studio came equipped with this, a standard condenser microphone situated in a convenient vocal booth, and a midi keyboard.
My friend came up with some nice jazzy r&b chords, and once a groove was established, we were off. A chorus was roughly recorded, before we became distracted by somewhat of a 50 Cent esque 808 bassline my friend laid down, which prompted us to spend the rest of the session freestlying what can only be described as our most obscene lyrics rap back to back with each other.
The night ended at about 1:30 am, and as I trudged home in the rain, I reflected on the joyous laughter shared over lyrics about drugs and oversized penises, but also the less satyrical idea we had produced, and how I might approach a rough mix to present to my friend the next day.
I did this on the train back to my parents house in Kent. I was blessed with a table and a reasonably quiet carriage, so I wasted no time in setting up my laptop and airpods on the table. Pre mix arrangements and dynamic cleanup duties were performed with a degree of serenity, as the rolling countryside of South East England passed by my window, and I entered the tunnel of focus that I can at this point comfortably say I find familiar and calming.
Once I arrived in my parents house in Kent, I plugged in my beyerdynamic dt770s to address what my airpods could not in the train mix, before shooting off a message to my friend with a rough mix of our track, with a working title of 'same things'. He responded positively, perhaps more so than I did upon listening back to my clearly unfinished work, but then I remembered there is no rush, and I have an experienced set of ears in him to attack this project with, and I have faith that its sonic potential will be realised.
Once this was all settled in my mind, I moved onto something I had been meaning to do for a while; set up an Engineears profile. This will allow me to start my journey of client (eventually paid) work as a mix engineer, my ambition since the very beginning of my studies at London South Bank University. I will eagerly wait until I arrive at the top of the waitlist to open my account for business.
Today was a good day.
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