Waiting on the Sound Guy

I always loved messing around with audio and microphones. I picked up electric bass when I was 13, started playing guitar when I was 17. Music has always been a part of the fabric of my being. I had a lot of good times playing in a band in my 20's, but my video career put a halt to playing and tinkering with microphones. I did continue to work as a location sound mixer for a few years, but most of my sustaining work has been as a DP.

I never thought that would change until I started singing with a men's choir in my church. I picked the guitar back up after a 16 year hiatus and started writing songs and mixing them in GarageBand to put on Spotify, but there's one thing that I noticed: my mixes didn't sound nearly as good as some of the material coming from major label artists. I wanted more people to listen to my music. Don't get me wrong, I will probably NEVER become a famous musician, the chances are less than 1%, even if you are really, really talented, so I don't have high expectations, but at least my music could sound just as good as the big dogs for me and a few of my friends.

What was just an Audio1 class ballooned into Rock Ensemble, Classical Guitar, and Recital Stage Crew. I want to learn everything I can to make better music and I've decided to get a degree in Commercial Music.

Will I ever make money making music? Probably not, but at least I can use my audio skills to mix a good song and make some money by continuing to be a sound mixer and engineer for radio, film and TV. Work hard, play hard. It's good to have expensive hobbies and buy a lot of guitars that I don't really need.

Instead of getting burnt out and bored I decided to learn something new doing something I enjoy in order to explore new creative possibilities. So, I've decided to learn all of this audio stuff a second time, with the additional music and mixing classes. Who knows? Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be able to do house sound for some cool bands or compose music for film and TV commercials. Maybe I'll get my Pro Tools certification and do post-production sound. I want to be around audio and my first love. In the meantime, if I have to be a cameraman to pay for my classes and bills, I'm all for it. But, I'm not going to lie, music is so much cooler and more fun to me than filming some CEO about the latest and greatest product, it's just really, really hard to make a living from it.

Blast from the past, our Audio 1 teacher took us through an entire analog mixing and mastering session in Studio A at Cedar Valley College. You can watch the video of the entire session in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!!