Song Discussion: Hey Joe

Jimi Hendrix is considered by a lot of people to be the greatest rock guitarist of all time. Many would say that he was the greatest guitarist of all time, period. Pretty much everyone agrees that he revolutionized what could be done with the electric guitar. His style of playing was based solidly in the blues, but he combined that with an extremely heavy, LOUD rock and roll sound and all kinds of experimentation with effects and the feedback coming from his amplifier. And he made it look effortless. On stage, he often seemed like he was possessed, almost like it wasn't a human being playing at all, but rather some spirit using his body to create this wild, electrifying blast of sound.

Hendrix's most famous work was recorded between 1966 and 1968 - a relatively short period of time. This was a time when there was a lot of turmoil going on in the country and around the world. The war in Vietnam was happening, people were protesting in the streets, the Civil Rights Movement was evolving into the Black and Brown Power movements, and there was a major change in white youth culture from the hippies and counterculture movements. Maybe more than any other artist, Jimi's music reflected all these changes.

Below is a video clip of a famous performance of the song, "Hey Joe" at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Here is a link to the lyrics, if you want to follow along: link.

Discussion Questions:

1. What (if anything) stands out about this performance for you?
2. What is this song about?
3. In the song, what do you think the writer's emotions are? How do you think he feels about what he has done?
   
4. In what ways does Jimi's performance capture these emotions (or not)?
   

Guest Speaker: Do D.A.T.

Today we have a special guest speaker, Mr. Davin "Do D.A.T." Thompson. D.A.T. is a performer, educator, and veteran of the Bay Area hip hop community. He is a founding member of the Oakland-based group, the Attik, and has shared stages with a number of hip hop legends, including Dead Prez, Mistah F.A.B., KRS One and E-40. He is the resident Lyrics Coach for BAVC's BUMP Records program. His new full-length album, Oakland In Blue, is set for release in Spring 2010.

D.A.T. is here to talk about how we can expand our perspectives towards creative projects in general and lyric writing in particular. Even if you are primarily a producer or engineer, rather than a lyricist, it is important to be able to project your understanding of art beyond what you do so that you can understand where people working in other areas are coming from. Please give Dat your attention today and make him feel welcome in our class!

{Friday Night_Finishing Up}

Your Friday Night projects are due today! I'm hoping to send these over to KQED tomorrow, so today we need to focus on pulling them together and getting them polished up. Here's a list of all the steps you need to do to complete the project:

1. Record your interview.
2. Edit the interview (get rid of extra noise, pops and clicks, etc.) Remember, this should be 2 minutes long MAX!
   
3. Put a compressor on your vocal track to smooth it out.
4. Create a beat in Reason and export it as an audio file. (click here if you don't remember how to do this.)
   
5. Import the audio file of your beat into your Pro Tools session. (click here if you don't remember how to do this.)
6. Balance the volume levels of your vocal and music tracks and add automation, fades, etc. if desired.
7. Bounce a stereo audio file of your project out of Pro Tools.
8. Import the stereo audio file to iTunes and create an MP3 version of it.
9. Turn in the MP3 file of your project along with the Pro Tools session.

Couple things you should do to make sure your project sounds as good as possible:

Create a Master Fader
A Master Fader lets you see and control the volume levels of all your tracks. This is important because sometimes your individual tracks don't look like they are clipping (hitting the red), but when they are all playing together, the overall loudness is too much for Pro Tools to handle. You NEVER want to see the red lights light up on your Master Fader track. With a Master Fader, you can see what the true volume of your project is and adjust it if necessary. It's also an easy way to create a fade outs/fade ins for your project. (see Volume Automation below)

To create a Master Fader:

1. In the Track Menu, click on New. (Track>New)
2. In the window that pops up, select Stereo Master Fader and click Create.
3. In your Edit Window, you should now see an extra track that looks like this:

{Friday Night (pt. 2)_Using a Compressor}

Once you've got your Friday Night statements recorded, you can start editing them down to make a single, smooth statement. These can only be 2 minutes max (including music), so please watch the time in the timeline!

As in our earlier assignments, I want these to be very cleanly edited, so please be sure to do all the following:

• Get rid of all the extra noise when the interviewee (you) isn't speaking.
  
• Zoom in and make your cuts on the zero line crossing
• If you stick two regions together, be sure to use crossfades between them to make the transitions smooth.
• Don't be afraid to rearrange the things being said. Put them in whatever order makes sense to you.
• When you add music, pay attention to the relationship between the music and the vocal. Feel free to move things along so that they work better with the beat.
  

Once you have finished editing, you're also going to practice working with another tool to help you smooth out your vocal: a compressor!

A compressor is an audio processor that automatically adjusts the loudness of your track. They are very commonly used in all areas of audio and, in my opinion, really help to create that polished, "professional" sound. Compressors can be used in a few different ways for different reasons. Today, we'll be using them to balance out the volume level of our recordings and make it so that the sound of the person's voice stays very even throughout the piece - never too loud or soft.

Please do the following:

1. Copy your Pro Tools session folder from the Shared Media drive to your computer.
2. Open the session.
3. Mute the track that the interviewer was recorded on.
4. Listen carefully to the recording of your voice. Pay special attention to places where your voice gets softer than other places.
5. Make sure Loop Playback is turned on.
   
6. Highlight a short (5-10 second section) where you have both a loud part and a short part. Hit play and just let it loop.
7. Go to the Mix Window (Command =).
8. Find the dark grey section at the top. This is what is called the Inserts section.
9. On the track with your voice, click on one of the double arrows in the Inserts. Click on: plugins>Dynamics>Compressor/LimiterDyn3
10. You should see this window pop up:
11. Can you hear a difference in the sound already? You can always click on the bypass button to check what the audio sounds like without the compressor, but remember to click on bypass again to turn the compressor back on.
12. Find the knob called Ratio and set it to 4.0:1. This will affect how much we are compressing the signal. In this case, we're keeping it pretty light.
13. Now, while you are listening to the track play back, watch the meter that says GR at the bottom. Pay attention to how low the orange meter gets at the LOUDEST part of your recording.
14. Find the knob called Threshold. Keeping your eye on the GR meter, slowly start turning the Threshold until the GR hits about -6 at its lowest point.
15. Find the knob called Gain. Turn it up until to 6.0 dB.
16. Click bypass to check what the vocal sounds like without compression. Click bypass again to check what it sounds like with compression. Smoother?
17. Now find the knob called Release. Turn this all the way up and then slowly start turning it back down. While you are turning it, watch the GR meter. You want to see the meter bouncing fairly quickly, but smoothly - not UP-DOWN-UP-DOWN
18. Now lastly, find the knob called Attack. Turn it all the way up and then slowly start turning it back down. You want to listen carefully for the point where the voice starts to get a little muffled, and stop. (Actually, you should probably turn it back to a little above that.)
19. Click again on bypass. Listen and pay attention to what the track sounds like without the compressor and with it. If it sounds pretty good, but not quite right, try adjusting some of the knobs and see if you can fix it.
20. Save!!!
21. Have one of the instructors come over and check out your work.

Song Discussion: "Midnight In A Perfect World"

Today's song is "Midnight In A Perfect World", by DJ Shadow.

A little bit of info...

DJ Shadow is a Bay Area-based DJ and producer. He is a member of the Quannum Projects collective/record label, which has been one of the most successful and long-lasting underground hip hop labels in the Bay. Shadow is credited as being one of the pioneers of sampling. His 1996 album, Endtroducing, is often recognized as being the first album created entirely with samples (though some people would dispute this). As you listen to one of his most famous songs, please think about the following:

• The title of the song and how the music does/does not fit the title.
  
• Try to pick out as many different samples as you can
• Pay attention to how these samples come in and out
• There are no real lyrics in this song. How is it structured?
• Based on the video, what can you tell about him?

Midnight in a Perfect World from DJ Shadow on Vimeo.

OK, for a little more info and perspective, let's take a look at this clip from the 2001 film, Scratch:


What do you know now about Shadow and his feelings about music? What do you think his attitude towards sampling is?

{Friday Night (pt.1)}

Today and next week we're going to be working on an assignment on the topic of "Friday Night".

KQED, the Bay Area's public television and radio station is holding a contest in their Youth Perspectives series. And I want to have you folks create entries for it. The deadline for the contest is February 8, so we need to be finished with these by the end of next Thursday. This assignment is due by the end of class on Thursday, February 4.

Here are the official details for the contest: link

"What's in it for me?" you ask. Well, the grand prize winner gets an iPod Touch and, more importantly, will have their piece broadcast to a huge audience on the radio. More importantly still is the opportunity for us to use the skills we've been developing to actually create work for a specific project, rather than just our own personal enjoyment.

So, here's how this will work...

Part 1
We're going to do this interview-style. Each one of you is going to come up and get in the booth. The person engineering for you is going to interview you about your Friday night experience. The main interview questions are below, but here's the catch: it is the engineer/interviewer's responsibility to get good content, so he/she can also ask you whatever additional questions he/she wants in order to get you to provide insightful responses.

When you are finished recording, the engineer will transfer the Pro Tools session to your folder on the Shared Media drive.

Part 2

1. Copy the Pro Tools session to your folder on your computer.
   
2. Open it up and use your editing skills to turn the interview into one smooth statement. (We only want to hear the voice of the person being interviewed, not the engineer!)
3. The whole statement should be between 1:30 - 2:00 min. long.
4. SAVE!!!
   

Part 3

1. In Reason, create music to go underneath your interview. As we had discussed earlier, the music should fit the mood of your Friday night (party? chill? boring? dangerous?) and what you talk about in your interview.
2. When you are finished, Export the song out of Reason as an audio file.
   
3. Import the audio file into your Pro Tools session.
   
4. Adjust the volume levels and to get a basic balance between your vocal and the music. For this project, it is crucial that the music is never louder than the vocal!
   
5. Put a compressor on the vocal to make it sound really smooth. (We'll cover this next week.)
6. If you want to, use automation to automatically adjust the volume levels to add some flow to the music. (We'll cover this next week.)
7. Save your session.
8. Bounce your final project out of Pro Tools. Name the file: your name_Friday Night
9. Put a copy of the audio file in the Friday Night folder on the Shared Media drive. (dolly>Shared Media>Student Work>Friday Night)

Interview Questions

• What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live?
• What is Friday night all about to you?
• What goes down on a typical Friday night for you? Be specific - where do you go? what do you do? where do you start? where do you end up?
  
• Would you say that your F.N. is a typical experience for people your age? Why or why not?
• Do you think that people have a stereotypical idea of what Friday night is supposed to be like? If so, what is it?
  
• Is your F.N actually like this? How does that make you feel?
  
• Do you look forward to Friday night? Why/why not?

Resume Workshop

Today we've got a special guest appearance from our amazing Internship Coordinator, Ms. Felice Archbold.

Felice is going to be working with us on getting our resumes together so that we can start to be able to communicate all our audio skills and other experience in a professional manner. No matter what industry you want to work in, resumes are one of the main keys to getting a job that you like. Sometimes, though, it's hard to know where to start when you need to put one together.

Not to worry! BAVC's got your back on this! By the end of this class, you will walk away with a resume that helps you explain to an employer why you are someone they should hire. So, please give Felice your attention today so that she can show you some of the secrets to putting together a resume that makes you shine.