Darren Vermaas - Dark Horse Studios - Week 4/5

Well, apparently I forgot to post a blog last week so this will encompass two weeks of intern goodness.  Last week was actually quite busy for me.  I was given my first opportunity as assistant engineer on a project with producer Dave Becthel.  It was a pretty sweet experience, he brought in top notch session players from the area, and I got to watch as an idea went from bare bones to finished product in about an hour.  Both engineering/production students as well as performance students should definitely be up on their charting skills.  I was handed charts and expected to follow along making note of any changes made along the way for the head engineer.  Also, get used to reading bad penmanship.  But aside from charting I was everything from patchbay guy to coffee chef.  The assistant position lasted for 3 days, two for tracking and one for background vocals.  The bgv session was very tedious, but very interesting.  It was really helpful to see how the workflow was done to keep things streamlined and comprehensible.  There were easily 32 extra bgv tracks for each song after stacking and harmonies and more stacking.  Did I mention I was in session for around 15 hours every day?

This week a band from Connecticut called "The Bronze Radio Return" arrived and will be tracking for the next two weeks.  They seem cool, and so far their stuff is sounding awesome.  Trick of the week: Using a plate verb as a room mic.  Awesome.