24 Hours
Hi guys, how's it going?
You may or may not know we have a recording studio. In 2023 a friend funded and installed a studio at Steve's house. Our lives changed forever. :-D
Since then, I've been working hard to learn everything I can about audio engineering. I knew some things, but really not much at all. A few friends shared some of their vast knowledge with us, but it was really too much to absorb at once. I asked God for opportunities to learn more without going away to school for several years. Soon after, I learned about Mastering.com.
This kind of language might seem strange to some of you, but me and God have a running conversation about everything. This isn't religion, but faith, in Jesus. Life is hard and people are faulty. God isn't, and this conversation helps.
So, I've learned lots about audio engineering from the people at Mastering.com. Mostly via their live, online events and more recently via a 6 week Production Intensive and now a Mastering Intensive.
Signing up for the Production Intensive was a bold step for me financially and professionally. It's pretty intimidating, and well, maybe too much for me. I got stuck and sort of gave up in the middle of week 3 at the lesson on synths and found sounds. I understand the concepts, but need more time to work though it all and get good at it. The internet is also a challenge with their platforms, but I should be good at overcoming that challenge by now.
One of my biggest fears these days is that Steve will bring in other people to work in our studio and slowly edge me out. I'm taking lots of time to learn audio engineering, and progress feels slow. It feels like any day now he'll say to me, "Stephanie, you've had lots of time, but you're not good enough, not fast enough. Sit to the side and make room for people who actually know what they're doing. But you should still clean every week or two."
I'm not sure Steve would actually say this, but I think he thinks in this direction sometimes. I understand too that most fears like this are a bit irrational.
This week, just yesterday actually, I spent a full 24 hours in our studio. I'm there most days, but this was 24hours sitting at the desk working on people's music. We recorded 3 songs for the children's choir at Steve's church in July. I finished one song in August, and am close with another. I arrived super early on Wednesday to finish this song. Sometime mid morning Steve told me a choir from one of the churches I go to wanted to come record a song that afternoon to sing at an event the next morning. This is a challenge. My typical turn around is weeks or months, not hours.
We agreed to try though, because well, these are people we know. The song itself is a remake of one they recorded with another studio for a TZ political party. They needed to change some of the words and names to match this year's general election, and the guy who produced the original song wasn't available. They had the original backing track, and the songwriter/choir master was around, so they asked us.
And it was indeed a challenge, from beginning to end. After the vocalists left at around 8pm I packed up our gear and worked all night to send them the song at 6:30am for the 10am event this morning. What I sent has lots of faults, but it's a coherent song, and it's done.
The guys at Mastering.com are always talking about finishing vs perfection. It's a mindset issue where working through creative blockages are more important than a precisely perfect end product.
This mindset definitely helped me finish this song in the prescribed time frame. This and setting time limits for myself for specific tasks like gain automation for transients and peaks, trying only 2-3 presets or settings before making a decision, and generally sticking to made decisions. An awareness of these technical (i.e. cleaning and organizing tracks) and creative (adding a panning plugin to the backing track) modes was also helpful when I wanted to do more with the song when what I really needed to do was just make it coherent and relatively clean.
Remember too I was working through night in a home with small children. Those metering plugins they're always talking about at Mastering.com and gain staging allowed me to work effectively while everyone else slept peacefully, at least until around 6am when I needed to confirm with my ears what my eyes were seeing.
That I was paid for my work last night might not seem like it should be important, but it definitely encouraged my heart. I'd like to see our studio support itself and even make a profit, but have been discouraged by failures in the Production Intensive and other pressures. So, I had a smile on my face at 7am when Steve came to let me out of the studio (I'd locked myself in and couldn't open the door) so I could go home.
Walking home from the studio felt different, but really the same. My morning commute in reverse, body protesting more than usual, with a shower, bed, and nothing scheduled on the other side (thank you Jesus). Things are hard and life feels so very challenging, but I seem to think that if I keep showing up everyday, if I keep going even when I'm sick, tired, and feel like I'm in an oil press, that maybe tomorrow will be better. And if not tomorrow maybe the next day? I really have no choice but to live and find out.
P.s. Ooohh, look, I used lots of audio engineering jargon here, and I didn't even reference dictionaries, notes, or Google. That means I've learned something, right?














