Reflective Learning Diary
Introduction
The aim of this Reflective Learning Diary is for the following:
· Keep a record of the work I undertake on my placements
· Note any existing skills I develop, or new skills I learn
· Identify areas that I would like to improve upon
Work Placement: Exeter Network Church, Mark Nightingale
| Date: | 11th August 2009 & 18th August 2009 |
| Hours worked: | 12 hours |
| Tasks completed: | · Setting up a recording session · Making the musicians feel comfortable in their environment · Create a rough mix of the recorded session · Overdubs and additional track overlays were necessary |
| Reflection: | Mark Nightingale of the ‘Exeter Network Church’ approached the Music Mill for help recording his latest album; he kindly agreed to let myself and Michael Walton help with the creation of his album from the recording aspect of things. After a previous WBL learning experience with ‘The Atlantics’ which involved similar roles in which was to be expected of me, I was hoping to learn from my experience from that session and implement all the positive elements into mark’s album.
|
End of placement evaluation
| The achievement of which I am proudest is: | Giving mark re-assurance when laying vocals over some of the songs he did, there was elements of doubt and lack of self-belief in which I helped correct with assurance that the methods of his singing within songs was correct and any songs that did fall in to a category of doubt I helped contribute to the correction process. |
| The thing I found most surprising was: | The speed in which everything was done, being only use to recording amateur’s within the college such as, how many times it would take to get a clean vocal recording there would be a element of time wasting when trying to record students in the college, but this was not the case with the band here, they were very organised and structured. |
| The area I found most challenging was: | Understanding the mixing console and watching Shaun work his way around the mixer, trying to absorb his actions and what he was doing at any given time I found to be very challenging and understanding what he was doing also. |
| The area I would like to improve is: | Gaining a better understanding of instrument placement within a stereo mix when recording a band, I would like to improve on this as when watching Shaun using the pan methods to given each instrument its own place within a mix I learned it is something that I must improve on with my future assignments and personal projects. |
| An example of when I worked in a team was: | Setting up the musician’s equipment within the live room and ensuring that the microphone placements were to a standard that was usable within the control room and not any hindrance to the band members this was done with communication from the live room and with the control room. |
| An example of when I used my knowledge was: | Setting up volume levels into the mixer I was able to do this with great understanding from the skills and knowledge I had attained from the course so far, elements such as not overloading the console and making sure 48 volt phantom power was supplied to condenser microphones. |
| An example of when I solved a problem was: | When we were getting bad signal flow to the desk from a certain microphone I followed a procedure of checking for faults with the leads, mixer, connections and eventually found the problem to be a faulty microphone. |
| An example of when I was given responsibility was: | I was asked by the producer of the session (Shaun) to operate the tape recorder and to ensure that I had tracks enabled and ready when Mark was laying numerous overdubs and correcting errors on previously recorded tracks |
| Other comments: | Overall a positive experience and great to see how an album is created from its start point up until the mix stage, the main element I’m beginning to understand that is you can have all the skills in the world but it is very important to have a good relationship with the client when working in this kind of working environment in regards to making sure they feel comfortable within their surroundings. |
