Intermediate Audio Production Week 2: Basic Training

Well, a week into it and already my mind is blown. When they said material heavy course they meant material heavy course. For starters, the routing demo Finlay gave left me as lost as Frodo was in Mordor. There is definitely more to Pro Tools than I first imagined. I've never used any sort of professional level software but since Pro Tools is the "industry standard", learning how to use it should help to build a familiarity with all the different audio production set ups out there. I always thought an audio mixing set up was binary: an input goes through to a mediator which then goes to an output. At the core I guess that's what it is, but the really magic takes place in between those steps. This was made clearly evident with all the "bus-ing" that was going on. A bus used to be a big box with wheels that took you form place to place, but now it is some mystical, virtual, outlet in the ether of Pro Tools. That Pro Tools Refresher we did was nothing compared to the tasks ahead. I am looking forward to learning all these things but now I have these wonderful studios to familiarize myself with, another uncharted territory we must traverse through this term. These studios look so cool when you're standing at the door but once you get inside and sit behind the big desk with all the different buttons and knobs and flashing lights and little screens and input/outputs and sliders and speakers and wires and sliders and.....Yeah, it can get a little intimidating. My experience in the studios can be described best with the metaphor of a country person moving to the big city. (I'm from Scarborough so it's sort of the same thing).