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Semester 2 done & dusted

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Wow! Here we are. My second semester had me grappling with a number of new and interesting classes and topics.

Audio for Emerging Media (Spatial Audio)

Orchestration

Film Scoring II - Film Collab with SFFilm

Private Instruction from the Dean

Composition Seminar

Music History 19th/20th Centuries

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In short, a lot more composing and engraving, a lot of interesting spatial audio techniques (ambisonics, hello!), and delving out of my comfort zone as a composer-focused semester.

I also worked on a comedy film short outside of school called Viva La Florida. Unfortunately my credit is wrong here as I was the sound designer (although the credit was correct in the film)

I wrote a sound logo for a KDFC radio station competition!

I was also accepted as a graduate assistant this year!

I produced an entire concert event, graded many assignments in introductory level classes, and assisted the facility in operating smoothly.

And I worked on this horror short for the Sundance Horror Sound Design Competition:

Not to mention the six compositions I did for my seminar class, more on that at a later time. Now it’s time for a relaxing month off before semester 3 starts at the end of January.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, everyone!

~MJ

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More Classwork!

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Well summer is officially here as my last class ended last week for the semester. I delivered a number of really wonderful final projects for all of my classes.

Classes I took this semester:

Composer Performer II

Advanced Studio Recording and Engineering

Film Scoring I

Advanced Mixing and Mastering

Music History 18/19th Centuries

Synthesis and Sampling

Seminar/Private Instruction

Below are some finished examples from school projects:

Our Advanced Studio Recording and Engineering class had us learn various microphone techniques for recording live performances. Each week, students rotated studio jobs from deck engineer to pro tools op to patchbay and notetaker as well as mix/master post engineering jobs while taking one week to full produce (that means hire talent!) a track. My week of production was a foley and efforts pass of a personal project I’ve been working on: a fight scene from the hit animated show Arcane. I also mixed and mastered a jazz duo playing Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. Such a wonderful class!

Composer Performer II was a class about writing music you intend to perform in some public way, whether that be in person or using an installation with sound and visuals. My midterm had me playing with some fun mirror effects in Adobe Primer using a field recording walk the class embarked upon back in March. I sped up the audio to match the video, but mirrored the audio by reversing it and playing it with the sped up version.

The final: I wanted to do about simulating a rocket shuttle blasting off in various parts using my instrument (tuba) to create a beautiful melody about blasting off into space and the emotional experience through music and sound. Our poetic note for the program was thus:

April 12, 1961. 

Industries roared and cities surged forward, rising like titans from the earth, forging steel dreams in fire and light—the world accelerating towards the impossible.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1

Blastoff!

 
Flames carved the sky as thunder rose from the earth, the ground trembling beneath the fury of ascent. Through cloud and storm, through silence and void, we rose—carried by fire, into the vast and waiting dark.

We are stardust.

Film Scoring was by far my most challenging class because scoring anything with music ON PURPOSE was relatively uncharted territory for me aside from some very minor things I did over 10 years ago. We were assigned a slew of projects to be delivered on a weekly basis that had us composing for a variety of different film clips. The iPhone balloons was definitely my favorite of the bunch here!

Overall I produced a ton of content, and I even challenged myself to work on a Film Audio Faceoff competition over at Airwiggles for a short called Binocular Trick. Another really fun project to work on!

Really excellent way to start my semester here at SFCM. Looking forward to a relaxing but productive summer and I’ll be back in the fall for more new projects.

Have a great summer, y’all!

~MJ

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Classwork!

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Well, school has been…schooling! With 7 classes and assignments every week, I’ve hardly had time for anything else. The work itself has been fantastic and I’m having an absolute blast with this Master’s program so far. Below are a few of my final submissions, expect more to follow in the next few months!

Poulette’s Chair Composition

I used virtual instruments for Whispering Sands and Poulette’s Chair with the prospect of going live one day! Hope you enjoy.

Cheers

~MJ

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My First Mix (d'awww)

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This is my first ever mix that I've done for a friend. The original mix of this was done in low fidelity audio and simple MIDI and given to me in stems from garageband. I decided to put it through the ringer. Hope it sounds good! Props to my good friend Jon for the composition.

Excited to post my very first ever finished semi-professional mix. I received the audio stems and MIDI for this song in the form of lackluster garageband fidelity (actually from garageband) and decided to rework the entire song into something grand.

I learned a great deal about mixing by working on this transformation. Parallel compression on drums adds an extra nice bite (thank you prefader sends). Separating a single bass into low and high frequencies spreads out the sound. Routing different guitar tracks with different frequencies and timbres to output busses was essential to workflow. Careful use of effects and processing meant night and day in terms of quality. Learning to fine tune your ear, to take breaks from the consistent sound of your work, and to objectify the shit out of your mix was paramount to making a successful end product.

Pretty much loved every second of it. Anyone have some potential songs they need mixing? Let me at ‘em!

~MJ

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The Future is Now

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School was a huge bust.  Therefore I decided to graduate.

I went back to Northwestern University with the impression that I would finish my writings and papers, wrap things up, and take some really compelling classes.  What I came back to was none of these things; the classes I wanted to take: Mixology, Sound Design for Media, ASL lessons, and Post Production Audio, were not offered this quarter.  Over the course of the first week I had these constant feelings of “I do not belong here” and “I’m really unhappy,” so I did the only thing that seemed viable to me: waved two distro classes required to graduate and be done.

…and I’ve never been happier.  I have my future all planned out for the year.  In January I’m going a sound design school called Pyramind Studios located in San Francisco.  I had a tour there just yesterday and I was pretty sold upon walking in the place…it was absolutely stunning, quite literally a sound dev’s dream:

Not only will I get the real learning skill sets of multiple DAW systems, I will learn how to mix/master and record all of my projects, compose and create new music across multiple genres, and learn interactive media sound implementation (THAT’S VIDEO GAMES, PEOPLE!).  I’m really really excited, finding something you are passionate about and investing on it is probably the single greatest thing ever.

It’s simple advice, but ohhhh lordy does it go far.  More projects will be posted upon creation, updates to follow.

Typing this with a huge smile on my face,
~MJ