Corey Deshane NESCOM AES Chapter 2-13-09
Cameron opened the meeting by explaining what the Audio IV project means at NESCOM: basically, a senior student produces, engineers, mixes and masters an entire album over the course of a semester. Refreshments were served, and Corey Deshane was introduced.
Corey Deshane, who graduated at the end of last semester, had just finished his Audio IV project, and this was his chance to present his work (the album he recorded "Drip and Bleed" by Sam Chase and Yuri Trusty) to his peers. Corey started out by talking about how he met Sam and Yuri, and about the preproduction that went into the album; how after making plans to record an album with their band, the band broke up, leaving just Sam and Yuri to play all the instrument parts and sing all the vocals in the songs. Corey then played the song "Quick and Painless." Next Corey talked about the recording process, all the apprehensions, setbacks, pitfalls, and successes that followed. Most importantly, he stressed the need to be fearless in trying different mics and miking techniques until you get the sound you need. He then played the song "Rigged to Lose," as an example of one of the last songs he recorded and had by that time honed his recording methods, making this song the easiest to mix, because it was recorded so well. Corey then went on to talk about the mixing phase. He talked about how it was frustrating to commit to ideas at first, but by trying different mixing techniques, and bouncing back and forth to different songs, he finally got a better idea of what he wanted, and then was able to go through and mix the project song by song. He also talked about how he was still recording while he was mixing, and that the mixing helped him realize which sounds would mix well and which wouldn't and this helped him make better recording choices. Corey then played the song "Neverending Story" the first song he recorded, and "Pretty Lady" the last song on the album, and he talked about how he produced the two songs and how he managed to get a consistent sound on the album from start to finish. Corey also talked about the forty page paper he wrote detailing his project, and the enormous amounts of screenshots, photos, and tracksheets, and notes he made documenting every detail of his work.
When Corey was finished, he got an enthusiastic standing ovation, and then Dave MacLaughlin stepped up to say a few words. Dave (the head of the Audio Dept.) was Corey's mentor for this project, and would sit down with Corey every week to listen to Corey's work, give suggestions, and help him work out problems. Dave said that he was very proud of the album Corey produced, that it sounded great, that Corey had shown tremendous growth as a person and as an audio engineer over the last semester, and that he had high hopes for Corey's future.
