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CJ, in place of Malcolm, begins the meeting promptly at 6:30 mentioning that if Malcolm does show up they will swap places. Running this meeting without the slideshow CJ begins by bringing up what AES is and introducing the CRAS AES Monday night meeting. They bring up that AES is an international organization that operates globally to promote advances in audio that unite students, engineers, researchers, and the like. CJ then brings up the numerous benefits that AES offers, especially if you are a member which include access to resources, papers, and invitations to events. They then mention that the student discount to access these resources is quite high, where the first year of membership as a student is $50 dollars and it increases by $25 each year up to $125. CJ then asks the crowd about any niche audio interests that they have and mentions that AES has resources from everything from AI and neural learning in audio to acoustics.
CJ then moves over to the introductions of the room, asking the crowd to say their name, cycle, pronouns, and what got them into audio and what made them want to attend CRAS. Malcolm enters the room as well as CRAS grad Austin 'Fluffy' Tang with CRAS instructors David Kohr and Nancy Scharlau-Murman. The responses around the room go and range from theater and music to live bands and production.
CJ then introduces the office holder positions by mentioning Oliver, Sol, Nolan, and Malcolm as the current office holders, as well as bringing up the new office holders that are coming in to take the positions. Moving swiftly along CJ brings up Austin Tang to talk about his CRAS experience as a graduate.
Austin begins by mentioning that he came to CRAS about a year ago with options open, he ended up having to stay in Phoenix due to medical and family reasons. He talks about how his first internship was doing foley and live call audio with an app for seniors. He brings up that the problem with this gig was that he was low on hours which allowed him to take on some foley opportunities for a metaverse business presentation as well as some. Austin then talks about his time interning and eventually getting paid at the SanTan brewery and eventually as well as he was being paid, he wanted more. That led him to reach back out to the internship department which found him a gig with Encore Entertainment as well as the Tempe Improv which allowed him to pursue. He says that he now works for FOH Productions as a mixer and rental specialist.
A question is posed by the crowd asking Austin about how he found positions by either asking the CRAS department or finding gigs himself. He answers with a little mix of both. Another question is posed about what certifications he got, Austin mentions that he got Pro Tools T4, Melodyne, and the Waves cert. Nancy then brings up that Encore has a training program and asks if Fluffy went through that himself. Austin replies that he came in with confidence and was able to convince his manager to let him be an A1 at a gig. He then mentions that to pass the training at Encore all you have to do is pass a test that is less rigorous than the CRAS curriculum. Fluffy then mentions that how if your location is low on hours they (Encore) can send you to another location.
CJ then asked Austin about the timelines/timeframes and what they looked like for Austin. Austin replies that within the week of being done at CRAS, he got his first internship gig, and it was a lot of keeping close connections to the internship department and just saying yes to opportunities that were presented to him. He also says that once his internship gigs were done with the bar he just presented them with the ultimatum of pay him or lose him, and because of his work ethic and dedication they gave him a paid gig.
Someone then asks for some more information about Encore surrounding the type of work that Austin did for them and how it ties to mixing for live bands. David Kohr then mentions that all of this has happened in under a year of Austin leaving campus and how CRAS has given him the tools to continue to grow in the industry. DKohr then asks about the CRAS graduate network in the local Phoenix metro area, Austin brings up the point of how every position in the audio industry in Phoenix has had a CRAS grad come through it, and that has created so many connections for people staying in the area.
After answering a few questions that reiterate information about A/V work someone asks the question about how they could get from doing something like A/V work to something like post-production, Austin says that there are so many resources available nowadays that people can take advantage of to find the path that they want. David Kohr then asks about what he has in his gig bag for any given event, Fluffy then brings up a story about how he keeps an sm57 in his bag because one event that he ran one of his wireless mics was cutting out, and that it saved the event by having his mic on the bag.
CJ then resumed the meeting and thanked Austin again for his time and for coming in to talk to the meeting. CJ then brings up the CRAS mentor program and how it hosts cycle-specific study groups to help students, as well as offers 1 on 1 help to students who need it.
CJ then says that it is ok to ask for help. Moving into the discussion about the CRAS AES subgroups CJ introduces the sound design subgroup run where CRAS student Starr Campbell teaches people how to improvise and synthesize their own drum sounds and synths in order to remove reliance on Splice due to copyright issues. A member of the crowd introduces the Jammin subgroup ran by Mikey Fierro where they book out a studio to come through and jam, record, and mix music. Sol then introduces his EDM production subgroup and how he hosts a space to create, teach, mix, and produce electronic dance music. He mentions that it is a chill space to create and that for his last two meetings, they will be creating a collaboration project. Wrapping up the subgroups CJ says that people should go and just learn something new from someone.
Moving on CJ then mentions that FocusRite is hosting an event to take their RedNet Core certification which is FocusRite's proprietary audio over ethernet protocol. The next event that CJ mentions is about how Monheim Microphones and T. Nava, a musician who has played and toured with artists such as Anderson Paak, Bruno Mars, Snoop Dogg and many more will be coming in to record some video and music at a studio session on Wednesday night.
The next section that CJ mentions is the CRAS AES Sample flip challenge and how Sol finds and sends out samples every cycle for people who attend the meeting to manipulate and turn into whatever they please. Mentioning that some people have used the samples in very creative ways to make interesting sounds such as using tonal delay to create interesting sounds with harmonics. Then CJ gives a live demo working in Ableton Live of how a tonal delay works on the ambiance sample to create interesting changes in pitch, harmonic, and timbre. Moving on to mentioning about how the CRAS students who attend and sign into the meetings, can get these samples to mess around with.
In place of a video, David Kohr mentions the new Radical Bundle from SoundRadix and how it is placed into all of the studios at CRAS. Going over what some of the plugins do, AutoAlign fixes phase issues in drums, SurferEQ does pitch tracking equalization, and DrumLeveler allows the user to use and compress individual ghost signals in their audio track. Moving onto another website David mentions that SynchroArts has also made an EDU partnership with CRAS that gives students to VocAlign Ultra and RePitch which are some of the best vocal editing tools on the market. CJ then mentions that CRAS students then get a massive EDU discount on the SynchroArts products.
Concluding the meeting CJ dismisses the group and asks them to network with one another and to meet some new people.
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