AllTheseThingsIveDone.com

When most people finish work they simply go home and put there feet up. That’s not me! After finishing work at the ACC office I drove home and had dinner (nothing that unusual there) and then got back in my car and headed off for Bristol. Why? Well, I’d been asked by Jon Bonner to do some training on Digidesign’s Pro Tools.

The drive was good, there’s something amazing about seeing the magnificent suspension bridge that links England and Wales all lit up, but enough of the poetic images. I will, at this point admit to getting a little lost, however I feel that this was justified as the only directions I had were on a printed piece of A4. Oh well I’ll have Tom Tom soon! My awful sense of direction aside I made good time and when I arrive was warmly welcomed.

Personally I made the decision that Pro Tools wasn’t the way I wanted to go forward. I prefer Apple’s Logic Pro program. So getting out all my old skills felt a little strange, but they were still there.

Jon had spent £1750 on his Mac/Pro Tools/Studio setup and up until yesterday had only got as far as Apple’s Garageband. This isn’t particularly good when you’re a composer with ideas ready to jump out at you ready to lay down in demo form ready for people like Andy Harsant to give a good musical buffing too.

So, we sat down at 9am with a plan to get Jon learning Pro Tools how he’d use it in real life. With a real session. I personally believe that practice exercise serve a point when learning the small intricate details of a program, but don’t help the bigger picture.

So we sat down and set about work; Acoustic guitar, then Electric, then Bass. All along the learning the important information, like how Pro Tools’s plugins work or some of the features of the Mbox 2. Still after our first four hours Jon had made some big steps and at least could see that his money hadn’t been a waste. After a further two we had the demo track completed.

I’m under no illusions that when Jon does use his own system on his own it’ll take him a good twelve hours to get something useable. That unfortunately is life. However with practice he’ll get better.

Personally I got something out of it too. Even with the huge influx of project studio’s and the sheer amount of home recording going on I saw a future. Actually engineers and Pro Tools users are needed; They’re needed to provide the vital experience with the software to create the flattering sounds (I don’t want to call it professional) that most bedroom musicians are after.