Hey Everyone!

This past month or two has been one for the books. I attended the Game Developers Conference, which was an absolutely incredible experience. The community at GDC is inclusive, extremely inviting, and a lot of fun to be around. I helped recording engineer, Mathew Prock, set up a recording session for the “Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds IV,” album, which taught me a lot about how to mic a percussion session. In about two weeks, I’ll also be helping Mat with the choral recording session for the same album. And last but definitely not least, the 2nd year students had their second recording session! Not only did we have an amazing ensemble, but some of the accepted students also joined us. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, I’ll post some pieces the 2nd years did so that you can have a listen and see what we have been up to!

G.A.N.G scholars 2017 San Francisco; Bill Piyatut, Rachel Robison, Shauny Sion Jang, Katrina Zemrak, and Max Davidoff-Grey, with Brian Schmidt.

A HUGE thank you goes out to the Game Audio Network Guild. (G.A.N.G.) If you have not heard of the Game Audio Network Guild before, take a look at their website! There are so many incredible opportunities with the Game Audio Network Guild. Every year for the Game Developers Conference, G.A.N.G generously contributes five scholarships to various music composers who are studying in the industry. I can tell you, that it was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

A general day at the Game Developers Conference: at 7 a.m. every day there is an audio meeting at a coffee shop; around 8 a.m. until about 6 p.m. there are talks, discussions, and exhibitions; and after an entire day of becoming education on game audio, everyone meets up somewhere in the surrounding area to attend networking parties. Except I wouldn’t call them networking parties. This brings me to the discussion of networking. We’re going to call networking, building a community or gaining friends. I have met so many people who have been worried about networking, about that first impression you give someone.

Here are some tips:

• Do not shove a business card in their face.
• Talk to them about everything you can think of.
• There is something that they can gain from you and vice versa. Find common topics to discuss, and if you’ve seen a talk or discussion with them, chat about it after.

This is an amazing time to literally create opportunity and development within the world you are discussing.

One of CRC’s Recording Studios.

The 2nd years recorded at the Chicago Recording Company this past week. We composed for a chamber ensemble, although this time it didn’t have to be for anything specific. We could have used a scene we had scored in class, or another project we were currently working on. But I (and a few others) decided to write it outside of media this time, which was a really nice change of pace. We had about two weeks to write the piece, and they were about 2:30 minutes long. Everyone’s piece turned out beautifully, and this week we’ve started editing and mixing them. We did run into an issue, though. There were construction workers drilling into the ground right next door to CRC. We could hear a low rumble in the session pieces from it, but thankfully we have EQ to deal with it! A big thank you to Kubilay Uner, Drew Edwards, Alan Tinkham, and Mat Prock for helping us out and being there through it all, we’ve all learned a great deal from each of you.

Percussion Recording Session for the “Final Fantasy” album.