Wednesday, June 13, 2012

How many SPR employees does it take...?

How many SPR employees does it take to record a promo?

I’d written a few 30-second spots promoting the Making Noise blog, and headed back to one of the mixing consoles to record.

“Uh…” I’d recorded in this room before, but Patrick had always been manning the computer. Today, though, he was downtown playing at Street Music Week.

There was a picture of our President in cool dreadlocks on the monitor, which I found amusing, but I could not find the Next Gen audio icon anywhere on the desktop. Another thing: Talk of the Nation was blasting over the speakers, and I had no idea how to turn it off without pushing the wrong button and wreaking havoc on the entire station.

The last time I’d recorded stuff on my own, Verne had set it all up for me. I’d made some mistakes, but I’d figured it out.

There was no way I was figuring this out alone.

Luckily, Neesha is a whiz with most things technical. She noticed right away that there were two machines hooked up to the one monitor. Unsuccessfully, she searched for the switch to change over to the machine I needed. With Jerry’s help, we figured out keystrokes instead.

“Oh!” Jerry suddenly announced. “Here’s the switch!” It was hidden behind the monitor. Neesha and I laughed. “That’s what I was looking for!”

Neesha hadn’t recorded audio for a while, but she got me set up in Next Gen’s promo file and gave me a quick refresher on the mini editor. Neesha and Jerry wished me luck as they left, shutting the door.

Okay, I thought, I can do this.

I sat down in the chair. I put the headphones on. I started recording.

I heard nothing on playback.

Uh-oh.

Once again, I looked down at the mixing console. I swear it looked more advanced than the cockpit of a 747. There were at least 12 pots (potentio-meter-something), with various on-off switches lit or unlit, volume sliders, Audition mode, and all sorts of other modes and lights and…

I could feel my eyes crossing, and had a vague memory of flunking the circuit-building part of my Physics final. How did anyone ever figure this stuff out?

Luckily, Brian Flick had just finished an important project, and had time to come and help me out.

“You need to make sure this—“ he pushed a button “—is on Audition, and this—“ he pushed another “—is off, and this—“ He pushed about eight more buttons, which all turned light green. “Okay, now you should be able to hear yourself.”

Viola! All of a sudden I was in business.

I thanked Brian profusely, and he gave me a hearty pat on the back. “Every console is a bit quirky, and so is every computer. We all have to learn each one all over again, too!”

I felt tons better.

So, how many SPR employees did it take to record one promo? Not including myself, it took three. And I never could’ve done it without them.