Over the course of the past two semesters I have been studying under Paul Johnston in an effort to better my skills as a recording engineer, mixing engineer and producer. From the beginning, I didn’t have a clear outcome for what I had hoped to accomplish by the end of the course. This was the source of some problems for me because there were some moments where I felt like I was flying blind. Starting down a path with no clear end is difficult after all. I didn’t have a set goal for myself other than learning all I could from Paul, which is a broad goal. That being said, I learned from a lot about myself because of it. I also learned a lot from Paul.
Paul had me start by working through Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training by Jason Corey. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked but I worked a lot on the EQ Practice Module software included with the book. The software has four practice
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The sessions took place at The Audio Department, and since most of my experience in the studio happened at MacEwan it was good to have the exposure to something new and different. After all my experience working on session at MacEwan, I was pleased to discover how well the knowledge I possessed about signal flow translated to other studios. This increased my confidence in my skills as an engineer. In a similar fashion to the Jean Nicolas Trio sessions, I focused on how Paul was working with the band as a producer. Paul also got me to do rough mixes for a number of tunes. It was a great learning experience once the initial fear of making a mistake subsided and I began moving faders instead of just thinking about moving them. On the whole, I gained a lot of hands-on real life experience from working with Paul on this record and gained confidence when it comes to how to run a studio session. The experience also led to me getting an internship at the