Projects and Things...

Deadlines are starting to appear and I had my very first one last week. I managed to achieve it but all in all I still feel a little behind. I have a lot of reading to do and some primary research. I will be able to focus more on my research project after this week since the deadline for my creative studies is this week and once that's out of the way I wont really need to think about it again, except perhaps keeping in mind my plan for the academic year to get it all done. But yes, once this is out the way I'll have more free time to crack on with the what has now become main focus module for this semester, my research project/dissertation. A part of me still cant believe that it has to be done before Christmas but, I believe it is possible. I've been working on my ethics form today since that has to be in by the end of the week too and its all starting to become a little more clearer and I have a good structure for the word count and my disposal and various other templates too!

I feel like I'm picking up this week... finally. I picked up a cold this Saturday gone and before that I hadn't been very motivated to do work anyway but today has been pretty productive. I mean, I've still got to rewrite the proposal for Creative studies but I know exactly what I want to do now and it will reduce my work load a little too over the course of the year. I'll be looking for bands to record very soon-ish, one for my research project and one or two for my recording project. That's what I'm most excited for, getting back in the studio again. At the moment, my best days are Thursday. Even though they are pretty slow starting with a 9am lecture that lasts two hours, we have our workshop in the studio just after for two hours and sometime we will even go into these sessions earlier to maximise the time and experience we get. I've thoroughly enjoyed every workshop session so far, even though I don't always learn something new I always get to play about with pro tools and work out how the two downstairs studios work. They are a little complex, especially being used to Logic and Clarendon's not-so-trusty RS1 where you have to patch everything in. I'm still not used to not seeing the gain structure, it seems hidden in the Rednet software but it is clear as day.

I'm going out later. This is a new bad habit it seems, Wednesday evening at the tap. It's always a laugh and I think its exactly what I need mid week. I still don't have many friends here in Derby, and the ones I have made I only see once or twice per week so going out and seeing some of my Nottingham friendies perks me up socially.

Big Steps

Although my first couple of weeks are not quite over, everything is now starting to pick up the pace as the realisation that this semesters workload is due in about 10 weeks. For me this means handing in both my recording and research project by early December whilst making progress on my creative studies album project.

It is all starting to feel a bit intense, maybe as it should. I've been given a deadline of Monday next week for my position paper for my dissertation and I'm not even 100% sure what I want to do it on anymore. In these two weeks I've learned that the summer research project which I started last year is a bit too loose and difficult to investigate especially regarding collecting primary research data. I did originally plan to run with a similar idea since I had found so much on it but if I'm aiming for a first it's no use with just secondary literature. This puts me in a position where tonight and tomorrow (before I go to work at least) I will be thinking of new areas that interest me that would be more realistic to write about given the timeframe.

Whilst my dissertation is a big concern (as it is for everyone I would imagine) there are other areas of my course that are going really well. For my recording project we sort of managed to sort out groups between us today. It might be a bit crazy working as a group of four but the people that I'll be working with all seem dedicated and we all seem to have good knowledge and ideas already of what we want to do, just not yet in paper form as a proposal. We'll have to do that soon and agree times for recording sessions but this should be easy enough to do as long as we can all make it.

I've had a fair bit of time in the Neve studio now. I was inducted to the set up last week with the others and today in our workshop session we recorded some drums using the Glynn Johns technique and it sounded fantastic by just correctly panning the channels without and further mixing. We started with three microphones and then added another to give the snare some more definition. The drummer, George was great to work with and I need to remember to check out his bands. I think he said one of them are King B. Yesterday, I was able to get in the studio to record some drums too but with a spot mic-ing approach. This proved to be quite successful and I even learnt how to take audio recordings out of Pro Tools to pass on the work (I don't generally use Pro Tools) I think even with the stuff I'm going to do for my recording project I will probably take it out and put it into Logic Pro X to mix.

In the back of my mind however, as well as all of this is the looming doubt of this album I'm going to have to keep working on and not forget about. I have five potential ideas for songs currently, some of them only short but they are real, solid ideas I can build on. Maybe not this week though, this week its time to focus on my dissertation since I have a small deadline to meet for this now.

I'm doing better than I thought with the whole meeting new people thing although I already wish I had made more effort to talk to others in the last couple of weeks but I seem to have a nice small friendship circle developing but it certainly is hard being a direct entry student.