Senior Projects

Me and Vincent were late for senior project. Because Vincent’s id was expired. I just got to New York yesterday. It was my working day today. I have seen that how to renew a sewing machine. How to assemble it. And the picture was a sewing machine.

The problem I have for the coming week is that the only audio interface that is supported by my version of Pro Tools is my Fast Track C600, which works great for recording instruments where I only need one or two channels since it is only a four channel interface. The problem we have is that next week we are planning on recording drums which, depending on the style of recording and desired sound, can use five to eight mics easily. The other option I have is to use the Mackie ONYX 1620 mixing console, which has eight microphone inputs. The problem with the second option is that, as I mentioned earlier, my version of Pro Tools does not support the Mackie ONYX 1620, so I would have to run all of my drum mics out of the mixer, into my Fast Track C600, and finally into Pro Tools as one stereo track. This means that I would have to get my sound levels and EQing exactly right for each channel before we recorded it. Today I spend some time experimenting with different mics to see if I can get a good sound that I want for my project while only using three or four microphones or if I just want to mic up the whole drum set and hope I can EQ everything the way I want it beforehand. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do, but I’m leaning towards the fewer mics approach. Today I also spent making sure everything is charged, clean, and where we need it to be for Monday because when we are trying to record drums for an entire EP in one week, its would probably not be too fun to be looking around for mic cables or drum sticks. Over all its been a really good first two weeks and I’m very excited to actually start recording.

Today I used a heat sealer to package the bath bombs I made yesterday as well as a heat gun to shrink wrap them. Then I labeled them with the ingredient label and packaged them so they looked like small candies. Them Mrs.Hardcastle and I went through the laws of soap packaging. To put it shortly, we went through how your product becomes ‘cosmetic’ or ‘not cosmetic’ and what string of rules you have to follow for both sides and then we also went through how you need to list the ingredients you use, and also how to word the ingredients (i.e. using scientific names or not).

 

Last Sunday was my first time teaching at the Chinese School. It was ok, not as exciting as I had expected. This week I have been helping teachers with students’ work, and sometimes I went to the office and talked with my advisor about the process of my project. 

My senior project has not really turned out the way I thought it was going too. The person I’m shadowing with Marketing right now has cut all my days in half which leaves me with nothing to do in the afternoons. I talked to Mrs. Douglass, and Dr. Hurwitz today because I need something to do in the afternoons. The outcome of the meeting today was good, because I am going to be coming back to school for the next week and volunteering in the lower school classrooms while taking pictures of the students while they work. The reason I am going to take pictures while I volunteer in the lower school is because, I talked with Mrs. Hahn to see if she had any thoughts about what I could do in these next few days, and she said that I could help her by taking  pictures of the students while they work. I also have to think of other ideas for the last two weeks of the senior project because my plan with Dr. Urbano won’t work for an entire day. One thing that I have already learned from this experience is that organization is everything!!!

These couple days I have been learning how to dye hair with Khristal, she’s the one who am I shadowing.  Mrs. Reynolds came to the salon and have her hair done with Khristal. So far, I learnt how to dye hair. For the online course that I have been taking at school, I learned couple hair styles by myself and practiced on my own mannequin.         

Since Monday and Tuesday this week were such full days of work, today was a little more of a break. This morning we put the finishing touches on the “Leave Me Out Of It” demo. We were also able to dig up an older recording of a song called “One Plus One” which is going to be featured on the EP and will work perfectly as a demo. I’ve already learned that being organized is seriously important for saving time, so I started a list of all of the equipment that I’ve borrowed from other people so that when the project is over I can easily return everything.

Today Mrs.Hardcastle and I made some bath bombs and cut up the soap that I made a couple days ago. We also worked on packaging ideas for both products and went through some spreadsheets for my soap that showed what products cost the most, what the recommended cost should be for the soap per bar, and what the expected time it would take to break even was using different market ares (wholesale, independent, or going through a sales representative).

After nearly nine hours of recording and mixing, we are finally finishing up on our demo of “Leave Me Out Of It”, which is going to be the first track on the EP. This demo is basically a blue print, which we will send to all of the musicians that will be playing on the actual recording. This, along with the music that we wrote out, will give the musician a feel for the song before they come into the studio so we are able to spend our time as efficiently as possible. It also helps me to get familiar with Pro Tools and the various mics we have available.

These days I was still organizing papers, and I almost finished them. I also did more samples in the lab, and some of them were interesting and they were in our daily life. Today’s sample that I made is the material in the seats in our car, also in the refrigerator and more daily stuff. People need this material to make those things.