So unfortunately, I had an unexpected financial thing come up and it makes a lot more sense for me to go home a week early instead of staying until next Friday, which means tomorrow is my last day at my internship. This is unexpected and I didn’t know it was going to happen until yesterday. Luckily my boss and colleagues are completely ok with it and understand. I’ll spend today and tomorrow finishing up my impulse responses and tying up loose ends with my living situation.

Today I started experimenting with using a Celestion Vintage 30 loudspeaker as a microphone. I reverse wired it and boosted the signal with a mic preamp and actually got some pretty interesting results. The same method is used for the Yamaha Subkick mic, which is used primarily on kick drums. The goal is to try it in different places around the room to get a thick ambient room tone, and then turn it into an IR. So far it’s worked fairly well as long as it’s blended and EQ’ed properly. Even with the Celestion fairly far away from the guitar cab it still picks up an incredible amount of bass around 90 Hz, and can sound muddy if just thrown next to another guitar track.

These Celestion IRs will probably be the last ones I’ll do depending on if we can get another amp in the studio tomorrow.

So I have two weeks left at Harman, and I’m just as busy. I’m still working hard on impulse responses, and I currently have around 120 IRs completed of various different guitar amps that were lying around the studio here. There hasn’t really been any change since my last post, and I’m still doing the same things every day.

Honestly I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t been pushed more this summer, but that’s probably a result of how much I did this past semester. Stetson has gotten me used to being just slightly out of my comfort zone and as a result I now work well under pressure and stress. While I have learned a few things about signal routing, IRs, and some corporate product development methods, I wish I was being pushed more by my bosses and given more responsibilities. Regardless I’m still happy that I had this opportunity and experience.

Over my final two weeks I will most likely continue to create impulse responses and work with guitar amps. I hope that I get another assignment before I leave here.

For the first time this summer I feel like I have a lot of work to do, which is great. So far my bosses have been unsure of what to delegate to me, not because of what my abilities are, but because they have so many extraneous side projects they want to get done but don’t have the materials yet to do them. This has resulted in a lot of “hey Casey I’d really like to do this marketing idea with one of our products, could you look into the best way to do this and what we would need?”, so I look into it, send them a list of materials, and then wait two weeks to get them (I’m still waiting on cymbals in order to do drum recordings, which was planned a month ago). Of course there are also a lot of little projects here and there which keep me busy for the most part, but my current project has been super cool to work with and has kept me busy for the past several days.

Like I mentioned before, I’m creating impulse responses of guitar amplifiers. This has been an amazing skill to learn and I plan on using it on so many things when I get back to school. Unfortunately it has gotten a little tedious because of the repetitive nature of making so many of them at a time with different mic choices and placements. So far I have made over 50 different IRs with 5 different amps, using various mics, mic placements, and room situations. I even created an isolation chamber with materials I found around the office. They had a pile of 8’x4′ acoustic panels in a closet from their previous building, which I propped up in a rectangle against a wall with an acoustic quadratic diffuser. I put the amp inside, lined the sides of the chamber with leftover acoustic foam panels and corner pieces (more stuff that I found lying around their equipment closet) and it actually worked pretty well. I was able to get very clear IRs with zero extraneous room tone, which was the goal.

So I’ve finally been assigned another project that I’m very excited about. For the past week I’ve been unable to move forward with much of anything because I was lacking materials. I’ve been trying to get drum recordings and attempting to build  sound library, but there are signal routing issues in the studio and I don’t have cymbals for the kit. But, I talked to a ew people and all of those things are being purchased within the next week or so.

As for the new project, one of my bosses approached me on Monday and explained that they need impulse responses taken of guitar amplifier cabinets. DigiTech is designing a new product (I’m not allowed to talk about specifics) that will have amp modeling options, much like many of their previous pedals. But they need new impulse responses, which is what they asked me to do. I spent yesterday experimenting with Logic’s impulse response utility and a Marshall 4×12. I was able to get an IR of one of the equipment closets (which was actually super cool) and an IR of the amp head. I’m very excited for this because it means I’m playing an important part in the creation of this new product.

In my last post I discussed a couple projects that I’d like to start, but I don’t have the materials yet. One of those projects is recording a drum kit using a dbx 676 mic preamp. Earlier this week Jason, the guy who asked me to do this project, was able to get a set of AKG drum mics for the studio. This is great because it was the main piece that was keeping me from starting on this. Last week we retrieved a drum kit from one of Harman’s warehouses and set it up in the studio, but unfortunately it was missing some pieces, including cymbals. Now that I had mics I decided to do a trial run of tracking the kit without the cymbals, just to make sure I knew all of the signal routing through the board, patch bay, and 676. What I discovered was only 2 of the 8 inputs into the board work. Apparently we have a faulty snake cable coming out of the wall panel into the board. This is a huge problem and has been another set back.

I contacted Jason about this and explained that we need a lot of new cables for the studio in order for this to be done. I explained that I could still make a recording with an external 4 input audio interface, but that the studio needs these new cables if they want to be able to use it for these applications. Apparently this is a result of the studio being set up in a hurry when the building was built last year. They didn’t give too much thought to multi track recording or recording in general, and just put a board and some rack effects in there without routing the signals properly. They don’t use the studio for much recording anyways so it hasn’t really been a problem.

Jason is going to talk to his superiors to see if the purchases can be made, and in the mean time I’ve been tweaking mic placements on the kit to get to know the mics that I have, and tuning and retuning the toms and snare to make sure I have the best tone when I finally have all the pieces I need to get this done. I’m a little frustrated because obstacles keep presenting themselves for this project, but at the same time I’m happy that the problems at work that I’m having are revolving around drums and audio recording, both things I greatly enjoy.

Also here are links to the DigiTech AMA thread, which I assisted in, and DigiTech’s soundcloud. 90% of the audio clips on the soundcloud are of me playing, and all of them were recorded and edited by me.

We are DigiTech, makers of guitar pedals and effects processors. AUA!
byu/DigiTechfx inIAmA

I have a couple projects that I’ve been assigned that I haven’t started on yet. Mostly because I don’t have the materials I need yet. One of my bosses who does marketing stuff for Lexicon, has asked me to make some video clips of the Lexicon Reverb Plug-in bundle. It’s basically a third party extension that is added to a DAW which has digital versions of Lexicon reverb effects.

He originally gave me a Nikon camera and wanted me to to take some video of the screen while I was changing some parameters in the plug in, which would be used to show people what the plug in looks like, and a brief overview of the different sounds you can achieve. I then had the idea to get a screen capture program, and turn it into a full tutorial that could be posted to YouTube. A lot of people do these kinds of things, where they capture their screen in a video as they’re explaining how to do something in a DAW. I’m currently working with the plug-ins as much as possible so I know what I’m talking about when I go about these videos. I’m excited but also a little nervous, as my voice will be on YouTube on behalf of Lexicon explaining how to use their products.

There’s a few other ideas as to what I can do for the marketing team that haven’t been too explored yet. There’s so many things that they need help with that I’m just picking up whatever they throw at me. Which is fine with me, and often I get it done in much less time than they expected. I’m so used to working in a high stress environment that I keep asking them to throw more stuff at me, and I’m getting it done faster than they can give me tasks. I guess that’s a good thing, as they have all seemed impressed with my work so far.

It’s now week 5 at Harman. I’ve been doing a lot of various different things, but mostly the same types of material that I mentioned in my last post. I’m mostly working with audio clips for the marketing team. I record samples from different guitar pedals, effects processors, and mic preamps which will be posted on YouTube in the near future. All of the guitar pedal audio is on DigiTech’s soundcloud. I’ve also been managing their Instagram account which has been interesting. Since I became in charge of it we’ve gained nearly 400 followers which is kinda cool.

Last week I went to the company’s warehouse to grab a drum set that they had in storage. The bad news is it’s missing a lot of pieces and we don’t have any cymbals, but the good news is it’s a really nice Pearl kit. One of my bosses wants me to use a full mic setup on the kit and record a bunch of audio samples with the dbx 676 mic preamp. The 676 is one of dbx’s (another company managed by Harman) flagship rack units. It’s an amazing mic preamp and it’s been cool to work with physical units instead of doing everything in the box. I made a list of what the drum kit needs to be record-able, and once the order comes in I’ll be recording as much as I can on the kit. I’m incredibly excited for this because recording drums is something I don’t have too much experience in. In high school I played drums in a band for a couple years and we used drum mics, so I know how to mic a kit, I just don’t have as much experience with drums in a studio setting. The plan is to post all of these audio clips along with some videos online.

So far it’s been an interesting summer, but I look forward to future projects.

So I’ve now been at Harman Signal Processing for about 3 weeks (honestly these posts slipped my mind a bit and I will pick up the frequency of them after this). I am now  a small part of the marketing team for Harman. This team manages the promotion of sales for DigiTech, DOD, BSS Audio, dbx, and Lexicon. Harman owns and manages many other companies but the corporate stuff for the other ones happen at different locations.

Over the past three weeks I’ve been working closely with one of the main marketing coordinators for DigiTech. He put up a soundcloud page a while ago but it has been nearly empty since it started as no one has time to post any content. Tom, the marketing coordinator asked me to record myself playing guitar and bass through various different stompboxes from DigiTech, and post the audio on the soundcloud page. The goal was for customers to be able to hear audio of what a pedal sounds like before they buy it. By now I have made audio clips of every stompbox effect that DigiTech and DOD makes, and they are all posted here: https://soundcloud.com/digitechfx

In between these pedal demos I’ve also been working with another marketing coordinator, Jason, who manages things for dbx, a pro audio equipment company. dbx makes a wide variety of rack units that range from mic preamps, compressors, subharmonic synthesizers, loudspeaker management systems, graphic equalizers etc. He has asked me to do various tests on a brand new mic preamp from dbx called the 676. I have been using it on all kinds of different instrumental and vocal tracks, compiling my opinions, as well as comparing it to other competitors preamps. I have also been recording audio from the preamp and assembling sound libraries for other members of the team to hear my tests and comparisons. The next thing he has asked me to do is to start making short videos that could be used for tutorials, and demonstrating the changing of different parameters on the 676, which will later be posted on their youtube channel.

It may sound like I’m just playing with pedals and some studio equipment, but as a result I’ve spent every single day in a recording studio, working with Pro Tools, patch bays, microphones, and a lot of other high end studio tools that I otherwise would not have been able to learn about. Everything I’m doing so far is related to my field of interest and I’m having a great time.

So today was my first day at Harman as a marketing intern. It was all a little overwhelming but exciting nonetheless. There is only one other intern there (who I’m actually living with for the summer) and as a result it feels like we’re treated as equal employees with the same responsibilities and projects. I have my own (fairly large) cubicle, computer with dual screens, and soon I’ll have my own projects to complete.

The building was built last year so everything is brand new and very clean. There is a high end recording studio where they test prototype signal processing effects where I’ll be working occasionally.

I have a meeting set for tomorrow morning where I’ll get a list of current projects that need to be completed, and I can see what’s doable for me. My boss was explaining that there are a lot of different types of things that are currently lower on a priority level for the other people on the marketing team, and I’ll pick those things up. It sounds like I’ll be working with different types of audio clips, preparing stems and other files, and also doing some video editing. I will also occasionally assist the man in charge of everything that happens in the recording studio. I’ll be sitting in and helping with tracking and audio testing for new signal processing units.

I landed a marketing internship with Harman Signal Processing through a client of my father’s. My dad is self-emplyed as a fishing boat captain and began working with a man who is the CEO of the foreign division of Harman. His client was nice enough to put in a good word for me at one of the company’s headquarters in South Jordan, Utah. I believe this campus is where most of the DigiTech brand operates.

The last week was spent flying out to Salt Lake City (where I will be residing for the summer), signing a lease on an apartment and getting my life in order and prepared for this new internship. I spoke on the phone with one of my supervisors beforehand and he asked me to explain my goals for the summer to him, and they would see where they could fit me. I said that I am mainly focused on audio recording and production, but am eager to gain any kind of experience and hands-on work as I can.

I am incredibly excited to get started. While I’m not entirely sure what kind of responsibilities I will have on a day-to-day basis, I truly am interested in anything they can throw at me. My first day is June 1st, this coming Monday.