NEED To Update....
Hi my names Liam McDaid this is my online portfolio to showcase my skills with a wide range of audio work, including: multi-track recoding, mixing music, live sound, live recordings and sound design for film, TV, and animation. The day I Realised I wanted to become an Audio Engineer was when I grew tired of just playing and listening to music, I wanted to know much more about the processes involved in going from having a simple rhythmic thought to selling platinum albums, how and why can a simple change in a sounds' pitch can alter your perceptions of your favourite character in a movie or TV show? How did they make those dinosaur sounds and why can I hear explosions in space?
The list goes on.
So I found a fitting college course (Sound Production at Fife College) and began my journey with the mistress of sound and all she has to offer.
I started off with the basics, learning that sound is just a type of energy made by vibrations and travels through the air at 1,120 feet (340 meters) per second. Studio sessions, or Multitrack recording, is a method of sound recording (developed in 1955) that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a cohesive whole. When it came to studio work I loved it; learning the difference between dynamic, condenser microphones, polar patterns, the importance of positioning and the effects on the overall recording. This is where I have gathered my studio multitrack sessions, working with bands, meeting their demands and giving them what they needed to get their music out there.
My time spent in the studio environment with bands, where every thing is built to be acoustically controlled and where instruments are played separate to a click track, I felt that the music produced had lost the energy I felt seeing them play together live or in their rehearsal space so I decided to take another approach. This is my collection of live location recordings of musicians/bands, both in studio rehearsal rooms and on stage preforming. During these sessions, I learned about the importance of microphone choice and placement, how every venue sounds completely different, even if the equipment is the same.
After the initial recording stage, I began loading my sessions into a digital audio workstation called Protools to start my mixing prosess and discovered that by adding a little effect like reverb or by changing the EQ slightly in any frequency, it can drastically change what you recorded in terms of audio, for better or worse. But there is a time when adding FX become necessary in order to create some thing brand new.
Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements.
Including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording/reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production, radio and video game software development. In some instances it may also involve the composition or manipulation of audio to create a desired effect or mood.
I learned a lot whilst remixing it is simply amazing. All of the history, copyright issues and found out how fun it is; cutting up audio into samples, creating loops, MIDI, adding FX and then piecing all of the parts back together in a different order, to produce a music track in an entirely new genre, with a new feel, appealing to a new audience.
Much like sound design, remixing involves the manipulation and altering audio from its original state by adding, removing and/or changing pieces of the item order to create something new.
Through many eyes a remix can be a song, piece of artwork, book, video, or photograph can all be remixes. There is also the belief that all remixing is the pervasive thread connecting all different types of music and culture made for this generation.
With all of the knowledge I've gained from college, I ventured out and started my own projects at home.
I have bought my own equipment that fitted with all my ideas, and began experimenting with all things sound.
These projects were a way for me to practice my skills and better understand how sound production really works. The reactions in different equipment or environment, acoustic or electric, the list goes on, and finding it all out was the best part