I am excited. There are things in the future to be excited about...
Every business has some sort of goal, or driving force that is enabling them to move forward. Depending on what you do and who you are, these goals vary.
For instance, some people are in business strictly to make money. The end goal is just to be as rich as possible... and perhaps they have some very talented people in the company who are good at- Mergers and Acquisition, Sales and Marketing, Research and Development... or some other skilled position and that enables them to make money, but still the end goal is to make money. Most of those types of companies often are very wealthy and yet come across somewhat... oh how do I say this... "jerky"?
Some other businesses I know came into existence not out of some innate desire to package and market ANYTHING in order to make money, but rather because a need was discovered that they could provide, a need that had value, and they sort of "fell" into business because they met that need. These are the businesses that (while they often do become large and wealthy) seem to be the more desirable to work with.
GvG Productions sort of started this way. It was not really my intention to start a business, but rather to just find ways to use my formal education and skill-set to make a living. While I am by no means some business mastermind, I found a way to provide a valued skill where there was a need. Perhaps that won't last, but for now, it seems to be desired. It has never been my goal to be rich and wealthy as a business (although it is hard to avoid the desire when you look at all those rich businessmen!) but just find a way to use my gifts and talents to provide the best service I can.
Recently we have been in talks with a few other friends/businesses about merging into one big company. Most of us already work together a decent amount on a contract to contract basis, but taking the next step into being a major company is a VERY enticing and exciting concept. There are a variety of reasons to make this move: combining resources, offering more services in one place, having multiple income-supporting branches to help the other when one is down... but the most exciting reason has to do with joining with others who formed out of the latter type of business mentioned above.
All of us have that same desire: use the gifts, skills, and resources we have attained and honed over the years to fill a need and make a living. None of us are in this for a "get-rich-quick scheme". We are not here to raise prices and get as much out of a client as we can. We are not trying to screw people over with shoddy work or skipped corners. We are a group of people who want to provide the best services we can so a need can be met, livings can be made, and growth can occur. We are always growing and learning in our crafts to be the best we can be at what we do. We are always working towards the benefit of our clients. We are always looking for new and unique ways to provide services. We are working with friends and partners who have the same ideals. This is the dream... and hopefully this is the future.
I am excited by this prospect. I am also fearful, happy, worried, inspired, questionable, driven, exhausted, hopeful... but I am excited.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Use your ear!
I have had the pleasure to work with and be around some tremendously talented audio technicians in my life. I am constantly gleaning how my mentor engineers are doing things and what makes their work sound so good! One of my first real audio teachers was Loren Barton, a worship leader and recording engineer at my home church growing up. I ate up every little thing he said in regard to audio and media and really got my start trying to emulate him! In college I was fortunate enough to work with some great live engineers who came through- Andy Barker (my first real audio teacher), Cam Drake, Les Batts, and the now famous Brian Farina who continues to work for grammy award winning artists! I was enveloped into the world of studio recording with the amazing kalamazoo engineer/musicians John Campos and Ian Gorman and watched how they were able to capture and create such stunning sound.
Along with working in both volunteer church and amateur production settings, I have gotten to hear and see those who, in my opinion, didn't quite get it right. In my very limited experience, I have been able to watch and see what works and what doesn't in regard to the live sound and recording world. I thought for todays blog, I would offer this list of a few of those things. I hope some of my mentors and friends from the audio world will contribute to this list as most of their experience and brilliance FAR outweighs my own:
1) Use your ear stupid!
This is the title of the blog and I only include the "stupid" here because it is something I say to myself often. I feel like I hear all of my mentors say this in their own way at some point during their processes. You can take measurements, and that is helpful; You can set the "typical" EQ and that too is helpful. You can route and send and process the way you are "supposed" to, but what it all comes down to is, "does it sound good?" USE YOUR EARS. This is something John Campos and other mentors have drilled into me. John listens to mixes, he doesn't watch them on the computer screen! Train your ears to hear what music and audio are supposed to sound like, and then develop the strategies to make it happen. If you are doing a live sound gig, GET OUT OF THE HEADPHONES and listen to the house. The room is what needs to sound good, not your cans. If you are in the studio, listen to whats pumping out those monitors, not to what your preset says is supposed to work. You can buy the best gear in the world and get all the technical training to make it work, but what takes from a simple technician into an artistic contributor is the willingness to use your EAR.
2) For recording, get it right while tracking.
I found in my early recording projects that if spent a lot of time during tracking saying "I will just take care of that in post (production)" things ended up sounding somewhat less that ideal- even so far as "bad". Get it right while tracking. Even if you have to track that line 100 times; even if you have to reset that mic 20 different ways; even if you have to change preamps, mics, cables, locations etc. if you track it right, it will sound the best. I always get frustrated with myself when I ignored a problem or I let a note slip and didn't take the time to track it right. I start adding plugins and software that slowly wear down the sonic integrity and suddenly... it all starts to sound... bad...
3) Good equipment is good, but a good engineer can make bad equipment sound good... (and vise versa).
I see this in a lot of churches. I have learned that one of the biggest spenders on live sound installation is the contemporary Christian church. Churches will spend 1s 10s and 100s of thousands on state-of-the-art audio equipment for their worship center/sanctuary but then will not have anyone who knows how to use it. What you end up having is a bunch of volunteers who know how to make the gear "work" but nobody who goes to the next level in the art and instrument-like skill of being a live sound engineer... and the sound is still lacking. On the contrary, I have been to a few places that had sub-par gear, but have a person in place who makes that gear sound amazing. Don't get me wrong- good gear can make life a WHOLE lot simpler for a volunteer sound team, but that gear is no replacement for training and skills. It doesn't really matter how great your music sounds, if the audio is bad in the house, nobody will know...
4) Cheap doesn't mean terrible.
There are a variety of reasons prices can be high. A Dodge Caravan may sell for $20,000 because it costs a lot of man-hours, and material to fully produce it, but an Aston Martin costs $200,000+ because... better parts... more intricacy and detail... better design... but also the name has built value over the years. An Aston martin may be great, but you can't take the carpool to the soccer game with it! We buy Neve, Neumann, and Meyer because we (and their marketing and sales departments) have come to realize that the parts, skills, and designs associated with them are high in value and will always give the best results. If I see "Neumann" on a mic, I know that I can expect top-notch German engineering from some of the finest minds in audio. However, not all of us can afford a $5000 large-diaphragm tube-powered condenser microphone, but rather only have the cash to purchase an AKG Perception series mic for around $200! Obviously, Neumann mics are going to out-perform a low-end mic in an A/B shootout, but don't poo-poo a cheaper mic just because it isn't expensive. Again, USE YOUR EAR... what sounds can you get with that lower-quality gear? Try it out; listen; experiment; strategize... you may find that you can get some very effective sounds with gear you can afford (until you CAN afford the high-end...). Look at the trusty old SM57... $100 and you can get some wonderful sounds... some groups have even recorded entire albums using ONLY this go-to inexpensive classic!
5) Musical training can go a LONG way.
There are so many idioms for recording in todays world, but a vast amount of them involve music in some capacity. One of the reason many musicians like to come to me for a project is not because of my gear or audio ability (many audio professionals have these) but they know I have a Bachelors and Masters in Music. They know they can ask my opinion about violin performance technique, or the pocket of the rhythm section, or if they played an E-flat or E-natural in the pickup to bar 34. Learning the language of music, being able to speak to a professional musician in their language, and giving honest and knowledgable "musical" feedback (and not just technical feedback), is an invaluable skill in the audio world.
Again, I am young and my experience is VERY limited, but I would LOVE to hear what some of my other audio professionals and mentors have to add to this (or even if they disagree!).
Along with working in both volunteer church and amateur production settings, I have gotten to hear and see those who, in my opinion, didn't quite get it right. In my very limited experience, I have been able to watch and see what works and what doesn't in regard to the live sound and recording world. I thought for todays blog, I would offer this list of a few of those things. I hope some of my mentors and friends from the audio world will contribute to this list as most of their experience and brilliance FAR outweighs my own:
1) Use your ear stupid!
This is the title of the blog and I only include the "stupid" here because it is something I say to myself often. I feel like I hear all of my mentors say this in their own way at some point during their processes. You can take measurements, and that is helpful; You can set the "typical" EQ and that too is helpful. You can route and send and process the way you are "supposed" to, but what it all comes down to is, "does it sound good?" USE YOUR EARS. This is something John Campos and other mentors have drilled into me. John listens to mixes, he doesn't watch them on the computer screen! Train your ears to hear what music and audio are supposed to sound like, and then develop the strategies to make it happen. If you are doing a live sound gig, GET OUT OF THE HEADPHONES and listen to the house. The room is what needs to sound good, not your cans. If you are in the studio, listen to whats pumping out those monitors, not to what your preset says is supposed to work. You can buy the best gear in the world and get all the technical training to make it work, but what takes from a simple technician into an artistic contributor is the willingness to use your EAR.
2) For recording, get it right while tracking.
I found in my early recording projects that if spent a lot of time during tracking saying "I will just take care of that in post (production)" things ended up sounding somewhat less that ideal- even so far as "bad". Get it right while tracking. Even if you have to track that line 100 times; even if you have to reset that mic 20 different ways; even if you have to change preamps, mics, cables, locations etc. if you track it right, it will sound the best. I always get frustrated with myself when I ignored a problem or I let a note slip and didn't take the time to track it right. I start adding plugins and software that slowly wear down the sonic integrity and suddenly... it all starts to sound... bad...
3) Good equipment is good, but a good engineer can make bad equipment sound good... (and vise versa).
I see this in a lot of churches. I have learned that one of the biggest spenders on live sound installation is the contemporary Christian church. Churches will spend 1s 10s and 100s of thousands on state-of-the-art audio equipment for their worship center/sanctuary but then will not have anyone who knows how to use it. What you end up having is a bunch of volunteers who know how to make the gear "work" but nobody who goes to the next level in the art and instrument-like skill of being a live sound engineer... and the sound is still lacking. On the contrary, I have been to a few places that had sub-par gear, but have a person in place who makes that gear sound amazing. Don't get me wrong- good gear can make life a WHOLE lot simpler for a volunteer sound team, but that gear is no replacement for training and skills. It doesn't really matter how great your music sounds, if the audio is bad in the house, nobody will know...
4) Cheap doesn't mean terrible.
There are a variety of reasons prices can be high. A Dodge Caravan may sell for $20,000 because it costs a lot of man-hours, and material to fully produce it, but an Aston Martin costs $200,000+ because... better parts... more intricacy and detail... better design... but also the name has built value over the years. An Aston martin may be great, but you can't take the carpool to the soccer game with it! We buy Neve, Neumann, and Meyer because we (and their marketing and sales departments) have come to realize that the parts, skills, and designs associated with them are high in value and will always give the best results. If I see "Neumann" on a mic, I know that I can expect top-notch German engineering from some of the finest minds in audio. However, not all of us can afford a $5000 large-diaphragm tube-powered condenser microphone, but rather only have the cash to purchase an AKG Perception series mic for around $200! Obviously, Neumann mics are going to out-perform a low-end mic in an A/B shootout, but don't poo-poo a cheaper mic just because it isn't expensive. Again, USE YOUR EAR... what sounds can you get with that lower-quality gear? Try it out; listen; experiment; strategize... you may find that you can get some very effective sounds with gear you can afford (until you CAN afford the high-end...). Look at the trusty old SM57... $100 and you can get some wonderful sounds... some groups have even recorded entire albums using ONLY this go-to inexpensive classic!
5) Musical training can go a LONG way.
There are so many idioms for recording in todays world, but a vast amount of them involve music in some capacity. One of the reason many musicians like to come to me for a project is not because of my gear or audio ability (many audio professionals have these) but they know I have a Bachelors and Masters in Music. They know they can ask my opinion about violin performance technique, or the pocket of the rhythm section, or if they played an E-flat or E-natural in the pickup to bar 34. Learning the language of music, being able to speak to a professional musician in their language, and giving honest and knowledgable "musical" feedback (and not just technical feedback), is an invaluable skill in the audio world.
Again, I am young and my experience is VERY limited, but I would LOVE to hear what some of my other audio professionals and mentors have to add to this (or even if they disagree!).
Monday, November 5, 2012
Sync Contacts and Calendars between iPhone, iPad, Gmail/Google Calendar, and Apple Address Book/Mail
Over the past few months, I have oddly enough been asked to organize contacts and calendars between internet email, computer email, ipads, and iphones. As people seem to like what I setup and I know it can be very helpful, I thought I would share what I did to keep things organized across devices.
I personally have 4 places I need my contacts and calendars to be synced and I always prefer to not have to worry about any missing data, contacts, events. A while back, Apple and Google seemed to have a bit of a falling out and my iCal on my macbook pro would no longer delete any dates. So when I scheduled something and then needed to move it to a new time, when I moved it, instead of deleting the previous entry and making a new one, the old one would come back on along with the new one. Needless to say this became very frustrating. On top of this, when I began using the new iCloud service, I began having all sorts of duplicated contacts appearing in my gmail and phone. After sitting down and researching, here was my solutions:
Now you need to know I currently have/run:
-Macbook Pro (2 years old) running Snow Leopard (I haven't upgraded for certain compatibility reasons with some of the programing I run)
-iPad 2 16GB running iOS6
-iPhone 4S 16 GB running iOS6
-Gmail for my personal email which I do NOT sync with my apple Mail service using an IMAP setup
-Business email setup on Apple Mail using IMAP setup. Service through GoDaddy.com
CALENDARS
First of all my calendars I setup all through Google Calendars. The reason I chose this over Apple's setup through iCloud is that I use a few shared calendars that I share with some people who don't use Apple products. While iCloud is very cool for personal use, if you ever want to share anything with anyone else, they have to be apple users. In contrast, google calendars require a free google account. I share the tech schedule with our technicians so they are able to see what gigs are available and they have the ability to sign up for them. I daresay that google has a stranglehold on the calendar service.
On my snow leopard computer, I login to google via a browser to adjust calendar settings.
On my phone and ipad, however, don't use the gmail setting to get your calendars on your phone. For your email, go ahead and setup the standard gmail account but in the settings make sure Calendars is set to off. Instead:
1- Create a Microsoft Exchange account
2- Use your full gmail address and credentials for both the email and username.
3- Type your password in and for the server type in: m.google.com
4- Turn SSL on and feel free to rename the account to something other than exchange.
5- In Safari or another browser on your phone go to m.google.com
6- Choose the "sync" option in the icon list.
7- On the next page, click "Sign in with your google account" and use your google credentials to sign in
8- Next you should see a list of devices associated with your account (at least you should see the one you just setup) Select the device
9- Skip the Mail options and scroll down tot he section with "My Calendars". Select all the calendars you want to be able to see on your phone (You will be able to tell your phone to show or hide those calendars later so be sure to choose all that you MAY want to see and edit at some point.
10- When you are done push save and in a few minutes, your calendars should appear in your iOS calendar, fully editable and changeable!
CONTACTS
The contacts thing is a bit more interesting. I decided after much research again to sync everything through google as the central hub of information. While iCloud is great, my gmail is my primary personal email and I have about a decade of contacts in there as I have used gmail since it was in Beta. Again, while if all you use is apple products, then iCloud is fine, but iCloud won't sync with google...
I have 3 places that have stored contacts: My gmail contacts list, my Apple Address book (for business) and my cell phone (with many many years worth of phone numbers) My ipad only has info from one of the other three so nothing special was in there. What was driving me crazy is I had no access to any of the other devices contact info between my devices, OR, I had 2 or more entries for each person (needless to say, this made using Siri to do things very difficult as she often was confused as to who I was asking for!). Here is what I did to solve these issues.
1- First of all you need to export all o your contacts to vCards.
-In Apple Address book, select ALL your contacts and then go to file->Export->Export vCard (don't forget where you put it!).
-With your phone/ipad, backup your entire contact list to icloud. You can do this by going to Settings->iCloud. make sure "contacts" is set to "on. Then go to "Storage and backup" at the bottom and then down to "backup now". Once backed up, in a browser, go to icloud.com and login. Go to your address book and in the actions menu near the bottom, choose "select all" and then go back to the actions menu and select "export vCard. Don't forget when you saved it!
2- login to gmail on your browser.
3- on the left where it says "gmail" click and a drop-down should appear. Choose "contacts"
From here you can make a master "my contacts" list if you like or you can edit all your contacts in the master list (this may be a LARGE list though).
4- Either way, go to "more" and go to "import"
5- Using the popup interface, find your exported vCard file and import them into google (repeat for each export you did
6- ALL of your contacts should now be in google contacts including all your phone numbers and emails and whatever else you imported from anywhere else. Now the tedious part
7-Spend a few hours and go through deleting contacts you don't want (I would recommend doing this first. you can select a bunch at a time and then go to "delete selected contacts" in the menu.
8-After the hours it takes to do that, take a few more hours to merge duplicates. There is an option in googles menu to do this for you, however, I did it manually only because a lot of the email addresses didn't have names associated with them so google wouldn't have combined them. Nevertheless, if you take the tedious time it takes to do this once, you should never have to do it again. you can select a few different contacts at once and merge them. Also feel free to add addresses as it comes in handy when asking Siri to guide you somewhere from your phone or ipad. When you google contacts are PERFECT with numbers and emails etc, now we want to clear and sync our other devices:
9. On your iPhone/iPad, go to Settings->Mail Contacts and Calendars->iCloud. Turn the contacts option to "off". The phone will ask you if you want to delete all contacts from your phone. YOU ARE ABOUT TO ERASE YOUR PHONES CONTACT LIST but as long as you backed it up and set it up in google, you don't need to worry. Go ahead and select Delete contacts. Go to your contact list on your phone all contacts should be gone. If there are any contacts left, go back to the settings and do the same "off" setting for contacts in your other mail accounts.
10. When all your contacts are gone, go back to the Mail Contacts and Calendars and set the Exchange we have set for the calendars to "on" and magically (over a few minutes) your contacts you setup in google will import to your phone
11. To get synced with your Apple Address book on the macbook pro, open the address book, select all and push delete (BE SURE YOU BACKED IT UP EARLIER!)
12. Once all your contacts are gone, go to Address Book->Preferences.
13. In the new window select "accounts"
14. Check the "synchronize with google" option and then click "configure". Put in your credentials and save.
15. When you are done, close the preferences window and at the TOP of your screen in the system bar should be a two-arrowed circle. Click this and go to "sync now" once you do that, your contacts should all import from google and you are all set!
It may take some time to remake any groups and whatnot, but I can't tell you what a great help this has been to my productivity. I hope this helps someone else just as much! (Sorry this is so unedited, just didn't want to go back and read it all again!)
I personally have 4 places I need my contacts and calendars to be synced and I always prefer to not have to worry about any missing data, contacts, events. A while back, Apple and Google seemed to have a bit of a falling out and my iCal on my macbook pro would no longer delete any dates. So when I scheduled something and then needed to move it to a new time, when I moved it, instead of deleting the previous entry and making a new one, the old one would come back on along with the new one. Needless to say this became very frustrating. On top of this, when I began using the new iCloud service, I began having all sorts of duplicated contacts appearing in my gmail and phone. After sitting down and researching, here was my solutions:
Now you need to know I currently have/run:
-Macbook Pro (2 years old) running Snow Leopard (I haven't upgraded for certain compatibility reasons with some of the programing I run)
-iPad 2 16GB running iOS6
-iPhone 4S 16 GB running iOS6
-Gmail for my personal email which I do NOT sync with my apple Mail service using an IMAP setup
-Business email setup on Apple Mail using IMAP setup. Service through GoDaddy.com
CALENDARS
First of all my calendars I setup all through Google Calendars. The reason I chose this over Apple's setup through iCloud is that I use a few shared calendars that I share with some people who don't use Apple products. While iCloud is very cool for personal use, if you ever want to share anything with anyone else, they have to be apple users. In contrast, google calendars require a free google account. I share the tech schedule with our technicians so they are able to see what gigs are available and they have the ability to sign up for them. I daresay that google has a stranglehold on the calendar service.
On my snow leopard computer, I login to google via a browser to adjust calendar settings.
On my phone and ipad, however, don't use the gmail setting to get your calendars on your phone. For your email, go ahead and setup the standard gmail account but in the settings make sure Calendars is set to off. Instead:
1- Create a Microsoft Exchange account
2- Use your full gmail address and credentials for both the email and username.
3- Type your password in and for the server type in: m.google.com
4- Turn SSL on and feel free to rename the account to something other than exchange.
5- In Safari or another browser on your phone go to m.google.com
6- Choose the "sync" option in the icon list.
7- On the next page, click "Sign in with your google account" and use your google credentials to sign in
8- Next you should see a list of devices associated with your account (at least you should see the one you just setup) Select the device
9- Skip the Mail options and scroll down tot he section with "My Calendars". Select all the calendars you want to be able to see on your phone (You will be able to tell your phone to show or hide those calendars later so be sure to choose all that you MAY want to see and edit at some point.
10- When you are done push save and in a few minutes, your calendars should appear in your iOS calendar, fully editable and changeable!
CONTACTS
The contacts thing is a bit more interesting. I decided after much research again to sync everything through google as the central hub of information. While iCloud is great, my gmail is my primary personal email and I have about a decade of contacts in there as I have used gmail since it was in Beta. Again, while if all you use is apple products, then iCloud is fine, but iCloud won't sync with google...
I have 3 places that have stored contacts: My gmail contacts list, my Apple Address book (for business) and my cell phone (with many many years worth of phone numbers) My ipad only has info from one of the other three so nothing special was in there. What was driving me crazy is I had no access to any of the other devices contact info between my devices, OR, I had 2 or more entries for each person (needless to say, this made using Siri to do things very difficult as she often was confused as to who I was asking for!). Here is what I did to solve these issues.
1- First of all you need to export all o your contacts to vCards.
-In Apple Address book, select ALL your contacts and then go to file->Export->Export vCard (don't forget where you put it!).
-With your phone/ipad, backup your entire contact list to icloud. You can do this by going to Settings->iCloud. make sure "contacts" is set to "on. Then go to "Storage and backup" at the bottom and then down to "backup now". Once backed up, in a browser, go to icloud.com and login. Go to your address book and in the actions menu near the bottom, choose "select all" and then go back to the actions menu and select "export vCard. Don't forget when you saved it!
2- login to gmail on your browser.
3- on the left where it says "gmail" click and a drop-down should appear. Choose "contacts"
From here you can make a master "my contacts" list if you like or you can edit all your contacts in the master list (this may be a LARGE list though).
4- Either way, go to "more" and go to "import"
5- Using the popup interface, find your exported vCard file and import them into google (repeat for each export you did
6- ALL of your contacts should now be in google contacts including all your phone numbers and emails and whatever else you imported from anywhere else. Now the tedious part
7-Spend a few hours and go through deleting contacts you don't want (I would recommend doing this first. you can select a bunch at a time and then go to "delete selected contacts" in the menu.
8-After the hours it takes to do that, take a few more hours to merge duplicates. There is an option in googles menu to do this for you, however, I did it manually only because a lot of the email addresses didn't have names associated with them so google wouldn't have combined them. Nevertheless, if you take the tedious time it takes to do this once, you should never have to do it again. you can select a few different contacts at once and merge them. Also feel free to add addresses as it comes in handy when asking Siri to guide you somewhere from your phone or ipad. When you google contacts are PERFECT with numbers and emails etc, now we want to clear and sync our other devices:
9. On your iPhone/iPad, go to Settings->Mail Contacts and Calendars->iCloud. Turn the contacts option to "off". The phone will ask you if you want to delete all contacts from your phone. YOU ARE ABOUT TO ERASE YOUR PHONES CONTACT LIST but as long as you backed it up and set it up in google, you don't need to worry. Go ahead and select Delete contacts. Go to your contact list on your phone all contacts should be gone. If there are any contacts left, go back to the settings and do the same "off" setting for contacts in your other mail accounts.
10. When all your contacts are gone, go back to the Mail Contacts and Calendars and set the Exchange we have set for the calendars to "on" and magically (over a few minutes) your contacts you setup in google will import to your phone
11. To get synced with your Apple Address book on the macbook pro, open the address book, select all and push delete (BE SURE YOU BACKED IT UP EARLIER!)
12. Once all your contacts are gone, go to Address Book->Preferences.
13. In the new window select "accounts"
14. Check the "synchronize with google" option and then click "configure". Put in your credentials and save.
15. When you are done, close the preferences window and at the TOP of your screen in the system bar should be a two-arrowed circle. Click this and go to "sync now" once you do that, your contacts should all import from google and you are all set!
It may take some time to remake any groups and whatnot, but I can't tell you what a great help this has been to my productivity. I hope this helps someone else just as much! (Sorry this is so unedited, just didn't want to go back and read it all again!)
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