Day 90

Oh my.

Day ninety.  I cannot believe that this day has come.  Finally!  What a relief... what an experience... what a learning experience!

As you can tell by this photo of my current state of bliss, I'm ready to lock up for the last time and start my vacation.

There are still many things to be done this evening, but have no fear... the end is near.  It's been a great journey and I hope that all who have been tuning in to the blog have enjoyed reading.  Hopefully some of you have learned a few new things, but even if you haven't I deeply appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules to just check in.  I haven't had much time to talk with many of you on the phone or even by e-mail or text message, but I will be available from here on out to take your calls!  I encourage anyone and everyone to feel free to give me a ring.  It doesn't matter what time it is, just call me.  Do not worry if I might be sleeping, which is a good possibility, because I am looking forward to hearing from you!  I do not plan on keeping this blog running much in the coming weeks, but who knows.  I may find myself restless and needing something to occupy my time while adjusting to a more normal life cycle.

Love you all and best wishes!

Cameron

Day 89

Mooka.

Me and Sean have been rocking on the API and it really is rounding the bend.  All of our modules are up and running and the bus problem has been figured out - there IS a bus send level after all.  It's the largest fucking fader on the channel strip, DUH.  You are completely right.  The problems we experienced with the busses was completely in relation to the CH12 strip.  The fader on 10 has been fixed.  This board will be a major improvement by the end of tomorrow.  I took inventory on all API parts and consolidated everything into two boxes.  I also inventoried all of the soldering, oscillator, tone generator equipment that will be kept in the front office store room.  Thank you again for dinner, thank you for beer, thank you.  Sean and I will be starting bright and early.  Mark paid in advance for two more days of mixing.  They finished tonight at 9:30pm. See you tomorrow.

Love,

Chaz Chaz Chaz

Day 88

A sample of the work I do:

Ok, so Matt and I just finished up working with the API and have found lots and lots of things going on...

I hate being the barer of bad news but here goes... this board seems to be possessed.  These reports are after reseating modules and problems still persist.

All 4 Bus outs continuously crackle.

The sub-masters exhibit a "wind through the trees" and crackle, snap and pop very loudly and completely randomly.

The Control Outs crackle and 'buzz' independently.

Ch1 - The pan is wired backward, so left is right, and right is left.

Ch2 - Quiet as hell and distorted.

Ch3 - The mic in is NOT working.

Ch8 - The mid-range EQ creates an oscillating tone.

Ch9 - Just plain dead.

Ch10 - Bad sounding, 'crispy', quiet in general w/ no left side pan - fader does cut out at 0db.

Ch11 - Similar to Ch10 minus fader issues.

Ch12 - Similar to Ch11.

Ch13 thru Ch16 - Thin and quiet, 13 being the best sounding of the bunch.

Basically, the whole second bucket (Ch 9-16) are not as full sounding as the working channels 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 on the first bucket.

We also checked foldback outs and the echo sends:

Fold backs worked but the 2nd channel in comparison with the 1st was much softer.

Echo Sends:  All exhibited signs that the 1st was good, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th were quieter.

Ch6 Echo sends were all weak.

Ch11 has light echo send static.

Ch12 has a bad latch and heavy echo send static, possibly mic pre-related.

Ch14 has mic-pre related issues in correspondence with the echo sends.

Ch15 exhibits strange behavior and sounds dirty.

All four master faders seem to not be routed to the entire board.

Cameron

I'm sure that this makes close to no sense to most of you but I felt it might be interesting to see what I am working on around here until midnight on a Thursday evening.  We started around 8pm and just finished in the last half an hour and still didn't get to check everything we needed to check.... C'est la vie.

Happy birthday Mother!  Love you more than you'll ever know.

Cameron 

Day 87

Unbelievable...

I cannot believe that I am in my last week of this wild internship. I don't want to start talking about it being over yet, for fear that I might have another month to complete.... but......

I had a totally CRAP day on Monday, which has thankfully been mostly forgotten after this Tuesday and now Wednesday which have been stellar. I've been getting a taste for what it will be like at Prairie Sun when I'm not an intern anymore minus the paycheck and it's rather pleasant! I've had the two other interns under me to be able to give tasks and actually get some real work done. It's a relief to be able to prioritize what needs to be done on any given day and leave for home at night knowing that those items have been taken care of.

I just finished enjoying some great homemade spaghetti which was prepared by one of our clients. A hint of red wine and a great selection of homemade sausage. I just needed to take a second after eating to relax, crack open a cold one, and fill everyone in on life.

In other recent and pertinent news, my plans for coming home have finally been solidified and Sarah and I will be catching the early bus from Santa Rosa at 6am and getting into Riverside around 6pm. It is a long day of riding but it solves the issue of me having to tow my car back and also means that I can relax ALL day long. Not having to worry about traffic, stopping for gas, and driving in general will be amaZing! I'm finally moving into the house in Santa Rosa this coming Saturday evening after work and I will be done with the condo in Rohnert Park. My original roommate moved out several days ago and the landlord came and removed all the furniture (including a mattress that was loaned to Romy... with no warning he snatched it and left the sheets behind) so it's time to move on.

Still very much looking forward to seeing all of you!

Cam

Day 86

Small advances in life. One step at a time.

I have absolutely no credit given, but still this is cool:

http://www.bricasti.com/user.html

Took the photo that is featured for Prairie Sun. Maybe someday my name will be attached to these things....?

Day 85

Sometimes Mondays are just Mondays... and they are no good.

I'd like to say that I'm not counting down the days until the end of this internship, but I would be a complete liar. I'm am so done working long long hours seven days a week that I don't even have the energy to crack a joke about it. I worked until 3:45am this morning, went home, slept four hours and crawled out of bed and drove back to work. I then suffered a rough day at work. The most positive part of my day was being surprised by a new intern (that I knew nothing about) waiting for me to open the studio at 9am. Just weird.