Box Girl project

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B53vKrLdhon7WFoxeGp2d2FZT2c/edit?usp=docslist_api 

This is a project that I did for digital audio for and collaborated with another student from the art institute of Connecticut. The video was shot and edited by him and he gave me permission to fully strip the audio, dialogue and sound effects. I scored his entire video using a midi controller and ProTools nine I also recorded all of the dialogue and sound effects myself. The characters were played by my sister and her husband and I recorded them using a Shure SM 58. The sound effects were all recorded using a Sennheiser shotgun microphone and were then cleaned up in ProTools nine using the waves platinum bundle pack. This was very fun to do because I was working with another student in the city but we kept in constant communication on how he envisioned the audio to be for his project. 

Breadboarding a Tube Mic Pre Amp

Breadboarding is not my favorite thing to do in the world. It's not even my 2nd favorite. If you tell most people that you breadboarded anything they look at you with a dumbfounded look on their face that yells, "Why?!"
This tedious and complex process is extremely time consuming and very technical. You are working with very small electronic components and one wrong placement could potentially and literally make your project go up in smoke. However, this process is extremely beneficial. It allows you to see, feel, and understand your components from an entirely new perspective. Instead of just following directions and soldering right away, you are able to closely examine every piece and see where your signal is going as well as where it is coming from. This is extremely beneficial because you are more in tune with your components and you can figure out what is wrong whenever the need for troubleshooting comes across. Have you ever had any electronic device stop working, and you just couldn't wrap your head around what the problem was? Well, if you breadboard that device, I promise you can find out what the issue it. At the very least narrow the problem down. This specific pre amp took me about 12 hours to complete, from the first resistor to the very last capacitor. It does take some time because you also want to test your components every step of the way and make sure your signal is going where it needs to. I am very excited to solder this pre amp now and use it to record dialogue and vocals.

Radio show Broadcast

Hot 107.1 by José Fernández-Maldonado

https://soundcloud.com/jos-francisco-fern-ndez-maldonado/hot-1071

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO OUR RADIO SHOW 

One of the most difficult yet fun projects I've ever done has two have been creating my own radio show. I essentially had to create five radio shows for this class however the one I chose to describe was by far one of my favorites. We  had to come up with a 15 minute radio broadcast that consisted of advertisements interviews music as well as the DJ Ing of the radio show and intro and outro of everything. Everything was done ourselves from recording the commercials to writing the scripts. It was a lengthy process because it is extremely difficult to get a team of five individuals come together but overall I feel our final product came out amazing. To me one of the most exciting parts of our show was getting someone to sound like Steven Tyler and interviewing him. The theme of the show was set in 1992 I believe so we also had to do our research as to what was going on back of them and incorporate that into the show. 

Vocal Recording

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO OUR SONG

RussBac - I Got Rhythm by José Fernández-Maldonado

https://soundcloud.com/jos-francisco-fern-ndez-maldonado/russbac-i-got-rhythm

This was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had recording vocals. I met Russell through my wife and immediately we connected on a musical level. Once he found out that I was in the audio industry and also recorded at home he immediately got together with me and asked if I could record some of his personal projects that he has been wanting to do for some time. Of course I said yes and the result was amazing we started out using two different microphones and audio Technica 2020 as well as an MXL microphone 900. I recorded multiple songs and is using ProTools nine and after hours and hours of recording and mixing and editing and mastering we came up with about five solid tracks that we are very proud to share with others. Russell has sort of an old-school voice and he loves the era of Frank Sinatra and the rat pack. We have already planned on getting together couple more times and hopefully we can continue our recording relationship further and further. 

Night Of The Living Dead. Sound Design/score/foley

This project was one of the most tedious yet exciting projects I have ever done. To give you a slight insight on what the goal was for the project we had to strip all audio including dialogue sound effects and music and reconstruct the entire film from beginning to end. This project took me about five weeks to complete. I was in charge of scoring the entire film beginning to end and once that was done I also assisted heavily on Foley and sound design for the last 10 minutes of the movie. To me scoring is an extremely fragile and delicate Art you have to be able to put the view were in a certain mood and or environment that the movie or the director want. I feel I absolutely accomplished the theme and tone of the film with my scoring as well as provided clean and accurate sound effects for my designated design segment. I primarily used ProTools nine for the scoring using my novation 49 midi controller. The Soundesign was recorded with a Sennheiser shotgun microphone and eventually process and cleaned up through ProTools nine using thenwaves noise supressor plug in. 

Soldering/bread boarding headphone amplifier

This project was actually very fun even though it was extremely tedious work and very time-consuming. This was done in our electronics to course and this headphone amplifier project took about six weeks to complete. We began bread boarding the entire circuit from every jumper wire to every resister to every capacitor. Once bread boarding was complete and it was a proved by our instructor, we began to solder the circuit to the board. This specific amplifier allows three additional headphones to be connected to one output source. since this splits our audio signal it also amplifies each individual split the signal so each individual headphone will not lose amplitude. I have used this amplifier on numerous occasions such as sending a signal to an individual in another while recording vocals. Overall this project highly developed my soldering skills as well as my general understanding of circuitry and signal flow. 

Score To Film

A couple years ago, I was assigned a small project. I had to score a 3 - 5 minute scene from a movie of my choosing, All audio had to be removed from the film and I had 1 week to do it. This was one of the best experiences I had and introduced me into the art of scoring. Although I did not have much experience, I still feel my work came across just right and matched the film very well. It was composed entirely through ProTools 9 using the MiniGrand instrument, with a FocusRite Impulse 49 mdi controller. Click Here To View It!

SOUND DESIGN

ZONTAR: The Thing From Venus (1966)

Sound design has never been my strong point. Live sound has always called to me because sitting in front of a computer for hours on end just does not sound pleasing to me. However, this sound design project shifted the tables a little bit. I did not spend too much time on this mostly because the clip I had to design was only about 4 minutes, and I did not have to record any dialogue. I simply had to score it, as well as create and place appropriate sound effects for the whole clip. I used a few different synthesizers to do most of the effects, primarily VACUUM. This synth has countless settings and I feel like I came up with great sounds that matched the video perfectly. You can CLICK HERE to watch the video!

A Day In The Life Of An Artist

Recently, I had the honor to film and record a local artist from Oceanside, CA. His name, Andrew, his passion, creation. I met this talented individual in the summer of 2008 while working at a BestBuy in Henderson, NV. Since then, we have become very close friends and over the years, his love for art grew immensely. Every since I met him, he always an artist. Sketching here or there, painting a canvas for his mother or just personal work for himself. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that he really decided to become serious with his craft, and boy did he dive in head first. Andrew has recently collaborated with local musicians within Las Vegas as well as his hometown in Oceanside, CA, and has painted live during multiple musical performances. He is deeply rooted in the Reggae scene and is deeply inspired by nature. The screenshot above is from a video I made for him. The video gives a little insight on who he is an artist and what inspires him. I wanted to make the video very simple, yet very clear. All of the video was recorded with an iPhone 5 camera, and his dialogue was recorded with a Sony ECM-77 lavalier microphone. We both had an amazing time filming this and I really got a great perspective on Andrew the artist, not just Andrew the friend. Hopefully the next time we do something like this, I can record him during one of his live art performances.  You can watch the full video here! ENJOY!

Recording A Local Band

Recently, I had the opportunity to record my friends band inside of Studio A, at The Art Institute of Las Vegas. This was such an amazing and educational experience for myself, as I was able to set-up and record a 3-person band. My education up to this point absolutely prepared me for what had to be done, and I felt very comfortable using all of the studios equipment. During this session, I was able to mic and record 3 separate instruments at the same time. A Fender Strat guitar, American P Bass, and a Pearl Forum series drum kit. I recorded the guitar and bass through DI boxes, straight to our SSL board as well mic'd their individual amps. The drum kit was recorded using a 9 piece Shure Drum Kit set. Overall this was a great experience and I am eager to get back into the studio for another session with the band.