This trimester has been a challenge for me. I have faced new tasks and built some confidence around live sound; I also chose to explore the world of ambisonic audio and composing out of field recordings - something I have never done before, and finally, needed to build and present a creative portfolio. It has been a very busy but rewarding time!

Two of the Studio 4 projects were focusing on live sound production and live streaming event. Both took place at the SAE campus in Byron, and ran successfully!

Before this module, I was not particularly interested in live sound, which also translated to lack of experience in this field and - lack of confidence. We all worked together in a team, which helped me a lot with working things out and getting better at doing it.

The live streaming event was a great opportunity to combine live sound production with the live stream using professional cameras, which we learnt to operate on a basic level. I was really happy to learn something that's out of my "field", as I think there is an undeniable connection between those two worlds - this of sound and visual content. I am pretty sure this knowladge will come in handy in my future projects. From the technical point of view, I think we smashed it! The whole event got streamed well as planned, and there was no technical issues on the way. The only thing that we didn't know about and therefore, didn't consider, was the stream to Instagram which ended up with a fully cropped video. The live stream on Instagram only supports vertical videos - our video was horizontal, so it not only cropped the picture, but it also zoomed it in so much that it got quite ridiculous. Lesson learnt for another time. Below is some footage from the live stream day.

It technical side wasn't the only aspect of the projects though. There was also much to be done in the organisation aspect of it. We created some posters inviting to the live streaming event and the live event on campus, as well as input lists. The communication with artists was another important thing we needed to care about. It all felt like organising a real event from scratch - which it was in fact - and I think it was a great group learning experience.

The live sound project was focusing on more advanced live sound production, involving two Behringer consoles - one controlling the front of house speaker system and the other one - the foldbacks for artists. There was much research done and a lot of practical tasks completed to develop a clear understanding of the system we built for the event day. Before coming to the point of patching the equipment in a way presented below, we went a long way in class trying out different patchign set-ups. Experiencing that was extremely important for me and created a smooth transition from simple-patching set ups to the more complicated ones, yet requiring much less cable connections.

Live sound has always been my least liked amongst all the audio areas, and I've been always struggling with confidence, especially when speaking of live sound. I can say one thing: I have learnt so much and broke so many boundaries that I built myself and which were connected to the lack of experience and knowledge. I had never run any live sound event before this module, and I was really scared at the beginning and afraid of being not good at it. Thanks to all the practises we did in class and the participation in the projects, I gained some confidence in it. I know that it's still a beginner level, however, I'm so happy to having come so far, from knowing nothing to knowing and being capable of doing so much! Even if it's not the direction I'm aiming to follow, it is a personal goal I think I've achieved. I got quite comfortable operating the consoles and reacting fast to what was happening on stage, facing different weather conditions (it was raining all day long during the Live Sound event day!).