SUNY Oneonta music biz track
matches science and art in music

[Editor’s note: We offer this story from a first-person perspective, as your correspondent participated in the classroom and recording sessions about which we write.]

Think of it as STEAM — Science, Technology, Engi-neering, Arts, and Math. All come together in Andris Balins’s Audio Arts Production class at SUNY Oneonta, a hands-on four-semester course taking students through what the class description calls “a more in-depth understanding of acoustics and sound design, as well as a modern theoretical approach to technology in the industry.”

Andris invited The Driftwoods — a band in which I play the drums — to the university’s recording studio in early April to give the class first-hand experience in setting microphones and instrument placement for a live band in a studio setting. It’s a process that doesn’t necessarily happen much these days in a recording industry dominated by laptops and computer-generated loops.

The class had two hours to set up and record our basic tracks and overdubs. Driftwoods leader and Advantage Maytag co-owner John Thompson selected Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground” for the evening’s track — a song we’d played enough to know we could give the students a basic track in one or two takes. The students collected sound levels for each of the instruments, settled in to a control room dominated by a massive mixing board and multiple computer screens, and off we went.

Two takes later, we were done — the band in the studio and John in the control room for his vocal and lead guitar; John and SUNY Oneonta Music Department chair Rob Roman followed up with overdubs, and the recording was done.