Posters of Recording Studios?

[kenjkelly]

Hi folks,
I'm doing a career day for a local elementary school on May 21,2010 about recording and sound. Since they are young with short attention spans, I'll be bringing fun stuff like mics and voice changing effects (echo, pitch change), a laptop so I can do some quick audio editing and show waveforms, and I'll be bringing a bass speaker to bounce pennies on.
If anyone has a poster of a recording studio control room I can borrow(or you can donate for music education), it would be great to hang on the wall to show. I'm in NH.

[craig9045]

Sorry i cant help you man, but mold those minds!

[kenjkelly]

Darn, I thought you said "melt those minds". Oh well they'll survive.

The classes went well. To help make sound more tangible, I set up a room node at 53Hz (I went down the night before to test the exact freq). The kids and teachers were amazed when they walked toward the speaker and the sound went away.

I explained what sound was and had them move their hands back and forth to try to create sound: first one time per second, then a few times per second. I then challenged them to move their hands 20 times per second. Then I set up a speaker and put a few pennies on it. I started around 20Hz and moved the freq up until the pennies were bouncing like crazy, just to show that speaker move air back and forth.

To show 'mixing audio', I had 2 volunteers individually sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (The first one counted 1234 so the second one could sync the start); then I had the whole class sing. With the overhead projector they could see the the tracks visually being created (I used Adobe Audition multi-track for the demo). I quickly aligned the tracks and played back the performance with the two soloists panned hard left-right and the group take in the middle.

I brought a variety of mics and headphones and had, at the beginning, quickly explained the various uses (closed headphones, open headphones, condenser mics vs the SM7b). I was pleasantly surprised when the kids asked to try each type.

I then passed around 2 mics, one with severe pitch change and one with severe echo. That was a fun way to end (and probably what they will remember the most).

A few days later I received a bunch of hand-created cards from the kids. Future Gearslutz I'm sure!

[skyshooter]

Awesome job, always fun to to a presentation to kids who just get it.

My favorite example was I, along with some members of my local Astronomy club created an observing show for some kids at a school for delinquents (troubled youth, at risk, etc). One of the toughest gangbangers, started asking questions like how the image of saturn got into the telescope he was looking at, first he was convinced it was only a photo taped inside. Once after I explained how the light waves bounced off different mirrors, he got it, then looked puzzled for a minute and said "if that is so then what I'm looking at is actually upside down" - WOW many adults can't grasp that much info, and then all of a sudden it was like a switch inside his mind was turned on, he began asking all sorts of really intelligent questions that night, we had to practically drag him from the scopes when it was time to shut down, a few months later, I got a letter from his teacher, he had really turned around his life after that night, he was enrolling into harder math classes and told his teacher he now wanted to go to collage and become either an astronomer or an astronaut for NASA! I was just glad to have been there and helped bring him out of his shell. This kid dumped his gang, moved in with his Grandma to get away from the bad influences in his neighborhood, I regularly see him at or Star Parties and he is close to enrolling in the SDSU Astronomy program where he hopes to work on stellar foundation theories (how galaxies are formed).


Sounds like your presentation went well and everyone had an excellent time, I'm sure yours will be the one the kids remember! thumbsup

[rcb4t2]

Originally Posted by kenjkelly

Darn, I thought you said "melt those minds". Oh well they'll survive.

The classes went well. To help make sound more tangible, I set up a room node at 53Hz (I went down the night before to test the exact freq). The kids and teachers were amazed when they walked toward the speaker and the sound went away.

I explained what sound was and had them move their hands back and forth to try to create sound: first one time per second, then a few times per second. I then challenged them to move their hands 20 times per second. Then I set up a speaker and put a few pennies on it. I started around 20Hz and moved the freq up until the pennies were bouncing like crazy, just to show that speaker move air back and forth.

To show 'mixing audio', I had 2 volunteers individually sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (The first one counted 1234 so the second one could sync the start); then I had the whole class sing. With the overhead projector they could see the the tracks visually being created (I used Adobe Audition multi-track for the demo). I quickly aligned the tracks and played back the performance with the two soloists panned hard left-right and the group take in the middle.

I brought a variety of mics and headphones and had, at the beginning, quickly explained the various uses (closed headphones, open headphones, condenser mics vs the SM7b). I was pleasantly surprised when the kids asked to try each type.

I then passed around 2 mics, one with severe pitch change and one with severe echo. That was a fun way to end (and probably what they will remember the most).

A few days later I received a bunch of hand-created cards from the kids. Future Gearslutz I'm sure!

Originally Posted by skyshooter

Awesome job, always fun to to a presentation to kids who just get it.

My favorite example was I, along with some members of my local Astronomy club created an observing show for some kids at a school for delinquents (troubled youth, at risk, etc). One of the toughest gangbangers, started asking questions like how the image of saturn got into the telescope he was looking at, first he was convinced it was only a photo taped inside. Once after I explained how the light waves bounced off different mirrors, he got it, then looked puzzled for a minute and said "if that is so then what I'm looking at is actually upside down" - WOW many adults can't grasp that much info, and then all of a sudden it was like a switch inside his mind was turned on, he began asking all sorts of really intelligent questions that night, we had to practically drag him from the scopes when it was time to shut down, a few months later, I got a letter from his teacher, he had really turned around his life after that night, he was enrolling into harder math classes and told his teacher he now wanted to go to collage and become either an astronomer or an astronaut for NASA! I was just glad to have been there and helped bring him out of his shell. This kid dumped his gang, moved in with his Grandma to get away from the bad influences in his neighborhood, I regularly see him at or Star Parties and he is close to enrolling in the SDSU Astronomy program where he hopes to work on stellar foundation theories (how galaxies are formed).


Sounds like your presentation went well and everyone had an excellent time, I'm sure yours will be the one the kids remember! thumbsup

You guys rock! Keep up the good work!!