Kevin,
Thanks for your appreciation. I really think education is important. My father is a teacher and when I was starting out many talented engineers put up with my endless questions, so a few years ago I decided it was my turn to start passing along what I've learned. I began by teaching my assistants as much as I could about engineering and mixing. Really sitting down with them and discussing mixing a track at a time. I then toured with Digidesign teaching a Master Class about mixing in Pro Tools at their DigiWorld events in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia. And when I was on tour I met a lot of users who wanted to learn even more about PT mixing.
When I came home it occurred to me that I might actually be able to teach PT users about mixing with a web column and an online studio containing the sessions + audio we discussed in the column. We could simply go through the mix a track at a time, while also discussing more "big picture" topics about mixing. It turned out that right about this time Digi would soon debut DigiStudio and it was the perfect technology to make this possible. So, I proposed the idea to Digidesign and they said, let's do it.
For those of you who aren't familiar with what we're talking about, I write a column called
Hard Disk Life each month in
DIGIZINE—an ezine on Digi's website. What we're currently doing is essentially mixing a song over a period of seven months, and with a free DigiStudio account (provided by Rocket Network + Digi) users who have DigiStudio capable systems are able to look at everything I do in each session – how I use the plug-ins, and with the same audio that I'm using them on. And in the column I explain why I use each one, so hopefully users will be able to apply these techniques to their mixes. To read about the Hard Disk Life online mix and to see an outline of the topics covered go to
HDL 5 + see the heading
September Means Back to School.
I also started my website
charlesdye.com for the same reasons. And so I could also share tips + techniques that didn't fit within the scope of
Hard Disk Life.
About your question, the mixing /session notes are posted in the Session Bulletin Board which is in the upper right hand corner of the
HDL6-Drums / Session Details page. (You'll need your username + password to access this page.)
I'm glad I could introduce another user to DaD Valve. That plug was the beginning of mixing inside the box for me.