The Rock 'n' Roll Camp For Girls of Portland, Oregon was founded in 2001 with the intent of bringing girls and young women together to learn more about music and encourage creativity. Girls aged 8 to 18 learn to play musical instruments, write songs and form bands all while building self-esteem and creating lasting friendships. Girls Rock Institute, a branch of The Rock 'n' Roll Camp For Girls, is an active, year-round after-school program. The program is divided into 10-week blocks called Rock Blocks. There's also a weekend-long Ladies Rock Camp (for ladies 19 and over) and four sessions of Summer Camp wherein extensive instrument instruction and band coaching abound.
There are plenty of opportunities for girls and young women to rock, but what about the other half of rocking? What about audio engineering? In 2008 the camp instructors got together and unanimously decided it was high time for a recording class. Armed with years of gained knowledge through active experience as a producer, live and studio audio engineer, Sailor Banks (also know by her production moniker, Sugar Short Wave) claimed the post as recording class instructor of Rock Camp Studio. Sailor, who has been involved with the Rock Camp for many years in various capacities, noticed that the young ladies exhibited an increasing curiosity in sound and how it's captured, recorded and processed.
Rock Camp Studio
(Year Round Program)
This is a great program to learn how to record bands and make the songs sound awesome. Open to students ages 13-17. Each class is two hours long, once a week for ten weeks.
"It seemed like a natural progression — learning to play instruments, learning to write songs and forming bands... 'What's next?' Learning to record sound."
The course curriculum is in constant flux, building on what the girls learn and absorb, and then expanding on those concepts and moving forward.
"It's largely a step-by-step program based on the capacity, abilities and interests of the students."
Sailor decided to introduce the students to the science and art of audio recording from the ground up.
"We start with core concepts — the physics of sound, the frequency spectrum, the fundamentals of audio engineering — signal routing and signal flow, mic choice and placement. My aim is to give them a broad overview of what it's all about. I'm self-taught and initially, in my early years, I struggled to understand what frequency is and how it plays into everything. I've made some games for the students to illustrate what frequency is. We have a piano here, and I've labeled each piano key with its corresponding frequency. This way, the girls make the association between pitch and frequency. With presented lessons, I give the girls supplemental information and worksheets from a number of textbooks, most prominently, The Sound Reinforcement Handbook."
The classes are hands on. The small number of students per class (four or five) enables each girl to engage in and work on every aspect of each recording project. Elusive concepts such as mic design and function, dynamic microphones versus condenser microphones, sound pressure level and directional patterns are easily grasped by the students via comparisons between microphones.
"For the first couple of classes we had fun experimenting with the microphones. We have three or four different mics specifically for drums [Audix D series]. We set three different mics up on the kick one at a time in the same relative position and tracked it. We then listened to each track to hear the differences of each mic. We did that with the whole kit and found the mics that sounded best in a given situation. Also, we have many drum sets to choose from. This way the girls can learn the difference in sounds produced from drum kits composed of certain wood types, ply and wrap and of course, different players. From this experiment they've gathered knowledge and are better able to know which mic they want to use for a given source, and they know and understand the differences between each mic. It's been an exercise in shaping their ears and their ability to listen skillfully. It also helps them make sense and use of the audio language/lingo in relation to what they're hearing. For example, on a given source, the Shure SM57 has a flat frequency response than this boomy, frequency-contoured CAD KBM412. These exercises bring the theory we've covered into play and help make audible sense of it all."
While analog recording has been lightly touched upon, the girls are primarily working in the digital domain. They track to hard disk via a MOTU Traveler interface. They're using Steinberg's Cubase 5 recording software. The girls are learning the basics of digital multitracking and Sailor doesn't feel the need to overwhelm the girls with heavy digital theory, as it can be abstract, and at this stage, unnecessary.
"For the girls, this class is mostly about learning a new skill and being able to apply it to what they're doing — be it a live sound application or a studio situation. With this education, they're able to record their friend's band or their own project. They don't have to rely on someone else to make a recording of their music — they can do it themselves. That's the goal — to achieve independence and self-empowerment through education."
The students attending the class are having fun learning audio recording, though none of them have expressed an interest in pursuing a career in audio engineering. For this reason the light theory approach makes the most sense.
"I've intuitively designed the class around the girls' interests and abilities. The program is still in the developing stages. We structure the classes around building on material and concepts that the girls have shown an aptitude for. As far as projects, we've been doing a few different things. They wanted to record one of the camp bands, so they stepped that up on their own and took it on. They're learning how to use an audio snake — hooking up mics, mic'ing up a drum kit, bass cabinet, running the snake to the mixing board, into the interface, routing signal, assigning inputs within the Cubase program. They do everything on their own. In tense situations I'll step in and help out. As far as problem solving, I try to let them figure things out on their own."
At the end of each Rock Block there is a performance showcase, where each band formed during that time participates in a live performance of one song each. The recording students' task during the showcase is to man the soundboard and track the entire show to Cubase.
"They recorded the entire recent showcase from the elevated sound booth of the showcase venue. They have a lot of files to sort through. Ten bands performed. One of their projects will be to mix these live recordings. In all, they're working on recording projects involving set up, mic'ing sources, signal routing, tracking, editing and mixing. They're all well acquainted with computers and working with computer programs, so computer-based recording makes perfect sense to them. The students are mostly involved with and interested in recording audio from the live, organic, performance side of things. I'm an electronic artist, so I'm super into sampling and looping and production. I've been encouraging them to track as much of anything as they want, and then put it all together in the DAW with editing and effects in order to make something out of all or some of the single audio takes. This way they're learning equal amounts audio engineering and production."
The future of the Rock Camp studio class looks bright as more students than ever are enrolling at the camp this year.
"Any time a new class is offered at camp, inevitably each girl will want to check it out."
Everyone who attends the Rock Camp Studio class has lots of fun, and leaves more knowledgeable. r
The Students Speak:
I sat down in the Rock Camp recording class control room with four of the class' students, ages 14-17. Here's what Janie (17), Amelia (14), Julie (17) and Olise (15) had to say.
What made you decide to take this class?
Janie: I've been coming to Rock Camp for a while and interning. It seemed like something cool and new.
Amelia: I've been coming to Rock Camp for a while too and this was a class I had not yet taken.
Olise: I'd gone to GRI [Girls Rock Institute] a lot. I wanted to do something different, so I took this class. I've always wanted to learn about recording.
Julie: I've wanted to go to Rock Camp forever. I finally started last summer. I didn't want to be in a class with a bunch of 11-year-olds, so this is the class that I chose.
What is it about audio engineering that you like?
Ja: It's something new. I've been playing music my whole life so this is new and interesting. A: I like music so much — I like to learn more about it. With audio engineering, I'm learning all kinds of things about how music works.
Ju: I can appreciate music more now. Listening to the radio and different albums I buy, I get to figure out how they did certain things. It's really neat to be able to understand what went into making the record.
O: I like tracking. I like watching the waveforms generate on the screen while tracking. Mixing is cool too.
Do you see yourself pursuing a career in recording?
Ja: Maybe. I haven't really thought about it much. I'd like to record some bands, maybe not as a career choice though.
A: I'd like to. I think that would be really, really exciting. I'd always have something interesting to do within that field. I don't know what I want to do yet, but that would be something I'd definitely like to learn more about.
Ju: Probably not as a job. I'd be the one person among a group of friends that would know a little about audio and how to record to a degree, but it's not something I would pursue as a career.
O: Probably not as a focus.
Have you made any recordings on your own?
Ja: At home I have. I have [Apple's] GarageBand that I've put some things together on. A: I've had to record audition tapes for bands. I usually use GarageBand.
Ju: My brother bought a mixer and a 4-track. I would be alone in my room, recording guitar.
Are you able to apply the concepts that you learn here to the recordings that you make at home?
Ja: Yeah. Before I was just figuring out things on my own and now I have a better understanding of audio and recording in general.
A: I think it's definitely helped me. Before when I'd be recording I'd think, "This sounds really bad." I was kind of stuck with it. Now I can change it and make it sound better.
Ju: Yeah, it helps with my band outside of camp. It helps to understand it. O: I don't record outside of class.
Do you have a favorite microphone?
Ja: I like condenser mics. I like the clarity they impart.
A: I think those are cool. They look neat. I also like clip-on drum mics. They're very convenient.
Ju: I like guitar amp mics because they lay flat against the cabinet.
Like the Sennheiser e 609.
O: I like the drum mics we have here. They pick up so much definition in sound. [They have the Audix D Series drum mic package.]
Do you have a preference for either analog or digital recording?
Ja: I prefer tapes and the 4-track. I'm not sure what I like better recording-wise, but I do like the sound of analog recordings better.
A: I agree. I can hear the difference.
Ju: I wouldn't know the difference, but I appreciate old stuff more.
O: I agree. I used to record stuff from the radio onto a tape recorder. I like how it sounds. It brings back memories.
Do you have a personal recording system at home. If so, what is it?
Ja: I have GarageBand and I had a 4-track for a while. When I was little I used to use a karaoke machine. It would record one track, so I would duct tape a mic to a lamp stand and sing and play guitar. That was my initial recording set up.
A: I use my computer with GarageBand. Sometimes I'll record on my phone if I have a quick idea.
Ju: Yeah, I use my phone to record ideas.
O: I use a stereo tape player.
Do you have a favorite engineer or producer?
Ja: Not really.
A: I don't think so.
Ju: Sailor.
Do you have a favorite album or a record you really like the sound of?
Ja: I found this 7-inch recently in a used bin at a record shop. It's an old, local band called Calamity Jane. I really like that.
A: I like the B-52s' [self-titled] first album. It sounds a lot more raw than anything else that they've ever done. It's kind of fuzzy, but it sounds really good.
Ju: Right now I'm really into Dan Deacon's Bromst. It's so electronic and crazy and so good. I have it on repeat always.
O: I have this whole album set of the Talking Heads live [The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads]. The studio recorded stuff — the drums don't sound as good.
www.girlsrockcamp.org
Author Lauren K. Newman records and performs as www.myspace.com/lkn Photographer Robert Delahanty can be reached via www.robertdelahanty.net
