Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

On Monday evening I was chatting to one of my best friends, Matt Slade, and he was trying to convince me to start playing dota with him. If you don’t know what dota is wiki it, because if I start playing I’ll explain it fully in a blog…

Anyway, so Matt said that one of the reasons he thought I’d enjoy playing dota is because there are so many different aspects to the game, as well as so many different objects, and they all make a difference, which is very appealing to me…

When I get into something (like say sound engineer, or football) what I do is obsess about it day and night for two or three weeks. I read everything I can about the topic in question, I think about it, I write about it, I talk about it, and then I read about it more. When I’m comfortable with my assessments, I start to ask people about it, asking if my assessments are correct, what their opinions are, and why they came to that conclusion.

Then I go back and read more, write more, read more, think more and read more. Once I have as much information as I can get, I memorize most of it, and then think about it. If I forget anything I usually read up about it again, and then write about it again. I obsess. When I can do what I set out to do, or I think I can, or I just get bored, I move on to another topic to obsess about. That’s how I live my life.

Here’s an example: When I was in grade 11, I had to do a science project where we had to chose a topic, and teach the class for a 45min period about the chosen topic. The topic had to be science related, and had to exist in day to day life. Most of the other students in the class chose things like “How toothpaste is made” and spoke about the chemistry, and a few of the guys chose nuclear bombs and whatever, but not me.

No, at the time I was interested in physics and space and decided to do my project on black holes, until I read in a book that time stops inside a black hole. Then I changed my mind, and started reading about time. I obsessed about the topic of time, and I read a book by Stephen Hawking called “A Brief History of Time”, but clearly it was written for physics professors and I didn’t understand a lot of it, so I started reading second and third year physics books, but I didn’t understand a lot of the math behind it, so I started reading first year math textbooks and that type of thing. For three weeks I did pretty much no homework and didn’t sleep for more than 4 hours a night because I just sat reading.

I read lots of physics theorems, as well as math theorems and papers as to how various elements of gravity and velocity effect time. I loved it, and when it came to the presentation I had a very difficult job on my hands, because I had to explain a topic to a group of people, and only my science teacher understood most of it, which of course was very frustrating.

But I enjoyed it. After the presentation she asked me if I would rather do the presentation again because I was going to lose marks because no one in the class could ask questions because they didn’t understand the material (apparently if students ask questions it is a result of understanding the topic and wanting to learn more, but because no one understood my presentation no one asked questions, and that meant that I hadn’t explained well enough) but I was too lazy so I just said, “Give me a low mark it’s ok”. Then she complained to me and my parents because I had done very well but I was still failing maths (I passed in the end, but only got like 65% for it or something).

Anyway, after the awful mark, I stopped, because I could do it. Now I don’t think about time at all.

Point of this is that I obsess, and I am particularly obsessed with sound engineering. Here’s my list of gear I’d like to start off my mixing room, it’d grow but here’s the starting list. If you don’t know what anything is, ask me. I can tell you anything about any of the below pieces of gear.

Console
> SSL 72 Channel Duality

Channel Strips
> 8 x Neve 8801s – used for portability, consistency and convenience

Compression
> 2 x 1176-2 stereo 1176
> 2 x 2-LA-2 stereo LA-2A
> 1 x Pendulum ES8
> 1 x Tubetech CL2A
> 2 x dbx 160 XT
> 1 x Manley Variable Mu
> 5 x Stereo Empirical Labs Distressors
> 1 x SSL G Series Comp

EQ
> 1 x Manley Massive Passive Stereo EQ
> 2 x Manley Enhanced Pultec EQP-1A
> 2 x API 550B
> 1 x Yamaha Q2031B

Effects
> 6 x TC Electronics D.Two
> 2 x Lexicon M300
> 2 x Lexicon PCM90
> 2 x EMT140 Plates
> 2 x Fulltone Tube-Tape Echo

Mics
> 8 x Neumann U87
> 2 x Neumann M149
> 2 x Neumann M150
> 4 x Neumann KM184
> 8 x Rode NT55
> 8 x Shure SM57
> 8 x Sennheiser MD421 II
> 2 x Crowley & Tripp El Diablo
> 2 x Yamaha Subkick
> 2 x Audio Technica 4033a
> 1 x Shure SM7B
> 2 x Royer R122
> 1 x Royer SF24

Recorders
> Studer A820 2 Track
> Tascam DV-RA 1000