The Bank x Chicago Public Schools Present: Men of Honor

In 2009, Chicago Public Schools launched an urban leadership program through their Office of School Turnaround.  The program focused on creating a mentorship group for high school students to allow them to address issues in their community through, among other efforts, creative expression.


One of the results of this program was an excursion into music.  Directed by the Project Manager from the Office of School Turnaround, a group was put together featuring students from Harper High School, located in the south side neighborhood of Englewood.  The group was aptly named Men of Honor, and during the course of the leadership program, they recorded a song called "Streets Ain't Me."


This leadership initiative has received much praise from the Board of Education, and aims to accomplish even more this year.  Among the other activities planned for 2010, the Men of Honor will be creating a full length album which will be produced, recorded, and mixed at The Bank.  We're proud to be involved with this project, which will give kids the opportunity to live out their dreams and learn about the various steps of the production process.  Check back here for updates as the project gets underway.  
    

Watch:  Men of Honor, "Streets Ain't Me" 

-TJ

Weird But True: 'Mastering: The Movie' (via gearslutz.com)

This is one of many bizarre but true-to-life animated videos floating around youtube and the gearslutz message board. Surely they were created by an audio engineer, because the situations depicted in these shorts take a candid poke at situations we regularly deal with: trying to work with clients who, in today's realm of cheap production and reocrding solutions, simply do not understand the value of professional mixing and mastering.

Mixing and mastering in itself is an artform. Just as musicians use tools and vocabulary creatively to express themselves, engineers employ their own cache of terms, tools, and tricks to enhance a recorded performance. As an artist, a good engineer is your strongest ally when it comes to the quality of the music you release, yet today it seems the love is all but gone.

Technology has evolved to the point where anyone with a computer can download torrents and/or install plugins to music software in order to simulate the process of proper mixing/mastering. However, there are elements to mixing/mastering techniques that require a skilled professional (aka human being) with a trained set of ears to balance levels properly and bring out the subtle nuances that make great music, well...great!

-TJ