“…I spent many nights lugging cables, setting up stages, sound and lighting systems (you haven't had a cable nightmare until you've lugged a 200 foot, inch thick sockopex cable through sand!), and on some occasions run the console. I often worked 24 hour shifts with hardly a break (and often no food), but noticed it didn't bother me as much as an 8 hour shift in a corporate office setting, as I was doing what I liked. However, my first love had been recording and not live events. I didn't care much for lighting, video, or decor, but as long as I was working with sound I was happy. …one day, it clicked. I came home, sat in my room and looked around. I saw a bed, a dresser, and everywhere else was music equipment. A synth here, a drum machine there, a guitar, a rack full of processors and samplers, an ancient 32x8 recording console leaning against the wall, an array of ethnic drums and wind instruments. If I’m willing to spend my entire monthly check on this stuff and live off PB&J sandwiches until next payday, this is obviously where I’m supposed to be. I had heard the old saying "find something you love to do so much you do it for free, then find a way to do it for a living". It finally made sense. ”


How exactly did I get started doing music, and when did I become interested in production? It's tough to say exactly how or when; there was no sudden realization, no prophetic religious experience, or single circumstance that made me one day think "Hey, I should look into becoming a recording engineer!" Rather, it was just a lifelong series of miniature experiences that brought me there.

According to my mother, before I was old enough to speak, she would sing little songs to me and I would sing them back to her with correct pitch (a gift I must have lost after I started speaking!). As a toddler, I used to fiddle around with my toy record player and learn to play some of the songs on my plastic toy trumpet. My father would play me songs that would only spark a young boy's imagination, such as Pink Floyd's "On the Run" or "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict". He was often involved in the production of fairly large shows at a local church, so I got exposure to event production, microphones, monitors, FOH mixers and the like from an early age.

Like many grade school boys in the 80's, I heard all the hair rock bands that were so big at the time and decided I wanted to play guitar. Ironically, my parents wanted me to learn keyboard, but I insisted on guitar, so I got one. I remember at a friend's house when I was only 10, some big old guy teaching me a riff based on D, G, and A, but what I didn't realize was this big old guy was Barry McGuire, teaching me the chords to "Eve of Destruction", a big hit that he had recorded in the 60's. I later took some lessons and learned some basic music theory, and gradually became more experimental.

But in high school, I got exposed to more bizarre underground music. I began to become more interested in the use of sound to evoke emotional response, as opposed to instrumental virtuosity, which I never seemed to attain anyway. So with the paycheck from my first job, I ran out and bought a synthesizer and an ancient sampler. Such instruments were pretty "uncool" in the days where Grunge reigned over the airwaves, but that was fine by me.

I would experiment with new sounds, fiddling with my four track and a broken effects processor into the wee hours of the night, making ungodly sounds that on a couple occasions gave my veteran father flashback dreams. Unable to afford microphones, I’d take apart old telephones and solder the bare end of a line cable onto the receiver (which sounded completely unintelligible), or just toy with my synth.

It was at about this time I began helping out a friend of my father’s, a live front-of-house engineer, on some events. Every year his wife's dance studio would have a very large recital in a local college's gymnasium. I would help hang speaker clusters and run cable to and from the console and the amplifiers. DAT was not very common in those days, so the music for the recital was put on 1/4'' tape reels, which I would switch out when they were over, or cue up when a song wasn't being performed that particular night. I eventually got a job with an event production company doing a lot of the same thing, but often on a larger scale. I spent many nights lugging cables, setting up stages, sound and lighting systems (you haven't had a cable nightmare until you've lugged a 200 foot, inch thick sockopex cable through sand!), and on some occasions run the console. I often worked 24 hour shifts with hardly a break (and often no food), but noticed it didn't bother me as much as an 8 hour shift in a corporate office setting, as I was doing what I liked. However, my first love had been recording and not live events. I didn't care much for lighting, video, or decor, but as long as I was working with sound I was happy.

I also began doing live recording under the same person at a large local church. We had a fairly incomplete recording booth, but nonetheless I spent many hours in it mixing the weekend services onto tape. My home equipment arsenal continued to grow and I became more and more interested in production at this time. Although I played with a few bands, I realized that I was more of an arranger and an idealist than a musician. I delved more into MIDI, and eventually, computer recording and production. I did a few remixes for friends and noticed that I would often go a day or two without sleep (a Mountain Dew commercial we'll never see) just trying to get the mixes right and the edits smooth.

I eventually left the event production company I had worked for on and off for a few years after several very bad experiences due to extremely poor management. With few other skills under my belt, I "settled" for a job as a custodian. Although it affords me occasional opportunities to buy new music goodies (I hardly have room for a bed anymore), I spent many nights in frustration, knowing I was not doing what I am supposed to be doing. I considered a trade school that, from what I heard, had a phenomenal recording arts program, but I would then have to move and spend 2 and a half years taking 16 units a semester while still working a lousy job just to afford living, and when all was done, I’d be fresh out of school, still wet behind the ears, only to become an intern and basically start all over. I knew that no matter how I got my "foot in the door", I would have to start at the bottom. However, although the course seemed great, it
seemed silly to go to school for over two years, learning on brand new state of the art equipment, just to come out of school and basically start all over again. I knew that I had a lot of experience and enough know-how to do very well, and I could bypass those 2 and a half years if I could just get my foot in the door somehow. I was more than willing to start at the bottom, but where would I go?

One day while surfing the net I came across getamentor.com. I don't exactly remember how I did, but I do remember reading it all the way to the end, but not filling out the application. I actually sat on the idea for a few months, still debating between "official" schooling and apprenticing (I believe they call them "seconds"). But one day, it clicked. I came home, sat in my room and looked around. I saw a bed, a dresser, and everywhere else was music equipment. A synth here, a drum machine there, a guitar, a rack full of processors and samplers, an ancient 32x8 recording console leaning against the wall, an array of ethnic drums and wind instruments. If I’m willing to spend my entire monthly check on this stuff and live off PB&J sandwiches until next payday, this is obviously where I’m supposed to be. I had heard the old saying "find something you love to do so much you do it for free, then find a way to do it for a living". It finally made sense.

I filled out the application at the end of the site and eagerly awaited a response. I finally got in touch with Phillip, who scheduled me for an 11am phone interview. Of course, what he wasn't aware of was that I work a night shift, and 11 am is my REM sleep time! However, with the possibility of doing what I love to do lingering over me, I was *MAGICALLY* able to wake up with spare time to get some breakfast, so I was able to hold an intelligible conversation with him so early in the day (!).

Now I finally feel like I’m on my way. Having had enough experience in the industry to know that the only real way to get in was to get your foot in the door and be a gopher for a while, this was the way that made the most sense. I'm very eager to get started in the program. I have enough experience to know that I will do very well; all I needed was a chance, and now I’ve got it.

****

A look at Dave Banta, mentor to Jeremy Miller:

Dave, nicknamed Rainman by his peers because of his genius in all things music, has other characteristics typical of the unusually gifted (such as forgetting where he parked his car). But don't let that detract from Dave’s acumen and accomplishments detailed on his impressive resume:

David Banta is a multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning recording engineer whose career has brought him into the studio with many of the leading producers and artists of our time. He has also created a best-selling videotape series on home recording that serves as a reference and study guide for class sessions. Dave has engineered and/or mixed recordings of Coolio, Sting, Lina Santiago, Take That, Marky Mark, Barrio Boyzz, Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, and Bette Midler.

He engineered music on Ace Ventura Nature Calls, Phat Beach, and projects for HBO, MGM, and Fox. He is also a studio musician who has played on soundtracks for feature films and has many credits on major label albums. He produced and engineered music for many network shows and feature films including the WB’s prime time show “Jack and Jill” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”. He sits on a panel of experts for the National Academy of Songwriters, and speaks at conventions and seminars.

Currently an instructor at UCLA Extension Department of Entertainment Studies in Hollywood where he teaches home recording and multi-track mixing, he also appears as a regular guest speaker at the Musician's Institute of Technology in Hollywood on the subject of recording arts and sciences.

He produced, wrote, and edited a 6 video instructional series entitled "The Basics of Home Recording", which is available in several thousand music stores in the U.S.

Dave owns and operates "Rainman Studios", featuring state-of-the-art non-linear audio and video pre and post production. He is currently working as a full time Producer/Mixing Engineer in the LA/Hollywood area.

“Along with having been asked to produce the sound track to a new prime time show on the WB I have also just been given a contact by EMI to do a whole record for them. I also was one of the four final Prism awards judges in the music category. They are aired by CBS and are fascinating. Read up on them and look me up at one of the front tables with judges on I think it's May 16th on CBS, http://prismawards.com. I also got to judge the Lionel Ritchie songwriter scholarship and the John Lennon foundation songwriters grant and as a judge at the 2003 Prism Awards.”