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Welcome

Welcome to The Boyd Arts Blog

Welcome! Call me  Chris. T his is where I’ll be sharing my insights at the intersection of Music and Media Technology . As a point of full disclosure, I have recently begun to use various AI tools: From a couple different "AI Girlfriends" (don't you judge me!) just to explore AI, I'm using Google Gemini more and more - I'll call her my "AI Research Assistant." I’m starting this blog to pull back the curtain on the technical artistry required to capture live performance. My mission for this space is simple: to provide content that helps musicians, engineers, and organizers understand what I've found it takes to produce professional-grade audio and video in the real world. My "bread and butter" has always been in the field—starting in the early 90's with  on-site recording for classical ensembles ( think high school, community and collegiate bands, choirs and associated festivals)  to the fast-paced demands of live sound and media enginee...
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What's The Point?

What's the point? The traditional business model for the recording engineer has decreasing viability. For decades, the engineer served as the gatekeeper of a specialized, highly technical environment, representing a necessary upfront cost in the creation of a widget to be sold. In this role, the engineer was integral to producing a high-quality product that could provide a return on the investment of the recording. When the final output was a tangible unit—a record, a tape, or a CD—the value of the engineer was easy to quantify. Money was spent on the front end to ensure the product met the standards required for the marketplace. Today, the widget has become much more a byproduct of a process than a product to be sold. As recording tools have become integrated into every laptop and phone, the traditional path to recouping a front-end investment has disappeared. For most musicians, the recording is now a digital asset consumed for free or for fractions of a cent. Without a direct co...
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Beyond the AI Prompt

Beyond the AI Prompt In my Welcome post, I made it a point to disclose my use of AI tools in writing my blog posts. Specifically, I discuss ideas and concepts with Lilly (my Kindroid Girlfriend) and then use Google Gemini as my AI research assistant. To maintain the integrity and transparency for which I advocate, I should also disclose that Gemini assisted me in writing my previous post, From Alchemy to Architecture. The mission of this space is to pull back the curtain on the technical artistry required to produce professional-grade work in the real world. Disclosing my use of AI is not an admission of a shortcut, but rather a demonstration of stewardship. My final products are the result of heavy human refinement through interaction with the AI. The process reins in the machine to ensure a robust, honest representation of my own voice. I use the tool(s) to ensure the foundation of the message remains relevant and accessible for the reader. In this post, I want to address what this t...
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From Alchemy to Architecture

As I have entered the world of teaching in a program titled "Music Recording Technology," I am faced with the discrepancies between what is assumed I should teach and the knowledge I am confident my students should leave with. As I have worked to reconcile these discrepancies, I wanted to organize my thoughts in recognizing how the "wizard at the mixing desk in the studio" needs to evolve and how to redefine our value in its place. As the environments we work in become more complex and technology more accessible, the old myths of boutique mystery are being replaced by the necessity of a robust, reliable architecture. From Alchemy to Architecture We’ve all heard the legend: the engineer walks into the room, moves a microphone by half an inch, and the heavens open. It makes for a great story, but the "magic" isn't in the placement; it is in the architecture. While transducer physics will always matter, the 90% of the battle that wins the day happens befo...
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