LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts) KTVU-TV's Christien Kafton (far right) got a recording studio singing "makeover" from students at the Emeryville campus of Ex'pression College.
Christien had never done studio recording before, but I think he was impressed by how much his singing improved after we began coaching him.
Christien Kafton, a reporter for San Francisco Fox affiliate KTVU-TV, got a recording studio singing "makeover" from students at the Emeryville campus of Ex'pression College, a digital media arts college. The segment featured Kafton performing Taylor Swift's pop hit "
Bad Blood".
"Christien had never done studio recording before, but I think he was impressed by how much his singing improved after we began coaching him," says Ex'pression Sound Arts Program student Chris Hughes, who will graduate from the college in November. "We were able to gain his trust early on, and he was open to taking our suggestions and guidance."
Kafton worked with Hughes and his fellow Ex'pression student Alex Spencer, who will also graduate in November. The duo helped Kafton to focus on proper breathing, how to keep his mind on his performance and not on the fact that he was on camera, and "feeling" the song's lyrics. The session lasted for three hours.
Along with producing and engineering the session, Spencer and Hughes also gave Kafton's singing a "makeover", and added pitch correction, harmonizing, EQ, compression, and other studio techniques to polish his recorded vocals.
"Tuning Christien's vocals was challenging, but he ended up sounding really good," says Hughes, who works as an engineer at Studio
Trilogy in San Francisco and has produced tracks for emerging indie artists Wizard Farm Music, Chris Youmans,
Kevin Droese, and Sonya Cee. "I got the sense that he learned how much hard work is involved in studio singing - including the performance, the engineering, and the production - and that he really had fun with the experience."
About Ex'pression
Ex'pression College is a digital arts college in California's San Francisco Bay Area, offering Bachelor of Applied Science degrees in Sound Arts,
Interactive Audio, Graphic Design & Motion,
Digital Filmmaking, Animation & Visual Effects, and Game Art & Design. Ex'pression's courses are accelerated, class sizes are limited, and the faculty is staffed with experienced industry professionals. At Ex'pression, students use professional-grade equipment and facilities, and receive a hands-on educational experience in working environments that emulate the industries they'd love to be a part of. Ex'pression College was acquired by SAE
Institute in 2014.
Learn more at USA.sae.edu..
