Cheers!

I will try to keep them coming.

Yes, keep them coming :D

The tutorial site is up now if you have not had a change take a look bythebooth.com

Yes!
You need GI for emitting light. Without GI there will only be reflections.

I am actually not clear on this I have done multiple tests and not been able to come to a clear conclusion about how this works.

I do know that in C4D release 11 when GI is turned on the auto light or default light is turned off. The tests that I have done show that the presence of the auto light has no effect on the render if GI is on.

It appears that the "Softbox light" is creating reflections and the appearance of illumination by giving the GI something to bounce the light off of.

I will make a post on my site about this and maybe we can get an answer to what is creating the illumination. I will try to get this up by the weekend. bythebooth.com

If you turn of the auto light in the settings, turn of GI and use a compositing tag on the planes with "reflections" unchecked you can see that the planes dont emit light.
If you then turn on GI the planes emit light but are not shown in the reflection.
So my conclusion would be: Without GI no "real" light, only reflections.

Thanks! I will look into the audio.