I will attempt in this article to give some ideas to help in the set up of a small recording studio control room, or a video editing suite where audio needs to be monitored. I will try to cover just some pretty basic advice here. It’s not intended to be a comprehensive guide, nor one designed to advise those with large professional studio control rooms, or surround sound Dolby mixing studios. It’s more aimed at the home or project studio, or small video production suite.
The stereo micing (stereo miking) setups we covered in the first article (part 1), were the spaced pair (A/B), coincident pair (X-Y) and near coincident pair (ORTF, NOS, DIN). In part 2 we will cover the mid-side (M/S), the Blumlein pair, and the Decca tree methods.
Using stereo microphone recording techniques can be fun and very effective when used in the right context. They can also produce headaches and nightmares when it comes to mixing down the tracks later if setup has not been done properly. Taking time to position microphones appropriately in order to capture the source audio in a balanced and clear way is well worth the effort. Over the course of the next two articles I want to cover the basics of different stereo recording techniques. Which one you should choose in any given situation is based largely on what microphones you have available, the environment you are recording in, and the desired resulting sound. The stereo micing setups we will cover in this first article (part 1) are spaced pair, coincident pair (X-Y) and near coincident pair (ORTF, NOS, DIN).
If you want your video or movie to be successful, it needs to have something to set it apart from the others in competition to it, and therefore attract viewers. Using well chosen music can certainly be of assistance in attaining this goal. Ask yourself “what is it about your particular video that will attract people to start watching it, and then ultimately watch it through to it’s completion without getting bored?” You don’t want potential viewers flicking to the next video half way through watching yours! Having a good sound track can really help to capture peoples’ attention and their imagination. Most people love music, and often half the pleasurable experience of watching a video is in the hearing of the sound.
Field Recording Of Birds, Wildlife and Nature Sounds
In this brief tutorial I would like to introduce you to the concept of recording nature and wildlife sounds. This includes capturing the sounds of individual birds and animals, as well as general stereo natural ambiences. I aim to give an introduction to the type of equipment you willl need in order to get started in this field. In no way do I pretend that this will be a comprehensive article covering all angles on the subject, but it should give you some basic guidelines to get you started.
Microphones: Basic Understanding Of The Different Types
Brief Introduction to How Microphones Work
Microphones convert acoustical energy or sound waves into electrical energy, thus reproducing the audio signal that we hear. They are therefore transducers, in that they convert energy from one form to another. Microphones have different ways of converting acoustical energy, but one thing that is common to all types, is that they have a diaphragm. This diaphram is a thin membrane that mimics the human ear, and is a piece of material that vibrates when struck by sound waves. The transducer elements of the microphone are housed in the mic capsule. In a typical handheld micophone the capsule is found in the microphone’s head.
UNDERSTANDING AND USING COMPRESSORS
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
The compressor is often one of the least understood pieces of equipment, or software in a sound engineer or amateur sound recordist’s arsenal.
In this tutorial I intend to present a brief but broad overview on the use of compressors in the recording and mixing of audio. The principles discussed here will applicable for any sound application, whether it be in music, the spoken voice, or general sound effects and foley. For an audio engineer, the compressor is a great tool to have in your bag of tricks, but it is one of those things that can either make or break your recordings and mixes. Used right, compressors can greatly improve audio tracks, but used wrongly they can ruin them, leaving them sounding squashed, lifeless and muffled. The human ear is able to detect sounds in a wide dynamic range – from quiet whispers to a huge explosions. However, our recording and playback equipment has physical limitations which mean we have to squash or compress these sounds into a smaller dynamic range in order to reproduce them. The purpose of this article is to give you some tips to help you get started in the use of compressors and limiters for controlling the dynamics of your sound.
Set Your Audio Recording Levels Using Sensible Gain Staging
Recording And Gain Staging
The old adage of recording signals as hot as possible really only applies to the analog domain, not the digital one. With analog reording this was because of the noise floor inherent in analog circuitry and tape, where you were fighting low level noise and hiss. This was also how we were taught to record when digital recording was relatively new, when the best we had was 16-bit audio. Back them everyone was trying to record as close as possible to 0 dB without clipping. However, now with 24-bit converters there is no need to record signals nearly so hot. You can get great recordings with the levels set much lower, and then you will also find it MUCH EASIER to mix later, because you are not trying to force so many loud signals into the headroom limitations of a DAW. If you have a number of tracks all recorded very loud, and approaching 0 dB, at mixdown you will find yourself running out of headroom, and will have to bring all your track levels down in order to compensate.
In this tutorial I am going to attempt to give a brief outline of some of the problems we can strike when doing audio post production or sound mixing work. If you are the one responsible for the project from the outset, including both the recording aspect, and the mixing and post production work, it makes sense to try to address the issues of unwanted noises before committing to tape (ok well more likely hard drive, but I’m sure you know what I mean). If you have received someone else’s recordings, and are responsible for the final mix/master, then it is already likely too late for that, but here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you with fixing the issues already in existence, or helping to avoid future ones that you have control over.
Killing Off Broadcast Royalties – A Worrying Trend
There are good royalty-free music deals and bad royalty-free music deals.
I have decided it is about time to write an article addressing a worrying trend I have been observing: namely music libraries that are not allowing composers they list to be part of Performing Rights Organisations, or the music they list to be registered with any royalty collection agencies.
