sound production and studio skills

Sound Production and Studio Skills 

28th September 2012

Today we went round each of the three studios with the task of setting up a microphone and headphone amp in each, record a sound and play it back through the monitors and head phone amp.We had a limit of 45 minutes per studio. The analogue studio I'm getting quite familiar with. I felt most confident setting this studio up and troubleshooting any problems. In the digital studio it was quite easy to set up I'm slightly less confident in this studio as there seems to be a lot to set up and learn on the desk. The Command unit seems to be quite easy to set up the mixing surface is actually a control surface specifically designed for use with logic. The pre amp is on a rack next to the surface and is used to set gain and select channels (i think the input channel). I need more time in this studio as I have only been in it once.

As each studio has different hardware each one has it's own challenges. 

Command Unit                                

Has a control surface

not a mixer

Bus 7/8 - 

To send audio back to 

wall plate needs to be output

in logic on bus 7/8

If you restart the mac

you cannot log on

hold power button 

and keep pressed

the preamp is a rack 

on the side of

the desk

Mackie

The mackie desk has

two banks

1-24 which is to record

and 25 - 48 which

is for playback

9/10 aux phones

fat channel (additional side monitor) = 

check sound is 

routed to logic

select 'main' 'master l+r'

Analogue

Theres an on switch for each channel

Groups + Buses

each channel has a group to send

press 1-2 to send to bus 1-2 pan l+r

because it sends out and in to tape 

machine

'mix' button is for monitoring sound

mix output (main volume fader)

copied and seent to headphones

Class

We worked through each room setting up a mic, stand, headphone amp, logic, recording a track and playing back in each studio. I hadn't been in the command studio before so there where a few teething problems as I was unaware of the pre amp rack, hadn't used this type of control surface before, and hadn't had hands on experience setting up the buses. With Robs help got to understand it very quickly. The analogue studio I've had a good bit of experience with, and the digital mackie I've only had a brief amount of experience with.

I need to get some more experience in the digital studio as I'm a little unsure of the bank selects and sending sound out of logic through the desk.

We talked about upcoming tasks we will have to learn in mic technique

- Vocal and percussion

- electric and bass guitar with amp

- electric and bass guitar with DI box

- Keyborad - recording the audio while also recording the midi

Basic mix:

A band wiith a drumkit, mixing is core in unit 25.