Studio Manual

7/21/2019 Studio Manual

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Studio manual

The unit of work we done was completed in studio a, this studioconsisted of a sound craft saphyre mixing console which was a 36channel analogue mixing console. The base of our set up was a Imac pro which our D ! was logic which we recorded from "i#e roomor though an amp or di instrument $% Desk $% group output $%&atch bay $% 'ompressor $% patch bay $% channel $% "ogic .

!hen recoding my track we used a #ery basic drum set up thisconsisted of a rewired speaker to act as a sub kick, an akg kick drummic, two sm()*s one for top snare an the other for bottom snare, wealso used my rode m( pencils conceder*s to capture the cymbalsand the whole kit. The mic layout we used was spaced pair becausewe wanted to capture the general body of the kit and because the

recording space was +uite tight in the li#e room we ust decided thisfor its simplicity.

in our li#e room we had a -apex drum kit along side the mics weused to mic up the drum kit which were

• Sm() x/• -ode pencil condensers x/• udix kick drum mic•

0ewired sub kick

!e also had the option on using an arrange of other microphonesbut we though that a simple mic set up was all we needed. !echose to to mic up the toms because they were not a key focus ofthe drumming and also to sahe# time mixing the kit up because weha#e one 3 hour session to mix the whole track.1urthermore we had an 26 channel stage box which we run ourcables from the li#e room into our two motu soundcards . !e usedtwo motu / 45 and one motu 2// . This resulted in either 26

channel or / channel inputs and outputs.

etween the li#e room and the mixing room there is a raised7ooring which minimises trip ha8ard when walking between the tworooms. lso the 9re alarms in the building are both #isual and soundso that is you cant here the alarm going o: you will see a #isualrepresentation of the alarm asell to let you know there is a 9re.

;ur signal path was going from the li#e room in though the mixerthen into the soundcards then into the computer. This was only oursignal for recoding into the desk. This was our signal path when werecoding drums in the li#e rooms.



The channel stip2< =ou see in the channel strip it has

been di#ided into sections

in section number 2 this is where thesignal goes into the mixing console youwill 2 st 9nd a gain pot and this willdetermine how much gain is added toyour signal on the way into the console.

=ou will also see a 5 #olts button whichwill allow you to record usingcondensers. !e used this button whenrecoding drums on the track for ouro#erheads which re+uire phantompower.

=ou will also see a button which is a highpass 9lter which allows only fre+uency*so#er 244 h8 past. This can come inhandy when recording drums toeliminate bleed from other drums andalso will take out guttural tones say ifyou were recording #ocals.

dditionally there is a fa8e button which7ips the fa8e of mics this can be usedwhile recoding though the console oryou can 7ip the fa8e after you ha#ereceded and mixing the track. !e usedthis on our snare drum.

In section / of the channel strip this isthe gate sections on the channel. !eused this part of the channel strip alongin my track for the drums. >ates areuseful to stop bleed between mics.

ecause we didn*t mic up the toms

indi#idually we didn*t use the gate onmy track because there was not muchuse for them. ?owe#er when you mic up



The @holdAbottom changes the release type of the gate you canchange this so the sound has no relice time and shuts o: the signalas soon as it come below the threshold. This is a lot more abrupt ,

Then under that you see number 3. number 3 is consisted of twodi:erent types of BCtheses BC consist of one shel#ing BC , and the other was a semiparametric BC. !e used these on guitar, bass and drums. ?ere yousee a bottom saying @inA this @inA bottom enables the BC which thenmakes the e+ acti#e.



'onnections

The channel fader sets the le#el of thetape return. This has a 24db gain toyour signal.

The @re#A switch swaps the channel faderand the monitor fader round . you alsosee the bounce button here. !henbouncing the track as a whole you willselect all the channels to stereo 2 and /or output 2 and / then press bounce one#ery channel. =ou would then create astereo channel in logic and arm thechannel to bounce the mix into a stereochannel.

The channel panning on the deskdetermined where the signal is going tosit in the stereo image if you pan to theleft it will feed the signal to the oddnumber and pan right it will feed thesignal to e#en numbers.

?ere you can see that there arem2,m/,m3,m these are the mastermutes. These allow you to group speci9cchannels together and when you click themaster must button those channels willbe mutes you can assign as manychannels to each mute group as needed. I



fter we learned about the di:erent connections which werein#ol#ed in using while operating the patch bay.Such as

E F"0E G inch ackE balanced and unbalanced acks

The di:erenced between balanced and unbalanced cables alancedconnections ha#e here conductors, This ensures maximumprotection against hum and interference.

The patch bay

Bach channel has ) connectors when you want to send something inusing the @inA bottom on the console. lso to uses inserts to recodeda signal onto the mixing console as well. This is good for guitars andto add compression to the drumsH #ocals on the way in help withmixing after. ecause we only had two compressor*s we had tobounce our compressed signal back though the mixing console.!hile bouncing the signals we used two ways of bouncing thechannel. The 2 st way we made a new track on logic then we usedthe insert sends on the channel to send it through the compressor#ia the patch bay. ;n the way back into the desk to record thecompressed signal we used the insert send to the outboarde+uipment compressor< into the soundcard. !e used input one onthe soundcard to record the compressed signal.

The outputs from the soundcards are going into the tap return J thisis how got signal onto the monitor faders.

?ere is our signal path for when we recorded guitar

>uitar into mesa-esa into soundcard input0ecord to separate channel

optional<Ins send to outboard into soundcard

ux / send into group input

The desk we were working on had a total of 6 aux sends. !hileusing the aux sends on the desk we ad / which we used through out

our recording. These were aux 2 and / . aux one was for outheadphone monitoring. 1or our headphone amp we used a Samson



s$phone mixer. ;n aux 2 there is a 24db boost and an o#erall#olume for the headphones to suit the performer. !e found we hadto boost the headphones in the drum both so that the drummercould hear both the click track and the rest of the instruments. Sowe ga#e him a stronger le#el without a:ecting our mix what wewere hearing in the mixing room. ll of our outboard e+uipmentSamson power strip ps22. ux / we used for re#erb we used there#erb on most of our tracks especially on acks guitar track.

The signal path to the re#erb

Send channel to aux /;utboard re#erbSet group output and pan on stereo bus mix0ecord to separate channel in logic

Spreading out your mix on the desk

The 2 st thing we had to do when using the desk is that we had toseparate the mix and spread the mix out onto the console. !e hadto select an output on logic and you would ha#e to hard pan it eitherleft or right to send the signal to the channel intended. So say if youselected output one and / on logic you would hard pan to the left toget all the signal sent to channel 2 and if you hard panned it to theright it would be channel /.

0ecoding on the desk

?ere you can see I ha#e hardpanned the bass to the left soif I had output 22$2/ it wouldbe coming out of channel 22on the mixing console.



!hen recoding on the desk we spread out all our logic 9les thoughthe console 2 st then we recoded guitar and bass to a click track. !erecorded guitar through the mesa di amp and we recoded bassthough the la$624*s preamp though the patch bay onto a channel.;n the way in we added compression when recoding bass for mytrack to sa#e u time compressing the signal later.

The desk has a button with @&1"A this means pre fader le#el andallows you to monitor the singal which is coming in the desk. seepage for more<

The tracks

;n my track i used the sampler to make my background ambient. Ithough this added body to my track, I sent this to a separate re#eraux on logic then on that aux I selected a space designer re#erb tocreate a long lasting KswirlL. I though this came out e:ecti#e. ;nalex track I contrubited by plying guitar and sample some of hisKfound soundsL ranging from a bottle cap sounding like a piano aftermanipulating it on logic.

;#erall I ha#e en oyed learning about this pro ect and found it reallyinteresting mixing on an analogue console. In some ways I ha#efound this pro ect challenging because of the time gi#en to learnabout then console and then putting it into practice straight awaywas hard at 2 st to remember what to do. I feel like now that I knowhow to operate a mixing console I think I would be able to use theconsole anytime in the future. ?owe#er I feel that a combination ofthe sampling and analogue mixing has left me with a piece which Iam fairly happy with but would not class it as one of my best mixesbecause I ha#e been still learning about the mixing console.

Studio Manual

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