Studio  Manual        

                                                       

Studios will have a control room and a live room. A control room is where the whole recording process is controlled and recorded. It is also where all the postproduction is done. These rooms contain various equipment- mixing desks, outboard equipment, a mac with logic, monitors, soundcards, and a keyboard/synth. A live room is where clients will record the vocals and acoustic instruments. This room will usually contain a drum kit, the correct microphones and cables connecting them to the control room. The diagram on the next page will show a control room.

     

Studio  B  control  room  

Studio  B  live  room  

Studio  A  live  room  

Studio  A  control  room  

Office  

Fire  exit  

Fire  exit  

Fire  exit  

   

   

     

In a studio, there are a varied amount of cables. Each cable is either balanced or unbalanced, an unbalanced cable has 3 black lines on the end of the cable- 2 conductors - one to ground it and one to carry the audio signal. These cables can pick up unwanted noise or fuzz in the background. Balanced cables have 3 conductors – a positive, a negative and a ground. When a balanced cable is used the positive and negative conductors carry the signal but the do not cancel each other out. This is because the negative conductor has its polarity inverted. This means that the signals are different and do not cancel out. The reason that balanced cables do not pick up interference is because the signal is on both positive and negative and therefor cancels itself out.

Speakers   Computer  screen  

Out  board  equipment  Patch  

bay  

MIDI  keyboard  

Mixing  Desk  

Sound  cards  Sound  modules  

Tape  machines  

Types of cables you’ll find in a studio – XLR cables TRS and TS cables RCA cables Jack cables USB leads Bantam leads Health and Safety Studios contain lots of expensive equipment. Therefor it is important to make sure that the room is safe of hazards. You should not have any food or drinks in the studio as a spillage could damage equipment. Cables running along the floor should be covered up or kept tidy as not to trip over them (not only for sound technicians but for clients too) meaning the rules apply to the live room also. If cables are pulled out it may also cause damage to the studio as well as people. Knowing where the nearest fire exit is also important. The channel strip A mixing desk is a large part of a studio. On the desk it will have multiple channels. On a program like logic you will have a mixer on it that you use to control the levels on each track, a mixing desk is basically the same. When recording it is important that you get a good recording and adding effects should be left until the end as you wont be able to change the final recording in post production. It is important to do a sound check before starting the recording, to set the levels, make sure the client can hear what they want and have tuned instruments.

Gain  Tape  Return  

Phantom  Power  

Line  Instrument/Jack  

Phase  Lowcut  (Cuts  frequencies  bellow  100Hz)  

Noise  Gate  

Chanel  Strip  

Flip  

Frequency  

Range  

Threshold  

Channel  

Release  

Hold  

Noise  gates  will  cut  off  a  signal  when  it  dips  below  the  threshold.  This  is  usually  used  to  cut  out  the  bleed  from  tracks  during  a  recording.  

Shelving  EQ  and  Semi-­‐Parametric  EQ  

High  Frequency  Gain  (12k)  

Low  Frequency  Gain  (60Hz)  

Shelving  EQ  

Semi-­‐Parametric  EQ  

The  HMF  and    LMF  are  the  dials  that  will  select  the  frequency  and  the  gains  will  control  if  you  are  boosting  or  cutting  them.    Allowing  you  to  control  gain  and  frequency  where  as  shelving  EQ  only  lets  you  control  gain.  

Gain  For  LMF  

Gain  For  HMF  

HMF  

LMF  

Aux 1 and 2 are usually used to send the mix through the headphones for the client, allowing them to play along to a track or other recorded parts.

Auxiliary  Control  

Headphones  

Reverb  

When  pressed  it  will  put  the  channel  into  post  fader  and  when  un-­‐pressed  it  will  go  to  pre  fader  

Chanel  Fader  

Pan  (when  you  select  output  1-­‐  pan  left  and  when  selecting  output  2-­‐  pan  right  and  so  on)  

Outputs  Pre  Fader  Level  

Cut/Mute  

Bounce  Fader  

Monitor  Fader  

Pan  

Solo  

Mute  

Master  Mutes  

Fader  

The Patch Bay On the right hand side of the mixing desk is the patch bay. This connects the desk with outboard equipment such as compressors, pitch shifters, reverb ect. Routing Each channel has its own auxiliary sends and controls, this means you can route the signal through the desk to the outboard equipment effects and back into the desk. Meaning the same effect can be used on multiple channels. Recording in the Studio An audio interface connects the sound or instruments to a computer. Recordings of vocals, acoustic instruments and drums are done in the live room; this connects to the control room. Depending on how you want to record drums will change the microphones you need, for vocals and other acoustic instruments you would need to set up a condenser microphone. If recording drums you can just use the same microphone but some people may prefer to use different microphones to record each drum at once. The microphones will need to be connected to the input in the live room via a XLR cable. If you put the microphone into input 1 you will need to select input 1 in the control room. Direct injection (commonly know as DI) is commonly used to record guitars and bass. A VU meter shows the amount of level the instrument; you can change this by increasing or decreasing the gain. To record with a DI the client can be in the control room. This means that they can play alongside another client in the live room.

Multi-Channel Drums When recording drums you will need a selections of different microphones for the drums and high hat, the symbols do not need to be recorded and they are picked up by the overheads. You will need to select the correct microphones and stands then place them so that they are not in the way of the drummer to avoid damage, however they still need to be close enough to pick up a good signal, while pointing at the center of the drum. This is necessary as the microphones are directional. The microphones for the floor and rack toms should be placed at the side of the drum but still pointing at the center. For the Snare you need to put on microphone on the top and one on the bottom (you will need to phase one of these to prevent them canceling each other out). The high hat microphone needs to be placed directly above the high hat and pointing down. The microphone for the kick drum should be placed at the back of the drum. The placement of this microphone depends on what sound you want, but don’t place the microphone too far away as you will not pick up any sound. 2 overhead microphones should be placed above the kit to capture the whole sound. There is 2 ways of setting up overhead microphones: It is important to make sure that the microphones are the same height and distance from the drums and they have been panned left and right to stop them cancelling out.

When using a mixing desk it is important to manage what your doing. You can do this by naming each track correctly, placing things in the right order and using the correct inputs. Once everything is done you should do a sound check to make sure everything is working and your getting the sound you want, also checking that the drummer can hear what he want in their headphones (metronome). After the sound check you should be ready to record.