tinashe chambwera - studio manual

7/28/2019 Tinashe Chambwera - Studio Manual

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Studio Manual

Studio Diagram

Key

Entrance

Fire Exit

Window

Wall

Fire Extinguisher

Desk

------ Acoustically treated environment

Studio B

Control RoomLive Room B

Live Room A

Studio A

Control Room

Open AreaLive Room A


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Studio A overview

Studio

Monitor 1

StudioMonitor 2

LCD Display

Monitor

Outboard

Gear/Racks

Chair

Sofa

Mac Pro

G5

Midi

Keyboard

Audio

Interface/s

Mixing

Desk

Patch

bay

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Chanel strip & Outboard gear

Mic inputs

Line inputs

Buses

Groups

Aux sends


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Connecting and Cabling

Theres are many ways of connecting and cabling a studio. Some of these ways are

more complicated than others and some other tend to be rather simple. Despite the

fact, most connections vary depending on their types or allocated purposes. For

exapmle you can not use a XLR to connect a midi keyboard to a stage box it wouldnt

make sense and will definately not work!

Bare in mind some cables may look alike eg. the power cable of a G5 pro and a

motu interface but this doesent mean that the two devices power cables are

compatible or have the same voltage supply. If you dont check the instruction

manual or double check the voltage power on these cables you will end up blowing

up something and sometimess if you dont take precautions before hand this msitake

will end up costing you more than the 30 seconds it would take.

Balanced connections

- Balanced audio connections have 3 cores which are live, return and earth.

When recording the audio signal is split into 2 and sent down the live wire and

the return wire collecting a similar amount of background noise in the process.

Once the signals reach the end they automatically recombine making the

earth wire shield the live and return wires eliminating all interferences leaving

the useful signal unaffected.

Unbalanced connections


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Digital connectors

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The different types of leads and what their used for.

- The XLR connectors usually have 3 pin connectors and are available in both

male and female versions. There is also a version that comes with both the

3pin XLR connector and a male jack so dont let it confuse you as it is still

a microphone lead.

- stereo and mono jacks are essentially guitar cables but not many people

would know that and there usually referred to as headphone jacks.

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- RCA (phono lead) are the red and white plugs you usually would use to

connect sound to your television from a digital camera or games consoles. It

is ideally a consumer audio connector that should have no place within your

studio.

- Midi lead (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a 5 pin DIN standard

connection that allows various recording devices and instruments to control

each other. Control information is sent from the MIDI-OUT socket of a deviceinto the MIDI-IN and vies versa allowing the two devices to communicate

through a digital path, sending digital signals. The most famous of the devices

being the Keyboard controller used to send signals to another device such as

a computer-based software synthesizer via MIDI.


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- USB

- Firewire

- Optical ADAT

- BNC

- Bantam Leads - Bantam leads are small jacks used to route signal to andfrom the patch bay. These jacks are roughly about 30-50cm and look like a

smaller version of the jack.

- VGA leads - A Video Graphics Array (VGA) connector used to connect a

monitor to a computer or vice versa. It is the oldest type of standard computer

cable connection and has athree-row 15-pin DE-15 connector. Youd find

female connections for this cable on a video card placed behind a computer

or monitor.

.

- A HDMI or high definition multimedia interface is used to connect the computer

to HDMI compatible monitor/screen allowing one to visualise everything in

more advanced detail or graphics.


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Setting up and recording drum kit

Theres a number of ways to setting up and recording drum kits. In order to chieve a

good recording there are different ways/techniques of setting up and recording thatenable you get the best sound out of a live drum kit.

When setting up a drum recording session there are to main things you cant ignore.

Chosing the right microphone fore the job is essential and also you always have to

make sure that all microphones are placed in the right position as this will affect the

signal processing.

Polar Pattern

Using dynamic microphones when recording drums is the best advisable choice to a

sound engineer. This is because the way it functions is almost like a speaker but in

reverse. This type of microphone has cardoid pattern meaning it only pics up the mid

range and rejects any other sounds coming from any given direction out side the

pattern. The pattern enables the mic to pic up the bottom end with clarity when

places close to the subject

Condenser microphone picks up sounds from both sides of the microphone meaning

their polar pattern is bi-directional. This makes it almost imposible to use whenrecording drums and the reason to this being the bi-directional pick up pattern that

will cause the sound will come out destorted. The conder microphone would be best

if used on instruments such as the the flute, trumpect or vocals of both male and

female artists.

Stage box

A stage box is a connection pannel that allows you to connect multiple microphones

when recording in a studio. When using a condenser microphone always make surephantom power is on usually indicated as +48.


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Overhead microphones

To pick up the stereo image of the sound without any phasing problems you use

pencil mics otherwise known as overhead microphones. The over heads only pick upsound from one direction, hence why 2 are used and depending on how you want

the sound there is 2 ways of placing them above the drum kit.

1. Placing the microphones directly above the kit with the capsles next to each

other. This way the stereo image of the signal reaches the microphones

simultaneously.

2. Spacing the overheads but still plcing them directly above the kit creates a

wider stereo image of the sound. Depending on the velocity of the player in

some cases the sound doesnt reach the microphones simultaneously causing

what is called phase canceletion .

When recording the Kick drum the best type of mic to use is a dynamic microphone

opposed to the condenser microphone. This is because if you use a condenser

microphone it picks up unwanted signal causing the sound to distort.

In order to achieve the best sound from a kick drum using to microphones is

neccessary. Placing one of the mirophones inside the drum will enable you to pic up

the wheight and bottom end. For the ambiance and the top end attack of the kick

drum, youll have to place the other microphone just on the out side at the front.

The sound recording of a Snare is picked up by the finger microphones otherwise

known as the overheads. The sound is determined by how far the mics are placed

from the snare. For a ambient/airy sound the mics can be placed at a distance from

the centre of the snare. The proximity effect can be attained by moving the

microphone closer to the snare cusing the mic to pick up the low-end of the snare.

Placing a finger condenser microphone 2/3inches pointing outwardsat on top of the

Hi-hat allows you to collect a good signal. If the microphone is placed any closer it

will cause the proximity effect to occur and this means the hi-hat will sound almostlike a low quality cymbal.

The sound of the cymbals is picked up by the overhead microphones placed above

the kit. Preferebly some engineers will place an additional finger microphone above

the cymbals to collect a more isolated attack sound of the instrument.

When recording Toms


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Once everything is connected the signal test begins. Allow the drimmer to do a few

practice plays while you listen from the control room. In this process you will be

testing the set up and monitoring the signals of each of the singular instruments

within the drum kit. Dont be afraid to make alterations to the microphone positions

until you achieve the best results possible and only then should you begin therecording process.

When youre satisfied with the recordings you can finally mix(blend) the drums

together to make them come alive. This can be achieved by using the compressors,

eq or slight reverb but it all depend on the sound youre looking to attain.

tinashe chambwera - studio manual

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