Unit 2 Brief 2

Unit 49: SoundCloud Link

https://soundcloud.com/user-194885280/i-want-it-that-way-house

Task 2, Brief 2, Unit 48- Recording different instruments in a recording studio

Bongo
Bongo - SM58 - Cardioid

Cymbal
Cymbal - SM58 - Cardioid

Guitar
Guitar - C1000s - Cardioid

Piano
Piano - Two C1000s - Cardioid

Tambourine
Tambourine - RODE NT2A - Cardioid 


Guitar - C1000s -  The guitar did not give of much background noise but the lower notes sounded like it was compressing the sound.

Piano - Two C1000s's - The piano also had the same issue as the guitar. The lower notes sounding like compression. Using Stereo gave a louder clearer sound, however it did cause there to be some background noise.

Tambourine - RODE NT2A - This recording was better and was better structured than the other recordings 

Bongo - SM58 -  This Recording worked well as the sound was clear and and picked up the low sounds well.

Cymbal - SM58 - The cymbal recording was not the greatest as there was sudden volume changes and sounded compressed, not giving a clean recording .

Evaluation - The best recording was the Tambourine -Rode NT2A as this was the cleanest recording and its structure was good, giving a better quality sound, with no background noise. 

Task 1, Brief 2, Unit 48- Recording in different locations using different microphones

 The microphones that were used were:

• Shure SM58
• AKG C1000s
• Rode NT2-a

The recorder that we used is called a 'Olympus Multi-track Linear PCM Recorder LS-100'.

We plugged the XLR cable in the recorder, we plugged the male into the female of the recorder and plugged the female into the male of the microphone in the stand. Then we put the microphone near the sound hole nearer to the thread of the guitar to create a mono sound, then we strummed some chords on the guitar. To begin we clicked the record button on the recorder once making it flash red then we had to make sure we didn't have to change the gain, so by clicking the button it comes up with the gain levels and they should be just over half way, then we clicked the button again to begin recording.

Classroom:
We used a dynamic SM58 microphone which was about 6 inches away from the sound hole, we also kept the gain at 7 as there was no background noise, we used the one microphone to create a mono sound, and then used two microphones one being at the neck of the guitar to create a stereo sound. we also used the Rode NT2- a, again with the microphone about 6 inches away from the guitar. The final microphone used was the condenser called C1000s positioning the microphone near to the guitar.

Performance Hall:
We did the same as the classroom by using a dynamic SM58 microphone which was about 6 inches away from the sound hole, we also kept the gain at 7 as there was no background noise, we used the one microphone to create a mono sound, and then used two microphones one being at the neck of the guitar to create a stereo sound. we also used the Rode NT2- a, again with the microphone about 6 inches away from the guitar. The final microphone used was the condenser called C1000s positioning the microphone near to the guitar.

Outside:
Again we did the same process but for the outside recording there was a bit of background noise from the surroundings but only a little amount.


Cardiod:
To begin with we have a cardiod polar pattern which is where the microphone has the most sensitivity at the front and the least at the back, it therefore isolates from unwanted amblent sound and is much more resistant to feedback than the omnidirectional microphones. Overall the Cardiod microphone is more suitable for loud stages.

Polar Patterns:
The polar patterns of the microphones are very sensitive to the sound relative to the angle or direction from where the sound is traveling, or even how the microphone hears the sound from different directions, the most common poloar patterns used are, Omnidirectional, Cardiod and Hypercardiod.

Omnidirectional:
This microphone has an equal output as sensitivity at all angles, meaning that the sound is picked up from all angles and that it can be in any direction which is helpful in some ways, however the Omnidirectional Microphone cannot be aimed away from undesired sources as it can interfere with other sounds or speakers.

Hypercardiod:
The sensitivity is in the front of the microphone similar to the cardiod the difference is that the Hypercardiod are considered as more directional because they have less sensitivity at their sides and only slightly more behind. these sort of microphones are mainly used in situations where there is a lot isolation needed between sounds and sources.

recording-in-different-locations

Unit 49 Brief 2- Sequencing of a pop song

rather-be-sequencing




DAW

DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation; electronic device or computer software application for recording, editing and producing audio files such as songs, musical pieces, human speech or sound effects.

Examples of DAW’s are: Apple Garage Band,

                                          ProSonus Studio One

                                          Apple Logic Pro

                                          Cubase

                                          Image-Line
                                          FL Studio

To sequence a song on Cubase I used Cubase 6 on an Apple Mac OSX (10.7.5). to set this up I had to load Cubase with a new project and then added the tracks I needed .

How to create Tracks:

·      Open ‘Project’ on the toolbar at the top then click ‘Add Track’

·      Then select ‘instrument’

·      Then select how many track you need

·      Finally choose the synth you want.

How to assign Synths to tracks 

• A task bar will pop up and when it does click the no VST... then select 'HALion Sonic SE' select the amount of tracks wanted
• Then select the pencil tool to draw the box that the bars go in to produce the sound
• hover over the blank task bar on the left hand side and then it will pop up with a screen which says 'results' then type in 'synth' and select a string instrument or which instrument fits best

MIDI

MIDI is not a musical file and does not contain any actual sounds, it is nothing more than a set of instructions for the computer, it contains a list of events or messages that tell an electronic device how to generate a sound, whether that be a musical instrument, computer sound card of mobile phone.

Midi specifications
MIDI uses a Binary format of 1's and 0's and is made of 3 bytes. there are 2 types of MIDI message bytes, the Status Byte which always begin with 1 and Data Bytes which always begin with 0. this leaves only 7 bits per byte to represent the message which is 128 possible values. MIDI messages begin with a status byte, where 3 bits are used to denote the type of message and 4 bits to denote the channel number to which the message applies.

MIDI Connections
MIDI connections include a MIDI output from a MIDI controller for example a MIDI keyboard which connects via usb to a computer or Mac, There is also a MIDI in which inputs sounds for the keyboard to play. There is also a MIDI thru which enables you to connect numerous Keyboards together through a 'Daisy chain'

MIDI Manager
This is similar to the Key editor but it shows everything that happens in order of when it happens and what the file is telling the computer to do.

 MIDI Channels
MIDI channel numbers (n) are referred as 1 to 16, while in reality they are represented by binary values 0 to 15 (0-F). For example the status byte of a note off message for channel 7 is "86".

MIDI Controller info
A MIDI controller is anything which can control the MIDI and example is a Keyboard or even a mouse.

MIDI Files
The files are stored as .mid and have a very small file size, they are able to be opened, edited and also played back by most media players. They are usually used for the Karaoke industry, old video games and also old mobile phones.

Groove Agent and MediaBay

• A task bar will pop up and click the no VST... then select 'HALion Sonic SE' select the amount of tracks wanted
• Then select the pencil tool to draw the box that the bars go in to produce the sound
• Select drum in media bay
• Then open the groove agent on the left hand side in the different groups
• Then open media bay and select the variety of drum kit needed.
• then drag the selected drum into the groove agent group 1

When using groove agent it can be used in conjunction with MediaBay to input the drum samples required. To open MediaBay go to the 'Media' file at the top of the page then go down to 'MediaBay'.

Samplers:

A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument which is similar to the synthesiser, but instead of generating sounds manually they can create sounds with filters and oscillators it uses sound recordings of real instruments. The samples are loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. These sounds are then played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, sequencer or another triggering device. there are types of samplers and example is a hardware sampler.

Often samplers offer filters, effects units, modulation via low frequency oscillation which the sounds can be modified in many different ways. 

Envelope and ADSR

• The envelop changes the velocity of the sound over a set time during the piece.
• A- Attack
• The fast attack is how quickly the sound reaches the highest velocity
• The slow attack is a slower version of the fast attack, but it takes longer to reach the right velocity. 
• D- Decay
• How quickly the sound drops to the sustain level
• S- Sustain
• The constant volume after the sound is released after the decay
• R- Release
• How quickly the sound fades when a note ends.

Low Frequency Oscillator

• The low frequency oscillator changes the volume from lows to highs and highs to lows.

Filter EQ

• The Filter is a form of EQ which boosts the high and low frequencies.
• Equalisers manage the high/low frequency of audio/sounds, they do this by changing the wavelength which changes the pitch, humans can hear up to 20kHz but nothing below 20Hz. They boost the different frequency’s to get an overall sound. On the mixing desk there is a series of green dials, these are the dials to use to change the frequency from low to high, or high to low, when you turn all to low the it stops frequency we call this the low pass filter.

Oscillator

• A1/A2 which generates a wave form for different sounds
• Sine Waves- which creates muffled sound which can sometimes be heard as a fluffy sound.
• Square waves- which produce a digital sound.
• Triangle Waves- which sits in the middle of Sine and Square waves
• Saw tooth- which produces a harsh and powerful sound

Unit 49 brief 1- Setting up sound production equipment

Effects

Reverb- A reverb is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing a large number of reflection to build up and then decay as the sound is absorbed by the surfaces of objects in the space.Reverb is how long it takes for the sound to reach -60dB from the original velocity, the longer it is, the longer it will take for the sound to fade. Longer reverb time is better on longer notes so the note sustains for longer. 

Equalisation (EQ)- The equalisation is the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal. The most well known use of equalisation is in sound recording and reproduction but there are many other applications in electronics and telecommunications. These devices strengthen or weaken the energy of specific frequency bands or frequency ranges.

Compression- The compression is a signal processing operation that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or compressing an audio signal's dynamic range.
Gain boosts the overall sound, but without going over the set ratio so the sound is louder but does not clip. Threshold is how loud the sound has to be before the compression kicks in, if it  is low then it will begin to compress the sound at a lower dbs. If it is high then it will not begin compression until it reaches a higher db.


Recording studio set up

When setting up a recording studio you first need to turn on all the needed equipment and log in to the mac, then open Cubase 7. When Cubase has loaded go to file, select ‘New Project’ at the top bar and then select ‘Empty’ from the tab on the right. When the project is open, check the devices are set up correctly by clicking on Devices at the top of the mac, then selecting ‘Devise Setup’ and check the audio driver in connected to the ‘Onyx Firewire. Then open devices again and select VST connections and under the inputs and outputs the preset should be on Onyx. When the devices are set up to add tracks you then go to ‘Project’ then ‘Add Track’ and add as many mono audio tracks as you need, then change the input for each track using the bar on the right, which says 'mono in'. These inputs respond to the inputs on the mixing desk. To check the tracks are set up correctly, click monitor on the track to test the audio is coming through. When the desk is set up you need to connect the microphones to the wall box in the studio using XLR leads and then set the gain on the desk, to do this, get the performer to play or sing as loud as they will for the recording and get the gain to sit at 0dB on the mixer, if it is too high then it will clip. When these steps are complete press the red record button on the transport bar to begin recording. 

Microphones (condenser and dynamic)

Condenser- The condenser microphone uses a capacitor to convert acoustical energy into electrical energy. Condenser microphones require power from a battery or external source. The resulting audio signal is stronger signal than that from a dynamic. When the plates are closer together the capacitance increases and a charge current occurs.Condenser mic requires a voltage across the capacitor for the process to work. The voltage is supplied either by an external phantom power through the XLR cable from the mixing desk or simply from a battery.

Dynamic- The dynamic microphone is a very thin diaphragm of mylar or other material is attached to a coil of hair-thin copper wire. The coil is suspended in a magnetic field and, when sound vibrates the diaphragm, the coil moves up and down, creating a very small electrical current. Shure SM58: This microphone is ideal for vocals, both singing and speaking because it has a highly effective, built in spherical filter minimises wind and breath “pop” noise.















Setting up the PA system

The first step we took was taking the boxes apart, to do this we lifted the clips on the sides of the box and rotate it until we could pull them off. Then place the lids in a safe place at the side of the room in order to prevent a tripping hazard. When moving the mixing desk it needs to be kept on power supply and moved into position. When we put the desk in the correct position we locked the wheels so that the desk would not move around when we were setting it up and using it. The next step was to get all the speakers into position, we did this by first moving the 2 base bins to their position at the right and left side of the room using 2 people to lift them for health and safety reasons. We then screwed in the pillars to the top of the base bins using 2 people to place the 2 main speakers on top of the pillars and the same height. Our next step was to connect the speakon cables to the power supply by pulling back the lever, inserting the cable then twisting it to the right until it clicked into place. For safety reasons we taped the wires to the floor out the way to prevent causing a trip hazard. After that we used ¼ inch jack leads to connect the desk to the amps ensuring that they were balanced with a left and a right. Our next step was to plug it into the mains using a kettle lead. We then made sure the desk was flat lined before turning it on to ensure we did not get any feedback. We then added an XLR cable for the microphone of which we used the Shure SM58 mic. We then turned on the desk and checked it over before then turning on the speakers. The final step was to test the levels on the desk and testing the different effects, and checking the sound was coming out of the speakers, to ensure everything is right.

Risk assessment     


Health and safety issues:

 Ensure that when lifting equipment you bend your knees and keep your back straight; this avoids damage to the back, and make sure that 2 people are lifting heavy items such as the base bins.


It is important not to go over 120 dB. Using sound sensibly and checking the noise level, which is being outputted by the speakers throughout the performance, can prevent this.


Make sure that all wires are taped down or kept out of the way to prevent tripping hazards.

The lids must be kept away from where people would walk and kept separately for the equipment, to avoid tripping hazards by placing them against the wall away from the equipment.

Make sure any liquid is kept away from any equipment as this could damage the equipment.

Make sure all wires are safe to use and there is no exposed live wires, as this can cause electric shocks.

All the wheels on the on the box must be locked in place to prevent risks

All ways flat line the desk before applying power to the desk to ensure there is no unwanted noises coming from the desk once powered.



Equipment list:

Main Speakers (dBs) Support pillars

Speakon cables

Jack cables

Mixing desk- Yamaha EMX 5016 CF
Power Amp- ASX 18 dB Technology for mixing desk
Sub Speakers (dBs)
XLR cables
Jack cables
Masking tape

Power leads
Shure SM58 microphone

Unit 2 Brief 1 Extracting information from written sources

N.W.A- Straight Outta Compton

Producer- Dr.Dre and Yella

Artists- Ice-Cube, MC Ren and Easy-E

Date of release- August 8, 1988

Label- Priority

Genre- Rap and Hip Hop 

Straight outta Compton was the debut album by the American hip-hop group N.W.A, released August 8, 1988 under the record label Priority. The producer of the album was Dr.Dre and co-produced by DJ Yella.(1) The albums song were created by the artists them selves including Ice-Cube and MC Ren, The lyrics were to express the difficult live of the people that lived in Compton, California showing the reality of how bad things were. At the time many people thought this album glamorised Black-on-Black crime so it suffered a lot of criticism from the public (2).  Straight Outta Compton redefined the direction of hip hop music, which has lead to the modern hip hop music today, with the gangster lifestyle becoming its driving force (3).  This album was one of the pioneering factors, which has created the type of hip-hop music of the modern era. This album has become revolutionary, as it wasn’t afraid to show the negative of the everyday lives of people from poorer dominantly black regions such as Compton. Previously rap music weren’t such a huge phenomenon, mainly party raps or celebration raps. This album also aloud future rappers to become recognised such as, Snoop Dogg and Eminem both found and produced by Dr.Dre, which without the success and influence of N.W.A would have never of happened (4). The album was recorded in a traditional way in a recording studio at Priority Record, and the production was seen as low-budget, with it being mostly DJ scratches and a drum machines, (5) 

David Bowie- Honky Dory
Producer- Gus Dudgeon
Date of Release- 17 December 1971
Label- RCA Records
Genre- Glam Rock

Honky Dory was Bowie's fourth album and is described as having a kaleidoscopic array of pop style, tied together with Bowie's sense of vision. With Trevor Bolder as the new base player Hunky Dory was the first production featuring all the members of the band that would become known the following year as Ziggy Stardust's Spiders From Mars.(6) David Bowie's Forth and most critically acclaimed album at the time released a new style of Bowie the world was not use too featuring singles like Changes it was set to revolutionise the music world.Supported by the single "Changes", the album scored generally favourable reviews and sold reasonably well on its initial release, without being a major success. Melody Maker called it "the most inventive piece of song-writing to have appeared on record in a considerable time", while NME described it as Bowie "at his brilliant best". (7) In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Hunky Dory the 43rd greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 16 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked 107th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.(6)

Album Name: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Producer: George Martin
Artist: The Beatles
Year: June 1^st 1967


Genre: Rock
The album began recording the album on the 1^st February 1967. The recording at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio Two on the basic rhythm track, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison on guitars. McCartney was using the bass, rather, just being on the microphone like he usually did during the recording of The Beatles previous albums. The Beatles overdubbed orchestral pieces over most tracks on the album and even overdubbed their voices as well. Ken Townsend invented a process for automatically double-tracking, which re-records a sound, milliseconds apart and placing them on a new track to give it greater depth Sgt. Pepper is seen as the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, song writing, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. The 13 tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles' eight years as recording artists (8).




































References.

Dimary et al, RD, 2011. 1001 Albums you must hear before you die. 5th ed. London: Cassell illustrated.  (1) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Outta_Compton (2)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/14/nwa-straight-outta-compton-mainstream (3)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.W.A  (4)

http://www.allmusic.com/album/straight-outta-compton-mw0000653426 (5)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunky_Dory (6)

Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). David Bowie: An Illustrated Record. New York: Avon Books. pp. 7–11. (7) 

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-sgt-pepper-song (8)