Standard miking techniques, grouping, mixing out of the box, and pre-production!

This week we had a make up class in which we set up 3 different types of overhead mic matrices, ...At the same time!!! We put the AKG D112 on the kick in channel 1. An SM57 on the snare into channel 2. We used the AKG 414's, cardioid setting, for spaced pair miking over the kit (RL), into channels 3 and 4. Spaced pair miking is cool because it aurally splits the kit into a right and left side, creating the opportunity for true stereo mixing with drums. The 3-to-1 rule is a good starting point to position the mics, but if it sounds like crap, it sounds like crap, and you should reposition until you hear what you like. Mid-side miking was the next technique we tried, using the AT 4050's into channels 5 and 8. The mid was set to cardioid, and the side - figure 8. Make sure to get those capsules as close together as possible! We used the Josephson e22's on the third set of overheads into channels 9 and 10, this time using X-Y miking. To explain this technique, from the drummers perspective, the left cardioid mic is pointing across and picking up the right side (approx 0 degrees axis at the ride cymbal). The right side OH picks up the left side (approx 0 degrees axis at the hi hats). I really like how this technique sounds, but the mic stands we used were too short too get the position we wanted. Next time we will use longer mic stands, or simply pick different mics for the job! After patching everything correctly we set up a session to get rockin'. Nadia played a groove while we listened, and recorded. To decode the mid-side, double the side track. Pan one hard R and the other hard L. Put one of the sides out of phase! Grouping tracks is a great idea for making mixing more organized and efficient. We grouped the kick and snare together, and separately grouped each of the miking techinques. This enabled us to A-B between the different overhead choices. The mid-side ended up sounding the fattest, it just picked up a great, full, warm low end sound. I was shown a little bit of mixing out of the box. Finally, no digital fader for a minute! We had to patch the mid-side tracks out of protools into the board, into LINE 1 inputs on the patch bay, channels 38 39 and 40. Now we were able to monitor from the faders right on the console. This week for our labs we decided it would be a good idea to start pre-production for our next song. We set up a couple of 414's as room mics, and put 2 Royer 121's on the piano. Myself on piano, Garret and Jake on guitar, Chris on drums, and Taylor in the studio as engineer. A few of us had brought in some ideas for a song, and a couple chord progressions. We jammed on them for a while and got a good half an hour of tracking in. We spend the rest of our lab time retracking our first efforts, because we had back up issues and performance issues.

Microphones!

This week we are learning the different types of microphones and their technical aspects. The 3 types of mics are dynamic, condenser, and ribbon. Dynamic mics work based on a magnetic moving coil (electro-magnetic). a copper coil moves around a magnet when sound pressure waves come in contact with the diaphragm (top of coil). Diaphragms can be large or small. This acts as a TRANSDUCER, which is converting the spw's into an electric current that goes down the mic cable into the board. Dynamic mics are less sensitive than condenser mics and can handle close micing better. Condenser mics need an additional power source, phantom power. This powers 48 volts to the mic, because these mics operate electro-statically. Ribbon mics use the electro-magnetic principle as well, and are very sensitive. Polar patterns are another important part of the anatomy of a mic. Some mics have varying patterns, in which case you can switch the polar lattern depending on the room. This is a way of picking up the sound, and there are different spherical shapes that respond differently. Cardioid is a very common pattern, and it is shaped like an upsidedown heart. A mic with this polar pattern will pick up noise best from the front and reject noise from the back. Figure-8 is another pattern, which will pick up sound from the front and back of the mic, and the null points are located on the sides of the mic. An omnidirectional pattern picks up sound from all sides, except the very back of the mic, because it is theoretically impossible to pick up with the body of the mic in the way. Super or Hypercardioid picks up like a cardioid, and has rejection at about 120 and 240 degrees. The rejection of sound from the mics is really just an attenuation of certain frequencies down a certain number of decibels. Frequency Response is how a mic picks up frequencies. Each mic has specific boosts and attenuations in frequency. Each microphone has an SPL or sound pressure level. Sound waves are the movement of air, so if sound hits a mic too hard it can cause the moving coil or ribbon to break, incapacitating the mic.

Back ups, and doing things the right way.

We totally screwed up, and things have been brought to the groups attention that we need to work on as we get to know how the studio works. Backing up our stuff seemed to be an issue only because it took so long to transfer information between devices. That problem is currently being worked on, we are getting a firewire adaptor! We will always be sure in the future to back up our sessions, because you never know when a system is going to get changed out or crash. We hit bad luck, some of the sessions we saved ended up not saving certain files, and we lost them. Things could have been okay had we asked about it then, and got some help. We didn't speak up, and tried to re-record the tracks we lost. Then we found ourselves to be running behind schedule on getting the project done, all because we hadn't backed up properly. We all realize how serious keeping files on back up is, and will make sure that we speak up if we have a problem in the future.

Josephson e22S

Originally invented for the recording needs of producer Steve Albini, the Josephson e22S is a small diaphragm condenser microphone with a cardioid polar pattern. The fact that this mic is a side address mic sets it apart from other condensers. Side address refers to the mic receiving sound from a perpendicular angle. The shape of this microphone allows it to be placed in a tight spot. This mic was also designed for spot miking, which is synonymous with close miking. It is a solidly built mic with a black satin chrome finish.
Specifications:
Directional Pattern: Cardioid
Frequency Response: 20-20,000 Hz
Rated Impedance: 200 ohms
Equivalent noise level: 15dB SPL A-weighted
Maximum SPL: 144 dB
Weight: 180 g
Dimensions: 21mm D, 190mm long, 30mm head

The e22s is an extremely versatile microphone and was made to handle high sound pressure levels. It was originally created for recording drums, but has been said to give a great response for many instruments. Steve Albini has used this microphone on drums (more specifically toms), electric bass and guitar. It has also been liked and used on acoustic guitars, mandolins, horns and organs. Examples of the e22S can be heard on just about any recording that Steve Albini has done, since he was quoted “Literally the only microphone used on every session”.

Josephson Engineering specializes in building condenser microphones for stage and studio settings, and field recording. The company was founded in San Jose, California in 1988 and later relocated to Santa Cruz. They also construct mic capsules for other leading companies as well. A unique thing about this company will build a custom microphone for you if cannot find the one you want.

Footnotes
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep05/articles/albini.htm
http://www.josephson.com/
http://soniccircus.com/Josephson-e22S

dB measurement, Early Reflections and Reverb

There are several more terms that I became clear on this week. I used to think that decibels only measured the signal level of a sound source, but it also measures SPL, or sound pressure levels. If the distance is doubled from the source to the mic, there will be a 6dB cut in signal. I learned in class that we as humans are naturally programmed to hear a certain range of frequencies and we are more sensitive to certain frequencies. Humans are most sensitive to the frequencies of a crying baby. This is a built in survival tactic for humans.

Early reflections are a series of sounds, echoes, or frequencies that bounce off the surface of a room, and they are usually something that you don't want in the recording. These happen after the direct sound but before reverb actually starts. Reverb is different than early reflections in that it is the sound of a room. If early reflections combine, they can cancel out certain frequencies or increase in amplitude.

In the studio for our lab time, we have been tracking a song. This week we got bass and guitar tracked. We took the bass and went direct into the Millenia using a 4 string Ibanez. We did a few takes until we got down what we thought was good enough and fit with our time schedule. Everyone has been taking turns on the board and patching things in, so we are all becoming very familiar with how the process is working. For the guitar we decided to record out of the keyboard amplifier in room 100. We close miced the amp with an sm57, slightly off axis from the cone of the speaker. We decided to capture room sound as well so we set up a royer 122 about 6 feet from amp. I really liked how the royer sounded. It was much brighter than the sm57 for obvious reasons, the main one being a condenser vs a dynamic mic. Everyone has been having a fun but serious time in the studio, and we are all getting along!!

For our first project assignment we took two different microphones around to 8 different rooms, all with different acoustical characteristics. Everything went smoothly, I didn't seem to run into any difficulties. After getting our group of 5 people together, we set up a Protools session with 5 tracks. We had plenty of XLR cables, because we knew we'd be tracking in places quite far from the control room. The environments we chose to record in were MPA 100, the front foyer, the restroom, a hallway, outside, into a cement wall, into sonnex, facing a window, and off-axis. We used an sm57 and an AKG C414. The difference in sound from one mic to the other was quite drastic. The 414 was much more colorful than the sm57.

After tracking the different members in the group, we got to edit the tracks and listen back. Each person took turns editing their own tracks. Listening to my voice recorded in several different places became quite interesting and I was able to pick out characteristics of each. I thought MPA 100 was going to have a lot of reverb, but there turned out to be more echo than reverb. The sound was bouncing off several walls all over the place. A terrible room for recording if you are trying to record a close mic sound. The front foyer had a fair amount of reverb and echo as well, because of the tile floor and basically glass walls. The restroom had the most reverb, with a much longer tail, probably around 2-3 seconds. The hallway didn't sound as long as it is. When I was outside, as soon as I was done talking the sound was already gone because there were no walls to bounce off of. The sonnex was kind of the same, but I could tell just by listening to the acoustics that I was inside somewhere. Talking off axis, my voice sounded very faint, even though I was talking loudly. We used an omni-directional polar pattern on the 414, so off-axis wasn't needed.

We made sure to make several copies of our tracks, because audio doesn't exist until it is backed up at least two times! Everyone worked we'll together in the studio. I would say that the general problem is being on time. Throughout our busy lives, we do our best to be on time, but sometimes we are late.

Multi-tracking, Reverb send, Click track

Today we tracked a short one minute jam that involved recording drums, bass, an acoustic guitar, and vocals. We pretty much tracked the same way we did previously, with the AKG D112 on the kick, the SM57 on the snare, and the 4050's for the overheads. We went in channels 1-4 for the drums. When recording the bass, we when direct injection through the Millenia. Patching was different, however. We went in the patch panel on ch2 and into protools on ch5. Then we set up the SM57 for the guitar. Mic placement was off axis, and pointing at the 12th fret. Guitar was recorded on ch6 in Protools. We recorded vocals with the 4050. We then set up a reverb aux track for monitoring in the headphones. About a one second tail was used on the reverb. We bused the vocal track to 3-4 as well as 1-2. Set input on reverb track to bus 3-4. Setting up a click track was simply selecting TRACK - click track, in protools. Dont forget to change the sound of the click because the default is quite annoying. Marimba 2 seems to be the least offensive.

Tracking Drums and Monitoring Headphones

Today, drums were tracked in the studio. The four mics used were 1 SM57 on the snare, one Audix D112 for the kick, and 2 450's for the overheads. The patch panel inputs were Kick ch1, Snare ch2, OH R ch3, OHL ch4. A session was opened up in Protools and we started with 4 audio tracks. The sm57 was placed slightly off axis about 1.5 inches over the head from the rim of the snare drum. Spread Pair Miking was a technique we used for the overheads, which splits the kit in half, and a D112 was used to mic the kick drum inside. While a tech is playing the drums, watch signal levels and tweak the gain on the board mic pre to get the desired level of signal. Put 7 band EQ's on all 4 tracks, and solo the overheads and make sure they are not out of phase. To replicate a stereo sound for the kick drum, we then tried mid-side conversion miking. This requires 2 different cardioid patterns, cardioid (mid) and figure 8 (side). About 4 or 5 feet in front of the drums, place the figure 8 mic with one of the null points facing the kick. Place the cardioid pattern mic above and very close to the "side" mic, facing the kick. We need to get the stereo sound though! Double the side mic track. On the duplicate track, and an EQ and put it out of phase. Pan the original track hard left, and the duplicate track hard right. Now we need to get a headphones mix set up. Plug an XLR cable into chA on the patch panel and put the other into the out of the headphones box. Group the tracks together and create an aux track. Select all tracks, and in the sends area, send all tracks to BUS 1-2. On the AUX track input, select Bus 1-2 and on the output select interface B1-2. On the patch bay route B 1-2 into the samson. Also on the patch bay route headphones 1 out and plug into room 100A. You should now hear your mix. Listen for the difference in the mid-side conversion technique compared to miking inside the kick.