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!!