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.