Studio Manual

Studio Diagram

Studio B Control Room

Live Room B

Open Area

Live Room Live Room A A

Studio A Control Room

Key Entrance Fire Exit Window Wall Fire Extinguisher Desk ------ Acoustically treated environment

Studio A overview

Mixing Desk

LCD Display Monitor

Studio Monitor 2 Studio Monitor 1

Audio Interface/s Patch bay

Chair Mac Pro G5 Midi Keyboard

Outboard Gear/Racks

Sofa

Chanel strip & Outboard gear

Mic inputs Line inputs Buses Groups Aux sends

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

Digital connectors

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.

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 device into 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.

USB Firewire Optical ADAT BNC Bantam Leads - Bantam leads are small jacks used to route signal to and from 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 a three-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.

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 that enable 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 when recording 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 sure phantom power is on usually indicated as +48.

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 up sound 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 almost like 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

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 the recording 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.