Music Production Techniques

Next week

Bring any questions or anything you would like clarifying to the lesson and we will discuss.

End

Task 2

Task 1

For next week you will need to prepare a 'Pitch'.

On LearnZone you will find 3 Pro-Forma files; Microphones, DAWs, and Speakers.

You are working as the representative from your company, and you need to sell your piece of equipment to the rest of the class.

Be aware, other members of the class will be working for rival companies so may want to draw attention to negative points about your product... be prepared!!!

In pairs you will be given pieces of equipment to research.

You will need to complete the pro-forma for your piece of equipment.

Equipment and Specifications

Specs of Speakers

Specs of Microphones

Type: Dynamic/Condenser/Ribbon

Type: Passive/Active/Biamplified/Triamplified. This is the number of amplifiers in the speakers (passive have none), generally if each part of a speaker has it's own amplifier (Subwoofer/Midwoofer/Tweeter) it can produce more defined sound.

Polar Pattern: Cardioid/Bidirectional (Figure 8)/Omnidirectional/multipattern

Use: Nearfield/Midfield/Main. This refers to where they are designed to be placed in the studio.

Frequency Range: The range from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch a microphone can pick up. Wider ranges tend to be better.

Sensitivity: How much voltage can the microphone output. Measured in mV/Pa. Higher numbers relate more sensitivity.

Power Output: Measured in Watts (W), a speaker with a higher value such as 150W may be necessary for large Main speakers, however may not be needed for Nearfield monitors.

millivolt per pascal (mV/Pa)

A microphone outputs a very small voltage which is then amplified by the Preamp.

1 pascal (Pa) tends to relate to 94dB Sound Pressure Level (SPL)

Frequency Response: Similar to microphones; it is how the speaker reproduces across the sound spectrum. With monitors, flat is always better!

This means that a microphone with the sensitivity 23mV/Pa can output 23mV when presented with a SPL of 94dB.

Other: You may also come across Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), and SPL. These tend to relate to how clean and detailed the speakers are. You are looking for low distortion/high SPL.

Frequency Response: This shows how the microphone responds across the frequency spectrum. Generally a flatter response means more varied uses.

Specs of DAWs

Sample Rate: this is the maximum number of samples per second the software can process. Measured in kilohertz (kHz) higher numbers relate to higher definition.

Bit Rate: Simply put, this is the dynamic range of a sound. Measured in bits, this tends to be either 16, 24, or 32 bit and can be fixed or floating point. Again, higher numbers tend to be better.

Track Count: How many tracks can the software process simultaneously.

Latency: Some software will provide details of the amount of time it needs to process a sound before playing it back. Low numbers are better!

Other Features: Most DAWs have in built processors and plug-ins. Some of these may be particularly useful for working with MIDI/Audio Instruments, some may be better for editing and processing Audio.

What is a fact-file?

Within recording studios (even just the two here at the college) there is a huge amount of equipment to understand, and choose from.

In order to make the right decisions we have to understand the equipment characteristics, and how this might affect our recordings.

A folder containing all the possible equipment, it's specifications, and what this might mean to a recording session could help engineers to make these decisions in a more informed way.

Think of it like a menu; you flick through looking at the dishes (equipment), and decide based on the ingredients (specifications) what you want to order.

Music Production Techniques

By the end of this session you will...

• Research pieces of audio equipment and the relevant specifications.

• Begin to compile a fact-file to be distributed within the studios.

8th May 2017