LO1

Understand the characteristics of different acoustic environments in relation to recording sound










Outdoor recording analysis 

LO2

LO2 Power point


The  power point below covers the following: 



As part of this task myself and my peers in my class were asked to call up a recording studio within my local area. I called up several companies and no one replied but one.Due to other personal commitments Paul who owned the studio in Shiplake could not attend my interview I had organised. However, we did speak on the phone and gained a better understanding of the importance of a studio layout. Below is a video I found on YouTube that basically goes over exactly what would have happened if my peers and I did visit the studio that day. This tutorial explains the importance and what is like inside a recording studio.

LO3

Microphone essay


 

Application:

I will now explain what all the purposes of the microphones listed above are for. How they are used for different situations in recording or increasing the volumeincreasing the volume of sound.

Dynamic microphone: Dynamic microphones are principally used as vocal microphones on stage for example like a rock concert or a stand-up comedy in a large packed area. They are also less commonly used in studios such as a radio station for example.

Capacitor microphone: Capacitor microphones are most commonly used for recording studios only and are more suited to this task than Dynamic microphones because the capacitor microphone can change its frequency that means it can handle louder and quieter sounds easier than the dynamic microphone.

Electret condenser: Electret condenser microphones are most commonly used in small devices for communications such as mobile phones and telephones. This is what this type of microphone is most famous for.

Ribbon: Ribbon microphones were commonly used in the 1950’s for recording in studios and doing television broadcasts. These days though, dynamic microphones have taken these purposes from the ribbon microphone. However the Ribbon microphone is still used for different purposes these days such as picking up sounds from stringed instruments and the electric guitar.

Carbon: One of the merits of carbon microphones is that they can actually be used as amplifiers. This capability was used in early telephone repeaters, making long distance phone calls possible in the period before vacuum tubes. These carbon microphones were mechanically coupled with a magnetic telephone receiver.

They are not used for this purpose these days anymore. However they are still used for small things such as walkie talkies and some army radio equipment still contain carbon microphones.

Studio recordings :

Percussion 








Acoustic 





Audio book




To produced these recordings we used a dynamic microphone, a Korg and a H2 Zoom during post production. Each recording was edited using Cubase and Reason. Each track was individually edited and transition fades were used. 

Photo evidence & how to use a Korg

This was the Korg that we used that was provided by the henley college. 

This is my acoustic recording 

This is my percussion recording 

And finally this was the dynamic microphone I used in the studio to record my audio book

LO4

For the following  mixes I found the originals on a copyright free website. I download each song as individual tracks and imported them in to Cubase which I then edited. I altered the volume, added pans, fades and some reverberation to each track to make it sound better than what it already did. 

Mix one 





Mix two 






Mix three DRAFT






After hearing back this track without headphones on I realized that is was extremely distorted and the  
sound was very UN professional 
Below is a booklet I created showing all print screens taken throughout this process It shows you exactly how I created them. 








Below is my screen shots of when I had to go back and change my mix 3 sound






My third and final mix 






Screen shots from the whole project








Evaluation 

During the length of this project I had to mix three different tracks. I downloaded them as separate tracks from a copyright free site. I imported them into Cubase in which I then started to mix them. My first mix had six tracks, it was easier to mix than my third mix as my third mix has many more tracks. I listened to each instrument separately and and firstly started experimenting with the software. After my teacher had instructed me on what I could add or improve to my track I started to use fades and transitions so that when people hear the track through headphones it would fade from the left headphone to the right. I kept my first track quite simple especially as it was only around one minute. When it came to my second and third track I added more  challenging components to the track, this included reverberation and distortion.