Understanding Technology

Question 1: What is equalisation, and how has it changed the working process since the early days 

of studio recording and mixing?

Answer: EQ (equalisation) is something that every sound has. to understand EQ you have to know what Hz is, Hz is usually measured by how much the sound vibrates per second. The way EQ works is controlling what amount of Hz works and i am going to give a quick example.

having the EQ at 2000Hz and then changing the dB to +5 dB effect or increase the high frequency of the EQ, we often use EQ to control the sound of things like snare drums, kick drums, bass, guitars, vocals etc. 

the reason why it is so vital to have a microphone that picks up good equalisation meaning low and high frequency is because it gives you a clear sound. 

But having a microphone that picks up too much can sometimes not be helpful because sometimes we want to clear some extra noise like: extra breathing on the vocals, or moving about noises that you get during recording. Before people like 'Frank Sinatra' had to use U47 Valve Capacitor microphone which only picked up a certain amount of EQ which could not be changed and if they wanted the EQ to change they had to look for different microphones that had the amount of EQ that they wanted.

Once EQ started being used as a mixer people did not have to change microphones as much because the pioneer's made channels. Channels works like this: you have the dB which controls the gain on the channel and then you have a separate panel that controls the high frequency, mid high frequency, mid frequency, mid low frequency and low frequency, the way this works whilst recording a band is that if you used a microphone on a snare you would maybe eliminate all the low and mid low frequency and  increase a bit of the mid high frequency to get that high pitched sound to the drums but also have a bit of that mid range sound that you need on the snare. 

Question 2: What is the polar pattern called that the U47 used for recording vocals? What is the polar 

pattern of the other microphone that was used previously? Why do you think the 

directional ability of the U47 helped in the recording process in this particular case? 

Answer:

Part A: the polar pattern for the U47 is cardioid and figure of eight it has an extra polar pattern more then the ribbon microphone which makes it more reliable for more different parts of recording then the ribbon microphone.

Part B: the polar pattern for the ribbon microphone which was the microphone that they used before the U47 is the figure of eight polar pattern.

Part C:The ribbon microphone has a figure of eight polar pattern which the U47 microphone  has, but the U47 has an extra cardioid polar pattern which is amazing for recording vocals, the reason for this is because it stops the sound from the opposite direction affecting the sound that were trying to make with the vocals, it also has a more focus range which is great for avoiding feedback from the speakers during live recording.

Question 3: What is meant by the term 24/48? Why do you think, in this case, using 96k was not suitable? 

Answer: 24/48 is a sampling rate that picks up on the cd 24000 or 48000 Hz, explaining in more detail the sampling rate is how much data recorded on to the CD, having a 96k sampling rate is great for modern recording because it is most used for DVD'S and current high definition recording, but when using 96k on a older recording it picks up a lot of unnecessary data which could end up having a major effect on the final recording. 

Question 4: What is the job of the ‘converters’? How important are these in a modern studio?

Answer: the job of a converter is to convert real sound (analog sound) into digital sound. The reason why this is so important in a modern studio is because we use a lot of digital but we use the same amount of analog and being able to convert analog to digital helps us have a wide range of real life recordings, also having analog recording converted to digital helps you have more control of the analog recording once it has been converted to digital as in you can add more treble, decrease the bass, compress the sound and all sorts of effects etc. 

Question 5: What other benefits do using DI boxes give an engineer in the studio?

Answer: what a DI box is also useful for is home studios, in a lot of home studios space can be a real problem because of the amount of gear you need. So having a DI box means that you do not necessarily need microphones meaning you have a lot of room for other things and you do not need to waste room on microphone stands. It is also useful to get a different sound from a microphone recording so if you record an instrument through a DI box and a microphone at the same time, you might get a more realistic recording with real reverb recorded from the microphone. 

Question 6: What would you suggest?

Answer: my advise is to have microphones for all the vocals, guitar and bass running through the PA system but not for the drums because the drums is naturally loud, but if you want to record a stereo mix onto reaper i would suggest to record the drums first separately, but my guess is that you want a good sound recorded but live, so i suggest instead of plugging everything to the PA and playing it out loud, get headphones for everyone that is playing and plug it in to the Alesis MultiMix 8 so each person can hear themselves and not get feedback.  Another thing i would suggest is to use the mixer to record the vocals, bass, guitar and have one microphone recording the drums from overhead which wont give you a lot of control on the sound of the drums but it will get you to record everything without feedback.