Glossary

ADC

analog to digital converter works by converting a real life analog sound into a digital sound by converting the sound waves into binary code numbers. It does this by using  digital-to-analog converter however, since sound waves can only be picked up using the digits 0 and 1 which works as on and off switches. Here is a link to a video explaining this-

Alias frequency-

Binary

Because we as a people aren’t programmed to work thingsout in binary code, we work out things in something known as base 10. Forexample when we write something like the number 23,469- we’re doing this byusing the 10’s 100’s and thousands column. The only way that computers can understand something is by interpretingit into binary 2- which means that the only way a computer can understandsomething is using the digits 0 and 1. When using something like binary, the onlyy digits that can be used are: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64.  For example, making something like the number 30,we would have to use this If we were trying to get to the sum of 3.0. In binarythis would look like: 11110

Bit depth ‘Bites’- this is just information in the form of 0’sand 1’s, so that computers can understand them, which can then be recorded for eachsample. There are thing called ‘bit depth’ for example you could have say ‘4bits’ or ’16 bits’ of information but the largest of all is ‘24 bits’ (6x4Thelargest bit depth is 24 bits because we would not be able to pick up anythingmore than that, as we are human.

Clipping- The term ‘clipping’ is used when something isincredibly loud. Something like a amplifier has a limited range of volt output,if you try and stress it, then it will sound distorted, and there is only a certainlevel of voltage output.  Let’s say wehad a diagram explaining this. The highest frequency would be ’10 DB’, whichmeans that anything louder than this will make it sound ‘piece’ and distorted.

 DAC- A digital audio converter takes digital info andconverts into audio info. This, as a whole, works as an entire system.  For example, I can take something like acomputer or even an mp3, and in turn, it will take the digital information andchange it into audio information, and it does this by changing into 0’s and 1’s.You can then get something like a stereo or headphones and listen to theplayback.

 DBFS- We use ‘Decibels’ to estimate something known as ‘soundpressure’. Whenever a decibel reaches its peak we call that ‘full scale’.Although it’s unexpected, 0 is the highest level of decibel- (full scale) butwhen turned down, it goes down into a minus value (-1,-2,-3). 6dBFS is the maxlevel below minus that a dB can hit (-6db).

Dither- Dither is an incredibly faint, and very low-It givesoff more of a white noise effect. For example when changing something that’s 24bits, and you’d like to change it to 8 bits, so that the data can fit ontosomething like an mp3 or a Cd then you can fit in the dither effect so that youdigital signals can run without distortion. There is no way for us topick up ‘dither’ in our ears. All dither does when used, is allow the tracksusing dither to run clearer and cleaner- making it sound normal/natural.

Digital audio interface- digital interface is what makes the connection between the 

 Digital effectsprocessor-

Digital mixing console-

Sample rate- sample rate is the amount of analog data record in 

Roles and Contracts

ROLES AND CONTRACTS

Live performance:

Live performance is one of the main attributes with in the music industry its where the artist gets to show what he/she has to offer. its where lots of important jobs come in to place and it also involves a lot of contracts that could make or break a career in this blog. I will be talking about a few of my plans for now and the future and I will also be talking about what is a good contract and what contract could leave you broke if not thought about properly. The three areas that I’m going to be talking about are Artist, Tour manager and stage manager.

Artist: an artist is a key role for live performance and it would be impossible to have the music industry without an artist. Live performance as we know has lots of jobs and there is non-more important than being an artist.
Salary/hours/working environment – An upcoming artist should work 24/7 it’s a job that involves a lot of training to become good at. The type of environment the artist will be working at is not really specific but different. In most causes the artist will be at a recording studio or touring on different stages up and down the country.
Duties – The duty of an artist is simple, rehearse the songs they have and perform it live to hundreds or maybe even thousands of fans. When they rehearse they have to be precise. It has to be timed and they cannot fail, how hard they work will determine how far they’ll get in the industry and it could also make them more active towards performing more events. Things they could do to make sure they are ready to reach that level is to be healthy by exercising and eating healthy and making sure they get regular check-ups from local doctors.
Skills/Education needed – skill is a must for performers and what musicians do to master these goals is practice, they often have private lesson to master their skills. Musicians like to be good at what they do and most musicians in our days need to learn theory. Learning theory is a great way to understand the basics and to have a great knowledge and understanding of what music is, joining courses that teaches the artist how to perform is a great way to boost confidence and also doing other part-time jobs to understand different industries and business. It is also important for an artist to be social and interact with fans to widen their fan base. I’m planning to work in the industry myself both in the studio and in the performance side. What I’m doing now to help me succeed is a level 3 course that teaches me different areas of the industry that is producing sound engineering, djing and theory. What I do on my spare time to help me with the performance is practice at least 2 hours a day and book as many gigs as I can to get my confidence up in performing.
Job satisfaction - it’s a great job to have when everything is well and your touring all over Europe but it can cause anxiety if it’s not going well but overall it’s great.
Type of contract –
360 deal: the 360 deal is where an artist gets an advance that has to cover all of the costs for the production of their album and the costs for tours and events, also recording time. To sign a 360 deal an artist has to often be recognised by an agent or someone that has connections with a major label. The contract has rules and conditions to follow and for some artist it might be too hard to follow or unreasonable so signing a 360 deal might not be recommended for anyone, because with a 360 deal the money gets shared between everyone that works and helps the artist. So the artist can do a lot of work with the performing and producing music but for the artist to get major in the music business people like the manager, publishers, recording studios etc has to do a lot of work to get the artist recognised so the money goes to all these people so that leaves the artist left with only a little bit of money so %5 or %10 of the money with the 360 deal.
Management Contract: A manager is often needed by an artist once the artist has a bit more work. Usually the artist likes to focus on the creative side of music so often they leave all the business to the manager. The manager has lots of different tasks and that means they cannot get a specific budget so often a manager gets 10 – 20 percent of the total income of the artist.With this contract the manager is in control of the artist once the artist signs the certain contract, with the income money the manager in some cases will get more of the money then the artist.
Risks associated with employment/contract type:
360 deal: not having enough control, not getting a specific amount of money, depth is a few of the risks that you take signing a 360 deal. 360 deal can be very attractive at first that’s why its really important to have a lawyer looking for any unexpected deals or hidden charges.Tour manager:A tour manager controls the whole group he is responsible for everything. For example making sure the group is safe and happy, he needs to make sure that everything is up to date. He also needs to make sure he knows the dates for tours. Once the artist is in a different country they are responsible for getting the crew to the country, they are responsible for food accommodations, travel, also extra commands that the crew needs, first aid kit for any injuries and emergencies.

Tour Manager:


Salary/hours/working environment - they work throughout the year without a permanent contract, they work as a freelancer witch means they only get payed for the hours that they work instead of a stable budget. The hours that a tour manager works usually is as long as the tour lasts witch is 24/7. Their working environment can be quite stressful and you would not often see the tour manager hanging around and relaxing because the tour manager has to run around from the hotel to the venue to the car to wherever the artist wants to go in the place of the tour, venues for interviews, photo shoots and video shoots etc, basically every specific place in the tour so the tour manager can do his job and keep an eye on the artist and the crew to make sure things are going to plan.
Duties: the duties for a tour manager is: booking flights, booking events of the tour, booking travel such as buses,planes etc, booking a hotel or somewhere to stay for the whole crew, making sure everything is on time, making sure the crew and the artist is up to date with interviews and shows and shoots. Taking care of everyone and if someone is injured or there is an emergency the tour manager takes care of it. Overall the tour manager is like the father of the artist/band and team, so its absolutely vital to have a tour manager thats friendly and easy to get along with.
Skills/education needed: usually a tour manager has to be all rounded, meaning having a good education in english,maths, and also having an understanding in depth about the music industry or just knowing how the industry works. having good organisation, social skills and responsibility could be enough to get him working in the music industry.
Job Satisfaction: the good thing about being a tour manager is being able to to travel around, learning new skills within the industry, meeting new people, working with different artist's. But Overall its nots a very satisfying job to have because its not creative, it involves long hours, it is a very stressful job with never ending tasks, you often would only choose to work as a tour manager if the money is good. Also its a competitive job because it is not a permanent job there are loads of tour managers out there so you might not be hired for a while and be left with no work throughout the year and not having enough experience could prevent you from getting enough jobs as a tour manager.
Type of contract - short term contract, a short term contract is a job that lasts for a short period of time. With tour managers their job could last for a few days, a week, a month, or in most cases tour managers are found working throughout the summer season. Tour managers work with freelance because they don't work full time and they get hired for short period of times. So because tour managers work for short period of times they usually can only sign the short-term contract. But whats important about working freelance is that they work for themselves so any contracts would only be for a short period of times.
Risk associated with employment: stress is a common aspect in this job due to the long hours and short amount of sleeping and some extreme cases, distress might even turn into depression depending how extreme the hours are and the tasks are.

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. 

Business Plan

Building A Small Home Studio:

The first thing i noticed while searching for equipment is that the prices varie, My first step was to plan.
Price searching is the hardest thing before actually getting into action because having a good plan leads to targets being met, so for my studio plan i planned everything from prices to locations and to rights.

Prices:

i intend to build myself a small home studio specifically for doing mix down and producing beats, the following list is the equipment i already have for the studio.

Equipment Already Owned:

*BOSE headphones - £159 - the reason i need these headphones i because past 22:00pm it is illegal to play music out loud, so these bose headphones are very comfortable for long hour use, the sound is very clear and useful for mix downs and creating beats because the quality comes out clearly on bose headphones.

*Macbook Pro - £999 - Macbook pro is a specific computer for a specific software that i use, the reason why this computer is useful for music making is because it has a lot of power to support the work load of the software that i use.

*RAM (specifically for the mac) - £108 - my macbook pro first came with a 4GB hardrive, so i updated my ram to 16GB to support the amount of music that i make and not make my computer slow.

*Software For The Mac:
 Logic Pro - £155 - Logic pro is the software that i learned to use, it is very useful because it is very simple and it is very to pick up, the useful thing about logic pro is a lot of big companies like native instruments makes plugins for the software so there are unlimited things that you can do to make your sound unique.

 Massive Plug-in (within Logic pro) - €400 - massive plugin is a plugin that has loads of different instruments within in making my options less limited then having the normal logic instruments samples

*Acoustic Guitar - £120 - the acoustic guitar is useful to record a real acoustic guitar sound.

*Electric Guitar - £70 - the electric guitar is useful to create melodies and solos. 

Equipment That I Need:

*Scarlett Studio Interface - £120 - the scarlett studio interface is needed for me to connect the mac to the studio monitors.

*KRK Studio Monitors - £259 - the krk's are specific type of studio monitors that i will be using to make my beat more clean, the sound is clean and detailed because of the quality for the monitors.

*AKG C414 B-XLS Condensor Microphone - £660 - having a good microphone is useful to have a good recording which makes it easy to mix down, so i chose to buy the c414 condensor microphone.

*Microphone Stand - £20 (for 2 mic stands) - the microphone stand is to hold the microphone to record the vocals. 

*Midi Keyboard - £79 - the midi keyboard lets you play the midi data samples within logic.

*Jack Lead - £2.70 (x3) = £8.10 - jack lead is to connect the guitars to the amp or the interface.

*Samson SAPS01 Studio Quality Pop Filter - £13.19 - the pop filter plosives from having an effect on the recording.

*XLR Cable - £5 (x2 = £10) - the xlr connects the microphone to the interface.

*Midi Cable - £3 - the midi cable connects the midi keyboard to the computer.

*ACOUSTIC FOAM TREATMENT SOUND PROOFING 24 TILES - £31.19 - it stops natrual reverb from effecting the recording.

*Guitar Stand - £10 (x2 - £20) - the guitar stand holds the guitar safely instead of just laying the guitar on the floor.

Booking A Studio:

Because i want my home studio only for mix downs and producing, due to the amount of noise you can make whilst recording, the location that my studio is being set up is not appropriate so i am going to record instruments in a proper studio. (This will only happen when Vocals and guitars etc needs to be recorded together).

The Price: 

Because i am under 25 if i pay £15 for my membership i get to use the Roundhouse studios for £1 an hour. 

The Main Purpose:

The main purpose for me creating my own studio is mainly for mix downs, the space that i have within my house is good enough for me to use for mix downs, mastering and creating beats, so at first i would charge £20 for mix downs, £20 for mastering for people who know my work and for my mates.
The beats that i make will be mainly for me to advertise my work via Social networks, Soundcloud, band camp, Itunes and friends. 

Band recording

Setting up studio-

The first thing i did to set up the studio was to create a list of equipment that i needed. The equipment were:
4 mic stands
5 microphones
- C414 Condenser mic 
- Titian condenser mic 
- sure SM57
-  Rode NT5(x2)
Drum kit
Drum sticks
Acoustic guitar
Electric guitar
Guitar amp
Bass guitar
Bass amp
Pop shield
Xlr cable (x5)
Jack lead (x2)
Jack into xlr female lead (x3)
Female and male xlr port 
Interface
Mixer
Mac (logic)

First step: setting up the mic was the first thing I did was to grab the mic stand with the pop shield on then I left it by a place were we record vocals because there were noise cancelling walls that stops the sound from bouncing and creating reverb because the sound gets absorbed by the fabric on the wall. After that I plugged in the C414 Mic using I XLR cable to connect the male part of the socket into the female part on the XLR port. The XLR port is plugged in straight into the main mixer, so whatever we plug in it gets connected to the main mixer. 
Whilst i was doing that shashanni plugged in the other mic for the guitar and elliot plugged in all the mics for the drums .

Second step:
In the studio we had to make sure that before anything was turned on the main gain panel was turned down.
once we checked that we checked the list to see which mic needed phantom power. The microphones that needed  phantom power was TITAN, the C414 and the NT5 so we used the C414 on channel 1 for the vocals, the titan on channel 2 for the acoustic guitar and the NT5 for channel 3 and 4 for the symbols on the drums and sure SM57 for the kick drums on channel 5. On Channel 6 and 7 we used the metronome.

Third step:
Next step we had to take was turning the main gain on (which was the big red panel),after we had to turn the blue panel which is the sound that goes from the computer to the headphones, then we started out choosing how much gain we wanted for each channel, then we made sure that the right buttons was pressed for example daw button had to be pressed down to for the mixer to send the sound coming in to it to logic, we had to push the phantom power on to get power for the mics i needed to press A to send the cue send to the head phones.
Recording: when everything was set up we had to make sure that everyone was in place to record and we left someone in there to get help us record at the right time we communicated we him by speaking to the mic and he spoke to us by pressing  cue on the mixer. Once we recorded we used the usb stick to 

Studio Assignment

Question 1:

+4dbu and -10dbv are two measurement units that describes the signal level. The difference between the two is that +4dbu is a measurement used for balance line level connection. A balance line level connection is often used for professional studios, examples of equipment that we use that has balance line level connection is a mixer, a guitar amp, a keyboard, a interface and many more specific studio equipment. A balance line level connection can only be used for equipment that takes on +4dbu signal levels, the reason for this is instruments like amplifiers or mixers uses a lot of faults and if you used a unbalanced cableing connection there wouldn't be enough power to supply the amp or the mixer. A unbalanced connection measurement unit is -10dbv, this means that unlike a balance connection a unbalanced connection is weaker it uses lesses power and if you was to supply a mixer with the un balance connection it would litteraly distort the whole sound due to the amount of energy being used. Things that uses a balance connection is a mp3 player, a mobile phone, a laptop and computers. 

Question 2:

A cable that you would use to plug in a mp3 player or a ipod to connect into a mixer is a rca phono connecter cable, this cable has a central tip and a sleeve, they are unbalanced and any equipment like a cd player or ipod or iphone. A phono jack has one contact point that makes it unbalanced, but you can plug it into a mixer and get a unbalanced equipment eg. Phone to connect with a mixer which works. 

Question 3: Mic A because Mic A gives a wide rage of frequency both low and high frequency
it

Question 4:

20Hz - 20kHz,

Question 5:

24 bit wordlength, 44.1, 48, 88.2 sampling rate.

Question 6:

The most important piece of equipment that the most amount of money shoud go to is the audio interface. Having a good audio interface helps the quality of the sound recorded from a mic or a guitar and it also helps the quality of the sound on the monitors. 

Question 7:

A specific thing that people should not do with monitors is play it out on full blast, they should play it at a level that does not do long term damage to the ear. Also they should put the monitors at a place that's high but not to high, they should also make sure they know what type of line signal level the monitor is to prevent any serious damage to the monitors.

Question 8:

First thing I would check is the equipment that they have such as; the amount of xlr cables, the types of amps, amount of jack cables, also what microphones uses phantom power, and also what type of microphone they have. After all of that I would check the interface and I would check what type of interface it is and what type of mixer they have.  

Question 9:

Supply a list of all equipment, with explanations, pricing and wiring configuration (block diagram), that you would recommend for the following situations:

balanced level signal equipment

KRK RP-5G2 RP5 Rokit Powered 5 Studio Monitors

price £249,99

M-Audio M-Track - Two Channel USB Audio/Midi Interface

£79.00

Mic stand x 2
£9;99

Midi - Keyboard:
Avid KeyStudio 49-Key USB MIDI Keyboard + Pro Tools SE - £79.99


Condensor Microphone:
Audio Technica AT2020 Cardiod Condensor Studio USB Microphone -  £88.85

Headphones:
Noontec Zoro Studio Professional Headphones RED HD On Ear Genuine High Quality - £41.59
part 2
microphone stand - £7.65 x5 = £38.25
John Hornby Skewes Herald 5 Piece Drum Kit.- £249.99
suzuki digital grand piano - £1.599
suzuki grand piano includes:
*three dimensional stereo imaging sound
*80 watts of power
Digital Mini-Grande Piano
Matching Bench
Demonstration SD card
USB SD Card Reader
Student Series Tuition Course (Book 1)
Instruction manual
AC cable
Assembly Guide
Tools for Easy Assembly


Guitar - Lindo SLIM Red Electro/Electric Acoustic Guitar+FREE Carry Bag and Accessories -
 £167.49

sE Electronics SE2000 MKII Mic + Reflexion Filter Recording Bundle - £169


sE Electronics SE2000 MKII Condenser Microphone:

Cardioid polar pattern
1" Gold-sputtered capsule with mylar diaphragm
Frequency response of 20Hz-20KHz
125 dB Maximum SPL for THD < 0.5
Sensitivity of >16m V/Pa -36*+/-2dB
48V Phantom power necessary
Output impedance of < 200 Ohms
Output noise of < 17dB typical (A weighted)
Rubberised noise-dampening mic clip (included)

Boom Mic Stand by Gear4music:

Mic Thread: 3/8" (10mm)
Min Stand Height: 35" (90cm) (floor to boom swivel)
Max Stand Height: 64" (163cm) (floor to boom swivel)
Folded Length: 36" (93cm)

XLR (F) - XLR (M) Microphone Cable, 6m:

Length: 6m / 20ft
Jacket and Insulation: PVC
Spiral Shield: 64 x 0.12mm
Conductors: 20 x 0.12mm
Connectors: Female XLR to Male XLR
Colour: Black

Microphone Pop Filter Shield for Mic Stand:

Stops damaging noises from 'p' and 'b' sounds
Protects your mic
Flexible gooseneck holder
Swivel mount for easy positioning
6" diameter circular pop filter
Universal mic stand clamp

Features/Specifications:

• Ultra-compact headphone amplifier system for studio and stage applications
• 4 independent stereo high-power amplifier sections
• Highest audio quality with virtually all types of headphones even at maximum volume
• Phones Level control plus accurate 6-segment LED output meter per channel for easy level monitoring
• 2 balanced stereo main inputs with independent Level and Balance controls for individual mixes, selectable for all 4 headphone amplifiers
• Accurate 6-segment LED main level meter for precise level indication of both line inputs
• 2 headphone outputs per channel (front and rear panel) allow a total of 8 headphones to be simultaneously connected
• Parallel Link Output allows cascading of several headphone amplifiers
• High-quality potentiometers and illuminated switches for long-term reliability
• All Mini Series models can be stacked on top of each other to create an ultra-compact signal processor solution
• High-quality components and exceptionally rugged construction ensure long life

Production Diary

Production diary

Mic used:

Titan - titan is a condensed mic witch uses phantom power due to the amount of energy it needs, the reason why i chose this microphone to record vocals was because it picks up a lot of low frequency, mid frequency and high frequency. It has three different polar patterns which are cardioid polar pattern which are very suitable for high notes or high sound and its also a figure of eight by directional polar pattern which is good for a duet recording. The third polar pattern is omni directional which picks an all round sound. The polar pattern that i used was a cardioid polar pattern on it which was useful to me because I had a lot of loud notes recorded.

C414XLS- the c414 offered me a great quality of the vocals because it picks up a lot of details

Other:


Mic Stand - the reason why i used a mic stand was to adjust the microphone to a comfortable position where it would help my vocals come out comfortably into the mic for the recording.
Stands for the speaker - having stands for speakers kept the monitors at a position where you could hear the sound from two different angles without having anything blocking them because the stand was used to lift the speakers above the computer level.

adjustable chair - the reason why i used an adjustable chair was because i needed to use the midi witch was on my left side and i also needed to use the computer witch was in front of me, so the chair was really useful because it had wheels to move around and i adjusted it to a position where i would sit comfortably. 

keyboard stand - normally i use the keyboard in front of the computer monitors but because i wanted more control of the mouse and the computer keyboard i had to use a keyboard stand to put the midi on my left hand side.

Mac - i use logic pro 9 and this program is only suitable for mac computers, and also macs generate a lot of ram to get the software working.

logic software - logic is the software i use, it's where i use a lot of sampled instruments and its where i also record vocals, its a very useful software because its really clear to use, really easy to handle.

noise cancelling walls - i kept a noise cancelling wall around me to block extra sound bouncing off the walls that creates reverb. The noise cancelling walls kept the sound as dry as possible so it would be easier to have control of the recorded sound due to the small amount of reverb.

interface - i used the scarlet audio interface to plug in the microphone and the headphones in to it and also to set the volume for the monitors, it was also going to be useful for an instrument because it has a jack port in it but due to the lack of guitars i was not able to use a guitar.

Mixer - i used a mixing desk to put the gain at a good level to record vocals and i also used four buses to control the loudness of the instrumentals.

headphones - the headphones was very useful to me because if i didnt have the headphones there would be a lot of bleeding in the sound due to the instrumentals played being recorded onto the mic. So i used the headphones to keep the instruments playing within the headphones because there would be no bleeding into the sound.

monitors - whilst recording i didnt really use the monitors. The monitors became very useful to me when i was doing my final mixing, normally what i do is mix the initial part of the work in my headphones then at my final mixing i used the monitors to do the final mixing.

 Recording

Track 1


The first thing I did to start this track was to decide what track I wanted to make, I decided to make this track a hip hop track. Then I decided to create a mood, in music you create a mood by choosing the appropriate chord sequence to make the song happy or sad. So I made the song more towards evil and wicked by choosing the bass chords with a mix of majors and minors. Before I played the notes I went onto media on the right hand side of logic, went on library then the instruments came up, then I went on bass then went on synth bass and then I chose basment bass as my instrument. Once I chose the right bass instrument I played the notes by recording live from the computer keyboard because I did not have a midi controller at home. After I recorded my bass line I copied and pasted the midi data I did this by pressing alt dragging the midi data next to the previous data then letting the mouse go then letting my finger of the alt button, then I repeated this action till I didn't want to copy and paste the midi data.


Then I added a new instrument voice space, what I did with voice space was I copied and pasted the same midi data as the basement bass, and then after that I added another instrument glow stick which sounds like a synth you would use in a dubstep track and like what I did with voice space I copied the midi data from the basement bass midi data, so after I copied and pasted the midi data I made it a octave higher to harmonise with the 2 other instruments I used. So I made 3 instruments doing the same thing.


Next the I did was the piano, with the piano I chose piano's dream because it had a good amount of reverb which had the space design reverb witch is a plug in you get in the side already made on it. After I chose the piano I added auto filter to the piano, synchronized the beat, chose the waveform which made a dubstep wobble, chose the rate of the beat which wobbles at a half pace, I turned up the cutoff mod all the way to 100 percent. After that duplicated the piano's dream instrument twice and then I copied and pasted the high octave synth onto the second duplicated piano and then I played the piano live on the second bar to varie the piano sound, and the first piano only became a compliment due to the style of mixing I chose for it, then on the third piano I played manually a different melody.


My next step was the drums, first step I chose a specific kick drum, it was already compressed so what I decided to do was change the EQ, I made sure that I took out a lot of the bass from the kick drum to prevent the original bass being distorted, then I added a second different kick drum, this was the latin kick, the latin kick is really dry and natural so what I decided to do was to put the volume really low then I added gold verb, once I chose the gold verb as my plug in I made sure the option was according to what I wanted the sound to sound like, I chose the mix option to 45 percent, my reverb time was kept at 1.05 seconds, then my density was kept at 50 percent, my high cut was kept at 4200Hz, kept the room size small at 10m to get the reverb really realistic. I played the kick drum manually and quantised it to 1/8 note.


I then added a snare the roland tr 606, I kept the snare clean, chose the pre EQ option to the sound I wanted, I played it live and quantised it to 1/8 note. then I added a seventies kit, with seventies kit I didn't use a eq I kept it on a straight line but I added a lot of reverb on the averb option and made sure the room size was at a 100 percent, the mix was at 44 percent, denisity/time on 75 percent, reflectivity was at 20 percent.


I then chose the roland tr - 808 as my high hat kit, instead of playing the kit live I decided to edit it by holding command and clicked on the bars I wanted, I done it for less then a beat and copied and pasted where I wanted the high hats to be played at.


I added the broken beat kit for my second high hat, I made sure that I took out the high frequency on the EQ option, I done that because it almost gave a harmony between the 2 high hats, I copied and pasted the broken beat kit at the bottom but instead of playing 2 high hats at the same time I put the second broken beat kit to play quarter of a second later then the first high hat kit.


After I did my beat, bass and piano, to finish the track I added audio, the first sample I used was already in the libary so I looked for an abstract atmosphere 134 because it was a sound of a police speaking on the radio witch is what I wanted. After that I really wanted it to sound like a voice coming from a radio, so I took out all of the low frequency EQ which made it sound like a radio effect, then I added averb, made sure density/time was 100 percent, the room size on 100 percent, the mix on 22 percent and the reflectivity on 20 percent, then I added an echo which played at 1/8, then I added automation for the panning, I panned the sound to the right and left really fast which made a wierd sensation in the sound.


Next I chose the vocals that I wanted to use, I downloaded the vocals from youtube which was actually a rapper freestyling live accapella, because he did not have a track playing he kept on going in and out of time in this recording, there also was a lot of people around him, having different conversations which made a amature recording of his vocals, his voice was quite loud so I decided to use that to my advantage, after choosing the vocals I decided to pick the parts that I wanted and the parts that I didn't want, the parts that I wanted I made sure it was on time with my track and I also used a useful plugin which is called bpm counter, bpm counter gave me the time that the track was at, it said 127.3 beats per minuet so I typed in 127.3 into the tempo of my track to make the audio in time with my track, I kept the time signature at 4/4. After that the first vocals I made the EQ and I took out all the low frequency on the EQ option, then I added a lot of reverb in the averb plug in, then I added a different reverb which is called aumatrix reverb, after choosing that plug in I chose the pre setting at a medium hall 3 and kept the settings the same, then I used channel EQ took out some of the low frequency then I added a speech enhancer plug in, which helps the vocals become clear, I chose the denoise at -33dB, then I kept mic connection on, then I chose the mic model which was powerbook g4 titanium, then I kept the voice enhancer on and chose the male solo option, then I added another plug in exciter, kept the freequency at 6600hz, made the harmonics at 113.000 percent this was helpful because it brightened the vocals. Then I used pitch shifter 2 witch is a plug in that deepens the vocals or makes it thinner, I wanted a evil dark and low sound to his voice so I kept the mixer at 100 percent, chose the semi tones at -7 which made the vocals really low, then I chose cents at -23, after I chose the vocals option. Then I copied and pasted the parts that I wanted and I repeated a lot of the same parts. Once at about 1min 1 second into the song I chose a different verse that the rapper was using and up to that part the rapper vocals was at a low pitch, so what I did to change the dynamics was to add his orignal voice on top of the low pitched voice which created a harmony, once the harmony was created I made sure that the vocals was clear enough by using the same channel EQ speech enhancer and the exciter as the second low pitch vocals, the only difference was that I didn't use a pitch shifter.






Mastering - The mastering is where the song became a part of a quality album,EP or mix-tape. A lot of people think that mix downs is the same as mastering but they are different Mixing should be done whilst you are adding instruments to your beat or adding audio to your software, Mastering on the other hand is the final task. once the you have a group of track you need to have them having the same level you need to have a good flow to the album by not having too much space or not enough space between the tracks. but if I was to sum up what mastering is using my own word I would say "making everything it smooth" as my sum.

Here is what I've done.


My Mastering:

step 1 - My first step was to choose from my choices of created tracks to go together on the album, My choices where Put my name on it (Hip-Hop Trap) and whats cooking (Grime) both tracks have different feeling to it but are similar when it comes to the way I structured them.


Step 2 - After the songs was chosen I had to bounce it to WAVE format then I had to make sure it was set to 24bit to get the best quality for my CD.


Step 3 - once the tracks was bounced I needed to make sure I had a empty logic project opened, Then I had to chose empty tracks on logic. Once that was done I chose audio tracks instead of software instruments for my 2 songs. I added my Songs by searching for it on the search option on the top right corner. I loaded songs 1 to track 1 and song 2 to track 2 in the Logic pro software.


Step 4 - at this point I made my self listen to similar songs to help me make my mind up about what I wanted the first track to sound like. Track one I only used the EQ to increase the bass, then I increased a bit of the mid section of the frequency to make things like the snare, piano and the vocals to stand out more especially the vocals. Song 1 was not hard to master because I mixed it very well, so all I needed to do for song one was the change from song 1 to song 2 , what I did to end song 1 was to use the volume fade on the top right hand side, then I pressed ctrl and click to give me the option to change the pitch instead of the volume once that was done at the end of track 1 I added the same effect to song 2 but instead of the pitch fade slowing down It started slow and low until it went to the normal speed. song 2 was easy too because like song one I mixed the song well also. I made the vocal stand out because the vocals is the most important aspect of my track, then I made the bass a little stronger. I also made sure the track matched the same volume as the first track.


Final Step - My next target was to turn the songs into album so I sent each song 1 and song 2 to my iTunes, I applied to right name for song and the name of the album and for song 1 and 2 so they merged together.Then I created I play list, pressed ctrl click then I chose burn track to CD option, I then applied the CD to burn the songs in to it. After five mins I played the CD in a different system to see if it worked properly (it did).