Monday, 25 October 2010

REEEECORDING - I

Today I spent most of the day in the soundproof booths at college having a bezz at some recording. The computer technicians here at the college were kind enough to help me set the room up and show me the basics in using condenser microphones. I originally set out to just use the space with my own dynamic microphone, my USB audio interface and maybe another few dynamic microphones, if there were any available at the college for me to use. I learnt how to operate phantom power which enabled the condensers to work. This was pretty daunting as I didn't want to blow any microphones up at all today! I told them I had used the recording software "Audacity" before when I was younger, so they opened it up and got the audio interface and the microphones working, then they showed me how to change between the different input channels. After doing all of this I got on with tracking some stuff.





This is the space I used today to record. It was reasonably sized but at times I did feel quite claustrophobic. Maybe this was because it got hot really quick. I couldn't turn the air con on as the noise it made was picked up on the recordings.





This is the audio interface I used today. It's a good bit of kit and was easy enough to operate.

The microphones I used today :-



AKG C 1000 S



Sure SM57





I didn't get the names of the over heads as they had nothing written on them like the AKG C 1000 S and the SM57. All I know is that they were made in Australia.


- These are a few of the more successful tracks I managed to record...

TEST I


I placed the AKG C 1000 S in front of the sound hole on the guitar. Should have moved it a bit further away as the track is clipping at points, making it uncomfortable to listen to in places. Parallel to the left and the right of me I placed the over heads about 2 metres away. I adjusted the stands about 6ft from the floor. A lot of the room got picked up

TEST II


TEST III


The next two tests I basically used the same set up but tried varying the input levels and moving the mic's further away. I am satisfied with how these tracks were turning out but there is still clipping in places (not so much on test III as test II). The AKG microphone wasn't really working out, maybe it's the type of guitar or the way I was playing.

TEST IV


This is by far the best recording I got out of the day. For this particular one I tried placing the SM57 in front of the sound hole. This gave the recording much more clarity and less clipping. I also swapped round the over heads to see if this made any difference and also managed to pan the two tracks 100% left and 100% right before exporting the .aiff file. Can definitely tell the difference here, the sound is much fuller especially when listening through headphones.

Today was very valuable indeed and I have learnt quite a lot through doing it myself. Even though I got a little help at the start of the day. I have record many things previously with various bands, but in them situations I didn't have to set up any of the recording equipment. I'm glad that I can now go into the booths and just get on with it. Next time I shall book it out when I have some completed songs.

Take into consideration next time :-

- Microphone positioning
- Editing before exporting
- Focusing on one song/Push myself to make a finished product
- Experiment more with microphones and other instruments

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