The Tendency to Talkback

So Vagina Monologues opening night is tonight. Oh man, I am starting to feel the pressure from all my classes and activities.

I'm also singing the National Anthem for the basketball games on Friday and Saturday night along with Sunday afternoon at the bowling alley tournament in Livermore. Bring it on.

My jacket says Vagina Warrior..... Awesome!

2.6.12

In class, we needed 1 AKG 414, a shock mount, 3 XLR cables, the headphone box, a quarter inch connection, and headphones. 

The patch cables for the board are actually called TT cables for Tiny Telephone cables. 

With the mic on the stand in the lab, we attached the XLR cable to the adapter and plugged it into the Neve 1 spot, completely bypassing the board. 

<--------------  Here, you can see the setup for the microphone to go to the Neve and a pretty awful drawing of what the Neve looks like on the strip.

It's pretty cool!

Next, the signal goes out from the Neve into ProTools (IN on the BOTTOM) in slot 1 and out to the monitors (OUT on TOP) from ProTools 1 and 2 to 2 TR 1 and 2. Next, we will send reverb through a reverb matrix to the headphones for the singer or performer. 

Create a new stereo audio track and name it Talkback and make the input Interface B 1-2. 

THEN, from the Auxiliary sends (9th row up from the bottom of the gray patch bay), take 2 TT cables and plug them from Aux sends 7 and 8 to ProTools IN 9 and 10. In ProTools, under the sends on the Talkback track, select Interface A 9-10. 

You can talk back by pressing the 7-8 button under the talkback section. 

Next, take another set of TT cables and go OUT from ProTools 9-10 to the Headphones IN 1 and 2. 

Always check to see if the signal is being read on the Sampson (the headphone signal distributor) before continuing to the next step.

Good, I'm getting signal. So, I go OUT from the Headphones and go IN to the ROOM 100 IN A and B. From here, you just have to route the tracks you want in the headphones through interface A 9-10. 

Here is a depiction of what the board looks like with all the cables plugged in and getting signal!

Next create a click track with the Marimba II sound as to not be obnoxious and send it to the headphones like explained above. 

NOTE: The output of all tracks needs to be A 1-2 in order to be heard in the monitors in the studio, and any other outputs desired must be through the sends.

If you don't want to hear the click track in the studio, but want to keep the sound in the headphones, you apply the Prefader to the send window that pops up. A little button at the top of the fader will make this happen. What happens is the pre fader makes the signal precede the main fader and goes to the headphones first. 

Then, create a stereo Auxiliary track for the Reverb. Put a Reverb insert on the track. Then make the input of the track BUS 1-2.  On anything meant to have reverb on it, BUS 1-2 should be selected in the sends. Apply the Prefader to bypass the reverb without affecting it in the headphones. 

Thoughts

I am pretty upset that I missed class last night. I'm upset that I have to miss the lab on top of the missed class. I am grateful, however, that Drew understands. I can't deal with my own disappointment let alone his. Anyway, I am nervous about all the boys seeing the play tonight. I forgot about how completely taboo the things I talk about are. Ugh. 

I'm proud to say that my groups 3 songs just got finished last night as well :) Yay!

Trum Tracking and the Millenia

So, this class we continued miking and tracking drums, but we treated the room as best we could and used a few more mics than the last. On top of that, we got to track bass and guitar over the drums with the Millenia.

2.1.12

Today, we used the D112 on the inside of the bass drum and the 421 on the outside.
The SM57 on the bottom of the snare and the E22 on the top of the snare.
Last, 2 AKG 4050's are used in the M/S style for the overheads.

Mic    |     Patch Bay/Panel Channel   |    ProTools Channel
D112                      1                                          1
421                         3                                          2
SM57                     4                                          3
E22                        5                                          4
4050 Side               8                                          5
4050 Mid               9                                          6

The reason why we skipped channels 2, 6, and 7 on the patch panel and bay is because something along that line didn't work for those channels.

BUT, the channels in ProTools don't have to correspond to anything other than the brown patch bay on the board, so if row 9, channel 3 goes to ProTools in channel 2, ProTools will register whatever mic going through the patch panel and bay channel 3 as channel 2.

And never forget.... IN on BOTTOM, OUT on TOP!!!!!!

All the faders should b, and pretty much were, at unity gain and the mic pre at 12 o'clock. Both the 4050s and the E22 are condenser mics and need phantom +48v power.

Duplicate the Side 4050 track and Opt. Click Drag the wave file to the duplicate track. Apply the Trim under TDM > Other > Trim then bring up that track's fader a little to compensate for the loss in dbs.

To clarify which mic is the mid and which is the side... the mic with the side facing the kit is the side and the one with the front facing the kit is the mid. Duplicate the side mic track.

To treat the room, we put packing blankets over the two white boards and used the bass drop wall things on the sides. The bass drop walls sit on chairs and two go in between the white boards. The difference in sound was incredible! The drums went from sounding spacey and roomy to crisp and sharp.

Next, tracking with the Millenia..... So we created a mono audio track in ProTools and plugged the bass into the Millenia. This is a drawing of what the left side of the Millenia strip looks like.....

VT = Vacuum Tube
SS = Solid State
POL = Polar Opposite
XFMR = Transformer

The output master is what controls the level of the instrument being recorded into ProTools. So the Millenia doesn't really pass through the board at all. There are 4 patch points for the Millenia on the Brown Patch Bay that go to ProTools.

From the Millenia patch point 1 to ProTools channel 1 will register sound to the new audio track. Then, don't forget to go out from ProTools 1 and 2 to the 2 Track plugs (the monitors). 

Thoughts

This was a really fun class because the possibilities of what we will be able to do is just starting to unfold and it's really exciting for all of us! 

The Good Rule

Pretty soon, I will be meeting with my lab partners for our first assignment and our first practice for our 3 songs. I am pretty excited!

Getting a good sound is more complex than just the quality of the sound source. When recording a sound, whether it be a vocalist, an instrument, or environmental sounds, the good rule is always something to be considered and followed.

1.30.12

I have always heard that miking drums is a pain in the ass, but learning about all the different ways to get a good sound yesterday, I feel like it has everything to do with understanding how microphones works and through practicing.

We learned about 4 different ways to mic drums with 4 mics, 2 of which are the same kind. Theses techniques are called the A/B style, X/Y style, Glyn Johns style, and the M/S style. Before going into how to place the mics for each style, I want to go over some of the important terms about miking techniques from the book.

The Good Rule: Good musician + good instruments + good performance + good acoustics + good microphone + good placement = Good Sound!

3:1 Distance Rule: For every unit of distance between a mic and its source, a nearby mic should be separated by 3x that distance.

Proximity Effect: Causes an increase in bass response whenever a directional mic is within 1 foot of the source.
Directional Response: The sensitivity of the mic at various angles of the incident with respect to the front (on-axis) of the mic.

Sensitivity Rating: The output level, in volts, that the mic will produce, given a specific acoustic signal and input sensitivity rating.

Leakage: Whenever a signal is picked up by both the intended mic and a nearby mic, the signals can be combined during the mixdown process.

Equivalent Noise Rating: The electrical self-noise of the mic.

Frequency Response Curve: The measurement of output over the audible frequency range when driven by a constant, on-axis, input signal.



There are a few different kinds of microphones we used or will be using that I have drawn out for myself to recognize them easier.

As for miking the drums yesterday, we used the Sennheiser MD 421 to mic the bass kick drum, the Shure SM57 to mic the snare, and 2 AKG 414s for overheads.

The reason that dynamic mics are used in the kick drum is because dynamic microphones have a higher threshold and a lower frequency response.




<-----------------The X/Y Style. Think of this positioning as on an X/Y axis. The microphones are picking up sound from the opposite side of the kit in ration to where their stands are.







<-------------------The A/B Style. This is when the 2 overhead mics are on either side of the kit. The simple one conceptually.







<--------------------The Glyn Johns Style. One overhead is 6 ft. above the kit between the bass drum and snare pointing directly downward, and the other is pointing at the kit 6 ft. away on the other side.

The M/S Style. ------------------>
This one is really strange and hard to grasp, but it sounded soooo good in the studio. Basically, one mic is pointing at the kit with a figure of eight polar pattern and with its null points facing the kit, and the other is above it point at the kit with a cardioid polar pattern and its accepting side facing the kit.

Honestly, I have no clue how this ends up working, but I have a feeling I'll figure it out later this or next or the next week.... hopefully!

In the lab, there was a specific way of setting these four tracks up. The M/S was the only one that had more steps.

So, you duplicate the side mic to get S and S1, or Side Prime, and on one of the duplicates, apply
TDM > Other > Trim to put it out of phase.

When putting a track out of phase, the volume of that track will automatically go down 10db and thus, should be slightly louder than the other duplicate. This creates a pretty awesome sound that really was mind-blowing!

Some really cool new key strokes we learned yesterday that will prove very helpful are....

• ; (semi-colon) P - Moves up and down the tracks!
• Shift S - Solo of selected track on
• Shift M - Mute of selected track on
• Shift R - Record enable for selected track
• Shift I - Turns on the Input Monitor for selected track. 

Also, when the solo button is applied to the board track, protools wont record from the corresponding mic and it wont show up on the corresponding track! But, when the solo button is applied in protools, the sound is only soloed and it still is being recorded. 

This is a drawing of how the cables must be placed on the board to achieve recording. On the other side of the wall, there is the patch panel that corresponds to the board as well. So, the bass mic is in patch panel 1, the snare mic is in patch panel 2, left overhead is in 3, and right overhead is in 4. Its not too difficult once you look at it a few times!

I'm dreading the rest of the plugs and what they do....

Thoughts

So, I had a pretty fun class learning how to set this all up and I can't wait for tonight... Or tomorrow morning's Improv class!

A Dynamic World Condensed into the Microphone

As my third semester at CSUMB starts to unfold, I am realizing how incredibly fortunate, happy, eager, and excited I am to learn, get my hands on a board, and make awesome music with some of the most awesome people ever!


The microphone has been a big part of my life since I was about 2 years old and I am almost ashamed to say that I had no clue how they even worked, apart from plugging it in, let alone how incredibly intense they are!


There is a huge, dynamic world condensed inside of each microphone that, when used correctly (or incorrectly in some cases), are so much more than just a way to record sound.

1.25.12

There are 3 kinds of microphones: Dynamic, Condenser, and Ribbon.

Transducer: Device that changes any one form of energy into another. Windmills, hydraulic pumps, solar panels, and even our ears are transducers!
Mics change air pressure, or sound in this case, into electrical signal. And every recording starts within a microphone that captures the sound.

Electromagnetic Induction
When a conductor moves across a magnetic field, it creates a change in flux proportional to the movement. Air pressure can move conductors in magnetic fields and generate equivalent electrical signal.

The Carbon Microphone
They have narrow frequency responses and are rarely used today, but were used in telephones. The carbon granulates separate 2 plates that react to air pressure.

Dynamic Microphones
These kinds of microphones use a mylar diaphragm with a voice coil to achieve electromagnetic induction. They get their unique sound from voice coils which take energy to move and to stop. They can also handle high SPLs, or sound pressure levels, and are rugged in their construction making them really great for live application.

Condenser Microphones
These kinds of mics are based on the electrostatic principle. They have 2 polarized plates that create a capacitor out of the air between them, as the air pressure moves the plates closer together. Also, these kinds of microphones require an extra voltage boost called Phantom Power.

Phantom Power = +48 volts sent to the condenser microphone to give it that extra boost.

Some condenser mics are large, and some are small. Large diaphragm condenser mics are more common and have a 1 to 1.5 inch diaphragm and are capable of creating a variety of polar patterns.
Small diaphragm condenser mics have less than 1 inch diaphragms and are highly directional and sensitive in the higher frequency ranges.

Piezoelectro Microphones
These cool mics rely of natural substances that generate electric charge in response to pressure. They are used as boundary microphones and especially for acoustic guitars.

Polar Patterns
All microphones are directional. Every microphone has a front and a back end. The major polar patterns include omnidirectional, cardioid, supercardioid, hypercardioid, and figure of eight.

• Omnidirectional: Picks up sounds from all directions, is typically never used off-axis, and don't experience the proximity effect. 
• Cardioid: Gets its name from its shape--a heart! This is the most common directional mic. 
• Supercardioid: Gets sound from the back as well as from the front and wont accept sound at any angles from the back. 
• Hypercardioid: Increased acceptance from the back and increased rejection from the angled back sides. 
• Figure of Eight: Picks up sound from the front and from the back, but has a lot of resistance from the sides.

Frequency Responses

This is the quality that makes microphones sound unique. There is a proprietary hump that will hype the sound unnaturally at a certain point in the frequency. For example, the Shure SM57 is used to mic the snare drum because its proprietary hump hypes the perfect frequency where the snap of the snare lies. 

Thoughts

In a few hours, my group (Kevin Lienhard, Collin Atkinson, Orion Navaille, Michael Glines, Nick Brumme, and I) will be completing our first lab designed to get our hands on a mic and experience how to record with in and where is sounds the best. 

I am so excited for this semester and I am so shocked that I am learning so damn much within the first week! So, the next few blogs will also revolve around the microphone and how to use it. 

Sibelius: Keystrokes or Die

Sibelius is a really awesome program that makes transcribing and scoring way easier, faster, and mire efficient.

11.16.11

First, open Sibelius and choose between open recent, new, another, or another option that shows up.

Next, choose the style of staffed paper you would like to use. Options vary from choirs to full orchestras.

Then, choose the font of the score and the layout- portrait or landscape.

Anytime during these prints you can skip over them by clicking finish at the bottom of the window or continue to put in the information by clicking next.

You will also have a tempo options window where you can chose time signatures, key signatures, either you want a pick up and how much it's for, tempo markings and beats per minute...

Lastly, you can label and title and name the composer and such including the copyrights.

Now that you have gone through the beginning steps to creating a Sibelius score, you can start notating and transcribing.

There's the navigator that will focus on a certain part of the screen and you can click and drag to control this.

First, click the letter N on the keyboard to insert a note and the cursor will turn blue. Click the escape key to unhighlight the cursor and begin using the keystones to insert notes and such.

The point of Sibelius is yo make notation faster and easier. That's why these keystrokes are so valuable and worth learning.

The up and down arrow will control the placement of the notes on the staff. The right and left arrow will toggle between the notes themselves.

To clear a measure of notation, simply click the measure and once it's highlighted in a blue box, click delete and the contents will clear leaving an open measure. To delete the measure all together,  click the measure so that it is highlighted purple and then click delete.

You can also treat the amount of bars per system like a word processor program and highlight the last bar you want in the system so that it turns purple and click enter like making a new paragraph.

The best and most important keystroke is the letter R. It will repeat the last note entered and then you can edit it with the arrows and number pad.

The number pad controls many different palettes of duration options,tie options, rests, and more, but most of the time it's controlling the note durations. The palette on the window corresponds to the number pad.

Copy and paste is used like a word processor as well with  C to copy and  V to paste. Highlight the desired notes and click away.

 arrow up or down will transpose the selected notes up or down an octave.

 plus sign and minus sign control the view of the score.

Keystrokes:

L = brings up the lines option for a variety of different kinds of notations of lines.

P = play.

Q = change cords in the middle of a staff and add cords in wherever desired.

T = takes you back to the instrument screen where one can add or delete instruments to the score.

Z = symbols such as cota, al fine, etc.

Ctrl Click = drop down menu for create comes up and can do so many things from time markings, lyrics, bar lines, and much more!

Shift  B = creates bars in the middle of the score wherever wanted.

 B = add measures to the end if the score.

M = brings up the mixer, effects, levels, and awesome stuff.

 K = inputs chords and chord symbols.

 T = insert text when the bar is highlighted.

 L = when a note is highlighted, lyrics can be inserted under it. The space bar will jump to the next note. Double space bar will insert an underscore and the dash key will put in dashes.

 3 = insert triplets.


Thoughts

I am hoping to get really good at Sibelius and learn to use it for all my notating needs because it is a really great skill to have.

Right now I'm working on the song One Short Day from the musical Wicked in Sibelius...

From Livermore to Liverpool...

Yes! I am finally off to England :) I am very excited for my trip and extremely excited for the Beatles Museum in Liverpool! I leave tomorrow morning. I am also seeing a musical on Tuesday which I am going to use for my last performance paper in MPA 295...

My video project is going so much better than I thought it would! I have straight through music now which is great, but I didn't feel really proud of it until Tuesday night when I played it on some speakers for my friends. It still needs some work, but at least I'm happy with the end product :))

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and have a fantastic break.

11.14.11

Monday of this week, we worked on Redrum in Reason. I personally love Reason because of how user friendly it is and how well it works with ProTools.

First, we created a Redrum, a Reverb, and a Distortion all UNDER the Mixer which was highlighted aqua-marine meaning it was selected. This ensures that the wiring will all be correct.

In Redrum, there are 10 different channels, or sound slots that you can populate with whatever sounds you want from the immense sound bank. There are familiar buttons like the Mute and Solo and a nice "audition" button up at the top where you can hear what each sound sounds like. There are 2 sends on each track called Send 1 and Send 2 that go to the effects you chose at the beginning. There is Pan Left and Right which is nice when dealing with over heads and tom rolls. You can adjust the velocity and the length of the sound as well which pertains to ADSR. Next is Pitch and Envelope, Tone with choices like Bright or Dark, and Start which directs the starting point within the sound.

Redrum is cool because it uses Samples rather than sine waves.

How does one go about finding the samples in the huge sample bank? Simply click on the little folder button at the top to Browse Samples > Reason Factory Sound Bank > Redrum Drum Kits > Exclusive Drum Sorted > OK! Then use the up and down arrow buttons to click through the samples.

There are 8 different patterns and 4 different banks for sounds and kits. Like Boom, click the "select" button under each sound to tell it where to input on the tabs. You can only see 16 beats at a time however. So, if the loop is 32 beats, you will have to use the beats selector switch to toggle through.

The red LED light will flash above the beat that is playing at the moment. But if the beats that are being played are more than 16, you wont be able to see any flashing red light.

One can change the dynamics of the hits with the soft, medium, hard options. This is the key to drum programming!

Lastly, you can change the speed of the beats from half time, double time, triplets, etc. and the resolution of the beats.

11.16.11

Malstrüm is the next instrument. Malstrüm has 2 oscillators that can be assigned to 2 different sounds and settings.

This instrument in Reason is awesome because it can emulate different resonant frequencies and formants of different instruments including a human voice. What this means is that the formants of instruments like the voice, violin, guitar, bass, drums, etc. are all different based on the way they are constructed.

The Malsrüm also has a cool Portamento knob that acts as a glissando.

Next was the NN-XT sampler! You can browse samples in this instruments by clicking the folder looking button > Sound FX > Digieffects A or B > OK.

Each of the folders A and B have awesome realistic sounds that would be great for our projects.

Thoughts

I am excited to be using Reason and getting reacquainted with the instruments and settings! I added some Reason drums to my project, but drummer Drew is going to help me fatten that section up. Bobby also really helped me on my project by playing guitar on the end Vacuum section! I love it.

Thanks Boys!

I have so many voice overs to help with when I get back! I'm kind of excited though. I really love the music dept. and I am hoping that we all get into 307 :(

Sometimes, Things Happen For A Reason...

11.9.11


Because the Lab computers are set up to get erased each night, the way one must "slave" Reason to Protools is a little different than it would be on a normal computer.

Normally, one would start Protools first, then open Reason for Rewire-ing and when quitting, Reason must be first in the quit line, then quit Protools. Don't forget to save, not Save Copy As... Just save.

But... for our computers, Reason must be opened first and a series of steps will link Reason to the Digidesign MBox.

Reason > Preferences > Keyboards & Controls > Auto-Detect > Add > Not Selected > M-Audio > Find...

Then.... Close Reason, open Protools and get started rewire-ing. The process is fairly simple if you think about the sounds from the other software (Reason) as being bussed to Protools. Protools is "slaving" Reason. First, one must select Reason in the Inserts section.

Create a new STEREO Instrument Track, Click Inserts > Instruments > Multi-Stereo Instrument > Reason.

Then, when the Reason box opens up with Reason, select whatever channel you would like to use. Mix L-R pertains to Channel 1 and 2. The great thing is that, these Reason channels will not interfere with Protools!

One can take MIDI information from Protools and make it control instruments in Reason OR take audio from Reason and route it to Protools and record it. It is fundamentally impossible to record audio in Reason.

Okay... So the best part about Reason is the Tab to the back action. The cords all move like a real tower! It is the coolest thing ever.

One can Tab to the back to route the different instruments like Redrum and the NNXT. How one would route them to Protools is simple bussing. Create two STEREO audio tracks and make their inputs Channel 1-2 (Redrum) and the other, Channel 3-4 (NNXT). Then bus the Reason instrument track in Protools to the audio tracks! Press Record!

When Protools isn't Slaving Reason, Reason is running through the m-box.

Reason Keystokes.....

• * (Star) on the keypad to record
• 4 on the keypad to rewind
• 5 to fast forward
• Control Click to automate parameters

There are 3 different places to control effects like delay, reverb, and chorus. The source, the auxiliary fader on the mixer channel, and the auxiliary master fader. When applying these effects, make sure that the MIXER is selected with the aquamarine colored box around it so that the effect will be routed properly. 

And, for sound to be produced properly.... Preferences > Audio > Sound > Digidesign M-Box.

Thoughts

The last 2 weeks have been pretty rough, but.... I am really proud of my video project even though it needs a lot more work still, and I am really proud to be here with so many awesome people that I look up to and want to get to know more! 

Sometimes, things happen for a Reason like coming here after so many transfers. I wouldn't appreciate this school as much if I didn't work so hard to get here. I found my Reason and I'm really glad.