Commercial Recording Studio – control room, live room, isobooth, lounge, built on commercial property
Project Studio – personal, non-commercial studio, usually in a home, non-commercial property
Tracking Session – (recording session) recording process; can be one or many tracks at a time
Overdub Session – rerecording; recording over; recording a song in steps or layers
Editing Session – correction, organization of audio (cut, copy, paste, takes etc.) splicing good takes from different takes
Mixing Session – blending all your instruments together, adding effects etc.
Mastering Session – final smoothing out of levels and overall fixes to the mix
ADR Session – automatic dialogue recording / additional dialogue replacement – A.V. Post Production
Foley Session – manmade sound effects – A.V. Post Production, used in major productions.
Artist – most important person in a studio; musician, actor, conductor etc.
Producer – tells engineer what the final outcome should sound like. Has a target audience and has the end goal in sight. Knows how to sell the music. “Good Ear”
Producer (2)- Can create beats or be the songwriter. More hands on with Song Construction
Engineer – works the console, sets up studio if there is no assistant, may act as producer
There can be different engineers who record, mix, and edit.
Assistant Engineer – prepares the control room & live room for a session. Never heard from, opinion never counts. Console Recalls. Patch in. Gear Retrieval.
Production Assistant – fetches the mics for asst. eng., “gofer” (paid intern duties)
Intern – “gofer,” coffee maker, janitor, receptionist, secretary, “ego-inflator”
Maintenance Engineer – electrician, fixes malfunctioning equipment on a daily basis
Manager- Takes care of business end. Hires, schedules, does office work.
Owner- Takes the risk of starting up. Needs startup money. May have background in business or engineering. Sets up management.
Control Room- Console, Monitors (audible, these monitors are generally one set of high quality, and one set of low quality to compare studio sound to what someone would hear at home *Car Test) Gear/FX, Multi-tracks, 2-tracks,
Live Room- 1. A live session where all band members are playing at the same time. 2. Live = more reverberant (delay (echo), ambience)
ISO Booth- smaller dead room used to isolate a specific instrument.
Machine Room- a separate room for power supplies to avoid bleeding or leaking of a machine’s sound floor into a track.
SOUND THEORY BASICS (chapter 1-2)
Transducer – any device that changes one form of energy into another corresponding form of energy (ear, microphone, speakers, telephone)
Sound – brains’ perceptions & interpretations of physical auditory stimulus (see SPW below) (if a tree falls in the forest & no one’s around to hear it, sound does NOT exist)
Sound-Pressure Waves – periodic variations in atmospheric pressure (air molecules bouncing)
Compression – areas of high pressure (air molecules compacted together) (positive value of a wave); 180°
Rarefaction – areas of low pressure (air molecules spread apart) (negative value of a wave); 180°
Wave Propagation – the ability for a wave to continue outward in a spherical manner
WAVEFORM CHARACTERISTICS (chapter 2)
Hertz – Cycles per second. A measurement of frequency.
Period – amount of time it takes to complete a cycle
Cycle – one complete compression & rarefaction; total of 360°
Sine Wave – pure tone with no overtones;
Frequency – rate at which something vibrates (air molecules); measured in Hz (per second); the higher the pitch the higher the frequency; as frequency increases, wavelength decreases (small waves=Hz; large waves=Hz)
How many times a cycle occurs in one second. Many cycles = High frequency
Human Frequency Range – 20 Hz20,000 Hz (we hear mids better)
Frequency Response – how a device hears & interprets the sound it’s receiving; Frequency Response Chart –
