ASFC Studio Equipment Specification
Microphones:
AKG D112: This is a microphone used to
record a kick drum and other instruments with primarily bass frequecies, and it
is recognised as one of the best microphones for this job. It’s appropriate for
this job as it’s a dynamic microphone, so its diaphragm is less sensitive to
loud sounds and high SPL’s and operates between 20 Hz and 17,000 Hz, which
means it will pick up the bass frequencies to give an accurate bass drum sound.
The specification for this microphone says it can withstand up to 160 dB of
sound pressure, which is crucial when recording a kick drum, as the force on
the skin from the foot pedal can result in air being forced toward that
microphone at a high velocity with a loud volume, so this microphone is able to
withstand this. As well as recording the kick drum, this microphone would be
good for recording bass instruments as it is good a picking up sounds with very
low frequencies. It has a a cardioid polar pattern which means it picks up
sounds directly in front of the microphone and slightly off to the sides.
Knowing this, you can only record an instrument directly in front of it to get
a full recreation of the instruments sound.
SE 1A: This microphone is a condenser
microphone which can be used to record any acoustic or electric instrument, and
can is used as left and right drum overheads to pick up the toms and symbols of
a drum kit. As condenser mic's they're more sensitive than dynamic microphones,
and require an electrical charge to charge the diaphragm plates, so as a result
of this they cannot be put close to a very loud instrument like a kick drum,
and cannot withstand a high SPL caused by some loud instruments. However the
sensitivity of condensers can be beneficial as if you position the microphone
away from the drums in room it picks up ambience or reverb created by the room
which can have a nice effect on drums or other acoustic instruments. As symbols
and toms are mid or high range frequencies, the condenser microphone will pick
them up and create an accurate recording of them as this microphone ranges
between 30Hz and 20,000Hz, whereas the other dynamic couldn't pick up a
frequency that high. Using two drum overheads equidistant either side of the
snear drum is an alternative to mic'ing up every individual drum and symbol in
the kit, which still produces an accurate representation of the drum kits
sound. This diagram shows the frequency response and cardiod pattern of the SE
1A microphone. It shows how the microphone boosts its frequency response in the
high frequencies to pick up those sounds, which could be slightly misleading as
it can sometimes give the impression of too much or too little high end in the
mix. Also it shows the cardiod polar pattern, which varies slightly at
different frequencies, but generally picks up signals in the cardiod pattern in
front of the microphone.
SM57: This microphone is a dynamic like
the D112 used to record the kick drum or bass instruments, but works well
recording instruments of a higher pitch as its frequency response shows it's
very consistent between 100Hz and 6KHz. The frequency response on this
microphone isn't as high as the SE 1A, but the manufacturers say
"The contoured frequency response with its precise rise, helps the
instrument cut better through the main mix". As its a dynamic
microphone it doesn't need a power supply like the SE 1A does, but in terms of
its roll it can be used along side the SE 1A when recording things like an
electric guitar, for example the SM57 could be close the amplifier picking up
the tone of that spot and the more sensitive SE 1A could be behind it picking
up the sound of the amplifier and the room, giving a rounded sound.
Mixing Desk:
The Mixing Desk is a 24 channel 8 bus
mixing desk, which means it has 24 individual channels that can correspond to
microphones or an instrument like a Moog synthesizer through the line input of
the channel or flipped for another sound input giving it more flexibility, and
8 busses in the master section, which channels can be sent to to group
them into sections and mix them that way, for example channels 1 to 4 maybe
recording parts of the drum kit, and when the channels are balanced they're
grouped onto buss 1 where they can be balanced as one kit with the rest of the
instruments. Each channel has features to clean up or improve your recordings,
for example a low cut filter which removes sound below 75Hz frequency, but
obviously this can't be used on a recording of a bass guitar or a kick drum. As
well as this there are EQ settings on each channel strip, and these are used to
change the properties of the sound like its timbre or tone. The most flexible
of the channel EQ's is the parametric EQ which can be used to make subtle tonal
changes or can be narrowed to correct mistakes or unpleasant noises. If you're
removing an unpleasant noise for example it first lets you identify the
frequency of the noise by moving the frequency pot from 500Hz to 18Khz, then
when you've singled it out you can alter the width band so you're not removing
other parts of the sound which are important to the character of the sound and
you can alter the high mid setting which allows you to remove the soun
completely by pulling below the 0dB or excentuating the sound by lifting it way
above the 0dB line. Each channel strip has a line input, meaning that any
instrument with a line output like a synthesiser can be plugged into that
channel to be recorded. Once on that channel it can be recorded into logic to
be compressed for example, or the channels built in EQ can be used to
manipulate the sound.
Recording Devices:
To record the music being created, the
studio uses Logic 9 software on a Mac computer. Logic is only available on
Mac's, and these handle lots of things happening in the sequencer better than a
PC, so that's why they're used. Logic is where signals are sent from the mixing
desk, but they're sent via a MOTU 24 input/output audio interface, which
converts the signal from an audio signal to a digital data signal that a
computer can understand. The 24 inputs correspond to the 24 channels of the
mixing desk. Once the sounds are recorded in Logic, they can be manipulated
using in built EQ software in the mixer. Each recording channel can have EQ,
compression and effect plug ins applied to the sound to first clear it up and
have it sounding its best, and then to add interest to it. Also, when all the
components of a recording are done, they can be sent to an auxillary track
which splits have the signal to that and adds effects like reverb to those
sounds and is then blended back in. This gives the track a unity as the same
reverb on all sounds makes it sound like it was recorded in the same space. As
well as manipulating recorded sounds, Logic can be used to create MIDI data,
and allows you to create sounds you couldn't create without very expensive
instruments or hardware equipment. This is very beneficial to the college
studio as they cannot afford to buy all this equipment, so having plug ins
which allow you to mimic certain sounds is very useful.
Monitoring:
It's crucial that studio monitors give
an accurate frequency response, meaning they don't excentuate any particular
frequencies and causing the engineer to add or take away too much low
or high frequencies. They also need to play sounds of all frequencies, so no
aspects of a full track at either end of the frequency spectrum are lost in the
mix of instruments. A final requirement is that they can play the recordings
back very loudly, as it's important when mixing sounds and adding effects that
you can hear the subtle effects on sounds, and that you
can create a sound with depth and 3 dimensions, which you can't create
listen to the sound on headphones or quietly. The KRK VXT6 monitors
used in the Ashton studio have a frequency range from 49Hz to 22Khz which cover
frequencies right through from low bass up to very high treble sounds which
means you can hear every possible frequency of sound in your mix. They have a seperate
tweeter above the cone specifically for high frequency sounds as they travel
more directly to the ear than mid and low frequency sounds. This means that
high frequencies are still audible when you listen to a track with lots of
frequencies, and the high end isn't lost. An additional feature that isn't
important for the ashton college but maybe for people with smaller studio
spaces is the HF and LF controls. These allow you to boost a certain end of the
frequency range to compensate for features of your room. For example, if you
have no choice but to put your speakers right in the corner, the reflections
off the two walls would excentuate the bass, so the LF control allows you to
drop this meaning that you hear the correct balance you would hear in an acoustically
treated large room with the speakers away from the corners. At the bottom
of the page is a graph displaying the frequency response of the KRK monitors.
What it shows is that the perfomance of the monitors is consitant between 60 Hz
and 19 KHz as it stays very close to the 0 dB line, but above 19 KHz there's a
slight excentuation of the sound and below 60 Hz there's a roll off which
dramatically reduces the bass. However, this isn't a problem as those two
extremes of frequency aren't very audible anyway, so having them lost isn't a
massive problem, the important thing is that it is consistent between 60 Hz and
19 Khz.
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