Understanding Technology

Question 1: What is 'Equalisation' and how has it changed the working process since the early days of studio recording and mixing? 
Equalisation is the process of balancing frequency components. it is mainly used to match a recorded sound to its original source, meaning that when you get a rough recording of a sound by Equalising the sound, you are manipulating the frequency pattern that the original sound has. There is different types of eq that you can use, some are in softwares, for example: logic pro Chain EQ which you can use about 8 bands of frequency. One example of using a channel EQ is if you have background noise, you can find where the background noise is in the audio. You can eliminate the sound by choosing the hertz of the frequency and remove it. As well as the software you can also EQ by using hardware, hardware tends to be more expensive but it is more delicate, that means if you remove 2 DB's of frequency you can really notice the difference, it also takes more practice and 4 bands in most cases. You also have specific filter types which are: - High paths and low paths filter. High path filter allows high frequencies to Be heard, it blocks or compresses low frequencies. Low path filter allows low frequencies to go through and blocks or compresses high frequencies. - Shelving Filter Is often used to reduce or increase signals above or below a set frequency. - Graphic Equalisation You will often find these in softwares, the input signal gets sent to a group of filters, each filter passes the position of the signal and presents it's own frequency range. To boost or cut frequency components, you would often use a slide control. - Parametric Equaliser Are a multi band equaliser which allows you to control the parameters, which have an amplitude centre frequency and a band width. In the olden days you never had much options like you had now, you could only adjust the bass and the treble. Now you would get an accurate type of Equalisations which can be hardware and software, were in the olden days you couldn't due to the lack of knowledge at the time.

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?

U47 uses the cardoid polar pattern because the majority of sound pick up is from the front, meaning that reflections from surfaces behind the microphone are not picked up as much. This is great for vocals because the sound is projected from someones mouth straight into the microphone. There is no need to pick up sound from behind the microphone. 

The other microphone uses a bi-directional polar pattern, it is called the RCA 44 ribbon microphone. Compared to the RCA the U47 is much more suited to record vocals with because as I previously explained, it blocks out sound from behind the microphone. 

Question 3: Identify 3 differences between using a software mixer (like the one in 'Logic') and a hardware mixing console (Like the Audient 'Zen' mixing desk in the studios).

1. With the mixing desk you have loads of faders and you can connect microphones and instruments, with the mixing desk you can decide which fader the microphone and instrument would go to. So on the mixing desk you can control the levels, gain, control whether to play it back on logic or listen to the live recording. You can change all the EQ's, effects and volumes. So when you edit it on logic everything you control on the mixing desk is the sound you will get onto logic, so if your trying to play back something on logic if you change the gain and levels on the mixing desk you will then be able to hear it. 

2. On the software mixer you can organise it, add colours so you are organising the seperate tracks in groups. 

3. On the software mixer you can add plug ins such as: reverb, compression, dynamic, EQ, pitching etc. 

4. On the mixing desk depending on the desk you buy you are given a amount of channels (faders), so on the software mixer you can add many unlimited amount of channels.

5. On the software mixer you can add buses and connect channels to one another. For example if you wanted to edit the electric guitars and you had 2 channels for the electric guitars you can highlight both of the channels and then change the volume, panning, plug ins so they could be the same. 

6. You can change between mono and stereo, mono is one general sound in one, and stereo is the track split to 2 ears left and right. 

Question 4: What does a DI box actually do? What other benefits are there in using DI boxes in the studio?

A DI box is used to convert types of audio signal to microphone level. If you plugged an instrument straight into a mixer in a microphone level input, it would be very distorted. The reason you would use a DI box in the studio is so it does not distort when it is plugged into the mixer. The other reason why it is helpful, an input and output is not the only I.O. 

The DI box is used to connect the instruments such as the: guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and many more to the DI box to record and hear that instrument. You could either connect a microphone and record the specific instrument, by this means some instruments you cant connect a jack lead, you would have to use a microphone, so for the drums you would have to mic it up and connect all the jack leads from the microphones to the DI box. The DI box is also used to Connect a jack lead from the instrument to the DI box so you would only hear the instrument and not pick up any back ground noise, like for example if you were recording with other instruments, because you connected the jack lead from the DI box to the instrument you would only hear that instrument. This method would apply to guitars, Keyboards, Vocal Microphone. 

Question 5: If you were wanting to source a simple audio interface for your computer/laptop in order to record a guitar and a vocal at the same time, what main features would it need to have?

Give 2 real-world examples of audio interfaces that would be suitable for this. 

1. The Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces USB - The reason why this audio interface would be ideal for simple recording, is because it is very small, cheap and very strong due to its aluminium body. The features it has allows you to record both vocals and guitars, Because it has 2 out USB recording interfaces. It is also compatible with every major DAWs and it would work with both PC and macbook. As well as a USB input you have a jack input as well, which means you can record both guitar and vocals at the same time without latency. 

2. The Lexicon Alpha Studio USB Audio Interface - Has a stereo line input for keyboards, drum machines or analog output. It has an active balanced input and it expects either balanced or unbalanced signal. 
If you wanted to use an electric guitar or bass, there is a front panel input. There is a separate microphone line level input that has individual peak indicators. To balance an audio source there is a monitor mix control, which controls between the live input and the playback level. When your in the middle of recording you can switch to stereo or mono high-powered headphone. You do not need a power supply, you can record on your laptop where ever you are. 

Major Music Project (Unit 16) - Budget

A gig took place on the 20th of May, we made a graph of our budget:

In the graph we put down how many tickets we sold, how much the tickets were and how much we made from it. We also put down how much we gave to the head line act, the supporting act, the sound engineer, lighting engineer and box office staff. There is also how much we spent on chalk and hooks. Then from subtracting all these costs we spent and gave we got our calculated profit. 

We gave the head line act the most money which was £100 because they are the headline act they had most of their fans coming to see them which meant more tickets being sold. They put in a lot of work, time, rehearsals and most time performing, so they deserve the most amount of money. But main reason is because they are the main act of the night and are performing a lot.

£50 went to the supporting act, half what the head act got because they are the support act and they would be bringing less fans and less fans would be coming because they are the supporting act. They sold a lot of merchandise so that added to their profit. 

We decided to give the sound engineer and lighting engineer a fair amount which was £30 because they both have a fairly important role to the gig, the sound is very important because people need to enjoy the sound quality and be able to survive their ears when they leave. The lighting gives a atmosphere to the performance and makes people see the performers so this is as important as the sound engineer because if the sound engineer is doing a good job in making the sound good, but if you cant see the performers people would not understand what is going on and not enjoy as much. 

The box office staff has the easiest job out of everyone because all they have to do is collect money, look at the list to see the right people are getting sold the right price, give the tickets and stamp people, and obviously keep the money safe. So that is why we decided to give them the amount £20, it is a fair amount and reasonable.

With all these payments being made and after everything we spent on the chalk and the hooks we managed to make a very good amount of profit which was £101.66. We also had a bar set up and sold our drinks so on top of the £101.66 we got more from the bar. So it all turned out very well and everyone got fair amounts of money and deserved the right amount of money due to their roles and amount of work put in. 

Major Music Project (Unit 16) - Roles

To make this event successful there was a lot of planning involved, a lot of roles to be assigned and a lot of patience and time. 

This was our final gig so we had to make everything work well and make sure we were going to make the event very successful.

We first had to list the areas and what role each person is going to take, because in order to make this event successful we have to work as a team.

These are the areas we had to cover:

• Social Media
• Artwork (Poster/Flyer)
• Visuals
• Strategic Marketing
• Press/PR
• Tech Spec
• Sound
• Lighting

Social Media - First of all social media is really important because you want a lot of people to come depending on the capacity and you want to make as much money as possible. So in order for us to get the word out about the gig we assigned 2 people in our class that had the largest social ratings. So we chose caitlyn and la-shaun who have a lot of followers on twitter and a lot of friends on facebook. The date was already chosen with the college so once we knew the date and time the first thing they were assigned to do was create a facebook page, most people go on facebook these days it is a very famous social website and its a good place to create the event page for the gig and invite all of our friends, so once caitlyn and la-shaun invited us to the event page we could invite all our friends as well to make a big number of invites. The event page is so good for this event because on the event page caitlyn and la-shaun will put the date and time, how much it will be for entry, the address and any information that is necessary. Once the event page is created and everyone is invited to it, building up to the event all of us can post pictures and status every day or as much as possible to get people to notice and maybe take interest. Twitter is a very good social media website to get the word out, caitlyn and la-shaun already have loads of followers so if they post statuses and hashtag the event ‘PLAYBACK’ people will click on it and all other tweets with that hashtag will be there. 

The details that was put on the event page and the poster and flyers is:

PLAYBACK (COVER PHOTO IS THE POSTER/FLYER)

Wedesday 28th May

6:00pm

Westminster Kingsway College

211 Gray’s Inn Road, WC1X8RA

Price -

Adult: £4

Children: £2

There was a 2:00pm performance but that was just for college students and staff. So the information we put on the facebook page was for the evening performance which started at 18:00pm. But on the posters and flyers we put both 14:00pm and 18:00pm because we gave out the flyers around college and put the posters up around college. 

Artwork - The artwork includes the posters and flyers this is part of the promotion so we assigned Bianca to do the artwork because she has previous experience in making posters and flyers and designing them and from previous gigs we did with the college she designed our posters and flyers so we knew we could rely on her. Demver assisted her with the artwork, and once everything was done we printed posters and flyers because without the posters and flyers we would not get the most people we could get, the posters and flyers helps get people in the college come along to the event, there is loads of people attending in the college so the posters and flyers would attract their attention and because it is in the building they can go easily with no problem. 

There was lots of changes with the artwork:

This was the first artwork we got from Bianca

Then donavon was posting a countdown with the artwork and the amount of days left on the artwork on his facebook page and the event page.

We then figured out that bianca put the wrong time for the evening time she put 9:00pm instead of 6:00pm. So she changed it and we had to print all over again and re post on the social media websites we posted the picture on.

Visuals - Our next job was random but in a way connected to the event, because our event was called ‘Playback’ I came up with an idea to make a video of memories in the college and take new footage of our second year of college. Because I have had a lot of experience making videos for events and for family and friends and past schools, I thought it would be nice to do the same for the college and play it at our last gig. Everyone liked the idea so all I had to do was gather old footage of college memories into one folder and then borrow the college video camera and take footage of everyone rehearsing and having fun in college. At first the college wanted me to make a video footage and they would put the music to it, but then it turned out when they gave me the music I made the footage to the music because it made more sense. The teachers made a track of everyones songs put together to make the video more emotional and to the point that were leaving and this is our last gig. 

Here is footage without the music


*WILL NOT LET ME UPLOAD*

Here is the re made version with the music and the final version

*WILL NOT LET ME UPLOAD

Strategic Marketing - Now donavon and yemisi were in charge of this, strategic marketing is people who find other ways to promote the event, they would not do what the social media do and use most social media sites to spread the word, they would use the social sites but physically talk to their friends or whoever they want to attend and ask people to share the event page or the picture of the flyer, ask their friends to spread the word to their friends and family and send them the flyer. Another thing they would do is tell their friends and family with word of mouth and we had loads of gigs in may so when we found out about playback and the exact day and time, and the facebook page was up, they told people in one of our previous gigs which happened 2 weeks before, this was a good idea because using all these previous gigs building up to the actual event and telling people about the upcoming event and create new contacts etc. Because they are already at a gig and the performers who were performing were going to perform in playback, if they enjoyed the entertainment and performance they might consider coming back to the next event in this case it was playback. Another thing donavon did was make a countdown for the build up till the event. 

Here is one of the pictures he posted

He also posted pictures of us rehearsing with the countdown on the picture

Press/PR - Garnett was in charge of this role, he already had experience from music and industry assignments and that is what he concentrates on and what he wants to have a career in. Most of the roles was applied to people who already had experience and to people who are keen and 100% motivated to take the role on. We picked the assigned roles carefully and with a lot of thought and logic. Now the point of the press/PR is that someone who was garnett has to write a press release which is basically talking about the event and sending the article to the press and hoping it would catch their attention enough to write about the event and get us a larger audience. Without the press release and without the press we would get a smaller audience then what we could  of got with the press.

Tech Spec - Andre and Shenice were in charge of this role, their job is to make sure all the equipment is working okay, sounding okay, making sure everything is placed right on the day, finding out what equipment everyone needs and making sure it is there at the gig. Their main job is to get the best jack leads, amps, drum equipment, microphones and all the instruments or other equipment. They have to make sure instruments are in tune and that everything is placed right. They are the reason everything sounds in tune and good quality because they had to make sure all the equipment, leads and amps and etc were in good condition. 

Sound - We had sound engineers that were not part of our team, they are part of production course, but they helped the sound sound amazing. 

Lighting - Demver was in charge of the lighting with darlene assisting him. The lighting is very important because it gives the mood and the atmosphere to the performance and depending on the song and type of performance you have to put the right lighting. If someone was performing a really emotional and sad song you would see the lights all colourful and changing and going all crazy, it would be a simple lighting that would suit the song, maybe a specific colour and it would be dimmed and quite dull. So demver had to go round and asking all the performers about their songs and what vibe they want their song to be like, finding out what style of song, sad or upbeat etc. Once demver found all of this out he was not the one to actually work the lights he just had to gather the information with darlene assisting him and helping him out with asking people and finding information and giving the information to the lighting person. 

I generally feel that playback was very successful, we had a very good amount of audience it felt like the place was filled up, everyone seemed to enjoy the night and the performances and responded very positively by singing along, dancing along and even interacting with us. The sound was good there was no problems, everyone including the performers had fun, it was just a very good atmosphere, everyone left in a good mood with a smile on their face. Seeing that response means that everyone had a good time and enjoyed the performance and enjoyed themselves. We were all organised and rehearsed enough times so we knew what we were doing, everything felt scheduled and no one was really stressed out only if they were nervous. I feel that we could have done more with the promoting by putting up posters outside of college because only putting it up in college is not promising it is promising because it is in the college and anyone can show up easily, and there is a lot of people in the music course and we all have lots of friends around the college. But most people in college are probably tired and have their revision and work so it would of been good to publish around the area.