Studio Manual (2014)

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Studio Operation manual By James Bates 14th November 2014

In this guide Ill brie fly summarise how to operate the college recording studio, and howeverything is configured. Ill also go over recording / microphone techniques etc. Firstly Illgo audio interfaces / AD conversion. IN the studio the main preamps / converters comefrom a pair of MOTU 828 interfaces, daisy chained together to double the I/O count (inputand output). They are chained together VIA ADAT light-pipe digital cable where one unitwould act as the master clock and the other would be the slave, or via an analogue pair ofWord-Clock cables.

The interfaces are plugged into the mac via Firewire, which functions similarly to usb but isquicker & more stable. In the recording spaces theres XLR / jack panels in the walls.These XLR inputs are routed to the inputs on the back of the MOTU 828s. Its a quickprocess to record in other rooms as theres enough inputs to leave everything plugged inall the time. Theres also a few Instrument inputs on the front of the 828s to enable theproducer to DI Guitars or basses and make the most of any virtual amps which logic 9 hasto offer, Theres also 4 XLR inputs on the fronts of the units to enable you to record arough vocal without having to set up a condenser mic in one of the live rooms. As far asoutputs are concerned All of the outputs on the sound cards go to line inputs on theSoundcraft mixing desk.

This enables you to set an individual output for each track in logic and send it to a channelon the desk and mix in the analogue world if you want. All of the monitoring is dealt withthrough the mixing desk, theres a pair of outputs on the desk for the main studio monitorswhich are KRK E8s, the predecessor to the top of the line KRK expose product line.These monitors provide a pretty flat response across the frequency spectrum and a morethan adequate for a college studio. Also due to the size of the woofer they provide a verywide frequency response which extends well below the 45HZ region! This lets you hearexactly whats going on in your mix, even in the extreme lows, which most systems cantreplicate.

Theres another secondary output on the desk which allows for a secondary pair of studiomonitors to be hooked up. These monitors can be used to provide a reference to see howyour mix translates on multiple sets of speakers, for example. If the mix is sounding great

on the KRKs But a little too bright on the secondary speakers then its probably best tofind a happy medium which will sound good on most playback systems. Theres also anoutput on the desk which runs pre- fader, regardless of the monitor volume. This outputfeeds a headphone amp. This headphone amp has lots of channels each with their ownvolume, pan buttons which means that multiple mixes can be sent from the outputs of theheadphone amp into the mic panels in the recording rooms. For example if the singersheadphones are loud enough but the drummer needs more volume, easily recti fied as theyare on separate channels as opposed to finding a medium for all the musicians in theroom.

This covers the basics for the configuration of the main studio, Im now going to brie flydiscuss how id record the typical band in the studio.

First off i usually follow the same guidelines for inputs with everything i do, It usually goes1.kick in 2. Sub-kick / kick out (if there is one)

3. Snare 4. Snare bottom (if there is one) 5 Hat 6. tom 1

7. tom 2 8. floor tom 9 Overhead L 10. Overhead R 11. Room mic (if there is one) 12. BassDI Any music usually comes after this (guitars keyboards etc) (Vocals are usually last)

Drum recording

With the kick drum I Like to use two microphones, this is especially undecided if themusicians arent certain as to what sound they are going for. Say you record the drums fora typical rock song but afterwards you decide to take the track in a more heavy / metal(you are going to need a more clicky metal kick drum) I like to use a typical D112 dynamicmicrophone inside the kick aimed at the beater head to get a lot of click and attack fromthe drum. I then like to put a condenser mic or rewired subwoofer speaker microphone onthe outside of the kick to capture the warmth and body, I can then blend these to taste inthe mixing process depending on what sort of sound Im going for. Snare, I like to record 2


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snare microphones, (both usually Shure SM57s) I place one mic on the top of the snareaimed right in the middle of the drum head capturing the overall sound of the drum, I thenlike to place the second microphone underneath the snare pointing at the snare wires. Thiscaptures a much brighter sound. I can then blend these to taste in the mixing processdepending on how bright i would like my snare to be. With double mic-ing the snare drumits always important to be careful of phasing problems, as this is a common place wherephasing occurs. Youll hear if its out of phase if you loose bottom end by playing both mice

at the same time. Its an easy fix and usually be resolved by flipping the phase on one ofthe microphones with logics gain plugin. Its always important to check the snares phasewith the overheads too as this can usually be out of phase!

Toms are pretty simple, I place microphone (dynamic) on the toms. If they arent going tobe used much in the song I may choose not to mic them! the overhead technique i usepicks up the toms quite well anyway. For more attack i bring the mics closer, but for moretone and character from the toms its better to back the tom microphones off a little bitand give the drum space to hear its tone. Hi hat is simple, I place the hat mic (smalldiaphragm pencil condenser) at the hi hat, i tend to use the hi hat as a baf fle to separate itfrom the snare, this is done with clever microphone placement in such a way that the hi-hat, blocks the microphones line of sight to the snare, which helps a little with isolation andbleed when mixing! Overheads: The technique i use for overheads is quite unconventional

but works, and sounds great most of the time, it captures a very direct sound of the kit andfocuses on the sound of the kit as a whole, as opposed to just the cymbals. I use a pair ofcondenser microphones, the first mic goes Two drum sticks above the snare drum lookingdirectly down onto the snare drum. I then place the second microphone behind thedrummers right shoulder pointing directly at the snare drum. I also measure 2 micsdistances from the snare and kick to make sure they are equal.

I do this by holding an XLR cable to the beater head of the kick drum i then pull the cableup to the first mic above the snare and let the rest of the cable hang down onto the snaredrum. This forms a triangle. I then hold the other end of the cable on the snare drum head.The top point of the triangle i then move to over my right shoulder, thats where the secondmicrophone should be placed. By doing this im making sure that both mice are equaldistance from kick and snare, so that they stay in the centre of the stereo image, (which is

quite hard for me to hear as I only have one fully functioning ear!!) Thats about it fordrums. Sometimes its good to place an extra microphone in a good sounding spot in theroom to capture the overall sound of the kit in the room. This can really bring a dead drumrecording to life!

The pictures Below show another way i recorded the drums. This time i used a moresimple setup opting for only one kick drum mic half in and half out of the kick, I found asweet spot where the kick kick wasnt too clickly or too warm & suited the song.Sometimes its best to make decisions earlier on in the process as opposed to givingyourself to many choices & then having to spend ages making more decisions whenmixing. With regards to overheads i went for another technique, which is more favouredwith live recording. Considering i close Mic-d everything i decided to use the overheads topick up more of the cymbals/ room as opposed to getting an overall sound of the kit. With

pop music most of the sound / punchiness comes from the close mics & heavycompression anyways. as opposed to going for an organic natural sound which the firsttechnique i explained gives you. These pictures below give a visual representation of how icaptured the drum recording.


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Recording: Mic techniques/ Choices Other instruments

Bass is simple, Its plugged into a DI Box, the Di box then goes into the microphone panelin the wall and into logic. The bass can also be DId in the control room by plugging intoone of the instrument inputs on the front of the MOTU 828 sound card.

Guitar is also simple, An Sm57 works fine on a guitar amp, the guitar can also be DIdusing the same process as the bass. This means you can decide on a guitar sound lateron in production / mixing process as opposed to settling on the sound coming from the

amp!Keyboards are Also DId much like the bass, some Keyboards may be stereo though somay require 2 DI boxes.


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Vocals are pretty simple,a large diaphragm condenser works great on vocals Whenrecording vocals in a live environment with a band its best to use a dynamic microphonesuch as a Shure sm58, as itll pick up a lot less bleed from the other instruments as acondenser, Is less sensitive to hi SPLs (sound pressure levels) (volume), and can beplayed through a PA system a lot louder than a condenser without feedback issues. Itsgood to experiment when recording vocals in the studio, the nearer you get to a cardioidmicrophone the more bottom end is recorded. This is known as the proximity effect

It can be used to your advantage to warm up a thin sounding vocalist. The nearer you getto a microphone the more boomy it becomes, but when you keep going back away from amic the more room sound is picked up. Theres a sweet spot at around 8-12 inches away,but this differs, let your ears be the judge! Also the nearer you stand to a mic the morenoticeable minor head movements make to the volume of the recording, whereas whenyou step back, these little head movements are barely audible!

Its good to use a pop filter as a spacer to the mic to prevent a singer getting too close oncertain phrases! It also prevents Plosives (when air hits the microphone capsule when Psand Bs etc. are said.) This guide brie fly describes how the college studio functions andprovides a basic guide on how to record different instruments in it.

Explanations:

Parametric EQ: Parametric EQs are often found in plugin format but there are Alsoanalogue Parametric EQs. Parametric Eqs are extremely flexible Eqs which are oftenused for surgically cutting frequencies & general repair work when mixing as they allow formore flexibility compared to other eq types (graphic eqs, fixed band eqs etc.) Whatdifferentiates parametric Eqs from other types is you can specify exactly what frequencyyou want to boost or attenuate and by how much , as opposed to working on an API 500afor example, the frequencies are speci fied, 800HZ, 1k. 1.5k 2k ETC. Also you can onlyboost & cut in 2DB increments, whereas on a parametric you can boost or cut the exactamount you want. Youve also got control of the bandwidth of the cut or boost (Q) thisdetermines how wide or narrow you would like the EQ move to be. For example If youwant to get some more crack on the snare you may just want an extremely wide Q subtleboost at about 10k. However if Youre getting a resonance at 350HZ in the lower midrange

of the snare, you may want a very narrow surgical Q with a dramatic cut at this frequency.This is all possible with a parametric EQ.

Shelf EQ: Theres 2 possible types of shelves when it comes to EQ. Theres a High shelfand a low shelf. A high shelf eq effects all of the frequencies at and above the placementof that EQ band, whereas a low shelf EQ will affect all of the frequencies at and below thechosen frequency. In short, If you want to round out a kick and get more bottom you maywant to use a low shelf EQ just above the kicks fundamental & resonant frequency atabout 80HZ Just a few DB boost. You may then also want to high pass filter the kick atabout 40HZ to get rid of the rumble which doesnt aid the kick sound and may cause it tosound a little flabby.

Subtle things like this can really tighten up the extreme bottom end of a mix.

Audio interface: The audio interface is one of the main components in the modernrecording studio environment. Its the main hub which everything runs through, You needan audio interface in order to provide a preamp to get the microphone signal up to linelevel (if you dont have the luxury of an external preamp) Audio interfaces also provideAnalogue- Digital & Digital-Analogue conversion. This means that once the signal is at anadequate volume it gets converted into the digital format so that the computer can workwith it. The benchmark for most audio interfaces is 44.1k which means that the conversiontakes 44,100 snapshots of the sound per second. There is however some converterscapable of working in higher sample rates such as 192k. With these larger formats comesa larger file size. The audio interface also converts the digital sound from the computerback to analogue so that it can be routed to speakers /headphone amps etc. In short theinterface is the main component of a studio.

Signal level: The volume / level of audio, the maximum in the digital domain is 0.0DBanything above this will distort & clip, Digital clipping occurs when the signal crosses0.0DB. This means that any waveform peak which crosses this will be cut off. Digital


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clipping can sound nasty, but it can be manipulated into some productions and really aidthe sound. (but dont do this in a school environment as Clipping of any sorts is seen as abad thing to teachers... Try and imagine Drakes headlines without all the digital grit, itwould sound extremely sterile and clean!

Direct Injection: The process of boosting instrument level up to a recordable level cleanly.This is achieved with the use of DI boxes, or the DIs on an audio interfaces instrumentinput.

Patch-bay: A patch bay allows signal to be routed to and from any piece of equipmentconnected to it. This saves you from having to go behind your studio desk to route piecesof analogue equipment to and from each other, as all of the inputs and outputs can beconnected to the patch bay where they are all in one place and equipment can be routedinto other equipment with the use of patch cables. This is a much simpler way of working.Patch-bays come in normalised & half normalised con figurations. But the most commonhalf normalised setup if you plug in a patch cable from the front it will over ride anyconnections which are plugged in on the back, this means you can have two pieces ofequipment which are usually set up together always plugged in on the back, but if youwant to temporarily change this con firmation you can over ride it by plugging in on thefront.

VU Meter A VU meter informs you how hard you are driving the preamp. It lets you know ifyou are going to clip. (Often found on external preamps, The input of an analoguecompressor, or the preamp section of a desk. more modern preamps use different types ofmetering often a simple Led meter which flashes orange when a few DB off of clipping andred when the clip occurs.

Noise Gate: A noise gate allows you to control dynamically what you would like to hearand what you wouldnt. For example when mixing the snare, you may want to isolate thesnare hit and control the ghost notes / bleed from the rest of the kit. You can set athreshold on a gate much like you can on a compressor, but the only difference is, oncethe sound reaches or exceeds the threshold you set the gate will open allowing soundthrough. This means the Gate will open once the transient of the snare crosses thethreshold then close again once it dips below the threshold, You can control the decay of

the snare with the release. (how long it takes to close once the peak dips below thethreshold again) The snare is one example but theres many uses for a noise gate. Onsome gates you can also control how much the gate closes by, for example you may wishto side chain a gate on a tambourine loop to a backbeat snare. This means that the gateopens once the snare hits, you could then set the reduction to 5DB or so. This means thatthe tambourine comes up 5DB when the snare hits on the 2 & 4, Increasing the dynamicrange. Some mixes may call for this.

Outboard Compressor:

An outboard compressor functions the same as a regular compressor. You can set thethreshold and attack & release times to control the dynamics of a track. for example youmay want to control the peaks of a vocal in order to fit in into a mix more, You may only

want a slow attack to let the transient through then a quick release in order for thecompressor to come back up and deal with the next peak. Compression is a longprocedure to explain so this is quite a brief overview of what it does, As ive discussed it inlength before.

Health & Safety issues in the studio

Make sure that microphone cables are obvious and arent a trip hazard. This is not onlydangerous for you, its also dangerous when youve got a 1000 microphone hangingabove a drum kit, its going to be expensive for you if it drops... When working withequipment which has a class B or above amplifier bare in mind that it can get quite hot. Itsimportant to allow ventilation space when working with this equipment and not stackinglots of rack gear on top of each other. When working in the studio Its best to be modest innumbers as overcrowding can lead to health and safety issues and increase the chance ofequipment breaking.

How to Route signal from the live room to the desk, then to the computer via anexternal compressor


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Firstly Ill plug a microphone into the input id wish to record on, for the purpose of thisexplanation ill use input 1. Input one on the multicore cable in the live room will show upon the corresponding input on the desk. Ill then adjust the gain on the preamp accordingly.On the output of this channel ill send it to a bus which has an external compressor set upon it. The output of this compressor will then run back into the channel which the mic is on.The main output of this channel then runs into the corresponding input on the audiointerface. This audio interfaces preamp gets bypassed as its a line level signal from the

output of the desk (As ive used the desk preamp) It then gets converted to digital at thechosen sample rate (usually 44.1k) Once its in the digital domain, it gets sent to thecomputer Via firewire where the computer can deal with it an manipulate it as required bythe user (in the DAW Logic).

Mixing live drums

All of this is generalised as mixing is an art form so these are just the usual things id do.When doing this use your ears... If it sounds right it is right. No bullshit ooh you cantboost 24db at 12k on snare its not right well i just did and it sounds great now leave mealone... no ones going to see your EQ. mix with your ears.

When mixing live drums the first thing ill do is push the faders up and check for phaseproblems. The main spots which tend to be out of phase are the snare to the overheads.

Its easier to check phase problems in mono so I like to pan the overheads up the middleor use a mono button. Another spot which tends to be out of phase, is the relationshipbetween the top & bottom snare. You can tell somethings out of phase as its very thin andlacking in warmth and body. If you flip the phase using a plugin & it gets warmer/fatter.Then its the correct thing to do, however if it gets even thinner it means that it was eitherin phase before, or its not 180 degrees out of phase (somewhere in between) if this is thecase i suggest you look into your mic placement or get a plugin which allows you to flip thephase more accurately than just 180 degrees. Sometimes its a matter of taste and an outof phase snare may suit the track more than a rounder fat snare. (this is rarely the case)

Once everything is working well in terms of phase relationships. I like to bus everything,Firstly Ill bus the individual kick & snare mics to a kick bus and a snare bus (if theres onlyone mic I wont bother with this procedure. The kick & snare busses are then sent the the

drum bus. On the drum bus Ill apply subtle compression with a 2;1 ratio, a slow attack & afast release (in time with the track), This compression is to glue the kit together and controlany large peaks slightly. (its more for vibe than anything technical as i like to use an SSL4000G mix bus compressor Or an API 2500 with a medium knee) I then like to back thisup with a Pultec boosting the extreme top end with a very wide bandwidth, also boostingthe warmth at about 100HZ by a few DB.

I then like to send the drum bus to a parallel drum track, with an all buttons in blue face1176 slow attack really fast release squashing the drums. I then blend this in subtly and itreally brings some energy and punch into the drum sound!

As well as an overall parallel drum track i also like to use a parallel snare & kick. For theparallel snare make a bus from the snare bus with an Opto compressor with a 25ms attack

80 ms release 6:1 ratio (with about 8db of gain reduction.) These are similar attack/release times to that of a classic DBX 160XT compressor which is a very aggressive hardknee compressor designed for squashing drums. I then back this compressor up with anAPI 550 giving that classic api body & midrange. Boosting 1500 by a few DB, boosting 200by a few db and cutting the highs. This ends up sounding like a very squashedaggressive / fat sounding snare, I then blend this in with the unprocessed snare & it reallyhelps bring it alive! With the kick i do the same thing but i use a pultec boosting the bottomend and cutting in the 3k region.

With regards to the individual tracks i treat these differently each time i mix live drums. Illlisten to the sound of the kit and if anything bad is sticking out ill dive into the individualmics and cut resonating /problems frequencies with narrow parametric EQs. For the mostpart however, very little processing is needed on the drums as I do most of the work on the

busses. For example ill do most of the snare EQ on the bus boosting the extreme top endto really the snare crack, i may do the same with the bottom end at about 150HZ.

This brie fly explains what I do when mixing drums, but its up to you to know when to apply


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these techniques and use your ears to work out what EQ speci fic sounds need. Its all well& good me saying i brighten the snare, but ill only brighten it if it needs brightening! Youcant teach mixing, its taste you can only teach the techniques required to mix.

Once im happy with the drum sound & mix Ill bounce out the mix (shortcut Cmd B) (oftenwith subtle compression & EQ on the mix bus) and bounce it as Mix 1 (as a 24bit WAVfile.) Ill then open up a new logic session & save it as the mastering session. I seemastering as the final process, mixing the mix! Ill apply EQ & limiting to the overall mix,With EQ i like to use Fab filters ProQ in linear phase mode (minimal phase shift and mosttransparent) I use it in mid side mode. Ill reference a commercial master If my mix is a bitmuddy in comparison ill do a subtle wide boost at 400HZ to de- mud and open up thebottom & top end of the master. Ill use the EQ in mid/side mode so i can treat the middleinformation different to the sides. For example ill high pass filter the side information up to200Hz or so (this means anything below this is in mono) This gives space for the kick &the bass to be in their own space bang up the middle! Ill also find a frequency spot in themiddle information which really brings the vocal to life, Ill then cut this spot in the sides sothe vocal has a place to live ( usually between 1 & 2 KHZ. ) I may also do this with themusic (boost a spot in the sides where the music comes to life and then cut it in thecentre.) After Im happy with my Master EQ ill then apply a limiter to get the track to acommercial level (without sounding too squashed) I like to compress quite a lot in the

mixing process so there arent too many transients which are going to be killed by themastering limiter. Once Its at a commercial level without sounding to squashed ill bounceout (saved as mast 1) This time as an MP3. This is the mix master process complete. Iftheres any issues i can go and fix them and bounce it out as mast 2, 3 etc. (usually i getthe mix and master sounding great in the first 2 or 3 attempts.)

Diagram/ Plan of the studio area

The images below show a diagram of the the studio area also a channel strip diagram:


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By James Bates 14th November 2014.

Documents

Studio Manual (2014)