Recording different microphones (studio tests). 25th January 2010

25th January 2010: 9.30am

  Today for the CDM (thats creative digital media)students, I had to prepare a song with a backing track for them to record for there assignment.

AIM:

To put into practice and reinforce the knowledge I have gained in the past and build on it to develop for future purposes. 

OBJECTIVES:

• To be professional in every aspect and to do what is expected of me (the artist) within the studio.
• Get involved within the recording process as much as i can.
• Ask necessary questions widen my range of understanding.

Hello followers :) 

I had a chance to be in the studio for a take of 'Beautiful' by Christina.A. But I didn't know they wanted me to do a lot more than I had anticipated. Such as studio tests on microphones.

Their assignment task was to record many different samples through as many different microphones as they could to get the best sounding takes and to reason with each other why this was...

Seeing as I was doing the song Beautiful, they decided that they were going to take snippits from me doing a 10-20 second take from the beginning of the song. 

This helped me relax into the environment and become accustomed to everything that was going on around me. It also gave me a lot of time to warm up as it was the morning you wouldn't think that there was much time to practice!! WELL your WRONG!.

PRACTICE THAT IS AVAILABLE TO YOU WHEN YOU ARE A SINGER: 

• TO YOUR ALARM CLOCK (IF MUSICAL)
• TO/IN/FROM THE SHOWER
• WHISLT WAITING FOR YOUR TOAST
• ALONG TO THE HUMM OF THE MICROWAVE
• IN THE CAR TO THE RADIO/TRACK
• WHEN YOUR AT THE STUDIO YOU SHOULD BE READY AND WARMED UP!! :)

So this extra time was really good for my voice. 

A HELPFUL TIP:

Oh did you know..

DON'T:-

DRINK COKE 
EAT CHEESE 
CONSUME BREAD

before singing it tightens your vocal chords making you sound schreechy and different to how you would like to sound. It takes 3 hours to ware off so think prior to studio sessions what you consume.

Some of the testings were really interesting for me, whist they were looking for the best sound they could get I was focusing on dynamics in which mics and levels and were they all correct. This can helf me in the future as I can speak to the engineer to say what I know and have a conversation about what sounds best and the most important factor.. WHY!


 Some takes were glitchy in places but I think thats the sensitive microphones and me being to loud. In a recording session you wouldn't be there for 2.5hours just testing to see if your mic is okay. This session showed me how intricate things can be. Spending that long on tests is a long time, but the outcomes were good and you can see a real difference between particluar microphones if you know what your looking for e.g.- depth, range, ambience, all round feel. 

This session was boring as it was the same thing for 2 and a half hours- yet informative. I have learnt to explore different techniques that I can use with different mics such as the placement in relation to myself, as they al have different pick up patterns.  


Mic 1. CS5; Studio Projects (Pjt)
Mic 2. XM18005; Behringer
Mic 3. T97; Multi-Pattern;Studio Pjt.
Mic 4. T3; Duel Triode; Studio Pjt.


The tube microphone was left to warm up for an 1.5hours.




:) 
GemmDave

♥