Week 3

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DATA

Lecture notes:

In Lab Classroom Rm2.7:

We revisited Week 2 to confirm that EVERYBODY has:

looked over the AUD176 Unit/Module (on Campus Online, and on the AUD176 site), and
the AUD176 Unit/Module Guide;
updated your Learning Journals across ALL 13 Weeks with the 3 Headings of: DATA, Reflection; and References for each and every week;
updated your Google Calendars with Unit/Module allocations across EVERY week for ALL of your Units/Modules, the obligatory Pre-Task Sessions, and the Post-Task Sessions per Unit/Modules;
have visited the SAE Audient ASP Studios with at least 1-2 to practice what you started last week in terms of Studio Signal Flow.
NOTE: Each week I am checking how many hours you have each been in the Studio over the past week;
enquired who has visited and engaged in the first few Chapters of Linked-in Learning 'Pro Tools 2021 Essential Training: 101 - The Basics' with Franke D Cooke??

In Lab Classroom Rm2.7:

Observe the Week 2 Learning Journals posts, receiving verbal feedback from peers and/or Lecturer;
Review in theory Week 2's content that has become the basis of your DATA for your Week 1 + 2 Learning Journal content (including Studio AUD176 Signal Flow);
Remind all of my Grading Criterion document - '21T3_Holistic Grading Levels criterion defined.20210916.P6.FINAL_DLP' - so you all understand how I am going to grade you;

Go down to the Studios:

every person reviewed Week 2's practical content of Stage 1,2,3; particularly focussing on establishing immediate comms with the Live Room/artist within the first 5 minutes of a Session;
1. Talkback - can the Live Room tech/artist hear us??
2. establish Signal Flow so we can hear them/what they are saying
3. add Headphone Mix so the artist can hear themselves/what they are saying
4. Add Reverb routing to add 'colour'/'fairy dust' to the HP Mix for the benefit of the artist
Most/all students struggled with this as a fluid/fluent process; and therefore we invested several hours into practicing this in order for each student to understand why and how; and then be able to execute it effectively and efficiently.

Back to Lab Classroom Rm2.7:

Revisit/review Pro Tools in Class Lab* Week 2's content (Creating a Session, Saving a Session, general layout of Edit and Mix windows, importing tracks effectively, Edit Tools, Edit Modes),

*Bringing decent over ear headphones for you to commence your journey in Critical Listening (eg Audio Technica ATH-M50X Pro Monitor Closed-back Headphones)

Importing a Stereo backing track (as they will need to do for their Signal Flow Exam)

Expand Week 2's Pro Tools content to include Week 3's Studio focus of Analogue Mixing

Import provided 8 tracks

Following Owsinski's 7 Step Mixing Process, Step 0: Set up DAW Session

Order Tracks as per industry standards (several ways to move tracks up/down)
Colour tracks

Go down to the Studios:

Expand Studio AUD176 Signal Flow to include (Stages 1,2,3), to include Week 3's Studio focus of Analogue Mixing (Stages 3,4,5)
Set up Pro Tools as per upstairs process just completed

Discuss/demonstrate analogue mixing process, following Owsinski's 7 Step Mixing Process

- Step 1: Gain structure (balance levels)

- Step 2: Panorama/Stereo Image/Stereo Field

- Step 3: Spectral (EQ & Filters), etc

Do a rough Mix, soloing individual tracks and then coming

[NOTE: Mixing is a subjective process , BUT informed by knowledge, experience and a clear goal]

Now to Print this Mix, using the Patchbay to create an alternative route back to console (due to all 8 tracks currently being taken)

[NOTE: See Photos in Week 3 shared DLP AUD176 Google Folder]

Concluded with clean up; and

Rolling Cables;

Introduce Condenser microphones (NT1A and NT2)

Signal Flow on the console - important to name all Mics on the Console via Marking Tape

Apply 48V bottom PRIOR TO/BEFORE ANY GAIN LEVEL is turned up!!!

Post-class Tasks to be completed:

Practice all of the above

Explore the shared DLP Google drive, especially Weeks 1, 2 and now Week 3 resources!!!

Progress your Project 1A and 1B

Signal Flow Practice

This week in class was spent practicing talkback, headphone mix and outboard gear.

Step one source to console: we connected a microphone in this case a Shure SM57 (2021) in the live room to a junction box/ cable snake which is connected to the patch bay which connects to back of the console. A pair of headphones can also be connected to the junction box directly or through a headphone splitter box.

Step two talkback: Depress the FB (foldback) button and turn up the communication dial slightly and look into the live room and establish one way communication to the artist. Next we start the signal flow process by depressing the MTR button and turning up the mic input gain at the top of the channel strip till we get a signal. Then on the channel path section we turn up the short fader to 0 and depress the mix button. The master fader then also goes to 0 and we turn the monitor dial up slightly till we get a signal through the monitors.

Step three headphone mix: On the channel AUXES section turn up the Qa and Qb dials to max then depress the short fader buttons for both. In the AUX MASTERS section turn up Qa and Qb master dials. In the STUDIO section under foldback A depress the C/RM button and the AUX A left and AUX B right buttons then turn the level dial up slightly till the artist hears a signal through the headphones.

Step four outboard gear: On the plug board connect a patch lead from Qa out into the reverb in, connect reverb left out into bus four left in, connect reverb right out into bus four right in. In the STEREO INPUTS section under channel four depress the mix button and turn up the level dial.

Take 1:

IMG_8060.MOV

Take 2:

IMG_8061.MOV

Studio Time

The final mix down/ print:

1025639_John_Murphy_Week3_20220222.mp3

On wednesday 23/2/2022 Ben and I booked a 2 hour session in studio 4816A. I helped Ben practice signal flow including talkback and headphone mix for the first half. In the second half I also practiced signal flow a couple times. but I spent most of my time practicing/ experimenting with mixing.

The previous day Dave had given us some stems of a song created by a class in Melbourne. The night before the studio session I took the stems home and prepared a Protools session and went trough and re aligned and re arranged the stems to save studio time. I also looked at the individual stems in Adobe Audition (2021) and cleaned them up a bit using some basic eq and gate/expansion on some of them. I added an 80hz high pass on the vocals and used a gate to remove the background noise and tame the breaths between sounds. The drum stems also had an expander added to try and isolate the specific instrument without affecting the individual sound too much.

Once in the studio on the computer I opened the project and routed the 8 tracks to the first 8 channels on the console. I then raised the first 8 large faders to 0 and depressed the mix button on all of them. Then I turned the master fader to 0 and pressed play on the computer and turned the monitor dial up till it was at an acceptable level. I wanted to use the reverb module so using three patch leads I connected AUX 1 out to the reverb input, then connected the reverb out left and right to the stereo input 4 left and right.

I set Protools to loop the song and I spent a large portion of my time practicing and experimenting with the mix. In the end I adding a small amount of reverb to the lead/ backup vocals and the ukulele. I did so by depressing the large fader button for AUX 1 on channels 6,7,8 and turned the dials up for the amount of reverb I wanted. I engaged the EQ section for channels 1,2,3,4,5,7,8 and adjusted the base and treble depending on the instrument for instance the kick and bass I turned the bass up and the treble down. I also adjusted the long faders to bring up and down certain elements depending on what I thought sounded best. At this time I also turned the master fader down and turned the monitor dial up as the master was clipping. There was no strict process I followed while mixing I would solo channels and adjust them to sound good then hear the mix and go back and forwards and re adjust things till time started running out and I was happy enough with it.

For the final mix down/ print I didn't have enough patch leads to do a stereo record with the reverb included as I only had four leads and three were being used for reverb. So I used the forth lead and connected it from the left master out into interface DAW input 8 and on a new track in Protools set the input to channel 8 and recorded the mix. Then I moved the lead from the master out left to the master out right and created a new track with the input set to channel 8 and hit record again. Then in protocols I set the first recording the left channel and the second recording to the right channel and hit solo the two track and bounced the recording thus giving me a stereo mixdown recording.

Reflection

What?

What activities have I completed this week?

This week I practised mixing on the consoles using the multitrack recording from another campus that David had given us to play around with. I set up Pro Tools and the console so I could spend an hour practicing mixing. I also helped Ben practise his signal flow so he can get faster at it and helped him out when he needed it. I also recorded myself doing 2 signal flow runs from start to end so I can watch them back later so determine where I need to be quicker as well as to help myself remember what needed to be done.

So What?

So, what have I learned this week?

This week I learned how to help other people with their signal flow and it's made me start thinking that I might like teaching audio one day. However I should probably learn more about it to begin with before I go down that path. I learned how to print the console to tape using the patch bay and the interface. I learned more about the m350 reverb unit itself and played around the dials using my basic understanding of how reverb effects worked I was able to get it sounding interesting. I also learned now that I really want to get a console and I also learned that they are very expensive so we are very long time until I can do that.

Am I on the right track with this unit?

So far I'm really loving this unit I'm loving beyond being able to use the hardware and software to do professional recordings. It's really opening my eyes and making me realise that this is what I want to do instead of my current job and i really want to change industries.

Now What?

Now what will I do to move forward?

The patch Bay although I do understand it, it does have some areas where I don't 100% understand how they have wired the studio specifically. I'd like to look at the patch pay more an using the consoles manual trying figure out how it's connected. I also want to learn more about the reverb and the compression units and start using them as inserts on tracks.

References

Adobe. (2021). Adobe Audition Audio recording and editing software. Adobe. Retrieved 8 November 2021, from https://www.adobe.com/au/products/audition.html.

AVID. (2022). Protools. avid.com. Retrieved 15 March 2022, https://www.avid.com/pro-tools.

Shure. (2021). SM57 Dynamic Instrument Microphone. Shure.com. Retrieved 8 November 2021, from https://www.shure.com/en-ASIA/products/microphones/sm57.

Audient. (2022). Audient asp4816. audient.com. Retrieved 8 February 2022, from https://audient.com/products/consoles/asp4816/overview/.

DBX. (2022). dbx 166xs. dbxpro.com. Retrieved 8 February 2022, from https://dbxpro.com/en/products/166xs.

TC Electronic. (2022). TC Electronic M350. Tcelectronic.com. Retrieved 8 February 2022, from https://www.tcelectronic.com/product.html?modelCode=P0CJP.

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