1. Polarity, in relation to audio, is the relationship between two waveforms with regard to reversing the positive and negative portions of the waveform. It is a big concern because signals can interact with each other differently depending on how their polarities line up. If both signals are positive, they combine to create some things stronger! Same goes for negative ways. However, if two waves are completely out of polarity, 180 degrees, the two waves cancel out and nothing is heard.
2. Phase, in relation to audio, is the relationship between two signals in regards to time. This is important because, like in polarity, waves can interact in odd ways if the phase is shifted even a slight bit. You can take a wave and shift it as many degrees as you would like, and it will move the wave accordingly. However, the same rules for polarity also apply here— if you move one wave 90 degrees, the waves will now be out of sync and will make the wave either combine to be stronger or weaker.
3. The 3-1 rule is used in microphone placement. If you have two microphones, you want to make the distance in between the two mice three times the distance that is between the first mic and the source of the sound you are recording. Using this technique helps reduce the risk of phase cancellation in your recording—this is because the level of sound going into the second mic is a lot less than the level going into the first mic.
4. Dither is applied to digital recordings by adding noise below the softest sound. It is mainly used when lowering the bit depth of a certain recording. This is a risky process that can lead to a lot of quantization errors; however, the dither helps reduce those by helping them become a bit more random over the course of the audio.
5. A high pass filter that lets through (passes) all frequencies high than a certain cutoff frequency and take out (attenuates) all frequencies below that point. The amount and severity depend on things like the slope. This is a good thing to put on instruments that produce sound in the high end of the frequency spectrum. A microphone pad is used to help maintain a signal that does not overload the preamp with high levels of output. It is a switch either on the microphone or the console, and once activated, provides a buffer to reduce the output of the mic about 10dB.
6. Latency can be a big pain, and happens when recording or working in a DAW. When recording, for example, the sound travels a long way from being played and taken in at the mic to being processed by the DAW and then finally back out to the speakers. In reality this only takes a few milliseconds, but that is enough to throw off a recording. In order to change this in Pro Tools, you can turn on Low-Latency Monitoring.
7. There are many different ways to record drums. For instance, you can record a snare by placing a microphone on the top head, making sure to keep the back of it pointed at the hi-hat to keep out that from the track. You can also place one on the bottom head, but be sure to check for polarity and phase issues with that. For the tom-tom, you can place separate microphones pointed inwards and towards the heads, with the microphone itself being right above the rim of the drum. Bass drums can be recorded with the microphone inside the drum if there is a hole in the head, or just a few inches from the head if not. The hi-hat can be recorded with it’s own microphone. The crash/china/splash cymbals can be recorded with overheads. You can also use an omnidirectional microphone to record the room and the drums all at once.
2. Phase, in relation to audio, is the relationship between two signals in regards to time. This is important because, like in polarity, waves can interact in odd ways if the phase is shifted even a slight bit. You can take a wave and shift it as many degrees as you would like, and it will move the wave accordingly. However, the same rules for polarity also apply here— if you move one wave 90 degrees, the waves will now be out of sync and will make the wave either combine to be stronger or weaker.
3. The 3-1 rule is used in microphone placement. If you have two microphones, you want to make the distance in between the two mice three times the distance that is between the first mic and the source of the sound you are recording. Using this technique helps reduce the risk of phase cancellation in your recording—this is because the level of sound going into the second mic is a lot less than the level going into the first mic.
4. Dither is applied to digital recordings by adding noise below the softest sound. It is mainly used when lowering the bit depth of a certain recording. This is a risky process that can lead to a lot of quantization errors; however, the dither helps reduce those by helping them become a bit more random over the course of the audio.
5. A high pass filter that lets through (passes) all frequencies high than a certain cutoff frequency and take out (attenuates) all frequencies below that point. The amount and severity depend on things like the slope. This is a good thing to put on instruments that produce sound in the high end of the frequency spectrum. A microphone pad is used to help maintain a signal that does not overload the preamp with high levels of output. It is a switch either on the microphone or the console, and once activated, provides a buffer to reduce the output of the mic about 10dB.
6. Latency can be a big pain, and happens when recording or working in a DAW. When recording, for example, the sound travels a long way from being played and taken in at the mic to being processed by the DAW and then finally back out to the speakers. In reality this only takes a few milliseconds, but that is enough to throw off a recording. In order to change this in Pro Tools, you can turn on Low-Latency Monitoring.
7. There are many different ways to record drums. For instance, you can record a snare by placing a microphone on the top head, making sure to keep the back of it pointed at the hi-hat to keep out that from the track. You can also place one on the bottom head, but be sure to check for polarity and phase issues with that. For the tom-tom, you can place separate microphones pointed inwards and towards the heads, with the microphone itself being right above the rim of the drum. Bass drums can be recorded with the microphone inside the drum if there is a hole in the head, or just a few inches from the head if not. The hi-hat can be recorded with it’s own microphone. The crash/china/splash cymbals can be recorded with overheads. You can also use an omnidirectional microphone to record the room and the drums all at once.
 |  |
RSS Feed