Alesis Multiport Desktop Recording Universal
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Studio Considerations The magic of the recording studio has oftentimes mystified even the most seasoned professionals. With all the knobs, switches and buttons on respective gear and huge format consoles, no wonder confusedness sets in to most non-techies. Many people, peculiarly artists, composers, producers, and engineers, will end up putting together their own studio for writing and pre-production, with a heap of in the end settling to take the plunge and invent a full-fledged recording complex that is competent of recording major albums. This article will try to shed galore light on the considerations to take into account when making a studio, be it a little home studio or a professional recording studio. Is size important? Some may say it is so but this is not always the case. The dimensions of the studio are very important. A room too big may become over-reverberant or full of undesirable echoes. A room too little may sound tight and unnatural. It is important that the room size and room sound is applicable to the type of music you are recording. You don’t want to go into a very little tight room to record BIG rock drums. Although, big room sounds may be achieved by adding external reverb effects to simulate rooms at a later time when necessary. It is best to find the room that suits the sound you are attempting to achieve from the beginning of the recording process. The littler the room, the littler and tighter the sound will be; this is not inevitably a bad thing. Small tight rooms may be good for vocals, guitars and percussion if you are going for a tight clean sound. Larger rooms have more air for the sound to travel in, so it will be in fact a more prominent more open sound. The sound has a longer travel time for the sound wave to move, hence the reflectivity from the walls will take longer to bounce back creating a more prominent more spacious sound. The decision of size and sound has to be made early on before the recording starts. One vantage that a more prominent room will have is the capacity to be scaled down by closing up the room using modular baffles or gobos (go betweens). Gobos are structures that are partitions, that aid to block sound by placing them in among the musicians, instruments, and microphones. Placing the gobos around the microphone at a close distance will help a huge room with too much ambiance sound smaller. This will eliminate the reflections coming off of the walls that are further away. Small rooms may construct big heavy tight sounds with the absence of the decay from the reverb that is caused from big rooms. Sometimes a big room may sound like it’s washed out, or far away. With a good engineer any room may sound astounding with a little adjusting. A poor sounding room may be manipulated to sound good, though it requires much more work and time. Deciding on the proper room size for your needs is critical to the sounds that get re-produced. This will highly dictate the type of sound the microphones will pick up. Clapping your hands in a room may give a good representation of what a room will sound like. The reflectiveness coming off the walls will be picked up by a simple hand clap. The unfeigned test is to try out numerous instruments or vocals and position them in respective sections of the room until reaching the optimal sound quality. If one side of the room sounds bad try a dissimilar spot or move around into a corner until the sound is improved. Experimenting with dissimilar segmentations of the room also keeps the sound fresh when recording a heap of instruments. If the acoustic guitars are recorded in the center of the room, when the time comes to record the electric guitars you may try recording them in a corner of the room for a dissimilar room sound. This gives clarity on the final mix creating separation and supplying more distinction on respective sounds. If you are starting your own studio, do not forget that the more prominent the studio the higher amount the bills will be. The gain is that more prominent studios may charge more for their studio rates. Getting the Necessities If you take place to reach that elite 2% and become that million dollar, hit selling, widely known and esteemed producer or artisan (or if you just win the lotto), then you might in the long run think in regards to buying severe studio gear and setting up your own producer paradise. Acquiring the proper instrumentation and labor is key to a great studio and successful recordings. Studio gear is pricey and the noesis of those who use the gear does not come cheap. Hiring the right humans may save cash and time in the long run. Studio designers likewise are distinguishing trait breeds that may make or break your studio. Your buddy Joe the carpenter may be competent to support build it for less, yet if the studio is not the right way isolated for sound it is a great waste of time, energy and finances. The studio engineer is likewise the focal point of the sound that is created. Having an experienced engineer involved in the procedure will make your sound have a reputation of it is own. He is the extra set of ears that gives another dimension to your productions. He is likewise a critical consulting collaborator when building or choosing to rent a studio. Let the experts support you with advice, it will develop less of a headache in the long run. The experienced engineer may fill you in on all the instrumentation necessitated for recording the music that is applicable to your world. He may also give galore guidelines on how the studio must be set up before having to consult a designer. There is no room for guessing or assumption on these issues. Check List: Part 1 When purchasing studio gear it is wise to exploration only what is utterly necessary for your style of music. If you’re not recording live drums in your studio, there is no need to buy a plethora of microphones for them. By being patient and buying goods around for the best prices, a mass amount of cash may be saved in the end. When you save $50 to $100 bucks on each piece of gear it genuinely adds up in the end, and there is a ton of gear necessitated to put a proper studio together. Below is a basic studio checklist that will be discussed in further detail in later articles. These are the necessities of innovative day recordings and the tools that are most ordinarily used in the best studios around the world. The Studio Gear Checklist: Recording / Mixing Console The engineer or producer operates the consolation that controls all of the levels for recording, playback and mixing. This is the huge board that has all the buttons, switches, knobs, faders which control the levels and signal routing for each instrument. This could be referred to as a board, consolation or mixer. The most mutual consoles in major studios are SSL (Solid State Logic) or Neve. The consolation is the most indispensable piece of gear in the studio. It controls the overall operations of signal flow and sound manipulation. The solace allows for each instrument to be on it is own channel on the board. Each channel may then have effects inserted into it is signal path to heighten the sound. A signal may likewise be routed to external gear for further manipulation. Anything that may be imagined, may be done. There are no rules for experimenting with sound. A signal may be sent to reverbs, delays, compressors, guitar amps, speakers in hallways for re-recording Each channel strip on a decent consolation will contain: Faders, Preamps, Panning, Equalization, Filters, a Routing Matrix, AUX Sends and Returns, Dynamics, Muting, & Solo. Other Features Of The Console: Inserts, Outputs, Monitoring, Automation, Fader Grouping, Bussing, Splitting… Patchbay Allows the studio to combine interconnectivity with all the instrumentation by using patch cables. The patchbay may be setup for each studio’s specific instrumentation requirements. All of the outboard gear, console and recording widgets inputs and outputs are hard wired to the patchbay. The Patchbays may be be analog or digital. The most mutual is the bantam TT cable configurations. Check List Part 2: Microphones Microphones pickup the firstborn sound source. The mic is the primary source in the recording routine receiving and converting the sound wave into electrical energy to be amplified, transmitted and recorded. Preamps Amplifies the initial signal coming from the mic or instrument. Gives introductory control of the recording levels. Preamps are located on the console or as external outboard gear. DI Boxes The Direct box is used principally for instruments such as keys and bass to be compatible with mic inputs. The DI box transforms line levels of instruments to mic level for solace and preamp inputs. Compressors Helps to further control levels and dynamics coming from the preamp or console. Usually comes in rack mounted outboard gear or software plugins for DAWs. Compressors keep levels from peaking into distortion levels and support to fetch lower levels louder. FX Processors For special effects like adding space, dimension, pitch and time delays on signals and recorded tracks. Usually comes in rack mounted outboard gear or software plugins for DAWs. Multi-FX processors may have reverb, delay, flangers, EQ, compression and more all in one unit. FX Pedals Small floor foot pedals in the first place designed for guitar FX processing. These pedals are devised for distortion and particular effects, which add space, dimension, pitch and time on guitars mainly, but are an inexpensive substitute used as outboard gear for other instruments. DAW The Digital Audio Workstation is like an entire studio inside of a computer. Protools, Logic and Nuendo are just a few DAWs that provide a digital multi-track recorder, a virtual console, a wide assortment of effects, editing, and sequencing(musical programming) possibilities. The DAW uses software, hardware and computers in combining to operate. Check List: Part 3 Control Surface The control surface acts as a console that controls a DAW or external machine. The control surface commonly has faders, knobs and buttons that are controlled by the computer connected to a DAW. This makes operating the DAW similar to analog operations by being capable to put your hands on faders rather of clicking a mouse. Some control surfaces have all the same features as a console. The most mutual control surfaces are made by Digidesign. Clocking Digital recorders use dissimilar clocking formats to operate properly. Digital units sample the sound to be replicated. Clocking refers to the amount of time in amid samples taken for reproduction. If the digital clocking is off it will sound jittery or add noise to the sound in the analog to digital conversion. A quality clock will improve the sound. Some mutual digital clock roots may be found in productions made by Prism, Rosendahl, DCS, and Aardsync to name a few. Some clocks have sync generators built in to lock up with other machines. Sync Generator Generates tones to concede communication amongst machines so that various recording gimmicks may be synchronized together and operate at the same speed. Clocking works with synchronization (sync) when analog and digital instrumentation is combined. Sync uses SMPTE, MTC (midi time code), Midi Clock, MMC (midi machine control) to concede recording on assorted DAWs and tape machines to be linked up together. CD Recorder Records and plays back compact discs. Gives the capacity to record stereo mixes and playback these mixes on other CD players. CD ordinary for buyer playback is a sample rate of 16 bit and a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. Sony, Tascam, Alesis, and Yamaha all make good studio CD recorders. Tape Machines Recording machines that use analog or digital tape for recording and playback of music. Some purists in sound recording prefer the sound of analog tape. There are numerous digital tape machines employed for recording both music and video. Cabling Literally miles of respective cabling could be necessitated for a single studio. Common cables in sound reproduction are XLR balanced mic cables and Unbalanced 1/4 inch instrument cables. Monitors / Amps Speakers in the studio are referred to as Monitors. Powerful clean amps are necessitated to run monitors. Many monitors are self powered, which means that they have built in amplifiers. Monitors normally consist of high frequency tweeters, low frequency woofers and cabinets that integrate the speakers and components. Headphones / Distribution By using a set of earphones this allows communication amongst the control room and the studio, likewise allows pre-recorded tracks to be heard for the duration of the overdubbing process. Headphones are also referred to as cans. Instruments / Keyboards / Drums / Guitars These are more of the tools of the craft. You may have all the best studio gear in the world, but if the instruments sound bad you are starting in the wrong place. Anything could be considered an instrument if it makes noise that could perhaps be recorded on a record. Amplifiers This is many times referred to as an amp. Amps increase the amplitude or volume of electrical signals from sound waves. These are employed in powering speakers. Guitar and Bass amps may be employed for a lot of other apps such as running a vocal or snare drum through them. Microphone Stands A wide potpourri of sizes and styles are necessitated for a proper studio. The mic stand helps to get the microphone placed decently for the best sound quality possible. Studio Furniture There are a great deal of types of racks and furniture designed to hold consoles and outboard gear. The interior decoration of the studio completely sets the vibe of the working environment. Electricity Nothing will work without electricity unless you’re jamming at the local drum circles down on the beach. Electrical installation studio power is ofttimes overlooked. Studios will setup a “clean feed” that is a distinguished breaker from the rest of the ordinary power that is being employed for air conditioning, lighting and the basic requirements of the rest of the building. Have you ever plugged something in and heard that horrific buzzing sound coming from the speakers or guitar amp? This is normally due to bad electrical wiring, which causes ground noise. This is the basi thing to listen for when going in to a studio session. A simple solution to the problem would be to use a simple ground lifter on the gear or lift the ground from a direct box which may also solve the problems. We will go into details later. Isolated electrical circuits for each person room are a ought to in a recording studio. The proper amount of amperage is also a must. Not sufficient amperage will surely cause your breakers to blow. Consult with an Electrician who is intimate with studio setups to insure that wiring and voltage is regulated and conforming with local codes. Unregulated Power Supplies (UPS) will have to likewise be in place just in case there is a power failure. This will insure that valuable instrumentation will not blow up or cause a fire. If there is a case of a power outage the UPS will provide sufficient time to backup indispensable computer files and safely turn off your equipment. Some studios will have finish generator schemes in place to keep the studio running for the remainder of the session. Improper lighting may likewise cause buzzing ground issues, in particular fluorescent bulbs. Avoid using these in any studio. Dimmers may also cause a lot of problems. The intermediate household dimmers will surely put a damper into a clean sound. Make sure that professional grade dimmers are installed to keep away from ground noise. Always listen cautiously to signals being recorded before committing to a final take. There are a innumerable number of accounts that the engineer discovers electrical noise on takes for the duration of the mix process. If you are severe when it comes to your studio, may I suggest remainder power or a separated panel with neutral power conditioning. The evil difficulties of ground issues are a direct reflectivity of roots returning or looking for a dissimilar ground. Voltage potential among neutral and ground will surely modify your way of looking at things… for example, .5 volts amid neutral and ground is the greatest or most complete or best possible allowance by UL code that electronics will operate optimally without potential induction issues. I would suggest having a meter installed to rate this. Logging this data and having a good rapport with the local electric company would not injure at all. Air Conditioning/HVAC This is another very primary area that is ofttimes not considered. Studio gear gets very hot. The lack of adequate cooling could result in instrumentation failure or damage. Blowing up instrumentation is no fun and it gets very expensive. Some recording studios have a distinguished Machine Room for computers, tape machines and power amps that is highly air-conditioned to keep everything cool. This likewise cuts down on the noise from the fans on such units, which may distract concentration from listening in detail in the control room. Having too much air conditioning could likewise result in moisture or condensation build-up that may likewise harm the gear. Water in general is bad for electronic gear. The return air system is applied to pull heat out of necessitated areas and likewise provides an air intake for the AC units. These are placed in key areas where there is a build-up of heat from the gear, for example near the console or in the machine room. Separate Rooms: Control Room Most studios have various detached areas for recording, mixing, and production. Soundproofing is the main agenda when creating multiple rooms in a studio. To achieve this, the main goal to be attained is to make the rooms airtight. If air can not leak in or out of a room, there will be less prospect of sound leaking in or out as well. Most pro studios have double doors that develop a sound lock to support prevent noise leakage. They also have very thick double walls with interior air gaps to also aid trap undesirable sound. The floors in the studio must also be floated which means they are lifted from the ground to aid further prevent extra vibrations and leakage. The basi focus would be the Control Room where the mixing console and outboard gear are contained. This is where all of the recording and mixing is controlled, hence control room. The acoustics in this room will have to be designed for hearing the precise sound that is being recorded or mixed. The sound of the room ought to be as natural as possible for precise representation of the firstborn sound translated to the speakers in the room. The introductory rule for an suitable acoustically treated room is that there must be no parallel walls .If you were to clap your hands in a room with hard parallel walls you would here the sound bouncing back and forth, this is known as a flutter echo. This is neither good for recording or mixing. The trapping of not wanted bass is essential for a room to sound outstanding as well. Twenty five percent of the room ought to be assigned for bass traps for an adequate mixing room. Separate Rooms: Live Rooms The next focus of equivalent importance would be the Live Room where the music is recorded. This is where the musicians and vocalists carry out on the microphones. Live rooms ought to have more skillfulness to be competent to adjust to dissimilar recording situations. Wood floors for example are great for reflectiveness of sound, which gives rise to a more glorious tone. If a warmer tone is wanted, one could merely place a rug on the floor. Many live rooms likewise have a outstanding deal of glass to see amidst rooms for communication. This is likewise very reflective. Many studios use curtains to control the amount of reflections coming off glass or hard walls. Non-parallel walls are again necessitated to eliminate any flutter echoes. Some studios likewise incorporate a vocal booth within the live room. This would be a littler room designed for vocals. They may also be employed for guitar amps and other instruments. There are no rules for what this may be used for; it is main aim is for further and added isolation for the duration of the recording process. Glass doors or windows are applied for visibility of the artists and those working in the control room. Many elaborate studios may have multiple control rooms and production suites. Lounges and proper bathroom facilities are necessary in keeping the creative thinking flowing. A dining area and kitchen are likewise a considerateness if budgets permit. Many hours are expended in the studio when working on projects. It is necessary to have all the comforts of home to keep every one happy. A few proper offices are necessary for the client to be competent to have private internet access and to handle business without any distractions. All studios are designed differently. Whatever may be imagined may be created. There are no rules, only guidelines. Acoustics Sound is a wave, much like the ripples on a still body of water when a rock is dropped into it. The more spectacular the wave, the lower the tone. Lower tones, known as bass frequencies, travel in wide long waves while higher tones known as treble frequencies travel in a tighter, shorter wave. Frequencies heard by the humane ear range from 20Hz to 20K. Just as an indication, a piano’s range, in all likelihood the widest range of any instrument, is from 39Hz on the low note and 3Khz on the high note. Sound is measured in decibels likewise represented as dB. An intermediate concert is when it comes to 95-100 dB while a heavy rock concert or hip hop concert could reach levels of 130dB. This is above the threshold of pain; so don’t forget to wear your earplugs which are designed to protect your hearing when in uttermost sound levels. Interestingly enough, whales may in truth fabricate levels of up to 180dB. It ought to be remembered that taking care of your ears is the most essential thing you may do to prevent harm and have a sustained career. So don’t hang out with any whales and put a lot of shelter in your ears when exposed to earsplitting volumes. Absorption is the act of a sound wave being soaked up by a queer material. This is measured by co-efficient ratings. The higher the sound absorption co-efficient rating, the more sound that is being eradicated from troubled spots in your room. Different division of the room may require dissimilar co-efficient ratings. Remember that studios begin off as an empty shell. Hard surfaces and walls need treatment to provide for a outstanding sounding room. For example, 20 gauge theater curtains are normally applied in studios. They consist of a thick velvet material, which is magnificent for absorbing high-end frequencies. The thinner materials soak up higher frequencies. The thicker materials soak up lower frequencies. This is why thick bass traps are very big and incorporate ports or holes to trap low-end frequencies. The more spectacular the port, the lower the frequency absorption. There are endless amounts of merchandise and designs that are applied in the industry. Wall panels are likewise ordinarily employed to absorb sound. These are made from a fiberglass product wrapped in a cloth material. Various sizes and thickness are employed for problem frequencies. Again the thin materials eliminate high end and thicker materials absorb low end. Reflection is the opposite of absorption. Think of the sound as a wave hitting a mirror and bouncing back. This may be employed as an vantage for a more splendid tone. If a room has too much absorption causing the room to sound too dead, hard surfaces such as wood panels may be placed in strategic emplacements to add a more live sound to the room. Some studios have reversible hanging panels that may be flipped among reflective and absorptive to change the room sound at will. For vocals the room may need a more dead sounding absorptive room. Drums may require a more live sounding room. John Bonham, from Led Zeppelin had an amazingly huge live reflective drum sound. This became the goal for the big Rock drum sound. Prince is underestimated as a drummer. He has a outstanding tight drum sound on his introductory record where he played all of the instruments as well as the drums. The drums have just the opposite effect using absorption in a little tight room creating a very in your face heavy Pop drum sound. These are not rules, only guidelines. Using your ears is always the key to getting the best sound. Designing a studio is rather an undertaking to do professionally. Each room is totally disunited and apart from one another. The most mutual method is to actually build a room inside of a room. The inner walls do not touch the outer walls, which gives rise to an air gap that traps sound. Each wall may be numerous feet thick and multiple layers of thick glass and doors divide the rooms. The floors in each room are floated from the ground with spacers that likewise give rise to an air space to lower vibrations and aid to trap undesirable sound leakage. All floors have dissimilar characteristics in the way sound waves bounce off from their surfaces. While wood floors have a warm tone, concrete and tile have a more magnificent tone. This also holds unfeigned for walls. A solid plan is necessitated to run cabling amongst rooms so that each room may be interconnected with each other for microphone signal lines and headphone communicating systems. Custom made cable troughs or PVC tubing is used to send groups of microphone cables from a panel to the control room. From the control room the Headphone lines would be run through the walls for communicating among all of the rooms. Materials and Tools Drywall is necessitated for walls. The more layers of drywall added will increase the thickness of the studio walls. By using varying thicknesses of drywall stacked and shifted, alternating at the seams will aid minimize sound transmission amid rooms. Many drywall screws and a good electric drill will unquestionably come in handy if you are building a studio. Fabric is used for making wall panels and ceiling clouds that control the absorption in the studio. There are specific fabrics that are designed for dissimilar frequency absorption. Each thickness and texture has varying co-efficient ratings at multiple frequency bands. AC Duct Board and other fiberglass merchandise are wrapped in fabric with spray glue to formulate absorbing panels called Wall Boxes and Bass Traps. Thermal Fiber or Fiberglass Insulation is inserted in amid two sets of walls and ceiling to manufacture an further and added thickness supplying an substitute texture, containing fiberglass, which is superb for capturing sound. Sand is likewise an splendid substitute choice for filling walls to prevent sound wave transmission. Wood provides the skeleton for frames that hold the panels and boxes. Larger Bass Traps with huge ports could be made from wood or fiberglass. RPG panels are a series of wooden slats mathematically designed to absorb and refract, or soak up and scatter sound inside a room. Wood may also be used to manufacture habit racks to hold the outboard gear, solace and patchbay. Custom studios may be designed for any circumstance and style. Doors, Walls and Windows Doors and walls are the single most crucial item where recording studio sound bleed is concerned. A little 1/4inch air gap at the bottom threshold of a door will release 30% of the sound. Creating airtight rooms are the introductory step in sealing all the gaps for optimal sound proofing. The transitions amid where the rooms are connected have more possiblenesses for sound leakage. All corners, gaps and frames for door and window cutaways ought to be sealed with a silicon or caulking material. Keep in mind that if air may escape through any passage then sound will surely go through as well.
The MultiMix 4 USB mixer has four input channels, all of which may receive a 1/4-inch line input. You may plug XLR microphones into channels one and two, including condensers thanks to the mixer’s switchable 48V-phantom power supply. You may likewise plug a guitar or bass directly into channel one’s switchable high-impedance input. Channels one and two offer switchable high-pass filtering at 75Hz to eliminate low-frequency rumble, handling and wind noise. Each channel has an independent pan control and channels one and two provide high and low-shelving EQs. Channels one and two have independent gain trims, while channels three and four are set up as a stereo pair at the level and pan controls. Key Features
Specifications
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Alesis MultiMix4 USB
Solid product.
Noisy, not recommended