First Step To Successful Sound Recording

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IMPORTANT: This Blog Is Moving To My Website HERE and Updated with new Items. I will keep this active but it will not have any new content on it. Thank you for your support.

The New 664 from Sound Devices

Sound Devices answer to the Nomad seems to be the 664. Here is a run down of its key features: 

- Six high-bandwidth, low noise microphone preamplifiers with phantom, limiters, high-pass, pan, and direct outputs per channel 

- Four output buses, Left, Right and Aux 1, Aux 2; transformer-balanced for freedom from ground loops; multiple output connectors, including dual multi-pin 

- Built-in production recorder, records all inputs and output buses: 10 tracks total. With CL-6 attached: 16 tracks total. 

- Broadcast WAV recording to dual memory card slots, CF and SD - Record different track combinations and to each card type 

- High-precision, Ambient Recording-based time code generator/reader with auto-recharging of internal TC battery 

- Time code compare tool to measure offset from internal and external time code - Quick, intuitive interface via sunlight readable, transflective LCD menu control 

- Main controls on dedicated knobs and switches 

- Two AES42/AES3 digital inputs (input connectors 1 and 6) 

- AES3 output selection, up to eight channels of AES out (XLR, multi-pin) 

- Expanded return monitoring capabilities, with three camera returns 

- Dedicated communication circuit (PL) - Built-in slate microphone and external slate microphone input connector 

- Powered by AA-battery x5 or isolated (floating) external DC, 10-18V 

- Metalized, gasketed carbon-fiber chassis panels for light weight and durability.

Check Out The New Video:

Q+A: What Do Microphone Specs Mean?

There are a lot of microphones out in the marketplace and all the spec sheets are not identical in the information they provide or how they provide it. Firstly we need to understand what it all means and what you should look out for in a really good quality microphone that will last you till the end of your career!
IMPEDANCE
This isn't how good your microphone is at reproducing with other microphones but effectively how good the microphone signal is at travelling down long cables. Obviously using low-impedance microphones means less hum picked up along the way (300 Ohms or less is good) you can always help this statistic by using as shorter cable as needed. Alternatively get a digital microphone, which is the same as a condenser microphone but with an analog/digital (A/D) converter built into the microphone and so the signal in the cable is digital and picks up no hum.
MAXIMUM SPL
This refers to the maximum level of sound your microphone can pick up without distortion. 120db being good and above 140db being excellent. 120db the threshold of pain for human ears to give you a reference
SELF NOISE
This refers to how noisy the microphone is. A <25dba is good, <20dba very good and less than 15dba is excellent. The lower the better, especially for quieter scenes or applications. For louder applications like super cars or loud music 30dba is usually fine due to the signal being so much louder then the microphone its self.
[The "a" in dba stands for a scale of frequency response that resembles how the ear picks up sound]
SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO
This is another measurement for how noisy a microphone is but more relevant to the strength of the signal to the inherent noise. 69dba is good, 74dba is very good and 79dba+ being excellent. Again, this is important of quieter applications as louder sounds already produce louder signals.
SENSITIVITY
This is basically telling you how powerful a signal is being generated by the sound hitting the microphone. Condenser mics have the highest sensitivity. Generally above 6mv/pa is very sensitive and (sensing a pattern yet? ) the higher the sensitivity the stronger the signal and the lower the pick up of hum and other noise.
Hope that clears up any issues, otherwise just comment, like, tweet or +1 below
Thanks

7.1 will become the new standard

Speaker systems for your home theatre are usually your normal 5.1 setup with either Dolby or DTS that runs it all. (find out more about Dolby vs DTS here)

You have your 5 surround speakers (center bar, front L+R and rear L+R with the .1 being the subwoofer for those deep "end of the world" disasters etc..)

This is great for being able to follow that transformer running across screen or that slow motion bullet passing by but thats still all based around the front to enhance the visual actions or presence on screen if you're in that sweet spot in the middle of the square speaker setup.

Now with 7.1 its a more "real" world environment with 2 extra speakers (making 7.1) at the rear sides  Left + Right. This giving you a full surround sound experience as there is much better coverage from the sides. In 7.1 that helicopter swooping round to destroy that enemy will really feel like its not just jumping from front to the rear but thundering all the way round!

In the interest of only using my own work you will have to put up with my terrible drawing.

If you want more info then watch this DTS-HD presentation on youtube

Thanks for viewing and please tweet, like or +1 to share the info and resources in the blog, Matt Price.

Oldest Known Recording Unearthed From 1860

Previously the oldest recorded sound was thought to be Edison's phonograph recording of a children's nursery 

rhyme "Mary had a little lamb.." in 1877. So what did they use before the phonograph?

The "phonautograph", is used by etching paper covered in soot. US scientists used a virtual stylus to read the lines. The recording was found by audio historian David Giovannoni who said to the Associated Press "When I first heard the recording as you hear it ... it was magical, so ethereal,"

"The fact is it's recorded in smoke. The voice is coming out from behind this screen of aural smoke."

The phonautograph was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. The new recording will be presented on 28 March at a conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University in California.

The video below is the 10 second clip of "Au Clair de la Lune".




This is the video of Edison's recording of "Mary had a little Lamb"



Thanks

Production Sound Mixer Video Interviews

Underneath all this typing it's sometimes nice to have a few videos to just watch and listen. Some of the rarest to find in the masses and masses of rubbish on youtube are some interviews with sound mixers (there the guys with boom operators) and sound recordists (they do both)


Desktop Computer Users and Mobile users just use the player below and further down is help to better your experience! If you like the video collection then please "Like" the playlist so more can find it, Thanks Again.

Below is a screenshot for the best user experience on your PC, Mac or mobile.

The Blue Circle Is For Full Screen Then Click The Red Circle For The Full Playlist

Heres another great one from Vimeo,

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz - 155th Birthday

Well would be but sadly died at the age of 36! But didn't take him long to see what everyone else couldn't.

Im sure you have guess the young German electronic engineer and physicist who clarified and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light introduced by James Maxwell publishing his theory in 1865. Maxwell was also phenomenal is creating a theory from seemingly unrelated experiments and studies of electricity, magnetism and optics and combined them. He was also known for the first durable colour photograph earlier in 1861 and even did foundation work on rigidity for bridges, and is considered one of the greatest physicists of all time.

Back to our friend Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. He was the first to prove with immense certainty the presents of electromagnetic waves by designing and engineering instruments to transmit and receive radio pulses using procedures to discredit other sources of wireless phenomenon. As such his name was given to the unit of frequency known as, you guessed it Hertz (Hz)

Just So I Don't Breech Copyright :)

See a better image of him from Wikipedia

Recording Meters and Levels

Hello There,

When i started out in Sound Recording i was confused by the different meters and how you can record at -dB, surely that was impossible? Why record at -12dB on a digital system but aim for 6 on a VU meter? So here is a run down of what it all means.

Digital Systems compared to analogue systems

Digital is obviously here to stay for many reasons but an important note in terms of levels are how the different systems deal with very loud signals.

Sound is always analogue at the source and how we hear it only in between can it be digital.

Analogue recording systems gracefully handle extremely loud signals and slowly get completely messed up. Digital on the other hand just cuts off and dies horribly!. This is due to Sampling theorem and the Dynamic Range of data that can be stored on a sample before it starts to distort. Thus it is very important to have headroom and understand your meter system.

Digital Meters

These range from around -60dB up to 0dB. The zero has no actual value other than the loudest sound that can be free of distortion. When measuring in just dB it is only a representative change like a percentage or ratio compared to another value.

Example: If i said his voice was 20dB higher then hers, it would be his voice is 10 times louder than hers. Just saying my voice is 10dB means nothing unless compared to something else, if i said my voice should be at 10dBu or dBA then it means something. (But it will get it`s own topic soon)

Meters!!

These are different standard for playback purposes and final mixes of program but easily applied to production recording devices.

PPM (Peak Programme Meter - BBC)

Range = 0 to 7
line-up: 4 (needle straight up)
Max level: 6
Each division: 4dBs
Average level: 5
Edit suite/CTA measurement


See a real version of a PPM meter system 

VU (Volume Units - USA)
line up:-4 (between 3 & 5 black)
Max level: +4 (Red notch right of 3)
Each division: 1dB
Average level: 0
Analogue VTRs

See real example of VU meter system

Digital
line up: -20
Max level: 0
Each division: Varies
Average level: -14
Digital VTRs, Digital Recorders

See real example of Digital Meter System






As always i hope this answers everything and if not drop a comment below and i shall amend it asap.

Cheers,

Matt

www.soundrolling.com

Don't Forget to +1 This Below

Sound like a bass smurf on Venus...

View Full Article and Video Here

Above are some recordings that scientists from Southampton University created to replicate how different environments and objects sound on other worlds and moons.

Prof Leighton, who has been working on the sounds of space for the last ten years and commented ''When we hear a voice from Venus, we think the speaker is small, but with a deep bass voice. On Venus, humans sound like bass Smurfs.'

Despite many years of space exploration, scientists have no evidence of the sound of other planets. While most planetary probes have focused on imaging with cameras and radar and a couple have carried microphones, none of them successfully listened to the sound of another world.

Interesting non the less

Thanks for reading