Archive for February, 2008

When to pan left, when to pan right.

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

This question comes from a Sound Affair client prior to mastering his CD…..

“When I use a pan knob on a audio console Studio or a software program and I pan it to the left, sitting facing my speakers, should the music then come out of my left or right side speaker?”

This might seem like an obvious question, but I’m a firm believer in having the obvious well under control before progressing to more advanced issues. So if you pan to the left, the sound should come out of your left speaker. Pan to the right and it comes out of the right speaker. If it doesn’t, swap your speaker cables round. If that doesn’t fix it keep checking your cables intill you discover where they may have crossed.

OK that’s basic. But there are other basics too. One common error in recording is swapping the channels unintentionally.The effects of this could be…

  • In an orchestral recording, the violins are on the right rather than the left. (If the conductor has chosen to put the second violin section on the right, then the first violin section, which generally plays all the tunes, should be on the left.)
  • In a film or TV soundtrack, the character on the left of the screen speaks and their voice comes out of the speaker on the right.

Clearly either of these would be major errors, It’s an easy mistake to make though, so you have to be sure and check everything. Also sometimes where you pan is open to interpretation.Take the example of a recording of a grand piano…You might say that the low notes should come mostly from the left speaker, and the high notes mostly from the right. That’s how the piano keyboard is laid out.But that’s not the way the audience hears it…The grand piano is always positioned on stage with the keyboard on the left. So the low-pitched strings, which are longer, extend further to the right than the high pitched strings. So by this example, the high notes should mostly come from the left speaker and the low notes mostly from the right. It’s up to you! There’s no right or wrong. It’s either the pianist’s perspective or the audience’s perspective. Either is equally valid.

If anyone has any other interesting examples of right/wrong/up-to-you panning, I would love to hear about them.

Ron

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Do computers give you a headache?

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Computers can be great tools for recording. But they can sometimes give you headaches, and even nightmares…Here’s an interesting question from a Sound Affair Mastering visitor… I have played guitar for almost 30 years, and have been recording on tape for years, and on a Zoom MRS 1266 CD for about 4 years. I have recently been looking to get into computer based recording via Pro tools Mbox (not sure which model yet). My problem is that I want to buy a separate computer to record audio only, as recommended by just about everyone in the know. I have no idea what the system requirements specs actually mean. Is a 2.4 GHz way better than a 2.3? Do I need a separate hard drive to record on and not the one in the computer itself, and what the hell is DDRAM and SDRAM anyway? I keep seeing words(?) like Fat32 and IDE/ATA, SATA, ATTO, HBA and Firmware etc. I can surf the net and get around Windows pretty well, but I cannot speak Computerese, please, can you help translate? Thanks. I got a headache,
Mike O. We all like computers because they give us great recording and audio mastering facilities at an incredibly low price, compared to the way things used to be years ago. Accordingly we often talk about computers and software. But we don’t like the way computers often get in the way of making great recordings. Perhaps you shouldn’t have to be any kind of computer genius to be able to use one to make great music and recordings.So, back to the question…You are exactly right that you should devote a computer to audio. It will simplify things no end. And if you only connect it to the Internet specifically to register software and then disconnect it immediately, you will be fairly safe from being preyed upon by those who would do your computer harm from a distance. Now, talking about speed. Buy the fastest computer you can afford. But also bear in mind that there might be a significant price-hike to gain just a couple of extra points of gigahertz. More speed equals more tracks and more plug-in instances, but 2.4 GHz is only fractionally better than 2.3. You probably won’t notice the difference. Also, bear in mind that your hard disk affects the number of tracks you can achieve. A faster rotation speed is better. 10,000 rpm is better than 7200. 7200 is better than 5400, which really is the lowest practical limit. ATA is the same as IDE and is an internal hard disk connectivity technology that is just on the way out now. SATA is the newer standard and will lead to further progress. However, many great recordings have been made on ATA drives. It is usually recommended not to record onto the system disk. This is busy doing system stuff, so your audio will have to take its turn. A second internal disk is a good option. An external FireWire disk is a good option too. Many people find that external USB disks work fine, but since the whole point of FireWire is that it is intended for audio and video signals, it is a safer bet. Regarding the rest of the ‘computerese’ you mention, this is really the province of your dealer. If you are not confident with computers, then you should buy a complete system from a single pro audio dealer, and get them to guarantee that it will work. If it doesn’t, then it’s up to them to solve any problems for you.By the way, if you want to have nightmares as well as headaches, just look at Digidesign’s compatibility info.

This will show very clearly what we don’t like about computer recording…

I hope this helps.

Ron.

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Be your own record label.

Friday, February 15th, 2008

You now can have worldwide distribution of your music into iTunes and more and keep 100% of your royalties. Anyone who makes music can have a career without a record label, you can just “sign” yourself through TuneCore.
Digital stores like iTunes allow all music to be in stock, and have sold over 2 billion songs with more than 1/2 the sales coming from non-major label artists with over 400,000 songs delivered. Over $5 million dollars has been earned by TuneCore customers. Go to: www.tunecore.com for more information.

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