Studio manual

The unit of work we done was completed in studio a, this studio

consisted of a sound craft saphyre mixing console which was a 36
channel analogue mixing console. The base of our set up was a I
mac pro which our DAW was logic which we recorded from Live room
or though an amp or di instrument -> Desk -> group output ->
Patch bay -> Compressor -> patch bay -> channel -> Logic .
When recoding my track we used a very basic drum set up this
consisted of a rewired speaker to act as a sub kick, an akg kick drum
mic, two sm57s one for top snare an the other for bottom snare, we
also used my rode m5 pencils conceders to capture the cymbals
and the whole kit. The mic layout we used was spaced pair because
we wanted to capture the general body of the kit and because the
recording space was quite tight in the live room we just decided this
for its simplicity.
in our live room we had a Mapex drum kit along side the mics we
used to mic up the drum kit which were:

Sm57 x2
Mode pencil condensers x2
Audix kick drum mic
Rewired sub kick

We also had the option on using an arrange of other microphones

but we though that a simple mic set up was all we needed. We
chose to to mic up the toms because they were not a key focus of
the drumming and also to sahev time mixing the kit up because we
have one 3 hour session to mix the whole track.
Furthermore we had an 16 channel stage box which we run our
cables from the live room into our two motu soundcards . We used
two motu 2408 and one motu 1224. This resulted in either 16
channel or 24 channel inputs and outputs.
Between the live room and the mixing room there is a raised
flooring which minimises trip hazard when walking between the two
rooms. Also the fire alarms in the building are both visual and sound
so that is you cant here the alarm going off you will see a visual
representation of the alarm asell to let you know there is a fire.
Our signal path was going from the live room in though the mixer
then into the soundcards then into the computer. This was only our
signal for recoding into the desk. This was our signal path when we
recoding drums in the live rooms.

The channel stip:

1) You see in the channel strip it has

been divided into 4 sections
in section number 1 this is where the
signal goes into the mixing console you
will 1st find a gain pot and this will
determine how much gain is added to
your signal on the way into the console.
You will also see a 48 volts button which
will allow you to record using
condensers. We used this button when
recoding drums on the track for our
overheads which require phantom
power.
You will also see a button which is a high
pass filter which allows only frequencys
over 100 hz past. This can come in
handy when recording drums to
eliminate bleed from other drums and
also will take out guttural tones say if
you were recording vocals.
Additionally there is a faze button which
flips the faze of mics this can be used
while recoding though the console or
you can flip the faze after you have
receded and mixing the track. We used
this on our snare drum.
In section 2 of the channel strip this is
the gate sections on the channel. We
used this part of the channel strip along
in my track for the drums. Gates are
useful to stop bleed between mics.
Because we didnt mic up the toms
individually we didnt use the gate on
my track because there was not much
use for them. However when you mic up
your toms and use the gate it eliminates

The [hold]bottom changes the release type of the gate you can
change this so the sound has no relice time and shuts off the signal
as soon as it come below the threshold. This is a lot more abrupt ,
Then under that you see number 3. number 3 is consisted of two
different types of EQ
theses EQ consist of one shelving EQ , and the other was a semi
parametric EQ. We used these on guitar, bass and drums. Here you
see a bottom saying [in] this [in] bottom enables the EQ which then
makes the eq active.

The channel fader sets the level of the

tape return. This has a +10db gain to
your signal.
The [rev] switch swaps the channel fader
and the monitor fader round . you also
see the bounce button here. When
bouncing the track as a whole you will
select all the channels to stereo 1 and 2
or output 1 and 2 then press bounce on
every channel. You would then create a
stereo channel in logic and arm the
channel to bounce the mix into a stereo
channel.

The channel panning on the desk

determined where the signal is going to
sit in the stereo image if you pan to the
left it will feed the signal to the odd
number and pan right it will feed the
signal to even numbers.

Here you can see that there are

m1,m2,m3,m4 these are the master
mutes. These allow you to group specific
channels together and when you click the
master must button those channels will
be mutes you can assign as many
channels to each mute group as needed. I
used this to group all guitar and drums

Connections

After we learned about the different connections which were

involved in using while operating the patch bay.
Such as :
XLR
inch jack
balanced and unbalanced jacks
The differenced between balanced and unbalanced cables Balanced
connections have here conductors, This ensures maximum
protection against hum and interference.
The patch bay
Each channel has 7 connectors when you want to send something in
using the [in] bottom on the console. Also to uses inserts to recoded
a signal onto the mixing console as well. This is good for guitars and
to add compression to the drums/ vocals on the way in help with
mixing after. Because we only had two compressors we had to
bounce our compressed signal back though the mixing console.
While bouncing the signals we used two ways of bouncing the
channel. The 1st way we made a new track on logic then we used
the insert sends on the channel to send it through the compressor
via the patch bay. On the way back into the desk to record the
compressed signal we used the insert send to the outboard
equipment (compressor) into the soundcard. We used input one on
the soundcard to record the compressed signal.
The outputs from the soundcards are going into the tap return this
is how got signal onto the monitor faders.
Here is our signal path for when we recorded guitar:
Guitar into mesa
Mesa into soundcard input
Record to separate channel
(optional)
Ins send to outboard into soundcard
Aux 2 send into group input

The desk we were working on had a total of 6 aux sends. While

using the aux sends on the desk we ad 2 which we used through out
our recording. These were aux 1 and 2 . aux one was for out
headphone monitoring. For our headphone amp we used a Samson

s-phone mixer. On aux 1 there is a 10db boost and an overall

volume for the headphones to suit the performer. We found we had
to boost the headphones in the drum both so that the drummer
could hear both the click track and the rest of the instruments. So
we gave him a stronger level without affecting our mix what we
were hearing in the mixing room. All of our outboard equipment
Samson power strip ps11. Aux 2 we used for reverb we used the
reverb on most of our tracks especially on jacks guitar track.
The signal path to the reverb
Send channel to aux 2
Outboard reverb
Set group output and pan on stereo bus mix
Record to separate channel in logic
Spreading out your mix on the desk
The 1st thing we had to do when using the desk is that we had to
separate the mix and spread the mix out onto the console. We had
to select an output on logic and you would have to hard pan it either
left or right to send the signal to the channel intended. So say if you
selected output one and 2 on logic you would hard pan to the left to
get all the signal sent to channel 1 and if you hard panned it to the
right it would be channel 2.
Here you can see I have hard
panned the bass to the left so
if I had output 11-12 it would
be coming out of channel 11
on the mixing console.

Recoding on the desk

When recoding on the desk we spread out all our logic files though
the console 1st then we recoded guitar and bass to a click track. We
recorded guitar through the mesa di amp and we recoded bass
though the la-610s preamp though the patch bay onto a channel.
On the way in we added compression when recoding bass for my
track to save u time compressing the signal later.
The desk has a button with [PFL] this means pre fader level and
allows you to monitor the singal which is coming in the desk. ( see
page 4 for more)
The tracks
On my track i used the sampler to make my background ambient. I
though this added body to my track, I sent this to a separate rever
aux on logic then on that aux I selected a space designer reverb to
create a long lasting swirl. I though this came out effective. On
alex track I contrubited by plying guitar and sample some of his
found sounds ranging from a bottle cap sounding like a piano after
manipulating it on logic.

Overall I have enjoyed learning about this project and found it really
interesting mixing on an analogue console. In some ways I have
found this project challenging because of the time given to learn
about then console and then putting it into practice straight away
was hard at 1st to remember what to do. I feel like now that I know
how to operate a mixing console I think I would be able to use the
console anytime in the future. However I feel that a combination of
the sampling and analogue mixing has left me with a piece which I
am fairly happy with but would not class it as one of my best mixes
because I have been still learning about the mixing console.