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DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING |
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Symphony
Videographer & Photographer |
Producer of
Symphony Recordings |
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DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING |
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Symphony
Videographer & Photographer |
Producer of
Symphony Recordings |
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Sound is the least understood, and among those who do understand it, the most hotly debated, of the component technologies that make up video and motion picture production. Sound has two aspects- technical and creative. It is usually best to begin with the most accurate capture of the sound that you can get, and then manipulate it creatively later for whatever artistic and emotional effects you are trying to achieve. Effects in the original recording cannot be taken out, but with digital technology almost any effect can be added later. There are even algorithms to add the reverb of a specific venue like a particular cathedral.
Recording dialogue is far easier than music. With groups of musicians, the initial recording involves complex technology and artistic choices such as what kind of mics to use and how to set them up. The work I produce for symphony orchestras and chamber groups has to take into consideration the effects of the various large venues on the sound. And there is a big difference between the dress rehearsal when we set up and the performance when there are people in the seats. One time, the heat did not work in a very large venue and the audience sat in their winter coats which made the acoustics very different from other performances in the same venue.
Every gig is an adventure, often in uncharted territory, and the more knowledge you bring to it, the better able you are to handle whatever it involves.
THE SOUND EDITING PROGRAMS DIGITAL PERFORMER, LOGIC, and CUBASE
There is much debate about programs for editing sound and for creating music- some programs a better for one thing and some for another.
I am a Mac person, but I had been using Audition for sound, because Apple's Soundtrack is just a big brother of Garage Band and we record symphony orchestras in super fidelity 24-bit/96kHz. However, neither Audition, nor Soundtrack are used by many professional sound people or composers.
Pro Tools was the program of choice for sound editing in movies and television, but it has been surpassed in many ways by other programs.
DIGITAL PERFORMER from Mark of the Unicorn is an integrated MIDI and audio sequencer used for studio recording, film scoring, live performance, and remixing. It is now Tiger compatable. Mark of the Unicorn is an excellent company I have known for many years, which is now more commonly known by it's initials MOTU
www.motu.com www.motu.com/products/software/
CUBASE from Steinberg is a cross-platform program popular with composers. www.steinberg.de/
LOGIC from Apple is a program popular with composers. www.apple.com/logicpro/
For links to my pages by movie composers go to www.dlynnwaldron.com/composerphotos.html .
USEFUL BOOKS ON THE ART AND TECHNOLOGY OF SOUND RECORDING:
Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science
by Bob Katz
319 pages, two tone illustrations, color insert, large format.
$39.99 ISBN: 0240805453 Focal Press 2002
This is a very important book for everyone serious about good quality sound. Katz is a knowledgeable advocate for good practices and gives clear explanations of how they can be achieved. It is a book I will be carrying around with me to explain and defend the way things should be done.
This is not a book for newbies, but for those who already have a solid foundation. It is filled with ideas to consider and debate and hopefully adopt, most important of which is his own 'K-System' for metering and monitoring in Chapter 15.
Being involved with movies and with recording classical music I am very concerned with the problems of dynamic range, which Katz discusses from several different perspectives.
He tells how to modify dynamic range and discusses levels and compression, which are hotly debated topics among recording engineers, sound designers and producers. He advocates that for digital recording there should be a 'cushion' above headroom to prevent distortion. He goes at length into the art and science of equalization and discusses noise reduction.
Katz makes the point that what is necessary compression in a car or for the sake of neighbors, is not enough dynamics for a theatre. He advocates that players come with a built in compression facility the listener can choose to use or not.
He also explains that if you are going to normalize you must do it to the entire album at once and never track by track, or when it is played the string quartet will be as loud as the 1812 Overture!
This is a very valuable book that deals with theory and concepts, rather than specific hardware and software, so it is not out of date even though it was published in 2002.
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INSTANT SURROUND SOUND
by Jeffrey P. Fisher
191 pages, grayscale illustrations and screen captures.
$34.95 ISBN 1-57820-246-9 CMP 2004
www.cmpbooks.com
This is a clearly written book for those who want to learn the basics of some aspects of recording for surround sound. The author is an expert on Acid, Sound Forge and Vegas.
This book covers the formats of surround sound, and the basics of how to record for surround, how to set up the hardware and software for post production, managing channels and downmixing, mixing for surround, all the elements of audio post production, and exporting the files.
One can have a whole library of books on sound recording and subscribe to every magazine and still not know a fraction of the current information. I am involved in recording symphony orchestras in 24-bit/96kHz and 192kHz, and we are constantly upgrading, as better equipment becomes available. Sound recording is by far the most complex and rapidly changing of the media in which I work.
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The Art of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering, and Production, 2nd Edition
by David Gibson
344 pages, color illustrations, large format.
$49.99 ISBN: 1931140456 Artistpro 2005
This is a very unusual book. It employs a visual 3D metaphor to present the concepts of sound mix in various various orchestral groups and for various types of music. For those who are not visual, the concise text stands on its own at a basic level.
All the visuals were not immediately communicative and it took a day for the two parts of my brain to link up on the same information, but I did gain insights from using the visual part of my brain for auditory concepts.
This not a book for everyone and I suggest you look at it in a book store before deciding to buy it.
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Logic Pro 7 and Logic Express 7: Apple Pro Training Series
608 pages, grayscale screen captures illustrations DVD.
by Martin Sitter
$44.99 ISBN: 032125614X Peachpit 2005
Logic 7 is has new and improved features and this book will teach you how to use many of them. It focuses on MIDI and does not go deeply into plug-ins and what they do.
The DVD has song and lesson files, free loops and a trial version of Logic Express 7.
Logic Pro 7 is a top end professional digital audio workstation that takes full advantage of the power of the G5. http://www.apple.com/logicpro/
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Adobe Audition 1.5: Classroom in a Book
281 pages grayscale screen captures illustrations - CD-ROM.
$45 ISBN: 0-321-26793-1 Adobe Press 2005
The Audition sound editing program is an essential part of the Adobe Video Collection. The lessons in this book teach you to use the wide scope of facilities for recording, mixing, analyzing, looping, editing, and mastering, including noise reduction, audio restoration, spectrum and phase analysis. The small size of the screen captures is a problem for a book on a program with complex controls. (Note: The Adobe Classroom in a Book series is being given a new design with larger type, better layout and color screen captures, which I would hope for in the next edition of their Audition book.) www.adobepress.com
This is aproximately the size of the largest screen captures in the Adobe classroom books. Most of the books are grayscale only. (This is a screen capture from Audition taken from the Adobe site and turned into grayscale.)
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USING SOUNDTRACK to produce original music (Soundtrack 1.2)
by Douglas Spotted Eagle
478 pages, grayscale screen captures, CD with tutorials, loops, etc.
$34.95 ISBN 1-57820-229-9 CMP 2004
www.cmpbooks.com
Soundtrack comes bundled with Final Cut, and can also be bought as a stand alone program. Soundtrack is the big brother of Garage Band (without some of Garage Band's facilities such as viewing- but not printing- the notation as you play or play back).
This book does cover using Soundtrack to compose, but Soundtrack is basically a program to assemble music clips into a soundtrack for a DVD or movie, and is not a program composers would chose to use. I am not thrilled with most of the synth instruments in Soundtrack and Garage Band, including the new Symphony Jam Pack, but it comes with enough instruments and loops to get you started.
This book takes you through Soundtrack in an comprehensive if text-dense way. The CD contains tutorials, plug-ins and royalty-free loops. It covers version 1.2.
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Soundtrack: Apple Pro Training Series
472 pages grayscale screen captures illustrations - DVD.
$39 ISBN: 032124690X Adobe Press 2003
www.adobepress.com
This book is out of date for the most recent version of Soundtrack, but it is the only one available in the Apple Pro Training Series and it covers a lot of things the manual doesn't.
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Cubase SX 2 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide
by Thad Brown
464 pages, grayscale screen captures
$19.99 ISBN 0321246438 Peachpit 2004
http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321246438
This is a useful book, however be aware that Cubase is now up to version SX 3.
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INSTANT SURROUND SOUND
by Jeffrey P. Fisher
191 pages, grayscale illustrations and screen captures.
$34.95 ISBN 1-57820-246-9 CMP 2004
www.cmpbooks.com
This is a clearly written book for those who want to learn the basics of some aspects of recording for surround sound. The author is an expert on Acid, Sound Forge and Vegas.
This book covers the formats of surround sound, and the basics of how to record for surround, how to set up the hardware and software for post production, managing channels and downmixing, mixing for surround, all the elements of audio post production, and exporting the files.
One can have a whole library of books on sound recording and subscribe to every magazine and still not know a fraction of the information. I am involved in recording symphony orchestras in 24-bit/96kHz and 192kHz, and we are constantly upgrading, as better equipment becomes available. Sound recording is by far the most complex and rapidly changing of the media in which my work involves.
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MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC VIDEO
by Ed Gaskell
191 pages, color screen capturesand illustrations
$44.95 ISBN 1-57820-258-2 CMP Books 2004
www.cmpbooks.com
www.musvus.web-linked.com
This book is as visually busy as a music video. It deals with the business, technical and artistic aspects of this important part of the entertainment industry.
Making videos digitally is now affordable enough for kids and this is an excellent book to with which to get started on music videos .
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Producing Great Sound for Digital Video: Second Edition
by Jay Rose
428 pages, CD
$44.95 ISBN 1-57820-2086 CMP Books 2002
www.cmpbooks.com
This is a book that will help beginners prepare for, capture and work with the audio portion of video and solve the common problems that are encountered.
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