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Journal blinder's Journal: Pop Quiz 17

Journal by blinder

pop quiz time! i hope you've all been studying... this is an audio production pop-quiz... lets see how far you've come in absorbing the fine art and science of audio production and critical listening.

so here goes:

1. Your composition has 6 drum tracks, 3 guitar tracks, 2 tracks for some sympathetic keyboards, 1 bass track and a track for vocals. You realize that the bass guitar is not "present" or "loud" enough, because you know that a solid bass track really helps a song's foundation. Your producer says "make that bass guitar louder." What do you do?

a. You adjust that track's fader to increase its level (dB level)
b. you add a limiter to the channel's insert to limit its frequency range
c. you adjust the track's eq curve boosting the 500-900hz range and rolling off the sub 80hz
d. you lower the other track's dB level

2. Your producer comes to you and says "yeah, we want an Albini-esque quality for the drums." You then proceed to set up the mics for the drum kit (which is a 4-piece kit with two crashes, hats, ride and a china with a few splashes), so this means you:

a. carefully choose two omni-directional small diaphragm mics for over-heads, MD421's for the toms and the kick drum, a sm57 for the snare, another small diaphragm mic for just the hats, spend the better part of a day positioning each mic to ensure you have the most intimate and isolated sound for the entire kit. You also make sure to use noise gates on each channel to prevent any and all bleed through

b. carefully choose two large diaphragm condensor mics (like a few U87's) and position them roughly on either side of the kit, and maybe stick an MD421, or possibly another U87 right off the deck, a few feet in front of the kit

c. you select a bunch of mics, of differing quality, but rely almost completely on triggers to synthasize the drum sounds.

3. The producer demands that the guitar tracks be warm and lush, smooth and full of distortion. You have a selection of amps and microphones at your disposal, select the best combination to meet this requirement:

Amps:
a. Marshal JCM800 head w/4x12 cabinet
b. Mesa dual rectifier head w/4x12 cabinet
c. Vox ac30 with vox 2x12 cabinet
d. Fender twin
e. Randall solid state with 4x12 cabinet

Mics:
p. Shure SM57
w. Shure SM58
x. Sennheiser MD421
y. Neumann U87
z. Royer R-121 ribbon mic

4. Your mix is thin sounding. You want it to have more body, more "oomph." Where do you start:

a. multi-band compression
b. limiting
c. higher dB level in the mix
d. more low-end eq

5. You decided to mic your guitar or bass cabinet with two mics, as is often the practice, but you realize that something is terribly wrong with the sound you are getting. The tone is very "tin-y" and thin and just not right. What is going on? and how would you fix it?

a. there's a bad cable, and I would replace the mic cables
b. the instrument is out of tune and I would re-tune it
c. the sound waves are striking the diaphragms of the mics at slightly different times and therefor the resulting outcome is a signal that is out of phase, so I would flip one channel to 180degrees out of phase
d. the amp's tone control knobs are set with too little bass, all high-end and not enough mid. I will re-adust the tone control knobs to have more bass, a lot more mid and back way off on the high end

6. What is a best way to "warm up" a digital recording (assuming time and money is not an object):

a. boost eq level around 250hz
b. dump session to 2" analog tape then re-sync
c. use a device like empirical lab's distressor or fatso
d. scoop eq at 5khz

7. Bonus question! Which one of these tape decks is the most widely used machine in the professional recording industry:

a. 3M M79
b. Otari MX 80
c. Studer A827
d. Fostex R8

some of these a trick questions, some have more than one right answer :)

heh, just having some fun thinking about a few audio things whilst i wait for a conference call :)

This discussion was created by blinder (153117) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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  • Ugh (Score:2)

    by rk ( 6314 ) *

    This is the shit I hate most about music. That's probably why I just prefer composing to playing. I get my tech jollies with building software systems.

  • 1. Your composition has 6 drum tracks, 3 guitar tracks, 2 tracks for some sympathetic keyboards, 1 bass track and a track for vocals. You realize that the bass guitar is not "present" or "loud" enough, because you know that a solid bass track really helps a song's foundation. Your producer says "make that bass guitar louder." What do you do?

    a. poke the bassist with a pointed stick
    b. i'm just the vocal lead
    c. sit down and watch producer and sound engineer argue
    d. find a new studio

    2. Your producer comes to yo
    • Considering the only answer that I know from blinder's quiz is that a good mic is a Sennheiser, I prefer your version!

      My poor brother would just roll his eyes at me, since he's the house sound man for the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle. His sound board has lots of knobs and little buttons with pretty flashing lights and the music sounds awesome.

      ^_^

  • 1. Your composition has 6 drum tracks, 3 guitar tracks, 2 tracks for some sympathetic keyboards, 1 bass track and a track for vocals. You realize that the bass guitar is not "present" or "loud" enough, because you know that a solid bass track really helps a song's foundation. Your producer says "make that bass guitar louder." What do you do?

    a. You adjust that track's fader to increase its level (dB level)
    b. you add a limiter to the channel's insert to limit its frequency range
    c. you adjust the track's e

  • because most of my troubles i solve by removing the part of the signal path that exists outside software. that's more a constraint of time and money than preference, although it's been long enough now that i probably do prefer working that way now just because it's what i'm used to.

    my instincts tell me:
    1. although my first instinct was to boost the bass guitar around the 200-250 Hz range, that was not an option. so i'm going to have to assume that the producer doesn't understand recording and that the rea
    • although my first instinct was to boost the bass guitar around the 200-250 Hz range, that was not an option.

      yes, this could be an answer. i didn't include this mostly because this is a risky frequency range. Play with this too much and you introduce "mud." mud will kill a mix really quickly and mud lives right at 250hz.

      4. d.

      again, this *can* be dangerous for a mix. a little compression though, can do wonders to fatten up a mix, especially multi-band compression.

      6. i dunno. tape sims are pretty decent these
      • well, anything is dangerous if you think of it as a "fix it" knob. you have to listen to see if what you're doing is helping. bass presence and mud are roommates. sometimes they live peaceably and clearly keep there own sides of the apartment clean. sometimes they're both sloppy and it requires a lot of effort to filter through which stuff belongs to each of them. i think of multiband compression as eq with a safety. i can do more with it, but it takes me more fiddling to get what i want out of it. s
  • 1. D
    2. B (but I switch to a SR-16 and wing it)
    3. A, X (but I want the guitars to rock I don't care what the producer wants!)
    4. A
    5. C
    6. C
    7. D
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I get so tired of those. Always mooning over how they feel the rhythm of my pain and how they can help me beat it. I say dump them, and just use 3 bass tracks;-)
  • Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 31.8).

    I hate slashdot.
  • 1c, although a is tempting.

    2a because b would sound like you were playing through three feet of lard and c would mean that you might as well go MIDI. Wild guess. Yes, that is blood coming out of my ears.

    3bx. Yet. Another. Wild. Guess.

    4a then d. Open up the compression on the low end of the guitar so it blends in with the bass in the subharmonics yet leaves the vocal area open. Check that you weren't an idiot on the EQ as well.

    5c. You can emulate this sound with a mono dual-tap delay set for arou
  • The answer is "add more cowbell."

    /sorry, couldn't resist :)

  • Almost all of my experience is with live sound rather than studio work, so here it is from my load-in-dial-in-rock-out-get-out perspective:

    1: None, but C if forced to choose. As someone else mentioned, it probably needs to be more distinct from the mix rather than just louder. Consider buying the bass player some new strings.

    2: Who the fuck is Alice? Err, Albini? I started to go for A on this one, but then realized it must be C because the only drummer that doesn’t play too fucking loud is the one tha
    • mmm. new strings.

      steve albini was in big black and rapeman and is now in shellac (to name a few). he's recorded (he doesn't like to hear people call him a producer) a lot of albums, but not as many huge commercial projects, as that's not really his thing. he wrote an often quoted article [negativland.com] covering some of the evils of the music industry. he also has his own studio [electrical.com] which is full of neat analog gear because he hates things digital. anyway, i don't always agree with him but i like his sound.
  • Well, I have no clue, but I'm gonna make some guesses to see whether my talents in doing well on multiple choice questions are still strong. :p

    1. Your composition has 6 drum tracks, 3 guitar tracks, 2 tracks for some sympathetic keyboards, 1 bass track and a track for vocals. You realize that the bass guitar is not "present" or "loud" enough, because you know that a solid bass track really helps a song's foundation. Your producer says "make that bass guitar louder." What do you do?
    b. you add a limiter to th

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