Behind the scenes. An audiophile?s worst nightmare!

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ghostinthemachine

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Behind the scenes. An audiophile?s worst nightmare!

This past week I was fortunate to have experienced my first professional recording sessions at Bop Recording Studios. The band is resident to Mafikeng and plays mostly soft-rock music. The ensemble consists of a drummer, bassist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, vocalist (doubling on second rhythm guitar) and female vocalist.

Very few people and music aficionados don?t have an idea how much effort goes into making a few simple recordings. It is also here, in the studio, that the audiophile will be shocked at what processes go into making a nice sounding record.

Compression. Turn on the pressure.

The first instrument that gets treated by a battalion of compressors and limiters are the drums. Without compression and limiting it sounds bland and simply chaotic. Together the compressors and limiters ensure a consistent sound from the drums. This smoothes out varying intensities giving one that punchy sound that makes you tap your feet.
Each microphone line from the drum set is tweaked by independent equalizers. On the kick drum for instance there will be a sharp low pass filter and on the hi-hat a sharp high pass filter. Overhead mikes for the cymbals are also treated by a carefully adjusted high pass filter system.

Moving to the bass guitar. The signal from the bass guitar is fed to the console and bass amplifier via a DI (direct injection) box (Vacuum Tube Logic device). The bass amplifier is then miked by a specially selected microphone. On the console a careful balance of the two signals is recorded for mixing. These two signals are also processed using a combination of compressors, limiters and EQ?s. This is the case with the other two electric guitars. All the amplifiers are miked in the isolation booths and are separated by gobo panels.

Vocals gets treated in the same way as the above instruments but is recorded using a sensitive condenser microphone. During the recording of the instruments vocals are recorded only as a guide track. The guide track is then used, to guide, the vocalist during the recording of the vocal tracks and backing vocals.

All signals is routed through the patch bay where the engineer can make connections between components as needed. Some of the microphone lines leading up to the patch bay is nearly 100 meters long (to audiophile reading here ? don?t get stressed by a 0.6 m interlink anymore).

During mixing various other devices, including digital reverberation, chorusing and more compression is added.

One interesting device I would like to mention is the SUBHARMONIC SYNTHESIZER. This little black box bulks up the bass signals and provides a really nice fat sound to the bass guitar and kick drum.

Explanation of the devices used.

Compressor ? Increases the gain of a signal according to a specific signal ratio as set by the engineer. ADL & Manley tube compressor was used on the vocals.
Limiter ? Reduces signal gain according to a specific signal ration as set by the engineer (opposite of a compressor).
EQ ? Frequency adjustment from a simple 2 band system up to 24 band and more with shelving and adjustable slope.
Reverb ? Adds echoes to the signal
Chorus/Delay ? Add delay to the signal
Mike pre-amp ? increases gain of the signal from the microphone and in the case with condenser microphones provides +48 VDC phantom power for the condenser system. (An electrostatic loudspeaker is the opposite of a condenser microphone)
DI Box ? provides unity gain (or +4 dBU gain) from passive instrument lines such as guitars

All lines, except those between the guitars and DI boxes are fully balanced. You wont find a single RCA plug or socket in the studio. It is the worst connection system ever developed.

The recording has been executed using a 24 track digital ProTools system. Final two track mixing was executed using a set of Wadia A/D & D/A converters.  
Console for recording was a NEVE VRP96. Mixing was done on a Solid State Logic SL4000G console. Monitors utilized were Kinoshita VR-7 speakers as well as KRK V8 actives. Amplifiers on the recording monitors were Manley Reference 500 Ichibans and on the mixing session Van Den Hul 500/1000VDH. 95% of the cabling was Van Den Hul and other 5% Klotz. Cables between ProTools and the system were Klotz.

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