Recording studio
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A recording studio is a specialized facility for
Recording studios may be used to record singers, instrumental musicians (e.g., electric guitar, piano, saxophone, or ensembles such as orchestras),
Often, there will be smaller rooms called isolation booths to accommodate loud instruments such as drums or electric guitar amplifiers and speakers, to keep these sounds from being audible to the microphones that are capturing the sounds from other instruments or voices, or to provide "drier" rooms for recording vocals or quieter acoustic instruments such as an acoustic guitar or a
.Design and equipment
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Layout
Recording studios generally consist of three or more rooms:
- The live room of the studio is where instrumentalists play their instruments, with their playing picked up by microphones and, for electric and electronic instruments, by connecting the instruments' outputs or DI unit outputs to the mixing board as well as a place where vocalists may perform;[1]
- Isolation booths, or sound enclosures are either enclosed or partially enclosed areas built out of boxes or partitions or are completely separate small sound-insulated rooms with doors, designed for certain instrumentalists (or their loud speaker stacks). Vocal booths are similarly designed rooms for singers. In both types of rooms, there are typically windows so the performers can see other band members and other studio staff, as singers, bandleaders and musicians often give or receive visual cues;[1]
- The control room, or production/recording room, is where the audio engineers and record producers mix the mic and instrument signals with a mixing console. From here, they can record the singing and playing onto tape (until the 1980s and early 1990s) or hard disc (1990s and following decades) and listen to the recordings and tracks with monitor speakers or headphones and manipulate the tracks by adjusting the mixing console settings and by using effects units;[1][citation needed]
- The machine room, where noisier equipment, such as racks of fan-cooled computers and power amplifiers, is kept to prevent the noise from interfering with the recording process.
Even though sound isolation is a key goal, the musicians, singers, audio engineers and record producers still need to be able to see each other, to see cue gestures and conducting by a bandleader. As such, the live room, isolation booths, vocal booths and control room typically have windows.
Recording studios are carefully designed around the principles of
Equipment
Equipment found in a recording studio commonly includes:
- A professional-grade mixing console
- Additional small mixing consoles for adding more channels (e.g., if a drum kit needs to be miked and all of the channels of the large console are in use, an additional 16 channel mixer would enable the engineers to mix the mics for the kit)
- Microphone preamplifiers
- Multitrack recorder or digital audio workstation
- Computers
- A wide selection of microphonestypical for different types of instruments
- DI unit boxes
- Microphone stands to enable engineers to place microphones at the desired locations in front of singers, instrumentalists or ensembles
- Studio monitors designed for listening to recorded mixes or tracks
- Studio monitoring headphones (typically closed-shell, to prevent sound from "leaking" out into the microphones)
- "On Air" or "Recording" lighted signs to remind other studio users to be quiet
- Outboard compressors, reverbs, or equalizers
- Music stands
Instruments
Not all music studios are equipped with musical instruments. Some smaller studios do not have instruments, and bands and artists are expected to bring their own instruments, amplifiers, and speakers. However, major recording studios often have a selection of instruments in their live room, typically instruments, amplifiers and speaker cabinets that are large, heavy, and difficult to transport (e.g., a
Digital audio workstations
General-purpose computers rapidly assumed a large role in the recording process. With software, a powerful, good quality computer with a fast processor can replace the mixing consoles, multitrack recording equipment, synthesizers, samplers and effects unit (reverb, echo, compression, etc.) that a recording studio required in the 1980s and 1990s. A computer thus outfitted is called a digital audio workstation, or DAW.
While
If no mixing console is used and all mixing is done using only a keyboard and mouse, this is referred to as mixing in the box (ITB). OTB describes mixing with other hardware and not just the PC software.
Project studios
A small,
Recording drums and amplified electric guitar in a home studio is challenging because they are usually the loudest instruments. Acoustic drums require sound isolation in this scenario, unlike electronic or sampled drums. Getting an authentic electric guitar amp sound including power-tube distortion requires a power attenuator or an isolation cabinet, or booth. A convenient compromise is amplifier modeling, whether a modeling amp, preamp/processor, or software-based guitar amp simulator. Sometimes, musicians replace loud, inconvenient instruments such as drums, with keyboards, which today often provide somewhat realistic sampling.
The capability of digital recording introduced by ADAT and its comparatively low cost, originally introduced at $3995, were largely responsible for the rise of project studios in the 1990s.[2] Today's project studios are built around software-based DAWs running on standard PC hardware.
Isolation booth
An isolation booth is either a partially enclosed area in the live room[a][citation needed] or a completely separate small room built adjacent to the live room that is both soundproofed to keep out external sounds and keep in the internal sounds. Like all the other recording rooms in sound industry, isolation booths designed for having a lesser amount of diffused reflections from walls to make a good-sounding room. A drummer, vocalist, or guitar speaker cabinet, along with microphones, is acoustically isolated in the isolation booth. A typical professional recording studio today has a control room, a large live room, and one or more small isolation booths.
All rooms are soundproofed by varying methods, including but not limited to, double-layer 5/8" sheetrock with the seams offset from layer to layer on both sides of the wall that is filled with foam, batten insulation, a double wall, which is an insulated wall built next to another insulated wall with an air gap in-between, by adding foam to the interior walls and corners, and by using two panes of thick glass with an air gap between them. The surface densities of common building materials determines the transmission loss of various frequencies through materials.[3]
Thomas A. Watson invented, but did not patent, the soundproof booth for use in demonstrating the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell in 1877.
In animation, vocal performances are normally recorded in individual sessions, and the actors have to imagine (with the help of the director or a reader) they are involved in dialogue.[5] Animated films often evolve rapidly during both development and production, so keeping vocal tracks from bleeding into each other is essential to preserving the ability to fine-tune lines up to the last minute. Sometimes, if the rapport between the lead actors is strong enough and the animation studio can afford it, the producers may use a recording studio configured with multiple isolation booths in which the actors can see each another and the director. This enables the actors to react to one another in real time as if they were on a regular stage or film set.
History
1890s to 1930s
In the era of acoustical recordings (prior to the introduction of microphones, electrical recording and amplification), the earliest recording studios were very basic facilities, being essentially soundproof rooms that isolated the performers from outside noise. During this era it was not uncommon for recordings to be made in any available location, such as a local ballroom, using portable acoustic recording equipment. In this period, master recordings were made by cutting a rotating cylinder (later disc) made from wax. Performers were typically grouped around a large acoustic horn (an enlarged version of the familiar
1930s to 1970s
Electrical recording was common by the early 1930s, and
Halls and churches
Because of their superb acoustics, many of the larger studios were converted churches. Examples include
studio in New York.Facilities like the Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York and Abbey Road Studios in London were renowned for their identifiable sound—which was (and still is) easily identifiable by audio professionals—and for the skill of their staff engineers. As the need to transfer audio material between different studios grew, there was an increasing demand for standardization in studio design across the recording industry, and Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood was highly influential in the 1970s in the development of standardized acoustic design.[7]
In New York City,
Technologies and techniques
Electric recording studios in the mid-20th century often lacked isolation booths, sound baffles, and sometimes even speakers. A major reason that isolation was not used was that recordings in this period were typically made as live ensemble takes and all the performers needed to be able to see each other and the ensemble leader while playing. The recording engineers who trained in this period learned to take advantage of the complex acoustic effects that could be created through leakage between different microphones and groups of instruments, and these technicians became extremely skilled at capturing the unique acoustic properties of their studios and the musicians in performance. It was not until the 1960s, with the introduction of the high-fidelity headphones that it became common practice for performers to use these to monitor their performance during recording and listen to playbacks.
The use of different kinds of microphones and their placement around the studio is a crucial part of the recording process, and particular brands of microphones are used by engineers for their specific audio characteristics. The smooth-toned ribbon microphones developed by the
The unique sonic characteristics of the major studios imparted a special character to many of the most famous popular recordings of the 1950s and 1960s, and the recording companies jealously guarded these facilities. According to sound historian David Simons, after Columbia took over the 30th Street Studios in the late 1940s and
As well as the inherent sound of the large recording rooms, many of the best studios incorporated specially-designed echo chambers, purpose-built rooms which were often built beneath the main studio. These were typically long, low rectangular spaces constructed from hard, sound-reflective materials like concrete, fitted with a loudspeaker at one end and one or more microphones at the other. During a recording session, a signal from one or more of the microphones in the studio could be routed to the loudspeaker in the echo chamber; the sound from the speaker reverberated through the chamber and the enhanced signal was picked up by the microphone at the other end. This echo-enhanced signal, which was often used to sweeten the sound of vocals, could then be blended in with the primary signal from the microphone in the studio and mixed into the track as the master recording was being made.
Special equipment was another notable feature of the classic recording studio. The biggest studios were owned and operated by large media companies like RCA, Columbia and EMI, who typically had their own electronics research and development divisions that designed and built custom-made recording equipment and mixing consoles for their studios. Likewise, the smaller independent studios were often owned by skilled electronics engineers who designed and built their own desks and other equipment. A good example of this is Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, the site of many famous American pop recordings of the 1960s. Co-owner David S. Gold built the studio's main mixing desk and many additional pieces of equipment and he also designed the studio's unique trapezoidal echo chambers.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the sound of pop recordings was further defined by the introduction of proprietary sound processing devices such as equalizers and compressors, which were manufactured by specialist electronics companies. One of the best known of these was the Pultec equalizer which was used by almost all the major commercial studios of the time.
Multi-track recording
With the introduction of
Before digital recording, the total number of available tracks onto which one could record was measured in multiples of 24, based on the number of 24-track tape machines being used. Most recording studios now use digital recording equipment, which limits the number of available tracks only on the basis of the mixing console's or computer hardware interface's capacity and the ability of the hardware to cope with processing demands. Analog tape machines are still used in some cases for their unique sonic characteristics.
Radio studios
Radio studios are very similar to recording studios, particularly in the case of production studios which are not normally used on-air, such as studios where interviews are taped for later broadcast. This type of studio would normally have all of the same equipment that any other audio recording studio would have, particularly if it is at a large station, or at a combined facility that houses a station group, but is also designed for groups of people to work collaboratively in a live-to-air situation.[10]
Broadcast studios also use many of the same principles such as sound isolation, with adaptations suited to the live on-air nature of their use. Such equipment would commonly include a
Notes
- ^ Partitions can be set up in a variety of ways, whether to achieve complete or partial separation. Isolation booths set up with partitions are usually temporary and can be taken apart, then used other ways for different sessions.
See also
- Film studio
- List of music software
- Re-amp
- Recording studio as an instrument
- Talkback (recording)
- Television studio
References
- ^ a b c Watkinson, David (12 May 2015). "Studio Acoustics: Treat Recording and Live Rooms". Acoustical Solutions. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
- ^ George Petersen, "In Memoriam: Keith Barr 1949–2010", Mix Magazine Online, Aug 2010, "In Memoriam-Keith Barr 1949-2010". Archived from the original on 29 August 2010. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
- ISBN 9780240806259.
- ISBN 9781465616609.
- ISBN 9781136135989.
- ^ ISBN 9781617745164.
- ISBN 0-240-51917-5. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
- ^ "History of The Liederkranz of the City of New York" Archived 27 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine – The Liederkranz of the City of New York website. The Liederkranz Club put up a building in 1881 at 111–119 East 58th Street, east of Park Avenue.
- ^ Kahn, Ashley, Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Da Capo Press, 2001. Cf. p.75
- ^ Ahern, S (ed), Making Radio, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011. Studio Chapter
Further reading
- Cogan, Jim; Clark, William. Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003.
- Horning, Susan Schmidt. Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture, and the Art of Studio Recording from Edison to the LP. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
- Ramone, Phil; Granata, Charles L. Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music. New York: Hyperion, 2007.