Sound Library – With Michele Caruso

I attended a workshop with audio technical expert Michele. The focus of the workshop was at first a introduction and recap so that he could work out what areas we would like to take advantage of his expertise and later the purpose would be to create a community driven sound effect database for other students to use. I decided to attend this lecture as i wanted to go back to basics and learn professional technical audio recording and post production from someone who is clearly passionate and dedicated to the sound field.

Quick outline of knowledge gained from workshop –
– Dialogue is best recorded in mono to make the element stand out later in the mix. Atmosphere or background sounds are best recorded in stereo to add width and presence without clashing with dialogue.
– Stereo can be made up of mono elements but stereo cannot be formatted back to mono. – The most important aspect or sound recording is keeping a consistent noise ratio between what you want to record and background sound.
– Never use camera gain as it raises both elements of the ratio which is a nono.
– General mics you want to use for field recording are Dynamic, Condenser and Contact. The best way to record with contact mic is to tape to item of clothing or talents skull.
– Two methods of recording in terms of placement the A and B technique which places two mics equal distance to form a triangle pointed at object of attention. Better used for small spaces with fewer reflections places without clutter. To create a wider mix and sense of space and the epsilon technique which is placing both mics next to each other when in larger spaces with less reflections and places with clutter, create a more even sound.

He also set a target to record several household sounds in order to contribute to the sound library.

With this in mind i recorded, Sound of Boiler, Sound of Door opening, Sound of Tap dripping, sound of phone dial tone. I did in the most basic way with a Tascam to outline the quality of my recordings at the start of the module in order to reflect on when my skills have developed with more advanced kit and post production.

Boiler

Door Opening

Tap Dripping

Dial Tone

Phone off the hook

Workshop – WordPress Overview

First workshop of the module today and a basic brief introduction to creating a wordpress blog for the module has been covered.

What taken onboard from todays workshop is the optimum resolution and files settings for images for use online, previously my understanding was that 300px per square inch and a gif file format was the best option for use online but now i understand that 72px resolution and a Jpeg or Png format is optimum. This can help me with designing my own personal professional website at a later date.
Html can be used in posts and pages to further design and incorporate additional content.
Reading tab in dashboard allows you to change wether to default to the newest post as a start point or a static page that you can start on before viewing posts.

That you can organise tags by bold or italic to make posts of significant interest, genre quick and easy to access.

Learnt how to add additional sharing buttons to link to my other professional sites such as Vimeo, Soundcloud and Linked in.

Hello world. Hello Sound Recording and Editing

Hi. Welcome to my U.W.E Filmmaking and Creative Media blog to show my progress in the second semester module.

This is a brief post outlining the initial learning from the first wordpress workshop which will be a personal blog i will be using as a digital journal outlining my development with the personal goal i have chosen to improve my technical skills with sound recording and audio post production using Pro Tools rather than Logic Pro.

With that in mind what makes a good sound designer and recordist?

The fundamental duty of a Sound Recordists is being responsible for recording the entire sound world of a production making sure it is syncopated with the camera if recording live to make sound recordings of outstanding quality, to provide the audio editor with as seamless audio as possible to edit with. It is clear that recording on location where all of the elements can not be controlled is dynamically harder than recording internally or in a purpose built studio but there are still many recurring issues that sound recordists have to deal with in these situations for example making a large space sound smaller than it is or eliminating a mechanical hum from the recording.

To be a good sound recordist requires a vast depth of technical knowledge, being up to date with the latest equipment, determination and energy, resourcefulness, understanding where they fit in with other crew members and good communications skills.
But the most important base requirement is an appreciation of sound, sound science the various qualities it can possess and when recording what can affect the final recorded sound i.e. surface type, room size and interference.
Having an understanding of sound science is a major advantage, knowing what kind of material, location features and weather conditions may affect the quality of recording, and how these issues can be minimized with the available equipment on the shoot.

On a larger scale the blog will be interlinked with other students blog to create a community driven approach to learning where we are encouraged to help each others development by contributing information that others may find useful.