WEBVTT - Audio Production 101 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:11.680 Get in text with technology with text stuff from dot Com. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.640 Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.760 and today I have a good friend on the show 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.520 with me, Steve ricka Berg. Say hello Steve. Hello Internet. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.640 So Steve, you do several things in the Internet world, 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.400 and including a show that that you did for quite 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.040 some time. Are you still doing Geek Credit or is 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.919 that just on it's on hiatus. I'm hoping to bring 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:38.880 it back soon, but yeah, it's it's been a while 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.320 since I put out a new episode. Yeah. So. Geek 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.280 Cred is a series that where Steve will interview various 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.840 people in the geek sphere, and for episode forty three, 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.440 I was one off, but episode three I was the 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.560 I was the the the subject. I was grilled mercilessly 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.840 by Steve and told all my secrets. So if you 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.840 to hear the secrets of Jonathan Strickland, go check out 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.720 geet Cred episode forty three and check out the rest 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.200 while you're at it, because they are awesome shows. And 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.720 I don't know how you landed so many amazing guests. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.039 You're more charming than I am. But the reason why 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.600 I asked Steve on is that I got a listener 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.319 mail and I immediately thought of Steve as the person 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.919 to pull on here and talk about things. So here's 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:25.520 the mail that I received, And I apologize a listener, 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.840 I have lost your name because you sent the email 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:35.280 before the great Terrible email crash of September two, fourteen UH, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.920 in which all of the old tech stuff emails got 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.399 wiped out Willie and or Nilly, So I apologize. I 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:43.640 do not have your name, but I do have the 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.800 content of your email. And here we go. You guys 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.160 having tech stuff touched on a lot of this stuff, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.720 but I don't think there's really been one on audio 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.160 recording from start to finish. I think it could be 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.600 pretty interesting to hear tech stuffs take on this and 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.480 be extremely useful to people wanting to get into and 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.920 know stuff about how audio is captured. So Steve is 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.360 an audio producer, audio engineer extraordinaire UH and I have 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.880 had the pleasure of sitting on a panel with him 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:17.600 at Dragon Con twice now about audio production, where I 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.400 get to play the person who doesn't know anything and 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.600 Steve gets to play the person who knows everything, because 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.520 that's who we are. So that's why I've had Steve 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.520 on and we've worked it out and kind of covered 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:35.880 the entire audio production one oh one idea for this podcast. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:41.600 So to start, we were thinking about going into setting 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.760 up the whole idea of audio equipment from the microphone 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.400 all the way to the actual recording hardware and software. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:53.240 So the microphone is the starting point really, and there 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.680 are several different kinds out there, So Steve, can you 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.240 run us through what are the basic recording micro phones 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.080 such your average person is going to encounter? Sure? Yeah, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.840 there are two real main varieties you see, and and 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.080 the difference is really just how they how they convert 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.480 sound waves into an electrical signal. And by microphone varieties, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.600 I really mean how they vary by their transducer, which 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.720 is to say, how they convert air pressure into an 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.760 electrical signal or by air pressure like we usually just 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.640 call it, you know, sound. Um, So there are two types, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.480 like I said, condenser and dynamic microphones, and and they're 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.320 really usually seen in very different types of uses or environments. 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.280 So the first is a condenser microphone, which is sometimes 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.800 called a capacitor because it essentially has a big capacitor 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.400 requires power to work. So you have a charged plate 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.360 which acts as the capacitor, and what happens is the 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.160 voltage changes by vibration in the air, by the air pressure. 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.480 So this is really in stark contrast to the way 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:59.520 a dynamic microphone works, which works via induction. So you 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:04.240 have a magnet and when sound hits the magnet generated 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.440 there's a magnetic field, and so one sound hits it, it 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.400 it generates the signal. So practically, what's what's the difference here. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.160 So condensers as a rule, tend to be a lot 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.760 more sensitive. So you'll see condensers used in things like 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.200 recording studios for music or or things like that, where 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.839 it's usually a very controlled environment. Because the downside of 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:24.960 a condenser is that it's also very sensitive, so it 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.159 can pick up all sorts of other stuff you don't want. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.839 And a dynamic is in fact, i'm using a dynamic 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.160 microphone right now. A dynamic doesn't require power, which makes 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.560 it a little bit more universally usable, but it's not 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.039 as sensitive. Um. The nice thing about dynamics is they're 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.200 also very rugged. Um. When you see dynamics used in 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.680 broadcasting and podcasting as well as in live sound, you 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.360 can actually be Venerable SM fifty eight, which is kind 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.359 of the standard that all microphones are certainly uh dynamic 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.080 microphones are measured against. You know, forty years into its 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.640 lifespan is kind of and for being so rugged, you 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.159 can pound nails with it and the microphone will still 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.400 work like it did on when it was brand new. Yeah. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.960 This is um something that I learned the hard way 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.479 when I was looking at microphones for my own use, 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.440 my earliest microphone that I had, uh keeping in mind, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.159 like I didn't have any expertise in this area. I 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.919 I knew some stuff, largely due to the work of 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:32.320 folks like Steve who had very patiently taught me things 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:37.200 despite my my ignorance. Um. But I got a conductor 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.120 mike first, and I realized that the tiniest sounds would 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.279 get picked up by this microphone, things like my dog 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.800 running across the floor. I could hear the toe nails 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.200 clicking on the hardwood. Um. And or if someone dropped 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:56.000 a coin in the house and it was three rooms away, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.159 we got Yeah, I got picked up. And so it 0:05:58.200 --> 0:05:59.800 was one of those things where if I if I 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.520 really wanted to get a soundscape of a really controlled environment, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.800 so I'm setting this thing up. That would have been 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.080 a fantastic tool. But for someone who just wants to 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:15.159 talk into a microphone, Um, then the dynamic microphones seem 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.320 to be the most useful to me. Sure, Yeah, there's 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.960 there's very good practical reason why dynamic microphones, at least 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.600 in the US are pretty much a standard for for 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:30.919 radio and for broadcasting. Yeah. Now there's more about microphones, 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:37.200 the just dynamic versus condenser, right, Yes, besides that simple delineation, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.080 I I do want to mention real quick, there are 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.160 other types of microphones. These are the two most common. Um. 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.960 There's even a subset of condensers which is electric condenser microphones, 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.520 which is what usually see in consumer electronics. So your 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.359 your phone's microphone or your headsets microphone as an electric 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.240 condenser because those are really cheap and easy to manufacture. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.640 You also have other types like ribbons used for high 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:01.919 and REQ and there are actually a multiple multitude of 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.000 types of microphones, but these two are really the ones 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:06.479 you're going to see if you're going to do any 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:11.160 recording yourself. It's really picking between these two types, right. Uh, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.320 Then you have to consider what what style of mike 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.200 as it. How is it picking up sound? Where is 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.840 it pulling sound from? Is it directional or not? Yeah, 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.480 I mean you have the pickup or or the polar pattern. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.120 Nice way to understand this is to look at a 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.880 graph of the of the pickup pattern. For example, an 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.000 omnidirectional picks up in three sixty degrees. It's all all 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.520 picks up sound from all directions equally um but in 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.880 a in a directional microphone, for example, the most common 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.000 form of that is a cardioid microphone. Cardioid isn't heart 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.320 because it looks like a you know, simple heart shape 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.280 upside down. So so what what that shows that it 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.320 rejects some of the sound from the sides and from 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.640 the rear and focuses more on the sound coming from 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.680 the front of the microphone. Right. So again, depending upon 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.600 the use of your mic, you would want a specific type. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.160 So for example, with me talking into this microphone here, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.880 I really want to limit where sound can come from 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.280 and be picked up by the microphone because anything that's 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.760 extraneous from me talking is going to be distracting. But 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.480 in other environments you might want to have that coverage. So, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:18.560 for example, if I were doing a podcast with a 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.640 group of friends and we were sitting around a table 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.600 and omnidirectional microphone just to pick up that natural conversation 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:32.120 could be perfectly legitimate. So we've got the microphones, we've 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.360 got the basis there and what they do and what 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:40.040 their their differences are. Uh. You mentioned that condenser microphones 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.880 need to have a power source, and one of the 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:50.440 questions we received was, uh, to clarify what phantom power is. Now, 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:56.880 does it mean that the microphone is haunted? Uh? Maybe 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.360 I don't know. Um, phantom power is is quite simply. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.440 The standard is is a forty eight vole signal. This 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.120 can be provided via an external battery if you're out 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.400 recording in the field, but most commonly it's transmitted through 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.560 the microphone cable from the mixer or the audio interface. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.760 That's that can provide the phantom power to allow the 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.479 microphone to work, so you don't need any external equipment. 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:19.760 But that's that's really all it is. It's a forty 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.720 eight vol power. Well that's good. See, so now we 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.400 know that that is the power source that keeps the 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.040 condenser microphone going, the one that the condenser microphone requires 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.920 for it to operate. Simply because of the basic mechanism 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.559 through which it converts air pressure, fundamental principle, the way 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.960 it works. Yes, yeah, and uh, I like how you 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.760 moved into all of that too, because it's it. It 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.080 is good for us to remember that sound is a 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:54.120 physical thing. It's molecules that are bouncing against each other 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.560 and eventually making contact with your ear drum, which moves 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:02.240 some little celia like finger project actions inside your ear, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.640 and then that gets interpreted as sound in our brains. 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.880 So it's interesting to think that the microphone is doing 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.040 something similar, except in this case it's converting it into 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.760 an electric current as opposed to a signal that our 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.800 brain interprets. It actually has to go through that conversion 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.720 process again when you're ready to play the sound back 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.480 in whatever you know way. You're doing that with whatever 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.520 kind of speaker you're using. But it's interesting to keep 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.360 that in mind as well. So now that we've covered 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:38.240 the basics, we've covered the polar patterns, I have to 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.880 ask you another question that was posed by the listener 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:47.840 about the idea of balanced versus unbalanced cables. I don't 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:53.720 know what that means, sure, sure, balanced versus unbalanced? Okay, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.840 and most in most cables you have either to conductor 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.319 or three conductor cables, so you have you know, tip 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.160 or sleeve would your mono unbalanced cable tip ring or 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.199 sleeve could be a stereo unbalanced cable or a mono 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.559 balanced cable. Now the difference between balanced and unbalances effectively 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.679 comes down to on a balanced cable, you have that 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.239 because you have it twice, you have it phase reversed. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.160 It really limits any outside interference because the microphone cable 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.360 can otherwise kind of act as a nintenna picking up 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.760 all sorts of electromagnetic noise that's in your environment that 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.480 you might not hear um normally, but you would it 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.160 would make it into the recording. So balanced cables aren't 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:34.840 the end of the world. I mean, most consumer gear 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.880 is all unbalanced. It's just you want to limit the 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.160 run with with her is unbalanced. Rather most consumer gear 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.000 the advantage of balances you can do a long run 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.400 and not have to worry about getting all that extra 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.760 noise got you. Well, that makes sense. I mean, we've 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.360 seen that in lots of different forms of electronics with 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.240 various cables. And one of the dangers you run in 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.679 is if you have a cable with poor shielding, then 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.360 you can a lot of interference that way. Um and uh, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:08.280 I mean I remember using really inexpensive earbuds for example, 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.000 the would pick up interference from radio sources like a 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.400 cell phone, and you get that terrible did it did it? Sound? Time? 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.480 One would go off? All right, Well, then we've covered 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.840 the cables. Let me ask you about one of the settings. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:29.320 Did I find on microphones the microphone gain? Yes, And 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.200 that really kind of brings us into microphone level versus 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:38.200 line level. Yeah, because they're a microphone level comes in 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.319 much lower than your standard line level. You know, a 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:45.319 microphone gets that extra to bring it up to line level. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.840 So that's where you have the microphone gain, which which 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.440 is too How much gain you're going to need for 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.719 a given microphone varies one by its type. Condensers need 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.960 less gain typically than dynamics, for example, because dynamics are 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.160 passive and just. But each microphone is different in know 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.440 as far as how much game you'll need to get 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.480 it to a proper line level. Cool. Now, we also 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.680 have the concept of a recording level, where you're trying 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.480 to set a level for making sure that you get 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.160 a nice sound out of what you're trying to record. 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.280 You don't want to have any peaks that are going 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.400 to go beyond that recording level, because then you get 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.679 this terrible distorted sound. And so one of the questions 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.040 that was sent in was why are things recorded in 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.040 negative decibels? And to really understand that, first we need 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.280 to remember that decibels, Uh, that's a relative scale. We 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.640 often think of decibels as being kind of a certain scale, 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:46.320 that five decibel sound, a twenty decibel sound, of twenty 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.200 five decibel sound, that these are these are hard and 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.800 fast numbers, but it really is relative and it's lagarithmic. 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.840 So the deciples are really meant to describe a relationship 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.920 between two different things, and and decibels are not just 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.120 for sound either, but we use it four sounds specifically, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.480 but you you could use it to describe the intensity 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.839 of two different signals, and the decibels kind of describe 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.480 the gap that's between the two, how much more or 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.680 less intense one signal is compared to the other one. 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.600 So when we get to the idea of negative decibels, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:30.320 it doesn't mean that it is negative loud, right, You 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.160 can't you can't you can't have a negative amount of 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.440 sound where it would be This kind of descripted conversation 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.400 makes me think that if we were in spinal tap 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.440 right now, it would be the most confusing conversation to 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:50.000 the band. While going negative decibels, we want it, we 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.960 want it to be more louder. It would make no 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.800 sense to them. But the idea of the negative is 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.960 so that you can set those parameters where if you 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.120 go beyond those parameters, that's where you run into trouble. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.680 Do I have that right? Yeah? I mean I I 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.040 do want to kind of preface this is like you said, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.040 descibel can be used for all sorts of things, and 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.520 there are all sorts of different standards even within audio 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.000 recording related to decibels. When you're talking about you know, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:20.840 negative decibels, that's usually referring to dB full scale or dBFS, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.120 which is what we use in the digital realm. But 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.760 you also have you know, d d V or as 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.640 an V for voltage, which is what you see usually 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.640 in the analog world. So it gets even more confusing 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.960 because zero, you know, a zero dB VU like you'd 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.000 see an analog, is actually equivalent to negative eight ten 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.120 dB full scale, So it can get a little bit 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.320 hard to wrap your head around if you're expecting you know, 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.280 one you know, you see it's like, I'm right at 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.800 perfect zero d dB on my mixer, but wait, and 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.040 why is it coming in this low It's it's designed 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:55.960 to be able to have that extra headroom because in 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.760 the analog world, you could go above zero dB, it 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.680 would thicken up the sound, but sometimes that that high 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.560 frequency distorced, that subtle high frequency distortion was was desirable. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.920 But in the digital world, zero dB is kind of 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.120 like the speed of light. You can't go above that, 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.320 or like over exposing a photo on a digital camera 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.040 where it's just all blown out white. It's the same thing. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.680 Anything above zero dB, it just can't there's no you know, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.160 you can't go past the speed of light. Anything beyond 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.360 that it just can't handle, right, So that's where you 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.800 would get into, you know, really awful digital artifacts in 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.680 the in the recorded sound and why you would want 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.920 to have that set. So, just for a general rule 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.040 of thumb, what what do you usually look for, like, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.640 what how do you usually set your levels for recording? 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.240 What do you think is a good kind of uh 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.040 scale to look at? Sure, Yeah, I mean, of course, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:50.960 because you can't go above zero dB. You want to 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.560 make sure your signal is high enough, but you still 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.400 want to have enough headroom for that variation. Um, A 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.000 great rule of thumb is just negative peak between negati 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.320 of twelve and negative six or or somewhere around there, 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.280 so that if you get a little more excited and 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.480 get a little louder, you're you're hopefully leaving enough headroom 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.879 so that you're not going to clip which clip clip 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.400 or go above zero Right. So, uh, if you've ever 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:20.280 watched a video where someone does suddenly go from one 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.560 level of volume to a much greater level of volume, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.840 I'm thinking of several Let's plays that I've watched where 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.000 they were playing pt the trailer that's for Silent Hills. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.679 That's a terrifying trailer. And I've seen people are watched 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.679 videos where people started screaming and then you get the 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:43.080 terrible clipping because they weren't anticipating. This kind of essentially 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.960 makes this kind of ear bleeding distortion that you don't 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.680 want to listen to. Right, Yeah, that's a general rule 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.600 of thumb is you want to avoid that. So similar 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.399 to this, we have the concept of equalization e Q 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.960 and the various frequencies. I know that anyone who had 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.320 a good stereo back in the eighties had that series 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.879 of sliders that they could choose to play with for 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.760 the different frequencies. And uh, you know, everyone had their 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.760 own secret sauce and what they thought was important. But 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.159 no one on the just the basic consumer level seemed 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:24.160 to really appreciate what those those different sliders were for. Um. 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.400 But when it boils down to it, it really comes 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:31.320 down to essentially a volume more intensity knob for sounds 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:37.080 that occur within a certain frequency range. Right, yeah, absolutely, um, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.960 Because I remember the range of human hearing is approximately 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.639 twenty hurts to twenty thousand hurts at least if you 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.000 don't you know, usually for younger people, the older you get, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.600 you tend to lose some of those higher for frequencies naturally, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.560 or if you've been to too many loud concerts, um 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.600 or on the low and like twenty hurts, that's usually solo. 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.840 It's actually subaudible, but you feel it, so you're still 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.960 you're still kind of experiencing that when the sound frequency 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.960 is that low. UM. So you know, the mids if 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.080 you're if you're doing any equalization. You know, the mid 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.680 level isn't gonna be ten thousand hurts because human hearing 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.919 is is logarithmic. So usually when you see mids um 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:17.600 you might see you know, if you're dusting the midsics, 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.639 you're gonna be you know, two point five kill hurts 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.439 hurts for example. Well, that's an important thing also to 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.000 keep in mind. But what I love is that you 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:31.879 are essentially having control over these various ranges of frequencies. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.680 So that's why the base slider is really what's doing 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.560 is it's boosting the signal, boosting the intensity of any 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.760 sound wave that falls in that frequency. It's not that 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.040 it magically inserts boost a base where there was no 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.679 base before. There has to have been a signal at 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.479 that frequency for something to get played at all essentially 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.680 Alloueder volume or recorded at allouder volume. Um. So, because 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.119 I had friends, I mean I remember back in in 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.840 school where I friends who would their magic sauce was 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.080 just to turn that base slider all the way up 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.000 to ten and say this is gonna be amazing, And 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.040 then they get disappointed, and I'd say, well, you know, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.000 you you gotta you gotta have some sound waves in 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.680 that frequency range for anything to have happened. So, uh, 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.679 that's you know, another little a little misconception i'd like 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.240 to clear up. And then we get into something that 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.600 frankly tends to to make my head swim when we 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:34.320 start talking about the concept of samples and bit rate 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.240 and bit depth. So this is the digital audio world. 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.200 This is this is really where I think a lot 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.600 of our listeners fall into people who want to record, 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:47.359 because digital recording equipment is very easy to get hold of, 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:53.160 um even just very basic equipment that is good enough 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.040 for you know, your average stuff that you want to do. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.880 Maybe if you're not going for a truly professional level recording, 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.480 you can get away with a lot of In fact, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.240 a lot of the stuff that's on the consumer market 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.880 that's not very expensive, can and under the right condition, 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.320 sound like professional level recording. But this is where we 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.240 start talking about the amount of information you're packing into 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.680 a file, because when you get down to it, that's 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.240 what digital that's what digital recording is all about. It's 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.040 recording things in sequences of zeros and ones, and eventually 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:29.919 that starts to take up file space. So with analog signals, 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:32.320 one of the things to keep in mind is that 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.520 the sounds we produce, the waves we produce, are continuous 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.960 and they're variable, but we have to process that, uh, 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.160 and in order to for it to become digital. Digital 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:50.120 is not all about these continuous waves. Instead, a digital 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.919 file ends up sampling that wave. And by sampling, you 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.040 can think of it kind of like a snapshot, a 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.840 very quick photograph of one particular part of that wave. 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.280 And so each sample is a quantity is quantities to 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.720 a finite number of bits, and what was once a 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:11.040 continuous wave of sound now gets represented as that series 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.399 of of bits of zeros and ones, And uh, really 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:17.600 what comes down to it is how many times do 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.760 you sample that wave? What's the frequency of your sampling? 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:26.639 That kind of determines the resolution of the file. So 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.399 if you weren't sampling it very frequently, you would have 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:34.800 a pretty poor quality sounding uh file. It would end 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:40.440 up being um well, less fidelity. I guess you could say, like, uh, 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.439 the quality for telephone calls and cell phone calls is 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:46.520 fairly low because you just have to have it be 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.800 high enough so that the average person can understand what 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:52.640 the other person is saying. For something like a recorded 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:58.520 medium like c D s you want it much higher, right, Okay, 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.159 So this is where we get into the idea of 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.640 bit depth. That's the number of bits within a sample. 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.120 So this is really the sample resolution. And you've got 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:13.240 different types of bit sampling rates. So CD audio uses 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.120 sixteen bits per sample, blu ray goes to twenty four 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.760 bits per sample. And this is where you're able to 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:25.240 represent more subtle differences, uh in the level of the sound, 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.680